Why the diversity dial isn't moving: Atlassian State of Diversity Report 2018

As a female founder, mother of four girls and passionate #STEM and #diversity advocate, I am doing what I can in my sphere of influence to drive diversity and inclusion, ignite conversation, table the metrics and push for progress. 

But diversity is indeed a very wicked problem. 

Entrenched cognitive biases, fixed cultures, diversity fatigue and too much talk and too little action mean we’ve actually still got a long way to go before D&I and gender is no longer on the agenda. (Run the numbers on the number of women in tech/STEM/funded startups/ASX or Fortune500 CEO leadership roles/government senior level positions. Not good.)

We keep talking/reading/town hall-ing about team diversity as a critical driver of innovation and problem-solving, but unless we can cultivate it/hire for it/celebrate it/elevate it/action it, our best attempts at innovation will always be constrained. 

Atlassian’s recent State of Diversity Report 2018 reveals why the D&I dial isn’t actually moving despite the conversations about cultural shift and commitment to D&I in the US and Silicon Valley right now. 

This is, of course, an endemic problem.

To effect any real change we need to sweep company-, startup- and society-wide, top to bottom, bring more chairs to the cap table, break down mindless bureaucracy, shift fixed mindsets, share our stories, build D&I skills, action inclusivity programs, push against status quo, employ empathy, and put people, values, balance and belonging before the BS of empty D&I PR rhetoric.

We also need to commit to active end-to-end processes and systems that mandate diversity as an accountable, transparent line item, and usher in a new world of work practice where we hire for diversity of not just faces but races, places and think spaces (mind sets).

What are you doing to action diversity and shift the dial? #teamup 

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At www.girledworld.com we are doing our bit to build girls up with skills and real-world knowledge so they can do their best work with values-driven passion. But the world needs to be ready for them when they unleash themselves on it. 

Join us to build the next Gen of innovators, founders and leaders at the girledworld WOW Summit 2018 at RMIT University.

A life-changing weekend of real-world learning for girls. Details here.

#teamup #girledworld #closetheSTEMdergap #womenintech

Why girls need strong, visible female role models

Do as I do, not as I say.

Role modelling is incredibly powerful. 

Research shows that the greatest determinant of a young girls’ future success is her access to a tribe of strong, visible, capable female role models who can show her how to unearth her talents, find her voice and forge her own path.👊🏽 

Research also tells us we need strong, visible female role models because we need girls to feel their own power when they see it reflected in women leading companies, running countries and founding businesses. (And there are nowhere near enough of them across the world right now).

And what we know is that in the new world of work we will need many more strong visible female role models thinking big, breaking through and radically redesigning the future of the workplace so girls can, alongside and after these women, push through barriers and biases to create the world-shaping innovations and new economies of our age. 

If you’re a secondary school aged girl (Years 9-12), a Parent or an Educator please join us for the girledworld WOW Summit 2018 at RMIT University for a life-changing weekend of role modelling, skill-building and windows to the future of work. 

girledworld World of Work Summit 2018
In partnership with RMIT University, Melbourne City Campus
Saturday June 16 + Sunday June 17, 2018
Earn Micro-Credentials in Design Thinking, Critical Thinking and connect with girls and female mentors from across Australia and the world.

EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE NOW! $49.95 Selling fast! 🏃🏽‍♀️ 

Click here for details on speakers, program and certifications. 

girledworld WOW Summit 2018 at RMIT. Tickets On-Sale Today!!

We are pumped to announce that tickets for the girledworld WOW (World of Work) 🌏Summit 2018 are on sale today (as in right now, right here, get 'em before they're gone!) 🙌🏽

This year's Summit has been developed and designed with RMIT Melbourne (where the event will be held) and will feature two days of immersive, real-world, hands-on learning for girls in Australian Secondary Schools (Year 9 - Year 12) so they can radically upskill, powerfully goal-set and get ready to thrive in the Future of Work. 

