Browse content similar to 08/02/2014. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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That's the latest from BBC News for now. | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
Companies with women on their boards outperform. Yet gender gaps persist | :00:08. | :00:18. | |
in paid work and opportunity. We explore why and what can be done | :00:19. | :00:22. | |
about it. Here in Davos at the World Economic Forum, we're talking | :00:23. | :00:24. | |
business. A warm welcome to this debate. With | :00:25. | :00:52. | |
slow growth plaguing much of the global economy, can women be the | :00:53. | :00:56. | |
answer to boost its? By adding women to the workforce, the US economy is | :00:57. | :01:02. | |
40% larger, companies with women on the ward outperform those who don't. | :01:03. | :01:06. | |
But is the evidence incontrovertible? Women are | :01:07. | :01:12. | |
underrepresented in top jobs and are paid less. So we are asking today, | :01:13. | :01:16. | |
should women be running the world economy? I can't Inc of a better | :01:17. | :01:22. | |
panel to dissect the issue and propose solutions. -- can't think. | :01:23. | :01:34. | |
My guests include the executive director of the UN are women, | :01:35. | :01:38. | |
Christine Lagarde, the first woman to be managing director of the IMF. | :01:39. | :01:46. | |
And ourselves instead of the opposite sex, the Chief Executive | :01:47. | :01:52. | |
officer of Renault Nissan Alliance -- our sole representative. I will | :01:53. | :01:59. | |
go rapidly down the panel and ask you to question. Should women be | :02:00. | :02:01. | |
running the world economy? Yes! I knew she would agree. Christine | :02:02. | :02:19. | |
was going to clap our hands to. We don't know what it would be like if | :02:20. | :02:24. | |
women were in more leadership has issues, we don't know if the world | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
would be more peaceful if women run more than 19 countries. We don't | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
know... I think we do know that companies would be more productive. | :02:33. | :02:37. | |
But I think we should try this and I think there is a lot of data to | :02:38. | :02:40. | |
suggest that the performance would increase traumatically. If we had to | :02:41. | :02:48. | |
address generation upon generation of poverty stricken societies, we | :02:49. | :02:54. | |
have to empower women because women are the only force that can ensure | :02:55. | :03:03. | |
that we reduce poverty sustainably. Because when women's quality-of-life | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
improves, the quality-of-life of their children improves and the | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
poverty in that particular family, from generation to generation, is | :03:11. | :03:16. | |
cut off. I think you already run the global economy, what would you say? | :03:17. | :03:23. | |
I completely disagree with the way you have characterised Carlos, I | :03:24. | :03:26. | |
don't think we should say the opposite sex. Samantha Bothroyd used | :03:27. | :03:34. | |
to write the second sex, talking about us, the women. I think we | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
should be more clever than people were in those days. It is the other | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
sex but not the opposite sex because it's a battle we have to win | :03:44. | :03:46. | |
together because it's going to be in the global interest. With only about | :03:47. | :03:53. | |
20% of women at best in charge, having broken the glass ceiling and | :03:54. | :03:57. | |
so on, and obvious evidence that they are good managers and maybe | :03:58. | :04:02. | |
better, that they are good in investors and maybe better, they are | :04:03. | :04:05. | |
good board members, and so on, there is no doubt we have got to do it. In | :04:06. | :04:11. | |
places where it has been tried, we are seeing results. Carlos, I had | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
better reintroduce you. Our sole member of the other sex! Should | :04:18. | :04:25. | |
women be running the global economy? We have three examples here that we | :04:26. | :04:29. | |
are getting there. We are closing this gap, as you know I have been | :04:30. | :04:37. | |
fighting and promoting diversity in general and gender parity is an | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
important element, particularly for women in leadership. We have plenty | :04:42. | :04:44. | |
of examples showing it is a good thing. I am very happy. In terms of | :04:45. | :04:52. | |
companies, what is the most compelling argument that you would | :04:53. | :04:59. | |
say, we should be solving this? It's the same facts we are all repeated, | :05:00. | :05:05. | |
companies outperform when you have women in leadership positions. And | :05:06. | :05:08. | |
importantly, when you have women in leadership positions, those | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
