12 ★ † FINANCIAL TIMES Monday9 March 2020

W O R K & C A R E E R S

’

‘

F

unmi Olonisakin, professor of

security, leadership and devel-

opment at King's College Lon-

don, hopes a new exhibi-

tion, “Phenomenal Women”,

portraying black female professors in

the UK, will help convince the next gen-

eration to stick at their careers.

“I’ve seen a lot of young women leave

academia because they are discour-

aged,” she says. “If you hear the stories

of early career academics, they struggle

and wonder how they will make it

through the career. This sends a mes-

sage that they can do it.”

The exhibition eatures portraits byf

photographer Bill Knight of academics

includingBernardine Evaristo, profes-a

sor of creative writingand a Booker

Prize-winner, and the artist Sonia

Boyce,among others in fields ranging

from geography to aw.l

Taking part in the exhibition has been

personally important to Prof Oloni-

sakin. It has highlighted otherswho

have shared the challenges of being part

of a minority in the role and made her

realise “that some of my experiences

haven’t been a one-off”.

Out of about 19,285 professors in UK

universities, 12,795 are white men and

4,560white women, according to a

report published last year by Advance

HE, a higher education agency. There

are 90 black men and 35 black women.

The exhibition was curated by Nicola

Rollock, a reader in equity and educa-

tion at Goldsmiths, University of Lon-

don, who last year pro duce d a

report,“Staying Power”, interviewing

black female professors about their

experience of the higher education sec-

tor. Ms Rollock sits on the diversity

groups at the Wellcome Trust and Brit-

ish Science Association and was also

part of a parliamentary committee’s

inquiry into thepolice and race rela-

tions. Her xhibition will be launchede

this month to highlight specific issues

black women face.

The Staying Power report said that a

“culture of explicit and passive bullying

persists across higher education, along

with racial stereotyping and racial

microaggressions. Respondents shared

accounts, for example, of being ostra-

cised by colleagues — including heads of

departments — during meetings and

social events.”

It alsofound evidence that black

female professors had to have better

academic records than their white

counterparts to gain promotion, exacer-

bated by the track to professorship

being characterised “by a lack of trans-

parency and fairness”. Black female

professors spoke of being undermined

and finding evenmundane tasks turned

into a battle,while constantly “having to

strive and prove oneself”. Ms Rollock

says that women spoke of “taking them-

selves for therapy or having very clear

lines between their work life and their

home life just to protect themselves and

their sanity from this ongoing onslaught

of undermining and bullying”.

This echoes findings from the Trades

Union Council report on racism at work,

which said that 37 per cent of black and

minority ethnic workers “have been

bullied, abused or singled out at work”.

According to government figures, 6

per cent of the black workforce is either

a manager, a director or a senior official,

comparedwith 11 per cent of white peo-

ple. In the UK, 2.3m corporate managers

and directors in the UK are white (8 per

cent of white workers) and 36,721 who

are black (3.7 per cent).Some 5.6 per

cent of white workers are science, engi-

neering and tech professionals, com-

pared with 3.3 per cent of black workers.

When workplace discussions focus on

women, they tend to treat them as a

homogeneous group. Gender should be

a priority, Ms Rollock says, “but it inter-

sects with race and other factors as well

and it’s really important that we pay

much more serious attention to that”.

Interviews with black female professors

revealed that feminism might prove “a

rather exclusive terrain”.

What about black male professors? “I

started with the group that’s the small-

est so had it been black men .. .we’d be

having an exhibition on black men.”

Discussions about race are difficult,

says Ms Rollock. “There is a serious and

systemic structural issue that we have in

the UK [that] we don’t confront and

we’re not prepared to talk about openly

and honestly.” Too often white people

are defensive on issues of race, which

has the effect of “clos[ing] down conver-

sation, it returns the white person back

to this idea of being a victim or to the

centre of the conversation and you’re no

longer paying attention to the concerns

of [the] under-represented group”,

she says.

She wants the exhibition to highlight

the professors’ achievements and hopes

it will spur colleagues to listen to their

experiences and adjust their own

behaviour accordingly.

In her report she recommends trans-

parent processes for promotion and sal-

ary negotiation, as well as specific initia-

tives supporting black female academ-

ics. She also suggests rigorous training

for managerial staff, as well as creating a

culture in which there is zero tolerance

for bullying and where whistleblowing

is encouraged without reprimand.

“Invisible work” is also a problem.

Black women are frequently encour-

aged to participate in initiatives aimed

at improving diversity, or mentoring

black students. The work is unseen and

unappreciated, and has an impact on

time spent on professional work.

“You’re essentially just giving free

labour and free labour that comes on

the back of your identity... If the insti-

tution truly values that expert knowl-

edge then that should be included in

promotions criteria.”

Cynthia Pine, a professor of dental

public health at Queen Mary’s, Univer-

sity of London,is pleased to have an

opportunity to meet otherprofessors

featured in the exhibition. “We’re very

isolated,” she says. The photos help to

shine a light on the data. “You can only

[make a case for increasing diversity] if

you have objective data, otherwise you

get accused of being hysterical.”

