It is ‘women and girls in science’ week, and that got the founders of Teamery thinking. As four professional women we are passionate about gender equality (to be honest – all kinds of equality!) and we are very aware of the unique strengths that women bring to teams.
A recent McKinsey study showed that if a workforce is gender-diverse, 21% of businesses are more likely to experience above-average profitability. Having gender diversity increases productivity, creativity performance and retention. It also has a very positive impact on collaboration – something we love at Teamery.
It is well known that communication is something that women as very good at. This, together with their empathy, allows for meaningful conversations to take place which creates clarity and co-operation.
It is very common for women to have to wear many hats in their lives with the need to manage work, family (particularly parenting roles) and households. This results in them being skilled at managing rapidly changing situations and allows them to easily adjust to new situations which require solutions to be found quickly.
Here are a few other advantages to teams including women:
The size of the talent pool is increased
Women bring different perspectives which increases creativity and originality
Research shows that workplaces that are more inclusive have a lower staff turnover rate
Women have strong people skills (what we call EQ)
A woman’s style of leadership is typically inclusive and team-building focussed.
Women make flexible and agile leaders
Women leaders show their ego differently and are generally better able to make decisions while holding their egos in check
Studies show that women are more likely to lead through inspiration and taking others on a transformational journey which aligns people with meaning and purpose. This has been associated with higher level of commitment and productivity.
We have also been thinking about science…
While we are all about the human connection, the very existence of Teamery is based on the use of tech derived from the science of computing, electricity, and bits and bytes . We are in different parts of the world and in different time zones, but meet and connect regularly. We use our phones to send short messages, reminders, information, photos of inspirational things we have seen and to check in with each other. We use emails to share documents and other applications to send larger files. We use software which allows us to do out LinkedIn Live events. We use virtual meeting platforms for our weekly meetings and working sessions. We track our work time on apps.
We are also all about research. What do studies tell us about successful teams and leadership? How can we ensure that what we do when we work with teams is evidence-based and will definitely make a difference? We usually have strong gut feelings about this and are pleased when they are born out by research.
And while this brave new world of the virtual and the hybrid, made possible by extraordinary science, allows us to work together, it does leave us with some things to be aware of. We need to remember to be human and check in with each other at the start of each meeting. We need to be patient if we encounter tech issues. We constantly remind each other that there is a full person with a full body and a full life behind the face on the screen. We have practiced this and learnt a lot about how to do it well and that leaves us feeling that we are in a position to talk to teams about including woman in growing their teams and how to use tech to facilitate that in this ‘women in tech’ week and beyond.
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