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Rating: 
Summary: Definitely a worthwhile read!
Review: Based on years of research and practical experience of the 3 authors, Pat Heim, Susan Murphy and Susan Golant... I found this book to be a new and honest perspective on women's relationships. It has helped me in my professional role as well as my roles as a daughter, a sister and a friend. It is extremely insightful and provides real-life examples and effective suggestions on how to create and sustain positive relationships with women. I have already purchased more than 15 copies for colleagues and friends.
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Summary: We Can All Learn from this Book
Review: Heim, Murphy, and Golant have provided a well researched and documented book that will be useful to men working with women and women working with women. The authors have mixed facts with examples and practical tips. If you are looking for a well grounded, yet practical resources for understanding women in the work place here it is!! I have recommended this to managers, consultants and executive coaches.
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Summary: A real problem that needs to be addressed in another book
Review: I found myself nodding as I read some of the anecdotes in this book. Workplace conflict between women is an incredibly important topic, and it is the evil that cannot be named in PC corporate America. I was really disappointed in the advice the authors offered. Most of the undermining tactics in the anecdotes were quite damaging to the businesses in question, and not just to the women who were being attacked. The authors' suggestions? Be nice, be sensitive, try to do your own routine office tasks so as not to offend your female support staff or former coworkers. Appeasement seems to be the message. I do not think violations of a company code of conduct, or acting in ways that drive away customers are behaviors that need to be 'understood' and appeased. These behaviors need to be confronted directly, asked to stop, and documented. If they continues, there need to be consequences, and I don't think 'invoking the power-dead-even rule' really covers that. There should not be different standards of behavior for employees based on their sex. A newly promoted woman who spends her time on administrative tasks for fear of offending her female coworkers will have less time to spend on project deliverables and management, and risks losing her new position and reinforcing the idea that women cannot be effective supervisors or executives. I did not see many anecdotes about the beneficial alliances women form. I am left with the conclusion that most women in large corporations will have to make the difficult choice between being liked and being successful. I didn't see much constructive advice that would allow you to do both in the real world.
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Summary: I Didn't Want to Admit They Are Right--But They Are
Review: I'm a male supervisor with probably 85% out of a total 100 employees being female. You think I gotta problem? Well, I just read IN THE COMPANY OF WOMEN and I now believe that I have the missing information I desperately needed to make this organization run like a Swiss watch. I could never figure women out and spent nearly all my day handling petty problems (or at least what I thought were petty problems) and it cut down on my production not to mention the organization's production. This, guys, is what you need to read so that you can cut right through the BS and make everyone happy, or at least you'll know why they behave the way they do. There's even a chapter called "The Female Brain." The way I see it is that if a lot of women read this thing, they're going to have an unfair advantage over us guys when they start handing out the promotions. Why couldn't the authors just leave well enough alone and let the females in the office continue their self-destructive ways? They even included a list of books on self-esteem for further reading! This will be invaluable to male supervisors with female staff, but big problems for male staff who are competing with female co-workers for the boss' blessing.
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Summary: Valuable and authoritative information
Review: This book was recommended to me by a friend and I thank her very much. The authors have described processes that explain what I have observed, but couldn't quite understand, until reading this book. Why women have an incredible memory for hurts and injustices; why women can be so 'catty' amongst themselves; why women can talk so intimately and so easily with each other and with men... I could go on and on with the questions I've always had about women. Learning about the 'tend and befriend' hormone and about the Darwinian survival characteristics of many of these behaviors helps men (as well as women) understand and not personalize these inherent patterns. I especially appreciated the research citations and the sound scientific foundations of the authors' conclusions. I have recommended this book to a dozen people I know, and I think it's a worthwhile read for any adult who works with, is in a relationship with, or is a woman - and I guess that's everyone.
