Better Together

It is the year 2017 and gender equality and women thriving in work place without fear of sexual harassment or discrimination is the #1 unsolved social issue of our time.

Better Together: 8 Ways Working with Women Leads to Extraordinary Products and Profits offers a rare and startling look at the business world through the lens of an expert looking in and plots out how ALL types of businesses can gain a competitive advantage and excel past competitors by simply nurturing an equal blend of men and women on leadership teams and staff. It focuses on powerful and implementable solutions that any CEO, manager, or team leader can put to use to ensure that women thrive within the organization, leading to the business being more successful, customers happier, and employees more fulfilled.

Author Jonathan Sposato knows the challenges facing women in startup tech and venture capital today because he specifically builds his companies with-out those obstacles. He credits the unprecedented success of his businesses on his brand of gender-balanced culture, and in this fully practical guidebook to his celebrated style of team building, he puts his eight secrets to profiting through diversity in your hands. These secrets are not just for tech companies, but for teams and companies in ANY industry.

It is the culmination of extensive research on the many issues that affect gender equality (or lack thereof) in the workplace, exhaustive interviews with many powerful female CEO's and executives who have been brave in sharing stories of their own personal struggles and triumphs, as well as Jonathan's own experiences as a male entrepreneur, CEO, and angel investor in supporting the advancement of women in business. The book also shows us why that’s not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do economically.

With the same entertaining and informative delivery that makes him a sought-after speaker worldwide, Jonathan walks you through adjusting your own culture to open the FULL potential of your workforce.

The data will amaze you and the real-world voices will inspire you, and with Better Together you can achieve more success with more women on your team. If you care about inclusivity and beating the forces that prevent it, you will want to read this book.

Foreword ix

With Grace Kahng xi

About the Author xiii

Introduction xv

Sister, Where Art Thou? xv

What Do I Know about Women? xvii

It’s Personal xix

I Know We Can Do Better xxiii

Straight Talk: Maria Hess xxiv

Chapter 1 Men Must Change 1

Welcome to Man Island 3

The Sad Truth of the Here and Now 4

And It’s Complicated 8

The Bigger Picture 10

One Small Step for Womankind 11

Night of the Living Bros 15

Women Don’t Get Funded 16

Getting Harassed is Part of the Hustle 18

Men Must Be Part of the Solution 24

Be a Change Master 26

Straight Talk: Lisa Conquergood 28

Chapter 2 Solution 1: Not Enough Women? Look Harder 29

Look Harder Part A: Top of the Funnel 30

What’s in a Name? Anonymize Resumes 30

Look Harder Part B: Minding the Gap 32

Stacking the Loop and Mining for Diamonds 35

Set Explicit Diversity Goals, Then Mirror Your Interview Loop to Match 37

Pay Big Bonuses for Employee Referrals of Candidates from Underrepresented Backgrounds 40

Mining for Diamonds and “Custom Grooming” 41

Straight Talk: Lisa Maki 47

Chapter 3 Solution 2: In It to Win It: Supporting Women’s Development 49

Reverse Mentoring 49

Increasing Female Visibility 54

Straight Talk: Eugenia Harvey 63

Straight Talk: Maria Hess 64

Chapter 4 Solution 3: Listen Louder 65

Dragon Slayers and Deliberators 66

Star Shooters and Stratosphere Blasters 68

Identical Pitches Yield Biased Results 70

How Men Can Change the Way They Listen 72

Straight Talk: Karen Cooper 80

Straight Talk: Susannah Malarkey 81

Chapter 5 Solution 4: Creating a Family-Forward Culture 83

One: No Meetings before 9:00 a.m. 86

Two: Men Should Take Just as Much Parental Leave as Women 89

Three: Shut Down Email at Night 92

Four: Create Family-Friendly Spaces, Not Bro-Friendly Spaces 96

Straight Talk: Christina Watt 105

Straight Talk: Dr. Tejal Desai 106

Chapter 6 Solution 5: Just Say No: High Performance Should Not Trump Bad Behavior 107

Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place 108

How Long Has This Been Happening? 109

Reid Hoffman 112

The Cost of Ignoring the Problem 113

D&I: Hire a Diversity and Inclusion Director 114

Words Can Change the World: Say “No” to Bad Behavior Regardless of Performance Level 115

But Wait, There’s More 118

Straight Talk: Laura Parmer Lohan 120

Chapter 7 Solution 6: Adopt the ERA at Your Company—Because Your Country Didn’t 121

