Our Approach and Credentials

Our approach and methodologies are based on sound principles of organisational change (including Satir, Katzenbach, Nadler, Collins and Porras), together with a broad body of respected research about women, family, leadership and paid work roles (including Crittenden, Galinsky, Hewlett, Mitchell, Pocock, Sinclair). Our approach is also tailored because we understand that each workplace is different in its culture, its needs and the context it operates within. There are five key reasons to choose Kalmor:

1. We know the issues employers face and how these challenges can be addressed.
2. We understand the issues women are grappling with and how these can be addressed.
3. We have many years of experience in driving cultural change and understand the complexities of changing people's attitudes and behaviours.
4. Our approach is pragmatic, commercial and professional.
5. Our approach is the only one in Australia which provides a depth of knowledge in both gender and flexibility.

1. We know the issues employers face and how these challenges can be addressed

While many organisations have been attempting to address issues of gender for some time, we still see attitudinal issues which compromise an organisation's ability to access the full potential of its talent pool. Unarticulated or unconscious discrimination towards women, and the issues associated with women such as childbirth, are still real issues in many organisations. Accessing attitudes and positively influencing them is an important element of cultural change. Sometimes these attitudes arise out of complexity or difficulty in the management of women, for example where a woman has been given enormous support through pregnancy and maternity leave but then declines to return to work or seeks more flexible work options. Sometimes attitudes result from assumptions made about a woman's ability through a lack of understanding of differences in style between men and women. There are many reasons for these attitudes but getting to the core of them is important.

Cultural change requires a mix of sustained initiatives and in our experience many organisations are not identifying and then successfully implementing the most important drivers of sustained cultural change. What we often see is the implementation of one-off initiatives and policies, which while useful, are not driving the kind of significant cultural change employers increasingly seek.

Some of the issues many organisations struggle with and that are important to address if organisations want to access the greatest potential from their talent pool include:

• A mindset of 'if we employ enough women, with time and patience they will make it into senior roles.'.
• A lack of skills to lead women effectively (which requires an understanding of work-related gender differences); .
• Heroic leadership and pressure for conformity;
• A culture of working long hours;
• Lack of targeted development for women through concern about offering single-gender development ;
• Attitudes to non-traditional working structures (eg flexible work practices) and knowledge of how to make them work;
• Lack of knowledge of legal entitlements and best practice in issues relating to the management of women in the transition to motherhood;

At Kalmor Consulting, through our constant interaction with organsations and through the organisational research we undertake, we are well versed in the issues employers face. While cultural change is never rapid, we also understand the interventions that have the greatest impact.

2. We understand the issues women are grappling with and how these can be addressed

While organisations are struggling with the promotion and retention of women, women are also struggling with how to make their careers resilient and how to reach and maintain positions of seniority. Few women want to compromise their careers and most are keen to reach their greatest potential and yet the odds seem stacked against them. Is this all about the system women are part of? We don't believe so.

Out research shows that women often make assumptions about how to have a successful career that are not generally correct. Women need to build their awareness, capability and confidence in some key areas if they are to be more successful. Morrison, in her respected book The New Leaders - Guidelines on Leadership Diversity in America, warns "Women are perceived as unwilling to take risks necessary in business and naïve about how to look out for themselves, partly because of their socialisation". John McFarlane, CEO of the ANZ Bank, believes men are different from women and this can have a cost: "Language for men tends to be direct and authoritative, whereas women tend to communicate in a more consultative manner, engaging feedback. As a consequence, men often see women as weaker, softer and not as substantial. Even though this is simply a style difference the perception can hold them back."

Certainly our discussions and interviews with hundreds of executives in Australia and overseas confirm these views about differences between men and women and how they operate in a professional setting.

We believe other current barriers to women reaching their greatest potential in the paid workforce, are:

• Women are not as confident and skilled in career planning. This includes setting and articulating career goals;
• Women need to be greater risk takers in their attempts to secure roles. They tend not to apply for jobs unless they believe they are fully qualified and experienced for them, rather than allowing room for learning on the job. We have heard this discussed by many a frustrated senior executive trying to move women up the ranks;
• Women who chose a family are not doing enough to protect their career. As a general rule, women need more flexibility if they have families. Women need to do their research, know the pitfalls and best practice, speak to other women, understand the organisation's policies, and know how to make it work. Currently, many women step blindly into motherhood with the thought that they have been successful in the past so they will just make it work;
• Women are not as competent at accessing and utilising mentors, or at offering themselves as mentors. Men basically mentor other men informally; they take someone under their wing, like a younger brother or son, informally and without discussion about the relationship. This is how men learn the 'rules of the game' and how they build networks. Women frequently miss out on this. Many women don't understand the 'rules of the game' and don't have the benefit of a mentor. .

We understand the issues women are grappling with and we also understand the 'blind spots' women have in accessing and maintaining positions of leadership. Our work helps women build their awareness but more much more importantly their confidence and capabilities in these areas.

3. We have many years of experience in driving behavioural and cultural change

The ability to plan and work with others to drive cultural change is an area of great specialty. Cultural change involves understanding human behaviours and the individual and organisational drivers of behavioural change. An important aspect of change is its unpredictability. Change in organisations is never linear - one step does not always logically follow another. Change occurs through a number of different events and conversations at different times in different places in organisations. For change to occur, it is important to have the expertise to be able to develop and implement strategic initiatives while at the same time being flexible enough to respond to organisational reaction to change processes. At Kalmor Consulting, we are all change management professionals: all consultants have many years experience in working with organisations and individuals in the area of change and have the strategic ability and flexibility to deliver commercial change imperatives.