Rating:
Summary: Valuable and authoritative information
Review: This book was recommended to me by a friend and I thank her very much. The authors have described processes that explain what I have observed, but couldn't quite understand, until reading this book. Why women have an incredible memory for hurts and injustices; why women can be so 'catty' amongst themselves; why women can talk so intimately and so easily with each other and with men... I could go on and on with the questions I've always had about women. Learning about the 'tend and befriend' hormone and about the Darwinian survival characteristics of many of these behaviors helps men (as well as women) understand and not personalize these inherent patterns. I especially appreciated the research citations and the sound scientific foundations of the authors' conclusions. I have recommended this book to a dozen people I know, and I think it's a worthwhile read for any adult who works with, is in a relationship with, or is a woman - and I guess that's everyone.
Rating:
Summary: I Didn't Want to Admit They Are Right--But They Are
Review: When I picked up "In the Company of Women" to read, I was prepared to disagree with every single sentence. A female colleague had given it to me as a gift, saying that all her friends were reading it and having an "aha" experience -- they finally understood what was happening in their interactions with other women at work, with their friends, etc. I wasn't even going to read it, but when she told me that Harvard Business School had the book on its recommended list on its website, I decided to go ahead and at least start.
My fear was that the book would play into every stereotype we professional women have worked so hard to overcome -- reinforcing that all-too-widespread male view that we are emotional, bitchy "girls" just out to get each other. BOY WAS I WRONG! These authors have PhD's and years of experience in corporate America and they know their stuff. I was really impressed with the scholarship and research.
As I was reading I began to see all my friends and myself in the examples. We have all been sabotaged by other women in the workplace; we just didn't want to admit it. I didn't find the advice trite or counterproductive to business in the least --and I didn't find it to be overly focused on the issue itself so that I was left thinking "OK now what do I do?" The majority of the book is focused on solutions THAT WORK, and those solutions are very simple. I have been using them, and I can say with absolute confidence that my work environment is better for all of us -- men and women -- as a result.
We all deal with co-workers based on their personalities, level in the organization, work styles, etc. If I manage someone who isn't brilliant but who is really organized, good-natured, straightforward, and works well under pressure, then I will assign a different project (or in a different way), and with a different set of expectations about completion date, than if he or she is brilliant but disorganized, moody, and gets overwhelmed by pressure. Gender is simply one more factor to consider, but I never thought about it before because I wanted to think it doesn't matter. (Maybe a little leftover 1960's idealism at work-I don't know). But of course gender matters and I just didn't see it! (The rest of our bodies are different -- why wouldn't our brains be too?) That means their work styles are likely to be different too. But as the authors point out, that's not a liability that's a PLUS. I was especially impressed with the biological research Heim and Murphy cite to show how these gender differences are hard-wired --that women's brains are different than men's. I also found the evolutionary and primate studies to be a real eye-opener.
I was prepared to hate this book because I thought it was would be "pop psychology" at its worst. Instead, it's groundbreaking psychology at its best. "In the Company of Women" gives all the scientific, rational explanations and solutions that make it safe for all of us to talk about the problem. It has intense scholarly research combined with "real-world" experience, and solutions, solutions, solutions. Otherwise, women don't want to talk about it for fear of reinforcing that "bitchy girls" stereotype, and men don't want to talk about it because they don't want to appear sexist. If we don't start dealing with the issue, we ALL lose, both in and out of the workplace!
The authors' solutions may seem simple at times, but in my experience the simplest solutions are the most effective ones. I just bought copies to send to my best old college friends as well as to my daughters, and I sent the Harvard Business School review to about 20 other professional women. I am also making the book "required reading" for everybody who reports to me. I hate to be wrong, but it made me realize that women AND men are shooting themselves in the foot by doing what I was doing -- NOT ADMITTING THAT THE PROBLEM EXISTS.
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Summary: The Test Results Are In
Review: When I saw that John Gray and Anson Dorrance as well as Patricia Schroeder and Susan Estrich had endorsed this book, I was curious to read it. I AM GRATEFUL THAT I DID!! This book is different from any book I've read. It shows why women behave as they do and then gives clear strategies for resolving conflict, bulding a team and being an effective leader. Many thanks for helping men understand the world of women. Every man and woman should read it.
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