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Moving Forward

Working groups at the New Rules Summit, hosted by The New York Times, proposed steps that business leaders, policymakers and individuals can take to create inclusive, equitable environments that enable women to succeed.

At the New Rules Summit, hosted by The New York Times, participants worked in groups to propose steps that business leaders, policymakers and individuals can take to create inclusive, equitable environments that enable women to succeed. Each group was advised by an expert in business or academia. Following are the topics, quotes from the panel leaders and three takeaways from each.

More stories from The New Rules Summit Special Report.

“This whole idea of a glass ceiling is the wrong metaphor, because glass seems easily shatterable. It’s more like a concrete ceiling. What has gotten us here isn’t going to get us to where we want to go. We haven’t yet invented the practices we need to go from here to there,” Molly Anderson, founder and chief executive of Exponential Talent LLC

The importance of top leadership in this field cannot be overstated. Business leaders need to rethink what it means to take risks when advancing women to the top. It’s not “taking a risk on a woman.” It’s making it a priority and changing the system.

The risk here isn’t making a mistake on one person by perhaps putting them in a role too early, the risk is losing out to other business leaders on a whole talent pool because you didn’t tap into it.

The only way to get policymakers to make legislative change around this is to get more women and allies to run for office. This means not only encouraging people to run but also teaching them how to do so, so they have a seat at the table.

Political leaders must also get more people to vote. This means figuring out how to make it easier to vote, whether that means moving the voting day to a weekend day or encouraging voting by mail.

Individuals need to have personal agency and recognize that their career and future are their own, taking an active role in it and responsibility for it. You’ve got to be asking for opportunities and rethinking how you are asking for feedback. Trying new approaches if a previous approach did not work.

This also means taking responsibility to support other women in the work force. This could be mentoring or sponsoring others, or rewriting the rules of what you have control over.

Just because someone in that role previously traveled on weekends doesn’t mean that’s the way it has to be done. Wherever we are in the scope of management, we can change the rules and set precedents and be transparent about it.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“There’s a huge gap between intention and action. There are those who don’t want to do the right thing. But there are people who want to do the right thing and don’t get around to it, much like voting or healthy eating.” Iris Bohnet, Roy E. Larsen professor, academic dean and co-director, Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School

Don’t let the work of calling out unconscious bias fall to the same people over and over: Assign a rotating role such as “process czar” in meetings so that everyone internalizes and is accountable for enforcing expectations about not interrupting colleagues or not echoing ideas without giving credit.

Consider how technology can help: Once you’ve established expectations for how meetings will be conducted, include those expectations or a link to them in every meeting invitation that goes out, and send immediate follow-up surveys to assess how inclusive meetings or other activities truly were. Emphasize transparency in processes, incentives and outcomes.

Make sure that potential outcomes of policies are considered through a variety of diverse lenses, and eliminate or adjust policies that lead to preferential outcomes for certain groups. For example, expand definitions of family care to account for unconventional support structures. Insist on inclusive budgeting, so that resources are proportionally allocated based on outcomes. Restrict the donations you accept to groups and individuals who promote outcome-focused inclusivity.

In the workplace, try to flag biased behaviors in the moment, or shortly thereafter, and support others who call out co-workers for biased behaviors. To be able to assess your own biases and recognize them in others, take responsibility for to educating yourself, rather than waiting for your employer to provide training. Taking an active role in civic life is also necessary to create systemic change. Vote in elections, run for office and lobby in favor of policies that could have a wider impact.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“Progress on gender equality in corporate America is slow, we desperately need more women in boardrooms. Women are needed in these positions not only to enhance corporate performance but also to advocate for equal pay, fair promotions and help safeguard against sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace.” Debra L. Lee, the former chief executive and chairman emeritus of BET Networks

Chief executives must make it a priority to promote diversity among their leadership and on boards. Companies should aim for women and minorities to make up half of their board members — given the makeup of the nation and most companies’ consumers — and they should implement term limits, as the lack of turnover on boards is a big reason they remain so homogeneous.

The search criteria for new directors should be broadened, and bigger slates featuring younger people, women and minorities should be offered over all.

State governments should require public companies to have women on their boards because quotas — while they may provoke tension at first — work. California legislators recently passed a bill that would require public companies in the state to have at least one female director by the end of next year or face financial penalties. (Several European countries also have quotas.)