Across one extraordinary, transformational weekend, the @girledworld WOW 🌏Summit will bring together top speakers, industry experts and amazing career mentors to explore the new world of work and emerging areas of technology and STEM. This interactive, highly curated, Australian curriculum aligned event will empower, educate and equip all attendees with the mindsets, skillsets and toolkits they'll need to make informed choices about their future career pathways. 

We promise. This is not your average careers event. ⚡️🚀

CLICK HERE for TICKETS and more INFO.

Last year’s @girledworld Summit at the University of Melbourne was a sellout!

Get in quick for this one!

Group bookings available for schools and community groups. Please see here. 

#girledworldsummit #girledworld #melbourne #rmituniversity #rmit #worldofwork #futureofwork #internationalwomensday #createyourfuturecareer 💡

WHY GENDER NEEDS TO STAY ON THE AGENDA.

At events recently, several successful males have said the following to me: 'I wish women would just stop with all this female founder and leadership and gender stuff and just get on with doing big things and building great businesses.'

They, clearly, completely miss the point.

Some women ARE out there building businesses and doing big things - but nowhere near the rate that males are. 

Some women ARE leading organisations, engaging in public life, policy shaping, and creating the architecture of the new economy.

But nowhere near the participation rate of men. 

And you don't have to look far to see that in the media, in business, in politics, in boardrooms, in startups, in tech and in STEM, women continue to be underrepresented, underpaid, under-voiced, undervalued and under-done - across industries, and across the world.

On top of that, women are predominantly carrying the invisible burden of care, for which there is no trading currency.

So we can choose to shut down the conversations or sugar up the stats, but the facts remain... the scales aren't balancing fast enough.

The gender gap is real.

Bias is entrenched.

And shifting legacy fixed mindsets is going to take multi-generational momentum.
 
Equality? Parity? We're nowhere near there yet. 

So we need to keep gender on the agenda, have the hard conversations, and then as a whole society create action to find a positive, workable solution to bring up the numbers and get the whole of humanity participating in the problem-solving of our age.

We need to get women and the girls after them to step up, lead, succeed, shape, design, learn, listen, speak, start, quest, wonder, run, code, write and win. Alongside men.

The conversations will only go away when the problem is solved, the gap has closed and we can ALL get on with doing big things and building TOGETHER.

@girledworld Building the next generation of female founders and leaders, one girl at a time. ✖️✖️

Corporate Australia needs to ditch old processes and 'org-hack' itself to keep up with Silicon Valley

This article was first published in Business Insider Australia, October 12 2017.

If Australia wants to compete with global innovators, corporate culture needs to change.

GirledWorld co-founders Madeleine Grummet and Edwina Kolomanski want to equip the next innovation generation of female leaders, founders and STEM experts with the enterprise skills, and access to female business role models they’ll need to excel in the future of work.

Grummet told Business Insider that GirledWorld focuses on embedding purpose across everything they do, and building a startup culture that fosters creativity and human-centred design.

“We’ve worked and studied across the US, Asia and Europe over our career lifetimes, and it’s interesting to compare the cultural dictates of those economies,” Grummet said.

“What is clear is that comparatively, Australia’s corporate culture is inherently conservative and currently bound by legacy processes, hierarchies and systems that actually impede innovation.

“In the context of a data-driven knowledge economy, the advent of exponential technologies, rapid communication and a fragmenting marketplace, it’s clear that corporates will need to embrace change, employ human-centered design to put the customer at the heart of their business model, and embed purpose in their culture if they are going to survive.”

If you compare Australia to the Silicon Valley start-up scene, for example, Grummet said the companies there have an intense focus on being scalable, 'scrappy', agile and adaptable to change – driven either by the consumer, the marketplace or the technology.

“In that environment of rapid value shift, traditional industries and companies simply have to adapt to survive and this is driven by startups,” Grummet said.

“So companies and corporate cultures over there are actively trying to org-hack themselves to stay agile, redefine their purpose and drive intentional innovation.”

