News & Knowledge

Australians who received with joy and satisfaction the news that same-sex marriage is now legal in our country must have been outraged by a disconcerting legal battle that is taking place in the USA.

At about the same time that the Australian parliament was putting the finishing touches to the law allowing gay marriage, the US Supreme Court was hearing a case between a gay couple and a baker who had refused to bake a cake for their wedding.

In July, 2012 Charlie Craig and Dave Mullins entered the Masterpiece Cake Shop in Colorado. They were met with a riposte from the owner Jack Phillips who said “Guys , I don’t make cakes for same-sex weddings” .Later Phillips explained that although he was prepared to serve gay people as individuals his beliefs as a Christian would not permit him to bake a cake which would by implication mean approving of a form of marriage which his religion considered to be objectionable.

The baker, Phillips, was held to have discriminated against the couple by the Colorado Supreme Court. However not content, he appealed to the Supreme Court. Here he argued that compelling him to provide a cake for a same sex marriage would violate his constitutional rights to freedom of religion as well as the right to freedom of expression. This second line of argument was based on the contention that producing a wedding cake is an artistic expression like a sculpture which Phillips was entitled to dispense at his will. A decision is awaited.

It appears from reports that the American populace as well as the Supreme Court is divided on ideological lines in this matter. While it is not unusual in the USA for social issues to find their way into the courts, it would be unfortunate and painful for the gay community if that were to be repeated in this country. One can only hope that for Australians the rancour and divisiveness which led up to the plebiscite and which was extended into the parliamentary debate will not be manifested in continued acts of exclusion and vilification of members of the gay community.

The Australian statute permits ministers of religion to refuse to solemnise same sex marriage if it is against their principles and indeed this is the only additional protection which is really required. A trader offering goods for sale to the public should not be entitled to refuse to sell to parties engaging in a perfectly lawful activity- which is exactly what a same-sex marriage now is.

We at Symmetra understand that simply passing a law will not automatically change the hearts and minds of those who are not only implacably opposed to same-sex marriage but  who would  also deny the rights of respect and dignity to members of the LGBTI community which they should be able to expect as matter of course.

Legalising same-sex marriage is a huge step forward but there is still work to be done before discrimination against our gay community is truly a thing of the past

Businesses today have to deal with ambiguous and complex challenges which increasingly rely on harnessing of a range of skills and a reliance upon interdisciplinary perspectives.

Examples are legion. Nanotechnology achieves its spectacular breakthroughs by drawing upon the skills of physicists, biologists and chemists. Disease control efforts bring together public health officials, behavioural scientists and epidemiologists.

Complex issues can rarely be solved by a single expert working alone, no matter how smart he or she is and indeed the same limitation applies to homogeneous teams trained in a single discipline.

Getting beyond this overarching obstacle requires some form of collaboration with people or groups who have different skills. Collaboration is the conscious and deliberate integration of skills, experience and expertise from different individuals and groups who each have something distinct or unique to contribute. Collaboration frequently requires an interaction with individuals who operate in spheres which are separated by one or other kind of boundary. Such boundaries may be geographical, legal, cultural, linguistic, operational or knowledge-based.

“Boundary spanning” – the act of linking individuals and teams across these borders – presents difficulties, because individuals and inward- focussed groups are not naturally attuned to address problems by broadening the scope of their investigations or by inviting contributions from people whose skills they are unfamiliar with. There is also a natural tendency towards increased specialisation to deal with the complexity of the current marketplace, which leads to increased siloing of organisations. These silos eventually encompass self-contained units, between which knowledge does not easily pass.

Management theory and research make it clear that individuals and teams tend to favour the safer exploitation or extension of current knowledge rather than embarking upon an exploration of entirely new areas of knowledge. Learning new things comes at a significant cost in time and effort and engaging with other individuals and teams involves risk and uncertainty. A number of strategies can be employed to facilitate cross-boundary spanning and Symmetra’s experience in helping organisations build inclusive cultures to leverage diversity of thought provides valuable insight that inform some of the issues and mechanics of cross-boundary teaming.