Individuals can urge institutional investors and companies to hold boards accountable on diversity and personally invest in companies with diverse boards. Women and minorities seeking board positions at large public companies can build their profiles by serving on the boards of nonprofit organizations, particularly on audit committees.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“It’s easy to think we’re doing this work just for someone else but this has everything to do with you, your family, your children if they’re a boy or girl. This work is about all of us.” Jeff Barth, senior director of Men Advocating Real Change at Catalyst

We talk often about the power of mentorship. We talk less about the importance of reverse mentorship: being open to guidance and seeking feedback from people who are junior to you on all sorts of matters, including gender equality. Accepting open and honest feedback from women or employees from underrepresented groups helps elevate their voices and promote a culture of inclusion. This process can also help in redefining the sort of qualifications and credibility that are often subconsciously shaping managers’ choices for potential candidates for hire or promotion, and sometimes biasing those choices toward men.

The levers of government can be a powerful tool for influencing the sort of employment policies that shape gender relations. Policymakers can do so directly through raising the bar via legislation in areas like parental leave, and indirectly, by demanding certain standards from the companies that contract with the government. A focus on mandatory paid parental leave, for men and women, would give both a chance to not have their roles defined for them.

Biases aren’t bad or evil. We all have them. Recognizing and embracing our biases is crucial to understanding how they influence us. Listening to others’ perspectives is the first step toward confronting your own biases. This may at times put you in an uncomfortable place. Embrace that discomfort and the idea that you may have blind spots that you haven’t considered. And then engage those blind spots by inviting women and underrepresented people to speak.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“The sad truth about this is it’s a problem where it’s happening every day to too many people. I think we can make some progress, but it requires understanding. It’s a really, really big problem to solve.” Marianne Cooper, sociologist at Stanford University’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab

When leaders take a stand, sexual harassment tends to occur less. Company leaders should establish a culture in which talking about sexual harassment is encouraged, and not punished. This does not mean simply including language in the employee manual. Every employee should understand what sexual harassment is, and there should be a system for people to immediately call out troubling behavior. For example, a “red-yellow-green” color system for categorizing behavior as acceptable or problematic could increase awareness and halt bad behavior in the moment.

Education is crucial to changing a culture in which sexual harassment is allowed or dismissed as “boys will be boys,” or as girls’ being seen as overly sensitive. And that training needs to happen at a young age. About half of girls report experiencing sexual harassment in school. Policymakers should establish sexual harassment education beginning as early as kindergarten and continuing through high school, based on research and what will be effective.

If you see something, say something: Every person can take action by speaking up — when you experience sexual harassment or when you observe it. If you witness an incident in a meeting that strikes you as problematic, pull the woman (or man) aside afterward and ask, “Are you O.K.?” It’s also important to understand hierarchy and be cognizant of your own privilege; the chief executive of a company will be better positioned to call out bad behavior than a first-year associate. If you are in a position of power, use it to benefit others who could face repercussions for speaking out.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“Sometimes pay disparity happens in organizations because people really haven’t even looked. You have to look at your numbers. And then, the accountability piece is, you have to explain them.” Hannah Riley Bowles, co-director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School

To address the gender pay gap, companies need to be transparent and accountable concerning their pay and hiring practices. But companies should not be penalized for what this data shows. Instead, they should be encouraged to make progress.

Employees should also understand how their earnings compare to industry standards. They also should not be afraid to ask for transparency about how their salary compares to colleagues or face retaliation for these questions.

The United States could consider adopting Britain’s gender pay-gap policies. These regulations require companies with 250 or more employees to publicly disclose salary data and any wage gap based on gender. It could be beneficial to require companies to adopt flexible work policies.

Individuals should have conversations with three people inside and outside their organization regarding compensation. They should seek out situations where people feel the most comfortable and are the most likely to be transparent. Then, they should use these discussions to determine, to the best of their ability, how much their peers are being paid. Additionally, they should take advantage of online databases and consult with their companies’ human resources departments to determine the general salary range for their position.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“Our solutions have to be that every woman is not dealing with it individually. It’s not only a personal issue, but a social good. We have to come up with collective solutions.” Lori Nishiura Mackenzie, executive director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University

To ensure that consistent and fair opportunities are provided to parents over the course of their careers, corporate managers from the executive level down have a responsibility in recognizing that a variety of current managerial, technological and cultural norms must change. To begin, organizations must offer paid leave to all employees seeking family or medical leave.