Grummet recently returned from a trip to the Valley, where she participated in deep-dives in innovation labs with the likes of Google, Airbnb, Twitter, Tesla, Silicon Valley Robotics and Singularity University.

Unfortunately, changing your culture is not something Australian businesses can just “copy and paste” from Silicon Valley, Grummet explained.

“In order to stay globally competitive and locally relevant, we must create and nurture our own culture within a start-up ecosystem that drives net job creation for Australia’s future economy.”

In the next 12 months, Grummet says girledworld's focus will be on three things: building an entrepreneurially minded team, scaling to reach more girls across Australia with a digital platform and continuing to embed purpose across their business to deliver on their mission.

“Five years from now we would like to have a multi-national team working within an operating culture that is diverse, positive, purpose-fuelled and that lives by its values, providing active mentorship and future career pathways to girls.”

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Join girledworld, Google, The Australian Futures Project and Blackbird Ventures at NAB 23/11.

GirledWorld Co-founders Madeleine Grummet and Edwina Kolomanski are members of the NewCo Advisory Council, and will be presenting at the Melbourne NewCo Festival on Thursday November 23 at NAB's The Hall in Melbourne. For tickets book here.

The Panel Event entitled 'Redefine the Workplace Paradigm: How to get women to stay, lead and succeed', will feature guest presentations and girledworld Co-Founders in conversation with Sally Ann Williams, Engineering Community & Outreach Program Manager, Google, Ralph Ashton, Co-Founder, Australian Futures Project and #WTFAustralia, and Nick Crocker, Partner, Blackbird Ventures. Tickets here. (Event details below and full NewCo Melbourne schedule here.)

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NewCo Melbourne: Redefine the Workplace Paradigm: How to get women to stay, lead and succeed brought to you by girledworld.

girledworld will explore the third gender revolution as we unpack diversity as an innovation driver, hear from experts about purpose-driven female leadership, and smash up workplace status quo and unconscious biases. Join us to build your toolkit on how to drive cultural transition in a positive, sustainable way, and how to create connection between industry and education to build the female pipeline of future innovators, leaders and founders.

NewCo is a festival of innovation and inspiration where mission-driven companies invite you inside their offices to share stories of positive change.

Business Insider Australia is the proud media partner of NewCo Melbourne, which kicks off on 22 November. Get your tickets and see the full schedule at www.mel.newco.co

Bringing up businesses and babies: Why women need mentors to make it work

As a working female who knows all too well the pace and juggle of balancing the needs of four busy daughters with the mid-career portfolio demands of building a startup, speaking engagements, active mentoring and board directorships, time is the core currency I trade in these days.

There are only so many hours in any given day, and the opportunity cost of time ill-spent down an email black hole or in zero-outcome meetings mean I've become more binary about how I will and won't spend my business time.

I choose to work with people and on projects that align to my purpose, and that solve for problems that really matter. It means the work can dial up and down as the projects demand, and it also means I therefore have to know when to flick the switch to family.

But like many women of my generation raising businesses and babies, finding true balance can be a challenge.

Sometimes the mix is just right, other times all wrong. You wing it anyway, and remind yourself that balance isn't static, and life is a continuum of change within which we chart our course, adjusting sails along the way where we need to. Some days are rough and tough, others blue-skied and calm watered (personally and professionally).

But in the mix of busy, I have, and always will, carve out time for mentorship. Because bringing up businesses and babies is not an easy juggle, and to make it work I have relied on the active mentorship of generous, intelligent women to help me navigate the way.

Because I have lived the benefit of having other women empower and mentor me, I believe in paying it forward. Daily, I still draw on the power and knowledge well of my collective circle to stay afloat, accelerate my opportunities and make strategic career choices. In fact some of the best business decisions I've made were shaped with mentors.

Sheryl Sandberg’s 2013 book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will To Lead has a dedicated chapter called Are You My Mentor? and in it she explores the idea of mentorship, and how to find the right mentors for your personal and professional stage.

