The task force set about fixing these problems by conducting a series
of workshops—attended by more than five thousand people in groups
of 24—to talk about gender issues in the workplace. As a way for them
to identify common assumptions made about women in the workplace,
the teams were given scenarios to discuss. For example, in one, a man
and a woman both came late to a meeting. Although the team members
ignored the man’s tardiness, they automatically assumed that the
14
W O M E N D O N ’ T A S K
woman was having child-care problems. In discussing the impact of
this discrepancy in their responses, the team members realized that as-
sumptions like this can negatively influence how a woman is evaluated.
This led them to look more closely at how men and women at the firm
were evaluated, and they discovered that men were typically evaluated
on their “potential” while women were more commonly evaluated on
their performance. The net result was that men were being promoted
much faster than women. Other common practices looked at by the
teams included a firmwide tendency to give men and women different
work assignments (which make a big difference in who advances) based
on unexamined and often unfounded assumptions. These included as-
suming that women wouldn’t be comfortable in manufacturing environ-
ments or that women wouldn’t want to travel too much—the latter a
particularly career-damaging assumption at a company that relies heav-
ily on travel to serve its clients.
Once people at Deloitte and Touche started looking at their assump-
tions about men and women, they began to see the implications of their
beliefs—and how they made the atmosphere at the firm inhospitable to
women and limited their advancement. The next step was to make
changes. Prompted by the task force, all the firm’s offices were required
to produce annual reviews documenting how well women were pro-
gressing through their portion of the organization. They were also re-
quired to track the number of women recruited and retained by each
office, and these numbers were widely circulated across offices. This
basic accountability changed the way assignments were made and eval-
uations determined. Individual offices also started networking events
and career-planning programs especially for women. Firmwide, the re-
quirements for travel were changed, lessening the time that everyone—
both men and women—was expected to be away from the office. The
company also advertised that taking advantage of flexible work arrange-
ments wouldn’t hinder one’s professional advancement within the
organization. This dramatically increased the use of these programs by
men as well as women.
By the year 2000, the number of female partners at Deloitte and
Touche had almost tripled, from 5 to 14 percent—a huge gain in nine
years. The firm had also eliminated the gender gap in turnover (now
about 18 percent annually for both men and women), and saved close
to $250 million in hiring and training costs. Particularly heartening
about this story is the evidence that the changes at Deloitte and Touche
benefited both men and women—women because they could stay at
15
I N T R O D U C T I O N
the company, enjoy working there more, and advance at a better pace,
and men because they too could take advantage of flexible work ar-
rangements, reduced travel loads, and a more supportive work environ-
ment without negative repercussions. And the bottom line is that rather
than costing money, the company actually saved millions of dollars—
and stopped hemorrhaging talented people.25 Building on this success,
the company is pushing toward even more ambitious goals by 2005.
The experience of this one far-sighted company provides a wonderful
model for how the rest of us, with a little commitment and persistent
focus, can change our world. Gender equality, with the benefits it can
bring to all of us, our sons as well as our daughters, will not be attainable
unless our society has the courage, the resolve, and—perhaps most im-
portant—the information and the insight to make across-the-board
changes. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter ex-
plains it this way:
Individual trickle-up is not enough. . . . The whole social system
must be changed if women in general, not just a hardy, pioneering
few, are to gain economic power. The apparent openness of American
society to the overachiever from an underprivileged minority group
who can pull herself up by the pantyhose and succeed makes it too
easy to assume that the problems and solutions are all individual
ones. It makes it easy for those in power to point to the token over-
achiever as an example.26
In other words, just because a few women manage to succeed despite
the impediments our society erects in their paths doesn’t mean that
these impediments don’t exist or that there’s no problem. Kanter also
says that “a vision of what is possible, a source of hope and inspiration,
is the necessary ingredient for energizing change.”27 We hope that this
book, by shining a spotlight on the barriers that prevent women from
asking for what they want—and suggesting ways for those barriers to be
removed—will play a part in providing that vision of what is possible.
