What if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters?
This is the title of a Harvard Business Review article that I read this afternoon. The author, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, cites data presented at the World Economic Forum/Harvard Kennedy school implies that women are “more trustworthy, risk averse, and altruistic, at least in the sense of negotiating more effectively for other people than for themselves.”
How might the economy be different if women were better represented at executive levels of financial institutions? What keeps women from achieving in finance?
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It’s the ‘altruistic’ bit. Finance is cutthroat.
Women are completely overrunning the public relations industry, though.
The last CFO (or one of the last) of Lehman Brothers was a woman. It’s not a matter of gender, it’s a matter of greed and lack of controls.
For all womankind’s foolish girlishness, it is of some comfort that women generally don’t get too embroiled, not openly nor actively anyway, in the kind of wickedness that seems to come naturally to menfolk. Put it this way, if there were a Hell it would be overwhelmingly populated with men. Like a maximum security Prison, or a Mexican shit hole of a lock up.
It’s odd, but ‘Lehman Sisters’ just doesn’t evoke the same mental image. Not that I had much of one for ‘Lehman Brothers.’
@mammal Everybody meets Hell’s eligibility requirements pretty early on. It has nothing to do with how good you are, or even, really, how good you are not.
@Nullo lol, really, so what are the entry requirements?
@mammal as an atheist who does not believe in hell, why ask about the entry requirements? Is it just to be in conflict with someone? Whatever he tells you, you already disagree, so why bother talking about the finer points?
I’m sure you already know he’s probably referring to scripture; ”...for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God…”
Why not just leave it alone? Do you really like fruitless arguments that much? Or do you just want to be able to go tell your friends “so then I told him…” whatever.
@BarnacleBill Sorry, back to your original Q… I’ve read some interesting stuff about how the “female” way of conducting business actually works better in the global market, as they are more concerned with nurturiung relationships in the long term, and matches very well with the cultural nrms of other countries with which we are trying to do business.
@Trillian i’m not an atheist, so i don’t understand your point, and i was genuinely being curious rather than mischievous. well, maybe a little mishevious.
They would be (are) thieves no matter the gender.
Nothing would be different in terms of greed and control.
@Simone_De_Beauvoir – I think socialization make women somewhat less greedy than men, leaving prenatal hormones out of this debate.
@mattbrowne – I was considering a society where that wasn’t the case.
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