'Collective intelligence' is key for diversity initiatives, says Accor Hotels' CDO

Men and women must work together: favouring either one for their gender is "a nonsense", says Maud Bailly

Over the past few months, we've spoken a lot about the need to celebrate and encourage diversity in IT. The power of a new perspective on business is invaluable, leading to a better connection with clients, a new way to approach challenges and a new understanding of your customers. But, says Accor Hotels CDO Maud Bailly, IT is far from the only industry facing this problem.

"I don't see - yet - a woman in a key leading position in the hospitality industry or in the digital industry; I'm combining both."

Bailly is a member of the Women at Accor Generation Network (WAGN), which promotes diversity as "the lever of collective performance." She stressed that it is a way to promote both men and women, rather than one to the exclusion of the other: "[That] would be a nonsense".

If you don't stick to these new ideas, you're dead… You have to have different people with different points of view

Diversity is often thrown around as shorthand for ‘gender equality', but it refers to more than that. Accor considers race, background and even position within the company to all fall under the same heading.

"In one year I've moved to a uniquely diverse team with men and women - 50 per cent and 50 per cent - senior and junior: senior because you don't transform a non-digital company from scratch, you have to understand and embrace its legacy; and junior because they're going to challenge you, they're going to say, ‘That's such an old-fashioned way of thinking'. It's very healthy to have those external new points of view.

"Also national and international backgrounds: people with different cultural backgrounds, allowing you to embrace cultural relativism. I just hired a new guest experience SVP, he's half Canadian and half Italian; my sales and distribution SVP is Australian, with Japanese and German roots. If you mix all those points of view with a French point of view, it starts being interesting."

The key point is that one size doesn't fit all when it comes to business, and different viewpoints are crucial to adapting your strategy for different audiences. Bailly explains:

"You can't develop the same strategy for China, where you have Baidu, WeChat, AliPay, C-Pay, and people love coupons in their loyalty approach; or in Africa, where everything is about mobile money, and there aren't many people with a bank account; or in Brazil, where the connectivity is a bit difficult but everyone is on social media.

"So if you don't stick to these new ideas, you're dead… You're not going to meet the expectations of the people, and you therefore have to have different people with different points of view."

Dare to do

Rather than inherent bias, many of the women we've talked to say that a lack of confidence is holding women back from progressing in the IT space: a major factor behind our own decision to establish the Women in IT Excellence Awards.

"[What you should do] is push women to dare," says Bailly, "because very often they say, ‘I don't know if I'm going to be able', whereas men will say, ‘Yes, for sure - I don't understand why I haven't got the position before!'"

Teaching girls at school that it is okay to pursue STEM subjects is important, but even the girls who go on to become women in IT are often stymied because they lack role models.

At a recent panel discussion about women in technology, Shadow Minister for Industrial Strategy, Science and Innovation Chi Onwurah said that the role model position doesn't necessarily only need to be filled by women:

"Men can support and nurture and champion women - men can be fantastic allies," she said. "We're in an industry that is so male-dominated: the role for men is huge."

Bailly agrees. "Men will be our best ambassadors to promote women," she said, adding that the need for balance is also important. As women, who for too long have been seen as caretakers, are making their way into the boardroom, so men should not be looked down upon for putting family first.

"It's also about promoting men in their new rights: ‘I would like to take my paternity leave'; ‘I would like to have the right to say I want to attend the dance of my little girl'; ‘I would like not to go home too late because I want to spend time with my children'."

"I'm promoting men and parity and diversity, but what I'll do best [as a woman] is to promote flexibility for men," she continued. "What you will do the best, because you're a man, is promote women…

"I think things have to change quite quickly… We're both facing the same transformation and the same social and cultural needs, and we can be so much brighter together. There is no individual intelligence that can be more powerful than the collective one."