为何男人比女人更易升职？

Why Men Still Get More Promotions Than Women
为何男人比女人更易升职?——《哈佛商业评论》专家论点
by Herminia Ibarra, Nancy M. Carter, and Christine Silva
作者：Herminia Ibarra;Nancy M. Carter;Christine Silva(文末附作者简介)
Nathalie (all names in this article are disguised), a senior marketing manager at a multinational consumer goods company and a contender for chairman in her country, was advised by her boss to raise her profile locally. An excellent intracompany network wouldn’t be enough to land her the new role, he told her; she must also become active in events and associations in her region. Recently matched with a high-level mentor through a companywide program, she had barely completed the lengthy prework assigned for that when she received an invitation to an exclusive executive-training program for high potentials—for which she was asked to fill out more self-assessments and career-planning documents. “I’d been here for 12 years, and nothing happened,” observes Nathalie. “Now I am being mentored to death.”
Nathalie(文中所有名字皆为化名)，一家跨国消费品公司的高级营销经理，分公司(她所在的国家)总裁的有力竞争者，最近被老板告知计划在当地提升她的岗位，但是根据目前比较完整的公司内部组织结构来看，还没有适合她的职位，所以老板希望Nathalie在当地分公司举办的社团培训活动中表现积极些。最近，整个公司都在搞“高层职业导师”培训项目，而她刚刚完成一个漫长的关于“行政能力挖掘培训”的前期准备工作(收到那份培训邀请后，需要做大量的“自我评估”与“职业规划”方面的文档)，“我在这儿已经工作12年了，一切都好好的”，Nathalie.说，“但这次，我看是要被所谓的‘导师’给整死了!”
Amy, a midlevel sales manager for the same firm, struggles with a similar problem: “My mentor’s idea of a development plan is how many external and internal meetings I can get exposure to, what presentations I can go to and deliver, and what meetings I can travel to,” she says. “I just hate these things that add work. I hate to say it, but I am so busy. I have three kids. On top of that, what my current boss really wants me to do is to focus on ‘breakthrough thinking,’ and I agree. I am going to be in a wheelchair by the time I get to be vice president, because they are going to drill me into the ground with all these extra-credit projects.”
Amy是同一家公司的一位中层销售经理，目前也被相似的问题困扰着，“我的职业导师的意见是让我做一个发展计划，看看我能接触到多少外部与内部的会议，我有能力做好哪些演示，哪些外地的会议我可以参加”，她说，“我很不喜欢这些额外的工作，也不想说那么多，我实在是太忙了，另外还有三个孩子需要我去照顾!更重要的是，现在的老板真正想让我做的是让我专注于‘突破性思维’，这个我同意，但是如果按照导师们所说的，要做那么多额外的、拖累我的工作的话，等我当上副总裁的时候，估计都累得坐上轮椅了!”
With turnover sky-high in the company’s fast-growing Chinese market, Julie, a much-valued finance manager with growth potential, has likewise undergone intensive mentoring—and she worries that she may be getting caught betwixt and between. When she was nominated for a high-potential program, her boss complained that the corporate team was interfering with the mentoring operation he was already running in the region. Julie also took part in a less formal scheme pairing junior and senior finance leaders. “I’d prefer to be involved in the corporate program because it is more high-profile,” says Julie, “but it all adds up to a lot of mentoring.”
Julie所在公司的中国市场占有额正在快速增长，作为一名极具发展潜力的“金牌财务经理”，她也经历过不少类似的“指导”，目前她十分担心自己会被夹在中间(而得不到晋升)。当她被点名参加一个“潜力发掘”项目时，老板一直在抱怨整个团队的运作完全被他在当地启动的“导师项目”给打乱了。Julie还参加了一个不太正式的“初高级财务主管”培训项目，“我之所以参加这些项目，是因为它们有着很高的知名度”，Julie说，“但目前来看，所谓的‘导师’真的是太多了!”
Are women as likely as men to get mentoring? Yes.
女性和男性一样需要“导师”么?是的!
