Second, systems-level information gathering occurs through pattern analysis: monitoring
and aggregating information about individual-level negotiations and their outcomes,
and sharing this information both with decision makers and those affected by
these patterns. This can involve analysis of demographic data revealing aggregate workplace
patterns in areas such as hiring, promotion, tenure, leadership, resource allocations,
and honors. Systems-level patterns can also be discerned by tracking and
analyzing the kinds of issues that recur in their individual level interventions. Importantly,
there is a crucial intermediary dimension to this information mobilization strategy.
This vantage point also reveals the barriers and levers for advancement, and thus
the strategic locations for change. The critical move is to deliver this systems-level
information to decision makers at the point when they are making individual-level
decisions of the kind for which patterns of bias have been documented. It is also critical
to develop systematic ways of providing this information about institution-level
innovations to individual women and people of color at the critical junctures when
they most need that information. Individual-level problems thus become a source of
information and a catalyst for systemic change, as well as a metric for whether that
change has been institutionalized.