Helena Morrissey is different. She stands out in ways that are obvious – she has nine children and works in the senior echelons of the City – and ways that are not. She is a Brexiter, in a profession that mainly voted Remain. She is radical in some ways and distinctly conservative in others, making her difficult to pigeonhole. Morrissey is unusual and her book is essentially about why that is a good thing; why people who don’t fit the mould should be valued for that, rather than forced to conform. Although only, perhaps, up to a point.
Her book is pitched as a mild rebuke to the gung-ho American cult of “lean in” corporate feminism preached by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg. Why, Morrissey asks, should women “lean in” to an old-fashioned patriarchal system that’s no longer fit for purpose, when we could change the system instead? Women shouldn’t have to copy men to get on but should be free to succeed in their own way, perhaps working more flexibly (when Morrissey ran her own investment management company, she offered a four-day week to anyone who wanted it) or managing more creatively or just approaching issues differently. So stop telling women to push harder for pay rises like the men do and ask why on earth you’d encourage a pay system that rewards self-promotion over talent.
And all of that is a refreshing change from the niggling cult of female self-improvement, which starts from the premise that women are probably doing it all wrong. She casts a wry eye over all those “what successful women do” articles in which her name regularly appears, pointing out that they get cause and effect confused. Sure, she gets up very early, but that’s because she’s naturally a lark, not some plan for world domination that all women should copy. Just do what suits you and stop worrying. As for how she does it all, she’s perfectly upfront about crediting her stay-at-home husband, Richard (who is interviewed in the book, along with the children), and plenty of help.
Morrissey makes a compelling case, too, for why institutions need not just diverse but dissenting voices. In one meeting after the US election, a colleague wonders aloud why the City hadn’t seen Brexit or Trump coming; why boards that had diversified precisely in order to prevent group-think were still failing to spot potentially serious upsets looming. Her answer is the tendency to dismiss ordinary voters’ views and to achieve diversity in name only. Boards were willing to hire different faces, and not just female ones, but only if the newcomers didn’t challenge the consensus. “The experience showed me rather painfully and personally that we had only reached the point where diversity of thought was welcome in theory; much less so in practice. I could see that my view made many people, including friends, feel very uncomfortable and even angry,” she writes.
And angering people is not Morrissey’s style. Even her book’s title is printed in unthreatening lower-case letters and the initiative for which she is justly famous, the 30% Club, deliberately and successfully chose to campaign for a critical mass of women on company boards via voluntary change rather than by setting quotas. She won board chairs over by arguing that women add value by bringing in “empathy, social sensitivity, collaboration and gentleness”.
And if alarm bells ring at the mention of “gentleness”, then you may ultimately struggle with this book. For Morrissey’s theory of precisely how women are different leads into controversial waters – including a strictly partial defence of Google engineer James Damore, sacked for suggesting that biological differences rather than sexism might help explain his company’s lack of senior women – which may alienate some of the young women at whom this book is aimed.
She’s careful not to suggest that it’s all nature over nurture. But her view that women are generally more conscientious and collaborative than men, if less openly ambitious and confident, feels surprisingly conservative in a book about turning conventional thinking upside down. For women who want to smash down the boardroom door, this is a terrific read. But smashing the system? That, it seems, would be a step too far.
• A Good Time to Be a Girl by Helena Morrissey is published by William Collins (£14.99). To order a copy for £12.74 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
