June Cohen, one of the producers of TEDWomen, kindly replied to my piece over at The Huffington Post. I discovered that I couldn’t fit my entire response– plus the important hyperlinks — to the HuffPo Space, so for those who are interested, our exchange follows, below.

From June Cohen:

Hi CV — June Cohen here, from TED. I’m one of the producers of TEDWomen, and Exec. Producer of TED Media. I want to clarify a few things about our intent, and respectfully clarify a statistic you cited.

First the stats: You wrote that only 17% of TED speakers are women; this is misleading. It’s true that 17% of speakers on TED.com are women; however, those talks cover TED’s full 27year archive, dating back to the 80s, when the conference was tech-oriented and yes, male-dominated. TED is a different organization today. For the past several years, we’ve had ~30-40% women speakers at each TED event. This isn’t ideal, but it’s respectable & improving.

You state here that TED is marginalizing women, and I want to be clear: We didn’t launch TEDWomen to segregate women attendees or speakers, nor did we launch it as an alternative to a balanced speaker lineup at other events (which was already a priority for us). This is an enthusiastic “yes/and” not an “either/or.”

We launched TEDWomen to take a deep dive into a subject we find fascinating, timely and important. A slew of new data shows women are a vital link to economic growth, public health, political stability. There are many stories looking at women through this lens — as change agents — and we’re looking forward to exploring them in depth.

A longer comment here: http://bit.ly/do4NVh

Happy to continue the conversation. Email us at ted.comn@ted.com Twitter: @tedwomen

From CV Harquail

June, thanks so much for commenting here and for sharing the organization’s views. It means a lot to me and to HuffPo readers to have you join the conversation here in and elsewhere online. The larger opportunity is for TED as an organization and for TED’s larger community to continue a learning-oriented conversation about sexism and marginalization in the world of ideas.

What do the data and data analysis show?

It would be helpful if TED could post publically the data on the gender distribution of its speaker lineup. I came up with the 17% number by counting women’s names/pictures and men’s names/pictures in the speaker line-ups. Others have arrived at similar percentages of 17 to 30 percent, depending on what they counted. I have not seen anyone quote a percentage higher than 32%, so to suggest 40% seems generous. Maybe TED is counting women that the rest of us haven’t actually seen, and maybe our counts are lower as a result. Moreover, there doesn’t seem to be much of an improvement … if in the latest TEDGlobal conference, the ratio was 17 to 58.

Still, the percentage of women is an empirical question that can be answered concretely with data. You already have some of this data available on the TED blog) so adding columns for gender and category wouldn’t be that hard. An official data display of the distribution of speakers over conferences and categories might show what percentage of speakers overall have been women, and how those numbers are (or are not) increasing in a statistically significant way. A data display like that might also uncover other trends, for example, that when women are on the stage they are more likely to be in some categories (e.g., “Play”) and nearly absent in others (e.g., “Breakthrough” and “Boldness”).

An analysis like this would not only provide accurate data for those who care to comment, but also would provide the TED community with the beginnings of a diagnosis of the systemic exclusion and selective inclusion of women

Whether TEDWomen really addresses sexism.

Let’s consider, too, whether TED really understands the issue of sexism and the root of our concerns about TEDWomen. I want to believe that TEDWomen is a politically and intellectually sophisticated effort to address sexism, and that the TED organization ‘gets it’. And, I want to believe that TED has accurately documented, diagnosed and begun to address sexism for real, not only on the podium but also behind the scenes and in the organization’s processes.

The official announcements of TEDWomen, and your later explanations of the conference would suggest that this is not the case. First, the text of the announcement is condescending. It is condescending to say that women’s issues and ideas have only recently become interesting. It is condescending to describe perceptions of the “importance of women globally” as being “conventional wisdom” rather than to understand that “conventional wisdom” is actually systematic discrimination in the world of ideas. Others have pointed this out to TED, so I won’t go into it here in any more detail.

The official response by TED to criticism of its decision has dug it a deeper hole. You’ve confirmed the still-marginal position of women in TED’s world of ideas, by explaining that TEDWomen is “the next in line” of a series of “niche” conferences. Women as a population, women as thinkers, ideas that address issues pertinent to women (and men) – these are not “niche” ideas. We’re talking about 51% of the world’s population here, not a subset of consumers.

Finally, when you described the conference’s appeal to Ryan Brown over at Salon, you said,

“Yes, it won’t appeal to everyone, but that is part of our point. When you try to appeal to everyone, we find you don’t appeal to anyone at all.”

What that statement does is compare the appeal of a TED conference that would incorporate women’s ideas to a TED conference about predominantly men’s ideas—and diminishes the women’s ideas as being less appealing. Less appealing to whom?, I would ask.

I do appreciate that TED’s official responses are showing a change in how the organization is positioning the TEDWomen conference. I hope that the change in copy also reflects a change in understanding.

What I and others would like to see from TED is more transparency in the organization’s self-analysis, and more specificity in your strategies for addressing what seem to be deeply embedded sexist assumptions about whose ideas and which ideas matter, and to whom. Maybe TED is already working on this, maybe not. Certainly, the ongoing evolution of how you all are presenting TEDWomen on TED’s own site and in other online line forums is encouraging. You are out here engaging in the conversations, and that’s not only useful but also admirable. Organizations with less commitment to ideas would have stopped trying to understand, if they’d ever even started.

In diversity work we distinguish between intention and outcomes. TEDWomen may have been intended to celebrate women’s ideas, but the outcome is that TED as an organization has offended people with simplistic thinking about discrimination and how to resolve it. Actions with good intentions that reinforce discrimination are still reinforcing discrimination.

I know you don’t think that TEDWomen is marginalizing women and women’s ideas. But frankly, the response to the conference is telling you and the TED organization otherwise. It is telling you that women feel marginalized not only by the creation of TEDWomen but also by the explanations provided for it. Not to mention, the silence from the organization about anything related to a deeper, more committed effort to address gender discrimination.

