52 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Didn't Want to Admit They Are Right--But They Are, May 31, 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: In the Company of Women: Turning Workplace Conflict into Powerful Alliances (Hardcover)
When I picked up "In the Company of Women" to read, I was prepared to disagree with every single sentence. A female colleague had given it to me as a gift, saying that all her friends were reading it and having an "aha" experience -- they finally understood what was happening in their interactions with other women at work, with their friends, etc. I wasn't even going to read it, but when she told me that Harvard Business School had the book on its recommended list on its website, I decided to go ahead and at least start.
My fear was that the book would play into every stereotype we professional women have worked so hard to overcome -- reinforcing that all-too-widespread male view that we are emotional, bitchy "girls" just out to get each other. BOY WAS I WRONG! These authors have PhD's and years of experience in corporate America and they know their stuff. I was really impressed with the scholarship and research.
As I was reading I began to see all my friends and myself in the examples. We have all been sabotaged by other women in the workplace; we just didn't want to admit it. I didn't find the advice trite or counterproductive to business in the least --and I didn't find it to be overly focused on the issue itself so that I was left thinking "OK now what do I do?" The majority of the book is focused on solutions THAT WORK, and those solutions are very simple. I have been using them, and I can say with absolute confidence that my work environment is better for all of us -- men and women -- as a result.
We all deal with co-workers based on their personalities, level in the organization, work styles, etc. If I manage someone who isn't brilliant but who is really organized, good-natured, straightforward, and works well under pressure, then I will assign a different project (or in a different way), and with a different set of expectations about completion date, than if he or she is brilliant but disorganized, moody, and gets overwhelmed by pressure. Gender is simply one more factor to consider, but I never thought about it before because I wanted to think it doesn't matter. (Maybe a little leftover 1960's idealism at work-I don't know). But of course gender matters and I just didn't see it! (The rest of our bodies are different -- why wouldn't our brains be too?) That means their work styles are likely to be different too. But as the authors point out, that's not a liability that's a PLUS. I was especially impressed with the biological research Heim and Murphy cite to show how these gender differences are hard-wired --that women's brains are different than men's. I also found the evolutionary and primate studies to be a real eye-opener.
I was prepared to hate this book because I thought it was would be "pop psychology" at its worst. Instead, it's groundbreaking psychology at its best. "In the Company of Women" gives all the scientific, rational explanations and solutions that make it safe for all of us to talk about the problem. It has intense scholarly research combined with "real-world" experience, and solutions, solutions, solutions. Otherwise, women don't want to talk about it for fear of reinforcing that "bitchy girls" stereotype, and men don't want to talk about it because they don't want to appear sexist. If we don't start dealing with the issue, we ALL lose, both in and out of the workplace!
The authors' solutions may seem simple at times, but in my experience the simplest solutions are the most effective ones. I just bought copies to send to my best old college friends as well as to my daughters, and I sent the Harvard Business School review to about 20 other professional women. I am also making the book "required reading" for everybody who reports to me. I hate to be wrong, but it made me realize that women AND men are shooting themselves in the foot by doing what I was doing -- NOT ADMITTING THAT THE PROBLEM EXISTS.
|
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Valuable and authoritative information, August 6, 2002
This review is from: In the Company of Women: Turning Workplace Conflict into Powerful Alliances (Hardcover)
This book was recommended to me by a friend and I thank her very much. The authors have described processes that explain what I have observed, but couldn't quite understand, until reading this book. Why women have an incredible memory for hurts and injustices; why women can be so 'catty' amongst themselves; why women can talk so intimately and so easily with each other and with men... I could go on and on with the questions I've always had about women. Learning about the 'tend and befriend' hormone and about the Darwinian survival characteristics of many of these behaviors helps men (as well as women) understand and not personalize these inherent patterns. I especially appreciated the research citations and the sound scientific foundations of the authors' conclusions. I have recommended this book to a dozen people I know, and I think it's a worthwhile read for any adult who works with, is in a relationship with, or is a woman - and I guess that's everyone.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Advocates appeasement to irrationality, October 25, 2008
I am sorely disappointed by this book. Instead of addressing the root cause of women who traditionally cannot stand having other women succeed and get ahead, this book promotes appeasement to that irrationality. It is really a collection of tactics to maneuver around bad situations caused by women who get difficult around members of the same sex who are more powerful, more confident, or more successful.
But that's not how it should be. If a woman gets a well-deserved promotion and her female coworkers immediately respond by tearing her down, the problem is with those doing the tearing. But this book does not see it that way. It talks about the "Power Dead Even rule" among women as if it's something that cannot be changed, and therefore must be adhered to. The book actually has an example of a very qualified woman getting promoted, causing fury and anger among her female peers, with the solution being the withdrawal of the promotion of the qualified woman. If holding women back from becoming successful and openly proud of their achievements is the way for women to stop hurting each other, I would not want to live in the world that this book promotes. Womankind deserves more credit than that.
I had picked up this book after reading and being profoundly impressed by "Hard Ball for Women" by Pat Heim, one of the authors for this book. In "Hard Ball for Women", the cultural baggage that women have that hold themselves back is broken down chapter by chapter. Great examples and explanations shed light into the conventional roles of a woman and the changes in perspective she needs to take on to become competitive in her career. In some sense, "Hard Ball for Women" is almost a rebuttal to "In the Company of Women". I do not understand how the same author could have penned both. This book is a let down.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
