“Men tend to be much more reluctant to ask those kinds of questions.”
Irish boards need more female representation because women will tend to ask ‘the idiot question’ that men won’t. Speaking on JOE’s business show, All In, which is backed by AIB, the CEO of the Institute of Directors, Maura Quinn outlined why she believes that businesses do better when there are more women involved in the decision making;
“I think it’s really important that there’s a critical mass of women on boards, so appointing the token woman to a board to be able to tick a box to say you’ve now got a woman on the board is not appropriate,” Quinn told host, Yvonne Redmond.
“I think in order for the dynamic to change around the table you have to have a critical mass of women because the discussion changes and women challenge things in a very different way than men do,” she continued.
“I think women are very much more open to asking what sometimes can be perceived as the idiot question, as in, ‘I don’t understand that, can you run it by me again?’ or, ‘has anybody thought about…?’
“They’re less kind of stereotyped that way whereas men tend to be much more reluctant to ask those kinds of questions.”
The Institute of Director’s 2019 ‘Diversity In The Boardroom’ survey lists their respondents as 40% female.
