Dear Anna,

I work in a team that’s reasonably balanced in terms of men and women but our meetings have always been quite male-dominated. Our (male) manager doesn’t seem to notice the balance of who gets airtime so things are getting worse. I’d normally keep my head down but a lot of the space is taken up with stuff that’s being said in order to be seen to comment rather than actually progressing things, so it feels like such a waste of everyone’s time. These meetings are a rare occasion we are with our boss so they can be really important for how we’re all seen and recognised for what we do in the business. I know I’m not the only woman in the room that sees this as a big issue, but what can we do?

Anon

Dear Anon,

Thanks for asking this question – it’s a really tricky area as it’s not always one that’s about gender. That said, a lot of workplaces are unrepresentative of the world around them and so their structures as well as cultures often default to reflect those in charge. You only need to look at the woeful statistic that currently only 33 women are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies (a measly 6.6%) to recognise it is a big issue. Additionally, that tiny number dwindles to almost nothing when you look for women of colour in leadership roles (at the time of writing it’s one, equalling 0.2%).

Let’s set gender aside for a minute though, and think about the foundational level of what’s going on here. I was on a coaching training course when I had my mind blown by our facilitator asking us to think about how most conversations work. She pointed out that most conversations are two people waiting for a gap to say the next thing they want to get across. I’m sure you can remember many conversations where you were explaining something and the other person leapt in and said something along the lines of “oh yeah, that happened to me when….” and took the conversation in a direction that was focused on their narrative.

In coaching practice – and more broadly in any good team context – you need to engage in active listening. Active listening is vital in the workplace because it helps you get the fullest picture of whatever is in play. It involves you actively working to draw out details that might not otherwise be shared, but could be vital to understanding, progress and ultimately, success. To listen actively there’s a few key steps to follow, and the good news they’re all really straightforward, despite them being largely overlooked in your experience of team meetings.

Active listening means you’re focused, attentive and present. You maintain eye contact where possible, try to visualise what the person is saying and keep an open mind. Never interrupt and try to impose your own solution. When you ask questions, it is when the speaker has paused and it is to clarify and understand, not to hijack the direction of thought. It’s also really useful to try and pay attention to what isn’t said – nonverbal clues can tell you so much about what’s really going on, if you can tune into these they’ll be your superpower. Finally, it’s good to try and paraphrase or summarise what you’ve just heard from the person speaking so that you’re both clear you’ve heard things accurately and you’re aligned. Try this one to one and you’ll find it really hard (which shows how little we do it day to day) but massively enlightening. When you take it up to a group level it can be even more powerful.

But it sounds like in this instance you’re going to need more than your own powers here, because there’s a cultural dynamic set that means you alone engaging in active listening won’t be enough. I’d say first of all your leader needs some encouragement to focus more on inclusive leadership. They need to be actively soliciting opinions from right across the room and the breadth of experience in that meeting, otherwise what’s the point of having you all there? They need to make space for the quietest person as well as the confident ones – otherwise they’re not getting the best out of their team. They’ll also find that if they don’t tackle this quickly a lack of action will be seen as modelling an acceptable behaviour and I bet more folks in the room start taking up this tactic – before long the meeting will be an unmanageable mess of people pushing for airtime to get recognised by the boss. He’ll be mired in performative posturing and won’t be able to progress with his team, which is not what anyone wants.

Depending on how successful you are at giving that feedback, you might need to employ other strategies. The key one that comes to mind reading between the lines of your question is, for me, a heady mix of dynamic adaptation and depressing actuality. It’s brilliant because it’s effective, it’s depressing because it has to be done in the first place.

The strategy was featured in an article by Juliet Eilperin in The Washington Post and it was about women working in the White House during Obama’s first term. Despite their workplace being the most diverse the White House had been for, well, ever, the women were, at best, struggling to find their chance to contribute constructively to meetings and policies. At best they were having their ideas talked over, and at worst the credit for those ideas was nabbed by colleagues in the room.

So they adopted a practice they called ‘amplification’. As Eilperin describes it, “when a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognise the contribution – and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own.” As a result women were seen and heard for their contribution and were called on more during meetings by Obama and other leadership figures. I think it’s no coincidence that following this shift, in Obama’s second term, there were an equal number of women in Obama’s inner circle as there were men.

The White House example is a good one because it’s also about proximity to power – you’re not going to get a more impactful result if you get your great idea heard by the President. Though the stakes aren’t likely the same, I think that’s what’s happening in your meetings. When you have really limited interactions with a senior figure who, ultimately, decides things like what success looks like and whether you get a promotion, the potential for those instances to become about positioning and power rather than genuine teamwork and progress is high.

If you can help encourage an atmosphere of active listening and inclusive behaviour by finding a cohort of colleagues that can help model that in meetings you won’t need to resort to strategies like amplification. But sometimes a secret weapon is needed in the battle for real balance, so tool up knowing you’re ultimately fighting for a better culture for everyone.

Anna

Anna Higgs is Head of Entertainment at Facebook. If you have a question for Anna, please send your problem via Twitter or Facebook, or if you would prefer to email, send it to [email protected]