We also believe that the objective of any campaign designed to harness the greatest potential from women is ultimately the development of a culture which supports both men AND women. Cultural change that results from changes in attitudes and behaviours is therefore required. In order to influence people's attitudes and behaviors, people require not only new insight but also an impetus to change behaviours from those that are familiar and comfortable to behaviours that are different and new. We understand how to challenge people's thinking and assumptions to a depth which promotes not only new insight but also action.

We have also learnt from experience that the retention and promotion of women in organisations must be addressed at two levels to gain sustained cultural change - at the organisational/employer level and also with women themselves. Where employer-based initiatives are undertaken without working specifically with women, the risk is that managers will push responsibility for gender issues back onto women. Similarly, where work is done to build the skills and capabilities of women without addressing issues related to culture, systems and management behaviours, women may point the finger at management for gender inequities. Cultural change will occur more rapidly where both approaches are incorporated.

It is also important that research is undertaken to understand the specific issues for women in the organisation. There are many different ways employers can make their organisation a more attractive one for women. Some interventions and approaches are universally applicable and some are organisation-specific. Before an approach can be developed it is necessary to understand the current culture of an organisation and the impact this is having on the behaviours of women and managers. Some organisations have introduced strategies to address gender issues without really understanding some of the subtle behavioural drivers in the organisation and have wasted valuable resources while at the same time potentially creating cynicism. Kalmor has developed innovative research technologies which not only collect valuable data regarding gender AND flexibility, but also engage people in the change process while identifying specific pieces of data which are used in facilitated work to drive behavioural change.

Our development programs are also based on the premise that behavioural change requires program participants to experience more than just insight and inspiration. It is easy for development programs to offer people interesting and inspiring frameworks and insights without achieving long term behavioural change. We therefore use double loop, adult learning techniques that maximise behavioural change and ensure exciting new insights are not lost over time but are courageously integrated into behaviour. Rather than rely on guest speakers to 'tell' people information, we offer participants, in addition to highly experienced guest speakers, mechanisms such as role play scenarios and action learning techniques which they use to apply new skills and receive feedback and support. This gives them much greater confidence and a higher skill level, as well as insight and knowledge.

4. Our approach is pragmatic, commercial and professional (not academic, feminist or unrelated to business outcomes)

The topic of gender and diversity can be fraught with difficulty - it is a politically sensitive area where mistakes can unwittingly be made and where the answers are often unclear. It is for this reason that many leaders in Australia see the need to address the issue but often feel uncomfortable about doing so. While bringing in outside expertise is often crucial due to lack of internal knowledge and expertise, few leaders want to take the risk of appointing someone to assist unless they are absolutely clear about the advisor's ability to link gender to the commercial drivers of an organisation. Organisations need to know that the people they appoint to assist them in this area have exceptional influencing skills, are commercially astute and are highly professional in order to maximise buy-in from people and to minimise risk in an area where it is easy to lose people's support.

Our approach is pragmatic, commercial and professional. Our consultants have spent their working lives in the commercial sector. In addition to consulting, all of Kalmor's people have worked inside corporates where most have managed a profit and loss centre or a business themselves. We understand the commercial imperative and we can engage people in debate that is linked to the strategic drivers of the business. We also understand that people need solutions, not theorizing. Pragmatic, useful input is the cornerstone of our business. Finally, measurement is important. We find that greatest impact is sustained where initiatives are clearly tied to commercial outcomes.

Kalmor Consulting has four values that we strongly believe in and operate from at all times - professionalism, commercialism, flexibility and making a difference. Our values are the cornerstone of our business and what our clients can rely on from us.

5. Our approach is the only one in Australia which provides a depth of knowledge in both gender and flexibility

The ability to have a flexible work culture is an important element of the retention and promotion of women. For most people, stress increases when their sense of control over their environment is impacted through situations such as leadership change. Associated with this lack of control is often an inability to manage roles and responsibilities in and outside of work. This can impact performance in both spheres and so people often become less effective at work and at home.

For women, the impact of balancing home and work life can sometimes be greater due to their biological role in child rearing, so by addressing these issues it is possible to see a rise in retention of women. Men are also impacted by some of these issues and therefore efforts in this area will mean that men also benefit. In our experience, however an overemphasis on flexible working conditions in trying to access the greatest potential from women can dilute the gender issue too much and result in limited success. We advocate an approach that specifically targets gender issues and addresses flexible work practices as a strategy and subset of the overall goal. This requires a gender specialist with support from a flexibility specialist and not the other way around.

Organisations may be tempted to address the flexibility issue first, often because it has potential benefits for men as well as women and therefore can be 'sold' to people more readily. It is very important to keep in mind, though, that flexibility issues are more relevant, generally, to parents and those who are at an age where they are considering children (which in Australia is now over 30), which precludes many women. There is a vast expanse of knowledge that relates to women and success that extends way beyond the issues of flexibility. No other organisation in Australia understands this depth of knowledge and integrates it with work on flexibility as we do.

Our philosophy regarding flexible working conditions is that organisations need to understand the factors impinging on a person's sense of control and address these. It is the management of roles and responsibilities in and outside of work, which may or may not be related to family, that causes stress to individuals and which is known as work/life conflict. As circumstances vary with individuals, one solution does not fit all. As situations may change with individuals, so too does the approach to addressing the solutions. In the organisational setting, it is important to look at a combination of approaches that range from organisation-wide initiatives through to individual coaching.