Boise Division: Fill & Download for Free

Thank you for the A2A.The ceiling as originally envisioned was a de facto barrier to promotion when the written policy said there should be no barriers. Like redlining or the color bar. It is the actual practice versus the theoretical policy or written rules—coming smack against institutionalized racism or sexism.Although Hillary spoke of a million cracks in the glass ceiling, the ceiling is not a monolithic thing, nor is it something that shatters in its entirety when a single hole is punched in it.Like a glacier, the ceiling has retreated. In 1978 there were no CEOs or line managers in the F50 and few in the F500 (were there any?) who were not put their by husbands or inheritance or the equivalent a majority voting block of stock. In my own case, what precipitated the analysis was when I was reprimanded for applying for a level-9 position (Manufacturing Manager at Boise Division in that case) at HP. Since then HP had a female CEO and a level 9 is totally realistic.The ceiling is not a thing. It is an attitude. It is a way of find “one thing” that is used as the reasons for not promoting a woman or a racial minority person and using that as the reason and not the the actual fact they were passed over because they are a woman or a minority. That’s the “glass” part—a differentially permeable membrane white males pass through with ease but which filter out women and minorities.So we look at this in institutions. Are half the senators and half the House women? Are half the cabinet posts women? Are half the CEOs women? Are half the engineers women? Are half the people in STEM programs women? That’s where to look.Female doctors and lawyers and MBAs and CPAs have entered the schools that teach these professions. This means the ceiling has moved. When I entered Harvard in 1974 in the MBA program only 17% of the class was female. Today it is closer to half.(Above) The B-school circa 1970. Robin Wigger in a classroom.The woman who encouraged me to go into the MBA program, Barb Rieck-Morrow, told me when she enrolled in was only about a dozen women in the entire class, if memory serves. She told me about working in Japan and learning “male” style Japanese in order to communicate with Japanese businessmen—much to their shock. She said they when to the assignment where she had the highest pay, because her husband, also a Harvard MBA, could always get good paying work. That glass ceiling glacier has truly retreated.But like all forms of latent discrimination, it cannot be erased with one sweep law or even awareness. Discrimination is pernicious and can never be fully stamped out.So, will the ceiling break? It is a matter of drilling so many holes in it that the pieces of the ceiling that remain become irrelevant and uncompetitive with the brightest and best of women, minorities AND men going to the organizations that recognize excellence as the number one qualification and not the old boys network.We stand on the shoulders of a lot of women who cleared the way for the rest of us.

The original concept of glass ceiling was not envisioned as a “personal” barrier.The concept, as originally formulated, addressed an official (written) policy which states there will be no discrimination but in practice members of a minority (sex or race or ethnicity or religion or sexual preference etc.) never progress beyond a certain rank even though the individuals have met all the official job requirements.It is about institutional sexism, racism, intolerance, or disfavor of a minority or protected class. It applies to more to groups and not so much to individuals, but how people think of it has morphed over time.My own encounter was when, fresh out of Harvard with my MBA, in early 1977 I joined Hewlett-Packard, HP, at the Waltham Division—about 1000 employees. HP had salary rungs based on education and years of service. I got some credit for five years as a manufacturing and R&D engineer at DuPont prior to Harvard and that pegged me on the salary curve.Enough years have passed that I can be brutally frank—institutionally DuPont was a quantum level better engineering firm than HP and I came into HP at the 67 curve (a blend for engineering of the level six and seven) put me back a few years in actual responsibility.Stay with me, please.HP posted its openings on a Bulletin Board by the cafeteria that could be seen by all employees and I saw a Manufacturing Manager’s position at Boise Division and unaware that there was what I later would call the “glass ceiling,” I applied for the Boise Division both to get the actual position and also to demonstrate my ambition to take on more responsibility.What happened next knocked me six ways to Sunday.I was called in by my boss’s, boss’s, boss and told in no uncertain terms that i had transgressed. He was practically shouting at me and speaking in a way no member of DuPont Management would dream nor would any Harvard professor dress someone down as he did. My eyes fell out of their sockets. Why was this man almost screaming at me. “You applied for a level NINE position!”Ok?