One Policy Won't Fit Every Woman

Most corporate policies start from a reasonable assumption: find out what people want, then build one program that delivers it. Dambisa Moyo describes what happened when companies tried that approach on one of the most important workplace questions there is.

In How Boards Work, she writes that companies reported hearing differing, sometimes conflicting, answers from focus groups of women about what would be most effective in achieving gender parity. Some women wanted longer maternity leave and wanted companies to insist on paternity leave for new fathers. A minority questioned maternity leave altogether, arguing it framed childcare as purely a woman's issue. Others mainly wanted their seat kept warm, with their specific role and clients intact when they returned. Still others favored shared parental leave.

Even flexible schedules and remote work had mixed support, Moyo notes. Some women worried that being physically absent could hurt their careers, even if working from home helped their families. Her conclusion: the quest for parity "demands more than just a single, simple solution."

The standard answer has run out

I would go a step further. The contradictory answers aren't a failure of the research. They're the most honest finding it could produce.

Women are not a single constituency with a single need. A new mother, a woman caring for an aging parent, a woman with no children who wants an accelerated path, a woman returning after years away: each faces different realities and wants different things. Moyo herself raises the caregiving question, asking whether employers should accommodate employees who look after aging parents.

Any one-size policy will serve some of these women well and leave others behind. Then leaders wonder why the program didn't move the numbers.

This is what I called the Collapse of Standardization in 2020. For a century, institutions designed one way to work and expected people to fit it. That model is breaking, not because standards are bad, but because people will no longer accept standards that don't describe them.

From programs to choices

The organizations making real progress are moving from one policy to a framework of options. They keep a fair, consistent foundation everyone can count on, then let individuals choose the arrangement that fits their lives.

That's the healthy tension between standardization and personalization applied to policy. The standard guarantees fairness and protects people from being treated arbitrarily. The personalization makes the policy actually work for the person using it. Lose the standard and you get favoritism. Lose the personalization and you get a program that looks good in a report and helps fewer people than intended.

Moyo's deeper warning

Moyo is careful to say that boards can't solve this alone. She points to systemic issues such as the long-standing lack of women in STEM fields, and the way the same qualities are often interpreted differently by gender, with confident men praised while confident women are labeled bossy. These require partnership with governments, educators and society, not just better HR policy.

I agree. I'd also say that the place to start is the place leaders control: their willingness to stop designing for an imagined average and start listening to the actual people in front of them.

What leaders can do now

Ask, then believe the variety. When people give you different answers, resist the urge to average them. The range is the information.

Build a foundation plus choices. Define what everyone is guaranteed, then offer real options above that floor.

Protect the careers of people who choose differently. Moyo's point about women fearing that remote work will hurt them is crucial. Options mean nothing if choosing one quietly costs you advancement.

Revisit often. Lives change. A policy that fit someone five years ago may not fit them now.

Reinventing on purpose

Workplace policy is one of the clearest places to see reinvention happening. The old model asked people to adapt to the institution. The new one asks the institution to adapt to its people, within standards that keep it fair.

The focus groups Moyo describes weren't confused. They were telling leaders the truth: there is no single woman, so there can't be a single solution.

This essay responds to ideas in How Boards Work by Dambisa Moyo (Basic Books, 2021). The focus group findings and her discussion of systemic barriers are hers.

Read more about the Collapse of Standardization.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.