Tag Archives: Claire Shipman
Are Men Finished? – Have Women Really Adapted Faster, and Better, than Men?
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
(paraphrased from Charles Darwin)
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Do you remember the TV show All In The Family? In the episode Gloria and the Riddle, Gloria stumps Archie with a classic riddle:
A man and a son were in a car accident. The son was rushed into the emergency room. The doctor announced “I can’t operate on him. He’s my son.” The doctor was not the boy’s father. Why couldn’t the doctor operate?
Archie Bunker never could figure it out – but Edith did, and Archie did not like the answer! It aired on October 7, 1972 (the year I graduated from college), and it seems utterly amazing that an entire show could be built around a riddle that stumped everyone then, and would stump no one today.
Our oldest son is a first year medical school student. At his opening (very impressive) White Coat Ceremony, one of the speakers commented on how he remembered, years earlier, when women made up fewer than 8% of the class. They did not announce this year’s percentage, but my brother and I began our unofficial tally when it became obvious – this year’s class was clearly more than 50% female.
I thought of all this as I read about this upcoming debate. If I could be in New York next Tuesday (September 20, 2011), I would definitely want to attend the debate: Men Are Finished: the live Slate/Intelligence Squared debate on Sept. 20 at NYU. (Details here).
One of the two speakers for the motion is Hanna Rosin, author of the recent article The End of Men for The Atlantic. Here are some paragraphs from an interview in Slate with Ms. Rosin. I bolded some portions for emphasis:
Why are men finished, exactly? Rosin says they’ve failed to adapt to a modern, postindustrial economy that demands a more traditionally—and stereotypically—feminine skill set (read: communication skills, social intelligence, empathy, consensus-building, and flexibility). Statistics show they’re rapidly falling behind their female counterparts at school, work, and home. For every two men who receive a college degree, three women will. Of the 15 fastest-growing professions during the next decade, women dominate all but two. Meanwhile, men are even languishing in movies and on television: They’re portrayed as deadbeats and morons alongside their sardonic and successful female co-stars.
The question I always have to respond to (after her The Atlantic article) is, ‘[if women are taking over] why are there so many more men in power?’ If you look at Hollywood, or you look at the Fortune 500 list, or you look at politics, there’s a disproportionate number of men in the higher positions of power.
(Slate: Why is that, then?)
Men have been at this for 40,000 years. Women have been rising for something like 30 or 40 years. So of course women haven’t occupied every single [high-powered] position. How would that be possible? The rise of women is barely a generation old. But if you look at everything else, like the median, the big bulge in the middle, it’s just unbelievable what has happened: Women are more than 50 percent of the workforce, and they’re more than 50 percent of managers. It’s just extraordinary that that’s happened in basically one generation. It seems like whatever it is that this economy is demanding, whatever special ingredients, women just have them more than men do.
The overall message of the last 25 to 30 years of the economy is the manufacturing era is coming to an end, and men need to retool themselves, get a different education than the one they’ve been getting, and they’re not doing it.
One of the young guys I interviewed put it to me: “I just feel like my team is losing.” They feel like women have clocked them, and it came as a surprise to this young generation of men, so I don’t know that they can’t catch up. They might.
I wrote a piece in the Atlantic last week about the new TV season in which six different fall sitcoms are about men being surpassed by women.
I have presented synopses of a number of books on some of the difficulties/challenges women face in the workplace:
Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.
Knowing Your Value: Women, Money and Getting What You’re Worth by Mika Brzezinski
(and my colleague Karl Krayer presented another Babcok and Leschever book:
Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.
It is true that women are still underpaid, in comparison with men doing the same job/work. And it is true that men are so very dominant at the very top of the ladder(s). The glass ceiling is still quite real. Consider this quote from the Brzezinski book:
“At the top of the capitalist pyramid, there are almost no women. The areas where the real money and power reside are still occupied almost exclusively by men… How many would picture a Wall Street titan in a skirt? Most of the gain in income and productivity for the whole economy over the past decade, even the past couple of decades, is in the top one percent, and that’s where the women aren’t penetrating.” (Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times).
But, as Ms. Rosin asserts, the tide is turning in so many ways. This may be good (I’m genuinely all for equality) for women, and for society overall, but the men have some serious soul-searching to do, in my opinion. Men, according to Ms. Rosin, have been too slow to adapt (see Darwin paraphrase above), while women have adapted with breathtaking speed to the new realities.
I think this will be quite a debate on September 20.