I really, really wanted to put this post here on Authentic Organizations, but my colleagues at The Op-Ed Project told me to shoot big….

so here it is, on The Huffington Post’s Politics section.

Please come read the post (it’s only 700 words!) add a comment, and encourage the HuffPo to keep printing contentious feminist organization scholars feminist opinions.

How do you know whether an organization is racist, or sexist, or homophobic?

You can use my 6 Degrees test, or you can use an even simpler method:

You can watch where they put their money.

Target has put its money behind the campaign of a homophobe who’s against same-sex marriage.

This single action casts doubt on all the other positive things that Target has done in support of the LGBTQ community and the supporters of the LGBTQ community.

Target is not “homophobic” like Marriott

Last year in the conversation around California’s anti-gay Proposition 8, The Marriott Corporation was accused of being anti-gay.

Like Target, Marriott has had a long history of demonstrated, structural support for employees and guests in the LGBTQ community.

But, while Marriott shareholders donated money to fight gay rights and support discrimination, Marriott as a corporation did not support discrimination against gays and lesbians. Thus, Marriott cannot be fairly called “anti-gay”. Instead, all of Marriott’s other pro-diversity efforts stand un- contradicted, as demonstration of Marriott’s support.

Target’s Action Directly Supports Homophobia

It’s not Target shareholders, or Target employees, who are donating to the campaign of a homophobe. It is the corporation itself.

This distinction between individuals’ money and corporate money is an important one.

The corporation can’t control or be held responsible for what people do with the money they earn from that corporation– these decisions are up to the individuals. Corporations also can’t force employees to donate their money to one cause or another; nor can they punish an employee for where he or she contributes. These are our individual rights as citizens.

However, any time a corporation puts corporate money-- funds that the organization has earned but has not paid out to individual shareholders, funds that belong to the corporation as an entity – towards the support of a candidate, that organization is directly supporting the views of that candidate.

If your organization gives $100,000 of corporate cash to a candidate who stands against equal rights, guess what?

Target, by using corporate money to support the campaign of a candidate who fights equal rights for all, you have  just supported homophobia.

It really is that simple.

Really.

What about Target’s other, supportive actions?

Sure, folks are going to say “But what about all Target’s other support of the gay community? Shouldn’t that count?”

Certainly, that track record of real support matters. But, if the executives of Target don’t demonstrate their corporation’s claimed values in each and every action — from health insurance to marriage rights — their claims to hold those values aren’t authentic.

A corporation that truly supported it’s LGBTQ employees and customers? A corporation truly dedicated to diversity and inclusion? That corporation would decline to contribute to a homophobic candidate.

If they could not find a pro-diversity candidate with economic policies they also liked, they would sit it out.

It really is that simple.

Really.

See Also:
The Case Against A Marriott Boycott (part 2): Marriott is not Anti-Gay
What Do Sarah Palin, Bill Marriott and John Templeton, Jr. Have In Common?

Is The Daily Show Sexist? Use the 6 Degrees of Sexism Test to judge for yourself

BlogHer is a great place to meet other women who are trying to change the world with their blogging.

Everyone you meet there has some kind of expertise and insights to share. Almost everyone there can find someone else who blogs about similar issues, and get connected to a tribe.  There are many ‘domestic’ bloggers who write about home, marriage, family, and parenting. There are political bloggers who address government, policy, campaigns, and party politics. And there are lots of advocacy blogges, who work to create supportive communities around an issue. All of these bloggers are plentiful at BlogHer and can find their tribes easily.

Sadly, though, it can be really hard to find your tribe if your tribe is small. [Read on if you're going to BlogHer...]

In my experience at BlogHer9 last year in Chicago, it was virtually impossible to find women who blog about leadership, organizational change, and the world of work.

We women are out there– I see us on Twitter all the time. But I want an easier way to find each other at BlogHer this year. I want a way to find our tribe!

4 Ways to Find the Leadership Bloggers Tribe

1. Add your name, url, and twitter handle to the comment section below. I’ll gather these to create an email list where I can send any update about a meetup location.

2. Cluster in the top left quadrant during the “Speed Dating” introductory event (details below).

3. Help to create a “Birds of a Feather” table at lunch on Friday.

4. Meet in a specific spot at one of the open parties.

1. Add your name, url, and twitter handle to the comment section below.

I’ll gather these to create an email list where I can send any update about a meetup location. Also, we can share this list to find and follow each other online.

2. Cluster in the top left quadrant during the “Speed Dating” introductory event.

On Friday morning, in the first session, there will be an activity called speed dating– where we line up in a double circle (a circle within a circle) facing each other, and then pair by pair introduce ourselves to the person opposite us. If we gather in the same general location on that circle, we’ll be more likely to meet more people in our tribe rather than just a completely random set of interesting women bloggers.

To find the top left quadrant, face the stage, stick our your left hand, and wave it from your nose to your left ear.

3. Create a Birds of a Feather Table

in past years, BlogHer has organized some lunch tables around certain themes (e.g., feminism, autism, crafts). Anyone could sign up on a list to take a seat at that table, and be guaranteed to find some women in her tribe. I made two great friends this way last year. If I can, I’ll try to get Leadership Bloggers as a topic for BOF– if not, we can do this informally by sitting near each other at the open tables. if you do #1, I can find you electronically and let your know what’s happening.

4. Finally, there’s the “Let’s Party” option.

There are lots of parties to attend, but often no one you know to talk to. Sure, your can be brave and meet people, and you can also look for folks you expect to be there– lie other women     Leadership Bloggers. Again, if you do #1, I can find you and let you know of any party plans.

Other ideas? Please let me know via email or Twitter

@cvharquail use #Blogher hashtag

harquail at authenticorganizations dot com

For the past 90 days and counting, we knew this day was coming.

