Women more analytical than men in building their own careers, but not when it comes to others
Peter Crush, 08 June 2009
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1 comment on this article.A day after The Apprentice's all-female final, workplace psychologist OPP has revealed it is women who make better career decisions than men - but only when it comes to themselves.
According to a study of more than 1,000 workers and 550 line managers, nearly a quarter (24%) of men said they left their career to luck. Among women this was only one in five.
The survey found women were much more likely to base their career choices around their core skills (47% compared with 41% for men), while women also used psychometric testing more. Some 34% of men said they would be put off using it, compared with 25% of women.
However, as soon as women become line managers, and are managing the careers of others, the research finds more of them switch to using gut instinct (42% compared with 36% for men). As a result a greater number of female line managers admitted regretting the decisions they made. Just 22% of women said they would make the same decision again if given another chance, compared with 34% of men.
Robert McHenry, CEO of OPP, said: "Common sense dictates leaving one's career to luck is a dangerous path to choose, but a startling amount of men seem comfortable with this. As they mature into more senior positions and start line managing others though, it seems women are guiltier of basing major decisions on rocky foundations, putting faith in gut instinct over more robust approaches such as psychometrics."
He adds: "The net effect is a workplace where surface perception and hunches dominate decision making. At a time when the economy is forcing many of us to make tough calls about our careers and the careers of others, we need to take a more rigorous approach and employ the kind of ‘due diligence' we would in any commercial decision."
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- 08 June 2009
I think there are two interesting, interrelated points here. The first is that self-reporting on luck can be misleading, and the second is that analysis can be a substitute for risk taking and action.
Success in many organisations, as in many other situations in life, is often down to taking the opportunities on offer, not necessarily on having more opportunities available. Although an analytical approach that carefully uses psychometrics to match skills to opportunities seems to be a better option than a more scattergun approach, it does limit the number of opportunities that someone can go for and, unless there are hundreds to choose between, that will have an impact on progression. Often, over analysis is a way of "not acting" and I have seen this as a difference between men and women when moving jobs a number of times. Women tend to need far more information on which to base a decision though the same is true of men when they are less confident.
However, there is another interesting element at play in this study in that many employees misreport "luck", often attributing their own willingness to take a risk and put themselves forward for a promotion as "having been lucky." In reality, they have had the same opportunities as others, but have chosen to take them – sometimes they can even feel guilty for getting ahead when others fail to. For an interesting analysis of self-reporting, see The Luck Factor, Richard Wiseman.
So what this study may really be showing is that women are more likely to approach their career moves with caution, whereas men are more confident and less concerned that they may be knocked back. Of course, when managing other people, the outcome of each decision is not directly personal and the same level of caution is not necessary.
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