Donnerstag, 28. Oktober 2010

Why I dislike woman's quota in flash mob management

Another woman took her seat in a DAX company's management board. That makes...two!
Therefore the number of women in highest management positions doubled since April this year. That's kind of positive, isn't it?;)

In Germany we are confronted with a variety of gender issues theese days. To my mind it's a very important thing to support women to occupy higher management positions. But is a politically enforced women's quota really necessary?

A McKinsey study pointed out, that "diverse companies" generate profits that are 48% above average. I just give you an -->!<-- for that and I can tell out of experience why is that. While my studies I often enjoyed working together with women. By the way: International Tourism Management is a course that would need a men's quota;) So working intergender-ly is often quite a lot more complicated. As a man it is hard to walk the narrow line between beeing polite and getting heard his opinion without getting accused to be a total jerk. But always I was astonished about the very good results..

I like to give my most challenging but successful projects as an example. Yes, I was accused to be a total bitch*haha We had to develop a new marketing idea and fastly we decided to investigate whether a flash mob could be a possible marketing tool or not. Our first result was: it couldn't. But then (1 day before presentation) one of the girls started arguing that of course it could be the case. My kind of male thinking was: "Stop it. We're finished. Let's add some nice pictures to the presentation and say that it wasn't possible". But this is not how it works for women.. So we discussed at first and screamed in the end;) But well, as a result we had this presentation at the ITB Tourism fair in Berlin about a new interesting product and generated a hugh media echo.

"We would like to develop a concept for a flash mob tour by taking advantage of the fact that flash mobs can be a form of travel. Core product remains a flah mob but we like to develop a touristic frame." Great stuff and the economy doesn't stop seeing flash mobs as a useful ad gag. Today I discovered the newest T-Mobile ad: http://www.tnooz.com/2010/10/27/news/flash-mob-at-london-heathrow-airport-social-media-fodder/

When working together with women brings so many advantages why shouldn't be there more of them in higher management positions?
I think that'll change in a few years. Here is my theory:

There is an Austrian study pointing out that women AND men in higher management positions not only acting in an androgynous way. They also look like that and therefore look-alike;) Some advertisment in the latest edition of Men's helth kept me thinking that there really is a change in society and how men more and more expressing well their female side:) Two examples


So following the saying birds of a feather flock together I think in the future it doesn't make any difference whether you're female or male. It's important to be androgynous;)

**Zusammenarbeit mit Frauen ist nicht immer leicht, aber meistens erfolgreich. Meine Theorie: Frauenquoten kommen längst zu spät weil mittlerweise ein gesellschaftlicher Wandel zumindest im Management eingesetzt hat; weg vom Geschlechterkampf hin zum androgynen Miteinander. Mal sehen, was das der Mode bringt**

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