"I love my job," she says. "It’s up to me to shape successful careers, from associate to partner. " For every attorney, she creates a package of skills training, mentoring, networking, and coaching. 

When we ask about the status of women, she says that flexible work arrangements and paid parental leave (for mothers and fathers) have been in place for at least a decade. Several women partners have small children and work part-time.

"This is a wonderful place to work. We want people to feel really good about the firm. Even if they decide to leave, our goal is a great exit interview."

A great exit interview?

"When our lawyers leave, they go into the government or corporations. We see everyone who leaves as a new client, a potential source of revenue."

So, our new goal for the Jewish community? Great exit interviews!

Let’s create workplaces that are so committed to excellence that professionals benefit from career pathways, starting on Day One. Let’s advocate for policies that support young women and men at every stage in the life cycle. Let’s encourage people to advance into leadership, and if there’s no room at the top of your organization, let’s help them go to another organization to get the stretch they need.

If we transform our workplaces, we will be rewarded with more talented applicants, better productivity, and lower rates of turnover. Some of these high potential professionals may leave, temporarily or permanently, to fulfill their aspirations.

These people may return – as colleagues, volunteers, Board members, or contributors. If we can see each Jewish organization as part of dynamic, interdependent communities, then we will make sure that each professional gives a great exit interview, and feels connected no matter where they work.

Want to learn how?  Look here.

Shifra Bronznick and Didi Goldenhar co-authors of Leveling the Playing Field: Advancing Women in Jewish Organizational Life, are guest blogging on Jewcy this week with their co-author Marty Linsky. Stay tuned.

The post The Great Exit Interview appeared first on Jewcy.

Corporate America could use a dose of this diversity. Among Fortune 500 companies, only 2% of CEOs are women, and their boards have only 10% women. Research by Catalyst shows that companies with more diverse leadership get better financial results.  So why the resistance to change?

You can see the parallels in the Jewish community. In meeting rooms, professionals and volunteers fret about the decline of these organizations. But are they making the connection between the loss of influence and money and the lack of diversity in leadership and senior management? With 75% women staffing these organizations, how can there be so few women at the top? 

Maybe it’s time for the Norway Experiment.   

In 2002, Asnager Garnelson, Trade and Industry Minister, scanned corporate boards and saw that the percentage of women had stalled at 6%.  A former businessman, he knew how board members were picked. "They came from the same small circle of people," he said. "They go hunting and fishing together." Garnelson led the effort to diversify Norway’s boards, not for the noble cause of helping women, but because he believed that diversity creates wealth.

By 2003, Norway passed a law requiring all companies to fill 40% of board seats with women by 2008. The law was called "completely ridiculous" by the business community and, they predicted, impossible to enforce. In 2006, as companies continued to resist, Karita Bekkemellem, Minister of Equality, threatened to close down companies that did not comply.

The result: As of the 2008 deadline, all 500 companies on the Oslo stock exchange now have 40% women on their boards.  Since the Jewish community has shown little appetite for setting goals and making progress on women’s leadership, maybe now is the time to exert some pressure, in the Norwegian style.  Because it really makes sense to enlist everyone’s point of view, women and men, in drafting the roadmap to change.

Shifra Bronznick and Didi Goldenhar co-authors of Leveling the Playing Field: Advancing Women in Jewish Organizational Life, are guest blogging on Jewcy this week with their co-author Marty Linsky. Stay tuned.

The post The Norway Experiment appeared first on Jewcy.