plans to expand our global footprint. We’re taking a fresh look at women’s ambition in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, India, China, and Brazil, and we’re developing a much-needed blueprint for Global Executives that draws upon our recent work on Executive Presence as well as Innovation, Diversity and Market Growth. We’re mapping the formidable opportunities that women’s new spending power (we call it “The Power of the Purse”) has unleashed in financial services and the healthcare industry across the world, and we’re taking our LGBT work, “The Power of Out,” to four continents. With this enlargement of scope and span, one thing will remain constant: We’ll continue to provide robust, rigorous research that helps companies and organizations harness the most powerful competitive differentiator they have at their disposal—the brain power of their people.
A Brand New Case for Action
When we published “Innovation, Diversity and Market Growth” (IDM) in September of 2013 I knew that we had produced a seminal study, one which was a fitting culmination of our first ten year journey. At the heart of this work is our discovery of a quantifiable “diversity dividend.” Trained as an economist, I have always believed that leaders will embrace diversity only if there is an airtight business case to support it. Our IDM research deepens a previously existing business case and makes it thoroughly convincing.
In recent years an array of eminent thinkers—Scott Page, Frans Johansson, and James Surowiecki among others—have demonstrated concrete connection between diversity and business performance. In addition, smart leaders in many cutting-edge businesses have recognized that reaching increasingly diverse consumers and clients requires talent that mirrors those markets. But our study goes beyond tenuous correlations and obvious market matching to the heart of the matter. With input from 1,800 managers and executives, dozens of team leaders tasked with driving innovation, and forty case studies across a range of industries, we show precisely how diversity unlocks innovation and propels market growth. We show which two dimensions of diversity matter most, and, most importantly how 2D DiversitySM allows companies to expand market share and turbocharge new markets. We’re able to both quantify a “diversity dividend” and demonstrate how the absence of 2D DiversitySM creates a chokehold in the innovation process and a drag on growth. This seminal research was showcased in the December 2013 issue of Harvard Business Review and it provides powerful new ammunition for why we need diversity at decision-making tables.
Over the last ten years the Center and its Task Force have created a treasure trove of research and best practices. Whether you are an employer or an employee, take the lessons collected here and put them to good use. And stay tuned. Our work is rich and impact-filled and we plan on doing a whole lot more.
Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited
Sylvia Ann Hewlett
Diana Forster
Laura Sherbin
Peggy Shiller
Karen Sumberg
Study sponsored by Cisco, EY, The Moody’s Foundation
First published in 2010
Contents
Changing Gender Roles in Family and Domestic Life
What It Takes to Keep Women on Track
Foreword
My son’s second birthday was a turning point for me—though not for the reasons a new mother would hope. Just as the festivities were getting underway, I received an urgent call from my editor at The Times of London. Two Dartmouth College professors had been murdered. Would I hasten to Hanover, New Hampshire to cover the breaking story?
I said yes. I didn’t feel as though I had a choice: If I didn’t take the assignment, I wouldn’t lose my job, but I would certainly lose out on opportunities that would propel my career forward. On the way out of our apartment building, I saw my husband, literally just arriving home from South Africa, and told him he would have to take over for a couple of days and that we had 20 people coming for our son’s party that afternoon. Within hours I was in Hanover, interviewing members of the community and probing the details of a grisly story. I worked all night. At 5 a.m., I filed my story. I’d met the deadline. A career crisis averted, I thought.
Then I got another call from my editor. He loved the story, but he wasn’t going to run it until the end of the week.
I’d missed my son’s birthday for nothing.
That was the moment when I realized these two lifestyles were incompatible. I understood that something had to change, and the impetus was on me to figure out what.
Every working mother I know has had to negotiate a similar fork in the road. Do you take an “off-ramp”—quit your job, take care of your kids, and promise yourself you’ll return when the circumstances are more forgiving? Do you take a detour, a lesser road but
