Several years ago, Lucy Roberts was working in the meeting planning department for a major West Coast computer distributor. She and a male planner were on site to manage a meeting for some top executives in the company. At one point during the program, one of the executives asked Roberts' male colleague to get the group some cigars. They later asked him to scout around for some local hotspots they could hit in the evenings. Of course, he went with them and enjoyed the stogies as well. "He was male, single, and a couple of years younger than me. I don't know if that's all it was, but I think the gender issue was a big part of it," says Roberts, who now works as a meetings consultant in Yorba Linda, California.
That might not sound like an example of the glass ceiling in action, but it's called the glass ceiling for a reason -- the incidents can be so subtle that you look right through them without realizing a barrier is in place. Finding a few cigars and scouting around for a hot nightclub aren't assignments that will get you to a corner office, but both tasks provide the errand-runner the chance to bond with upper management. Opportunities like that are few and far between for women meeting planners and women in general.
According to a study conducted by Catalyst, a New York-based research organization that focuses on women's workplace issues, women fill only 11 percent of the officer positions in the nation's largest corporations. A more startling statistic reports that 94 percent of all senior level executives are male, as are 84 percent of all professional employees in general.
A female-dominated industry such as meeting planning doesn't fare much better. According to the last Successful Meetings State of the Industry Report (published in January 2001), male planners earn $12,000 more per year than female planners. A recent study commissioned by Meeting Professionals Inter-national's (MPI) Women's Leadership Initiative Program puts that salary gap in sharper focus. The survey, conducted by the School of Hospitality at Michigan State University, found that 40 percent of women planners control meeting budgets of $2 million or more, compared to only 25 percent for men. The study also reveals that the size of the staffs women planners manage are the same as their male counterparts.
It's been almost half a century since women began entering the workforce in significant numbers, but obviously it is still going to be quite some time before men and women share an equal number of seats in the boardroom. Here's a look at what keeps the glass ceiling in place and how we can eliminate it.
Boys Club
In the old days, the old-boy network was blatant. The key to the executive washroom was that it was, in fact, a men's room. Women need not apply. Today it's more subtle. Applications are accepted, just not considered.
Joan Jupiter, a meeting planner for the Washington D.C.-based National Association of State Alcohol & Drug Abuse Directors, recalls a glass-ceiling experience she had as a planner for a professional soccer team a few years ago: "I had some ideas for things we should do and I was asking for more responsibility," she says. "My supervisor kept stalling me, saying that he'd get back to me. But he never did. My boss eventually gave the responsibility for implementing my ideas to one of my male colleagues. When I discussed it with him, he just blew it off."
Jupiter chalked up her experience partly to the fact that she was working for a men's sports team, but she does note that it was easier for her co-worker to socialize informally with their supervisor. "They would often go to lunch or out for drinks and I wouldn't be included," she says.
Jupiter is not alone in feeling left out. According to the Catalyst study, 67 percent of women cited exclusion from informal networking opportunities as a barrier to advancement. "It might not even be done on a conscious level. I think that male executives just feel more comfortable dealing with other men. And that can sometimes result in a male planner advancing more rapidly than a female planner," says Lisa M. Burge, director of programs for the Sacramento-based California Association of Nurserymen.
While upper management may seem reluctant to bring women planners into the club, the MPI study shows that they have no problem empowering them to run multi- million-dollar budgets. "There is a respect for women in the planning stages of a meeting or an event -- that's why they are hired to begin with," says Kelly Conway, business development manager for the TCI Companies, a Washington D.C.-headquartered meeting planning company. Conway has found promising career advancement opportunities for women at TCI, which is headed by a woman, but found advancement almost impossible at her two previous employers. "Upper management is usually reluctant to advance a woman into the next level of control. Women are there to make the initial decisions, but the final decisions are made by men."
Obstacle Course
What are the hurdles that keep women from advancing into leadership positions? The best leaders are those who care about their people -- and that's something that women are able to do very well. But other qualities are necessary to get into a leadership position.
MPI's Women's Leadership Initiative Program is working to identify barriers to advancement and develop strategies that can help women overcome them. "People look at the meetings industry and see that it's predominantly female. The perception is: If it's primarily women, why would they need an initiative? We need an initiative because even though we are an industry of females, the highest positions are still held by men," says Stacie Wheelock, former vice president of the MPI program and now head of Wheelock Consulting Inc., a marketing consultancy for firms seeking to tap the female market.
