Female Supremacy Articles - Page 21

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Cecilia McCloy’s ISSI geological business or Carol Latham’s Thermagon--both Inc. 500 companies--sprang into being when the women's employers ignored them. What business today can afford to lose this level of innovation? We struggle to drive higher levels of creativity and develop intrapreneurs within our companies, but we might do better to stop expelling the entrepreneurs among us. These innovators may be different, but there isn’t a company in the world that can afford to waste their talent.

The second theme--wanting control of one’s life--is also crucial. Almost 60% of women say they have no flexibility about when they start and end their days, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research. Their resistance to this state of affairs (Harvard University’s Larry Summers notwithstanding) has nothing to do with not being willing to work hard. You don’t get results like ISSI’s 400% growth rate over three years by slacking off. Women work very hard, they just don’t necessarily want to work a rigid schedule.

I’ve spent years talking to women who own businesses sustaining double- and triple-digit growth. Most of them have children. And while they may work weird hours, they are highly productive. As Doreen Marks, CEO of Otis Technologies (the holder of some 140 patents) remarked, “It doesn’t really matter which 80 hours you work.”