16
1
Opportunity Doesn’t Always Knock
Heather, 34, was the pastor at a struggling urban church in the
Boston area. Heather was also an officer of her denomination’s
local association council—a group of pastors from around the region
that ordains ministers, reviews clergy on disciplinary charges, and helps
churches find pastors. At a meeting of the council, another pastor, a
man, asked the council to extend the support it had been giving him
for the past three years. Heather was unfamiliar with this man’s situation
and sat up to listen. It turned out that this male pastor had worked for
many years at a prosperous Back Bay parish, where he’d been paid a
generous salary. Three years before the meeting Heather attended, he’d
decided to move to a poor urban parish that was struggling to revive
itself. He hadn’t wanted to give up the salary he’d made at the rich
downtown church, so he’d asked the council to supplement his in-
come—to make up the difference between what he’d been making in
the wealthy parish and what he would be paid at his new church. The
council controlled a small discretionary fund—a fund very few people
knew about—and had agreed to supplement the male pastor’s income
from this fund for three years. Now those three years were coming to
an end, and he was asking the council to renew the subsidy.
Once Heather understood what was happening, she also realized that
the impoverished church this man served was comparable in most re-
spects to her church—and the salary he wanted supplemented was sim-
ilar to the one on which she’d been struggling to support her four chil-
dren for seven
years.
17
C H A P T E R 1
Heather’s response revealed a kind of fatalistic dismay:
This fund—I never knew of its existence. I mean, I was on the Associ-
ation Council! . . . It had never been publicized. . . . There had never
been any discussion about it in any meeting, there had never been
any sort of sense that his time with it was up now, so that it was time
for other churches to apply. . . . There is no application procedure;
it’s not like it’s a grant that you can apply to get or something. It was
really a matter of this guy being able to somehow finagle this.
Heather’s experience perfectly captures one of the major barriers pre-
venting women from asking for what they need more of the time: Their
perception that their circumstances are more fixed and absolute—less
negotiable—than they really are. It also highlights the assumption made
by many women that someone or something else is in control. This
assumption—the result of powerful social influences that go to work
the day a woman is born—has a broad impact on women’s behavior.
Instead of looking for ways to improve a difficult situation, women
often assume that they are “stuck” with their circumstances. Instead of
publicizing their accomplishments, they hope that hard work alone will
earn them the recognition and rewards they deserve. Instead of express-
ing interest in new opportunities as they arise, they bide their time,
assuming that they will be invited to participate if their participation is
wanted. They think any allowable divergences from the status quo will
be announced and offered to everyone. Women expect life to be fair,
and despite often dramatic evidence to the contrary, many of them per-
sist in believing that it will be.
Stephanie, 32, an administrative assistant, illustrates how this belief
can play out in a woman’s life. Stephanie told us that she tends to think
that “things will just happen and if they don’t there’s a reason why they
don’t.” Because of this attitude, she was unhappy with certain aspects
of her job for some time but never approached her supervisor to see if
changes could be made. Finally, Stephanie received another job offer.
When she announced that she was leaving, her supervisor asked what
it would take to keep her. After her supervisor made every change Ste-
phanie wanted, Stephanie decided to stay. When we asked why she
hadn’t told her supervisor sooner what was bothering her, Stephanie
said, “I tend to think people are pretty fair, so maybe I’m too trusting
and expect that I’m getting what I deserve in that I work really hard.”
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O P P O R T U N I T Y D O E S N ’ T A L W A Y S K N O C K
This chapter looks at this barrier and its origins—why it is that many
women assume that they must wait to be given the things they want or
need and don’t realize more of the time that opportunity doesn’t always
knock.
Turnip or Oyster?
If people’s beliefs about the opportunities in life lie along a spectrum,
at one end would be the view that “you can’t get blood from a turnip.”
People holding this outlook believe that “what you see is what you get”
and most situations cannot be changed. They may also assume, like
Heather, that if a situation could be changed, this fact would be adver-
tised to all. At the other end of the spectrum is the view that “the world
is your oyster.” People with this outlook believe that life is full of oppor-
tunities, most situations are flexible, rules are made to be broken, and
much can be gained by asking for what you want.
