It’s not every day I get a text message at 7.30 a.m. from a supporter, thank goodness. But I was pleased to receive one this morning from Marge, a stalwart supporter of C4MB who attended my IEA lecture last week. Marge admits to being a lifelong hypochondriac, and her nickname in her family is, ‘I can’t believe she’s not better’. I digress. The estimable Marge alerted me in her text to the fact that Nick Ferrari, one of my favourite hard-hitting journalist / broadcasters, was covering the topic of gender diversity in the boardroom this morning., in his LBC show. She even gave me a contact number at LBC (0845 6060 973), so I spoke to a pleasant lady, explained who I am and what C4MB does, and in due course was granted a few minutes of air time with Mr Ferrari. There was also a feminist journalist on the show – Barbara Want – who said that she disagreed with quotas, although she described herself as a feminist. All good stuff.

In the limited time I had available, I managed to get a few things across:

– the name of our campaign, and what we do, which has already led to a satisfying surge in the number of ‘hits’ on this blog

– the evidence that driving up the proportion of women on boards impairs corporate performance (the University of Michigan and Deutsche Bundesbank studies)

– the ongoing threat of legislated quotas if FTSE100 companies don’t ‘voluntarily’ reach 25% female representation on their boards by 2015 is driving corporate behaviour as it was intended to. 14% of FTSE100 board appointments in 2010 were women, and so far in 2012 it’s been 44% (all the 2012 appointments of women have been non-executive directors, all 18 executive director appointments have been men).

I missed the contribution of David Buik (or Buick?) of BGC Partners, but Marge tells me he too argued strongly against quotas for women on boards.

Is it just me, or is the tide starting to turn? Let me know what you think, by posting a comment. Thank you.

Finally, my warm thanks to Marge for this terrific lead. A wonderful example of opportunistic campaigning.

Have you ever noticed how some women seem to ‘have it all’, while others struggle to have even a little by comparison? One friend of the female persuasion has a part-time job, a nice supportive loving husband, and they have no children. Yet she appears permanently stressed out by her life.

At the other end of the spectrum we have Helena Morrissey. She’s the chief executive of Newton Investment Management, which handles a cool £45 billion of funds. So far, so good. But in November 2010 she established the 30% club. She’s enlisted many leading company chairmen to pursue a goal of 30% female representation on boards by 2015. These chairmen are busily recruiting others to the 30% club. The 30% club website has a list of these people: http://www.30percentclub.org.uk/about-us/members/

What else does the energetic Ms Morrissey manage to fit into her life? Well, nine children, for a start, the youngest of whom is just three. The Financial Times recently published an interesting interview with Ms Morrissey. You may need to register to read the article, but it’s accessible at no cost.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/65d5f6cc-98ee-11e1-948a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25US7YEt8

I read somewhere that Ms Morrissey also finds the time to do some charity work. Despite all this, whenever she appears as a public speaker she looks as cool as a cucumber, as anyone who’s seen her performance in front of a recent House of Lords select committee will testify.

How does she manage to fit all these activities into her week? It’s been a mystery to me, at least until this morning. And so it is that we come to a startling revelation. Remember, you read it here first. The key to unlocking the mystery was seeing identical twin ladies in the centre of Bath this morning, as I was taking my daily constitutional. Looking at them, I cried out, ‘Of course… Eureka!’… which startled them somewhat, it has to be said.

So that’s it. Helena Morrissey has an identical twin sister. Between them they divide up the massive workload, but to the public appear as just one Superwoman. Now there’s only one thing they’ve failed to find the time for over several months, namely provide us with independent evidence of a causal link between increased female representation on boards and enhanced corporate performance. To my mind any reasonable person with little insight into this area (99% of the population?) would infer causation (rather than only correlation) from the following excerpt from a Catalyst report quoted on the 30% club website.The excerpt:

Companies with three or more women directors achieve return on equity 45% higher than the average company.

We know from Professor Susan Vinnicombe’s evidence to a recent House of Lords inquiry (see earlier post) that Catalyst themselves stopped making claims of a causal link between increased female representation on boards and enhanced corporate performance a year ago. Hopefully the Morrissey sisters will find a moment some time to provide us with their evidence of a causal link…

Yesterday I gave my lecture at the IEA, and the reception it received was far more positive than I could possibly have hoped for. Many in the capacity audience (60 people) were supporters of ‘improved’ gender diversity in the boardroom – some professionally so – so I was expecting some hostility to the points I was making. But the reception was very polite, and a very calm and rational Q&A session followed. My thanks to the IEA for hosting this event. It’s a most impressive think-tank, prepared to give exposure to this topic at a time when other leading think-tanks are unwilling to host debates about gender-related matters.