Additionally, work (including tasks, titles and organizational structure) can be structured so that it benefits working parents as well as the organization. Flexible schedules, or investments in telecommuting technologies, could assist in this.

Finally, policies alone won’t work. Working parents and their needs should be supported, regardless of gender — and that support should be publicly communicated — by both female and particularly male executives.

Policy directed toward working parents often starts and stops at maternity leave offered immediately after a child’s birth. That benefit should be expanded to both parents and primary caregivers, with added incentives to encourage parents concerned to take the time.

But policymakers should also consider that parenting doesn’t stop after infancy. Offering reliable universal child care, aligned with the workday, could assist in supporting working parents and working economies. Finally, policies against parental discrimination, not just gender discrimination, should be instituted and enforced.

For individuals, one change of perception is vital: In the office, on the factory floor or anywhere work is done, the working parent must be considered the norm, not the exception. That is reality.

If you are a parent, being open about your own joys and struggles will help normalize parenthood. It’s all right to choose to prioritize your family.

Finally, appreciate what skills and values a co-worker can bring as a parent, such as strong time management, flexibility and desire to build strong relationships.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“Continuing to admire the problem is no longer an option. These are industrywide problems and they require industrywide solutions.” Barbara Whye, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Intel

Use data to get know who your people are beyond gender, with an eye toward solutions for a more equitable work culture.

Do not put the burden of creating a more inclusive work space on the minority employees. Instead, deploy allies to be ambassadors within their own circles. Encourage “ally events” to expand conversation beyond identity groups.

Create opportunities for safe spaces in which dialogue and open discussion can grant employees the opportunities to air issues, and for others to ask questions and learn how to be better colleagues.

Rather than looking for the “best person for the job,” consider the best person for the team, focusing on richer diversity of perspectives.

To build a more inclusive culture, it is incumbent upon policymakers to look at each decision through an intersectional lens (one that takes into account the unique barriers to equality facing people of color, disabled people and neurodivergent people, LGBTQ+ people and those of different socioeconomic backgrounds). Advance legislation guaranteeing equality in pay and salary transparency.

Political leaders must become champions of bipartisan conversations around actionable solutions to problems beyond those that affect only their own demographics. Stop expecting underrepresented people to be the change agents. We need our political leaders to take the onus off the marginalized to enact cultural change.

Speak up for those whose voices are not centered in conversations having to do with power and decision-making. Be willing to learn, and from what you learn, teach. Accept that every person is on a continuum of learning about experiences beyond their own.

Call out misunderstanding, stereotyping and small-minded thinking in the spaces you occupy, not with anger or irritation, but rather by providing space for a more nuanced conversation about identity. You are the best catalyst for change within your own demographics.

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Credit...Louisa Bertman

“You do have to have a leader that is committed. It is really hard to make change unless your C.E.O. wants to make change. what we’re missing is the critical gap between commitment and action.” Julie Sweet, chief executive officer — North America, Accenture

Accountability is key to making sure that company leaders include women, minorities and persons with disabilities in making decisions and developing strategy. This can be done through methods like regular audits or tying diversity metrics to bonuses and benefits.

Company leaders should ensure that women and minorities are included in decision-making. They should consistently encourage staff members to speak up about whether or not initiatives are being implemented sufficiently, then make corrections when necessary.

These conversations can be difficult, but sometimes those are the most necessary ones to have.

Incentives are sometimes a necessary policy addition to promote inclusion. Benefits like tax credits or breaks for small businesses that are developing systems that successfully create a culture of inclusion can help advance the mission.

Individuals can support inclusion in the workplace, by being positive role models, leading by example and embracing mentorship.

Take time to welcome and meet with people who don’t look like you, and attend affinity meetings for communities you aren’t a part of. Your presence at these gatherings can show your commitment to working together.

Take the opportunity to learn and grow from these conversations, and use your voice to amplify others in situations where they may not have the same level of privilege as yourself.

It’s important to know that even if you are a member of an underrepresented group, you can have blind spots. Everyone can benefit from talking to people from a diversity of backgrounds, taking stock of what stories, narratives and experiences are not represented and working to change that.

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