“Your manager has to nominate you for that level.”“It didn’t say so on the posting on the board.”“You think you're better than everyone else!”“Wha?” Arrogant Harvard MBA, I guess because next he started to give me a verbal account of his resume and what a hot-shot he was. Why was I being treated to this information?Remember his outburst is still painful and a bit confusing.The Waltham Division women (about 30+) had an informal network and we share information at these dinners—things like have great annual reviews, but all the women were in the lowest quartile of salaries and several not even ON the curve. Remember this is 1977 and the women’s movement was just starting and Harvard was a hotbed of women determined to make their marks in th management ranks.It was after one of this dinner Marianne Schriber and I stay at the restaurant. Marianne had given up her position as head of the ICU at the Mass General Hospital to come to HP and she had notice women at HP got only to the level of Manager. Men moved onto Director and up, but women hit the manager and “it’s manager, manager, manager.”“Yes it’s like this invisible barrier. Like a ceiling, but no one sees it because it’s made of glass.”So that’s the glass ceiling.Within a few years, Carly Fiorina[1] was made CEO of HP and the irony was she was parachuted into the position and did not come up through the career path laid out for me (and others) in which I had no right to participate according to my boss’s boss’s boss. It is a fact that many of us appreciated at the business school that promotions do not happen through the chain of command (especially when there’s a glass ceiling) but by leaving an organization and getting slotted in at a higher position in a different firm. Carly flew in over the glass ceiling into the top slot. While the first wave of women managers were “paying their dues,” younger and less experienced women were moving into the verdant fields.In more ironic, it was Carly who dismantled the famous HP Way which is a testament to the strength of the vision Bill and Dave had, (i.e. Hewlett and Packard). Say what you will of her, when Carly came in, its seems she shattered the HP glass ceiling, but good.As for me, I was long gone by then and ensconced in my midtown Manhattan window skyscraper office for a Japanese(!) firm, no less.The glass ceiling is usually not just one minority person getting ahead but a release of a class of individuals. One woman on the Supreme Court or in the US Congress is an oddity. Getting upwards of 25% is a break in any glass ceiling.When I was at Harvard, it was 14% female in the MBA program. Today it’s pretty close to 50%.(Above) CEO Katherine Lawrence bootstrapped her own tech startup through retained earnings and honored the HP Way in her own firm.After the recent US Congressional elections, women have made major inroads from both parties. The reason Hilary Clinton’s candidacy became so controversial was because it tested the firmness of the glass ceiling. Obama broke the ceiling for black people.Kennedy broke it for Catholics, yet only time will tell if it is a true break or just an oddity.So, most of our stories, if it is personally breaking the ceiling, it is about the personal. The true breaking of these ceilings is the systemic changes in society.Footnotes[1] Carly Fiorina - Wikipedia

It likely depends how far back you want to go when you say “previous generations,” especially when you say “delaying having children.” This option is only rather recent and only widely available in the last fifty years with the coming of The Pill.Marx said the workers must seize the means of production. What women have done steadily over the last hundred years is seize the means of reproduction.(Above) Debora Spar, President of Barnard College, takes an in-depth look into the changes in our society with the advances in reproductive technology and control over fertility.Harvard did a study of its female MBA graduates. Harvard did not have women in the MBA program, per se, until 1965. Before that it was a sort of “ladies MBA” which was the MBA with a Radcliffe affiliation, but in those times it was hard to admit women might wish to work as managers. The word “Cliffy” more or less vanished in the 1970s as Harvard and Radcliffe merged into just Harvard.The longitudinal retrospective study of Harvard women MBAs only (a limited population) broke roughly into three groups—the first wave starting in the 1960s, the second wave coming in the 1980s, the current (third) wave more less since the turn of this century.The third waves takes having time off for