Gender Matters - CEO Interview: Barbara Annis, CEO of Barbara Annis & Associates - October 10, 2010 - Segment Three

Betsy and Renee chat with Barbara Annis—CEO of Barbara Annis & Associates and author of the book Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science To Create Success In Business— about her work in the field of “gender intelligence.” Barbara explains that gender science started about 18 years ago, as they looked at neuroscientists who were studying the functioning of the brain and found that there were some fundamental differences in the hard-wiring of the brains in men and women, which can be used as a competitive advantage. For example, the corpus collusm—where the dendrites that interconnect the left and right hemisphere are located—is wider in women, which is why they often have a more web-like, or multitask, thinking style. Women tend to digress a bit, whereas men are more linearly focused on the getting to the end of their agendas. Barbara says she sees this in leadership teams all the time, where men are more careful with logic, and women bring more meaning and more relational aspects to the discussion, which is really important to take into the equation as well. For this reason, Barbara believes that there needs to be more of a concentrated focus on “Gender Intelligence 101,” and cites a recent speaking engagement as the perfect example of the problem.

Barbara was speaking to the top Danish CEOS in Copenhagen recently, and there were 30 CEOs—29 men and 1 woman. After they spent an hour on gender intelligence, one of the men said “Why did I have to wait until I’m 48 years old to understand these differences? Now that I have some insight into it, I can see that I would have made a lot of different choices. Not only at work, but in my last two marriages!” As Barbara notes, her work “really is all about trying to create those A-HA moments.” To influence organizations to become more sensitive to these issues, you first have to meet them where they are, which Barbara calls either “enlightened denial” or “stuck in a failed business case.” What she means by that is often, organizations will focus on filling the pipeline with women, typically thinking, “If we just get enough women in here, they’ll move up to the top.” Instead, Barbara argues, faulty assumptions such as those need to be vigorously challenged, since there’s enough evidence out there to really demonstrate “when you have greater gender balance, the type of decisions that get made are so innovative and so results-oriented.”

Elaborating on the idea of faulty assumptions, Barbara notes that the #1 reason why women leave a company is because they don’t feel valued. It’s doesn’t mean that work life isn’t a challenge for them, but rather, they don’t see a future for themselves in the hierarchy at the top level, especially at law and accounting firms. While men derive a sense of achievement through results—“let’s just get to the destination”— it’s much more of a relational experience for women, as the journey is just as important as the destination. Lastly, Barbara addresses the idea of mentoring, saying that a greater emphasis needs to be placed on cross-gender mentoring. One of the findings they uncovered in their research is that for women who have made it to the top, it seems to be organizationally more effective if they have multiple sponsors (both men and women) and multiple mentors (both men and women). Moreover, organizations fall into a trap on mentoring where they think they have to match women with women, which creates parallel tracks and ends with the men not knowing the women. So when you’re in the board room doing succession planning or talent management and you don’t know the women, you can’t really vouch for them, which just keeps the cycle perpetuating infinitely, Barbara explains.

2Minutes&More with Betsy Berkhemer and Renee Fraser airs every Sunday at 1pm on KFWB NEWS TALK 980. Tune in for a full hour of tips for business success.