Presentation from the Gartner's Women's Forum meeting on March 29, 2016.

1. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
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Michael A Massetti
Executive Partner, Supply Chain
March 29, 2016
Bias in the Workplace:
Men Just Don’t Understand Women

2. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Some initial thoughts …
• Outside of training for harassment and business
conduct, men and women are never trained on
working in a diverse and inclusive environment
• Leaders are coached on how to spot wrong-doing,
but lack facilitation skills for inclusion in teams and
groups that have gender, racial, ethnic, etc.
members
• Without a backstop for managers and employees to
rely on, biases and prejudices infiltrate the
workplace … not necessarily with malice

3. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
NY Times Digest – It’s still happening!

4. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
The rise of women in leadership … 1980s style
• Women in high technology in the 1970s and 1980s were
quite few in number.
• Even fewer were female senior leaders and executives.
• How many of us recall the overt bias directed at those
who tried to climb the ladder?
- “She dresses like a man.”
- “She acts just like a man.”
- “How come they always select women
that behave like men?”
- Even women said these about other women!

5. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Bias in the immigration line …
• I read a “guide to getting
through immigration quickly”
years ago
• Guess what they suggested?
• “Avoid women … they are
rules-based and you’ll never
get through easily!”
• Really???

6. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Why are certain words mostly used to
describe women?
No-one ever called me a “bitch!”

7. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
A story of bias in talent development
Setup:
• It’s no secret that historically there are more men
than women in high technology industries.
• Our leadership team was 90% male and the high-
potential talent under review was 80% male.
• The purpose: discuss, support, challenge, and align
on the highest potential leaders in the organization.
• The day started out well. Since we were going
through the people by job level, the initial wave of
talent was well known by the group.
• Then it happened …

8. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
The story of bias in talent development
• Once … “She’s too aggressive.”
- Everyone, please take note.
• Twice … “She’s a bit too aggressive.”
- Two for two … both times directed at a female.
• Three times (you’re out!) … “She’s aggressive!”
• The silence in the room was deafening.
• Despite two earlier occurrences, we could not help
ourselves.

9. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Did we learn?
• 50 people. 10 women.
• 3 instances of “aggressive.” All about women.
• All by men.
• Leaders need to listen closely to the subtle words used to describe
people in the organization.
• In this case, a gender overtone crept into the conversation and was
so blatant it was embarrassing for everyone.
• One of the 3 female leaders eventually went on to be a Director!
• These biased descriptors, especially when used in isolation to a
specific type of person or group of people, should not be part of the
lexicon of any talent management or development activity.
• Most importantly: Do we have the cultural
wherewithal to call this out when it occurs?

10. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Final Thoughts
• Managing diversity to create a
benefit for the team or organization
is hard – data suggest teams
benefit with gender diversity by
15%. (McKinsey)
• We must train everyone to detect
situations of bias or prejudice, but
that is not enough.
• We must create awareness of bias and inclusion across our
employees and leaders
• We must train everyone – leaders and individuals – to learn
how to create an inclusive environment free of bias.
• Enable the discussion so people can break through fears and
lack of knowledge on how to embrace differences and create
synergy.
• Don’t fear constructive/healthy conflict – just discourage bias.

11. CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY
© 2016 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
Resources
• The Inclusive Leader (KornFerry)
• http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias (Bias self-
assessment)
• http://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Outsmarting-our-
brains/$FILE/EY-RBC-Overcoming-hidden-biaises-to-harness-diversity.pdf
(E&Y/RBC article)
• http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/technology/exposing-hidden-biases-at-
google-to-improve-diversity.html (Google story)
• http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/how-corporate-america-is-tackling-
unconscious-bias/ (Intel story)
• http://michiganross.umich.edu/rtia-articles/gender-gap-work-reflects-boss-
political-views (University of Michigan research article)