CHAPTER TWELVE
The Memo Every Woman Keeps in Her Desk
by Kathleen Reardon
AUTHOR’S NOTE: When I wrote “The Memo Every Woman Keeps in Her Desk” in 1993 it was generally thought that men rising in the workforce at that time would be far more comfortable working beside women than their fathers had been.
I wrote the case study to reflect what I saw at the time—that women directly competing with men for jobs was easier to accept in theory than in reality, especially at senior levels. And while it wasn’t acceptable in most organizations to overtly voice objections to women’s promotions simply because of gender, that did not mean such feelings no longer existed. With regard to gender equity, the job was far from done in 1993 and remains far from done now.
Of course, there have been many positive changes in the last 25 years. The overall pay gap has narrowed somewhat. Increasingly, there are efforts to recruit women to the fields of science, math, and engineering. Women are seeking graduate degrees in higher numbers than ever before and are very well represented among successful entrepreneurs.
But despite these and other positive changes, the memo case has stayed surprisingly relevant. It did not focus on sexual harassment or assault but rather on a young woman’s intention to inform her CEO of an atmosphere in their workplace that slowly eroded a “woman’s sense of worth and place.” The case posed several questions still faced today. Should a woman tell her CEO about issues creating a hostile work culture for her and other female employees? Should she do so alone? What is the right way to word and convey such a message? What are the risks? Is it likely that a male CEO will listen and appreciate such unsolicited input?
In the light of the #MeToo movement, a woman’s decision to speak up may seem less risky now, especially about issues relatively low on the spectrum of gender-based offenses. But is that the case? Or do we still have a long way to go before women can share their experiences with confidence that their observations and courage will not only be welcomed but lead to significant change?
—Kathleen Reardon, January 2018
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is a fictionalized case study that appeared in Harvard Business Review along with commentary from experts.
What kind of advice was I going to give Liz Ames, my pal from the good old days when we worked together in market development at Vision Software? Liz and I had been through a lot together, from working for an egomaniac who was finally fired to laying the groundwork for the biggest product launch in the company’s history. We always seemed to understand each other’s thoughts, and those Friday nights unwinding at the tavern made it possible for both of us to face work again Monday morning. We both had come a long way at Vision, and we were genuinely glad to see the other succeed. When I got the marketing director position in Germany, Liz was the first to congratulate me.
When we met for dinner the first night of the annual marketing retreat, I was ready to tell Liz all about my first six months on the new job, but she made it clear from the start that she had something urgent to discuss. She needed me to help her out of a dilemma, and she said my perspective as a man would be helpful. She had written a memo to John Clark, Vision’s CEO, complaining about sexism at the company. Now she was agonizing over whether to send it. Liz seldom raised the subject of sexism, but she had written the memo because she thought it was time that someone at the top knew what was really going on at the company—in the trenches, as she put it.
She had no doubt that the message was important. But she did have doubts about how it would be received and about the fate of the messenger. She wanted me, her most trusted friend at Vision and a man, to help her decide what to do.
“In an ideal world,” she said, “I wouldn’t have any second thoughts about sending it. But you know what can happen to messengers. If Clark likes what I have to say, there’s no problem. But then, there are the other possibilities.”
“You’ve never been afraid to speak your mind. What’s the worst that could happen?” I asked.
“Clark isn’t going to fire me, if that’s what you mean. But I can think of several ways this thing could backfire. What if Clark doesn’t believe me, or he just can’t relate to what I’m saying? He’ll dismiss me as a radical feminist or a chronic complainer. Word will get around, and my career at Vision will be over. Or maybe he won’t respond at all. It’ll be one more example of not being heard. I don’t know if I have the mental energy for that.”
At first I thought Liz was being melodramatic, but as we talked I could see that to her, the decision was a turning point. She knew that ultimately she had to take responsibility for whatever decision she made, but she wanted my perspective. Reluctantly, I promised to use the memo as bedtime reading and get back to her in the morning. So there I sat with the memo in my lap, the hotel lamp glaring off the neatly typed pages.
