The glass ceiling

No one doubts that this authentic declaration of intentions and business philosophy established by Gottlieb Daimler, despite having more than a century of history, is perfectly applicable today, since there is no other way to achieve success and that this success, instead of a brief mirage, is a sustainable result over time and enduring generations, that through the excellence of our proposal to the market. Otherwise, this magnificent car brand, whose factory was destroyed by more than 90% in World War II, could not have reached this day. But this excellence must be complete, not only in our processes and in the quality of our products and services, but also in the behavior that managers have towards the professional career of ALL our collaborators, whatever their age, culture, race and sex

Personally I will not go into political matters, which sincerely seem boring to me and that, if they are not accompanied by actions at the micro level, they are simply a handful of phrases, often poorly elaborated, that only distract without changing anything at the root of the problem. However, I will enter my personal experience as a connoisseur of many companies and executives of a very high level (usually men), because there is a reality that, perhaps with the intention of passing a little unnoticed, is defined with a term which implies transparency; It is the Crystal Roof, which exists and that, in many occasions, has a thickness worthy of the best anti-war armor. And it is a global issue, as I know many countries (logically not all) and there is always a moment when, at certain executive levels, the presence of women begins to dilute, almost disappearing.

Why does this happen? In my humble opinion, of which I am absolutely convinced, there are two fundamental reasons; the fear of being overcome that many men have (I put it in the third person because it is something that I do not feel affected at all) and the absolute incompetence that exists when establishing conciliation measures.

The fear of being overcome: honestly, in our times it seems absolutely incomprehensible that there are professionals who feel their ego hurt if they are overcome, a sensation that increases dramatically when this improvement is made by a woman. We are educated that we have to be the best, which is not bad if it is well understood, provided that this leads us to be better day by day and not on the easy way, to put obstacles to the rest, so that our weaknesses do not manifest. The solution in this case lies in the education we give our children, but not the academic one, but the family and social one, where we teach them to handle frustration, to be tolerant and to take advantage of the synergies that may appear when we go in favor of who may be better than us, instead of feeling annoyed at someone else’s success. But this, if we adults have not overcome it, is a philosophy of difficult transmission. It would be unthinkable to see a soccer player score goals against his own team because his teammate is a better player than him, right? Well, in the business and social world this is absolutely frequent and the worst thing is that we have it standardized and it doesn’t catch our attention.

The incorrect CONCILIATION: considering the meaning of the word, conciliating means creating the right conditions to agree a priori incompatible situations. With which, the secret is to create, at all times and according to the needs of each person, and of course those of the company (we must not forget that if the company does not work we will all have to go through the Employment Office) the conditions and necessary and tailored agreements to coordinate and optimize personal responsibility with professional commitments. And there are no excuses for not doing so, because we have at our disposal all the tools that technology gives us to be able to implement the necessary solutions, so it is in our hands to get it, but for this we have to overcome another of the great problems that in my own opinion we have in companies (fortunately less and less), which is “face-to-face”. The day we design a good contract for objectives (instead of dedicated hours) we will make a breakthrough towards the optimization of the only unrecoverable resource; time.

Like almost everything in life, the great changes are achieved from the sum of small individual actions and these actions are we who must put them into practice. It all depends on our attitude; we just have to decide, want to do it and act with determination. In our hand it is to improve the results of our companies through the care of ALL the factors involved.