You didn’t need an Irish bookmaker to tell you that Tony Hayward’s tenure as CEO of BP was coming to a close. Any organization facing a crisis like the BP Oil Spill would be likely to replace the guy at the helm.

While it’s common for corporate boards to respond to a crisis by replacing the CEO, this is often a meaningless action. Investors may feel a pump of optimism, the relieved CEO may feel some relief, and the new CEO may feel hopeful, but the leadership change at the top often leads to very little change at all.

Why CEO Change Doesn’t Make a Difference

A change at the top doesn’t indicate a change inside.

While it’s true that the CEO is ultimately responsible for the actions and outcomes of the organization, the CEO alone has limited influence. What really drives the actions and outcomes of an organizations are the systems and processes that operate across the organization.

For example, it’s not the CEO’s expressed interest in green fuel alternatives, but whether with his leadership the corporate investment priorities are changed and corporate achievements are tracked, celebrated, rewarded and reinforced through business systems and HR processes.

In order to make a change that matters, the new CEO has to have more than different values, different skills and different priorities. The new CEO has to institutionalize these priorities by innovating within the organization’s design and systems.

Without system change, there can be no material, substantial change improvement in the organization.

Why CEO Change Does Make a Difference

While firing the CEO and replacing him with someone else doesn’t often matter in a material way, it can matter in a more symbolic way.

A change at the top creates a chance to change the organization’s story.

Removing Tony Hayward creates a break in BP’s Disaster Story. With the new CEO Bob Dudley taking over, everyone needs to make sense of the change.

Instead of the story continuing to be “the CEO makes one misstep after another, demonstrating each time that BP is inept and uncaring”, the story becomes “BP has a new CEO. How will he be different?”

Having a break in the story, even if there is really nothing different beyond the name and the face of the CEO,  invites us to reconsider what’s happening at BP.

The story has a chance to shift from being more of the same to being about change.

If BP can get us to consider the mere possibility that things are changing at BP, this can help us change our perceptions of BP. When we change our perceptions of BP, we give them a chance to change for real.

• A change story can help the people within the organization focus on a different set of actions and interpretations, and help them feel hopeful about their collective future.

• A change story can pump up institutional investor, leading to an uptick in share price and a sense of rebound.

• A change story will get the media to portray BP in a questioning way, rather than reinforcing same conclusions. Things are now ‘open’ to reinterpretation.

Don’t be fooled, though. Real change only happens when systems change, so that actions change, so that values are changed.

Still, a change in the story, a kind of change that can seem fake,  can actually lead to some real change. Not to sound schmaltzy, but fake change can lead to real hope.

The takeaway for BP: Real change must be designed in

If Dudley is something different, he could help BP revise its approach to the spill and change its strategy and future outcomes. But, this will only happen if Dudley is able to lead BP employees to innovate and change systems, and to innovate and change their own behaviors.

Will a change in CEOs really make a difference?

It all depend on whether the new CEO can take the opportunity offered by a change story, and design it into a story of real change.

See also:

BP’s Beyond Petroleum: Hypocrisy, or caught in the act of learning?
Organizational Change Using Authentic Attributes
Is Twitter is Really Changing Comcast’s Culture?: 7 Signs to Look For
3 Things the New York Jets Can Teach You About Authenticity

Images: Robert Dudley from OffShoreInjuries.com Tony Hayward from INN World Report

There are apologies that are superficial and apologies that reflect genuine remorse.  There are apologies that demonstrate regret and apologies that initiate restitution.

And then, there is the apology that MAC Cosmetics has offered for its offensive Juarez Makeup Collection.

I fear that MAC’s is only a cosmetic apology, one that fails to demonstrate an understanding of what went wrong, and fails to take real initiative to turn the situation towards something good.

MAC’s apology may represent fauxial awareness, not genuine social awareness.

A quick recap of the MAC – Rodarte – Juarez Situation:

MAC Cosmetics has teamed up with the tiny fashion house Rodarte to create and release a makeup collection to coordinate with Rodarte’s fall fashion line. Rodarte (otherwise known as the two Mulleavy Sisters) took their inspiration for this collection from the bleak physical landscape of the Mexican city of Juarez.

Interestingly, Juarez is not a town known for its physical beauty, but for its epic levels of misogynist violence against women.

How could any company considered to be socially aware do something so dumb?

To assess this, I’m looking not only at the way MAC has managed this Juarez situation, but also MAC’s larger history and reputation of corporate social awareness.

MAC Cosmetic’s Social Awareness

MAC has always been kind of a CSA darling in the fashion world. MAC was one of the first cosmetics companies to establish a recycling program (Back to M-A-C), to assure cruelty-free products, to openly embrace racial, age and gender diversity, and, it must be said, the first company to use African American drag queen as a spokesmodel.

MAC is probably best know for its pioneering role in supporting HIV/AIDS education and services. Support for HIV/AIDS programs was initiated by the company’s founders, and institutionalized in 1994, when the company established The M·A·C AIDS Fund, “the heart and soul of M·A·C Cosmetics. To date, MAC has raised $139 million (U.S.) exclusively through the sale of M·A·C’s VIVA GLAM lipstick and lipgloss, donating 100 percent of the sale price to fight HIV/AIDS.”

MAC has rightly earned tremendous goodwill for what is certainly an authentic commitment to HIV/AIDS. Now, though, I’m wondering if MAC has gotten perhaps too much credit for overall social awareness, and has been coasting on this positive reputation rather than remaining mindful of its relationship to social issues. I’m concerned that, MAC might have become, not socially aware, but fauxially aware.

Fauxial Awareness®

Faux-ial Awareness (fo-shall) is the social equivalent of greenwashing.

Organizations are fauxially aware when they have superficial campaigns to address social issues but demonstrate in their behavior that they are totally blind to the complexities and realities of these issues.