Nathalie, Amy, and Julie are not atypical. As companies continue to see their pipelines leak at mid-to-senior levels even though they’ve invested considerable time and resources in mentors and developmental opportunities, they are actively searching for ways to retain their best female talent. In a 2010 World Economic Forum report on corporate practices for gender diversity in 20 countries, 59% of the companies surveyed say they offer internally led mentoring and networking programs, and 28% say they have women-specific programs. But does all this effort translate into actual promotions and appointments for both sexes?
Nathalie、Amy和Julie的情况非常有代表性。尽管许多公司在“高级人才”和“发展机会”上投入了大量的时间和资源，但是中高级人才之间依然存在断层，所以各个公司也都在积极寻找办法来留住优秀的女性人才。在2010年“世界经济论坛”的一项涉及20个国家、关于“企业如何对待性别多样性”的调查中，59%的公司表示他们为员工提供过内部的“领导力导师”及网络培训方案，并且有28%的公司宣称他们有针对女性的特定方案。但是，所有的这些做法真的能为女人赢得与男人相同的晋升机会么?
Does mentoring provide the same career benefits to men and women? No.
“导师”对男性和女性来说都是有益的么?不!
The numbers suggest not. A 2008 Catalyst survey of more than 4,000 full-time-employed men and women—high potentials who graduated from top MBA programs worldwide from 1996 to 2007—shows that the women are paid $4,600 less in their first post-MBA jobs, occupy lower-level management positions, and have significantly less career satisfaction than their male counterparts with the same education. That’s also the case when we take into account factors such as their industry, prior work experience, aspirations, and whether they have children. (For more findings, see Nancy M. Carter and Christine Silva, “Women in Management: Delusions of Progress,” HBR March 2010.) Yet among that same group, more women than men report having mentors. If the women are being mentored so thoroughly, why aren’t they moving into higher management positions?
数据将告诉我们答案。2008年由Catalyst(译者：美国的一家非营利性调研机构)进行的一项关于“工作机会”的调查，共有4000多名全职的男性和女性参与，他们在1996年到2007年间进行过MBA课程的学习，都拥有不错的工作潜力，调查结果显示，在学完MBA课程之后，女性的薪水反而降低至4600美元，所得到的工作机会也少了，并且得到的都是些基层管理工作，同时，女性对所进行的“职业教育”的满意程度要远远低于同等学历的男性同行。在这个案例中，我们综合考虑了其它各种因素，比如她们所在的行业、以往的工作经验、她们的理想以及她们是否有孩子等等(更多的调查结果请参考Nancy M. Carter与Christine Silva与2010年3月发表在HBR上的文章《管理层中的女人：晋升的错觉》)，然而在同一个小组中，女性要比男性得到过更多的“指导”，但如果女性真的得到了彻底地“指导”，为什么她们依然无法晋升到更高的管理岗位上呢?1
To better understand what is going on, we conducted in-depth interviews with 40 high-potential men and women (including Nathalie, Amy, and Julie) who were selected by their large multinational company to participate in its high-level mentoring program. We asked about the hurdles they’ve faced as they’ve moved into more-senior roles, as well as what kinds of help and support they’ve received for their transitions. We also analyzed the 2008 survey to uncover any differences in how men and women are mentored and in the effects of their mentoring on advancement. Last, we compared those data with the results of a 2010 survey of the same population, in which we asked participants to report on promotions and lateral moves since 2008.
为了更好地了解其中的原因，我们对其中的40位进行了访谈(包括Nathalie、Amy和Julie)，她们都有很高的工作潜力，也都在所在的大型跨国公司中参与过“高层职业导师”项目。我们询问了她们在晋升过程中都遇到过哪些困难，晋升后又得到了哪些帮助和支持;同时我们对2008年的那次调查进行了分析，以找出男性与女性在接受“指导”时有什么不同，“导师”对他们的升职究竟起到了什么作用。最后，我们将这些数据与2010年的调查结果进行了对比。由于这些调查是针对相同的人群进行的，所以我们要求参与者告诉我们自2008年以来，他们都获得了哪些晋升或者平调。
Do men and women have the same kinds of mentors? No.
