Campaign success! National conference (10,000 people) pledges female speaker quota

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the National Achievers Congress: a weekend-long conference with an audience of 10,000. The speakers were entrepreneurs and sales experts, sharing their knowledge, experiences and techniques on success, inspiration and motivation.

Of the entire panel of speakers, not one was female. After writing the blog, I received many comments from readers who in agreement about the negative message this sends out about the inclusion of women in senior roles. Thanks for your comments – which all chime with mine. Where are the women? And what can we do to rectify the situation?

An obvious place to start (apart from encouraging more women to put themselves forward, of course) is with the organisers. Today, I was very pleased to talk to the lead organiser. He acknowledged that he was aware of the lack of women, and said that he had approached a few women, who had all declined to speak. He admitted that the team set out to ask speakers who represented diverse areas of expertise, but had all come back with male speakers, because there was no focus on recruiting women specifically and most existing connections are through men.

The problem seems to be that there is a culture and tradition for male speakers, and convenience in maintaining the status quo. The organiser and I talked about changing the emphasis so that the team go out with the intention of securing a certain number from the outset, and make that a priority – that’s to say, a quota.

The organiser agreed that, for the next conferences (there will be a few across Europe at the end of next summer), he will set out with a quota of one woman each day of the conference. This is a long way off 50:50 but a great start to achieving equality. There are many brilliant businesswomen out there, and we need them on stage for the next conferences.

I will be compiling a list of potential female speakers to help the organisers, so please let me know if you have any ideas (or would like to speak yourself…)

Thanks

Short fiction story, by Delilah

The evening is over. The streets are quiet. What will happen to the person who has just left the night club? And what secrets will be revealed?

This story is called 'Night Walk Through Soho', and was selected for reading at a London Lit event in Euston, London, on Sunday 26 June. 

Short fiction story, by Delilah

The evening is over. The streets are quiet. What will happen to the person who has just left the night club? And what secrets will be revealed?

This story is called 'Night Walk Through Soho', and was selected for reading at a London Lit event in Euston, London, on Sunday 26 June.

Women gossip, women fuss, men get on with running the world

Wow, there are a large number of sexist adverts out at the moment.

Haagen Dazs has got a collection which play on the stereotype that it's women who gossip indoors and men who go out to have their nights of fun.

And here's T-mobile with a stunner. An angry-looking woman upset about her partner's uncommunicative behaviour.

Of course, silly me! Women are responsible for 'managing' their relationships with men. Women are naturally better than men at communicating. Men don't bother with such domestic challenges; they have more important things to do. A woman's place is in the home, because dangerous things might happen if she ventures out into a man's world!

National Achievers Congress has no female role models

I spent Saturday at the National Achievers Congress at the Excel Centre in London. It was my first sales/entrepreneur conference and unlike any experience I have had before. I walked in when world-famous life and business coach Tony Robbins had already been speaking for an hour to the 10,000-strong audience, who had their arms in the air, waving to music, as though it were a rock concert. Surreal.

His session, which lasted four hours non-stop contained nothing more than common sense motivation and management advice (“Nothing achieves success greater than the pattern of success,” and other such gems of wisdom). And yet – there was a magic in the way he held the crowd and triggered so much flow of energy. I was in awe. A lesson for all of us; how to be influential, how to lead, how to be followed.

I nearly didn’t go the conference. Several months ago, I bought a ticket, late one night, after a friend persuaded me. It was only afterwards that I looked at the website and scrolled down in horror. Every single speaker in the line-up was a man.

What was this; a three-day national conference calling itself inspirational and motivational with a total of zero female role models? What kind of message is this sending out? That women need not to aspire to reach the top because they’re not wanted?

Men dominate the business world and are twice as likely to start a business as women. The barriers stopping women are external (other people’s expectations, preference for the status quo), practical (women still overwhelmingly taking on the child and home care role) and internal (external factors feed back and affect women’s confidence and risk taking levels) – all reinforcing the 'negativity' that halts success and that Tony Robbins is so keen for us all to dispel.

Role models can therefore help a great deal in instigating change. Nothing achieves success greater than the pattern of success.

I spent the day, in between sessions, talking to members of the organising team and asking them why there were no female speakers. Some interesting reactions. All very friendly and helpful (not always the reaction I get to pleas for equality); several scratched their heads and thought for a moment. “Oh yes, you’re right. It hadn’t occurred to me, but now you say it, yes, err...it’s something we should really change.”

I didn’t find the main organiser – the man who apparently has all the power in selecting speakers – but I shall be writing to him and sending him a link to this blog. I might find him today, the last day of the conference. I need to know that next year they will make an effort to draw in some high-profile women. I will report back; watch this space.