Tag Archives: Margaret Heffernan
Newsflash! Take Your Brain to Lunch is Good Brain Exercise
Cheryl offers: Surprisingly, there was an interesting item in my mail yesterday. It was the Dallas edition of a Medical Directory with an article called “Mind Matters”. I’m intrigued by the brain, so I started reading it. Low and behold, on the second page I found this. “Frontal lobe function, also called “executive function,” is not what you know but how you use what you know. This begins to decrease in many people in their 30s because they simply stop using it. (NOW comes the good part!) Reading a book is fine for your brain; analyzing it, and talking about it with a friend or book club is good for executive function.” Woohoo! Experiencing a book synopsis of a relevant business book focused on women’s business topics, then discussing the contents of the book’s synopsis led by facilitators who ask thought provoking questions is exactly the format for our event, Take Your Brain to Lunch! So now, we can rightfully claim, not only is this a fun event, it’s good for you too. How many other things does anyone get to do that are both fun and good for you? Not enough say I. Join us July 14 for your brain’s “executive function” workout. We’re doing How She Does It by Margaret Heffernan and Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Raz Aahl. No leotards required!
Is Business Becoming a Woman’s World?
Here is a simple fact that we can all agree on — women have not always had an easy path moving up in a man’s world. I remember the time that I was a guest for lunch in the Los Angeles Club (this was a few decades ago). I was told to go up the stairs to the dining room, which I did. The dining room was small, and there were a few couples scattered around. After a few minutes, I asked the host about meeting my party, and he informed me “that would be in the main dining room, up one more slight of stairs.” So up I went, and discovered a huge dining room — filled with nothing but men. Not a woman in sight. Imagine being a woman competing in that climate!
But times, they are a changing. Our audiences at the First Friday Book Synopsis are truly a mix of men and women. (We do have a few other barriers to overcome — we’re not as diverse as we could be). But women, at our event, and in all areas of business, present a clear and growing force.
Recently, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, authors of Womenomics, wrote of this change in an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Fixing the Economy? It’s Women’s Work. They wrote:
While the pinstripe crowd fixates on troubled assets, a stalled stimulus and mortgage remedies, it turns out that a more sure-fire financial fix is within our grasp — and has been for years. New research says a healthy dose of estrogen may be the key not only to our fiscal recovery, but also to economic strength worldwide.
And: The numbers make a compelling case. The studies Ernst & Young rounded up show that women can make the difference between economic success and failure in the developing world, between good and bad decision-making in the industrialized world, and between profit and loss in the corporate world. Their conclusion: American companies would do well with more senior women.
Their point is not that women should get a fair shake, a true shot at actual equality (though they should). Their point is something far more profound — things would be better, problems could actually be solved, the future could be brighter if women were allowed to speak their voices at the problem-solving tables of the world.
I have a hunch they are right.
Over the years, we have presented synopses of a number of excellent books at the First Friday Book Synopsis focused on women and business issues: Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman: What Men Know About Success That Women Need to Learn by Gail Evans; Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide and Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want, both by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever; How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs Are Changing the Rules of Business Success by Margaret Heffernan; The Mary Kay Way: Timeless Principles from America’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur by Mary Kay Ash, among others. With our fellow bloggers Cheryl Jensen and Sare Smith, I will speak at our first (hopefully) of many events focused on women and business. (Read about the August 12 event here).
This I know. Trying to solve problems, trying to succeed in business with men only is wrong, foolish, and under-resourced. The future may not belong to women alone , but it certainly belongs to women and men equally, and together.
(Yes, we will be presenting a synopsis of Womenomics this fall at the First Friday Book Synopsis).
{To purchase our synopses of the books mentioneed above, and many other business books, with handout + audio, go to our 15 Minute Business Book site}.
