Pink, Blue and Purple
What unique value do women, bring to the workplace?
For centuries the answer was “None.”
Today we hear that companies with more women perform better but we can’t specifically state how or why. Without a clear answer, women don’t know how to leverage themselves in the workplace and companies don’t proclaim “We need to hire and promote more women!”
To answer the question, we have to challenge old ideas – ones that are so entrenched in our thinking that we never question if they are true. Let’s begin with the Doctrine of Two Spheres. It says:
Men naturally have traits suited for the public sphere of work, politics, law, business, commerce, academia and finance.
Women naturally have traits suited for the private sphere of domesticity, child rearing and charitable work.
Men and women, like their spheres are distinct and separate, possessing no shared or overlapping traits.
The Doctrine of Two Spheres gives us the basis for the stereotypes.
But it also impacts all women in a more important way.
It implies that when women go into the workplace and especially into male-dominated roles and industries, they must leave all their feminine traits behind and adopt masculine traits. A career-minded woman may have the body of a woman but she must think and act like a man.
Think about your own perceptions about yourself and why you chose your career path.
Think the career advice women receive. Most of it is based on “men set the standard.” Women are expected to meet the male standard. Women aren’t told to accentuate their feminine traits.
This is why we don’t recognize women as bringing value to the workplace.
Today we logically understand that this is all messed up.
So, how do we fix it?
We begin by throwing the Doctrine of Two Spheres in the trash can where it belongs.
A New Perspective
When I began my career in the early 80’s, I was told that men excel in business so I had high expectations of my workplace. However, once there it took me only a few days to say, “What the Hell? I thought you guys knew what you were doing!”
All around me I saw was chaos, crisis management, stress and lots of inefficiency. Any concerns I had about measuring up to my male colleagues quickly vanished.
I was determined to figure out what was fundamentally wrong with the male-dominated workplace and fix it.
I realized that the way my male colleagues worked wasn’t as much wrong as it was incomplete.
I felt like there were a lot of “things missing” in what they did. At the time I couldn’t quite articulate what was “missing” so I began using the term “Swiss cheese” to describe how the male-dominated workplace “functioned” and “completed” tasks.
I began looking for the Swiss cheese holes in everything they did. Then I filled in the holes. It was amazingly simple.
Our performance soared.
It made me wonder why millions and millions of men never figured out how to do what I was doing.
Women hold up half the sky
We could interpret this proverb as supporting the Doctrine of Two Spheres but it really represents the Yin and Yang concept.
Unlike the Doctrine of Two Spheres which divides male and female into two static and separate spheres, Yin and Yang are connected opposites. They are equal halves of the Whole.
They are dynamic, continually interacting and influencing each other. Neither is superior or inferior, each controls the other and both need the other to create a harmonious Whole.
As a woman, I brought Wholeness to my male-dominated workplace by filling in men’s Swiss cheese holes with feminine traits.
Working in Wholeness made my workplaces’ performance soar.
The implication to the male-dominated workplace is staggering – it means they are all under-performing.
(Wall Street and Silicon Valley – you got that?)
But this begs the question – What feminine traits was I using?
I certainly wasn’t using the stereotyped female traits!!
Through many workplaces I tracked how my male colleagues worked and what I did in response. There was amazing consistency across all of my workplaces – in spite of industry, geographic location and the ethnicity/race/culture of the men.
The Pink Zone traits are the traits I asserted to fill in the Swiss cheese holes and create Wholeness. I also found these traits being prolifically used by the the women who worked in the traditionally all-female departments of my workplaces.
My male-dominated workplaces worked in the Blue Zone.
Actually, most workplaces operate in the Blue Zone. This can be true even if there is a predominantly female workforce or female leadership because society tells us that all Public Sphere work happens in the Blue Zone.
Unfortunately, most women don’t understand the Blue Zone. So, when women go into the Blue Zone and try to “fit in,” we often use behaviors that work against us. Therefore, women need to Stay Out of The Blue Zone.
It isn’t where we will find our best opportunities or success.
The Pink Zone and the Blue Zone represent two out-of-balance extremes. The deeper a workplace goes into either the Pink Zone or the Blue Zone, the worse it functions.
Therefore, any woman who works in a male-dominated or Blue Zone workplace will find her best opportunities by asserting Pink traits. By doing so, she brings her workplace to the Purple Zone.
The Purple Zone
When women blend our Pink traits into the workplace’s Blue traits, we transform the workplace. We create the Purple Zone.
Pink + Blue = Purple
This is the unique value women bring to the workplace.
The Purple Zone is where our workplaces find the balance and Wholeness that allow it to achieve its best performance.
The Purple Zone encompasses the full spectrum of Purple as our workplace changes shades in response to the issues it is addressing. The Purple Zone can be Indigo if more male traits are called for and Lavender if more female traits are called for.
To achieve the Purple Zone women and men must continually interact across all roles and management levels in all industries.
Workplaces can’t achieve Wholeness when men are in senior management, sales and operations while women are in administration, HR and accounting. Men and women are too far apart and separated from each other to continuously influence each other.
People should also see themselves in shades of Purple. If we look at Yin-Yang symbol we notice the Yin and Yang each have part of the other within them, allowing them to use the traits associated with the other.
This means men and women can achieve Wholeness within themselves.
Most of us haven’t experienced working in Wholeness because our culture and workplaces favors Blue Zone energy so much. It is hard for us to even conceptualize what Wholeness means. But, we have to.
The complexity of the 21st century demands that we work in Wholeness. The Blue Zone traits we favor and rely on so much are simply inadequate to deal with and solve the complex problems and issues we will face.
The 21st century demands that we recognize women as complementary equals to men in the workplace.
It demands that we work in the Purple Zone.
And the best part for women is that we realize that we have the power to create the workplace and success we always wanted.