If MAC were truly a socially aware company, they would not have made the mistake of naming a new makeup collection after the city where over 500 women have been murdered, the most violent city outside of a war zone. Somebody, somewhere in the organization, would have recognized that connecting beauty products to a town defined by violence was not hip, not cool, and beyond a bad idea. Somebody would have recognized how profoundly this choice would offend MAC’s core customers — women.

It may be that MAC’s attention to HIV/AIDS has kept it from paying attention to other social issues. Their lack of awareness may reflect an inability to extrapolate from one commitment an understanding that can be applied to recognize injustice in other social domains. If this were the case, then we could expect that MAC’s AIDS commitment has failed to generate a fundamental understanding within the company that could be applied to other situations. Maybe they can’t extend their consciousness in one area to consciousness in other areas.

(Note, other fashion companies like Kenneth Cole do maintain a broad and consistent social awareness and outreach effort.)

Maybe what it comes down to is something more deeply rooted in fashion as an industry. Fashion as an industry has long been based in violence against women. And if ‘violence’ is too strong a word for you (even if you include footbinding and corsets) then we can use oppression. Perhaps it is too difficult to disentangle specific examples of misogyny from the whole ensemble of oppressions of women, and address specific issues while keeping the fashion industry’s fantasies about itself alive. Maybe after blurring the line between beauty and conformity for so long, it’s just hard to see even something as blatant as 500+ femicides.

What does it say about MAC that they can be such a prominent supporter of AIDS activism, and be completely oblivious to the issues of women, particularly surrounding this hotspot? It’s not like the femicides in Juarez are some kind of secret.

Glossing over Femicide

MAC has an ongoing, designed in commitment to HIV. It has a consistent funding source, a related non-profit organization, an annual launch with associated PR, and systems around choosing a celebrity person and promoting that person’s involvement. This infrastructure represents an authentic commitment to the HIV issue by the company.

Contrast this with MAC’s offer to make up for this Juarez mistake– a one time contribution, changing the product names, and issuing an apology. Does that really reflect an understanding of what went wrong, and what should be changed?

On the plus side, MAC listened and responded. On the negative side, MAC hasn’t (yet) shown an understanding how how it let this happen, what that says about MAC as a company, and what MAC needs to learn.

I’m hoping that there will be more to this story, since it is only just now getting picked up by well-known blogs outside the world of fashion and in the marketing community. I’ll keep you posted if there is more news, and when I’m better able to wrap my mind abound the authenticity issues.

In the meantime, it’s worth reflecting on what it really takes for an organization to be socially aware.

As commenter Alex wrote in response to Temptalia’s great post:

Thanks to Brand Channel for bringing this issue to mainstream marketers’ attention, to ColorLines for showcasing this as an issue critical to racial justice, and to Temptalia for hosting a serious conversation among fashionistas about the issue.

See Also:
Brand Channel’s Abe Sauer: MAC and Rodarte Accept Name Blame
ColorLines: The Beauty Bloggers Who Blew MAC and Rodarte’s Juarez Cover
Temptalia: MAC Rodarte Collection for Fall 2010 + Official Statements
British Beauty Blogger: MAC, Rodarte and the Women of Juarez ( full of good links)

Image: Rodarte for MAC, from MAC

During a meeting in a downtown conference room at a non profit a few weeks ago, I noticed we were all sitting in Aeron chairs. These are geeky-stylish, ergonomically adjustable office chairs that retail for about $800 a pop. There were 12 of us in the conference room, sitting on a total of about $9,600.00, retail.

Aeron chairs are not that uncommon. I’ve been in many offices and conference rooms kitted out with Aeron chairs. But, this was the first time I’d found myself sitting in an $800 chair while having a conversation about fund-raising strategies.

This organization’s important programs are facing budget cuts, and so they are looking for ways to ramp up their fund raising programs.

“Why bother to raise the money from individual donors?” I wondered. “We could just sell these chairs.”

And, I wondered:

Are $800 chairs a bit too rich for a nonprofit?

This particular non-profit is not the only one I’ve seen with top of the line furnishings and a relatively luxurious physical environment. While I love an aesthetically competent workspace as much as anyone, I did wonder if this particular organization had its priorities in the right places.

I silently ran through the possible explanations, which included:

• Ergonomics: The members need good chairs; they sit and work in these for hours on end.

• Sustainability: This chair is “green built“.

• Investment: A well-built chair bought once is cheaper than a poorly built chair replaced in five years.

• Impression Management: If the non-profit looks professional and ‘like a business’, people will think the organization is more competent. Their programs are media-related, and so they should look like other new media companies (all of which have Aeron chairs).

What’s wrong with $800 chairs?

What was bothering me about the chairs was that they didn’t fit with my sense of “who this organization is”. Even though I know the chairs are technically great chairs, and environmentally preferable chairs,  and good-looking chairs, their premium price made me think that the organization was spending money on itself and not on serving its constituency.  I was applying the “non profit stereotype” of (1) constituents first, (2) bare bones overhead, and (frankly) (3) employees come last. There are a lot of problems with this stereotype of non-profits, and there is some truth to it, too.

Given my interest in other people’s businesses, I found a way to ask about the chairs as we chatted at the end of the meeting.

As it turns out, the organization did not pay full price for the chairs. They got the chairs from new media company that was going out of business. They paid about half the retail price of the chairs. (“Oh, only $4,800? Whew.” was the expected response, I think.) So, the member explained, it wasn’t like the chairs were luxury items or something.

While this story kind of got the organization off the hook for profligate spending, the fancy chairs were still important, and still communicated something about the organization.

The chairs’ appearance in the nonprofit told a story, and the story told me about the nonprofit’ character. But, had I been less inquisitive, I’d have gone away with the completely wrong story. And that might have become a problem.

The organization displayed the chairs (and, of course, used them) but the meaning of the chairs was ambiguous. (Or polysemous, for you lit-crit folks.)

