That's What She Said: What Men Need to Know (and Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together

by Joanne Lipman

Multiple studies have found that adding women to all-male teams leads to greater financial success.

The group bonhomie evaporated. There was discomfort all around. We naturally gravitate toward those like us, and bringing in an outsider threw off that easy dynamic. Alliances shifted; the “in” group members who agreed with the new outsider’s views felt as if their social ties to the rest of the group were strained. The group members as a whole suddenly felt more pressure to justify their answers. These groups had more difficulty solving the murder mystery. They were less confident about the result. The process wasn’t pleasant. And yet, as it turned out, these mixed groups nailed the correct perpetrator far more frequently than single-sex groups.

In the mixed group, every individual had to be at the top of his or her game, carefully justifying and explaining his or her beliefs. Researchers concluded that simply by adding in someone of a different gender, the groups became more thoughtful, worked harder

Psychologists have found that the more fervently you believe yourself to be fair—or generous, or caring—the less likely you are to act that way.

But the research also demonstrated the reverse: if we believe that everyone around us is trying hard to fight against those stereotypes and prejudices, we’ll do the same.

Finally, he encourages employees to call out bias when they see it, even if the culprit is their own boss.

At least 20 percent of companies in the U.S. now offer unconscious-bias training, from Roche Diagnostics to Royal Bank of Canada to consultants McKinsey & Company (“We do that big time,” says its CEO, Dominic Barton) to defense contractor BAE Systems.

Despite all of Google’s efforts, the one that made the most noticeable difference had nothing to do with bias training, or names of conference rooms, or Google Doodles of women. Instead, it came about as a result of a change in the company’s incentive system.

But the special sauce in creating these positions is transparency—not just making sure employees are aware of the company’s goals, but ensuring that they can see the results.