companies have better worklife policies for men and women. So there | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
is a chicken and egg going on. We need better public policy for us to | :05:19. | :05:22. | |
get more women in leadership going on, we need more women in leadership | :05:23. | :05:25. | |
roles because they support better public and corporate policies. And | :05:26. | :05:33. | |
of course, peace and security. They would be better security if women | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
had more to do with deciding when to shoot, and I'm sure they will decide | :05:40. | :05:46. | |
not to shoot. Can I come to you on this in terms of countries, what is | :05:47. | :05:49. | |
the most compelling evidence you have seen that countries are better | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
off in terms of growth if the gender gap were closed? I would go back to | :05:54. | :06:00. | |
the point you made earlier about companies, because that's also where | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
it has to happen, that's where the gender gap is not really closing. It | :06:05. | :06:09. | |
has improved, it is able at the moment, but not improving | :06:10. | :06:14. | |
significantly. Half the computers, half the cars and about 70% of | :06:15. | :06:19. | |
household products in the US, which is the only example we have, are | :06:20. | :06:26. | |
bought by women. When your customers are women, you'd better make sure | :06:27. | :06:28. | |
that your workforce your management and your board includes as many | :06:29. | :06:33. | |
women as the percentage of those that actually buy your products. | :06:34. | :06:38. | |
Because then you understand what it is. I believe that an organisation | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
has to be the mirror of the people it targets. So that's a compelling | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
argument. Then just look at the Nordic countries. They are at the | :06:48. | :06:54. | |
top of the list in terms of growth, governance, going through the crisis | :06:55. | :07:01. | |
with flying colours, and guess what? They are the ones performing best in | :07:02. | :07:05. | |
terms of gender access, in terms of dealing with diversity in a | :07:06. | :07:11. | |
successful way. I hope you are going to talk about Japan, I think that's | :07:12. | :07:14. | |
going to be a very interesting case to follow in the next couple of | :07:15. | :07:18. | |
years, to see if money is put where the mouth has been which is in and | :07:19. | :07:25. | |
of itself a great achievement. Making sure that the Japanese woman | :07:26. | :07:28. | |
can access jobs, that there is enough budgeted money to provide for | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
daycare centres, and the list goes on, not just there but in many other | :07:35. | :07:40. | |
countries. This is a great time to bring in Carlos. The Japanese prime | :07:41. | :07:45. | |
ministers said the economy would be 60% larger if women participated as | :07:46. | :07:52. | |
much as men. For you, if you think about the most compelling evidence | :07:53. | :07:55. | |
you have mastered to increase women in your board, what would you share? | :07:56. | :08:02. | |
I do agree with what he is saying, and that is a conservative estimate. | :08:03. | :08:11. | |
As you know, Japan is on a demographic decline and it needs | :08:12. | :08:16. | |
much more people in the workforce, able in management, much more | :08:17. | :08:23. | |
talent. There is a huge reservoir which can play a bigger role. The | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
Japan is a clear case in which a woman jumping in and taking more | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
leadership can have a larger economy, and the estimate is very | :08:32. | :08:37. | |
conservative. I am going to bring in the audience and ask you a question | :08:38. | :08:42. | |
and ask for a show of hands. We have been talking about the evidence and | :08:43. | :08:45. | |
a gender gap that persists. It's a big part of the problem that there | :08:46. | :08:52. | |
is a lot of gender discrimination? Raise your hand. A lot of the | :08:53. | :08:56. | |
audience seems to think so. It's a big part of the problem. Cultures | :08:57. | :09:03. | |
are so different. Cultures within different parts of the United States | :09:04. | :09:06. | |
to Japan, to France, to Africa, it's all different. Except stereotypes of | :09:07. | :09:13. | |
men and women are actually pretty much the same everywhere in the | :09:14. | :09:17. | |
world. We believe mention the assertive, aggressive leaders. We | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
believe women should be nurturing, giving to others. Leadership is | :09:22. | :09:26. | |
associated with the masculine expectations. We call little girls | :09:27. | :09:33. | |
bossy. We don't really call little boys bossy because a little boy | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
leads but when a little girl leads, we call her C. There is a negative | :09:38. | :09:44. | |
