Boy's Life

David Carr has an interesting piece in this morning's Times entitled, "To Reach The Heights, First Be Male."  It contains a lot of "inside baseball" about the publishing industry, but highlights a situation that's still common everywhere.

Carr's opening paragraph sets the tone:

The glass ceiling has been shattered so often in the last decade that you might think that metaphor for the limits many women in business confront would have lost its power. But as some women in the media business found out last week, once you get through the ceiling, you find a secret glass treehouse suspended far above your head. That's where the men sit.

Now, I know many men are pretty defensive about this issue.  But, as Carr tells it, there's one particularly aspect of the "gender in management" story that's especially damaging. Let's call it the "softy" issue.

Back in the day (as we say in the 'hood!), when men managed men, "management" meant issuing orders. A few smart people (read: men) sat in a room and figured stuff out:  what products to make, how to make them, where to make them, what to charge for them, how to sell them, and who should do what in what ways. The world was divided into "thinkers" and "doers."  Roles were clear. The thinkers told the doers what to do and how to do it and the doers did it. Most of the thinkers were men. Leadership was men's work, and they all knew how to do it.

Well, along came the last third of the 20th century and things got complicated. But not just gender things...business things.  As the century closed, genies were escaping bottles left and right, some of them powered by hyperlinked customers who'd had just about enough of being told what they were going to buy, where, at what price, thank you very much. And, by the way, those same people also worked in the companies that were making stuff and were pretty tired of having the boys in the back room tell them what to do when it was pretty clear that everything was changing in ways the boys weren't all that hip to. And, while some of those people were women, some were men.

So, while the divide was often framed in gender terms, which it certainly was/is, it also could be viewed in consciousness terms: call it inclusion. Here'a another quote from the Carr piece:

"Because there are so few women executives, we tend to notice when something happens to one of them," said Judy B. Rosener, a professor in the business school at the University of California, Irvine. "But women have attributes that men dismiss or see as foreign. They tend to think people at the bottom have as much or more information than the people at the top."

That's one way to do business, but not exactly the Condé Nast way. Most executives, men and women, end up losing out for the top slot just by virtue of the numbers. But in the instance of Ms. Berner, the assets she brought to the job - a willingness to share ideas and credit, an ability to build a civil and productive work culture - are viewed as weaknesses. She might be good, but she wasn't in the club.

It's amazing to me that this kind of thinking can still be identified as correlational with gender, but it rings true. How much this has to do with "Father Knows Best" family dynamics (hi Connie!) is arguable. Nevertheless, it's a characteristic men (and men-emulators) need to extinguish pronto.  As Bruce Nussbaum notes in his latest blog entry, today's winners are learning to enable everyone in their network to be creative, relinquishing control to their customers, not retaining it. 

If sharing credit and ideas and building a civil culture are a problem in your organization today, I suggest running for the hills...if you're a woman or a man.

Tags: David Carr Women Executives Condé Nast Bruce Nussbaum

Comments

[Cara Perlman]

I read the article in The Times and ripped it out, saved it. Hetrosexual is too often code for secretary, at home and in business. New capitalism, hail to the consumer, whatever the incarnation, male domination is almost a genetic issue, worldwide. There is a reason that women don't lead here in the U.S. and elsewhere and its not because they're not smart, resourceful and innovative. I think it would be fascinating to get a glimpse into the group thoughts of powerful women in high places in the capitalist structure, get a clearer picture of how it looks pooled together. An interesting picture: The innovations, the observations what the structure would look like if male power wasn't so intent on limiting and also where women need the experience, over time, to be seasoned original leaders... and more men to be present and loving dads. That would be a gift to pass on to the next generation of consumers.

[Tom]

Cara, I'm especially intrigued by one phrase in your comment, "...the observations what the structure would look like if male power wasn't so intent on limiting...." This is a fascinating question: how would organizations look different if they still didn't emulate 18th century militaristic structural principles? I think I'll pose this question and see what kinds of reactions we receive.

Thanks for stopping by.

[panasianbiz.com]

Of course, the issue of inclusion arises any time a historically underrepresented group or minority (such as women executives) is discussed. I am also shocked that in this supposedly enlightened day and age, women are still feeling that old glass ceiling impeding their progress in the corporate world.