Those chairs could tell many different and equally plausible stories. They could tell:

– the “We care about our people who work here long hours” story,
– the “We’re scrappy folks, who bought these at a distress sale. We use this same scrappy attitude everywhere”, and
– the “We don’t have our priorities straight and put our own comfort before the needs of our constituents” story.

Which story is it, really?

Whichever story visitors hear, or don’t hear, makes a difference in how they perceive that organization. And, these perceptions affect how visitors feel about the organization and how they will behave towards it.

Those fancy chairs could deter someone from contributing money, or encourage someone to entrust the organization to use a grant wisely. It all depends on the story the chairs “tell”.

Of course, some folks could just have taken the chairs for granted, and not even noticed them.

Regardless, this nonprofit needs to tell a coherent story about itself, its values, its priorities and its capabilities. The organization’s environment and its furnishings don’t just sit there– they tell the organization’s story.

And this organization’s $800 chairs made me wonder what its real story is.

My Nose, Other People’s Business

Aeron Chair, a piece of art?
May 28, 2008 from Frank Rogo

The media storm surrounding Jezebel’s claim that The Daily Show is sexist has tangled up our common assumptions about what does or does not make an organization sexist.

Whether or not an organization is “sexist”–or for that matter racist, classist, sustainable, Mormon, Black, etc. – matters to the organization’s members and to its audience.

Our judgments of sexism influence how we respond to an organization, shape how the organization’s members feel about themselves and their participation in the organization, and can damage the organization’s overall viability. And, our judgments affect an organization’s reputation and goodwill among the audience, reducing the organization’s social standing and influence.

It seems like everybody wants to have a say, in the decision over The Daily Show’s sexism.

First Jezebel’s Irin Carmon, then media critics, then well-regarded feminists, and finally the women of The Daily Show themselves have joined the conversation. Folks are tossing around one judgment here and another judgment there, using ill-defined criteria often rather carelessly. So how can we know?

How can we evaluate whether The Daily Show, or any other organization, is sexist or not?

One strategy is to use the handy Six Degrees of Sexism test!

6 Degrees of Sexism Test

The 6 Degrees of Sexism Test applies several criteria, including:

1. The leader’s behavior
2. The organization’s demographic composition
3. The experiences of people within the organization
4. The organization’s practices & systems
5. The organization’s product, and
6. The organization’s social impact

Individually, some of these criteria are more definitive than others. Some criteria are more ambiguous, and still other criteria are inconclusive at best and misleading at worst. Because judgments of sexism can have serious consequences and because few individual criteria offer enough “proof”, we usually look for more than one indicator of sexism.

The Daily Show has been accused of being sexist because..

• Jon Stewart (the leader) is sexist
• The organization’s demographic composition suggests that it discriminates against women,
• Some people have claimed that their negative experiences within the organization were due to gender-based discrimination, and
• The organization’s product appears to be sexist (e.g., the on air personalities and interview subjects are disproportionately male).

- Interestingly, afaik, there haven’t been explanations of actual systems at The Daily Show that are sexist. Instead, people have focused on the outcomes of these practices (e.g., employee demographics, product qualities) to infer that the systems are sexist. And,

- There have been few critiques that have used The Daily Show’s social influence to demonstrate that it is sexist.

We can consider each criterion in turn, and evaluate for ourselves whether we think that The Daily Show is, in our judgment, sexist.

1. Is The Daily Show sexist because the leader (Jon Stewart) is sexist?

People like to use the behavior of the top management as an indicator of the organization’s overall character because we believe that leaders “set the tone” of the organization, and imbue the organization with their own values.

While this is often true, it is also true that leaders don’t always represent personally what the organization collectively stands for. As a criterion for judging the sexism of the organization itself, the leader’s behavior can be compelling data but is insufficient. Whether or not you think Jon Stewart is a sexist *&#^k, that’s just not enough data. You have to know whether or not his attitude sets the tone and shapes the organizational practices of The Daily Show.

2. Is The Daily Show sexist because the majority of the organization’s employees are male?

Using this criterion to judge sexism relies on two assumptions. First, you have to assume that an organization is the sum of its parts. Second, you have to believe that these objective characteristics predict relevant values and behaviors. If you have an organization of disproportionately tall employees, is it a “tall” organization? And, do these tall employees behave in “tall” ways?

If the employees are largely men, then the organization is sexist (so the logic goes). But, you also have to assume that being male means that someone is likely to behave in ways that are sexist.

With regard to The Daily Show, if the demographic content of the organization is 40% women and 60% men, you might compare that to the 51/49% distribution of men and women in the total population and conclude that The Daily Show more or less hires a proportional amount of men and women. But here’s the kicker—if all of those people (men and women) behave in sexist ways, does it matter whether some of them are women? Nope, you can have a sexist organization that is predominately female. And, you can have a non-sexist / anti-sexist organization of all men.

The demographic composition of the organization does not by itself demonstrate that an organization is sexist.

3. Is The Daily Show sexist because employees experience the organization as sexist?

This is another tough one. Arguably, if “the organization” is sexist and discriminates against employees along gendered and racialized lines, employees will experience this sexism.

If employees report that they don’t feel discriminated against and they don’t feel that their work environment is sexist, we often conclude that the organization is not sexist. This is one argument that the women of The Daily Show have made in defense of their organization. Individually and collectively, they explain, they have not experienced The Daily Show (or Jon Stewart) as sexist. On the other hand, the two female ex-employees of The Daily Show who were interviewed by Jezebel claimed that the harsh treatment at TDS was due to their gender. However, gender doesn’t explain the similar harsh treatment that former male employees have reported.

Before we take anyone’s word for it, we have to consider how well-equipped these employees are to recognize their experience as sexism or not. It can seem harsh to question the reports of the employees – surely, they know what they experienced. But do they know what sexism is and how to distinguish between a bad experience and a bad experience that is due to sexist behavior, attitudes, and systems? And, do the women and men experience and notice  efforts to reduce sexist experiences within the organization?

