“Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.” Evelyn Waugh, Decline and Fall (1928)
Although written for comic effect, there is more
than a grain of truth in Evelyn Waugh’s proposed classification of the sexes.
A
study, triggered by the UK’s financial services industry’s regulatory body’s requirement
to assess risk tolerance in investors, has demonstrated that there is a
profound difference in male and female approaches and attitudes to risk. Geoff
Trickey and So Yi Yeung, of the Psychological Consultancy Limited, published
the research in 2012. They had assessed a group of 2,000 men and women in 20
different fields of work worldwide and found that the gap
between men and women when it comes to taking risks, was “unexpected in its
magnitude’. They concluded that this difference is genetic in origin and
would have been a crucial contributor to the success and survival of our
species. Women were found to be more than twice as likely to be cautious and
prudent, whilst men are prone to being adventurous and carefree.
I was discussing this very factor with three
members of my team earlier this week and both Pav and Alice told me I should
blog about it. We were considering the annual performance appraisal process and
looking at the variations in ratings. Throughout my career, I have often found
that women tend to rate themselves lower than men in their self-appraisals. I
admit that this is a sweeping generalisation, but it has seemed to be a common
occurrence wherever I have been employed - and I have been a senior HR leader,
with access to the data, in Financial Services, Professional Services and
Technology organisations. I commented to my colleagues that I suspected this
difference comes down to genetics and is deep rooted in hindbrain responses.
The hindbrain or rhombencephalon
evolved more than 500 million years ago. It resembles the brain of a modern
reptile and is responsible for many of our automatic reflexes such as the
control of breathing, heart rate, digestion, movement and sense perception. In
prehistoric times women were most probably responsible for looking after the
children and were based in land close to the home-base, perhaps tending crops
and preparing food and necessities for the tribe’s survival – they would have
spent much of their time on the look out for danger (“watching for eagles”).
In contrast, men in early times were responsible
for hunting and feeding the tribe – we know this from numerous cave
illustrations from around the world. By necessity men needed a greater
appetite for risk and adventure than the women, to help them cope with the dangers
and stress of hunting wild animals armed with only sticks and stones. If you
are off to get a mammoth or rhino for supper you need a degree of chutzpah.
Mammoth from Rouffignac, France. Painted circa 13,000 years ago |
Women remain more cautious than men, or
so it appears from a study
undertaken by the Pew Research Centre in 2012 that found that, when using
social media, women are careful about setting privacy settings (restricting
access to their profiles to close circles and deleting people from their
networks) whereas over ¼ of the men in the study chose the most public settings
for their profiles and also expressed a higher rate of regrets for posts they
had made or shared. Similar findings have also been espoused in relation to job
applications – most notably the Hewlett Packard report that appeared to
indicate that men apply for a job when they meet 60% of the required
qualifications and criteria, but women apply only if they meet 100% (as quoted
in Lean In, The Confidence Code).
Subsequent research has shown that these statistics are misleading, as they are
not based on women’s lack of confidence but rather on a
desire not to waste anyone’s time and hence perhaps a misconception of the
hiring process – most job descriptions are an ideal for the role and
allowances are often made for people who need to “grow into the role”. Clearly
more women need to become aware of this.
Part of women’s outlook may be
historical, based on their experience once large numbers started entering the
workforce. Economic necessity, especially during the downturn of the 1970s,
often resulted in both husbands and wives taking on employment to cover
household expenses. However the work available to women was usually
administrative or clerical as few had professional qualifications. I remember in
the early 80’s being advised that I should aspire to becoming a secretary,
nurse, teacher or shepherdess – all admirable roles but perhaps not ones that
would fully utilise my law degree. My paternal grandmother (one of the
brightest women I have known) told me that she was “banned from taking a degree”
by her family, who saw further education for women as no more than an
unnecessary extravagance. It was not until late in the 20th century
that women started breaking into the professional workspace and their jobs were
attained through the qualifications that had attained. It is possible that bias
still remains in some workplaces and hence women need to meet the criteria for
a role more closely than their male counterparts – this was demonstrated in a McKinsey
report that concluded that men are often hired or promoted for their
potential, whereas women were selected due to their experience and track
record.
According to social-cognitive theory,
most performance raters have difficulty overcoming their ingrained stereotypes
in relation to how they perceive men and women; it is probable that preconceptions
encourage many of us to apply certain behaviours and characteristics to others
we work with. For example Del
Boca and Ashmore’s research in the1980s demonstrated that (in Western
cultures) stereotypical male characteristics include competence, rationality
and assertion; whereas female characteristics include warmth and expressiveness
– this results in the risk of women being seen as
“Nice but incompetent, the typical man as competent but maybe not so nice.” (Susan Fiske, 1998)
St George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello Here is one of my favourite poems inspired by this picture |
In their 2002 paper, Cara Bauer and
Boris Baltes make some proposals on how best to go about reducing
the effects of gender stereotypes on performance evaluations - they propose
that although “women who are evaluated by raters with traditional stereotypes
may receive less positive outcomes than their true performance dictates” this
can be overcome by a “structured free recall” (meaning that “raters are
instructed to recall behaviours that they have observed and to rely on these
observations when completing the rating”). I must confess to being a bit
un-nerved by this. Most employees and managers complain about the annual
performance management process – in particular the length and time required to
complete an appraisal. A structured approach usually requires formal questions
being answered and then the responses being used to support a decision – this
can mean adding an extra step to the process. Rather than doing this I would
hope that sufficiently informed and trained raters would know to rely on
specific evidence and incidents that had occurred during the past year rather
than just writing how they feel about a person.
Using evidence based decisions to hit the target |
Regrettably, this is not the case in
all organisations. According to an
article in Fortune published in August 2014 the approach and words used towards
men and women in appraisals differs. The research
into the words used in the documentation of 248 appraisal reviews (from 180
people, 105 men and 75 women), within a number of technology businesses
certainly provides food for thought – women tend to be given critical, personal
feedback more often than men (negative personal observations were made in 2 out
of 83 critical reviews received by men in the sample, but adverse personal
comments were included in 71 of the 94 critical reviews received by women). The
use of particular words seems to be common when criticising women – namely
“Abrasive”, “Bossy”, “Strident” and “Aggressive” in relation to their
leadership style and “Emotional” and “Irrational” for the manner in which they
raise objections. Of these words, only “Aggressive” was applied to men and of
the three instances recorded two were seeking to encourage the individual to be
more aggressive. This also seems to hark back to stereotypical responses
grounded in our hindbrain reaction.
To create the world of the future, we need
to rise above being reptilian. Perhaps that is the most important reminder we
need, to help each of us avoid being biased when assessing others.
Right…I’m now off to prepare mammoth steaks for the
family’s lunch – can you keep an eye out for the eagles?
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