Liz’s memo seemed reasonable and compelling. Wouldn’t Clark be grateful to hear from someone in the trenches? He liked to boast about the company’s progressive policies toward diversity, and this would give him a chance to renew the crusade. He’d respect Liz for taking his commitment seriously.
But then again, Clark had an ego. Maybe he’d resent the implication that the company is not what he professes it to be. And, of course, it wasn’t John Clark whom Liz had to face every day. Not all of Liz’s male colleagues would give her criticisms any credence. And if they heard that she was writing to the boss complaining about them, they would shut her out. I had to admit, I could imagine that happening.
From: Elizabeth C. Ames,
Director of Consumer Marketing
Date: March 8, 1993
I’ve been working in the marketing department at Vision Software for more than ten years, where I’ve had my share of challenges and successes. I’ve enjoyed being part of an interesting and exciting company. Despite my general enthusiasm about the company and my job, however, I was taken aback when I received your memo announcing the resignations of Mariam Blackwell and Susan French, Vision’s two most senior women. This is not the first time Vision has lost its highest-ranking women. Just nine months ago, Kathryn Hobbs resigned, and a year before that, it was Suzanne LaHaise. The reasons are surprisingly similar: They wanted to “spend more time with their families” or “explore new career directions.”
I can’t help but detect a disturbing pattern. Why do such capable, conscientious women who have demonstrated intense commitment to their careers suddenly want to change course or spend more time at home? It’s a question I’ve thought long and hard about.
Despite Vision’s policies to hire and promote women and your own efforts to recognize and reward women’s contributions, the overall atmosphere in this company is one that slowly erodes a woman’s sense of worth and place. I believe that top-level women are leaving Vision Software not because they are drawn to other pursuits but because they are tired of struggling against a climate of female failure. Little things that happen daily—things many men don’t even notice and women can’t help but notice—send subtle messages that women are less important, less talented, less likely to make a difference than their male peers.
Let me try to describe what I mean. I’ll start with meetings, which are a way of life at Vision and one of the most devaluing experiences for women. Women are often talked over and interrupted; their ideas never seem to be heard. Last week, I attended a meeting with ten men and one other woman. As soon as the woman started her presentation, several side conversations began. Her presentation skills were excellent, but she couldn’t seem to get people’s attention. When it was time to take questions, one man said dismissively, “We did something like this a couple of years ago, and it didn’t work.” She explained how her ideas differed, but the explanation fell on deaf ears. When I tried to give her support by expressing interest, I was interrupted.
But it’s not just meetings. There are many things that make women feel unwelcome or unimportant. One department holds its biannual retreats at a country club with a “men only” bar. At the end of the sessions, the men typically hang around at the bar and talk, while the women quietly disappear. Needless to say, important information is often shared during those casual conversations.
Almost every formal meeting is followed by a series of informal ones behind closed doors. Women are rarely invited. Nor are they privy to the discussions before the formal meetings. As a result, they are often less likely to know what the boss has on his mind and therefore less prepared to react.
My female colleagues and I are also subjected to a daily barrage of seemingly innocent comments that belittle women. A coworker of mine recently boasted about how much he respects women by saying, “My wife is the wind beneath my wings. In fact, some people call me Mr. Karen Snyder.” The men chuckled; the women didn’t. And just last week, a male colleague stood up at 5:30 and jokingly informed a group of us that he would be leaving early: “I have to play mom tonight.” Women play mom every night, and it never gets a laugh. In fact, most women try to appear devoid of concern about their families.
Any one of these incidents on its own is a small thing. But together and in repetition, they are quite powerful. The women at Vision fight to get their ideas heard and to crack the informal channels of information. Their energy goes into keeping up, not getting ahead, until they just don’t have any more to give.
I can assure you that my observations are shared by many women in the company. I can only speculate that they were shared by Mariam Blackwell and Susan French.
