How to Get More Men to Take Gender Balance Seriously

The organizer of a big finance women’s conference was asking how to ensure that men attended. The head of diversity and inclusion at a large automotive company was trying to get a largely male leadership team to buy into his gender-balance strategy. The head of a legal sector association was trying to get the sector to gender-balance law-firm partnerships. How, they were all asking me, do they get men engaged, convinced and on board?

The short answer? Turn balance into a business issue run by leaders. After 15 years working with mostly male executive teams and CEOs around the world and across sectors and cultures, I learned three simple steps to engaging men in building better gender balance.

1. Don’t call them ‘champions’

A lot of women’s networks and women’s conferences are trying to bring men into the debate by awarding them congratulatory titles and awards. This is understandable, since women are increasingly impatient with the idea that “fixing sexism is women’s work .”

The trouble with dubbing men “champions” and “allies” is that it puts women in the rather traditional role of rewarding good male behavior with female admiration and applause. Rather than making male support for gender balance the exception, the goal is to make it the norm. McKinsey research has shown that gender-balanced companies are twice as likely to have had senior leadership commitment with balance as a business priority.

1. Make it a business issue, not a diversity dimension

Leaders are often tempted to argue gender balance as a moral imperative. But in the corporate setting, if you want to get a broad base of support for balance from men, the business case is a more effective frame.

Companies whose balancing initiatives involve men are more than three times more effective than those focusing only on women. But male managers take balance seriously only if their bosses do. This simple truth of hierarchical human organizations is the core of any change. Top teams need time to align and become skilled at pitching why gender balance is a business imperative.

1. Make balance a management skill, and measure it

The final step is to make balance personal, measurable and accountable. The tipping point? When managers know they will be recognized and rewarded for building balanced teams.

How to prepare managers for balance? Make it a business skill. Educate everyone in gender differences, the way international companies have trained managers in cultural differences. Make men and women more knowledgeable and comfortable about working across these differences. Build awareness of the masculine defaults and data that often underlie corporate systems and models — in everything from marketing and product development to recruiting and research . Ensure that managers are skilled before you make them accountable, otherwise you get only backlash, frustration or both.

Engaging men isn’t about making women become ever more congratulatory about men who “get it.” Persuading men to embrace balance requires leaders skilled at making the link between balance and business. When they buy it, and are skilled at selling it, everyone gets on board.

Copyright 2019 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.