Another great conversation today with another female coaching colleague about what's fast becoming a favourite topic, ie gender.
She was telling me about an all-female coach group she'd recently attended which ended up discussing the challenges for high potential females in business with (male dominated) partnership structures. Because of my background she knew I would be interested ... and also that I wouldn't be able to stop myself reacting to what she was about to say!
One specific point the group focused on was the expectation that anyone with partner potential should have made it by their mid to late thirties and if they hadn't done it by then they probably never would. This they felt was a real problem for women who wanted children, who would either be caught by maternity leave(s) just in the crucial few years before going for partnership, or would have to risk leaving babies until they had made it - possibly leaving it too late. The point was made that it would be more reasonable to expect women to (in general) make partner later than men, to allow for them to choose to have babies when they wanted. "Why won't they admit it?" they said. "Are they trying to ignore the biological fact that women have babies."
Two immediate reactions burst from me! The first was that, as a man, even with my political incorrectness, I would never have dared say something like that! Followed, as a consequence of that thought, by the question: Who did the group mean by "they"? Because in the current climate of debate, nobody in senior management (male or female) is going to suggest that women might expect to make partner later. So the only reasonable "they" are the high potential women themselves.
Interesting ... and to me another example of a basic principle of systemic change, which is that the only way you can change the system is by changing what you do in the system. Or as Ghandi put it: "Be the change you want to see."