Diverse attributes can be either visible – including such characteristics as race, gender, age and ethnicity – or they may reflect a deeper underlying diversity based upon educational background, work-style, cultural perspectives or modes of thinking. The latter category of diversity can be encapsulated under the mantra of “knowledge diversity”. Leveraging knowledge diversity has become a primary feature of driving innovation and securing competitive advantage for businesses. Diverse knowledge may be located within specific teams or may be spread across a number of teams separated from each other and working independently, often in ignorance of what colleagues are doing and lacking the benefits that cross-pollination of boundary-spanning can bring.

In many ways, the skills required to span boundaries formed by visible diversity are the same skills required to span functional and organisational boundaries. Having a curious mindset which values differences, the capability to adapt to different ways of thinking and working, and the know-how to create environment of psychological safety, are crucial in both cases.

Symmetra has been working over several years with domestic organisations in the Asia Pacific as well as with global organisations spread geographically to imbed an inclusive culture throughout internal teams and across boundaries. Our model and definition of inclusion includes boundary spanning as a pivotal component, as it is one of the key indicators of a leader’s skills to create inclusion in their team as well as deliver innovative outcomes by leveraging diverse perspectives.

Through extensive data gathered via our dedicated inclusion-measuring tools, Symmetra is able to pin-point some of the critical areas which constitute challenges for leveraging diversity and which could stand in the way of successful boundary-spanning efforts.

To hear more about boundary-spanning join us at our next Symmetra Connect Session: Bridges, Tunnels and Pole Vaults on 29 August: 

Australia (as well as other countries in the Asia- Pacific region) could potentially reap massive economic benefits by 2025 if it takes accelerated steps towards gender parity. This is the conclusion drawn from the just- released report by McKinsey Global Institute—ThePower of Parity: Advancing Women’s Equality in Asia Pacific

The report calculates that the region by “advancing women’s equality could add $4.5 trillion to their collective annual GDP by 2025, a 12 percent increase over the business as usual trajectory.“ Australia, it is projected, could increase its GDP by $225 billion (at today’s rate equivalent to AUD 297 billion) which in percentage terms makes it one of the biggest potential beneficiaries in the region to advance gender equality.

The three main economic levers for achieving this very significant extra growth, according to the researchers, are: increasing women’s labour force participation rate, increasing the number of hours women work and raising women’s productivity relative to men’s by adding more women in higher paid sectors.

Fundamental to the report is the premise that equality in the workplace cannot be achieved without equality in society. Accordingly, metrics across a range of societal and economic dimensions form the basis of the report’s calculations.

The report is particularly relevant to Australia because it is one of seven countries that has a specific section dedicated to it. In many areas (such as maternal mortality and education levels) but not all, Australia is a leader in the region regarding the advancement of women. Nevertheless, even in some of the areas where it leads, notably gender equality at work, there is much ground to cover before the full potential of the country’s women can be realised. On the global scale, Australia is lagging the best, but the report notes that Australia has the opportunity to be a leader if the appropriate steps are taken.

Symmetra will be covering the MGI POWER OF PARITY report more extensively in its soon-to-be-released Symmetra Quarterly together with many other D & I issues of interest.

This is available for FREE. Should you wish to receive the Symmetra Quarterly, please click here to subscribe.

The revelation that Dyson Heydon, a former judge of the High Court of Australia had been a serial sexual harasser and that female judges and associates at the Court had been amongst his victims is shocking, but not really surprising. The accounts given by the female victims reveal a startling degree of recklessness on the part of the judge and a callous indifference to the emotional damage and professional disruption caused. The incidents remained buried for years because of the power and authority of the perpetrator.

The stories recounted by Heydon’s targets are symptomatic  of what is known to be a perennial problem in the legal profession not only in Australia but globally.

The International Bar Association report released in 2019 records the following salient statistics:

• 1 in 3 females and 1 in 14 males in the legal profession have been sexually harassed
• Targets do not report in 75% of cases
• 32% of sexual harassment victims consider leaving the profession

The report points to the features which make the legal profession particularly susceptible to bullying and sexual harassment:

• male-dominated
• hierarchical power structure
• lower level employees dependent on superiors for advancement
• power highly concentrated in one person
• targets not reporting for fear of repercussions
• Policies do not deter unacceptable behaviour

What is apparent from these shameful episodes at the apex of Australia’s legal profession is that until there is a comprehensive and systematic endeavour to create respectful and inclusive workplaces, we will not see any reduction in the unacceptably high rate of sexual harassment.

