"First Lady of Facebook" Sandberg's "Step Forward": It is not only worth recommending to women.

Cheryl Sandberg, 1969 was born in a Jewish family in Washington, D.C., and received a bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School. She was the director of the Treasury Secretary's Office in Clinton Administration and the vice president of Google's global online sales and operation department. In 2008, when Facebook had only 550 employees (Google had more than 20,000 employees at that time), Zuckerberg was hired as the chief operating officer of Facebook, and she has always been called "the first lady of Facebook".

In 20 13, she published the book "Step Forward", which caused great repercussions. The new edition of 20 14 has added many cases, including many women's self-reports that they took actions to change their lives because they read her book.

Sandberg wrote in the introduction of "Step Forward", "This book is not a memoir, although there are many stories of myself in it; Not an inspirational self-help book, although I sincerely hope to help readers; It's not a book about career management either, although I put forward some suggestions in it. This is not a feminist manifesto ... well, it is a bit like it, but I hope it can inspire not only women but also men. No matter what kind of book this book is, I want to write it to women who want to enter the top management or pursue their life goals, no matter what stage of their career-just starting, or taking a break but maybe returning to the workplace one day. I also want to write to men who want to know the difficulties faced by women (female colleagues, wives or sisters) and are willing to contribute to promoting world equality. "

Sandberg pointed out, "Everyone, including me, is biased whether we admit it or not. Assuming that we can all be objective, it will actually make things worse and create what sociologists call a "blind spot of prejudice". This blind spot will lead people to be too confident in their objective position, so that they can't overcome the influence of prejudice. "

Gender prejudice (or discrimination) is one of the most common prejudices. There is a famous saying in simone beauvoir's The Second Sex that "women are not born, but made". All kinds of prejudices not only affect men, but also shape women themselves. Gender bias is so subtle that you hardly realize it is bias and think it should be.

All the gender issues described in "Step Forward" in the United States are almost the same in China, from the past to the present. For example, "During the Great Depression, my grandmother was forced to drop out of high school and began to help support her family. At that time, no one would let boys drop out of school. If a family wants to improve its social and economic status, its hope lies in the education of its boys. Because girls don't contribute much to the family's economic income, it's no problem to be decent at home, and it doesn't matter whether you have a degree or not. " The combination of women's career aspirations and personal development is far more challenging than we thought. Almost at the same stage of life, we are required to have the greatest investment in working hours and have children physically. Husbands usually don't share housework or help look after children, so we find ourselves working two full-time jobs at the same time. Besides, the working conditions have not improved enough to provide us with the flexible time necessary to take care of our family. ""A man's success will not only be measured by absolute numbers, but also often compared with his wife. In the image description of a happy marriage, the husband's career is often more successful than his wife's. If the situation is just the opposite, their marriage will be considered threatened. "

These characteristics of women written by Sandberg are the same for me and most women around me. "Women's evaluation of their performance is generally lower than the actual situation, while men will overestimate their performance." "In my experience, women are more cautious about changing roles and seeking new challenges. I often find myself trying to persuade them to work in new fields. I have had many conversations with female employees, and they usually respond to my encouragement:' I may not be good at this',' This new job sounds exciting, but I have no similar work experience', or' I still have a lot to learn in my current job'. In my impression, I seem to have never had such a dialogue with male employees. "

Sandberg's own example is very interesting:

"Even now, I am far from being able to show my confidence freely. 20 1 1 In August, Forbes published the annual list of "the most influential women in the world". I know very well that being in it is not the result of scientific formula calculation. Magazines like lists, because when readers click on each character's name, they will generate a lot of views. However, I was surprised-or rather scared-to find that I was ranked fifth on this list, even before Michelle Obama and sonia gandhi, which was ridiculous.

I really don't feel that I have much influence, but I feel embarrassed to be exposed to the public. When my Facebook colleagues stopped me in the office building to praise me, I told them that the ranking was "ridiculous". When friends post news links on Facebook, I will ask them to delete these posts. A few days later, Camille Hart, my long-time administrative assistant, told me that my handling of the Forbes list was terrible, and I should immediately stop arguing with those who mentioned the Forbes list' why is this ridiculous'. I showed my discomfort and insecurity in front of too many people. In fact, I just need to say' thank you'.

I wonder if a person will feel overwhelmed because he is becoming more and more influential. I know that my success comes from hard work, the help of others and being in the right place at the right time. At the same time, I also know that if you want to continue to grow and challenge yourself, you must believe in your own ability. I still have to face things beyond my qualifications; I still occasionally feel like a "liar"; From time to time, I still find myself ignored in conversation, ignored-but the men around me don't have these thoughts. Fortunately, I finally know that I should take a deep breath and still hold my hand high. I learned to sit at the table. "

I also feel this way. Even when others praise me for my excellent academic performance, love learning and hard work, I often feel that others overestimate me. I have long noticed that male classmates and colleagues are usually more confident and enterprising than me.