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You can purchase our synopses of three of the books listed above (Women Don’t Ask is not available), with audio + handout, at our companion web site, 15minutebusinessbooks.com.
Include More Women in Key Positions, Pay Them Equally – The Solution Right In Front Of Our Noses
We hear ideas. We think, “I/we should really do that.” And then, we revert to the norm.
Over and over again.
In order to actually change, maybe somebody needs to “force” the change on us.
This is the problem underlying many other problems. I thought of this again when I read Can Women Save Davos? Quotas Aren’t Just Political Correctness by Jesse Ellison on The Daily Beast.
Here’s the problem. Women are not making enough headway. There are not enough women at/near the top. There is still great income disparity between men and women. And, all of the evidence points to this reality as a problem with many ripple effects. Or, to put it differently, if women were given much more access, more actual seats at the table, then the economy in the United States and throughout the world would get in better shape more quickly. In other words, fewer women in positions that matter results in serious negative consequences.
And this is what I think – most people are now convinced that this should change – but we simply, too easily, too readily, automatically, revert to the norm.
To the article: last year, only 17% of participants at the Davos World Economic Forum were women. This year, the organizers have mandated that each sponsor include at least one woman in their delegation (each delegation numbers 5).
In 2010, just 12 of the global Fortune 500 companies were run by women; one in 10 board members on Europe’s top listed companies were female; and in the U.S., women held just 16.8 percent of the 535 seats in Congress.
These figures are particularly disturbing given that gender parity is not just good for business, it’s good for everyone. In its annual survey on global gender equity, the World Economic Forum itself said closing the employment gender gap could increase U.S. GDP by as much as 9 percent. In the developing world, the Center for Work-Life Policy estimates that utilizing women could push per capita income up 14 percent by 2020, and 20 percent by 2030. “Study after study,” says Christina Tchen, White House director of public engagement, “shows that increasing education levels and prosperity of women and girls has been able to contribute to social stability and economic progress.”
The top-down approach may not be popular, but it works. Norway famously embraced quotas in 2002 and began requiring that 40 percent of all board members at state-owned and publicly listed companies be women. The measure sparked massive public debate, and success was by no means immediate, but now it’s considered such a success that in 2008, Spain introduced a similar recommendation, and both France and Britain are discussing following suit. Implementing these requirements, rather than letting them happen over time, makes for a difficult transition, even after the debates die down. But the trickle-down effect could be tremendous.
Companies that have both men and women in leadership positions have a higher return on their investments, and recent research from the London Business School suggests that productivity levels go up when men and women work in tandem—in part because gender parity counters the idea of groupthink, or the frequency of like-minded groups to defend ideas that may be ill-conceived. A McKinsey survey recently determined that more than 70 percent of companies that made efforts to empower female employees in emerging markets either experienced or expected to experience increased profits as a direct result of those efforts.
This reminds me of some of the findings cited in Womenomics by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman (I presented my synopsis of this book to a Women’s Business Group earlier this week):
A study in France found that companies with more women in management positions did better during 2008 – had higher profits – that those with fewer women. “Feminization of management seems to protect against financial crisis… In conditions of high uncertainty, financial markets value companies that take fewer risks and are more stable.” (Michel Ferrary, Professor of management at the CERAM Business School in France).
Women deliver profits, often in big numbers, and we are worth hanging on to… By every measure of profitability – equity, revenue, and assets – Pepperdine’s study found that companies with the best records for promoting women outperform the competition
Companies with women in top leadership positions have “stronger relationships with customers and shareholders and a more diverse and profitable business.” (University of California at Davis study).
Davos has decided to mandate the inclusion of women. This quota system may be objectionable to some, but the evidence seems to be clear – more women in positions of influence, with access to real power; more income equality; can lead to more success, better profits, a stronger economy.
And, by the way, it is the right thing to do.
Women Approach Business Differently than Men – Insight from Christine Lagarde
Women in business do make a difference. In Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay refer to a number of studies aboutways women impact the business environment. Here are a few quotes:
A study in France found that companies with more women in management positions did better during 2008 – had higher profits – that those with fewer women. “Feminization of management seems to protect against financial crisis… In conditions of high uncertainty, financial markets value companies that take fewer risks and are more stable.” (Michel Ferrary, Professor of management at the CERAM Business School in France).
Women deliver profits, often in big numbers, and we are worth hanging on to… By every measure of profitability – equity, revenue, and assets – Pepperdine’s study found that companies with the best records for promoting women outperform the competition.