Revenge of the Housewife 124

Revive the Equal Rights Amendment: Ratify Now 129

All is Not Lost 132

Straight Talk: Melody McCloskey 135

Chapter 8 Solution 7: Stand Together or Fall Apart 137

Touching the Third Rail 139

Great Expectations: Case Study 142

It’s Really Not Personal 145

Come Together: Right Now! 147

Our Unique Strengths as Women 148

Straight Talk: Debbie Landa 151

Straight Talk: Shelley Ross 152

Chapter 9 Solution 8: The Future: Raising Better Men 153

Show That Mom is Incredible and Strong 156

Communicate Differently at Home 157

Break Out of the Man Box and Call Out Bro Behavior 158

Show Him That Things That Are Traditionally “Feminine” Are Not “Less Than,” or Off-Limits 159

Show Him New Heroes, Stories That Include Women and Girls 160

Straight Talk: Grace Kahng 162

Chapter 10 Final Thoughts 163

A Note from Niniane Wang 165

Endnotes 167

Acknowledgments 169

The Better Together Pledge 171

Index 173

JONATHAN SPOSATO is chairman and co-founder of Geekwire, PicMonkey, and WeCount.org, and, in general, a serial startup founder. Since his early days as a high-performing player on the first Xbox and Xbox games business, he's gone on to add numerous awards for innovation, voted "CEO of the Year" for Picnik.com, receiving the University of Washington's "Man of Integrity" award, and becoming the only person to sell two companies to Google. He recently promised all his future investments to female-founded companies—another first in the technology industry.

"When women are present, great things happen," according to Jonathan Sposato. As a perpetual innovator and world-class leader in the technology industry, he's shown many teams how to raise a startup into a disruptive phenomenon. In 2015 he became the first male investor who vowed to only fund startups with at least one female co-founder. Now, in this much-needed guidebook to being the change we need in business, he sheds light on the tremendous value women bring to leadership teams and details an eight-step strategy for evolving your workforce into a high-performing, gender-balanced unit.

Better Together is the deeply authentic and authoritative resource business owners, board members, and leaders at all levels need to develop a culture optimized to attract and retain the top talent in the industry regardless of gender. Through firsthand accounts, high-quality data, and real-world examples, it clearly reveals how too many corporate cultures cripple the company by feeding into outdated ways of thinking and behaving that are exclusionary to women.

You don't need to be a woman to understand this widely proven approach! It's written by a man who has spent his entire life looking in from the outside and found his way to achieving singular success by selling two companies to Google. Jonathan directly attributes the success of one of those companies to its completely balanced male to female team, and inside he gives you the fully attainable secrets to creating a workplace culture where every employee is empowered and encouraged to reach their full potential.

Conveniently organized into specific solutions to the biggest walls dividing the collective power of your team, this everyday reference should be at your fingertips for its:

• Actionable steps you can take to optimize your behavior, mindset, and communication style to create a gender-balanced team, department, and company culture
• Comprehensive coverage of current gender-equity issues based on up-to-date gender communication research, recruitment practices, gender legislation, and personal insights from pioneers in gender awareness
• Authoritative guidance on developing better products, increasing profitability, and improving employee retention—all while cutting costs—by leading a gender-balanced workforce

If you don't see an equal number of women and men when you look around your organization, get Better Together and watch your bottom line grow the closer you get to balanced.

Build High-Performing Organizations with a Gender-Balanced Workforce

Better Together: 8 Ways Working with Women Leads to Extraordinary Products and Profits offers a rare and startling look at the business world through the lens of an expert looking in and plots out how all types of businesses can gain a competitive advantage and excel past competitors by simply nurturing an equal blend of men and women on leadership teams and staff.

Author Jonathan Sposato knows the challenges facing women in startup tech and venture capital today because he specifically builds his companies with-out those obstacles. He credits the unprecedented success of his businesses on his brand of gender-balanced culture, and in this fully practical guidebook to his celebrated style of team building, he puts his eight secrets to profiting through diversity in your hands.

By fine tuning your behaviors, communication style, and approach to leadership building, both men and women can achieve their individual potential to produce:

• A more successful business
• A growing customer base loyal to better products and services
• A fully committed and fulfilled workforce

His success is not an anomaly—and you might think there were more women in tech based on the data, but women aren't finding equal access to career-advancing opportunities in corporate cultures lacking in eight specific criteria. With the same entertaining and informative delivery that makes him a sought-after speaker worldwide, Jonathan walks you through adjusting your own culture to open the full potential of your workforce.

The data will amaze you and the real-world voices will inspire you, and with Better Together you can achieve more success with more women on your team.