phrase for that in every language. When women do the things that make | :09:45. | :09:48. | |
them leaders, who don't like them, and therefore we don't promote | :09:49. | :09:51. | |
them, we don't vote for them in the same numbers. That gender bias isn't | :09:52. | :09:58. | |
all of what is holding women ack, there are a lot of things, but the | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
gender bias against women in leadership is a crucial part of the | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
problem. Christine, how much of a problem is discriminatory attitudes? | :10:08. | :10:14. | |
I think there is a lot of it and we should not only focus on the | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
advanced economies, we should drink into the show the low-income | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
countries, the emerging market economies and particularly those | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
societies where the female gender is repressed. The girls don't have | :10:29. | :10:35. | |
access to education, where being a woman is translated as, you are | :10:36. | :10:44. | |
going to slave for me. I think it's important that women have got | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
rights, in addition to the fact that it makes economic sense. It is right | :10:49. | :10:57. | |
and ethical. The gender gap is not a new issue, it has been around a long | :10:58. | :11:01. | |
time. Which policies in the past just haven't works? I think would | :11:02. | :11:08. | |
doesn't work, particularly with societies which are extremely | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
receptive towards women, is to establish some principle and | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
goodwill and leave it in the open, ask people to do their best, it just | :11:18. | :11:22. | |
doesn't work. I can tell you that in our case, Nissan in Japan, we had to | :11:23. | :11:32. | |
go to quotas. When you start and you have 2% of your management pool made | :11:33. | :11:39. | |
by women, there is no way, with a good attitude, you are going to | :11:40. | :11:44. | |
change this radically. We had to put some quotas and objectives by | :11:45. | :11:47. | |
saying, from the next few years, we are going to double these numbers | :11:48. | :11:52. | |
and in seven years, triple it, etc. We are still at the ridiculously low | :11:53. | :11:57. | |
number of 8%, but this is practically three times the average | :11:58. | :12:03. | |
of corporate Japan. So the quota is important because it leads to | :12:04. | :12:07. | |
action, action means hiring, training, coaching, putting in the | :12:08. | :12:13. | |
process of the company a systematic decision, forcing the selection of | :12:14. | :12:19. | |
female potential at all levels. If you don't do that, you're just going | :12:20. | :12:27. | |
to lose a lot of time or have a lot of goodwill which is dispersed by | :12:28. | :12:31. | |
saying, we told you it doesn't work. I just want to add one thing on top | :12:32. | :12:37. | |
of discrimination. Yes, there is discrimination, it's obvious, but | :12:38. | :12:41. | |
what is most important is training and coaching. Because you may end up | :12:42. | :12:47. | |
in a lot of situations where you have talented women, who are not | :12:48. | :12:54. | |
having enough soft confidence to go for the job or for the challenge. -- | :12:55. | :12:59. | |
self-confidence. So if they are not coached, they are not prepared, and | :13:00. | :13:06. | |
starts with education. When women are girls, to tell them, you are | :13:07. | :13:11. | |
expecting the same thing from them, they have to go for the same thing. | :13:12. | :13:15. | |
If this doesn't exist you will lose a lot of potential. Does anybody | :13:16. | :13:24. | |
have a view on the quota issue? It has been some controversy for women. | :13:25. | :13:30. | |
Christine. I was strongly against it because I thought women should be | :13:31. | :13:33. | |
recognised on their own merits, and there was no reason there should be | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
any particular threshold, requirements, sanctions or penalties | :13:38. | :13:41. | |
associated with it, until I grew up in a big, international law firm | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
that I love. But where the number of female partners were so low and had | :13:46. | :13:49. | |
been so low for such a long time that I soon realised that unless we | :13:50. | :13:52. | |
had at least targets, if not quotas, there was no way we were going to | :13:53. | :13:59. | |
jump the right step in order to have a significant number of females in | :14:00. | :14:03. | |
the partnerships. I completely changed my approach. I am | :14:04. | :14:06. | |
pro-quotas, pro-targets and I think we should be made accountable in all | :14:07. | :14:10. | |
the organisations we are in, in order to reach those numbers. With | :14:11. | :14:17. | |
the gender prejudice we know exist in our society, not unless we do | :14:18. | :14:21. | |
something to make the playing field for equal, women will just not be | :14:22. | :14:29. | |
