[How She Does It]  ::  [The Naked Truth]

HOW SHE DOES IT: Redefining power and the nature of success for the 21st century.

"I've long called the saga of American women-owned businesses our most underreported business news story. Mrgaret Heffernan goes a long way to filling this empty canyon. How She Does It is a great piece of reporting, a great piece of writing -- and, simply, one of the most important books, business or otherwise, to come along in many a year."
~ Tom Peters

The numbers are staggering. Between 1997 and 2007, privately held businesses owned by women grew at three times the rate of all American privately held firms. Women's companies are creating jobs and growing profits at twice the rate of all firms and are responsible for more payroll than all of the Fortune 500 combined. Clearly the model for business excellence is changing. What's going on?

Five-time CEO and contributor to Fast Company and Real Business Margaret Heffernan decided to find out. After interviewing hundreds of women entrepreneurs - including Eileen Fisher and Geraldine Laybourne - who run businesses of all sizes and in all markets, Heffernan found they had strengths uniquely suited to the new economy.

Women have a tremendous need to achieve - and do so even without a safety net: Doreen Marks, the world's leading manufacturer of gun-cleaning equipment is a thirty-five year old single mother who started her business in her parents' kitchen. They've very good at creating value by investing in staff and customers: Carol Latham, divorced and broke, hired her inner-city neighbors, many of whom spoke little English, gave them schooling and built a hugely profitable high tech business. Women place values at the heart of their businesses and take culture seriously: Eileen Fisher refuses to measure commitment by hours and nobody blinks when her employees leave to pick up their kids from school. These women are turning traditional concepts of hard and soft skills on their head, redefining power and the nature of success for our time.

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[How She Does It]  ::  [The Naked Truth]

THE NAKED TRUTH: A Working Woman's Manifesto on Business and What Really Matters by Margaret A. Heffernan.

A reader writes: "Margaret Heffernan has never been afraid to talk about the ugliness that can happen for women in Corporate America. Her new book is no different. It brings up almost every important issue for women trying to climb the traditional corporate ladder. In some cases she offers solutions, either from her own experience and research, or through the shared stories of women she interviewed for the book.

Two things in particular in the book stuck with me. In one section she discusses women and their "relationship" with work. I really liked the use of that word, "relationship." Because I do have a relationship with my work, just like I have a relationship with the people in my life or with money. (I had never really thought about it in that way before.) The second item that struck me was after I read one woman's description of something very sexist that happened in the workplace, I expected the next line to say, "that was ten years ago." Instead, the line was "that was in 2004." I think we need reminding that not everything has changed, and in fact, anything going on now is even worse than ten years ago, because it's 2005, and we all (including the boys) know better."
~Diane K. Danielson

From Publishers Weekly: "I swore I'd never go into business" writes Margaret Heffernan. Twenty years after expressing that sentiment, as CEO of a technology company, she found herself "having the time of my life" and wondered whether she had "completely lost my mind? Or sold my soul?" Heffernan sees "women creating a new business order that places values at the heart of business, takes sustainability seriously, and recognizes that business is and always will be emotional." Eleven chapters are peppered with her own illustrative anecdotes and insights plus those of 63 career women representing a wide variety of positions and professions. These contain instructive descriptions of potential pitfalls and urgent advice, each one ending with a list of "Travel Thoughts" to keep in mind. Readers are told how to climb the corporate ladder, maintain a female identity, navigate toxic environments, see through common fallacies, acquire power, balance work with personal life, break into top management, assert autonomy, strike out on their own and reinvent a "parallel universe" of humanitarian alternatives. Nothing is new or told in a fresh way, but Heffernan delivers the catalogue of female careerist frustration succinctly and sympathetically.

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