男性与女性得到的“指导”是相同的么?不是!4
All mentoring is not created equal, we discovered. There is a special kind of relationship—called sponsorship—in which the mentor goes beyond giving feedback and advice and uses his or her influence with senior executives to advocate for the mentee. Our interviews and surveys alike suggest that high-potential women are overmentored and undersponsored relative to their male peers—and that they are not advancing in their organizations. Furthermore, without sponsorship, women not only are less likely than men to be appointed to top roles but may also be more reluctant to go for them.
我们发现所有的“指导”都是不一样的。这里存在一种特殊的关系——协助关系，这和一般的培训不同，“导师们”提供一些指导和反馈意见给大家，同时利用自身的高管影响力来极力推荐参与者。根据我们的采访和调查，“高潜力”的女性经常被“指导过度”，同时也无法像男性那样得到“导师们”的青睐，这样一来，其实女性根本就得不到什么提升了。此外，如果没有所谓的“协助关系”，女性不仅得不到与男性相同的晋升高层的机会，而且可能让自己在工作中更加勉强。
Why Mentoring Fails Women
为什么“职业导师”对女性不起作用?
Although more women than men in the 2008 Catalyst survey report having mentors, the women’s mentors have less organizational clout. We find this to be true even after controlling for the fact that women start in lower-level positions post-MBA. That’s a real disadvantage, the study shows, because the more senior the mentor, the faster the mentee’s career advancement. Despite all the effort that has gone into developing the women since 2008, the follow-up survey in 2010 reveals that the men have received 15% more promotions. The two groups have had similar numbers of lateral moves (same-level job assignments in different functions, designed to give high potentials exposure to various parts of the business). But men were receiving promotions after the lateral moves; for the women, the moves were offered in lieu of advancement.
尽管在2008年进行的“工作机会”调查中，采用“导师”的女性要比男性多，但是女性的“导师”普遍没有什么组织影响力。我们发现了一个事实——女性在读完MBA后大多还是从基层岗位做起，这是一个明显的差距。研究表明，“导师”的水平越高，学员晋升得就越快。尽管2008年以来为了提升女性工作岗位，(各大公司)都付出了相当多的努力，但在最近进行的2010年的相关调查中，男性依然要比女性多获得15%的晋升机会。两个群体中有相似数目的人发生了平调(不同领域从事相同层次的工作，在不同的商务背景下发挥自己的作用)，但男性在平调之后一般会获得晋升，而女性基本上不会有什么变化。
Do men and women get their mentors in the same way? Yes.
男性和女性是通过相同的方式得到“指导”的么?是的!
Of course, the ultimate test of the power of mentoring would be to show that its presence during the 2008 survey is a statistically significant predictor of promotion by the time of the 2010 survey. That’s true for the men but not for the women. Though women may be getting support and guidance, mentoring relationships aren’t leading to nearly as many promotions for them as for men.
答案是肯定的，根据最后对“导师作用”的测试结果，上述的这个问题(同样出现在2008年进行调查中)在2010年的调查中显示“导师”对个人升职具有重要的指导作用，但这只对男性有效，而不适用于女性，虽然女性也得到了若干支持和指导，但是这种“指导关系”最终很难转化成真正的“升职”。
Does having formal versus informal mentoring make any difference in terms of promotions? Yes.
