DID you know it's forecast to take 60 years to have the same number of female directors as male directors at FTSE 100 companies? That's a pretty significant rise from last year's projection of 40 years. It would, apparently, take two more decades to gain equality in the civil service top management and four more decades to have an equal number of senior women in the judiciary. Incredibly, it would need up to two centuries, that's more than 40 elections, to attain an equal number
You might think, based on these facts, that I'm in favour of positive discrimination for women, that this is a call to arms to all businesswomen across the country to unite, don their stilettos and stand on the chief exec's (male, obviously) shoulder
s to shatter the glass ceiling, but you'd be wrong. I genuinely believe the glass ceiling is nothing more than a myth perpetuated by those women who just aren't good enough to make it to the top and feel someone else should carry the can.
Having said that, I was a tad surprised to discover that Afghanistan, Iraq and Rwanda all rank more highly than the UK in terms of women's representation in Parliament.
But we are swamped with new statistics every day. Exactly what do researchers hope to achieve with all this conflicting information? I'm just so bemused by the whole damn lot. If it's not one research group accusing hard-working career women of damaging their children by leaving them with nannies and childminders, it's another saying we need to encourage more career women to reach top levels in the corporate world – now get a grip, guys, which is it?
The flip side is that when women do get to the top we do an incredibly good job.
It appears that there is a definite link between the performance of the bottom line and the number of women in the most senior jobs. Recent US research shows Fortune 500 companies with the highest proportion of female directors are more profitable and efficient, on average, than those with the lowest. Companies with three or more women on the board show an 83% higher average return on equity, 73% higher return on sales and 112% higher return on invested capital.
In short, a business is less likely to go bust (sorry for the pun) with a couple of women in charge.
No surprise there, then. A breakdown of the talent pool makes it clear: women today represent almost 60% of graduates in the European Union and the US. Girls are currently outperforming boys at school and are actually entering the workforce in equal numbers.
But while employers appear to be recruiting equal numbers of men and women, a mere 20% of women are climbing the career ladder and being promoted into leadership roles.
What's going wrong? Obviously, as failing women, it's our fault. Help us, gentlemen, please. We need a business-knight in shining armour to help forge our way into the boardroom. Maybe some assertiveness training, or a course in self-esteem, or perhaps some leadership development?
Without adding fuel to the bra-burning fire, I've said this before and I'll say it again: women in business don't need positive discrimination, nor do we need any TLC. We don't need initiatives to get more women starting their own business, or attaining higher levels in government or multinational organisations. We are actually quite clever, and if we want something we are more than capable of getting it.
We waste time and money both on this kind of research and on developing silly wee initiatives when, really, it's quite simple: some women are just not cut out to be top-performing career women. Nor do they want to be. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
To my mind, and speaking as a woman and a businesswoman, we fall into two distinct but imbalanced groups.
The larger group is creative, enterprising, intelligent and sensible, but they prefer to think small. To them the best things come in small packages. Managing their own lifestyle business gives them the flexibility to spend time with their families and manage their domestic commitments. They are happy with this, and are without doubt a crucial part of our economy.
The second group is smaller, but they are just as creative, enterprising and intelligent. They just want more; to them big is beautiful. They need more challenges, more risk and more reward. These women have the potential to create and build wealth and job-creating businesses with multi-million-pound revenues. Yet another crucial part of our economy.
But never the twain shall meet. No amount of patronising women-only support initiatives will change one into the other, and I genuinely believe there needs to be a paradigm shift in corporate thinking.
This need has been recognised by the authors of a newly published book, Why Women Mean Business – Understanding The Emergence Of Our Next Economic Revolution. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland believe that the current "fix-the-woman" approach – women-only networking events, assertiveness training and the like – is the reason there are so few women corporate leaders. The authors claim that training women to perform better in a male environment is not the answer, when it would be better to make businesses more attractive to women. At last someone is talking sense, and we shouldn't be surprised that it's a woman.
But a Scotsman also recognises this need. Tom O'Hara, managing director of TSG in Scotland, this week called on the IT sector to work harder to attract more women.
TSG already has a strong female presence in senior roles and O'Hara believes that women have a key role to play in shaping the future of IT, which will ultimately become more about relationships and problem-solving.
Wittenberg-Cox and Maitland's book is published tomorrow. O'Hara may have had a sneak preview, and for the rest of you I suggest it's worth a read.
