For women who have always wondered how to put their intelligence, skills and curiosity to work on a board of directors, two alumnae of the University of Alberta Faculty of Law have some answers.
Board Basics is a workshop which runs September 21 at the Law Centre and is designed to help increase female participation on boards of directors. It was created by DirectHer Network, a non-profit organization launched earlier this year by a small team of female professionals that includes lawyers Chantel Cabaj and Elsa Johnson, both of whom graduated from UAlberta Law with JD degrees in 2012.
At the workshop, women who aspire to serve as board members but believe they do not completely understand the duties, the language and liabilities such a role entails, walk through all the concepts during a simulated board meeting of a small organization.
"It's a mock non-profit dance studio, because that's common to the kind of board they might start at," said Cabaj, a lawyer with the Workers' Compensation Board. "The studio runs a showcase, it brings in money, it has issues like a faulty HVAC system. It gets grant money, so there's that to consider, and there's conflict with employees, so policies have to be established. It's a real example of what they might face."
Workshop participants tackle each step that an actual board would encounter during a meeting, including following an agenda, reading financial statements, calling motions and engaging in discussions and votes.
DirectHer developed when Cabaj, Johnson and four other friends realized that not only were women "deplorably under-represented on boards of directors in Alberta, but even in our own privileged and highly educated female communities there were few women who felt truly qualified to go after board positions," said Johnson.
After creating a lecture-style course to encourage women that received extremely positive feedback, the group realized that there are few programs available to train for board positions that were accessible to women who lacked corporate backing or some previous board experience.
"We want boards to reflect the communities we actually live in, and that means it is essential that Indigenous women, women of colour, members of the LGBTQ2S+ community and women with a disability are sought and empowered to join boards of directors," said Johnson, who assisted in developing the content of the hands-on workshops and is a lawyer with Alberta Justice and Solicitor General, and DirectHer's board chair.
According to a 2018 report by the Canadian Securities Administrators, women accounted for only 12 per cent of corporate boards in Alberta, up just one per cent since from 2017.
DirectHer's founders believe it should be at least 30 per cent. Cabaj says research on critical mass shows that group dynamics shift when about one-third of a group agrees with each other. If a board is made up of only men it risks fostering a homogenous thought process that discourages questions, she said.
"It can be a challenge to stand up as a lone wolf if something is not sitting right with you."
DirectHer's immediate goal is to either confirm to women that they already have the fundamental skills to apply for and join boards, or give them the confidence to do so even though they may have to learn some things as they go.
The latter attitude is not typical of most women, says Cabaj, citing research by Hewlett-Packard in the early 2000s that was followed up by the Harvard Business Review in 2014. It showed that women often believe they need 100 per cent of the qualities a job demands to get hired, while men feel comfortable applying with far less.
The workshop approach to a real-life scenario is designed to instil the confidence that could alter those statistics. So far, it's working, says Johnson. "I get so very excited when I hear that one of our past participants has not only applied for a board position, but secured it," she said.
The Board Basics workshop, which will be held 1-4 p.m. on September 21, in Room 105 of the Law Centre, is open to the public. The fee is $20 but a scholarship program is available where cost is a barrier. See www.directhernetwork.com.