所进行的“指导”正式与否与升职有关么?是的!2
The survey findings are echoed in our interviews: Men and women alike say they get valuable career advice from their mentors, but it’s mostly men who describe being sponsored. Many women explain how mentoring relationships have helped them understand themselves, their preferred styles of operating, and ways they might need to change as they move up the leadership pipeline. By contrast, men tell stories about how their bosses and informal mentors have helped them plan their moves and take charge in new roles, in addition to endorsing their authority publicly. As one male mentee recounts, in a typical comment:
这个问题在我们的调查中得到了很多回复，大家普遍表示从“导师”那里得到了宝贵的职业建议，但大多数男性还表示得到了(导师)不少支持。许多女性都觉得这种“指导关系”更好地帮助她们认识了自己，当她们提升了“领导力发展通道”后，会发现需要优先改进的是她们处理问题的方式。与此相反，男性大多会讲一些老板和非正式“导师”如何帮助他们制定升职计划以及适应新角色的故事(除了公开认可导师们的权力之外)，有位男学员有过一段比较经典的评论：
“My boss said, ‘You are ready for a general management job. You can do it. Now we need to find you a job: What are the tricks we need to figure out? You have to talk to this person and to that one and that one.’ They are all executive committee members. My boss was a network type of a person.... Before he left, he put me in touch with the head of supply chain, which is how I managed to get this job.”
“我的老板告诉我，‘你要做好接手管理工作的准备，你能做到的!现在我们就去给你物色一个这样的岗位，你需要掌握这些工作技巧……，你需要和这些人好好沟通一下……’，而所说的那些人都是公司的执行董事。我的老板就是这样一个‘关系型’的人，在他离开公司之前，他嘱咐我和供应链主管保持沟通，而现在就是我在负责这块业务。”
Not only do the women report few examples of this kind of endorsement; they also share numerous stories about how they’ve had to fight with their mentors to be viewed as ready for the next role.
女性讲述的故事中鲜有这样能得到大家共鸣的例子，他们还分享了许多如何向“导师”证明自己已经做好了适应下一个工作岗位的准备的故事。
Paradoxically, just when women are most likely to need sponsorship—as they shoot for the highest-level jobs—they may be least likely to get it. Women are still perceived as “risky” appointments for such roles by often male-dominated committees. In a study of top-performing CEOs, for instance, the women were nearly twice as likely as the men to have been hired from outside the company (see Morten T. Hansen, Herminia Ibarra, and Urs Peyer, “The Best-Performing CEOs in the World,” HBR January–February 2010). That finding suggests that women are less likely to emerge as winners in their firms’ own CEO tournaments.
奇怪的是，好像女性需要更多的协助，虽然她们在为更高的职位奋斗着，但似乎她们总是无法得到。在以男性为主的董事会上，女性仍然被认为是“危险因素”。例如，在一项“顶级CEO”的研究中，公司从外部雇佣的员工中女性的比例是男性的两倍(见《世界上最优秀的CEO》，2010年1月至2月的HBR，作者：Morten T. Hansen、Herminia Ibarra和Urs Peyer,)，这项发现说明女性在竞选公司总裁的时候，几乎总会输给她们的男性竞争对手。
Sponsorship That Works
“协助关系”颇具成效
Impatient with the speed at which women are reaching the top levels, many leading-edge companies we work with are converging on a new set of strategies to ensure that high-potential women are sponsored for the most-senior posts. Those principles can make all the difference between a sponsorship program that gets results and one that simply looks great on paper.
由于无法忍受女性在公司内部的晋升速度，许多大胆的公司启动了一套新的方法来保证那些“高潜力”女性能够在晋升的过程中得到“协助”，这些(行为)准则区别于一般的“协助计划”和那些在纸面上看起来很棒的方法。
Clarify and communicate the intent of the program.
弄清楚项目的真实目的
It’s hard to do a good job of both mentoring and sponsoring within the same program. Often the best mentors—those who provide caring and altruistic advice and counseling—are not the highfliers who have the influence to pull people up through the system. Employees expecting one form of support can be very disappointed when they get the other. And companies hoping to do A can find themselves with a program that instead does B. To prevent such problems, they need to clearly define what they’re trying to accomplish.
在一个(培训)项目中要想同时做好“指导”和“协助”是很困难的。通常情况下，好的导师会特别关心你，会给予你无私的咨询和辅导，但是他们并不是能让你“停止做错事”的高手。员工们所得到与所期望的支持不一致的时候就会非常失望，公司打算启动A项目，但员工自身其实更青睐于B项目，为了防止出现这样的情况，大家需要弄清楚(培训项目)究竟要达到什么样的目的。
Mentors and Sponsors: How They Differ
“指导”和“协助”有何区别?
