Fauci and Women & Risk

The new year has started. I have two things to add to welcome you to the new year. One made me laugh. The other made me nod.

First, I was looking at some fabrics to cover a bench cushion when I came across a pattern motif of Dr. Fauci’s face. See here. It made me smile. He is as much a celeb as Ruth Bader Ginsburg was. Soon he will have a workout book or TV show! I sure miss RBG right now.

Second, if you know me, you know that I am a catastrophist. I’m always worried about the next crisis around the corner. That is probably why I wrote a book on reputation recovery for companies in peril. Consequently, over the 2020 holiday, I found myself reading this fascinating article, “What I Learned in Avalanche School.” The author, Heidi Julavits, decided she wanted to learn more about how to prepare for every type of unknown, even one she was not likely to encounter. So she went to avalanche class in Alaska.

In one brief section of the article, she mentioned that when it comes to the science of surviving an avalanche, the research indicates that those most likely to die are men, men in their late 20s, those with intermediate-to-expert experience and those with some formal avalanche training. The instructor also told the class that all-female groups were better at decision-making under risky circumstances than all-male groups or even mixed-gender groups. When asked why that would be, the teacher said that women feel uncomfortable speaking up around men and therefore decision-making is more risky when women are in mixed groups or excluded altogether. The author added that she herself recalls being on the slopes with two men who told her she was wrong about being unable to descend and she repeatedly told them she did not think she could make it. She concluded that it was not that she did not speak up, it was that she was not heard. Gosh, I‘ve been in that situation innumerable times in my career as have many of my female friends.

All of this brought me quickly to the research that has been done over the past few years on corporate boards where increasingly more women are represented or demands are being made to include them to a greater degree (see my 2021 reputation trends #9). Inclusion of women and minorities on corporate boards have been found to increase financial performance, less risky investment decisions and a tempering of overconfidence by mostly male CEOs. Much like the avalanche school findings.

Maybe these are good omens for 2021 — Fauci’s help in the new administration to get those vaccines in arms and more women and people of color on corporate boards! At least I like to think so.