Why self-organising workplaces could solve gender inequality

Why is it so hard to solve the Women in Tech “problem”?

I met a new friend recently. She works with an ex-colleague of mine who connected the two of us. I’ll call her Sophie.

Sophie was asking me about my experiences as a Woman In Tech. After half an hour of me regaling her with lurid tales from the trenches we got onto the topic of representation and role models. Sophie told me that recently her employers had appointed several men into senior positions and that it was distressing to think that an opportunity had been lost to maintain what had otherwise been quite a gender-balanced work environment.

We started to talk about all the old ways of “fixing” the problem of a lack of women in senior positions. My mind was rolling down the same old rut about positive discrimination and how it “feels wrong but may be necessary” when I stopped dead in my tracks. It hit me very clearly. The problem is not the people. It’s the structure.

I’m going to back up a moment and share some context.

Over the last year or so I’ve been exploring the principles and practices of self-organising teams and supporting them in our company. I’ve been participating in and co-organising the Reinventing Work — Bristol meetup group. But up until now I hadn’t clocked that what I had learned in this time could give us a completely new way to characterise the “problem” of Women in Tech. And, maybe, offer a new range of solutions.

Are we solving the right problem?

How we are currently characterising the problem is totally determining how we are trying to fix it.

We see the issues as being:

1. Not enough women in tech
2. Not enough women in technical roles
3. Not enough women in senior positions
4. Gender pay gap

So we are trying to make the following happen:

1. More women in tech
2. More women in technical roles
3. More women in senior positions
4. Pay women the same as men

But what I realised is that the problem is more nuanced. Let’s think about why we want these changes:

1. Not enough women in tech — could be restated as
   There isn’t enough diversity in the work environment, it’s hostile to anything but masculine behaviour. We all suffer from these environments because we all need to be able to work without fear of attack.
2. Not enough women in technical roles — could be restated as
   The stereotypes of technical roles forming a masculine domain create barriers to women to enter this space. A lack of diversity of work practices and thinking creates brittleness in design of products and services, and a lack of productivity.
3. Not enough women in senior positions — could be restated as
   There are no role models for junior women, there is too little diversity in decision making.
4. Gender pay gap
   No-one can tell where women are being underpaid and so it continues. The process of pay setting relies on adversarial negotiation techniques where women may not get good outcomes.

Alternative solutions

The way most companies work is very traditional. It’s predicated on an org chart and positional power. Someone is in charge and the commands trickle down. There is a scarcity mindset in this structure. We think of a woman and a man competing for a role and it all gets a bit tense.

But pause for a moment — there are other ways of working. Ways that sidestep this whole situation.

There is a growing movement of organisations that have developed or transitioned into a less hierarchical, more decentralised way of working. In these organisations, decision-making power is distributed e.g. Gini Handbook — How we make decisions (PDF). Individuals may take on a mix of roles and these roles may change periodically. There is a much higher level of information transparency across the organisation that supports parity and decision making ability.

So how could we address the restated problems using decentralised working practices?

1. There isn’t enough diversity in the work environment, it’s hostile to anything but masculine behaviour. We all suffer from these environments because we all need to be able to work without fear of attack.

Decentralised working encourages collaborative working above competitive working. Anyone can get involved in any conversation. This means there is far less positional power and some decentralised decision-making techniques (e.g. the Advice process) are based on the premise that anyone can initiate and make the decision.

In most decentralised orgs there is a big focus on ensuring psychological safety and encouraging conflicts to be sensed and aired in a professional manner. Because identity and status are not tied into roles any more there is less interpersonal conflict and it tends to become centred on conflict of ideas which are easier to resolve without fear.

All this goes to create a flatter structure, less power imbalance, greater autonomy and more collaboration. It’s more diverse and inclusive by nature.

2. The stereotypes of technical roles forming a masculine domain create barriers to women to enter this space. A lack of diversity of work practices and thinking creates brittleness in design of products and services, and a lack of productivity.

As before, the less dogmatic and less permanent role boundaries in self-organising teams means that there is the opportunity for greater mixing and gradual progression between roles. The shared experience of decision making across the organisation also helps to break down silos and build better relationships between the individuals in the team.

Adopting these different working habits creates better connections and dynamics between technical and non-technical staff. This diffuses the closed-in nature of technical teams which many find so off putting.

3. There are no role models for junior women, there is too little diversity in decision making.

With decentralised decision making and more collaboration it’s much easier to see women in all roles becoming involved. The reduction in positional power means that there is far greater autonomy for all the people who could have previously been in “low grade” jobs.

4. No-one can tell where women are being underpaid and so it continues. The process of pay setting relies on adversarial negotiation techniques where women may not get good outcomes.

Many decentralised orgs have transparent salaries. This helps prevent gender pay gap arising and makes it plain where it exists and therefore it will be addressed by the group, who will sense the injustice on that person’s behalf and collaboratively make reparations wherever possible.

The problem isn’t your people

There’s a lot going on with decentralised orgs at the moment, and I highly recommend learning more about this by reading the book Brave New Work.

The problem isn’t your leaders. It’s not your people. It’s not your strategy or even your business model. It’s your Operating System. Get the OS right and your organization will run itself.

Dignan, Aaron. Brave New Work (p. 57). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.

I wonder whether, by picking a different organisational Operating System we would see a lot of these issues with Women in Tech just dissolve away.