Q+A interview transcript: Susan Wood interviews Beth Brooke

Sunday 5th May, 2013

Q+A interview transcript:

Susan Wood interviews Beth Brooke

The Global Vice Chair, Public Policy at Ernst and Young, Beth Brooke, told TVNZ’s Q+A programme that CEOs need to be doing more to promote women into upper levels of management and on to boards.
 
“That means people aren’t looking deep enough because the pipeline is there, the talent is there. It’s almost like you need a diverse slate for every open board position to force everyone to look harder, to make sure the best qualified person gets the job, but it’s gotta be a diverse slate, which means the invisible will become visible, and over time they’ll get the roles. The other thing that’s important, I think, is for male CEOs in their company to look at their senior female leadership talent and say, ‘Who do I think among my organisation, among my senior executive levels should serve on another company’s board? Wouldn’t it be a great experience?’ And then sponsor that woman on to somebody else’s board. That breaks the cycle of the network of ‘it’s the good old’ whatever network that gets boards appointed. Break into it. Have male CEOs sponsor one of their senior executive women to be on somebody else’s board. That’s a good lever.”
 
Beth Brooke, who has been named five times to the list of Forbes “World’s Most Powerful Women”, says in many companies women are being hired in equal proportions but they only get as far as the mid-levels of management.
 
“Research shows that women at that mid-level tend to get promoted based on performance, and men tend to get promoted based on potential. So people look at the men and say, ‘We think he can do that next job. We’re going to promote him.’ They look at a women and go, ‘She’s never done that next job. I don’t think she’s qualified enough.’ And so at that mid-level it really starts to diverge.”
 
Beth Brooke says blame lies both with employers and with women.
 
“It’s actually both, I think. It is the employer’s fault for how they evaluate men and women. They don’t understand they have unconscious bias around that issue. How they’re looking at the men carries an unconscious bias to think they can do the job and they carry an unconscious bias around women to think, ‘I haven’t seen her do it, so she can’t do it’. It also comes from women tending to go, ‘That job requires me to do A, B, C, D and E, and I only know how to do A, B, C and D, therefore I’m not qualified.’ Whereas men would go, ‘I know how to do A and B. I’ll figure the rest out.’”
 
Beth Brooke says having both male and female perspectives being brought to the table means better outcomes.
 
“I think, the key to unlocking this is to get people to experience that difference. I just had someone here in New Zealand telling me that he had two women put on to his board this year, and he witnessed the different discussion that is going on around decision making. Better decisions being made because different perspectives are being brought to bear.”
 
Q+A, 9-10am Sundays on TV ONE and one hour later on TV ONE plus 1. Repeated Sunday evening at 11:30pm. Streamed live at www.tvnz.co.nz   
 
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Q+A
 
SUSAN WOOD INTERVIEWS BETH BROOKE
 
SUSAN WOOD
Beth Brooke is a remarkable woman, rising to be number two of Ernst & Young Global, based in the US. She says she’s had to work hard and to fight her way there, and coming out as gay a year and a half ago has also had its challenges in the corporate world. She was in New Zealand earlier in the week promoting the third billion - the group most businesses are forgetting about after China and India, and that is women. I start by asking her about that.
 
BETH BROOKE, Ernst & Young Global Vice Chair of Public Policy
The third billion is really shorthand for the economic impact that women will have on the global economy over the next decade. So women are going to come into the economy either as workers, as entrepreneurs, as employees or consumers in such a magnitude over the next decade that it will represent an economic impact third in size behind the growth of India and behind the growth of China. So the third billion, kind of, behind the growth of India and China. So when you’re talking to, for instance, a CEO of a company, you would say, ‘You would never think of not investing in India. You would never think of not investing in China. Why aren’t you thinking about investing in women in the same realm?’
 
SUSAN        
  Where do these women come from? Third world mainly?
 
BETH            
No, women all across the global economy. In every country-
 
SUSAN         
Are we not there already, in this economy? Are we not participating in terms of first world women?
 
BETH            
Well, we are, but the additional impact of a billion more women coming in because they will be enabled through education, enabled through changes in culture and custom, that economic impact over the next decade is going to be that significant.
 
SUSAN         
So how- You made the point - you wouldn’t not invest in China or India. So how do you invest in these women?
 
BETH            
Well, if you’re a CEO of a company or the prime minister of a country you are thinking about what are we doing to accelerate that movement - those economic engines that are trapped in women. This is a great opportunity to empower and accelerate the impact of women as moving into the workforce. Or in a company, am I hiring women? What’s the talent force in my workforce? Am I moving women up? Or am I losing women at a great rate when they hit the mid levels of management? Do I have women on my board? All of those issues.
 
