IT'S easy to see how women benefit from equality - more leadership positions, better pay at work and more support at home. Men may fear that as women do better, they will do worse. But the surprising truth is that quality is good for men, too.

If men want to make their work teams successful, one of the best steps they can take is to bring on more women. This fall, the Internet sensation Alibaba went public after achieving years of extraordinary growth as China's largest e-commerce company. The founder, Jack Ma, explained that "one of the secret sauces for Alibaba's success is that we have a lot of women". Women hold 47 per cent of all jobs at Alibaba and 33 per cent of senior positions.

Research backs him up. Studies reveal that women bring new knowledge, skills and networks to the table, take fewer unnecessary risks, and are more inclined to contribute in ways that make their teams and organisations better. Successful venture-backed startups have more than double the median proportion of female executives of failed ones. And an analysis of the 1,500 Standard & Poor's companies over 15 years demonstrated that, when firms pursued innovation, the more women they had in top management, the more market value they generated.