`In the pipeline.”
That’s the reassuring term business executives defensively come up with when they’re asked why all of their top officers are men and where are the women?
“In the pipeline”–a term that maddens many women who are waiting and waiting to be promoted–is supposed to mean that qualified women are being trained to move ahead and eventually will get there.
They just have to be patient. Very patient.
Just take a look at the numbers: According to Fortune’s list of the top 1,000 U.S. companies, only 11 of them are headed by women.
The “most powerful woman in Corporate America,” Fortune says, is Anne Mulcahy, who heads the largest company: She’s CEO of Xerox Corp. Second is Carleton S. Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard Co., who won the big merger battle.
While it’s really good news that 11 women are running major organizations, the fact remains that 989 are run by men.
And where are the other women? In the pipeline. A pipeline that despite being touted as a vital conveyor belt is almost inert–unlike the volatile BanzaiPipeline in Oahu, Hawaii, that surfers adore. Most of the women in the bogged-down iron structure called “pipeline” are trained and ready to move ahead. But there they are, stuck in the mire of the so-called conduit.
To me, the pipeline is merely the dark underside of the glass ceiling, which women bump up against when they try to move into the highest ranks of executive responsibility.
The holding pen for ambitious women–also known as a pipeline–invariably bogs down women instead of functioning as the active supply line it’s purported to be.
That old devil pipeline has been used as an excuse for much too long, and now it’s time to dig it out, break it up into little pieces and redesign it so that the qualified women stuck in it for years finally get the promotions they deserve. Just like qualified men.
The key is to monitor and manage the existing pipeline to make sure it works. Its real job is to “identify, develop and promote” key talent, according to Monica Roper, a consultant at WFD Consulting Inc., in Watertown, Mass. The company specializes in work/life programs.
Roper, whose area of expertise is women’s advancement, describes an “effective” pipeline as one that pays attention to the progress of those in it by being aware of critical points in the life cycle of a woman’s career. And that also includes guarding against leakage or stagnation, she observes in WFD’s newsletter, “It’s About Time.”
“It’s not enough for a company to have a couple of key women identified,” said Roper. “In order to plan for the future, the pipeline needs to contain . . . female talent at all stages of their development.”
The consultant suggests that managers–the ones who sincerely want to unclog their sluggish pipelines and give women the chances they deserve–ask themselves three questions:
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– What are the experiences people need in order to succeed in this company?
– Are women getting equal exposure to those experiences?
– Where are women getting stalled or diverted as they travel though the pipeline?
Those questions are important ones that managers must ponder, but they’re only the beginnings of finding ways to accelerate women’s career advancement into the most exclusive corporate suites.
And that’s why I’ve come up with some questions that the almost-entirely male crowd of CEOs should ask themselves in order to propel women right out of the overcrowded and oppressive “pipeline.”
Among them:
– Why are all the faces of top officers I see in corporate annual reports only those of men?
– Why is the “pipeline” filled with women only?
– Why are women rarely included in succession planning for top management jobs?
– And the most important one of all: Now that smoking is known to be hazardous to your health and banned in most workplaces, why are there still “pipelines?”