Vision needs men and women if it is to become the preeminent educational software company. We need to send stronger, clearer signals that men are not the only people who matter. And this kind of change can work only if it starts with strong commitment at the top. That’s why I’m writing to you. If I can be of help, please let me know.
Did the consequences of sending the memo really matter? Wasn’t there a principle involved? I knew that the stonewalling Liz had referred to was real. I’d witnessed it myself over the years. Liz was one of the most positive and energetic people I knew, but I remember several times when she was so strung out from having to prove herself to men who constantly challenged her authority that she was ready to quit. That would have been a serious loss of experience. She knew how to work with educators better than anyone I knew, and her impeccable follow-up was largely responsible for the success of the Vision II product line that now represents 20% of Vision’s revenues.
But men were under pressure too. Maybe it just took a different form. Vision was a tough place, and marketing was the toughest department. Many times, I was tempted to pack it in myself. I’d seen a lot of men fail and a lot of women succeed at Vision. Take Mariam Blackwell. She fit Vision’s corporate culture like a glove. If she wasn’t heard the first time, she’d say it again. I think she left because she ran out of challenges, not because her psychic energy had been depleted. Susan French left because they gave her a VP title but removed the decision-making authority of her male predecessors—something Liz had not mentioned in her memo.
As I wrestled with the issues Liz raised, I realized that her dilemma had become a dilemma for me. If I advised Liz to send the memo, was I being naive about the consequences she might suffer? If I told her not to send it, was I somehow condoning the behavior she described? If I suggested that women were not the only ones who were sometimes run aground by Vision’s demanding environment, was I being insensitive? If I don’t buy into it, does that mean that I just don’t get it?
What would I tell Liz?
Should Liz Send the Memo?
Richard D. Glovsky is the former chief of the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office in Boston. He is the founder of Boston-based Glovsky & Associates, a law firm that specializes in employment law.
I would advise Liz not to send the memo at this time. A vigilant CEO would not have permitted this kind of discriminatory work environment to evolve in the first place. In short, the issues with which Liz is concerned would not exist at Vision unless Clark tacitly allowed them to develop. Clark cannot be trusted with Liz’s message.
Instead of sending it, Liz should marshal her resources. She should speak with Mariam Blackwell, Susan French, Kathryn Hobbs, and Suzanne LaHaise to ascertain whether they have similar observations and would support her publicly. Liz also should talk to other women at Vision who can be trusted to maintain her confidence.
She should not “go it alone,” especially when addressing a man more likely to be unreceptive than sympathetic. If Liz can get support (and statements) from other women who will corroborate her claims, she may be able to force Clark to do what is proper: review the employment environment at Vision and address Liz’s issues on a companywide basis.
Finally, if Liz decides to take her message to Clark, she should either see him in person with as many other credible colleagues she can collect or send a memo signed by several Vision employees.
At a meeting, she should not be the only person to speak. Liz and her colleagues should divide the presentation so that no one person is the messenger. Clark will have a tendency to be vengeful and will focus on the leader of the group.
Unfortunately, because Clark may not react positively to the memo, Liz must use a more calculated and broad-based approach.
Philip A. Marineau is executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Quaker Oats Company, Chicago, Illinois.
My advice is to send the memo. Sure, it’s a risk. But not sending it will lead only to greater frustration—and eventually Liz will resign anyway. Chances are the CEO is already alarmed about the loss of his top two women executives and is wondering what he can do to prevent others from leaving. If he’s smart, he’ll not only listen to Liz’s concerns but also make her a part of the search for solutions.
It’s been my experience that listening to bright, committed employees throughout the company—regardless of gender, race, or level of experience—is one of the most important aspects of my job. It’s the best way for me to identify situations that need more resources or attention from management.
Working with Quaker’s Diversity Council, which includes staff members from a variety of demographic backgrounds and represents all divisions and levels, I have come to realize that pursuing traditional methods of developing future managers will not itself increase diversity significantly at the highest levels.