identified as leaders. Quotas, unfortunately, some people do not | :14:30. | :14:34. | |
like them but for now, they are necessary. When we reach a time when | :14:35. | :14:39. | |
you don't expect women to perform double compared to a man in order | :14:40. | :14:45. | |
for them to be given the same recognition, we probably will not | :14:46. | :14:49. | |
need quotas. But for now we need quotas because they are giving women | :14:50. | :14:54. | |
a head start. In most of the countries, in politics, in the | :14:55. | :14:57. | |
boardroom, this is just the world we're living in right now. That's | :14:58. | :15:03. | |
where the Nordic countries have gone. The European Union is now | :15:04. | :15:08. | |
setting, under directive, a quota for board members. It is a required | :15:09. | :15:12. | |
step. Not for the long term, but it's a required step. As a CEO of a | :15:13. | :15:18. | |
major company, what kind of policies do you think should be implemented | :15:19. | :15:26. | |
to level the playing field? We have particularly two things. The first | :15:27. | :15:32. | |
is a quota on hiring. Engineers, you need ten engineers? We are obviously | :15:33. | :15:38. | |
now object to 50-50. We are not at 50-50 today, so every year we | :15:39. | :15:42. | |
increase the quota of women when we go higher. If the quota is 40% you | :15:43. | :15:48. | |
can hire 60 male and 40 female. If you hire 60 males, you cannot | :15:49. | :15:56. | |
complete 100 without respecting this. So the hiring is quota. The | :15:57. | :16:02. | |
second one is the succession planning. Succession planning is an | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
important process in each large company, where all the jobs in the | :16:08. | :16:12. | |
company once every year, you say if something happens to this person | :16:13. | :16:15. | |
holding this job, who are the candidates who can take this job at | :16:16. | :16:20. | |
all the levels of the company, including the executive committee? | :16:21. | :16:24. | |
Here, we have forced ranking. It means we say you cannot complete | :16:25. | :16:28. | |
your succession planning unless you have, depending on the position, 20% | :16:29. | :16:35. | |
of female candidates. You can imagine that people said, we have | :16:36. | :16:41. | |
nobody, they are not prepared. Fine, succession planning is not ready. | :16:42. | :16:45. | |
You can't close your succession planning as long as... You don't | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
have a candidate this year, fine, it is open. But next year we will have | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
to find a candidate. I think managing through the hiring from one | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
side, the succession planning from the other side, which means | :16:59. | :17:03. | |
training, promoting, extremely important process, if you do these | :17:04. | :17:07. | |
two well you would hit all your targets. I completely agree, and I | :17:08. | :17:15. | |
would add one measure. Measure very carefully and segment the workforce, | :17:16. | :17:20. | |
the people you are talking about. It's quite easy to reach 40% | :17:21. | :17:25. | |
threshold in any organisation, as long as you include everybody. Fine. | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
But the higher you go in a hierarchy, the less women are. You | :17:30. | :17:32. | |
have two measure by cohort or segment of your population. Because | :17:33. | :17:40. | |
once you measure it then you can hold people accountable. But broad | :17:41. | :17:42. | |
measurements of those corporate leaders who say 45% women in my | :17:43. | :17:49. | |
company. How about looking at the Pyramid? Then it doesn't look as | :17:50. | :17:58. | |
good. Collect the level data and disaggregated. Whenever we are | :17:59. | :18:03. | |
providing data that is just rounded, and we don't see X amount of women | :18:04. | :18:08. | |
have achieved it, you actually hide a lot. When you are a policymaker | :18:09. | :18:15. | |
and are responsible for public resources, women are 51% of the | :18:16. | :18:20. | |
population. You should be able to know that in the manner you which | :18:21. | :18:23. | |
though spent those public resources, the other half, the 51% | :18:24. | :18:34. | |
actually benefits adequately. All of you on the panel are extremely | :18:35. | :18:38. | |
accomplished, you've achieved a lot and risen to a level that many women | :18:39. | :18:44. | |
would say, this is the kind of role model we are looking at. I will post | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
this Christine -- to Christine first. What's the worst case of | :18:50. | :18:52. | |
dissemination that you've come across? I suppose you are asking me | :18:53. | :19:03. | |
first because I'm the oldest! I prevent my response to you by one | :19:04. | :19:08. | |
thing. I think I'm succeeded and I'm here where I am because I was not | :19:09. | :19:14. | |
aggressive, because I relied on teams and because I acknowledged the | :19:15. | :19:18. | |
