Time for women to stop being shrinking violets at work.

职场女性，从此不再羞答答的开。

"I DON'T know any successful women who haven't had a powerful sponsor in their organisation to give them their first big break," says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the boss of 20-first, a consultancy that helps companies put more women into senior jobs. That sentiment is echoed by many people who work in this field. But why do women need so much help.

"在一个组织里，对于女性而言，没有过硬的后台帮助她们完成人生的首次突破，还能够风生水起的，我实在是没咋地见过，"性别顾问公司20-First总裁阿维娃·维滕贝格·考克斯如是说。顾问公司20-First帮助很多的公司的女性做高层领导。她的这一观点得到众多同行的呼应。但是为啥女性需要那么多的帮助呢?

Many men who climb the corporate ladder have sponsors, too. Indeed, they find it easier than women to persuade a senior colleague to sponsor them. But women need help more because they are generally more reluctant to promote themselves. They are also less likely to build up useful networks of contacts.

许多女性要想晋升，必须有后台，这一道理同样适用于公司。确实，女性要想劝高层领导帮助自己，不是件太难的事。但是女性需要更多的帮助，原因就是，一般来的来说，她们不愿意推销自己。同时，她们也不大可能去建立一个对自个有用的关系网。

That may help to explain why women, although they now enter white-collar jobs in much the same numbers as men in many countries, still find it so hard to get anywhere near the executivesuite. A new report, "Sponsor Effect: UK", produced by the Centre for Talent Innovation (CTI), a New York think-tank, offers a detailed picture of the female talent pipeline in Britain, based on asurvey of about 2,500 graduate employees, mostly of large companies. It notes that although women in Britain account for 57% of new recruits to white-collar jobs, they make up just 17% ofexecutive directors and a mere 4% of chief executives of the FTSE's 100 biggest companies.

这也解释了这样一个现象，在很多的国家，白领女性的数量跟男性持平，但是女性进入高管还是一个字，难。一份新的报告，《后台效应：英国》，制作者为纽约智囊团人才创新中心(CTI)，详述描绘了英国女性人才的分布状况。这份报告的制作，是基于对2500个左右研究生雇员的调查，且她们基本上都来自大公司。它指出，虽然女性新雇员占白领比例57%，但是在富时指数的100个大公司里，执行理事也就17%，首席执行官只有可怜的4%。

It is not that the women lack ambition, says the report. No less than 79% of senior women in the sample said they aspired to a top job and 91% were keen to be promoted. Nor, say the authors, are they necessarily held back by family responsibilities: nearly two in five of those aged 40 or over had no children. Three in five of the over-40s did have children, and talented women who quit work to raise kids are not included in the sample.

不是说女性没有雄性壮志，报告讲。调查者中，多达79%的大龄女性表示希望成为高管，91%希望得到晋升。作者称，家庭责任并不一定会拖累她们：年龄在40或是以上的，接近五分之二，是没有孩子的，有五分之三的女性是有孩子的，这个确实不假。那些为了照顾孩子而放弃工作的才女们并不在这个范围之内。

Still, the survey's main finding is striking. Only 16% of the sample had sponsors, defined as people several levels above them who give them career advice, introduce them to contacts and help them get promotions. Having a sponsor dramatically improves a woman's career prospects.

仍然，这个调查的主要发现还是会吓人一跳。调查者中，只有16%的人有后台，后台的意思指的是那些比她们的位子要高那么几级的人，在工作当中给予她们建议，给她们接触的机会，帮助她们晋升。有个后台，女性在职场上的路要好走非常多。

The British report is a follow-on from a similar study by the CTI on America, "The Sponsor Effect", published last year by the Harvard Business Review. The CTI is now working on India; Germany may come after that. It is also preparing a "road map" to make it easier for women everywhere to find sponsors.

这份英国报告，其实是美国CTI的一份类似研究的后续。这份研究的名称为《后台效应》，去年在期刊《哈佛商业评论》上出版。CTI现在正在对印度进行研究;印度之后可能就是德国。CTI同时也在酝酿一幅"公路图"，目的就是为了让各地的女性更好地找到后台。

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the CTI's boss, who co-wrote the report, says there are some differences between countries (for example, American male bosses are more reluctant than British ones tosponsor younger women, lest they be suspected of an affair, which could wreck their career). But the broad picture is similar everywhere: women underestimate the importance of sponsorship and fail to cultivate business relationships effectively. This may be true, but networking takes time, often after hours. Are women with children equally willing to put in that extra time?

西尔维亚·安·休利特，CTI老板，是此份报告的共同撰写者。她说，各个国家的情况真的还不大一样(比如，美国的男性老板，比起英国的男性老板，就不大愿意帮助年轻的女性，因为这会导致绯闻，对事业不利)。但是从更大范围来看，情况其实差不多：女性低估了后台的力量，并且没能够有效地培养商业关系。这可能是对的，但是关系网的维护还是需要时间的，尤其是下班时间。那么，女性会把跟孩子在一起的时间花在培养关系网上吗?

Drawing attention to the problems of women in upper management makes a useful change from the usual lament about the lack of women on boards. The scarcity of both is a symptom of something bigger: a lot of employers neither know nor care how many senior women they have working for them. Studies show a correlation between more women in senior positions andsuperior company performance, though it is hard to know whether more sexual diversityimproves performance or top-notch firms promote more women.

把注意力集中到高管女性的问题上，而不是像往常一样，哀叹董事会的女性怎么就这么少，要有用的多了。高管女性和董事会女性的稀缺只是问题的一个症状，更大的问题是：许多老板对这个有多少女性在为他工作上，不关心，也不在乎。研究显示，女性高管越多，公司的表现越好，这之间是有一定的关系的，虽然还不是很确定，到底是性别多样化促进绩效呢，还是一流的公司更多的提拔女性呢。

How much can sponsorship help? Ms Wittenberg-Cox is glum. She says there have been so many initiatives that many firms suffer from diversity fatigue, but none has dealt with "the appallingreality of the pipeline". The only remedy, she reckons, is a change of thinking at the top.

后台到底能有多大用?维滕贝格·考克斯女士不清楚。她说，有太多的公司因为性别单一而缺乏主动性，但是并没有什么人来解决这个"可怕的人才分布事实"。她觉得，唯一的解救方法，恐怕就是高层的变动。