Companies with women in top leadership positions have “stronger relationships with customers and shareholders and a more diverse and profitable business.” (University of California at Davis study).
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde
On Sunday, 10/10/10, Christiane Amanpour interviewed French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde. (Article and video here). Here’s a key excerpt:
“You were a former CEO. Do you think women have a different way of approaching business or approaching the public sphere?” Amanpour asked.
“Yes,” said Lagarde, who is the only female finance minister in the Group of Seven industrialized countries. “I think we inject less libido, less testosterone …”
“Less libido?” Amanpour asked.
“Yes. And less testosterone into the equation,” Lagarde replied. “It helps in the sense that we don’t necessarily project our own egos into cutting a deal, making our point across, convincing people, reducing them to, you know, a partner that has lost in the process. And it’s probably over generalized what I’m saying. And I’m sure that there are women that operate exactly like men,” she said.
“But, in the main, and having had nearly 30 years of professional life … and getting closer to 60 than 50, I honestly believe that there is a majority of women in such positions that approach power, decision-making processes and other people in the business relationship in a slightly different manner,” she said.
The world really is different when there is genuine diversity in the decision-making rooms. And when women are in on those decisions, the impact is unmistakable.
The Story – We Need More People Choosing to Work in the “Real Economy”
“Huge numbers of Harvard grads poured into finance during the 1990’s and early 2000’s, but all that’s changing now…”
Richard Florida, The Great Reset
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I have commented often that there are some rather obvious themes that crop up, often enough, from enough divergent voices, that one begins to think that they represent truth. In Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, two journalists, confirm this idea with the language of their discipline. They are writing specifically about the rise of “Womenomics,” but the underlying truth is “pay attention to rising themes shared by many.” Here’s the quote:
As journalists, when we start to read successive reports that come up with similar conclusions, we call it a story. When the results are this conclusive and this notable we may even call it a headline.
So – here is the theme that I am now ready to put in the category of “this really is a story!” We have too many college graduates, and other workers, choosing disciplines that do not build our “Real Economy.”
I posted about this a while back with The Rise and Fall of Finance and the End of the Society of Organizations (a little “serious reading”), quoting from The Rise and Fall of Finance and the End of the Society of Organizations by Gerald F. Davis; and recently with “Traders” vs. “Builders” – the “Fantasy Economy” vs. the “Real Economy.” And the theme is cropping up seemingly everywhere. For example, here are some excerpts from a recent column by David Brooks, The Genteel Nation:
After decades of affluence, the U.S. has drifted away from the hardheaded practical mentality that built the nation’s wealth in the first place.
The shift is evident at all levels of society. First, the elites. America’s brightest minds have been abandoning industry and technical enterprise in favor of more prestigious but less productive fields like law, finance, consulting and nonprofit activism.
It would be embarrassing or at least countercultural for an Ivy League grad to go to Akron and work for a small manufacturing company. By contrast, in 2007, 58 percent of male Harvard graduates and 43 percent of female graduates went into finance and consulting.
Then there’s the middle class. The emergence of a service economy created a large population of junior and midlevel office workers. These white-collar workers absorbed their lifestyle standards from the Huxtable family of “The Cosby Show,” not the Kramden family of “The Honeymooners.” As these information workers tried to build lifestyles that fit their station, consumption and debt levels soared. The trade deficit exploded. The economy adjusted to meet their demand — underinvesting in manufacturing and tradable goods and overinvesting in retail and housing.
These office workers did not want their children regressing back to the working class, so you saw an explosion of communications majors and a shortage of high-skill technical workers. One of the perversities of this recession is that as the unemployment rate has risen, the job vacancy rate has risen, too. Manufacturing firms can’t find skilled machinists. Narayana Kocherlakota of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank calculates that if we had a normal match between the skills workers possess and the skills employers require, then the unemployment rate would be 6.5 percent, not 9.6 percent.
There are several factors contributing to this mismatch (people are finding it hard to sell their homes and move to new opportunities), but one problem is that we have too many mortgage brokers and not enough mechanics.
Where people work really matters. Not the company, but the industry — the end product. When our smartest people built things that were tangible, usable, exportable, it really mattered. And it can again.
We’ve got a story here (to use the language of the journalists). And the bad news is that we can’t fix this by tomorrow afternoon. It will take a while. We have to champion and applaud jobs that represent and build the real economy. We have to reward people who go into such work. And it will take a few years of graduates shifting their plans and dreams to pull this off.