So what do we need to do to create such a culture?

We need to build leadership capability in the legal profession to role model inclusive behaviour. We need to make it clear that all forms of sexual harassment, from mild, more subtle forms right through to serious sexual misconduct ALL contribute to a disrespectful, unsafe and unfair culture. We need to set expectations that leaders be inclusive and:

• Actively and visibly speak out about sexual harassment when it occurs
• Call sexual harassment out as a problem (saying nothing is not good enough)
• Apply real consequences
• Provide real protection for people to prevent victimisation and retaliation
• Approach training that embraces men as part of the solution to the problem, rather than treating them as “perpetrators in waiting”.

And at the same time as all of this, we need to even out the power imbalances between men and women – because at its core sexual harassment is about unequal power relations at work and in society at large.

The fact of the matter is that Diversity and Inclusion efforts, gender equity initiatives and efforts to combat sexual harassment should not run disparate paths in organisations. They should converge, collaborate and work together to achieve the common goal of creating respectful, fair and inclusive workplaces.

The long-awaited report of the Australian Human Rights Commission into workplace sexual harassment has just been released. It marks a paradigm shift in the way combatting sexual harassment should be addressed and in many ways is a world first.

In essence, it posits that employers should owe a legal duty of care to all employees to ensure as far as possible that the workplace is free of sexist behaviour, harassment and physical assaults.

Highlights amongst the recommendations include: amending the Sex Discrimination Act to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, harassment and victimisation; granting unions and other representative bodies the right to bring representative sexual harassment cases; giving the  AHRC investigative powers; creating a “stop sexual harassment order” similar to the “stop bullying order” under the Fair Work Act .

This approach is consistent with the one Symmetra has been advocating for workplace harassment prevention some time and is aligned with Symmetra’s harassment and bullying training program that emphasises improving workplace inclusion, promoting a speak-up culture and motivating and empowering bystanders as the best way to address this blight on our workplaces.

Gillette’s latest video advertising campaign for its men’s razors with the title: “We believe: The best men can be …” has evoked howls of outrage in some quarters for being a demonisation of the male gender as intrinsically bad and incapable of refraining from intolerable behaviour. It is suggested that the video is simply an all-out and totally unjustified attack on masculinity and a negation of positive male attributes such as self-reliance, assertiveness and stoicism.

The video depicts instances of unrestrained toxic male aggressiveness and offensive behaviour and effectively calls upon responsible men to reject this type of behaviour openly and unequivocally. They cannot excuse or condone it or as the narrator says: “men can no longer hide from bullying or sexual harassment.”

Release of the video prompted a huge amount of online interest with most people taking a strong view either in support or against. A number voiced strident opposition to either the fact that Gillette had chosen to wade into the swirling #MeToo debate at all and others opined that the tenor of the video was implacably hostile to the male gender as a whole. Some well-known personalities such as broadcaster Piers Morgan and actor James Woods were incensed to the point where they said they would stop using Gillette products.

The Gillete advert generated the further criticism that the manufacturer was guilty of taking an opportunistic ride on the wave of anger flowing out of the #MeToo movement and this was a cynical attempt to stir a public debate.

In our view, Gillette is to be commended for taking the undoubtedly risky step of linking its product with a stated position on a highly controversial but undeniably important issue which needs to be confronted by both genders. Most marketing and advertising campaigns have up until now, studiously avoided contentious social issues . In so doing they have presented hopelessly idealised and artificial images of genders and the way they behave. When they have touched on issues pertaining to gender, race age and sexual orientation this has often been accidental and occasioned by importing unconscious biases into advertising material which has offended one group or another.

But there are good reasons for manufacturers to show that they are alive to the issues that are of concern to their customers and the community. As a spokesperson for P & G,  the owner of Gillette stated;

“Successful brands today have to be relevant and engage consumers in topics that matter to them. “

The frenzied response from some conservative men’s groups to the advert is inexplicable and in many ways, disturbing. Gillette does not condemn men as a gender but rather points out that bullying and sexual harassment, which most reasonable people agree are obnoxious, can and ought to be combatted. This is not a crusade for women alone but should be an enterprise in which men would want to join. Only a high level of insecurity and immaturity could prompt any man to rebel when called upon to acknowledge and speak up against socially- subversive behaviour.

