Risks and costs of innovation: thinking outside the box

By Mary Evans, Centennial Professor, Gender Institute, London School of Economics

The question around which this (and other) blog is organised is that of the difference it might have made if Steve Jobs had been a woman. Now this question invites the usual comparisons between the lives of Shakespeare, Einstein and lots of other famous (and infamous) men and their sisters, the conclusion being that the males of the species had a much easier time in making their names in the public world… not least because they were expected to. Men live, as Kathleen Lynch has so rightly and clearly pointed out, ‘care-less’ lives.

«When responsibility for providing material support for others is denied, men carry a burden of personal failure, but life is difficult for both
men and women»

But at the same time as we know this we also know that millions of men shoulder expectations of care that are no less onerous than those of women: the responsibility for providing material support for others. When this responsibility is denied (for example in great swathes of Europe at the present time and for much else of the world for a lot of the time) men carry a burden of personal failure. But this comment need not take us to the equalising conclusion (life is difficult for both men and women) let alone to competitive assumptions about who has the most difficult time. What we should address is who profits from particular needs in a particular place at a particular time.

«The communications industry in which Jobs succeeded had no particular interest in his explicit gender, but it did have a financial interest in innovation»

In this way we come to address not the individual cases of success but the underlying circumstances which create opportunities for success. The multi-billion dollar communications industry in which Jobs so clearly succeeded had no particular interest in the explicit gender of Jobs (or Brown or Jones or Smith) but it did have a financial interest in innovation. Thus we need to ask questions about the ways in which the risks and the costs of innovation are gendered: the questions are about who we expect (and indeed allow) to think outside the box. I think that if we can begin to consider these questions then we get beyond the binaries of worse for women/better for men and reflect on the gendered constructions through which we challenge, take risks and innovate.

Confidence, resilience and self selling

By Rebecca George, Deloitte partner, responsible for the Firm’s Public Sector Health practice in the UK

If Steve had been a woman he probably wouldn’t have dropped out and started up his own company. Whilst he might have got jobs in the IT industry in his vacations, he probably wouldn’t have worked his network as well to support him as a young, new entrepreneur. He might not have had the self belief that enabled him to say in 1984 that he was going to change the world. By the time women get to the workplace, they act differently from men in three fundamental ways.

Firstly, in interviews. There are always exceptions to the rule but women are much less likely to say they are confident they can do a job in an interview than men are. If interviewees aren't aware of this they could pick male interviewees on the basis that they just sound really convincing, even if their skills and experience is identical to the female interviewees.

«There are always exceptions to the rule but women are much less likely to say they are confident they can do a job in an interview than men are»

Secondly, appraisals. Typically, women don't hear good news. So you can spend 90% of an appraisal telling a woman she has done a great job, and 10% of the time telling her how she needs to improve, and she will go home and obsess about the 10%. I think this is the same trait, by the way, which causes women instantly to forget, or never hear in the first place, all the compliments they are ever paid. Women need to concentrate on hearing good news and keeping criticism in professional perspective. Failing at work is also a fact of life. Most successful people have at least one failure during their career. You need to deal with failure, learn from it and increase your resilience.

Thirdly, women think that if they put their heads down, and do a really good job, they will get promoted. The majority of men, on the other hand, subconsciously spend up to 10% of their time selling themselves. That's nearly half a day a week. And if most men are doing that, managers and executives included, then that's what they expect everyone else to do. Women often don’t feel comfortable seeking out the company of more senior people and talking about their achievements. They also tend to be more collaborative, wanting everyone to be successful.

«Women need to concentrate on hearing good news and keeping criticism in professional perspective. Failing at work is also a fact of life. You need to deal with failure, learn from it and increase your resilience»

These are generic trends and don't apply to absolutely everyone. But it's worth women thinking about if they are getting their message across in ways men understand, and men being careful to avoid those random acts of discrimination by remembering that women do act differently in the office.

So if Steve had been a woman he would have been an incredibly talented, creative, innovative employee, consistently over-performing and probably reaching senior management or executive roles. But probably without the core of self belief, risk taking, networking and resistance to failure that Steve used to fuel his destiny to change the world.