Banishing onliness does not replace the goal of gender parity in the C-suite nor the need for a more complex strategy to achieve it. But our research suggests it will diminish some of the barriers that hold women back. Importantly, it is also a relatively simple goal toward which visible progress can start today with a few practical measures, such as the following: • Recognize that one is not enough. Forty-five percent of all men and 28 percent of women in the survey reported that if one in ten leaders is a woman, that means women are relatively well represented. These beliefs clash with the experiences of the onlys—suggesting how important it is to shift those perceptions. Two women is the bare minimum; better yet, many more. • Build critical mass instead of spreading women leaders too thinly. Leadership teams, project teams, agile squads, and many other groupings of people are being formed all the time. Our research strongly suggests that it is preferable to assemble teams comprising several women rather than try to place one woman on every team. A higher concentration of women in some groups could, in the beginning, strip others of any women at all. This is far from ideal, but it does at least signal the aspiration and underscore the continued need to boost the number of women across the organization. QPrint 2019 One is the lonliest number Exhibit 1 of 1 Exhibit Women are more likely to experience discrimination in the workplace than men, but being the only woman is an even worse experience. Employees who have experienced microaggressions during the normal course of business, % Œomen Only woman or only Woman among other women €en man in office or man among other men in office †eeding to provide more evidence of your competence Š1 20 2‹ 13 than others do ƒaving your „udgment …uestioned ‹ 30 32 26 in your area of expertise ‡eing addressed in a lessˆ 3Š 1 2‹ 16 thanˆprofessional way ‡eing mista‰en for someone 3Š 12 1Š  more „unior ƒearing demeaning remar‰s about 2‹ 13 1‹  you or people li‰e you ource 201 eann ­rg and €c‚insey Women in the Workplace study 2