At Deutsche Bank, for example, internal research revealed that female managing directors who left the firm to work for competitors were not doing so to improve their work/life balance. Rather, they’d been offered bigger jobs externally, ones they weren’t considered for internally. Deutsche Bank responded by creating a sponsorship program aimed at assigning more women to critical posts. It paired mentees with executive committee members to increase the female talent pool’s exposure to the committee and ensure that the women had influential advocates for promotion. Now, one-third of the participants are in larger roles than they were in a year ago, and another third are deemed ready by senior management and HR to take on broader responsibilities.
举个例子，在德意志银行，内部的调查显示，一些女性董事经理离开公司而选择竞争对手的原因是她们无法平衡好工作与生活之间的关系，而且固然她们在外很努力地工作，却在公司内部得不到太多的认可。针对这种情况，德意志银行启动了一个“协助项目”，目的就是帮助女性员工得到更多的关键性职位，这个项目将参与者与董事会成员绑定在一起，让优秀的女性员工向董事会充分展示自己的出众的工作能力，以此来保证女性员工能够获得足够多的晋升机会。如今，三分之一的参与者在一年内得到了升职，还有三分之一被人力资源部门选为“高级管理人才”的候选人并赋以重任。
Select and match sponsors and high-potential women in light of program goals.
根据项目目标为“高潜力”女性选择“协助者”
When the objective of a program is career advancement for high potentials, mentors and sponsors are typically selected on the basis of position power. When the goal is personal development, matches are made to increase the likelihood of frequent contact and good chemistry.
如果项目的目标是为了提高“高潜力”员工的职业技能，那么“导师”和“协助者”就需要有一定的职位权力;如果目标仅仅是为了让个人获得更好的发展，那么在项目里就要增加学员之间的相互接触，提高发生“化学反应”的机率。
Unilever has established a program with the explicit objective of promoting more high-potential women to the firm’s most-senior levels. The two key criteria for selecting the sponsors, all members of Unilever’s senior ranks, are experience in areas where the high potentials have developmental gaps, and presence at the table when the appointment decisions get made. Given the company’s international scope and matrix organization, this means that many of the women do not live and work in the same location as their sponsors. So some don’t spend much face-to-face time with sponsors, but they do have advocates at promotion time.
为了提升“高潜力”女性在公司内的岗位级别，联合利华启动了一个培训项目，并且制定了在高级人才队伍中选择“协助者”的两个关键标准——首先需要在弥补“高潜力”员工发展缺陷方面有工作经验;其次在进行“协助”之前就已经做好了各项准备。鉴于联合利华的跨国规模和矩阵式组织结构，大部分女性不可能与她们的“协助者”在相同的岗位上工作，所以她们没有太多的时间与“协助者”进行面对面的交流，但她们确实已经满足了晋升的各项条件。
Coordinate efforts and involve direct supervisors.
努力协调，使直属老板参与进来
Centrally run mentoring programs that sidestep direct bosses can inadvertently communicate that diversity is an HR problem that requires no effort from the front lines.
回避直属老板而运作“指导”项目，会在无形间传递一个信息——(员工性别)多样性只是个人事问题，与具体的工作无关。
Coordination of corporate and local efforts is especially important when it comes to senior-level participants in whom companies invest significantly. Effective sponsorship does not stand alone but is one facet of a comprehensive program that includes performance evaluation, training and development, and succession planning—all of which add up to more than the sum of the parts. The Deutsche Bank sponsorship program for female managing directors, for instance, is one piece of a highly tailored initiative that also involves leadership evaluations, external coaches, and leadership workshops.
当公司的高层参与进来的时候，公司整体与各部门之间的协调就变得重要起来(高层要保证其投资是有显著意义的)，此时，有效的“协助工作”不再孤立运行，而是一个全面的计划，包括绩效评估、员工培训、个人发展和职业规划等，这比单独进行某方面的培训更加有效。比如德意志银行针对“女性董事经理”进行的协助方案就是一个高度定制的培训项目，涉及到领导力评价、外部训练和领导讲习班等各个方面。
Train sponsors on the complexities of gender and leadership.
