As Leaders, Women Rule

New studies find that female managers outshine their male counterparts in almost every measure.

Twenty-five years after women first started pouring into the labor force--and trying to be more like men in every way, from wearing power suits to picking up golf clubs--new research is showing that men ought to be the ones doing more of the imitating. In fact, after years of analyzing what makes leaders most effective and figuring out who's got the Right Stuff, management gurus now know how to boost the odds of getting a great executive: Hire a female.

That's the essential finding of a growing number of comprehensive management studies conducted by consultants across the country for companies ranging from high-tech to manufacturing to consumer services. By and large, the studies show that women executives, when rated by their peers, underlings, and bosses, score higher than their male counterparts on a wide variety of measures--from producing high-quality work to goal-setting to mentoring employees. Using elaborate performance evaluations of execs, researchers found that women got higher ratings than men on almost every skill measured. Ironically, the researchers weren't looking to ferret out gender differences. They accidentally stumbled on the findings when they were compiling hundreds of routine performance evaluations and then analyzing the results.

The gender differences were often small, and men sometimes earned higher marks in some critical areas, such as strategic ability and technical analysis. But overall, female executives were judged more effective than their male counterparts. ''Women are scoring higher on almost everything we look at,'' says Shirley Ross, an industrial psychologist who helped oversee a study performed by Hagberg Consulting Group in Foster City, Calif. Hagberg conducts in-depth performance evaluations of senior managers for its diverse clients, including technology, health care, financial-service, and consumer-goods companies. Of the 425 high-level executives evaluated, each by about 25 people, women execs won higher ratings on 42 of the 52 skills measured.

The growing body of new research comes at a time when talent-hungry recruiters are scrambling to find execs who can retain workers and who can excel in the smaller bureaucracies of New Economy companies. Women think through decisions better than men, are more collaborative, and seek less personal glory, says the head of IBM's Global Services Div., Douglas Elix, who hired two managers within this year--both women. Instead of being motivated by self-interest, women are more driven by ''what they can do for the company,'' Elix says. Adds Harvard Business School Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of the 20-year-old management classic, Men and Women of the Corporation: ''Women get high ratings on exactly those skills needed to succeed in the global Information Age, where teamwork and partnering are so important.''

It's no surprise, then, that some executives say they're beginning to develop a new hiring bias. If forced to choose between equally qualified male and female candidates for a top-level job, they say they often pick the woman--not because of affirmative action or any particular desire to give the female a chance but because they believe she will do a better job. ''I would rather hire a woman,'' says Anu Shukla, who sold her Internet marketing-software company Rubric Inc. earlier this year for $390 million. ''I know I'm going to get a certain quality of work, I know I'm going to get a certain dedication,'' she says, quickly adding that she's fully aware that not all women execs excel. Similarly, Brent Clark, CEO of Grand Rapids-based Pell Inc., the nation's largest foot-care chain, says he would choose a woman over a man, too. Women are more stable, he says, less turf-conscious, and better at ''all sorts of intangibles that can help an organization.''

But if women are so great, why aren't more of them running the big companies? Thousands of talented women now graduate from business schools and hold substantive middle-management jobs at major corporations--45% of all managerial posts are held by females, according to the Labor Dept. Yet only two of the nation's 500 biggest companies have female CEOs: Hewlett-Packard Co.'s Carly Fiorina and Avon Products' Andrea Jung. And of the 1,000 largest corporations, only six are run by women.

UNREWARDED. For one thing, there's still a pipeline problem: Most women get stuck in jobs that involve human resources or public relations--posts that rarely lead to the top. At the same time, female managers' strengths have long been undervalued, and their contributions in the workplace have gone largely unnoticed and unrewarded. Companies are now saying they want the skills women typically bring to the job, but such rhetoric doesn't always translate into reality. Some businesses view women only as workhorses, well-suited for demanding careers in middle management but not for prime jobs. These undercurrents of bias in Corporate America infuriate many women, who then bail out rather than navigate unsupportive terrain. ''They're doing the work, but they don't make it to the top,'' says Lyn Andrews, president of WebMD Health, a consumer unit of WebMD Corp. in New York. Many start their own companies, while others seek a different work/family balance than many corporations offer. There are now more than 9 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., double the number 12 years ago.

The new studies offer some clues about why the cultural mismatch between women and large companies persists and why it's so critical to keep women on board. What makes the new research more compelling than other such data is that it is based on results culled from executives' actual performance evaluations rather than on opinion surveys or experiments that simulate business situations.

Because the participants had no idea that their evaluations would end up as part of a study on gender, the data are untainted, says Janet Irwin, a California management consultant who conducted one of the studies. ''We were startled by the results,'' she says.

