Appearing in the April 29, 2016 issue of The Harvard Business Review, Shelly Correll and Caroline Simard’s article, “Research: Vague Feedback Is Holding Women Back” shares with readers some of the results of their research into the effects of performance evaluations on the advancement of women into executive roles. Correll and Simard, both of Stamford University, found that women are less likely than men to receive specific feedback, regardless as to whether that feedback be positive or negative. The authors discuss the possible causes behind this trend and conclude that this “vague feedback” has a direct negative impact on women’s chances for advancement. The lack of specificity makes it difficult to measure progress and provides less clarity of what steps are necessary to make it to the next level. The results of Correll and Simard’s research are a powerful tool in supporting Wynn’s third recommendation for organizational change; Performance Evaluations. Her suggestion that organizations establish clear and precise criteria is backed up by the research performed by Correll and Simard.
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The best audience for Wynn’s article is leaders in the tech industry who are engaged in working to enhance gender equality in tech. It is best suited for those in a position to effect change, as well as those with the opportunity to influence decision making. It would be particularly useful to HR presidents and vice-presidents because it provides six clear areas of focus. There are two key sentences which I believe serve as the fulcrum for Wynn’s entire argument:
“It may be easier to think of individualistic solutions—such as training ourselves to think differently and change our own behavior—or to blame larger societal forces we can’t control, rather than to change the intricate organizational procedures and practices that contribute to employment outcomes in complex ways. However, my research suggests that we must address organizational forms of inequality as well.”
The first of these sentences addresses methods with which the readers are likely to be familiar. In fact, they may have attempted many of them already. In the second, Wynn quickly but delicately deems them ineffective and prepares the reader to be receptive to her recommendations which follow.
Precisely–Wynn is offering us a TSIS move in the passage you’ve quoted above. She references 2 different tidbits of conventional wisdom, and then insists we actually need to see this differently, to think about the role that organizations (in that kind of middle ground between individuals and society at large) have to play.