SUSAN         
We are losing women, right across the first world, certainly, at that middle to high level. How do you stop that?
 
BETH            
Well, you have to look at the fact that- Because in so many companies women are being hired in equal proportions, they get to that mid level and out they go. It’s funny. Research shows that women at that mid level tend to get promoted based on performance, and men tend to get promoted based on potential. So people look at the men and say, ‘We think he can do that next job. We’re going to promote him.’ They look at a women and go, ‘She’s never done that next job. I don’t think she’s qualified enough.’ And so at that mid level it really starts to diverge.
 
SUSAN         
So whose fault is that? Is that the employer’s fault or is it women’s fault for actually not putting their case better?
 
BETH            
It’s actually both, I think. It is the employer’s fault for how they evaluate men and women. They don’t understand they have unconscious bias around that issue. How they’re looking at the men carries an unconscious bias to think they can do the job and they carry an unconscious bias around women to think, ‘I haven’t seen her do it, so she can’t do it’. It also comes from women tending to go, ‘That job requires me to do A, B, C, D and E, and I only know how to do A, B, C and D, therefore I’m not qualified.’ Whereas men would go, ‘I know how to do A and B. I’ll figure the rest out.’
 
SUSAN         
Beth, our mothers were burning their bras. Our mothers were saying, ‘give women freedom’. We are the second, maybe third generation of women in the workforce. It seems extraordinary to me in 2013 those prejudices still exist.
 
BETH            
They still exist, but shame on us if the next generation’s saying the same thing. I mean, it’s incumbent upon us to continue- and you see this now, with more women in leadership positions across all different sectors around the world just pushing, pulling, and men engaged in this. This will not change without men engaged. So it’s very important that men and women see the true business case to have different perspectives around the decision-making table. It’s not about women being better than men. It’s about women being different. And that different perspective being brought to the table will mean we’ll make better decisions.
 
SUSAN         
Because you have different views. You have diversity of opinion and thought and better debate, and that, I guess, right from the board table down, isn’t it?
 
BETH            
And that’s really, I think, the key to unlocking this is to get people to experience that difference. I just had someone here in New Zealand telling me that he had two women put on to his board this year, and he witnessed the different discussion that is going on around decision making. Better decisions being made because different perspectives are being brought to bear.
 
SUSAN         
Already that quickly. Now, women in New Zealand. We’ve had a female prime minister, an attorney general. We did very well for a while. Not doing quite so well at the moment. And I mean no judgement in this question, but you don’t have children. Do you think that makes it easier for women without children to do better, stay in the workforce and stay at the top?
 
BETH            
I think it’s different. Clearly, it is different. I think what you have to recognise is everybody has their own deal, and everybody has challenges. Do I think that it was easier for me because at a certain point in my career I didn’t have children? Yeah, I think absolutely so. But everybody has their own deal. I lost a father to Alzheimer’s, I have had my own personal challenges, I came out a year and a half ago as a gay woman - that brought its own set of challenges. What I don’t underestimate is everybody’s deal is different and everybody’s deal makes it difficult. And so it is incumbent upon employers to create flexible work environments that allow people to fulfil their professional and personal lives in a way that works for themselves. And men and women both need flexible work environments because everybody’s trying to juggle a lot of personal challenges and professional challenges. I love, when you talk to any one of our employees around the world, if you can just peel the onion layer one step back you will find a wealth of things they are dealing with and balancing every day. And what’s important for us is you got to allow them to balance those things in a way that is unique to them. You can’t mandate it. You can’t over-orchestrate it. You have to create an environment that allows them to deal with it, and that takes a lot of commitment to a culture and to a team that focuses on outcomes not inputs of how you get the job done.
 
SUSAN         
Now, women on boards. We touched on that briefly, and certainly there’s a big push here from groups like Global Women to get more women on boards. We do seem to see, though, many of the same women on boards. It’s like an old girls club, almost, like the old boys club.
 
BETH            
Well, I think there is a sense of that. That means people aren’t looking deep enough because the pipeline is there, the talent is there. It’s almost like you need a diverse slate for every open board position to force everyone to look harder, to make sure the best qualified person gets the job, but it’s gotta be a diverse slate, which means the invisible will become visible, and over time they’ll get the roles. The other thing that’s important, I think, is for male CEOs in their company to look at their senior female leadership talent and say, ‘Who do I think among my organisation, among my senior executive levels should serve on another company’s board? Wouldn’t it be a great experience?’ And then sponsor that woman on to somebody else’s board. That breaks the cycle of the network of ‘it’s the good old’ whatever network that gets boards appointed. Break into it. Have male CEOs sponsor one of their senior executive women to be on somebody else’s board. That’s a good lever.

ENDS 
 

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