Linda and several colleagues decided to systematically investigate
whether men and women differ in their positions along this “turnip to
oyster” spectrum. To do so, they developed a scale that measures the
degree to which a person recognizes opportunities to negotiate and sees
negotiation as critical for realizing those opportunities.1 Scales are re-
search tools that have been used for many years to measure behavioral
and perceptual differences across people. Perhaps the most famous is
the Myers-Briggs scale, which maps an individual’s personality profile
according to where he or she scores on four related scales (extro-
verted—introverted, sensing—intuitive, thinking—feeling, judging—
perceiving). Other scales capture individual differences in beliefs, per-
ceptions, and behavioral tendencies. Not all of these differences are in-
nate or biological, of course. Psychologists believe that behavior is heav-
ily influenced by the situations in which people find themselves—a
person may drink more at a party where other people are drinking than
he or she would drink if alone, for example. Nonetheless, some stable
traits and attitudes do lead to differences in the ways people behave.
Scales are used to try to identify those traits and attitudes. People who
are rated high on a “shyness” scale, for example, have been shown to
talk less and engage in less frequent eye contact than people who rate
low on that scale.
19
C H A P T E R 1
Unlike some of Linda’s earlier studies, which measured the frequency
with which respondents took the lead in starting negotiations, this “rec-
ognition of opportunity” or “turnip-to-oyster” scale measured peoples’
how it worked: As part of the web survey described in the introduction,
Linda and her colleagues presented respondents with a series of state-
ments such as:
• I think a person has to ask for what he or she wants rather than
wait for someone to provide it.
• There are many things available to people, if only people ask for
them.
• Many interactions I have during the day can be opportunities to
improve my situation.
The survey asked respondents to rate along a seven-point scale the
extent to which they agreed or disagreed with each statement. Low
scorers would be people who see little benefit to asking for what they
want because they perceive their environment as unchangeable (these
would be the “turnip” people). High scorers would be people who see
most situations as adaptable to their needs and regularly look for ways
to improve their circumstances (the “oyster” folks).
Confirming our expectations, women were 45 percent more likely
than men to score low on this scale, indicating that women are much
less likely than men to see the benefits and importance of asking for
what they want. Even more telling, we found that a difference of as little
as 10 percent on this scale—that is, a score that was only 10 percent
higher—translated into about 30 percent more attempts to negotiate
(as demonstrated by another part of the survey). The strong correlation
between high scores and a much greater tendency to try to negotiate
confirmed our hunch that “oyster” people ask for what they want much
more often than “turnip” folks—and that many more men than women
are “oysters.” Since men are more likely than women to believe opportu-
nities can be “had for the asking,” or at least that change may be possi-
ble, is it any wonder that they’re more likely to speak up and let people
know what they want?
During our interviews, we found women recounting story after story
of not realizing what could be changed by asking—a problem that can
arise early and persist well into old age. Amanda, 23, a management
consultant, seems to be a very self-possessed and confident young
woman. Interested in math and science, she studied engineering in col-
20
O P P O R T U N I T Y D O E S N ’ T A L W A Y S K N O C K
lege and was offered an excellent consulting job as soon as she gradu-
ated. By her own description, she has always been less like her mother
and more like her father, who taught her to be focused and direct, and
to go after what she wants. She said of herself “I don’t like nonaction.”
Nonetheless, as a child she assumed that her parents wouldn’t let her
do all sorts of things—such as going away to camp, or taking trips with
friends—that they permitted her younger brother to do. She isn’t sure
why she made these assumptions, and when as an adult she asked her
parents about the different things that they allowed her brother to do,
they were surprised. “You never asked us,” they said, adding that it
would have been fine with them for her to do the things she mentioned.
Kay, 41, a jeweler in Colorado, had worked for many months on a
project creating minutely accurate reproductions of ornate antique jew-
eled boxes. For a year and a half, she and the other jewelers on the
project had maintained a schedule that she describes as “insane, inhu-
mane,” working nights and weekends without any kind of a break. The
pressure was straining Kay’s relationship with her partner and her
health was suffering. Finally, exhausted, she approached her boss and
said she couldn’t work nights and weekends anymore. She expected
“all kinds of groaning and grumbling,” but her boss agreed without a
fuss. “I just came in one day and said that, and that was the way it was
from then on,” she told us.
Renata, 53, a vice president of a cosmetics company, collects art.
Once, when she first began collecting, she fell in love with a piece by a