How Women Could Have Prevented The Texas Power And Water Crisis

Texas leadership, from its legislature to its governor’s mansion to its utility ERCOT – overwhelmingly white male – apparently did not think they needed to prepare for how below freezing weather would leave millions of Texans without electricity or water, even though it happened only 10 years ago.  In 2011, a panel released a report warning them too. Women are only  27% of the Texas legislature, only 21% of the utility sector, and only 14.5% of the oil and gas sector, and the Texas governor is Greg Abbot, a white male and staunch Republican.

The utility sector has been forced to face these threats and reinvent itself by climate change and market forces – including the rise of renewable energy, new business models, and new technologies like supercomputers – and increasing pressure from shareholders like BlackRock, the largest asset management firm in the world.

“Utilities are on a countdown to reinvention,” the global management consulting firm EY found in 2019. “Disruptive transformation — driven by renewable generation, digital technologies and changing consumer expectations — has turned the traditional industry model upside down and set the industry on a rapid path to… when everything changes forever,” they wrote.  

The big oil and gas companies that dominate the Texas economy are doing it too, and Oilprice.com is tracking, “Which Oil Major Is Winning The Race To Net Zero Emissions?” Oilprice.com’s Alex Kimani wrote, “The supermajors are racing to go green….under increasing pressure from shareholders, activists, and local governments to measure and reduce their carbon emissions in a way that goes beyond mere “green-washing,” on September 10, 2020. 

Turning disruption into innovation that supports the new digital economy, serves their customers — ratepayers, communities, and shareholders — and that meet evolving regulations, demands new ideas and new solutions. New ideas come from diversity at the decision-making tables. Remember the IMF analysis that the 2008 financial crisis was due to “groupthink”?  

It sounds like the Texas power (and water) crisis is due to groupthink.

Women are natural innovators – and more prepared – because they’ve had to be

Having more women at the table would drive innovation and, importantly, increase sensitivity to community needs, as well as help the energy and utility companies better prepare for various scenarios. 

EY conducted research and interviews in 2019 with leaders in power and utilities specifically and found, “that utilities’ innovation strategies may be missing a critical ingredient — gender-equal leadership.” Their Power and Utility Index found that only 6% of utility sector executive board members are women and only 15% of their senior management team members are women. Women are natural innovators because they have been in what Laura Liswood calls the non-dominant role. That is, women have lacked access to the traditional levers of power, such as authority and resources, so they have had to develop creative ways to get things done. 

Data prove diversity drives successful innovation. Employers with diversity in leadership were 70% more likely to capture new markets, according to a 2013 study by the Center for Talent Innovation (now Coqual). Dr. Laura Sherbin, then-president of CTI, told me on my podcast, Green Connections Radio, their research found that, ‘Women, in particular, are bringing a different problem-solving toolkit to the table…and innovative potential.”  Research from Cloverpop found that teams with gender, age and geographic diversity make better decisions 87% of the time too.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) agrees. “Gender diversity in the energy sector is vital for driving more innovative and inclusive solutions for clean energy transitions all over the world. Widely regarded as one of the least gender diverse parts of the economy, the energy sector needs to shift the dial by drawing on all talents to deliver a secure, affordable and sustainable energy future for all,” Nick Johnstone, the IEA’s Chief Statistician and Marta Silva, its Energy Data Officer, wrote on March 6, 2020.

Women prepare better too.  Liswood told me that women board members come so much better prepared for board meetings that the male directors had to up their game so they wouldn’t look bad. A 2016 YouGov study found that, 74% of women say they “tend to prepare for things” versus only 60% of men.

Plenty of women leaders in Texas and in the utility sector

Naysayers may claim there aren’t enough women in the sector talent pipeline, but evidence proves otherwise.  There are professional events focused on women as change agents in the utility sector, and Utility Dive talks about women as “the future of the sector’s leadership.  For example, Mary Powell, CEO of Green Mountain Power in Vermont until January 2020, was chosen as one of Fast Company’s most innovative people and voted the best utility executive in 2019. She calls GMP the “un-utility,” because she’s turning the business model on its head – and, she retains the support of her board because customer service ratings are in the 90%s and she’s generating sold financial results.

There are plenty of women leaders in Texas too. It has “The largest and longest running leadership development organization for women in the nation,” Leadership Women, founded by women of both parties (including former Governor Ann Richards), “to ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic, and public life,” according to their website. Not to mention experienced women professors at Texas universities.

Maybe ERCOT will call these women leaders for advice and put some of them on their leadership team, and Texans will elect more women to their political leadership.