‘Phenomenal Women’ is open to the public

atLondon’sCityHallfrom18-31March

Hard-won

success comes

against the odds

There are so few black

female professors in the

UK that their portraits all

appear in one exhibition,

writes EmmaJacobs

Nicola Rollock hopes the exhibition ‘Phenomenal Women’ will encourage more black females to persevere in academia Anna Gordon/FT—

Gender intersects with

race and other factors

and it is ‘important we

pay much more serious

attention to that’

Inclusion at work

Twitter’s double-hatted boss tests the limits of

tolerance of ‘management by absence’

No matter how hard leaders may try,

they cannot expand the number of

hours in the day. When leaders take on

more than one job, it is inevitable that

others will question whether they can

cope. Jack Dorsey, who is chief

executive of both Square and Twitter, is

the latest to come under the scrutiny of

external time-managers, in the form of

Twitter investors.

Hedge fund Elliott Management is

questioning whether the “part-time”

chief executive isdistracted.

Scott Galloway, business school

professor and Twitter shareholder,has

also drawn attention o Mr Dorsey’st

ambition to spend some months of this

year in Africa. “It’s a 9-hr time

difference from San Francisco to

Nigeria — so for pressing issues, the

CEO will literally be asleep. How will

absentee leadership affect employee

morale and stress levels?” Prof

Galloway asked in December. Mr

Dorsey last week said he was “re-

evaluating” his Africa plan but

defended his twin roles. Despite

reports of paralysis nd indecision ata

the company, Twitter staff have rallied

round a #WeBackJack campaign on the

social media site.

Another Jack — Welch — would not

have signed up. The former General

Electric boss, whodied last week, used

to turn down invitations to join other

boards expressly because he knew how

much he had on his plate at GE. He was

a hard-charging, hands-on manager.

Which Jack is right? It is hard to

decide. GE offers a less useful

comparison with Twitter than, say,

Patagonia, the Californian outerwear

manufacturer founded by Yvon

Chouinard, who regularly disappears to

remote mountain ranges to indulge his

love of climbing. He has boasted about

his “MBA theory of management” —

standing for “management by absence”.

Mr Chouinard and Mr Dorsey are

similar in other ways. The latter’s quest

for new experiences — in Africa and

elsewhere — echoes the former’s “wear-

testing” of clothing and equipment in

the Himalayas or South America. “A

company needs someone to go out and

get the temperature of the world,”

Patagonia’s founder once wrote.

Silicon Valley was also one of the

cradles of “management by walking

around”, however, as practised by Bill

Hewlett and Dave Packard. They had a

habit of dropping in unprompted on

staff at the technology company and

asking them what they were up to.

Steve Jobs could also be a terrifying

Welch-like presence at Apple.

Defenders of Mr Dorsey have pointed

out Jobs held down the top executive

post at Pixar at the same time. But Ed

Catmull, the animation studio’s then

president, has said Pixar was Jobs’s

“sideline... a place he could relax a

little and play”. Dorsey defender Elon

Musk heads SpaceX and Tesla, but has

been criticised formicromanaging

problems y working 120-hour weeksb

and sleeping on the floor of the factory.

There is a reason why regulators try

to restrict the outside directorships of

executives and insist board candidates

disclose the time they spend on other

commitments. But time allocation

alone is acrude gauge f driveno

leaders’ devotion. In keeping the chief

executive focused, happy, and full of

ideas, who is to judge whether

shareholders earned a better return

fromWelch’s regular golf games orMr

Dorsey’s 10-daysilent retreat ot

Myanmar in 2018.

How much time a CEO needs to

devote to a company comes down to

culture, conduct, context and

consequences.

If management by absence suits

Twitter staff, even encourages them to

do better work, so be it. Mr Dorsey

needs to accompany the propagation of

an idiosyncratic culture with good

judgment and appropriate conduct,

though. His Myanmar stay was

politically tone-deaf; more pertinently

for Twitter, he needs to have the self-

awareness to adjust the hours he

spends at the company when it faces

criticism or crisis.

The big difference between Mr

Dorsey and Mr Chouinard is one of

context. Patagonia is not a listed

company and Twitter is. Patagonia’s

founder has long delegated daily

running to a CEO, but it was his choice

whether to oversee the group while

dangling from a cliff in Argentina or

sitting in a corner office in California.

Finally, consequences. Welch

measured himself and GE by share

price and earnings growth — to an

excessive degree. Whatever the wider

mission of Twitter, results are still the

benchmark by which shareholders will

judge Mr Dorsey. Less than a year ago

some werepraising he double-hattedt

founder for his humility, low profile

and work ethic. But that was when the

shares were outperforming. He must

now submit to a different consequence,

decide which of his two babies is his

“sideline”, and assign most of his

limited executive hours to the other.

[email protected]

How much time a chief

executive devotes to a

company comes down to

culture, conduct, context

and consequences

Andrew Hill

Onmanagement

MARCH 9 2020 Section:Features Time: 8/3/2020- 16:24 User:keith.allen Page Name:CAREERS1, Part,Page,Edition:USA, 12, 1