One contributing factor is that male planners usually enter the industry at a higher level than female planners. "Men tend to come into this profession from another profession, while women join it at the entry level," says Michelle Mobley, marketing manager at TCI.
For instance, Roberts' stogie-fetching colleague started out as a travel director, while she started as an administrative assistant. When her colleague left the company, he was given a manager's title at his new organization even though there were no other people in his department. "He replaced a woman who had a meeting planner title. He didn't want to make a lateral move, so he asked for the manager title and they gave it to him. If he had been a woman they probably would have kept him at the planner level," Roberts says.
The demands of home also make it more difficult for women to advance their careers. Raising children and caring for aging parents severely curtail the time women planners can devote to their careers. According to The MPI Women's Leadership Initiative study, one third of the women reported cutting back on sleep and personal hobbies to balance personal and professional responsibilities compared to fewer than 10 percent of male planners. Additionally, half of the women turn to hiring household help to assist with childcare and cleaning as opposed to 15 percent of men. "It's definitely more difficult for a woman to find the time to work on career advancement," says Conway. "Women have to leave early because their kids are in daycare. Most of the guys can stay after five o'clock and work or engage in bonding activities."
A woman who does attempt to be "one of the boys" will most likely face a double standard. Her interest might be misinterpreted as a romantic overture, or she might be labeled as too aggressive. "If I had called four guys at Ford [a previous employer] and asked them to play a round of golf, they probably would have said no," says Conway. "If I went and had a drink, suddenly everybody would be talking: 'Oooh, you went drinking with the guys!' As a woman you have to watch yourself all the way around. A man doesn't have that problem."
Chipping Away
Mentoring plays a crucial role in helping women crack the glass ceiling. According to the Catalyst study, lack of mentors was cited by more than 69 percent of the women surveyed as a bigger barrier to advancement than personal and family commitments. "You've got to change corporate politics and that's not an easy thing to do. Mentoring is a great thing and I think that women are more open to it than men are," says Conway. "The women in upper management at TCI are amazing. They are concerned about developing people and mentoring them. I don't think I've ever had that kind of support in a job before. That gives women a major boost in confidence. I think my prospects for advancing are much greater here than in the other companies I worked for. I have been able to transition over to the sales aspect of the industry rather than being locked into the planning side. That wouldn't have been possible at my previous companies."
Planners who work for companies that do not offer mentoring programs should try to point out their benefits to upper management. In addition to helping women, mentoring programs can help executives get more in touch with their employees. That is crucial in the meeting planning industry, where upper management is often unfamiliar with the job the planner does. "When an administrative assistant plans a meeting and it goes well, it's almost as if she's invisible to the top executives," says Wheelock. "She made it look easy and hence doesn't get the respect she deserves. A mentoring program would provide an avenue for that kind of recognition to take place."
Many female planners also say that the glass ceiling is more prevalent in the corporate world than in the association world. "There is much more communication and a lot less office politics on the association side," says Jupiter. "I'm very limited budget-wise compared to corporate planning, but I am able to get my voice heard. Due to the small size of the organization, this is a situation where the upper management is much more open to listening to my opinions."
On the association side the glass ceiling is eliminated out of necessity due to the limited staff and resources. The question is how to make its elimination a necessity on the corporate side. MPI's Women's Leadership Initiative Program, which was started 18 months ago, could be the beginning of a solution. The program includes the already completed research, which will be used to create educational tracks to be presented at MPI conferences as well as conferences of other supporting associations. Online learning applications and a possible women's leadership summit are also being considered. The final phase will be working on developing women's leadership initiatives with the corporate sector.
"A woman planner can only rise up if the company recognizes what she brings to the table," says Wheelock. "Educating the decision makers on just how much female meeting planners contribute to the success of their organizations is the only way to accomplish that."
Mobley, just three years out of college, is hopeful that her road will be easier than the women who have come before her. "I'm young and I think I can achieve anything I want. A woman 20 years older than me might not be as optimistic," she says. "Most women of my generation expect that things will be better for them."
Four Ways to Smash the Glass ceiling
Consistently exceed performance expectations
Find a style that male managers are comfortable with
Seek high-visibility assignments
Find an influential mentor