Pause by Jory Des Jardine.

Mike and I have been doing research on the BlogHer conference that started on July 30th in Santa Clara. We were not able to attend this year, but we may make an extra-special to go next year. We have been reviewing blogs and their postings about the conference and came across Pause written by Jory Des Jardine. She wrote a four piece episode titled The Power of the X Chromosome in the Workplace and this caught our eye:

Unflinching women’s advocate Tom Peters says, “Tomorrow belongs to women.” In his book Re-Imagine, he lists the reasons why a women’s model of leadership will prevail if business is to prevail. My first instinct upon reading this chapter was, “What’s in this for him?” In the past efforts to hire women into leadership positions have been more about quota-filling than deep appreciation of what we inherently bring to the table. This list wasn’t surprising, but it was a good reminder: I’d almost forgotten these qualities, tossed them aside in favor of others that I thought would better serve my resume. According to Peters:

* Women practice improvisation better than men

* Women are more self-determined and more trust sensitive than men

* Women appreciate and depend upon their intuition more than men do

* Women focus naturally on empowerment, rather than on hierarchical “power”

* Women understand and develop relationships with greater facility than men

Des Jardins goes on to say

You can drill down my argument for women’s innate ability to teambuild to biological levels, to Deborah Tannen’s work, which shows that from a very early age women seek to relate while men seek to dominate. Better put, men relate by dominating.

Mike and I wondered what it would be like to have corporations and government led more by women than by men. I think in many ways women can learn from men and vice versa. I know Mike can have a phone conversation with his best male friend. When he hangs up I'll ask him how his wife is doing? He won't know. And yet he admires that quality in me and my friends. It seems a shame that societies can cut themselves off from half of their resources.

Bev & Mike