I am convinced that in order to ensure a better future, changes must begin with those at the top of the corporation. We’ve created a task force whose charge is to develop specific recommendations for ways in which Quaker can identify, nurture, retain, and advance women and minority executives. To make this work, we will have to set measurable goals, carefully and continuously monitor our progress, reward those managers who successfully carry out this mandate, and penalize those who don’t. As a consumer products company, our guiding marketing principle is to stay close to our customers. To be successful, our internal policies and the makeup of our top management must reflect this principle as well. In the best interests of their company’s future, Vision Software’s senior executives should follow suit.
Jay M. Jackman, MD, is a private-practice psychiatrist in Stanford, California, and a consultant for organizational change, with a particular interest in the “glass ceiling.”
Myra H. Strober is a labor economist at the School of Education at Stanford University and a consultant on issues of employment of women and minorities.
As any good mountaineer will tell you, a successful ascent requires a good deal of preparation: choosing fellow climbers, ensuring team conditioning, assembling first-rate equipment, and hiring experienced guides. Raising issues of sexism with the CEO of a corporation requires similar preparation. Liz definitely should discuss the issues of gender stonewalling at Vision Software with Clark but not alone, not yet, and not by memo.
If the Dinosaur Won’t Change…
Over the last 20 years, the percentage of women business owners has grown from 5% to over 30% and is still rising. By the end of 1992, more people will work in companies owned by women than will work in the Fortune 500. Liz helps us see why. If the dinosaur won’t change, it will become extinct.
After years of banging heads against glass ceilings, huge numbers of women are realizing that learning how to dress, getting the right degrees, and struggling to fit in are essentially fruitless exercises. Of a certain age and self-awareness, women who are weary of trying to adapt to environments in which they are not welcome are leaving to create companies that fit them. The woman who feels strongly enough to write a memo is in the process of breaking with an unfriendly culture. Whether she sends it or not is unimportant—the process of alienation has begun. And if she chooses not to spend another calorie of energy teaching lessons that companies have had over two decades to learn—and are in their own best interests—that is her prerogative.
In fact, the Harvard Business School itself has documented the case of a woman whose ideas were rejected as “not workable” in a corporation. She eventually left that company and went on to start not one, but two highly successful companies (“Ruth M. Owades,” HBS 9-383-051, revised Feb. 1985). Tired of sending memos and sounding alarms, women are taking charge of their lives. What the leadership of the company does to address its workforce challenges will spell the survival or extinction of the company, regardless of whether Liz’s memo is ever sent.
Joline Godfrey is the founder and director of An Income of Her Own, a company that specializes in entrepreneurial education for teenage women, and author of Our Wildest Dreams: Women Making Money, Having Fun, Doing Good (Harper Business, New York).
Liz should not underestimate the difficulty of the mountain she has set out to climb. The undermining of women in the workplace is both common and difficult to change. It stems from a complicated interaction of men’s beliefs and behaviors, women’s beliefs and behaviors, the structures and procedures set up by companies, and the ways in which we organize and run our families. That the behaviors Liz cites have gone on for at least ten years without the CEO’s notice (hardly an uncommon situation) underscores the difficulty of change. At the moment, the CEO is part of the problem; Liz’s task is to make him part of the solution—no mean feat.
Liz needs to assemble allies: other women in the company, perhaps even some who have left, possibly certain members of the board, or men in the company. Single-handedly attempting to change Clark’s views is as foolhardy as attempting a solo alpine ascent. Also, Liz needs to strengthen the case to be presented to Clark. She needs more than the “anecdotes” she cites in her memo and must give Clark concrete reasons why women are leaving the company, not just speculation.
Liz also must talk with experts. There are many academics and consultants who help women and companies understand the dynamics behind sexist practices and work with them toward change. Successfully approaching a CEO about alleviating sexism—a process that ultimately will require major changes in corporate culture and structure—needs expert guidance.
