Rosabeth Moss Kanter, HBS: The Interplay of Structure and Behavior: How System Dynamics Can Explain and Change Outcomes by Gender or Social Category
A video introduction was prepared for Kanter (a surprise) that involved a retrospective on her contributions, books, 1986 Tale of O, comments by Nitin Nohria [HBS Dean] speaking about the importance of her work, Herminia Ibarra praising Kanter's ability to conceptualize; come up with key points, common pattern, underlying idea that pulls it all together; Rakesh Khurana on her contributions to how can we create communities, groups, organizations that allow that feeling of connectedness, solidarity, and let individuals maintain their individuality, really cares about making society better; after video presentation, long hug with Ely near podium, “literally speechless”, unexpected honor of the video.
Important provocative research and designs this morning; got a little depressed though; how we think about the research we do so that we make sure to provide sufficient context to understand what the forces are that are propelling particular kinds of judgments, actions, behavior; only with that nuanced and complex understanding can you change those forces and judgments, actions, and behavior.
Our goal has to be not just about description, but about change; improvement of situations; disparities that are not maximizing people’s talent and freedom to live their own lives.
Very American to build a society in which distinctions we build between categories should not matter, everyone should have equal opportunity.
Lifelong quest: make things more complex rather than simpler; in research design, to get a “pure” effect we make things simpler, not the real world. Interacting forces that shape social patterns and make the outcomes in society what they are so we can think about changing them.
Quest to make sure that research in a field like this didn't make certain simplifying assumptions:
- One simplifying assumption: Blame the victim, people get what they deserve
- Another simplifying assumption: Blame the perpetrator, if they get out of the way, the problem will be gone
- Another simplifying assumption: Homogeneity of people in different societal categories (social categories are constructed; they can be deconstructed)
- Another simplifying assumption: Inevitability due to some immutable characteristic, such as biology is destiny (technology proving that biology isn’t destiny anymore), what “gender” is (NYT article about 12 gender categories acknowledged on certain college campuses because of the variety of choices people make)
Often there’s no clear cause and effect; that’s the nature of interacting forces. We can’t just talk about behavior and perceptions as separate phenomena, they are constantly reinforcing one another. We need to look at the dynamics of systems to understand how reinforcing elements are set into play to create momentum that shapes the likelihood of the next episode (not inevitable, but perhaps more likely), and once momentum occurs over longer and longer periods of time, it becomes harder to change, but once you understand, you can intervene and change.
That’s what leaders do; that’s what social forces do when they make change. The more forces and reinforcing elements involved, the harder the change can be to make. Laws, institutions, and systems that reinforce each other – seek compatibility – can serve as agents of change. Social movements might perturb and require adjustment; sufficient accumulation of deviations from tradition makes what was peripheral a new norm.
This style of thinking started in Men and Women in the Corporation to think about system momentum and change.
Accumulation of experiences in field work and data; at that time (when she started her study for Men and Women of the Corporation) the conventional wisdom was “it was women’s fault” – e.g., “women fear success,” “no one wants a woman boss,” “women don’t like other women,” “Queen Bee,” etc. – Kanter asked, what’s behind this? What would account for this, if there’s any truth to these behaviors, in the context? Looking at industrial corporations, how they came to be organized in American society and other advanced industrial societies; organizational forms that came to be rigid patterns that affected people’s use of their talents and life prospects; informal patterns can sometimes swamp formal patterns, need to understand that before we get change.
Sentence completion test: “If women ran the world…” predictable answer: guns (men) v. butter (women); Kanter's blithe response: then running the world would pay .77 on the dollar; more serious response: if women ran the world, the world would have already changed to make women run it
Looked at roles and structures that emerged in the industrial structure
Roles: (1) managers (those who'd risen to the top and ran things), (2) secretaries (those who worked for managers), and (3) wives (those who supported those managers careers).
There were mostly men managers, though there were some women managers; men managers were in the higher risk jobs, women managers in lower risk jobs -- why was that? In high risk job, you are trusting people to make open-ended decisions; how do people in power figure out who they’re going to trust a high-risk decision to? Well, they want people "like" them (look like them, have similar backgrounds and experiences); for people with credentials but who aren't "trusted," or don’t have all the credentials you want, you can put them in the routinized “administrative” positions of power, not the high stakes ones.
Scotch Irish Presbyterian had started the company, many SIPs in positions of leadership
As for wives, work and family separation so sharp, residential patterns in the industrial age reinforced that, the wife role helped reinforce this separation of spheres
Structures: Opportunity, power, and numbers
Opportunity the pattern by which people get to the next position, whether the doors open – who gets access to what become more likely pathways and ladders.
Power – the idea that someone could get something done because of the credibility they had with other people, power both upward (ability to pull up), peer credibility, what you could do for your subordinates; “women fear success” – no, never thought it was open to them; “don’t want woman boss” – no, wanted a boss with power who could take them somewhere; cycles of advantage and cycles of disadvantage; managers: homosocial reproduction, now called cloning; can count on someone to make decisions compatible with one’s interests; servitude in the secretary role – support system in the office was that people in those roles were likely to become praise addicted, give instructions and orders and “thanks a lot” – role itself shortens time horizon, makes it difficult to cross over into decision making roles; numbers: being rare in a group made it difficult to be effective in the job.
Today: 17% rule; she’d talked about model of 1/8; recent world economic forum demonstrated only 17% women across most public domains of influence -- Gina Davis – portrayals in Hollywood films is 17%, in lead roles 17%, because that’s what looks “normal” to people – why can’t they be equally represented in crowd scenes etc. (thank goodness for John Kerry, otherwise American children might think only women can be Secretary of State). Easy to perpetuate if we’re not conscious of these patterns and dynamics. Sports: two of the longest winning streaks were women’s college teams – Title IX.
These cycles can be broken!
Recommendations, what great researchers can do and focus on:
- Study interactions, don’t make studies mechanistic. Look for “then what happens? And what are the behavioral consequences of that?” study things over time, not snapshot in history, understand how things unfold over time.
- Think about skills in change management and how change occurs. People who enjoy privilege don’t give it up easily; that privilege often means having someone else they can be superior to; where have great leaders emerged who have tried to make changes occur? Deloitte CEO – hey wait a minute – made change.
- Reframe things as opportunities and provide alternative models. If you’re finding things that look like discrimination and a negative point of view, don’t stop there
- Understand how cultures get shaped, who the leaders are, what they do, and what’s behind them to make that happen.
Corporate world: all kinds of names for people “destined for success” – one of the phrases used for this is “water walker” – but “The problem with all those water walkers is that they forget there are stones holding them up as they walk across the water."
Goal should be to make change so we’re not bound by other people’s assumptions about who we are.
Women don’t fear success – if given equal opportunity! First woman provost at Chicago was asked “What changed?” in order for her, a woman, to become provost. She replied, “Being asked.”
Forces, technology make change (e.g., birth control pill) and leaders and an accumulation of small social enterprises, social movements, small deviations that add up.
Questions
Cecilia Ridgeway: big bedrock is household division of labor; what do we do about that?
Kanter: "What can we do to advance women’s leadership? The laundry."
Talent hungry companies in silicon valley are doing the laundry – sending housecleaners to employees’ homes, etc.; look at all the intersecting forces, where to push here, where to push there, not clear what any one thing will do but a multiplicity of different experiments and deviations can add up. If the partner doing the laundry never challenges that, social pattern will never change.
Occasional woman leader -- would Marx say: safety valve so that we’re not marching out on the streets?
"What do women CEOs and senators have in common? Not very much, as it should be."
We can be individuals and not be bound by social categories.
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