The reason Melinda Gates almost quit her Microsoft job in the 1980s reveals an unfortunate truth about what it really takes to get ahead at work
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationSpecifically, they show favor to people who look and act just like them.For your own success as well as your organization's, it's important to double-check your gut feelings about coworkers.Gates, who is co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
that she was the only woman hired in the incoming class of MBAs at Microsoft. She said,"It wasn't always easy for me to feel at home in an environment where people seemed to get rewarded for being combative."Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business development at Microsoft, started out with a slightly different approach. Sheabout trying to"elbow my way into discussions, interrupt and raise my voice.
For Johnson, that moment was a wake-up call:"To succeed on my terms, it was important that I defined my own brand of leadership." Gates and Johnson's observations about Microsoft, and what it took to advance there, are hardly unique. Across companies and industries, management is more likely to shine a light on people who look and act just like they do. The result is a more or less homogeneous organization — the opposite of what makes companies thrive — and a frustrating situation for people whose backgrounds and aspirations don't fit that cookie-cutter mold.A growing body of scientific evidence bears this out.
The result is that sponsorship"disproportionately favors those from privileged backgrounds," they write. The authors interviewed one partner at an accounting firm who cited drinking as a key bonding activity for him and his sponsee. The partner is quoted saying,"[The sponsee is] very much in my mould. It wasn't difficult taking him out with me, suggesting things for him to do. It's easy for me to pass on the tricks of the trade.
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