A New Glass Ceiling

Yesterday's New York Times reported on the results of a government study of the nation's top management. In its report, the Federal Glass Ceiling Commission sought to explain "why about 95 percent of industry's senior executives are starkly and stubbornly white and male." In addition to its commonsensical explanation, the Commission betrayed the existence of a subtle subjugation of women and minorities in the name of progressive hiring policy.

The report says nothing new on why, 30 years after the civil rights movement, white males still dominate corporate power structures. White male executives, when interviewed confidentially, admitted to holding stereotypes of women ("not...tough enough"), Blacks ("undisciplined"), Hispanics ("heavy drinkers and drug users") and Asians ("more equipped for technical than people-oriented work") which were not borne out by the evidence.

Women, discounting maternity leaves, had better attendance records than men; Hispanic Americans work longer hours than white men; and Asian management strategies are so effective that they are widely copied by American business. The report even claimed that "white males believe that none of these folks play golf." Japanese golf clubs have waiting lists that you could join now for your great-grandchildren.

These stereotypes, and the fear of more visible employment competition, perpetuate a hiring situation in which "white men have insulated themselves within a culture that is impervious to everyone else." And thus the inertia of an organization is stabilized: the transfer of power and favor goes to new white men who share the values and lifestyles of the previous generation. This pattern is not unique to hiring; it is ubiquitious among family relationships, friendship groups and casual acquaintances. People find common ground with others reassuring. It is a natural tendency, but one which is exclusive and disenfranchising for those kept out of the loop.

This situation is changing, but many corporations' approach to the ideal of representative management is oblique. "Progressive" employers cite the advantages of minority representation in a world where the bases of power growincreasingly outside the domain of the white male. One chief executive described walking into a meeting with "an all-white male team" as "a tiebreaker negative." This view of token representation, where an employee's primary purpose and merit is her gender or race, is not progress. It feels like a form of exploitation.

To fulfill affirmative action quotas, many white-male dominated businesses "steer female and minority workers to the sidelines, making them managers of public and community relations, human resources and, evidently without an eye to the irony, equal employment opportunity." The only women or minorities who seem to make it past the 'glass ceiling' into the 5 percent of non-white-male senior executive level are those who adopt the "chemistry, relationships and collaborations" (and golf handicaps) of the white male. As one CEO put it, "When we find minorities and women who think like we do, we snatch them up."

This is a perversion of the ideal of a representative workforce. Below the glass ceiling, representation is sought only as a peripheral buffer around a corporation, for a world that demands it. Above it, in the senior management core, representation is sought only so long as it conforms to the wishes of the established. Instead of opening up senior management opportunity to a diverse candidacy pool, the executives who testified at the Commission partition minorities in work pools which serve very specific purposes of appearance.

The Glass Ceiling report was a rare opportunity to document the private biases of America's top executives; but more than that, in the language of touting the economic and strategic benefit of hiring minorities and women, these executives revealed their continuing pigeon-holing of minorities, in a new corporate cage.

There is nothing new in any of this. The only surprise is that the practice still exists.

Patrick S. Chung's column apears on alternate Saturdays.