4. Are The Daily Show’s practices & work systems sexist in their application? And, are they sexist in their outcomes?

This is the most critical criterion, and in my mind the only one that, alone, could provide enough data for a conclusive judgment. But it’s still very complicated.

Organizational systems can be designed to be sexist in their intent (e.g., only women are allowed to be makeup artists) and they can be design to let sexism slip through unchallenged. These days, intentionally sexist systems are harder to find. Instead, it’s the systems that fail to challenge sexism that indicate whether an organization is sexist.

The Daily Show has some hiring processes that aim to prevent sexism. The Daily Show evaluates the writing samples of applicants using a “blind” process: applicant’s names and identifying information are removed from the submissions before they are evaluated. (Compare this to the practice at American Apparel, where potential employees have to submit photos of themselves with their job applications to prove that they are sexistly sexy enough.)

On the other hand, the concentration of men in higher status, “line” positions (e.g., writers, on air personalities) and the concentration of women in administrative, managerial, and support positions could be taken to suggest that The Daily Show’s systems let sexism through.

Then again, The Daily Show has been appreciated for family/life-friendly flexibility by both women and men.

In one of the more ‘organizational’ analyses of the issue so far, Amanda Hess writes:

If you haven’t considered the societal forces and ingrained prejudices that may contribute to gender disparities in your hiring practices, your hiring practices are probably sexist.

5. Is The Daily Show’s product sexist?

s the show that The Daily Show creates sexist? Does it prefer men over women, focus on male defined topics to the exclusion of female defined topics, and/or promote, display or leave unchallenged sexist attitudes?

Again, another tricky evaluation. Both the male-to-female ratio of guests on the show, and the male-to-female ratio of on-camera personalities heavily favor men. Defenders of The Daily Show rely on the pipeline argument, explaining that the pool of female comedians is relatively low. A similar argument is made to explain the dominance of male authors, actors, and national figures who come on the show to be interviewed.

And how about the content of what The Daily Show covers? I have yet to see a content analysis of TDS’s coverage, but my sense is that, while they don’t cover as many issues on the top of feminists’ lists as I might like, they do cover issues that women as well as men care about (e.g., gay rights).

Finally, consider the last criterion:

6. What kind of impact is The Daily Show having on the segments of society that it influences? Is that impact sexist?

Progressive that I am, I’d have to argue that the impact of The Daily Show is a –qualified– win for women and anti-sexist men, although the link between their product and the quality of their social influence is a long one.

As much as it tries to be an ‘equal opportunity offender’ and skewer the Left as well as the Right, The Daily Show serves a progressive agenda. By calling attention to and making fun of regressive, racist, sexist, denialist, anti-scientific and plain’ole old ineffective politics and social trends, The Daily Show’s influence rebuts the forces that support sexism.

To be sure, whether or not an organization is sexist is a complex call—There are arguments for and against The Daily Show’s sexism, on every criterion. And, as much as we’d like to “pinpoint” our conclusion on one obvious example or another, it’s the whole picture of the organization, a picture created by considering all 6 dimensions, that ultimately informs our judgment of whether or not the organization is sexist.

I’ve had an occasional window into The Daily Show from family and friends who have worked there. I’ve heard an array of examples that lead me to conclude that The Daily Show as an organization is less sexist and trying harder than most media producing organizations. I would like to see them do more to address sexism with their product (e.g., more women on air, more women interviewees, more rigorous questions for women interviewees) and within their organization (e.g., take an explicitly anti-sexist stand and create systems that would support this).

That said, when I give use the 6 Degrees of Sexism Test on The Daily Show, it squeaks by with a ‘pass’.

And you? If you’re a Daily Show viewer, what’s your judgment? Do you think The Daily Show is sexist, or not?

Notes:  If you aren’t sure what “sexism” or “sexist behavior” is, please check out Feminism 101.
No mansplaining, please.

See also:
Will Newsweek Respond to Claims of Sexism?
What Makes an Organization Authentically “Mormon”?

Images: www.thedailyshow-q.mtvi.com/…/Kristen+Schaal , Comedy Central

What do birds, beaches, and Chevron have in common? They have been “tarred by the same gush” of “negative spillover” from BP’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

In one of the weirder cases of a collision between literal and figurative language, the “negative spillover” of BPs Deepwater Horizon crisis is soiling not only birds and beaches, but also corporate reputations.

Through “negative spillover” (Tu, Sengul, & Lester, 2008), the reputations of other oil companies, various BP business partners, and even social service organizations working with BP are being damaged.

The reputations of these organizations are being degraded not because we think that they are responsible themselves for the oil spill.

Instead, we believe that their similarity to BP implies that they are complicit.

In this crisis (as in many others), we are uncertain about what combination of factors “caused” the spill. Crises are rarely caused by one person, one action, or one system within organization. Instead, crises are caused by complex interrelationships among people, actions, and systems.

And, while crises may be caused by factors unique to the failed organization, it is also possible that factors beyond the organization are involved. The crisis might be “firm specific”; then again it might just be chance that this particular organization, in this particular industry, caused this crisis.

In light of the difficulty of pinpointing causation (and blame), we consider what other actors might possibly be complicit. Then, we take our negative evaluation of the failed organization and spread it over our evaluations of these other organizations. For an organization’s reputation, negative spillover is the opposite of “basking in reflected glory”.

Similarity => Negative Spillover

Shared genes:   Similarity leads to negative spillover because the rest of us assume that similar organizations share “genes”. Similar organizations–other oil companies–were and still are just as likely as BP to create environmental crises. The structural similarity of these oil companies to BP suggests that their internal norms and systems are quite like BP’s.