As George Monbiot writing in The Guardian noted:

The notion that men should be distant, domineering and self-seeking is often described as toxic masculinity, but this serves only to alienate those who might need most help. Its proponents describe their behavioural ideal as traditional masculinity, but conceptions of maleness, like conceptions of the family have changed from century to century.

Moreover, two documents recently released, one being the American Psychological Association, Guidelines for the Treatment of Men and an Australian Study by the Queensland University of Technology into notions of masculinity have shown very convincingly that conceptions of masculinity which emphasise dominance and aggression are as harmful to men as they are to women. It leads not only to violence against women but violence against men and according to the Australian study leads men ‘….to consider suicide, drink excessively, take risks and drive dangerously.’

If nothing else, the Gillette advert has given impetus to a public debate which is important and pressing. It will give many men pause and grounds to reflect. If its message is taken to heart it will help to reduce the corrosive atmosphere which prevails in some Australian workplaces and public institutions. If it does that it will have achieved something valuable.

House of Commons, United Kingdom – Sexual Harassment in the Workplace – Fifth Report of Session 2017-2019 – July 2018

This comprehensive report provides a broad and incisive perspective of the current state of sexual harassment in UK workplaces and sets out in great detail the failures of the existing system and why the present legal framework is inadequate to address the problem.

These inadequacies have been repeatedly highlighted across many developed countries since the emergence of the # MeToo movement. The comments and conclusions in the report are relevant to Australia where many surveys on the topic of sexual harassment have revealed that the same issues rear their heads in both countries.

The rates of workplace sexual harassment incidents are high in the UK, as is the case in Australia. In the UK 40 per cent of women and 18 per cent of men have experienced it. In Australia the figures appear to be even higher. An analysis by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2016 reported that 53 per cent of women and 2 per cent of men had been sexually harassed in their lifetime.

The Report criticises the UK Government for failing to carry out its responsibility to tackle sexual harassment by implementing systemic protections against it. This failure is in contrast to the stringent legal and regulatory responses to other workplace malpractices such as theft of data and money laundering. Once again, the parallels with Australia are clear.

There is a lack of appropriate support for victims of sexual harassment and internal grievance procedures do not work well. Thus the burden falls squarely on the victim to take complaints forward. In many cases, victims are reluctant to take any steps for fear of reprisals and victimisation.

The Report also lambasts the “improper” use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) which are often forced upon traumatised victims to ensure their continued silence.

This Report is well worth reading and digesting for us in Australia as it provides many important signposts about what can work and what does not in the battle against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Original report: House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee – Sexual Harassment in the Workplace 

Artificial Intelligence (AI): a branch of computer science which enables a machine to imitate intelligent human behaviour and which through artificial neural networks is capable of learning through experience.

The arrival of the technological wave created by artificial intelligence has elicited a huge number of assessments and predictions as to what this means for the future of work. Some people embrace AI unreservedly as embodying huge potential for good, while others see a dismal future for a large part of humanity, predicting dire consequences as machines surpass humans in overall intelligence and render much of humanity redundant.

A widely held perception is that the changes likely to be wrought to our societies and workplaces by the advent of AI will be nothing less than revolutionary-destroying or replacing in a short space of time much of what is familiar and creating entirely new systems and ways of solving problems.

This has given rise to a great debate as to whether to welcome the great opportunities afforded by AI or to fear it as representing a force which we will be unable to control.

In a speech given in November 2017, the late Steven Hawking, while emphasising that embracing AI may be initiating or even inviting unforeseen perils, said the following:

“I am an optimist and believe that we can create AI for the good of the world. That it can work in harmony with us. We simply need to be aware of the dangers, identify them, employ the best possible practice and management and prepare for its consequences well in advance “

Since AI is already a presence in many workplaces, we need to understand the long-term consequences on our workforces as tasks pass from workers to machines. More particularly, how will increasing implementation of AI systems affect the drive to make our workplaces, demographically and cognitively more diverse?

