WHAT WOMEN WANT
by Cathy Castillo
Celine Lange is a twentieth-century Everywoman. A successful entrepreneur who sold her firm to a larger company, she faces a variety of concerns to women managers. Her personal style seems to clash with those of her new colleagues, and Lange faces some tough hiring and promotion decisions. She also must consider whether she should take the career risk of agreeing to sit on a committee to consider a sexual harassment issue involving one of the top managers in her new company.
Lange and her array of 1990s business problems helped set the stage for the Business School's women's conference, GSB Women -- Working Toward Solutions, which drew 250 people to the School in May. During the two-day session, participants tussled with some of Lange's problems, outlined in a case written for the conference by two women MBA students and a faculty member. But the real focus of the weekend was a series of panel discussions and workshops where participants discussed issues they and their peers face as they manage careers that range from part-time consultant to CEO.
Although discussions of contrasting male and female styles and concerns arose time and again, the weekend was not a verbal battle of the sexes. Men have gotten ahead in some areas because they tend to mentor and negotiate very effectively. Women, on the other hand, are often more successful at building relationships and reaching consensus. The question asked over and over wasn't which gender was more successful. Instead, participants tried to identify which strategies were most successful and why.
Participants shared success stories of deals made, companies founded, promotions earned, and personal goals reached. But they also recognized the pitfalls of what Catherine Muther, MBA '78, former vice president for corporate marketing of Cisco Systems, called "optimistic denial" -- the belief by women coming of corporate age in the 1970s that sex-based equality issues had been solved once and for all.
In the waning days of the twentieth century, the unresolved issues facing women in corporate America still include some first raised in the 1960s, such as compensation equality. One reason for the gap is that men and women are likely to negotiate differently.
While her male colleagues shared bonus and salary information almost as a hobby, Barbara Santry, MBA '78, recalls pulling together a group of women coworkers to discreetly share bonus information. "We looked at it as very personal."
Santry's group eventually negotiated bigger bonuses. "The more you know and the more they're not sure of what you know, the better you negotiate." Both women and men at the conference agreed that while other factors in their jobs were important to growth and personal satisfaction, they all expected to be compensated as much as their peers. When that doesn't happen -- negotiate!
Debi Coleman, MBA '78, described being CFO of Apple and realizing that other corporate officers had greater stock options than she. "I did my homework, then I went in to John (Sculley) and said, 'I know there was an oversight here.'"
"Get practice negotiating early and often," she advised. Coleman, now chairman and CEO of Merix Corp., who finished the paperwork for her firm's initial public offering just before coming to the conference, also advised women not to be "tree huggers," her way of warning that "women executives often stay in one place too long; they have a misguided sense of loyalty." RULES FOR SUCCESS
Barbara Santry, general partner at Pathfinder Venture Capital Funds, disagreed. Over a period of time, Santry said, she has asked a series of CEOs of major firms how they came to head their companies. "What was apparent about this group wasn't that they were the hardest working or the smartest, but rather that they'd distinguished themselves by hanging in there.
"Many women are not able to hang in there when things get grubby. A part of the glass ceiling is that women are not held by the type of rewards many companies give. Since they don't have staying power, they're not around when it comes time to choose a CEO."
Some participants said they weren't motivated by the kinds of perks common in many businesses. Time and again, women said they want to be respected for the quality of their work, to respect the person they work for, and to be treated fairly in their business dealings. While women felt the need to stand up for their own rights, many said their record in standing up for one another was less sterling. Many frankly discussed the perils of being seen as a corporate champion for "women's issues" and said women are slow to mentor other women.
To what extent can women, particularly those working in a corporate setting, promote opportunities for other women? "I call this 'the shadow job of the senior woman,'" said Muther. "At Cisco I've provided career counseling to women, I've recruited and hired women, I've advised colleagues on issues related to women, corrected inappropriate language and the actions of my peers. It's a tough job and it is possible to decide you are unwilling to accept it."
The shadow job carries risks, Muther warned. "Timing is everything. You have to have established professional credibility before you start. If you try it without building a professional track record, the risks to you are great." Besides being a risk to your professional credentials, the shadow job is also a major time commitment, she said.
