Caroline Turner - Difference Works: Improving Retention, Productivity and Profitability through Inclusion

I always knew women were a key asset to the businesses I led. Difference Works helped me understand better than ever why that is so. I recommend it to all business leaders and managers who know that it is their job to create cultures that work for both men and women.

Bill Dehn, executive vice president, former board member and chair of the workforce and diversity committee of the board of directors, CH2M Hill

Year after year, one of the most powerful components of our WICT executive leadership program is the day-long workshop on masculine/feminine differences at work co-led by Caroline Turner. This book delivers the insights, stories, and tools from that workshop, which will help any leader create a workplace that fully engages men and women. Carolines book ties it all together and reading it has already paid dividends for me.

Jana Henthorn, former vice president and current chapter advisor of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of Women in Cable Telecommunications and senior vice president of Academic and Industry Outreach at The Cable Center

It is not easy to convince men (lawyers in my case) that they must understand and respond to gender differences as a first step to being an effective leader, manager or coworker. This book overcomes that natural skepticism by making a compelling case that is easy to read and to comprehend. I wish I had read it and been able to pass it around to coworkers (both men and women) 30 years ago.

Dean Salter, former chair of executive committee, Holme Roberts & Owen

Diversity and inclusiveness are vitally important to my law firm. Understanding the business case and the differences in masculine and feminine approaches can be challenging. This book offers practical insights and solutions that can help address a problem that has challenged the legal profession for too long.

Bob Bearman, managing partner, Denver office, Patton Boggs

I am an advocate for gender diversity, but as a man, have sometimes struggled to convey the importance of the issue and to find ways to overcome obstacles in this area. All of the managers in my organization will be reading Difference Works.

Jeff Melnick, regional vice president, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers

There are many people to thank for this book. But first and foremost is Steffie Allen. Steffie is an experienced businesswoman, a leader, and a creative spirit. She created a number of womens organizations, including The WomensVision Foundation and The AthenA Group LLC. She is a primary source for much of the content of this book and an inspiration to me.

When I was first struggling with whether my gender was causing me issues in the workplace, I met Steffie. She turned the lights on for me. An expert on gender at work and an effective advocate for women, she shared her wisdom with me. She did workshops on gender differences long before I did. She and her sister, Carolyn Zeiger, Ph.D., an educator and psychologist, first created a tool called Ten Arenas in Which Gender Differences Show Up. When Steffie and I became business partners in The AthenA Group we refined this tool into an earlier version of The Masculine-Feminine Continuum at Work: Masculine and Feminine Approaches in Ten Areas, which appears in are based. Together we created many of the tools in these chapters, which are based on the Masculine-Feminine Continuum and on the earlier work of Ms. Allen and Dr. Zeiger. The copyright to these materials is held jointly by my company, DifferenceWORKS, LLC, and The AthenA Group. Steffie has given me her wisdom and her suggestions. Thank you, Steffie.

I am grateful to my colleagues in The WomensVision Foundation, whose mission and programs align with the goal of my book: Businesses whose results are extraordinary because men and women achieve them together.

I thank all of the people at Greenleaf Book Group who guided this novice on her path to publishing a book. In particular, I thank my editors, Bill Crawford, Linda ODoughda, and Heather Jones.

I thank my daughter, Ashley, for her patience and support. I am grateful to my son, Justin, my artist offspring, for sharing his creativity, insights, and time.

This book is written so that my granddaughter, Ella Caroline, and my grandson, who will be born soon after this book is published, live in a world that honors and engages the masculine and feminine in all of us.

Note on Resources: Publishing details for all of the books, articles, and websites referenced in the text are included in the resources list in the back of the book. Periodically Ill encourage you to share your thoughts and experiences at another resource, www.difference-works.com/book, where you can also see what others think about the ideas in the chapters that follow.

INTRODUCTION

American business has a problemand an opportunity. Men and women each now represent roughly half of the U.S. workforce. Compelling evidence links inclusion, engagement, and gender diversity in leadership with superior retention, productivity, and profitability. Women have been in the pipeline long enough that we might expect them to be represented proportionally at each level of the corporate ladder, including at the top. They arent. On the way up the organizational ladder, many women disengage, quit climbing, and leave. This is much more than a problem for women. It is a problem for business. The problem has a big price tag. And solving it presents a big opportunitycapturing the payoff of gender diversity.

This book will help American leaders and managers increase engagement and retention of women in the workplace, which will lower costs and increase productivity and profits. How? By teaching those leaders and managers to identify, appreciate, model, and leverage both masculine and feminine approaches to getting results. Managers who learn to appreciate both can create inclusive environments in which both men and women feel valued and in which they feel they can grow and succeed. Creating an environment that works for women raises overall engagement and lowers overall turnover.

I have decades of firsthand experience with workplace diversity. I began my career over thirty years ago as one of very few women lawyers. At that time, it was natural to expect that there would be few senior or management-level women attorneys. I recall a conversation in which a senior (male) partner in the firm acknowledged that, naturally, women were only at entry levels in the profession. Its just a matter of time, he said. Women would work their way up the ladder when theyd been in the pipeline long enough. If we were just patient, we would penetrate the upper levels and become leaders alongside men.