A legislated quota? I wouldn't object: but there are other solutions as well.

• Author: Colantuono, Susan
• Position: BOARD DIVERSITY

I WAS A CHILD when Bill Russell made the team and began to play for the Boston Celtics. Fans and pundits rued the day, claiming that no one would watch a black man play basketball. How wrong they were! Bill Russell helped to permanently break the color barrier in Boston basketball.

As in sports, you have to make the team to be elected to a director position. "Tryouts" for board positions include two common screens--relevant functional expertise and executive-level success. These are screens that women are increasingly positioned to pass. While the numbers of Fortune 1000 women CEOs are small, there are significant numbers of women who are CEOs of smaller firms, presidents of business units, CFOs, chief/general counsel, chief information/technology officers, chief marketing officers, and chief HR officers.

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But to make the team you must first be invited to the tryouts. And this is where women run into a nearly insurmountable hurdle--and the one that the idea of quotas addresses. When existing board members, who are nearly exclusively male, are formally or informally involved in the nominating process, they tend to recommend candidates who are men with whom they are comfortable. It is not surprising, but it does create a self-perpetuating cycle. And debunks the...