“协助者”要充分重视性别与领导力之间的复杂性
Good sponsorship requires a set of skills and sensibilities that most companies’ star executives do not necessarily possess. When you layer on top some of the complexities of sponsor relationships between senior men and junior women, you easily have a recipe for misunderstanding. The strategies and tactics that helped the men progress in their careers may not be appealing or even feasible for the women.
杰出的“协助者”需要拥有大多数明星员工所没有的全面技能和敏感性，当你仔细研究高级男性员工与初级女性员工之间的“协助关系”时，你很容易就能发现问题的症结所在了——对男性职业发展有用的一些方法有时候对女性是不管用的。
A classic case is the challenge of developing a credible leadership style in a context where most of the successful role models are male. One of the women in our research describes the problem like this: “My mentor advised me that I should pay more attention to my strategic influencing skills...but often he suggests I do things that totally contradict my personality.” The behavioral styles that are most valued in traditionally masculine cultures—and most used as indicators of “potential”—are often unappealing or unnatural for high-potential women, whose sense of authenticity can feel violated by the tacit leadership requirements.
一个典型的例子就是要想在男人曾经获胜过的竞争中形成一种可信的领导风格，(对于女人来说)会是一个非常大的挑战。参与我们调查的一位女性是这样描述这个问题的：“我的导师提醒我应该掌握一些战略影响力方面的技巧，他建议我所做的那些事情，往往会违背了我的个性。”这些做事的风格是传统男性文化中最具价值的一部分，也是衡量“发展潜力”的一项重要指标，但这对于那些“高潜力”的女性来说没有什么吸引力可言，同时也是无法接受的，因为她们感觉这是“升职潜规则”，会让自己的可信度受到质疑。
A further complexity is the famed “double bind” examined in Alice H. Eagly and Linda L. Carli’s book Through the Labyrinth (Harvard Business Review Press, 2007) and in the 2007 Catalyst research report “The Double-Bind Dilemma for Women in Leadership.” Here’s the problem, in short: The assertive, authoritative, dominant behaviors that people associate with leadership are frequently deemed less attractive in women. Male mentors who have never faced this dilemma themselves may be hard-pressed to provide useful advice. As one of our interview participants describes, even well-intended mentors have trouble helping women navigate the fine line between being “not aggressive enough” or “lacking in presence” and being “too aggressive” or “too controlling.” She explains the challenge of dealing with conflicting expectations from two different bosses:
对“复杂性”的进一步论述还有Alice H. Eagly和Linda L. Carli在《穿越迷宫》(由HBR出版社于2007年出版)一书中提出的著名的“双约束理论”，以及2007年Catalyst通过对“女性领导力的双约束困境”进行的调查而得到的报告。大致的情况可以简单概述为：领导力里面所需的自信、权威和统治力等特质对于女性来说都不太感兴趣，而男性导师从未遇到过类似的难题，所以他们自然也就无法给出可行的意见了。正如一位配合我们采访的参与者所说，即便一位经验丰富的导师，在帮助女性解决问题的时候，也会在“不够积极”和“过于激进”、“存在的不足”和“控制欲太强”这些问题中遇到“划不清界限”的困难，她向我们描述了两种老板对“如何处理冲突”的不同期望：
“My old boss told me, ‘If you want to move up, you have to change your style. You are too brutal, too demanding, too tough, too clear, and not participative enough.’ My new boss is different: He drives performance, values speed. Now I am told, ‘You have to be more demanding.’ I was really working on being more indirect, but now I will try to combine the best of both.”
“我以前的老板对我说，‘如果你想升职，你必须改变你的风格，现在你太不讲理、太苛刻、太强硬、太天真，业务参与度也不够’，我现在的老板就不是这样，他对绩效和价值要求很高，他告诉我，‘你必须对自己有更高的要求’，我以前的工作要求我更加圆滑，而现在我则尝试着将两者的优点结合起来!”