Irwin and her colleagues discovered that women ranked higher than men on 28 of 31 measures. Irwin was stunned by women's consistently high ratings and how the scores defied conventional wisdom. Contrary to stereotypes, women outperformed men in all kinds of intellectual areas, such as producing high-quality work, recognizing trends, and generating new ideas and acting on them. ''Women's strengths are stronger than men's,'' says Irwin, ''and their weaknesses are not as pronounced.''

Several other studies showed similar patterns. Personnel Decisions International, a consulting firm in Minneapolis, looked at a huge sample--58,000 managers--and found that women outranked men in 20 of 23 areas. Larry Pfaff, a Michigan management consultant, examined evaluations from 2,482 executives from a variety of companies and found that women outperformed men on 17 of 20 measures.

Some of the researchers draw different conclusions, though, arguing that the research shows that women executives are equally effective as their male counterparts but not necessarily superior. While women score better, and the scores are statistically significant, says Susan Gebelein, executive vice-president of Personnel Decisions, those differences don't mean much in the real world. Why? Because the consulting firm has tested so many thousands of people, which can make minor differences appear more important than they really are. Women have always outscored men in such evaluations, says Gebelein, whose company began looking at gender differences in 1984. And they score highest at the most male-dominated companies because, she surmises, of the type of woman who succeeds in such environments--someone who must be superior in every way.

Robert Kabacoff, a vice-president at Management Research Group in Portland, Me., also wondered if women were getting higher test scores in these studies for reasons other than gender. They might have rated higher because they weren't being compared with men holding similar jobs, he suggests. Managers of human-resources departments often get rated higher on people skills than other supervisors, for instance. If the majority of female managers in a study work in human resources, vs. only a minority of males, the results may have more to do with job than gender.

MISUNDERSTOOD. To eliminate such potential distortions, Kabacoff conducted a differently designed study in 1998. He compared male and female managers who worked at the same companies, held similar jobs, were at the same management level, and had the same amount of supervisory experience. When he examined 1,800 supervisors in 22 management skills, he found that women outranked men on about half of the measures. Female managers were graded more effective by peers and subordinates, but bosses still judged men and women equally competent as leaders. ''Men and women seem to be doing roughly equally effective jobs, but they approach their jobs differently,'' says Kabacoff.

Certainly, many women managers are keenly aware that they inhabit a different reality at the office than men. Nancy Hawthorne, former chief financial officer at Continental Cablevision Inc., who is now a consultant, says she often felt her bosses ''wondered what the heck I was doing.'' At meetings, she often allowed subordinates to explain the details of ongoing projects. She felt her role was to delegate tasks to people around her to help them be more effective. ''I was being traffic cop and coach and facilitator,'' she said. ''I was always into building a department that hummed.''

And sometimes, women say, they were badgered about using the very skills the research found so valuable. Sandra Kiely, managing director and chief administrative officer at National City Investment Management Co. in Cleveland, recalls that one of her bosses at National City Bank warned that her management style would hurt her career. ''You should be looking out for yourself, not your people,'' he advised her.

Everyone knows that women have long excelled at teamwork, but getting results was one of the categories in which women earned their highest marks in these studies. Jackie Streeter, Apple Computer Inc.'s ( AAPL) vice-president for engineering, says she has repeatedly volunteered to shift dozens of employees out of her division because she felt they would better fit into a different department--a move that she says ''startled'' her male colleagues. ''It's not the size of your organization that counts but the size of the results you get,'' says Streeter, who has 350 people working for her.

Women are also more likely to disregard as a useless power trip another long-held management bugaboo: keeping information tightly controlled. ''It's better to overcommunicate,'' says Shukla, whose Web startup, Rubric, made 65 of her 85 employees millionaires. Rather than dispensing information on a need-to-know basis, she made sure information was shared with all of her employees. She also created the CEO lunch, inviting six to eight employees at a time to discuss the business with her.

CARING WORKS. Companies can also undercut women's strengths in another, often inadvertent way: by assuming that people skills are not business skills. In fact, they are inextricable, argues Joyce Fletcher, a professor at Simmons Graduate School of Management in Boston and author of Disappearing Acts: Gender, Power, and Relational Practice at Work. Employees who feel cared about by their bosses or are inspired by them often produce higher-quality work, consultants say. And supervisors who know how to deal with conflict get better results.

Women have been doing this kind of work for years, but their behavior is often devalued because their intentions are misunderstood, says Fletcher. A woman who takes the time to talk to an employee about a meeting he has missed, for instance, might simply be considered a nice person--not someone trying to make sure that the staff has enough information to make an important decision. Her business actions become invisible, since the staff attributes her behavior to just being kind.