Many progressive organisations and businesses have recognised and embraced the notion that establishing teams composed of people who possess diverse thinking styles enhances the capacity for innovative ideas and creates material benefits for the organisation. Will the power of AI render workforce demography irrelevant and eliminate the need to diverse thinkers who collectively generate the bulk of innovative ideas?

This is not a hypothetical question or an issue to be reserved for future deliberation.  The influence of intelligent technology is changing the commercial landscape at a bewildering pace. Entrepreneurs are seizing upon the powerful learning ability of algorithms to look for ways of disrupting entire industries. A notable example here is driverless cars in the transport industry. At the same time, companies are seeking opportunities to radically remodel all aspects of their operations so as to gain competitive advantage while labour experts have concluded that many job categories will simply disappear as their functions are superseded by computers applying algorithms which do the job much more efficiently.

On the jobs front, a McKinsey report found that 30% of work activities could be automated by 2030 and up to 375 million workers worldwide could be affected by emerging technologies. The OECD has taken a different approach focusing. on “tasks “rather than jobs”. It estimated that 14% of jobs are highly automatable and another 32% have a significant risk of automation.

More recently, a somewhat more optimistic view has been taken of the way that AI will be integrated in our workplaces. Experts who spoke at the MIT Sloan Summit (2018) indicated that while machines can undoubtedly perform some tasks better than humans, they cannot generally perform all tasks needed for a job. A similar view is to be found in a comprehensive analysis from McKinsey Global Institute (May 2018), where the following assertion appears:

“Accompanying the adoption of advanced technologies into the workplace will be an increase in the need for workers with finely tuned social skills-skills that machines are a long way from mastering”

Thus instead of an outright contest to see whether humans can resist an invasion by AI there will very likely be partnerships or collaboration on a broad scale in the workplace between AI machines and humans.

An insightful and cogent appraisal of how AI could be leveraged to be married with soft skills possessed by humans comes from a report published by TATA communications (2018). This report also adopts and endorses the premise that humans and AI systems can, and most probably will, interact in ever increasing ways in the workplace.

It bases its theoretical approach on the highly regarded work of Professor Scott Page , especially in his latest publication, The Diversity Bonus which postulates that the more diverse the participants, the more opportunities to discover insights and novel approaches. Accordingly, the authors of the TATA study set out to ascertain how this principle might work when one or more of the participants is an AI machine.

The study surveyed more than 120 business leaders across a range of industries to gauge current interest in and understanding of, AI with particular regard to the impact of positive trends within their organisations.

Four themes about the future role of AI emerged from the study and each one has implications for optimising cognitive diversity within the organisation:

• The structure of work will change and require greater agility and flexibility

Today candidates are hired for a specific role. In future candidates might be hired on the assumption that they will fill multiple roles over their career. Roles will move from being task-based to strategic, requiring more expansive cognitive skills. Since roles will be changing multiple times over the course of  careers, each candidate will have to employ diverse cognitive skills to manage the different roles and AI can be used to map the diverse talent opportunities available within a company .

• AI has the potential to help individuals become more agile, curious and nimble.

As time is freed up through the use of AI, workers’ time will be available for more creative tasks and more opportunities to think in non-linear ways. Team members will have  time to debate and seek fresh ways of approaching and solving problems. The more diverse the totality of contributors, the greater the likelihood of coming up with innovative solutions.

• AI has the potential to enhance human collaboration

AI could facilitate team composition, organisation and communications such as offering new and alternate ways of approaching a team session,( especially those where various members are dispersed across diverse global locations) and utilising its ability to translate multiple languages used by participants. This means that diverse thinking from many sources across the globe could be merged and cross-pollinated in real time more efficiently

• AI has the potential to enhance cognitive diversity within groups

Leaders often make judgements on their own about strategic and operational matters. AI systems could help to source expert advice from other areas in the organisation  efficiently, breaking down silos and bringing together a diverse set of viewpoints.

Most crucially, the overarching conclusion is expressed thus:

“With autonomous processes becoming more scalable, original and diverse ideas will create competitive advantages. By building diverse teams through a combination of workers and machines, the number of new cognitive skills will be multiplied, increasing the ability to turn a problem around, look at it from different directions and deploy different skills to find creative solutions.”