The book lists a lot of data. Judging from the academic performance in school, women are not weaker than men, or even slightly better. But the higher the position, the lower the proportion of women. "Worldwide, the proportion of women in corporate leadership is even lower," the book said. Only 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. In the United States, women account for about 65,438+04% of corporate executives and 65,438+07% of board members, which has remained unchanged for more than a decade. In China's major listed companies, women account for 8.5% of the board of directors, while less than 4% of the directors are women. "Only 4% of the CEOs of the world's top 500 companies here are women, which is 20 12 statistics. By 20 17, 32 CEOs of fortune 500 companies are women, accounting for 6.4%.

"This book fully supports enterprising women and women who have ambitions to pursue their life goals. I believe that increasing the number of women with power is a necessary element to achieve true equality, but I don't think there is only one definition of success or happiness. Not all women want careers, not all women want children, and not all women want both. I never advocate that we should have the same goal. Many women are not interested in pursuing power, not because they lack enterprise, but because they have lived the life they want. Many people can make some important contributions to the world precisely because they have love in their hearts. We must plan our unique life route in detail and set appropriate goals for our outlook on life, values and dreams. "

Everyone's life goals can be different, but they all need to work hard to achieve their own goals. Sandberg made many suggestions for women from career to marriage. For example:

Work: "Another reason why women avoid expanding their jobs and are unwilling to take leadership roles is that they are too worried that they don't have the skills needed to undertake new tasks. This is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because any job requires a certain ability. According to an internal report of Hewlett-Packard Company, women will openly apply for positions only when they think they are 100% qualified, but men will respond to job offers as long as they think they are 60% qualified. This difference has produced a huge chain reaction. Women need to change their thinking, not always saying' I'm not ready', but thinking' I want to do it, I can learn while doing it'. " As a stay-at-home mother, don't believe the myth of "all-round woman", work hard in everything and expect yourself to be super perfect. "Completion is better than perfection." Only pursue perfection in what really matters.

Marriage: "For a woman who is looking for a life partner, my advice is that she can date all kinds of men: bad, cool, afraid of commitment and enthusiastic, but don't marry them." The sexy factors of bad men will not make them good husbands. When you want to settle down, you should find a man who is willing to get along with you as an equal. This kind of man will think that women should be smart, independent and enterprising; He will attach importance to fairness, be ready to share family responsibilities, and even enjoy it. Such a man does exist, please believe me, over time, you will find that he is the sexiest. "

After reading this book, men can better understand and support their families (mothers, wives, daughters, especially wives) and female colleagues (superiors, colleagues and subordinates), and get a happier and harmonious family and a better working environment. Some studies are quoted in the book, "An equal relationship between partners will make both sides happier. If the husband does more housework, the wife will not be so depressed, the contradiction between the two will be reduced, and the satisfaction with married life will naturally increase. Women work outside the home, share the responsibility of supporting their families, and the relationship between husband and wife is more stable. For men, more participation in the parenting process can also cultivate their patience, compassion and adaptability, which is very beneficial to dealing with various interpersonal relationships. For women, the increase of income will improve their decision-making ability in family affairs and protect themselves even in the case of divorce. In addition, the increase in income is an important security guarantee for future life, because women generally live longer than men. "

Seeing the benefits of male participation in parenting, I thought of Microsoft CEO Nadella, whose son was born with severe cerebral palsy due to intrauterine asphyxia. But he turned this life experience into wealth. "Being an understanding father and my desire to explore the core and soul of things have made me a better leader. I hope to put empathy at the center of everything I pursue-from our released products to new markets, to employees, customers and partners. " Gender equality needs men's understanding and support. Sandberg pointed out, "Since most managers are men, we also need to let them be free to ask these questions directly with female employees." "It is difficult for a woman to make a real choice unless she has a supportive employer and colleague and a partner who shares family responsibilities at home. Before a family-oriented man wins the full respect of public opinion, it is difficult for them to make real choices. "

Companies and other organizations can take action to promote gender equality. An example is written in the book, "Just talking openly about behavior patterns will turn subconscious behavior into conscious action. For example, Google has a special mechanism to encourage engineers to volunteer themselves and strive for promotion. The company found that male employees are more active than female employees, so the Google management team publicly shared this data with female employees. Subsequently, the proportion of female employees who volunteered increased sharply, almost equal to that of male employees. "

It turns out that my overall feeling is that gender equality in China is not bad in the world, especially the high female labor participation rate; However, in terms of social consciousness, there are still many traditional prejudices against women; There is a gap between initiatives to promote gender equality and those of developed countries. Perhaps one of the important reasons is that the stage of economic and social development has not yet reached that level, but there are also ideological problems (not fully recognizing the inequality between men and women and consciously promoting the solution). Many countries have taken many measures to promote gender equality. For example, some countries have set a lower limit for the proportion of female directors on the board of directors, and some companies stipulate that the number of female employees should not be lower than a certain percentage. Even discrimination against women cannot be one of the "politically correct" issues (Sandberg believes that some companies in the United States have gone too far to avoid gender discrimination, so that managers are afraid to ask female employees whether they are married, have children or have family planning, which is actually sometimes out of goodwill). This hardly happens in China.