children almost for granted and this has been a cultural shift in most corporations. I am not sure if this study is available on line, but it was assembled by Robin Ely, a Professor at the Harvard Business School, HBS[1].Ely’s findings were surprising to many, myself included. The first wave sacrificed having a family to have a career more than the second two waves, though it stands to reason, The first wave was a “proof of concept.” Can women be reliably placed in management positions, or will they jump off the career track onto what was called “The Mommy Track,” thereby (in the employer’s view) self- sabotaging their upward mobility.Telling my own story. When I asked DuPont for an 18-month leave of absents to get an MBA from Harvard (I only asked once I was admitted) I received a royal tongue lashing from the Director of R&D of the Polymer Intermediates Department for requesting a “two-year vacation!” and what a waste of time it was. “We tried hiring some Harvard MBAs at DuPont and they just didn’t work out. In two-years here in your regular job” in R&D, “you’ll learn everything they’ll teach you in an MBA program.” I resigned.My first position out of Harvard was at Hewlett-Packard. Job openings were posted on bulletin boards, open to all to apply, and I applied for a Manufacturing Manager position at Boise Division. I promptly was called on the carpet and got reprimanded for seeking a position above my station—never mind my MBA specialization was technology management and I had five years of manufacturing experience at DuPont, a firm whose manufacturing expertise was head and shoulder above HP’s.These might sound like to whinny “ain’t it awful” tales of woe. My intent, however, is to paint a picture of the barriers almost all first-wave women experienced and the pressures put on that kindred to forgo family for career.It wasn’t unheard of to be asked during a job interview if you were married. “What does your husband do? If he gets transferred to another location, how will that affect your job? Are you planning to start a family? Are you on birth control? You know, a lot of men resent working for a woman—how will you handle that? We don’t want to set you up to fail. What will you do if you become pregnant?”Men are not asked questions along this line. “What if your wife is transferred? You know, a lot of older men resent working for a younger man—how will you handle that?”And if you don’t believe me, look up Mary Cunningham[2] who graduated with an HBS MBA two years after I did and the national scandal that her boss hired her to be VP of Human Resources at 32 years old, never mind the boss who hired her had years before been made VP of Manufacturing at the same corporation at 29-years old without any furor or national uproar.First wave women were window dressing and rarely hired for line management positions, meaning that they usually were staff. They were rarely in top positions unless their husbands willed them them controlling interest in the firm.It was only the second wave that truly started to penetrate the corporate echelons. The position I applied for in 1977 at HP and got called on the carpet for daring to apply now was in reach for women starting in the 1990s and for some fresh out of college. The proof of concept had been proved.The trouble was that for many who had been in their 20s and 30s in the 1970s, were now 20 years older and staring a family in your 40s and 50s is difficult for any number of reasons. And here is the dip in Ely’s findings that the first-wave who did not throw in the towel simply skipped having children. They were called DINKs behind their backs—dual income, no kids.Surely women reproductive control has made it possible to delay motherhood and regulate how many children a woman chooses to have. Today’s young woman might find it almost impossible to believe anyone would tell her it is not her right to decide.Women’s maternity leave has become part of the business world with many fathers also taking time off to be part of bring a new baby home and caring for the child for an extended period.Top jobs are open. Even DuPont and HP had female CEOs in recent years, and yet unless a person can get into the business realm, she cannot get traction to get to the point where she can take time off to have a child.Many women, such as myself, simply start their own companies like Hewlett and Packard did in their now famous garage—actually they started in kitchen whee they bake the first printed circuit boards, but that’s another story. I started my firm in a living room that took over the place until I had to get an office suite where knowledge workers collaborate. Today we’re virtual connected by Skype, Facetime, Go to Meeting and the like.And no one asks who’s pregnant and who’s not.Footnotes[1] HBS Working Knowledge[2] Mary Cunningham Agee - Wikipedia