Having said that, it will be up to organisations and their leaderships to lay the groundwork by pushing ever harder to employ and promote employees whose thinking styles differ from the conventional. Companies and organisations will reap the benefits of AI to the maximum if the workers who interact with it possess the diversity of cognitive skills  to discover the myriad ways in which AI can be used to the advantage of the organisation. If this is done, workers will be able to employ to the maximum the humanistic skills which still distinguish them from machines and to get the best outcomes from the diverse thinking when humans and AI machines work in concert.

Reference: Skill Shift-Automation and the Future of the Workforce

V Hunt, S Prince, S Dixon-Fyle, L Yee – McKinsey & Company Report – January 2018

This new research report by McKinsey is a follow-up to their 2015 report “Why Diversity Matters” and extends the mounting body of evidence supporting diversity as a means to better organisational performance. Significantly it is an attempt to determine whether the perceived benefits of diversity are simply localised phenomena or whether they are more generalised benefits which apply regardless of where an organisation is situated. The 2018 report expanded in scope and numbers on the 2015 report and while the earlier report had found statistical evidence showing that diversity had financially beneficial effects the later report shows that the benefits are even larger.

The report is divided into two distinct parts. The first is to assess whether diversity in organisations can be shown to be of benefit regardless of a country’s ethnic makeup, its geographical situation and its state of economic development. Data was drawn from more than 1000 companies in 12 countries.

The report first measured both profitability and value creation in relation to the degree of gender diversity. It found a positive correlation between gender diversity at executive level and both profitability as well as value creation; a 21% difference in profitability between most diverse and least and 27% when it comes to value creation.

The difference is even more emphatic when ethnic diversity is considered. When executive teams are more ethnically diverse organisations are 33% more likely to outperform their peers( no figures are given with respect to value creation).

The noteworthy conclusion is that both gender diversity and ethnic diversity are correlated with better financial performance across geographic regions, although there are some variations between different countries. However, the report also notes that in all the countries surveyed there remain substantial challenges to achieving meaningful diversity goals with regard to both gender and ethnicity.

The second part of the Report focuses on the now widely accepted proposition that both inclusion and diversity are necessary and complementary ingredients for businesses to achieve long-term benefits.

It sets out 4 imperatives for a coherent and successful inclusion policy.

• Articulate and cascade CEO commitment
• Define inclusion and diversity priorities
• Craft a portfolio of D&I initiatives
• Tailor the strategy to maximise local impact

The authors of the report conclude that there is ample evidence to show strong correlations across the globe between gender, ethnic and cultural diversity and better financial outcomes. They concede that it is a hard road to achieving sustained diversity and inclusion but for those companies and their leadership willing to undertake the task, benefits will undoubtedly accrue.

Read the full report: Delivering Through Diversity

B Jones and D Rock – Psychology Today – May 2018

This article offers an interesting new perspective on how to mitigate the biases which creep into performance appraisals.

Biases infiltrate themselves into many of the decisions we make daily. Recognising this means we need to guard against the harmful results flowing to ourselves and others in the course of making consequential judgements and decisions.

Performance reviews have garnered a good deal of attention over recent years. Much criticism has been levelled at the traditional way performance reviews are conducted, which often do not constitute an objective appraisal of an employee’s performance.

Well-known biases that impede proper assessments in traditional performance reviews are: the “halo effect” which bases the entire review on one criterion to the exclusion of others; the “crony effect” which distorts the review process because of the closeness of the relationship between appraiser and appraised; and the “recency effect” where the person reviewed is appraised simply with regard to the most recent action or behaviour.

The authors note that despite the well-known difficulties with performance reviews, some 57% of companies they surveyed in the USA were not doing anything to remove biases in these processes.

Many observers who have written about the biases which come into play in performance reviews have suggested simply that the appraisers alert themselves to the difficulties and do their best to overcome their impact. But since many of these biases, by definition, operate at an unconscious level it is almost impossible for a decision-maker to address them on their own in real time.

The solution suggested in this article is for managers to solicit the views of others in the organisation. Collective opinions are much more likely to get closer to an objective assessment which may turn out either more favourable or less favourable than that which the manager alone would have given.

This is a useful approach to performance reviews because it introduces an element of systematic checks and balances against unconscious biases rather than leaving it to the individual to ward them off.

Original article: Why the Typical Performance Review is Overwhelmingly Biased