oo few qualified women hold positions of power – in the corporate world or in government (the third sector has only a marginally better track record, and not on pay). It’s become a familiar refrain, but unless we keep piping up about it, I’m not clear how it changes. Today, it’s not even close.

There are occasional glimmers of hope. Last week, Canada’s new Prime Minister was asked why he appointed women to half the Government’s cabinet posts (one marvels at the question…). He replied simply “Because it’s 2015.”

I happily shared that on social media. But my satisfaction was short-lived. A day or two later I opened the November issue of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) to discover that exactly one of the Magazine’s Top 100 Performing CEOs in the world is a woman. One.

Congratulations to Debra Cafaro at Ventas (#47), but really?

In the HBR Ideacast (podcast) that complements the magazine, editor (Amy Bernstein) and host (Sarah Green Carmichael) both lament this state of affairs, noting that although two women are listed in the published edition, Carol Meyrowtiz (TJX) stepped down between the time the list was completed and its publication. She was replaced by Ernie Herrman (you guessed it, he’s not a woman).

[To the magazine’s credit, this was the first year it included environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, accounting for 20% of the total score of ranked CEOs and companies].

The same issue of HBR also contains an article entitled, ”CEO’s with Daughters Run More Socially Responsible Firms” comprising an interview with Henrik Cronqvist, a University of Miami professor who established the correlation using data collected over two decades. Companies led by CEOs with daughters scored above the median in every corporate social responsibility (CSR) category – diversity, community, employee relations, product, environment, and human rights.

In a predictable irony, no correlation could be made between female leaders and CSR performance because the sample size was too small – just 14 out of the study’s 379 executives were women. (I wonder how many were women of color?)

There is ample data demonstrating the benefits of women in leadership roles. So, that’s not the problem. And there’s clear and growing recognition that women have the skills to lead (and have been outpacing men in college enrollment and completion for two decades). So that’s not the problem either.

Resources (or the lack thereof) are a problem – women are poorer than men in every single state in the union – so they are less insulated from the costs of risk. And the costs of risk extends to children and families, for whom women remain the primary caregivers.

But I wonder if it also comes down to a failure of the imagination. We know what it looks and feels like to navigate a world designed by and for men – it’s the default. But nowhere is there a real alternative picture.

And so I offer this. If you are on the European side of the Atlantic, you’ve probably seen it, but having mentioned it to numerous North and South American friends and colleagues and been met with quizzical looks and requests to post it, I’m sharing below. It’s short and cuts to the chase. (Note: if white women were also eliminated from these photos, many would be void of people altogether).

Next time you are in a room making a group decision about anything, try picturing how different if might be if half the decision-makers were women (and many of those, women of color). Then try owning the responsibility for making this come to pass – all the small steps it will take everyday to overcome the inertia (and active discrimination) that keeps women from top posts, and delays vast improvements we could be making in our companies, governments, and third-sector organizations every day.

P.S. And take a look at the woman the Economist calls “The Indispensable European” – on the cover of the November 5^th edition. Thank you Angela Merkel (and new Economist editor Zanny Minton Beddoes.)