It makes sense, then, to expect that if BP had faulty systems and inadequate response plans, so too must Shell and Exxon. Similarity suggests that these organizations could be responsible for future, similar crises. After all, these organizations are “just like” BP.

You look just like the known polluter, ergo you ARE also a polluter.

Shared context:    Similarity leads to negative spillover because we assume that organizations in similar contexts have the same opportunities and constraints. These other oil companies work within the same industrial and regulatory systems as BP, so there can be no expectation that these organizations are subject to significantly different (or more noble) practices.

When the crisis is believed to have been caused by many factors, some of which are not specific to the failed firm, similar organizations are presumed to be just as bad, potentially.

Similarity implies complicity

Another reason why these similar organizations experience negative spillover is that their similarity to the failed firm suggests another kind of complicity: failure to prevent the crisis.

These other oil companies have maintained the status quo, offering little competitive incentive to others within the industry to improve on factors related to the crisis.

if other oil companies had better safety practices, better cleanup practices, better environmental positions, BP might have felt competitive pressure to adopt these ‘better’ practices. While organizations often sink to the “lowest common denominator” they also compete with each other to be perceived as “better” than the rest to extract some kind of competitive advantage.

This is actually what BP was claiming to do (but did not execute) with their “Beyond Petroleum” campaign. BP claimed to be different from other oil companies because they were committed to protecting the environment by pursuing sustainable alternatives. We (their audience) believed their claims to be different and gave BP a more positive reputation than any other oil company.  BP’s “Beyond Petroleum” campaign did put some pressure on other oil companies to get them to present themselves as more green too.

By holding the same destructive potential, and by not having acted themselves to raise the standards, other oil companies are seen as being implicitly complicit in the Gulf Oil Spill.

Can other oil companies avoid negative spillover from BP’s crisis?

Preferential Detachment

To avoid negative spillover, individual oil companies and oil companies as a group could engage in “preferential detachment”, where they try to regain legitimacy and relative good standing by reducing their actual links to the failed organization and by reducing perceptions that they are similar.

BP’s partners and suppliers in Deepwater Horizon, Anandarko and Halliburton, are directly linked to the failed rig. They are fighting to distance themselves from blame by showing that they were, in fact, not involved in any of the decisions or actions that led to the spill. It will be interesting to see if this strategy has any positive effect.

Other oil companies are trying to distance themselves from BP, by claiming that they are different in several important ways. They have argued that they have better response plans, better safety systems, more reliable technology. However, careful investigative journalism has shown that these companies are no different, either in terms of their envirmental protecion procedures or their general rapacity, from BP.

Real change?

Other oil companies are unable to present themselves as different and detached themselves from BP in any material way. Distinguishing themselves as as authentically different will involve fundamental changes in internal organization as well as external business practices. These changes take time, so if they have any intent of being different, it will take time for these differences to be perceived and to influence their company’s reputation.

The most logical strategy for distinguishing themselves against BP with regard to this environmental crisis would be to point out how much better their spill response plans are, how much better their environmental precautions are, and how much better their safety systems are. Ironically, this strategy will make any oil company more vulnerable to reputation damage in the future. Good reputations can become liabilities: Audiences come to expect more of organizations with good reputations (in this case, green reputations), so audiences are are more punitive when the organization fails

Implicit Complicity vs. Actual Responsibility

It makes complete sense that other oil companies ) are being blamed and seeing their reputations tarnished by the BP Oil Spill.

While BP might be slightly more risk-insensitive than other oil companies, it seems as much a matter of luck as intentional bad management that BP was the organization that caused this spill. Exxon had their own spill and could easily have another. Shell is busy poisoning large swathes of Nigeria.

None of these oil companies is different from BP in a significant way.

Negative Spillover isn’t an “accident”

Unlike the Gulf Oil Spill, the reputation damage of negative spillover isn’t an accident. Damage to oil company reputations hasn’t been unfair, or inadvertent. The reputation damage has been earned.

Reputation damage results from our ‘best guess’ for holding organizations accountable.  Negative hits to corporate reputation translate into reduced financial performance. So, although the link is long and indirect, further lowering our opinions of oil companies may have small some punitive impact.

Unlike the birds and the beaches, then, oil companies like Exxon, Shell, Chevron, & others deserve the negative spillover.

Until (perhaps while) real change is attempted, the very least we can do is see all of these similar organizations for what they are — complicit.

See also:

What is Collateral Reputation Damage?
Reputation, Beyond Authenticity, by Mignon van Halderen on February 1, 2009
Yu, T. Y. Sengul, M. and Lester, R. H. 2008. ‘Misery Loves Company: The Spread of Negative Impacts Resulting from an Organizational Crisis’, Academy of Management Review, 33 (2): 452-472.

Image: GreenPeace Behind the Logo contest

[Trigger alert: This post is about racism.]

There is no more incendiary question than the implicit and unspoken question that often follows the promotion of non-white and/or non-male employees:

Did s/he get the job because s/he’s qualified, or did s/he get the job because s/he’s (fill in the diversity criterion here)?

Corporate American is seldom so stupid as to promote a candidate simply & only because s/he has the right diversity characteristics. Women don’t get promoted because they are women, non-whites don’t get promoted because they are not white, and folks with disabilities don’t get promoted so that we can see a person who uses a wheelchair at a stockholders’ meeting. That’s not how it works.

But, and it’s a big ‘but’:

Organizations can and often do benefit when the demographic attributes of their employees add value to the organization’s public image.

Indra Nooyi didn’t get her job as PepsiCo’s CEO because she’s Asian Indian and a female, but it certainly helped Pepsi’s image to have a prominent executive who is female and non-white.

The demographic and physical attributes of an employee often do extra “work” for the organization that employs them, by presenting a certain desirable image that consciously and unconsciously provokes positive responses from their audience.

