The Boss of You

Every once in a while we field questions from folks who ask us why we’re writing a book specifically for women. They wonder if some (or all) of what we have to say might be relevant to folks of the male persuasion and question why we aren’t planning on addressing men directly. In some ways that a kind of complicated question for us to answer because we know plenty of men (both of our partners included at some point or another) who have been in the early stages of starting their own businesses and could really use a comprehensive guide to help them along their way. To them we say, we welcome you to read our book, you’ll just notice that all the examples of businesses will be run by women. Learn from them. In other ways, it’s not such a tricky question to answer, because while we likely personally know more women than men who run businesses, the big wide world of business still has a lot of catching up to do. Take this alarming stat that my morning radio program greeted me with as I rolled out of bed:

“For the first time since the Vancouver Sun began publishing its list of B.C.’s highest-paid executives five years ago, all 100 made more than $1 million - and there’s not a woman among them.”

Lame! But not too surprising I’m afraid. They did a quick segment on the radio asking folks on the street why they thought that there were still so few women in high powered (and highly paid) leadership roles in business these days. Most everyone — men and women — responded with answers that related to childcare/family commitments and the lack of respect or acknowledgment that gets in the executive class business world. Put more specifically: because women still bear the bulk of the responsibility for raising and rearing families they end up taking time off work and out of their careers and the business world still discriminates against that in how it hires, promotes and rewards employees. What do you think? Do you think that’s a reasonable explanation? Are there others? And, if you don’t live in Canada (this is a Vancouver stat afterall) what’s it like where you are?