team and the support that they have been giving me, and because we | :19:19. | :19:24. | |
worked together. And I am not ashamed of saying that. I think that | :19:25. | :19:27. | |
other types of management and leadership are fine, but if women | :19:28. | :19:32. | |
can exercise leadership by being inclusive, by being team minded, by | :19:33. | :19:38. | |
paying back to the team... And, you know what, if we can contaminate a | :19:39. | :19:44. | |
few male leaders on that page, contaminate a few of those males who | :19:45. | :19:48. | |
don't succeed in reaching peace settlements, that's fine. I'm | :19:49. | :19:53. | |
prepared to fight for that. OK, the worst discrimination I faced. My | :19:54. | :19:56. | |
first interview with a big law firm in Paris. I had qualified on all | :19:57. | :20:06. | |
fronts. The managing partner said to me, we are giving you a job. But | :20:07. | :20:12. | |
don't expect to make partnership. I said, why is that? He looked at me | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
with contempt. He said, because you're a woman. That was about 35 | :20:19. | :20:27. | |
years ago. Things have not changed enormously in many areas. The law | :20:28. | :20:31. | |
firm I lived my life with was not that law firm. Mine is a bit | :20:32. | :20:40. | |
dramatic because I grew up under apartheid, where there was both race | :20:41. | :20:43. | |
and gender. In South Africa there were laws under apartheid that | :20:44. | :20:52. | |
decided, for instance, that women could not contract on their own | :20:53. | :20:57. | |
without the help of a male adult or, for that matter, son. How worse can | :20:58. | :21:05. | |
it get? I didn't have a son at that point, and I can just imagine if | :21:06. | :21:09. | |
that had to happen, but that was the way the law was. Cheryl? Growing up | :21:10. | :21:17. | |
in apartheid in South Africa is an experience I haven't faced. I think | :21:18. | :21:22. | |
I've been pretty lucky. I faced a lot of the smaller stuff. I've been | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
at dinners recently where men speak and it's fine, then they literally | :21:27. | :21:30. | |
put their hands here, stop speaking now, to me. There was a dinner, | :21:31. | :21:36. | |
there were two women. Everyone was talking, except when I spoke or the | :21:37. | :21:41. | |
other one spoke we were told not to, hands to our faces. Shopping in | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
today's day and age. I've had friends who been fired when they got | :21:47. | :21:50. | |
pregnant in the last three years in big cities in the United States. | :21:51. | :21:54. | |
I've had friends unfairly and ridiculously sexually propositioned | :21:55. | :21:58. | |
in offices. I think Christine's point that, yes, things have | :21:59. | :22:01. | |
changed, but they have not changed enough. A lot of the things that we | :22:02. | :22:06. | |
would think don't happen any more, particularly in the developed world, | :22:07. | :22:12. | |
are still happening. Carlos. You're going to ask me the same question? I | :22:13. | :22:24. | |
am! No, let me answer this. This is about diversity. We are talking | :22:25. | :22:28. | |
about women here, but there is a lot of segregation when a person is | :22:29. | :22:32. | |
different. It can be a foreigner. It can be a young person in a society | :22:33. | :22:38. | |
which is most valuing seniority. It can be a senior person in a society | :22:39. | :22:43. | |
which is much more... What we're talking about is dissemination for | :22:44. | :22:47. | |
reasons which are nothing to do with talent or contribution. I'm sure | :22:48. | :22:51. | |
that here in the room, many people can relate to what you are saying. | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
We focussing on gender discrimination, but there are so | :22:57. | :23:00. | |
many other discriminations we ought to fight against. It is a huge | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
potential, particularly for companies or even four countries, | :23:06. | :23:16. | |
that we need to unlock. That is all we have time for. It's been a huge | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
topic, as to why the gender gap persists. We've discussed the | :23:22. | :23:25. | |
evidence. That it's harmful to businesses and economies who locked | :23:26. | :23:30. | |
up wholesale alternatives. Perhaps gender equality is just what a | :23:31. | :23:33. | |
sluggish global economy needs. Please thank my stellar panel. | :23:34. | :23:42. | |
And thanks to all of you, the audience, for your participation. | :23:43. | :23:59. | |
And a huge thanks to the World Economic Forum for partnering with | :24:00. | :24:04. | |
the BBC on this panel of special broadcasts of Talking Business with | :24:05. | :24:05. | |
me, Linda Yueh. Afraid no good news to come in this | :24:06. | :24:22. | |
forecast for those that need it, unfortunately. And no sign of a | :24:23. | :24:26. | |
letup in the foreseeable future either. We still have three severe | :24:27. | :24:27. | |
flood | :24:28. | :24:29. |