Story 364
I left the industry in the mid 2010s to start a marketing agency, having concluded that even the “good guys” are prejudiced against women. I was working at a Big 5 bank for a woman (let’s call her ‘S’) who may have been the hardest working person to walk the earth. She was married; her husband was a disgruntled lawyer who volunteered to stay at home with the kids for a few years while she conquered the world. She worked 14-18 hours a day. She made her ambition very clear. Her goal was to run the Family Office division of the firm. She had a masters in Tax and her CPA. She was brilliant but, like many of us who are driven and talented, she was always painted as if she had sharp edges.
After 18 months of grinding, she summoned the courage to meet with the CEO of the division to say: “I’ve done all the work; what’s it going to take to get that promotion?” CEO looked her straight on and said: “You have young kids at home – shouldn’t you be taking care of them?” She was stunned that an executive at a public 50 company felt okay saying something like this outloud. She took the conversation to the Head of HR – a Baby Boomer whose only allegiance was to maintaining the status quo. Her reply: “Oh, S, you know he’s high “traditional” (or whatever that category is) on DISC, he can’t help himself. You’ll probably have to wait until he retires before [that promotion happens].”
S couldn’t hide her devastation. Her team felt terribly for her. I spent the next year quietly figuring out how to do something else because that particular CEO wasn’t even one of the “bad guys” and yet he was completely worthless because he came to work everyday and favored men with an unconscious bias that was enabled and excused by everyone around him.