I have noticed that in the annual reports of major banks in Europe and America, many banks will mention their achievements in the inclusiveness and diversity of employees (including equality in gender, race and sexual orientation). ), and China's annual bank report hardly mentions this issue. For example, HSBC Holdings Limited wrote in its 20 18 annual report, "We have made progress in balancing the gender ratio in leadership, but we also acknowledge the need for improvement. In 20 18, we participated in the 30% club movement, and promised to achieve the goal of 30% senior leadership members (employees with global rank structure from 0 to 3) being women by 2020. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, we have set a goal that by April 38, 2065+the end of 2008, more than 27.6% of senior leaders will be women. The current ratio has reached 28.2%. " According to the company-wide gender statistics published by HSBC, women account for 52% and men for 48%, but in management, women are still far less than men. This is very common in the banking industry.

HSBC Holdings Limited 20 19 Gender Diversity Statistics

The World Economic Forum publishes the Global Gender Gap Report every year, which investigates the gender gap in more than 65,438+000 countries from four aspects: economic participation and opportunity, education level, health and survival, and political empowerment. The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 released in February 20 19 pointed out that in 20 19, the time needed to completely eliminate the gender gap was shortened to 99.5 years, which was slightly better than that in 20 18. It is difficult for men and women to achieve gender equality all their lives. The progress in 20 19 is largely attributed to the substantial increase in the number of women participating in politics. However, politics is still by far the slowest field. Men and women are close to achieving gender equality in the fields of education and health, but in the field of economic participation, the pursuit of gender equality faces great challenges. There are many reasons for the gender gap in the economic field, including the long-term low proportion of women in management or leadership positions, stagnant wages, low labor force participation rate and low income level. Klaus schwab, founder and executive chairman of the Economic Forum, said: "Supporting gender equality is crucial to building a strong, united and risk-resistant society. For enterprises, gender diversity is also essential, which can help them show the guiding principles of stakeholder concept. For this reason, the World Economic Forum has joined hands with political and business stakeholders to speed up actions and continuously narrow the gender gap. " The report points out that we must implement three key strategies to achieve gender equality in the future workforce: to ensure that women master subversive technologies through skills training or retraining; Improve the diversified recruitment mechanism; Create an inclusive workplace culture.

Starting from 20 1 1, the ranking of China in the global gender gap report is: 20 1 1, 20 12 years, 69,2013 years. 20 17 100, 20 18 103, 20 19 106(* * * 153 countries participated in the survey). Surprisingly, China's ranking continues to decline. Among Asian countries, the Philippines ranks first (global 16), South Korea ranks 108, and Japan ranks 12 1 (down 1 1 over the previous year), ranking first from the bottom among developed countries.

In 20 19, China ranked four major indicators (ranking is the ratio of national gender indicators, and the smaller the gap between male and female indicators, the higher the ranking): economic participation and opportunity ranked 9 1, education level ranked 100, health and survival ranked 153, and political empowerment ranked 95th. Some specific indicators are ranked: higher education enrollment rate 1, professional and technical workers 1, labor force participation rate 70, wage equality of similar jobs 75, legislators, senior officials and managers 125, women holding ministerial positions 132, and sex ratio at birth1. That is to say, in school education, women in China do not lose to men, but the higher they go, the greater the gap between women and men, and the more backward they are in the gender equality index. The continuous decline of China's ranking does not seem to attract the attention of all circles in China.

Sandberg is doing a topic called "Why are there so few women leaders?" After her TED speech, she received a lot of positive feedback. She realized from her own experience that "keeping silent on this issue will definitely backfire and hinder self-development" and "talking about these issues openly can promote change."

Sandberg said, "We dare to mention and discuss the impact of gender issues on women. We no longer pretend that gender bias does not exist or avoid talking about it. As the research practice of Harvard Business School proves, creating a more equal environment can not only make various organizations and institutions run better, but also bring greater happiness to everyone. " "Only when everyone opposes ideas that hinder women's progress can real equality be achieved." China needs more discussion and action on gender equality.

Content reference of Global Gender Gap Report 2020:

1. World Economic Forum: Global Gender Gap Report 2020

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2. The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 was released.

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