A blog is your easy-to-use web site, where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more. All for FREE.

I use my blog to share ideas about how to make work a more vital, rewarding, integrated part of life. I don't think we should look on work as the bad part of our life - at 100,000 hours per life time, we do too much of it to write it off like that. Instead, we should search constantly for ways to make the work we do express who we are, articulate our values, and contribute to making the world a better place. That is what work is for...

Please visit my blog at http://margaretheffernan.blogspot.com.

Questions from the Road

By the time 2004 ends, I'll have done some 25 speaking engagements this autumn. Some have been at huge conferences, some at small dinners. They've all been provocative, responsive and challenging - and while, in theory, I'm there to impart my knowledge, the fact is that I learn a lot from them. I'm certainly learning how alive my issues are for women - and how courageously women continue to struggle to be taken seriously on our own terms.

Various people have suggested that I write a blog but I can't quite see how yet another diary of yet another book tour would add to the sum of human knowledge - and I'm not as funny as Michael Moore. Instead, I thought it would be more interesting to keep track of the best questions I get. Because these are the things that really matter to people. Some are profound; some just stopped me in my tracks. I hope you will add to them.

1. Should I cut my hair?

This was a question from a young woman with gorgeous long hair who had been advised that, for her career to flourish, she needed to cut her hair. In other words, she was being given clear advice that she needed to assimilate, to fit in.

Did she want to cut her hair? No not really. So I told her that I thought she shouldn't. One of the biggest problems women suffer from is invisibility. We struggle so hard to fit in that we're in danger of blending into the background. Then when it comes time for promotions and raises, we lose out to visible men.

This is a tough area for women because it feels rather trivial (clothes, hair and all that stuff hardly seems the stuff of serious business) but it has real consequences. Not just invisibility (though that's huge) but confidence: being proud in who we are. It's hard to feel and articulate that pride when we are hiding. It is impossible to lead when trying to fit in. So assimilation works against our ultimate success. What we need to do is craft an authentic style - one that is personal, appropriate and not invisible.

2. You talk about the mistakes that women make. What is the biggest mistake that you see men make?

This was a great question from a young man at American University. I'm not sure I know a single biggest mistake that men make - but this is the answer I gave:

A big mistake men make is to refuse to say "I don't know." They're asked a question - like when a product will ship, or what something will cost - and, if they don't know, they feel that they should know. So they make up an answer - at best, an educated guess, at worst a shot in the dark. But now they're committed. Now they have to defend that answer. If it's wrong, they have to make their team live up to something no one else committed to. The worse the answer, the deeper the hole into which they've dug themselves.

To be sure, it isn't only men that make this mistake but it is a common mistake for men who often feel that not knowing is a weakness. (Men at medical school, for example, ask fewer questions because they believe the sheer act of asking questions reveals ignorance - whereas women ask tons of questions because they think it's the way to learn.) When you're asked a question to which you don't know the answer, the best thing to say is: I don't know but I can let you know by (some date or time) OR I don't know but Jane/John knows so I'll ask her/him. Knowing who knows, or committing to a time or date shows you've taken the question seriously and are committed to getting an answer. That's good enough.

3. Do you miss your children?

This was in San Francisco and it really stopped me in my tracks. The answer? Yes and no. Yes, of course I miss my kids. They're wonderful children, great company, very funny, teach me a lot and are immensely cuddly. Who wouldn't miss such kids? Plus, being away for any length of time means that you miss out on things - school assemblies, tests, problems with friends, new crazes and crises. When I come back from a trip, I am very conscious that I've missed a chapter or two - and it takes time to catch up.

But ... I also notice, when I get home, that my kids' relationship with their father is stronger. Because, of course, they have had more time together. I notice that I value (and hug) them more. I'm a little more patient and pliant because I value my time with them more highly - because it is limited. I'm sometimes more observant of changes in them because I've not been there for every incremental step.

So yes, I miss my kids. And my husband. But it isn't all bad...

4. "I hear what you say about honesty and being your whole self at work but I'm going to graduate from business school this year, I have a lot of student loans, and I know I'm going to have to take a job where they expect me to fit in and just suck it up - and I don't really see how I can just go in there and be myself."

This was a question from a young man at San Francisco University. It was heartfelt and, I think, immensely sad. He basically assumes that, in order to progress, he has to become a corporate clone, to do work he doesn't like, with people he may not like, in order to make the money he needs to survive. Fundamentally, he does not believe that he can organize his career, or his life, around his values.

I think he was being very honest and I wish corporate employers could hear his voice. We have a huge, institutional challenge in our corporations which few recognize or address - which is the failure to hire diverse people and let them be diverses. Instead, we mostly hire diverse people - and make them all the same. This young man can see that this is what will happen to him.

What's wrong with that? Well apart from the soul death which the questioner anticipates, what's wrong with it is that it depletes intelligence from our organizations. If everyone thinks the same way, there is no value to diverse hiring. There is no value to team work. Why have five bodies if there's only one mind?

We have to become stronger and more determined to hang on to our values and our selves at work. Not just for ourselves (though that is a good enough reason) because it is the only way to make our companies more ethical and more intelligent.

But this isn't just a corporate problem. The questioner needs to ask himself some very serious questions about his values. How important is money to him? Is it his chief value? He has to look hard at the companies and products that are in sync with his values. Are there really none? Has he looked hard enough? What I find so sad about this question is that it feels so defeated - and he's not really even started yet. I don't believe he can't find work he's proud of that won't dig him out of debt. But he'll need to keep his standards - and his spirits - high. That will be hard. No one ever said it was easy.

5. The stereotypes you discuss - they're not really relevant to young people are they? Don't they really just kick in at around 30 or older?

This was a comment made by a UK academic when we were set up against each other on a British radio talk show. I found it - find it - rather amazing since it seems to me that there is, alas, no age that is free of stereotyping, young or old.

The geisha and the invisible woman stereotypes are those that are most likely to afflict younger women. One young woman at Bath University told me how, in a summer job, she'd been thrilled to be chosen to attend a conference - thrilled until, in a public meeting, her boss had elucidated: she was just going to be the "eye candy"(sic). She's in her early twenties. For myself, I was sent on dry cleaning and tea errands in my 20s, despite a good degree from a great university; none of the young men in the office were assigned the same tasks.

The academic who raised this issue seemed to suggest that it was very discouraging for young women to hear about stereotypes. She found them very enthusiastic and accused me of somehow spoiling their positive outlook. But I don't believe we help anyone by hiding or disguising the truth. Forewarned is fore-armed, and telling the truth makes us stronger.

... and there's more to come. Please email me if you have more questions - or better answers.