24 hours to change the gender inclusion reality
women should be thankful
because men are doing a boring job while
they can be at the university
study culture arts music
and meantime men are busy working in
other words
taking on the role of being the provider
so we should be grateful right
well i don’t think so but those were the
words
of former mexico president vicente fox
which he said on a stage he shared with
me earlier this year
where i had just finished presenting on
how to create
workplaces that foster gender inclusion
so imagine i’m a latina immigrant
who’s been 30 years in the us doing
everything she can
to succeed in her career helping other
women by building a company that
supports
their career growth what would you have
said to him
how would you have reacted well
i was in shock this kind of thinking
is what perpetuates the gender equity
gap
that we have ongoing and that according
to
the world economic forum estimations
prior to covet 19
was going to take 257 years
to close look i’m all for celebrating
small incremental victories hey we are
at seven percent
of women ceos of fortune 500 companies
an all-time record
from 3 10 years ago but that’s still a
very very small number
it’s 37 women of 500 jobs
and you know what there’s not one black
woman or one latina woman
on that list so 10 years ago i said
enough is enough we cannot continue
with this little levels of improvements
every 10 or 20 years
and we cannot continue to be happy with
this to be content
i was looking for something to push us
towards a global leap of consciousness
a tipping point beyond which the levels
of inequalities we have right now
would become unthinkable unfathomable
so i started doing research in search
for inspiration
and looked at problems that were
seemingly intractable
for a long time until they were
overnight resolved with a simple idea
and that’s when i stumbled upon fatal
medical errors
yes the death rates due to infections in
hospitals
that seem to be intractable for a long
time
until dr peter pronovos decided to try
the checklist so he created and
implemented
a simple checklist for medical personnel
to go over
before inserting intravenous lines in
the icu
one of the top places where infections
start
and guess what 10 days later the error
percentage went from 11
to zero yes and in that
hospital they estimated that they saved
eight lives
so if a simple checklist could save
lives
don’t you think i could find something
to make it my own checklist
so that we can reach equality overnight
so i created my own version of the
checklist
a day of the week when we all talk about
and create concrete
actions around gender equity until we
move the needle
once and for all we have the perfect
platform to implement this idea
because at the right to movement we do
leadership development
powered by a global community of women
and male
allies who support each other for career
success
so in 2012 we established wretched
tuesday
supported by seven principles we
launched an invitation for people to
wear red shoes
socks and accessories to work on that
day
so that we have a wave of red coming
into our organizations
and we normalize this conversation on
gender equity
every week so in other words 24 hours to
change the gender equity
reality so here’s how the magic works
as more and more associates walk into
your organization
show up with red accessories the top
brass has a tough time
not engaging with this conversation
and making sure that we all create
very concrete and effective ways to
solve
for gender equity so it’s a wave that
becomes contagious
and elicits such level of motivation on
both men and women
that it helps create this global leap of
consciousness
that is my dream and the secret is not
just that
retro tuesday is a fun enjoyable way to
engage on a topic that frequently makes
people uncomfortable
the secret is that it’s backed by seven
very common sensical principles
then when you implement them in your
organization
it really changes culture pretty quickly
and the principles are mentor younger or
less experienced women
offer opportunities to women who are
eager to learn
provide honest feedback to women in your
network and avoid
hurtful comments or unnecessary
criticism
cultivate the relationship with women on
your team
celebrate the accomplishments of women
publicly
refrain from bad-mouthing women and
avoid using labels that contribute to
stereotyping women
as simple as the seven principles are
they have the power to create culture
change when you implement them in an
organization
take patricia for example a real person
who in 2015 was a junior associate at
microsoft guatemala
a small country in a small region for a
global player like microsoft
from which it was hard to become known
by the higher-ups
and fulfill her ambitious career goals
she started following and teaching
wretched tuesday and the seven
principles first
to her own team in her own company then
traveling
to other central american countries
then fielding requests from microsoft
partners to come and talk to them about
it
and eventually to organizations that she
supported
outside of microsoft she developed
mutual mentoring relationships with her
colleagues
she started celebrating publicly
the accomplishments of other women she
seeked and got
very good feedback effective feedback
and found sponsors for herself
and very soon she was very well known in
the entire latin american region
whoever you ask about patricia they know
exactly who you’re talking about
but as inspiring as patricia’s story is
it’s by no means a one-off there are
many
many men and women who become
spontaneous ambassadors
and who are both originators of and part
of
this wave that has ripple effects on the
entire ecosystem
in other words a contagious movement
a completely different way of tackling
the gender equity issue at the highest
levels of decision making
companies like novartis pharma that
joined us
a few years ago with their latin america
and canada regions
have now expanded to europe middle east
africa
asia pacific etc and have become
themselves
inclusion leaders in the industry
because of the work they’re doing
not just internally but to impact their
entire ecosystem
being an active part of this pushing for
a global leap of consciousness
is what makes all the difference because
we all have an
active role to play in changing the
policies and procedures
that have fostered the current gender
inequalities
this is a joint movement one in which
men and women walk side by side when men
realize
how critical they are in making everyone
feel included in our organizations
and how much they have to gain by being
part of this process
so do you want to know what i said to
former mexico president fox
as response to his comments that day on
the stage
i said look it’s not that women need to
feel grateful
that men have taken the role of the
providers
when we reach gender equity men will be
able to stay home with their kids if
that’s what they want
or take time off to welcome a new family
member
even study art if that’s their dream
career
something they haven’t been able to do
because they have the
role of the provider without paying a
social
penalty as many are paying today because
when we
reach gender parity gender equity all of
us will be able to study whatever we
want
go as far as we want in our jobs and
play whatever role we want to play at
home
so whenever people ask me what day of
the week it is
i always say tuesday because i live
in an endless tuesday in a time
loop what would you do
will you join us and help us take this
leap of consciousness
to reach gender equity once and for all
thank you