🟢 Feminine values in uncertain times

Early 2020, I was writing about how feminine values in your corporate culture were key for innovation; little did I know then how important that message was going to be, especially as we are going through the COVID/Post COVID crisis. In this article, I am sharing why paying attention to and encouraging the expression of feminine values in your organisation. This article is not about gender equality, this is another issue that each organisation needs to figure out. Here the point is to explore with you how increasing the ratio of feminine values in your corporate culture can enhance your survival chances in uncertain times.

In view of recent discussions with friends, colleagues, clients and Linkedin connections on the subject of this article, I feel I need to clarify something at the onset:

There are 2 problems to solve

1. There is a gender gap that needs to be filled. Not focusing on that is a non-starter. It is about equality of treatment, pay, and access to high positions in organisations, or to anything anyone wishes to access professionally.
2. There is, in our current society, a majority of organisations whose cultures are strongly “masculine.” Because they are led by men, of course, but also because masculine values were previously very efficient in previous contexts. And this is the main point of this article. In the new context of high uncertainty, what matters, in the end, is that feminine values, expressed through practices such as mentoring, learning communities, portfolio R&D… add more values than the masculine values of « go get them.» Hence, if you want to survive, feminine values need to be encouraged in organisations’ cultures.