Kirsten Osolind, a delightfully witty and thought-provoking marketing whiz, pointed out in a recent blog that women were not nearly as likely to embrace the “built-to-flip” mentality as men. The Phoenix Principle is based on an assumption that the owners/managers of a business are in it for the long-term. Otherwise, why bother investing in creating a business that will renew itself?
According to Marsha Clark, an expert in issues related to women in business, women are dropping out of the big corporate buisness scene in record numbers. Many of these women are starting their own companies where they can, as Kirsten says: “groom them as we would our child’s hair.” I wonder what this trend portends about business in the next 20 years, and about the likelihood that increasing numbers of business entrepreneurs will be building businesses that they expect to last over the long-term?
I suspect that women’s influence on business, which is growing quietly in the background, will one day in the not too distant future burst into prominence and create an unexpected disruption across the economy. Why? Women will have irrevocably put their stamp on managment practice and organizational design… and it promises to be remarkably different from that of industrial management.
Women are, indeed, leaving corporate American at twice the rate of men. The top three reasons cited as to why women are leaving – and there is little difference in the frequency cited: 1) For greater flexibility. They want to have more flexible hours, to work at home, and to be able to attend those parent-teacher conferences at three o’clock in the afternoon without sarcastic comments from co-workers. 2) They are tired of dancing on the concrete ceiling. They keep hearing about top jobs but they are much too slow in coming. Women-owned businesses are being started at twice the rate of those started by men. We’re creating new, more feminine business models. If you can’t join the current executive ranks as defined by men, let’s start our own! 3) Women are leaving to find more meaningful work. Women don’t measure success by how big their paycheck is. Women place greater importance on making a difference. That’s harder and harder to do in large corporations. Men on the other hand leave corporate America to start their own companies — #1 reason – to create wealth. A distant second reason is to pad their resumes to go back into corporate America at a higher level. If these differences are so stark as to why women and men are leaving corporate America, can’t we assume that these differences are also very present for the people who stay? And what impact might that have on creativity, risk-taking, or productivity?