The following is the handout given to attendees when they arrived at the event:

120829 IEA handout

I’m not planning at this stage to make the contents of the lecture publicly available. If you have an interest in me making the presentation, please email me at mikebuchanan@hotmail.co.uk to let me know. I’m particularly interested to give the presentation to senior people at major companies.

My thanks to Lavinia for pointing me towards an article in today’s Daily Mail.

MYTH OF GLASS CEILING, BY DRAGON’S DEN STAR

Dragon’s Den star Hilary Devey has spoken out against the idea of a glass ceiling, claiming it is a ‘myth’ and an ‘excuse’ for women’s own failings in the business world.

Despite admitting she struggled to balance her own work and family life, the 55-year-old, who is worth £50million, said she is ‘living proof’ women can rise to the top in the workplace. Breaking ranks with her peers, she told the Radio Times: ‘There are lots of myths about why women are under-represented in the boardroom, but the excuse about a ‘glass ceiling’ is the worst. I am living proof there’s no such thing.’

The daughter of a pub landlord founded Pall-Ex 16 years ago, a haulage firm which now has a £100million turnover. She joined BBC 2’s business show last year for two series. The mother-of-one conceded women ‘still have to sacrifice more than their male counterparts’, but said: ‘The sooner we stop complaining about our biological differences and get down to work, the sooner more women will rise to the top.’

Good points, Hilary, and well made.

The claim of a link between more women on boards and enhanced corporate performance lies at the heart of the government’s ongoing threat of quotas if major businesses don’t increase the number of women on their boards ‘voluntarily’. Among the people who’ve made the most vocal claims about the alleged link have been David Cameron and Vince Cable. We’ve pressed both for evidence of the link, and nothing has been forthcoming.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that David Cameron’s office passed our last request for evidence to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (‘DBIS’) for an official response, and nothing has been forthcoming. Vince Cable at the DBIS has made some truly absurd claims about the corporate benefits from having more women on boards. We’ve written separately to him twice asking him for his evidence, again with no result. The last time we wrote to him was on 21 July:

120721 open letter mailed to Vince Cable

Last Tuesday, exactly a month after sending the letter, I received an email response not from Vince Cable but Helen Whitehead, Assistant Director at the DBIS. I’d separately invited Ms Whitehead and Caroline Normand, a colleague at the DBIS, to my forthcoming talk at the IEA. This was the start of Ms Whitehead’s email:

Thank you for inviting Caroline and myself to the event being held at the Institute of Economic Affairs on the 29 August and for your letter to Secretary of State, Vince Cable, (dated 21 July). As policy lead for Women on Boards I have been asked to respond to the latter. On the former, I am afraid that both Caroline and myself will be on annual leave on the 29 August and therefore unable to attend the event. This is regrettable as I would very much have liked to attend but wonder if you would be agreeable to meet with me the next time you are in London to discuss the issue in detail and to cover the points raised in your letter to Secretary of State.

Given that we’d publicly challenged Vince Cable in an open letter to supply his evidence for a causal link, I replied to Ms Whitehead saying that I thought a meeting would probably be futile, our positions being poles apart, and I asked for an official response to the points in my letter to Vince Cable. I haven’t received a response to that email, so I think we may safely say that the government has effectively admitted it has no evidence of a link.

What are we left with? A social engineering exercise financed by the business sector, which can only damage the sector’s performance, the whole thing being driven by the ongoing threats of quotas from a Conservative-led coalition. David Cameron, Vince Cable, Lord Davies of Abersoch and others should hang their heads in shame, as should the many FTSE100 chairmen who’ve been complicit through their support of the 30% club and similar initiatives.

If Ms Whitehead provides any alleged ‘evidence’ of a causal link in due course we shall of course publish it on this blog. Don’t hold your breath.

The coalition is doing at least one thing right in equality-related matters, by slashing the annual budget of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (‘EHRC’). There have been numerous reports about the issue in the press and online in recent months, for example:

http://www.accessgroupresources.co.uk/index.php/news/621-february-article-reports-that-ehrc-budget-to-be-cut-by-60-per-cent

Nowhere is EHRC’s ideological anti-business agenda clearer than with respect to ‘gender balance in the boardroom’. On 28 May 2012 EHRC put up a piece about ‘our new research’ on the topic. Reflecting the left-wing work ethic of the EHRC, the ‘new research’ turns out not to have been carried out by them. It relates to  a report by Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders (‘CICWL’) – Professor Susan Vinnicombe’s mob of malcontents, funded by the long-suffering taxpayer – and for good measure on the EHRC website there’s a supportive testimonial from Helena Morrissey, the founder of the 30% club. Dear God, does the woman never rest? She’s the CEO of Newton Investment Management, she runs the 30% club, and she has nine kids. If we plugged her into the National Grid our energy supply problems would be over.

