Last weekend’s Star has a great article about female politicians, Equality, Politics’ Better Half, and a new study in the American Journal of Political Science that shows female politicians in the U.S. as more successful than their male counterparts. Their success was measured by, on average, women obtaining $49 million more than men for their home districts, introducing three more bills per session and co-sponsoring 26 more pieces of legislation than men, in each Congress since 1984. The explanation offered up by the authors of the study: “female politicians have more to prove.”

The same could be said for the corporate world. In order to be seen in the sea of talent out there you have to be better than the rest and women, in some corporate cultures, have to be a step better than the best to get noticed. What would happen if we started measuring very specific task and project successes, like the study done on US female politicians? Would results-oriented performance reviews show similar results as the quoted study?  Success would no longer be measured by how long you were in the office each day and assignments wouldn’t be handed out through informal networks in the company.

How are you being measured? Is you company or boss using results-oriented measurements for specific tasks and assignments or are you being judged by your dedicated hours in the office or perhaps not given the opportunity for new assignments because you are out of the informal network in your organization? Something to think about.