[EAS]Honesty & More Women

pjk pjk at design.eng.yale.edu
Thu Jul 25 02:50:28 EDT 2002


Subject:   Honesty & More Women

(from INNOVATION, 24 July 2002)

BUSINESSES NEED A DOSE OF HONESTY -- AND MORE WOMEN
Women are leaving big companies as fast as they can, says author
Margaret  Heffernan. By 2005, there will be about 4.7 million
self-employed women in the United States, up 77% since 1983. The
increase for men is just 6%. "As I watch my female colleagues leave
traditional business structures, as I see them flourish, as I notice
how well networks protect women through a recession and how brutally
men suffer from the harsh cutbacks and relentless downsizings that
rumble through corporate hierarchies, it strikes me that women are
building a parallel business universe," she says. And in the face of
recent events at Enron, Andersen, Global Crossing and others, "We had
all better hope that this parallel universe is almost complete."
Fixing a broken business system begins with honesty, says Heffernan:
"Honesty has a way of releasing energy, the kind of energy that 
business desperately needs to embrace. Time after time, I've witnessed
the  paralysis that sets in when people are afraid to tell each other
the truth.  .. The problem isn't that we don't know the truth. The
problem is that we're afraid to speak the truth." 
(Fast Company Aug 2002)
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/61/female_ceo.html

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It would also be interesting to study any differences in the business
language women use. Typical (male) business language is heavily
dominated by metaphors of sports (competition) and war (argument), not
to speak of exaggeration, evasion and outright lies. 
About five minutes with google.com lead me to an good article by a
woman about business language, not quite what I was looking for, but
still a good exposition of how truth gets lost in jargon:
http://www.afrboss.com.au/magarticle.asp?doc_id=19476&rgid=2&listed_months=0

   --PJK





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