The EHRC piece:

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/news/2012/may/headhunters-and-chairmen-encouraged-to-do-more-to-increase-female-non-execs-on-ftse-boards/

According to the piece quoted in The Times, EHRC’s budget is to be cut from £60m pa to £22.5m pa over the course of this Parliament. A good start. We just need a further £22.5m pa cut and we’ll be where we need to be. I’d vote for any party which promised that in its manifesto.

One of the numerous claims made by proponents of ‘improved’ gender diversity in boardrooms is that characteristics which are commoner among women than men are valuable to firms. An example is that women are more likely to have a ‘consensual’ or ‘collegiate’ management style – in plain English, they consult widely before making decisions. This is considered to make risky decision-making less likely. Any man with the same characteristic would be considered indecisive; another double standard.

I’ve received an intriguing testimonial for one of my books from Malcolm McDonald, Emeritus Professor at Cranfield School of Management. He’s long been an internationally renowned expert (and bestselling author) in the field of marketing, and he’s a Visiting Professor at Henley, Warwick, Aston and Bradford University Business Schools. More details on Malcolm here:

http://www.malcolm-mcdonald.com/biog.htm

Malcolm’s been the chairman of many companies and works with the operating boards of a number of the world’s leading multi-nationals on all continents. Few people could be as well qualified to comment on the effectiveness of different management styles. His testimonial for one of my books:

The Glass Ceiling Delusion makes a significant counter-argument to the debate about women in boardrooms, and for this reason alone it deserves to be read. Whilst I’m personally too old to enter the fray, I’d nonetheless like to add that every scholarly study I’ve read about women in management during the past fifteen years indicates that successful women have exactly the same characteristics as successful men. All my life I’ve admired successful women as much as successful men and have had the privilege of working for and with many of them. A typical example is the brilliant Diane Thompson of the Camelot Group. Another is Professor Lynette Ryals, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of my own University. Women like this get to the top on sheer talent; they have no need of a ‘gender agenda’.

In this debate, however, we also need to be aware that we need pressure groups to ameliorate deep-seated prejudices in society, but a point is inevitably reached beyond which we must let meritocracy in a free society take over, otherwise we enter the dangerous domain of social engineering. The irony is that Mike Buchanan’s own movement, Campaign for Merit in Business, is also a pressure group. So, whilst I don’t agree with everything he says and does, I believe his book at least deserves to be read and seriously considered, preferably dispassionately.

In nine days’ time I shall be giving a presentation at the Institute of Economic Affairs, occasioned by the response to an article I penned in April:

http://www.iea.org.uk/blog/the-gender-diversity-delusion

I happened to mention to a supporter of C4MB recently the number of slides I planned to have in my presentation, and he advised me to reduce the number (for a half-hour presentation) to between 10 and 15. It proved to be sound advice. A trial ‘run through’ this morning took almost exactly 30 minutes. I thought I’d bring to your attention one element of the material that’s now been lost from the presentation, concerning merit. Labour MP Harriet Harman – surely the most influential militant feminist politician in the modern era – can usually be relied upon to supply a dismal left-wing view on most subjects, and I was delighted to find the following in her Foreword to a book published in 2003, Women With Attitude. The book itself was written by Professor Susan Vinnicombe (Cranfield International Centre for Women Leaders) and John Bank. The extract from Harman’s Foreword:

Any campaign to get more women into top management positions is somehow seen to detract from the real needs of business, which is to have the best people in the top jobs. This raises the question of how you assess merit. Merit is not just about your qualities as an individual but also what you bring to a team.

What a remarkable definition of merit. But I must look on the bright side. I hope to persuade Manchester United to adopt this definition of merit shortly, in order that I might play in their first team next season. I have no individual merit as a footballer, and at 54 I might be considered a little long in the tooth for Premier League football. But I believe I can bring something to the team, and look forward to being a key part of their success in the coming season and beyond.

A supporter recently asked me if I might upload the cover image from my 2010 book David and Goliatha: David Cameron – heir to Harman? This seems as good a place as any to put it. My thanks to one of my favourite British cartoonists, Martin Honeysett, for drawing the image of Harriet Harman and David Cameron. One day I may auction the original cartoon to raise funds. The book’s cover:

9780956641625 front cover