Similarly, duties such as coaching and keeping people informed are often taken as a given. But these tasks can actually be the invisible glue that holds a company together, which, until the 360-degree feedback evaluation came along, rarely got examined. ''It's like somebody doing your laundry,'' says Hawthorne, the former Continental Cablevision exec. ''You rely on them to have clean clothes,'' but the work is ''invisible when it's done well.'' Because ''the guys are into glamour,'' says National City's Kiely, women often end up in charge of difficult and unglamorous tasks such as performance reviews.

Kiely bristles at some research that concluded that women aren't perceived as strategic or vision-oriented. Her strategy, she says, is to make people think something is their idea so she can get them to buy into a plan.

Another potential trap: Women's biggest strengths can also become their biggest weaknesses, says Vivian Eyre, a New York management consultant. By working so hard to get great results, they often take away time from building critical business alliances. ''Given the opportunity to stay in their offices and make sure their report is perfect or going out of their office and talking to Joe about his business, women are more likely to do their own work,'' says Eyre.

What's more, she adds, women still suffer from a lack of mentoring and being kept outside informal networks of communication. Many women admit that because they spend so much time focusing on getting results, they don't think enough about strategy and vision--qualities that Harvard's Kanter says are still the most important in a top executive. ''If women are seen as only glorified office facilitators but not as tough-minded risk-takers,'' says Kanter, ''they will be held back from the CEO jobs.''

In the end, it takes a lot more than competence to make it to the top. Getting the best performance evaluations in the company's history may not be nearly enough. ''When you actually sit down in a selection committee to choose the CEO, lots of subtle assumptions come into play,'' said Deborah Merrill Sands, co-director of Simmons' Center on Gender & Organization. Companies may say they want collaborative leaders, but they still hold deep-seated beliefs that top managers need to be heroic figures. Interpersonal skills may be recognized as important, she said, but they aren't explicitly seen as corner-office skills. ''We are in the process of changing our concepts of leadership,'' she says. ''But organizations haven't evolved that much yet.''

In fact, Kabacoff has just finished a new study showing how CEOs and corporate boards view upper management, and he found a clear double standard. Male CEOs and senior vice-presidents got high marks from their bosses when they were forceful and assertive and lower scores if they were cooperative and empathic. The opposite was true for women: Female CEOs got downgraded for being assertive and got better scores when they were cooperative. Kabacoff's conclusion? ''At the highest levels, bosses are still evaluating people in the most stereotypical ways.'' That means that even though women have proven their readiness to lead companies into the future, they're not likely to get a shot until their bosses are ready to stop living in the past.

Where Female Execs Do Better: A Scorecard

None of the studies set out to find gender differences. They

stumbled on them while compiling and analyzing

performance evaluations.

	Men	Women
MOTIVATING OTHERS		UUUUU
FOSTERING COMMUNICATIONS		UUUU
PRODUCING HIGH-QUALITY WORK		UUUUU
STRATEGIC PLANNING	UU	UU
LISTENING TO OTHERS		UUUUU
ANALYZING ISSUES	UU	UU

Women In Management

HOW MANY OF YOU COME FROM FAMILIES WHERE MOTHERS HAD FULL-TIME JOBS??

IN ADDITION TO FULL-TIME JOBS AT HOME??

Probably 50% of this class is young women and if you are not being bossed by a woman, just wait, because you will be, so get used to it and enjoy it. Mothers, girlfriends, wives, etc. will have a piece of you and they’ll be telling you what to do. It’s inevitable, so you might just as well enjoy it, because it’s going to happen. Let me begin my discussion this morning by saying the long and winding road won’t stop, but continue to improve and here’s the latest news flash.

The glass ceiling remains firmly in place in corporate America, and that’s what 93% of the women surveyed in a joint study by Korn/Ferry International and the UCLA Graduate School of Management – believe.

The good news however is that 94% of the respondents “feel” that women are continuing to make progress in business.

So what does the working woman of 1999, of which about 50% of you who have invested 4 years preparing yourself for careers in business – in 1999 – in better shape than ever, but still with a long way to go.

Before we get into powerful women, let’s look inside P&G – “Proctor & Gamble” to see how women have progressed, in 1998, women now account for nearly 1/3 of the vice presidents and general managers. In 1993, you could have thirty-fifty people in a room or attending a training session, and they would have all been men. Starting in 1993, seasoned brand managers and begin to contact women customers and former female employees.

They set market share goals for women in management – they created new workplace products and repackaged others such as female friendly benefits and they started internal advertising campaigns to help sell women on working at P&G.

