Since then, I have been chair of the Professionelle Foundation, a charitable trust supporting women in their career pipeline. As a 'made-in-Hong Kong New Zealand-born Asian', I have been asked to participate in numerous forums about diversity in business. At a recent talk I gave to an entrepreneurship training forum, I stated that being self-employed was the best form of achieving equal opportunity. This was certainly the case for me. At the time I was a young business owner, I have to admit I didn't understand the discourse in the public arena around gender inequality or lack of opportunity. I was my own boss steering my own course. And as recruiters, we simply didn't have the visibility to determine if a woman's career trajectory was at a disadvantage to her male peers.
Now that I'm out of my own enterprise and encountering the broader experiences of other women in business, it's distressing to hear of their negative experiences.
But when I compare the level of attention diversity has received in recent years with the woeful lack of females we still see today at CEO and board level, I start to wonder if in fact we are going in the wrong direction.
As the gender discussion has changed to one of diversity, it seems to me we need to rethink the whole concept. Otherwise, the diversity issue will be just more lip service and no more effective at change than the gender discourse.
Has the conversation gone off-track here? Is diversity a good thing? Potentially yes, but at what cost and for what purpose? Should we always recruit women? Or can a heavily female-dominated environment lead to some difficulties, just as an only male environment can?
Today, as a co-owner of TBC Partners business consultancy, my partner and I use metaphors extensively in our work with owner-led entrepreneurial businesses. Metaphors are a psychologically proven way of communicating difficult and complex constructs.
When I think of a business I think of its DNA. When I was in business, I lived by five golden rules to ensure I struck the right DNA in my own organisation, and these are the same gems I share with my clients today.
First of all, understand that you need to have excellent on-boarding, training and knowledge-sharing capabilities right from the offset, which of course ensures better retention of all new recruits.
Secondly, don't abdicate the entire responsibility of hiring to HR. Try to avoid using the same old decision-makers for important hiring decisions and involve trusted peers of roles to assist in recruitment. They are at the frontline, so are more likely to recognise the characteristics needed for success. This also applies to promotions. The quiet leaders get overlooked because they don't know how to network or promote themselves to those upper level decision-makers.
Thirdly, understand the key characteristics that determine success. These are not necessarily skills-based and many job descriptions tend to overcook the skills required. By all means, test for numeracy and literacy to a level that is suitable for the role, but if English is a second language, then test for innate intelligence using pattern recognition.
Fourth, go back to successful hires and identify what their common skills and personality attributes have been. For instance, one sales company I knew moved their skill requirements from 'sales experience' to 'coach-ability'. They tested this live using role plays at interviews and some of their best hires were former chefs and entertainers, while the strategy continued to prove itself in performance reviews.
And fifth, consider the language you use in recruitment advertising. Without realising it, your ads might dissuade certain groups from applying. Actively advertise and target groups you wouldn't normally reach. Disability groups, ethnic-focused newspapers and so on. If you keep fishing from the same pond, you'll keep getting the same results.
So rather than talking diversity, let's change the discussion to adaptation in a fast-changing business environment, where the right DNA is the only way to get you through.