The Brooks article, and the Florida book, reveal that the movement away from “finance” has already started. But it has not yet created movement into the jobs that build the “real economy.”
I’ll end with this, another cautionary paragraph from Brooks:
The shift away from commercial values has been expressed well by Michelle Obama in a series of speeches. “Don’t go into corporate America,” she told a group of women in Ohio. “You know, become teachers. Work for the community. Be social workers. Be a nurse. … Make that choice, as we did, to move out of the money-making industry into the helping industry.” As talented people adopt those priorities, America may become more humane, but it will be less prosperous.
Councilwoman Creates New Rules – no permission required!
Cheryl offers: Not only is Angela Hunt the youngest person, elected at age 33, to serve on the Dallas City Council, she’s also the first to have a baby while in office. What’s even more interesting is what she plans to do next. In today’s DMN, she says “I’ll be bringing her (she had a girl) to City Hall.” Whoa! And it’s better still later in the article when she says she plans to work from home a couple days a week. Who did she ask if this was OK? No one as best I can tell and I applaud her for taking charge, being a trailblazer for women who serve later, and for being the kind of leader and role model we need today. I don’t know if she’s read Womenomics: write your own rules for success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, but she certainly gets the concepts from the book. As they convey in their book, “Instead of feeling guilty, as we imagine our female predecessors might think about our choices to scale back the work hours, or what our ethnic community or even family might think, we need to understand that most of those people would be awed by what we’ve already accomplished, which is that we’ve earned the ability to decide. And in fact, exercising this ability will help build a world our successors will be thankful for. “No kidding! Angela Hunt has been and is continuing to create new precedents. I suspect the women who follow in that path will be forever grateful for offering them choices they might never have imagined.
Sometimes a “C-” is not “Good Enough”
Admiral Rickover asks: "Why not the best?"
Why Not The Best?
“In your life was there ever a time in which you did less than the best?” If the answer was “yes,” the follow up question was: “Why not the best?” – asked by Admiral Hyman George Rickover (Admiral Rickover would ask this of all Naval Cadets, and the story was oft re-told by Jimmy Carter).
Good enough is good enough
“When good enough gets the job done, go for it. It’s way better than wasting resources (And, remember, you can usually turn good enough into great later”).
Fried and Hansson, ReWork
Think “good enough.” By “good enough” we mean absolutely, definitely, not our very best, not perfect. We are actively encouraging you to perform occasionally below standard… Men are better at saying, “OK, this is good enough in my eyes.”
Claire Shipman and Katty Kay, Womenomics
Six Sigma
Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors).
“Zero Defects”
“Zero Defects” is Step 7 of “Philip Crosby’s 14 Step Quality Improvement Process”
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Good enough is good enough – until it is not. Then good enough is a disaster.
I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few days. The thoughts were prompted by a couple of news items, with some numbers buried within the stories that have deeply bothered me, and a whole lot of other folks.
Greenspan argues that a "C-" is "good enough" ("I was right 70 percent of the time.")
Consider these numbers:
Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, said Wednesday of his two-decade career in government: “I was right 70 percent of the time, but I was wrong 30 percent of the time. And there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years.” (read about this here).
“86 percent of mines are safe.” (I heard this stated in an NPR interview by a spokesman defending mine safety – I don’t have a link).
The list is pretty long that describes business decisions, practices, “quality control” issues, where good enough is not good enough. The airplane safety was not good enough when the President of Poland and a plane load of others died in a crash that, at first reports, may have been caused by an unsafe airplane and pilot error.
Alan Greenspan was clearly not practicing the right levels of “good” when he was only right 70 percent of the time. In fact, when Greenspan said it, here was the response by the committee chair:
That prompted Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, to say Thursday that he would consider himself a success if he was right just 51 percent of the time. “I don’t aspire to reach what Mr. Greenspan thinks he has reached,” he said, in a sardonic tone.
And a mine safety figure of 86 percent mines deemed safe is clearly not good enough – just ask the families of the twenty-nine dead miners, as they labored for a company with an abysmal safety record and an attitude that clearly placed profits over human safety and even human life.
One of the true business and society and life challenges is this one: when is “good enough good enough” vs. when is “my best” critical?
I agree with the “good enough” movement – except when I don’t. I don’t mind a “good enough” free pen in a conference center. I don’t mind receiving a text message with a spelling error. But I would like the very best airline safety, if you don’t mind. And when Alan Greenspan argues that his 70 percent right was good enough (that is a “C-” in most grading systems), I think it is time to dust off Admiral Rickover’s question.