Finally, we would urge Liz, with one or two people from the group she assembles, to talk to Clark in person rather than sending a memo. At the moment, she has no idea where he stands on the subject of sexism. In a meeting, she can observe when he gets defensive, test his willingness to cooperate, and suggest incremental changes that he is likely to back. Women with ten years of experience in a corporation are precious assets; as they move to improve the system for women in general, they should not sacrifice themselves.
Gloria Steinem is a founder and consulting editor of Ms. magazine. She also travels widely as a feminist speaker and organizer. She is the author of Revolution from Within (Little, Brown).
Unless Liz is in imminent danger of hunger or homelessness, I would advise her to send the memo. If she doesn’t, she is not only acting against her own and other women’s long-term interest but also failing to give her company her best advice.
Overcoming the Culture of Exclusion
Liz Ames’s dilemma raises a larger issue that permeates corporate life: How is it that we have created institutions in which people are afraid to express the truth as they see it? Bhopal, Three Mile Island, and the Ford Pinto all were preceded by memos unsent or unread.
Vision Software is losing out because it operates in a culture of exclusion. The company has suffered and will continue to suffer, both internally and in the marketplace, because it refuses to look clearly at itself. If it cannot intelligently reveal its own inner workings in a way that is collaborative and supportive of its members, then it defies its own mission to produce educational software. The company’s mission, and Liz’s challenge, is to absorb information from the environment and incorporate that information into an evolving system, whether it be a human being or a corporation—that is what learning is all about.
If we are to re-create our corporate organizations so that they become more socially and environmentally responsible, business will have to learn from nature. All living systems depend on constant feedback loops that recalibrate the organism’s relationship to life around it. Vision’s corporate culture appears to accept only feedback loops that reinforce maladaptive behavior such as sexist or exclusionary practices.
For that reason Liz has to send her memo. Her career, after all, does depend on it. Maybe not her career within the context of Vision Software—particularly if it is read in an unsympathetic light—but her life goal. Liz has to remember that she set out not only to bring home a paycheck but also to express her own values and qualities in the commercial arena.
If she doesn’t file the memo, Liz will be left with the new dilemma of subordinating her own wisdom and sense of self to a system that is not fully functional. She will have an aborted sense of her own value, an acute loss in a world that is crying out for more value to be added to it. If business is about adding value, then what better place to find it than within ourselves.
Paul Hawken is the author of The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins, September 1993). He is the founder of Smith & Hawken, a catalog company known for its environmental initiatives, but is no longer affiliated with the company.
With that in mind, I would also change the memo’s tone. Right now, it has a tone of apology and includes no reference at all to the company’s goals. Liz should make a case for Vision Software to choose a self-interested path toward inclusiveness for the long-term benefit of the company’s employees—and its bottom line.
I would advise her to write the memo with the same enthusiasm she would express if she were telling her boss about a new technology that could put Vision ahead of its competitors. Because that is exactly what she’s doing: discovering a new technology. Just because it’s a “soft” technology of human resources rather than one relating to inanimate objects doesn’t mean her discoveries are less important. Indeed, they may be further-reaching and more important. Liz can underscore this by using such “hard” facts as company and industrywide statistics on the cost of losing a trained executive. The goal here is to help the boss see his female employees’ problems as his own and thus their solution as his victory. Empathy is the most revolutionary emotion.
What’s interesting about this case study, however, is that Liz’s male colleague never raises the question of whether he should cosign the memo. Or whether he should offer to support it with one of his own. Or whether he might join her in asking one or more supportive colleagues—male or female—to become part of this process.
These unaddressed options are symbolic of the ways in which sexism is regarded as the problem of women—just as racism is regarded as the problem of people of color—when in fact, those problems limit everyone. Until the more powerful own the responsibility for prejudice, it will continue to cripple us all.
Reprinted from Harvard Business Review, March–April 1993 (product #93209).