Male sponsors can be taught to recognize such gender-related dilemmas. Women in Sodexo’s reciprocal-mentoring program, for example, have been promoted at higher rates than other high potential women at the company, in part because the senior male mentors serve as career sponsors and (thanks to the upward mentoring) learn to manage their unconscious biases.
男性“协助者”大多可以认识到这种与性别有关的处境。比如，参与过索迪斯“相互指导项目”的女性员工，就获得了比其他“高潜力”女性更好的晋升机率，部分原因是高级的男性导师是作为“职业协助者”参与项目的(应该感谢以上所提到的“导师”)，他们懂得如何去规避那些潜意识中对女性的偏见。
Hold sponsors accountable.
让“协助者”负责到底!
To fully reap the benefits of sponsorship, companies must hold sponsors accountable. At IBM Europe, a sponsorship program designed for senior women below the executive level aims to promote selected participants within one year. Sponsors, all vice presidents or general managers, are charged with making sure that participants are indeed ready within a year. So they work hard to raise the women’s profiles, talk up the candidates to decision makers, and find the high potentials internal projects that will fill in their skills gaps and make them promotable. Failure to obtain a promotion is viewed as a failure of the sponsor, not of the candidate.
为了充分发挥“协助关系”的作用，公司需要让“协助者”负责到底。在IBM(欧洲区)，一个为领导层以下的高级职业女性设计的，以“升职”为目标的“协助项目”，被要求在一年内必须完成，身为“协助者”的副总裁或总经理，也要保证参与者能在一年之内完成这个项目，所以他们很努力地帮助女性员工提升档次，告诉她们如何成为决策者，并让她们参与那些“高潜力”的项目来弥补技术上不足，提高她们晋升的可能性。所以说如果参与者最终没有获得升职，那么失败的并不仅仅参与者本人，还有她的“协助者”!
Although our data show that formal programs can be quite effective in getting women promoted, a potential pitfall is their fixed duration. Sponsors typically declare victory and move on after their high potentials advance—just when they need help to successfully take charge in their new roles. We know of no programs designed to shore up participants past promotion and through the “first 100 days” in the new position. With that extra bit of attention, sponsors could help deliver not just promotions but strong transitions.
虽然我们的调查数据表明正式的培训项目对于女性晋升是非常有效的，但是固定的、持续不断的(培训)时间对于她们可能会有些困难。“协助者”一般会在宣布“帮助参与者提升潜力成功”之后离开，直到她们再次需要帮助时才出现，来“协助”她们适应新的岗位。我们知道没有哪个(培训)项目会一直帮助某个人实现升职并陪着他(她)渡过新岗位上的实习期，但正由于“协助者”的存在，不仅能帮助参与者晋升，而且能陪他(她)渡过实习期。
Although the women we interviewed all come from the same company, the trends there mirror those at many other firms we’ve worked with and observed. And the survey responses, gathered from men and women at hundreds of firms, also provide strong evidence for gender difference in mentoring outcomes.
虽然我们采访的女性都来自同一家公司，但也足以反映目前我们所供职或所观察的公司的大致情况，而从数百家公司的男女员工中收集到那些反馈结果，也为“性别差异导致不同的培训效果”提供了有力的证据。
More sponsoring may lead to more and faster promotions for women, but it is not a magic bullet: There is still much to do to close the gap between men’s and women’s advancement. Some improvements—such as supportive bosses and inclusive cultures—are a lot harder to mandate than formal mentoring programs but essential if those programs are to have their intended effects. Clearly, however, the critical first step is to stop overmentoring and start accountable sponsoring for both sexes.
更多的“协助工作”可以帮助女性员工获得更多的晋升机会，但这也并不是灵丹妙药——在消除男女地位差距方面还有很多事情要做。一些实际的改进措施(如开明的老板和包容的文化)要比所谓的正式“培训”项目实施起来要难得多，除非那些项目有必须实现的培训目标。但是有一点很清楚，不管是男性还是女性，目前最为关键的第一步是停止“过度指导”，马上开始有“责任心”的“协助活动”吧!