Some of her key points about mentorship are that at its best it must be:

1.  AUTHENTIC: Healthy and effective business relationships take time to nurture and develop, and most often arise organically from real human connections where there is inherent mentor/mentee chemistry, authenticity and generosity. Find mentors who understand who you are, what your values, vision and purpose are, and who will then bring people into your network who share this, too.

2.  RECIPROCAL: Mentorship cuts both ways, and provides both parties with the opportunity for growth, transfer of knowledge, personal learning and professional extension. The mentor can sharpen and shape their leadership style through mentee feedback, and the mentee can also provide “grassroots intelligence” on industry insights, market intel and internal culture (access the mentor would not otherwise gain). In turn mentors can push you to your limits, challenge your thinking, strategically connect you to key stakeholders, champion your cause and actively market you and your business to amplify your message/vision.

3.  ACTIONABLE: Mentors and mentees must commit to progress, and measurable outcomes. In order for both parties to benefit most from the relationship, mentees must create actions around advice dispensed, embed key learnings, and then circle this back into the learning loop with mentors.

4.   AUTONOMOUS: Great mentors don’t cut the path but light the way. The greatest learning for mentees is learning by doing, even if it means failing and floundering a few times before charting the right path. Taking autonomous steps but knowing you have someone to bounce off when the going gets hard can be just the support you need to realise your potential and better achieve your goals.

Some of the most successful women I know have attributed active networking and mentoring to their success, saying that by putting themselves out there, finding their tribe and building a trusted group of people around them, they have achieved far more than could ever have done on their own.

If you’ve been thinking about becoming a mentor or seeking active mentorship as a mentee, there are now multiple organisations, digital platforms and online communities offering professional and personal coaching services if you’d like a hand to get started rather than reach out to your existing networks. Everwise, Mentorloop, Inspiring Rare Birds, Business Chicks and Mogul are just a few.

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SHE MENTORS - SUMMER NETWORKING PARTY

Inspire9, Richmond, Wednesday November 1, 6.00pm-8.00pm

Alternatively, if you’re in Melbourne and would like to connect in the real with a room full of female business women from all walks of life, register for the She Mentors Summer Networking Party at Inspire9 in Richmond on Wednesday November 1 6.00pm-8.00pm, and join me alongside Gemma Lloyd of Diverse City Careers as part of a She Mentors event celebrating female mentorship and the power of networking.

Lloyd is the co-founder of DCC Jobs, Company Secretary of the Diversity Practitioners Association (DPA), winner of the Sue Wickenden 2016 Entrepreneur Of The Year Award and has served on multiple not-for-profit Boards including IT Queensland Females in and Technology and Telecommunications (FITT).

In this event Lloyd will share her journey at the helm of DCC Jobs, where she has been campaigning for flexible working conditions for women, and regularly presenting on topics including diversity and inclusion, entrepreneurship, developing confidence for career success, and personal branding strategies, so will have a wealth of knowledge to impart to the audience.

DCC is a social enterprise helping women pursue rewarding careers, particularly in sectors with high gender inequality rates. Since its conception, DCC has grown rapidly and is now regarded as one of Australia’s leading authorities on gender diversity.

The DCC jobs board is Australia’s only exclusive jobs board, meaning employers must be pre-qualified before advertising to ensure a strong focus on diversity and inclusion. DCC were winners of the 2016 #techdiversity awards and finalists in the 2015 ARN Women in ICT Awards in the Innovation category.

I’ll also be sharing my story and some of the thrills and spills as a social entrepreneur, Mum, mentor and co-founder of girledworld.

Mainly, I’ll be chatting about how I’ve charted my career path around businesses and babies, built connections and communities along the way, and what I’ve learned from mentors and other extraordinary business women in my network.

There’ll be plenty of time for Q&A and networking afterwards, so we can all share stories, forge new connections and learn from each other.

I look forward to seeing some of you there.

Madeleine Grummet
Co-Founder & CEO girledworld

She Mentors Summer Networking Party.
Bookings here.