Unwillingness to take on the shadow job may be one reason women don't mentor other women more often. "I hope it's not that we enjoy being part of an exclusive club," said Barbara Jaffee, MBA '80, president and CEO of the satellite communication support firm TW Transmission. "It's incumbent on women to change. Men enjoy mentoring men, and they're good at it."
Elaine Harris, pictured on the front cover of this magazine, is another who accepted the shadow job, not only as a marketing professional, but also as a woman and a minority. "Black women tend to be willing to take more risks in raising issues and challenging authority because in many ways there is little to lose," said Harris, MBA '86, marketing manager for a new product team at the DuPont Corp. Black women are seen as a double minority: black first and female second. "In the white male power structure, we share neither the maleness that black men have nor the whiteness that white women have." Overall, she said, black women earn 85 percent of what black men and white women earn and only 60 percent of what white men earn.
Networking with other black women is important, not just for career advancement but for survival, said Harris, who helped create the Black Women's Network at DuPont. At the core of the group are 15 women who meet monthly. These women represent a broad range of experience, job responsibility, and positions within the corporate structure. They have taken up issues ranging from others claiming credit for a black woman's ideas to not being compensated for the level of work they perform.
"Whatever is done to advance black women should be done for everyone," Harris concluded. "The idea is to fully utilize those unique characteristics that each of us brings, not to pretend those differences don't exist. The most creative, energized work teams are diverse. Those companies that understand and utilize cultural diversity will be the ones most likely to succeed. We all have a stake in that."
Understanding and finding ways to take advantage of differences is a key to success for modern companies and for individuals. "Career navigation is often a question of personal styles," said Deborah DeCotis, MBA '78, a managing director at Morgan Stanley. "The differences in styles need to be understood by men and women and by management. We need to be comfortable with the concept that men and women are different."
Masculine and feminine differences in management and personal styles are undeniable. They're also not necessarily gender-linked. Some men may follow "feminine" management patterns, and women may behave in a "masculine" style.
Laura Farrow, a lawyer who mediates disputes, described the two management styles. A typical masculine style, she said, is linear with vertical hierarchies, is goal-oriented, uses deductive logic, and focuses on individual rights and entitlements and on power in achieving goals.
Feminine style focuses on spiral movement, is process-oriented, forms horizontal networks, uses inductive logic, and builds relationships as opposed to seeking to defend individual rights and entitlements.
As an example, Farrow said, someone using a masculine approach to allegations of sexual harassment would be likely to work to enforce a law, forcing an action to create a specific response. A female approach, she said, would be to create empathy on the part of the offender to bring about a change in the behavior.
In the workplace, a major difference between male and female management styles lies in the way needs are satisfied. "Women's needs are affiliative," said Laraine Zappert, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford Medical School. Women are more interested in meeting their affiliative needs than in more traditional trappings of success, achievement, and promotion. How, some of the participants wondered, can women reach a balance between satisfying their affiliative needs and keeping their eyes on the goals of their workplace?
"If you can't fix it, feature it," advised Linda Parker, MBA '83, a consultant in human resources who leans heavily toward the collaborative model, pushing for consensus and cultivating strong process skills. "Emphasize the differences that make you successful."
"Rock the boat," recommended Debra Meyerson, PhD '89, adjunct professor of organizational behavior at the University of Michigan and a visiting professor at the Business School, "but not so much that you fall out." The risk of not standing up, of playing the game, she said, is that you will never get back to your original agenda.
She identified four ways to work within larger organizations:
- separate from the system entirely
- capitulate, which usually means giving away power
- assimilate -- play the game until you are in a secure position
- play the game, but stake out your territory and defend it -- an approach Meyerson calls tempered radicalism.
For some, "the game" may mean the chance to shape a company, to build a reputation as the best in the business, or to see an idea to fulfillment. For others, it may mean being able to carve out a rewarding career that leaves time to pursue a personal passion outside of work or to enjoy a fulfilling family relationship.
Elaine Harris summed it up for many. Said Harris: "Success means the ability to get whatever you need to bring you personal happiness." -- Janet Zich, Gale Sperry, and Caryn Coulter contributed to this report.
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