BP is currently benefiting from the appointment of a Black employee, Darryl Willis, as the spokesperson for their claims efforts. Willis wasn’t chosen (or volunteered) because he’s Black– he has many other credentials that make him a great candidate for this job. But it is not insignificant that the prominent, identifiable person in BP’s television advertisements is a Black man.

Using a Black spokesperson, in a rather perverse way, helps BP take advantage of white American racism.

Having a spokesperson like Willis allows BP to take advantage of the Teddy-Bear effect — where the perceived warmth, niceness and personality of a Black man’s appearance disarms white people’s concerns and invites them to be comfortable trusting that person. Using a perceived “teddy bear” as a spokesperson may lead white Americans to trust the organization the “teddy-bear” represents.

But before we consider the Teddy-Bear Effect, check out all the other ways that BP is working to disarm us and get us to trust them, through the television and print ads that feature Darryl Willis.

Comforting, disarming visuals

In the BP Claims television and print ads, Willis’s appearance is crafted so that he appears to be more approachable. He’s wearing khakis and a polo shirt, not a suit and tie. He’s walking one-on-one with a ‘Gulf resident’, not speaking from a podium behind a name card to a large audience.

He is relaxed, direct, unhurried, and earnest.

All of the characteristics presented by Willis are intentionally crafted to make him look as friendly and trustworthy as possible.

Comforting, disarming words

The way Willis audibly delivers BP’s message is disarming. Willis has a warm, low voice and speaks with an identifiable Gulf (Southern LA) accent.

Willis’s words are also carefully crafted to make us want to like him and trust him. He’s the head of “Claims”– getting reparation money to people who’ve been hurt. He’s not an employee who helped to cause the Oil Spill; instead, he’s all about the solution. He describes himself as a ‘volunteer’. He mentions his family and Hurricane Katrina. He describes himself as “from here”.

(I don’t know whether he “volunteered” or not, but the other two description are verifiably true– his mother lost her home to Hurricane Katrina, and he has a personal anchor in the Gulf Coast, having graduated from the University of New Orleans.)

All of these features make us think:

• This spokesperson wasn’t pressured, he really cares.
• This spokesperson has a personal stake in fixing this problem.
• He’s one of ‘us’, one of the people hurt, and so he’ll treat us right.

Dis-arming the Details: What we are NOT shown

Would it surprise you to know that in addition to being the head of “Claims”, Willis is also:

• BP’s Vice President of Resources, BP America

• A scientist, specifically, a geophysicist, who is one of the 50 Most Important African-Americans in Technology

• Worked for BP most of his career, much of it on projects related to deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico?

None of these details disqualifies him from the job of spokesperson or Head of Claims– but they are details that might make viewers trust him less.

– A VP? (executive compensation and access to power)
– A Scientist? (cool, rational, all about numbers not about people).
– A BP lifer? (a company man who puts the company and not us first).

So, here we’ve got an important executive, with technical credibility and scientific expertise, handling the payout of insurance claims.

And that’s even before we bring in the issue of race/racism.

TeddyBear vs. Toff

As a thought experiment , compare your impressions of Willis to your impressions of Tony Hayward in a similar kind of television ad. (You can watch this on YouTube.)

The first (Willis) is warm, friendly, approachable, trustworthy, and one of us. The second (Hayward) is cool, distant, elitist, and dismissive. One’s a Teddy-Bear and one is a Toff.

What’s a Toff? “Toff” is slang for a British person of the upper class.

What’s a “TeddyBear”? [ trigger alert] :

A Teddy-Bear is a Black CEO with a “babyface”.

A babyface is characterized by combinations of attributes, including a round face, full cheeks, larger forehead, small nose, large ears and full lips. “Babyfaced adults are treated differently compared with mature-faced adults: baby-faced adults are considered more warm, innocent and trustworthy.”

Now, add race to this picture.

The “Teddy-Bear Effect” describes a racist dynamic where (some) white people (tend) to feel more comfortable with a Black man with a “disarming” appearance.

That is, they tend to feel more comfortable with Black men who, because of the overall gestalt of their facial features, appear to whites to be warmer, more friendly and open.

Black male CEOs with more babyfaced characteristics seem to non-Black observers, to be more competent and less threatening that Black men with more ‘mature” faces.

By extension,

Using a Black male spokesperson whose facial appearance may seem less-threatening to some white people might help the audience feel warmer and more trusting towards BP.

Let me reiterate that Willis is obviously quite qualified in any objective way to speak publicly on behalf of BP. He’s a VP, a geophysicist, and a long-term BP employee. He also has roots in the Gulf community. And, he comes across as warm, friendly, personable and trustworthy.

• Is it cynical to suggest that BP is benefiting from white people’s possible tendency to feel more comfortable with powerful Black men who have Teddy-Bear characteristics?

• Or to suggest that Willis’s appearance is part of an overall effort to craft BP as warmer and more caring?

What do you think?

6/31: Some additional articles on this issue:

• Bruce Ritchie, The FLorida Tribue and Environments.com: BP’s “media star” tries to reassure Florida officials

• Larry D. Woodard, ABC News/Money online: Will this man save BP’s reputation?

References:

• Robert W. Livingston & Nicholas A. Pearce (2009). The Teddy-Bear Effect: Does Having a Baby Face Benefit Black Chief Executive Officers? Psychological Science, vol. 20 no. 10 1229-1236.

• Willis has his masters degree in Geophysics from University of New Orleans, and according to their alumni newsletter was working in the Depwater Gulf of Mexico for BP as early as 2001.

See also:
From AuthenticOrganizations:BP’s Bravest Brandividual: What could be motivating Darryl Willis?
McCain Campaign Exploits the Race of Their Hired Help

From the blog: Stuff White People Do: Prefer babyfaced black men
From Black Voices: BP Chooses a Black Man to Head its Claims Process, by Boyce Watkins, PhD

Image:
Willis Testifies Before Congress, from African-American Environmentalist Association web page