After five years, the effort has shown surprising results.

Women now account for 33% of the vice presidents and general managers with advertising and brand manager ranks from just 5% in 1993.

Today, some of the company’s (P&G’s) most important businesses are run by female vice presidents and general managers.

P&G still has a long way to go. No woman has cracked the group vice president ranks that leads to the CEO’s office.

P&G culture is so strong and entrenched that to change will require more than slick packaging. P&G promotes from within and does not hire middle managers from the competition (Colgate, General Foods, Gillette, and Phillip Morris.)

This article is from the April 16, 1999 Wall Street Journal and it’s in your packet.

Q: How likely is it that your company will have a female CEO?

	In next 10 years?	In next 20 years?
Very likely	2%	18%
Somewhat likely	14%	63%
Not very likely	42%	15%
Not likely at all	40%	2%
Not sure / no answer	2%	2%

Q: How has the number of female executives in your company changed over the past five years?

	Middle Managers	Officers
Increased	92%	62%
Decreased	0	1%
About the Same	8%	36%

Q: Why is a woman not likely to be a CEO sooner?

Women lack long enough experience

64%

Are too concentrated in areas of the company that don’t lead to the CEO post, such as communications

50%

Lack broad enough experience

45%

Have not build up solid networks of connections and support

31%

Personal lives and obligation to familites get in the way of their careers

29%

Not enough in male-dominated industries, i.e. engineering, manufacturing

17%

It’s a matter of time

12%

Current CEO will be in position for a while

Are not aggressive or determined enough to make it to the top

It’s a matter of numbers (more men)

Q: What should female executives be doing to get to the top? (Choose one or more answers)

Develop a broad base of experience

30%

Go into nontraditional positions, such as operations, engineering, manufacturing

14%

Don’t change; already doing what they need to do to excel

13%

Make career a higher priority than family life

12%

Be more visible/assertive

12%

Expand network of contacts

It’s a matter of time

10%

It’s performance, not gender

Get more line (vs. staff) work

Be willing to relocate

Good morning we are entering in the final days of this semester. And we need to get right into this session. Lets review what these sessions will encumber. Subjects materials that will be cover on final exam. Today Women in Management in addition Lora Wendt ex-wife of former Chairman of GE financial services. He retired from GE.

The supreme judge in Connecticut award her 20 Million dollars and she had wanted 100 Million is it fair?

Today, we have a couple of announcements before we get into the main topic of discussion which is “WOMEN IN MANAGEMENT”

First, the Newman Center Lenten Toys for Kids for Christmas is going on until. .

SHOW SYLLABUS, READ FROM IT

“Women in Management – Moving Up & On.” I recommend you read all the articles in the packet. You might learn something and it’s been assigned. As far as your reading, so I’ll hold each of you responsible for reading all articles. I read all these articles yesterday afternoon while I waited for Heather at basketball practice and I really enjoyed them and also learned something.

HOW MANY OF YOU COME FROM FAMILIES WHERE MOTHERS HAD FULL-TIME JOBS??

IN ADDITION TO FULL-TIME JOBS AT HOME??

This is amazing and I congratulate you – probably 50% of this class is young women and if you are not being bossed by a woman, just wait, because you will be, so get used to it and enjoy it. Mothers, girlfriends, wives, etc. will have a piece of you and they’ll be telling you what to do. It’s inevitable, so you might just as well enjoy it, because it’s going to happen. Let me begin my discussion this morning by saying the long and winding road won’t stop, but continue to improve and here’s the latest news flash.

The good news however is that 94% of the respondents “feel” that women are continuing to make progress in business.

After five years, the effort has shown surprising results.

Women now account for 33% of the vice presidents and general managers with advertising and brand manager ranks from just 5% in 1993.

Today, some of the company’s (P&G’s) most important businesses are run by female vice presidents and general managers.

P&G still has a long way to go. No woman has cracked the group vice president ranks that leads to the CEO’s office.

This article is from the April 16, 1999 Wall Street Journal and it’s in your packet.

GO TO NOTES YOU’VE USED BEFORE

HOW MANY OF YOU COME FROM FAMILIES WHERE MOTHERS HAD FULL-TIME JOBS??

IN ADDITION TO FULL-TIME JOBS AT HOME??

The good news however is that 94% of the respondents “feel” that women are continuing to make progress in business.

After five years, the effort has shown surprising results.

Women now account for 33% of the vice presidents and general managers with advertising and brand manager ranks from just 5% in 1993.

Today, some of the company’s (P&G’s) most important businesses are run by female vice presidents and general managers.

P&G still has a long way to go. No woman has cracked the group vice president ranks that leads to the CEO’s office.

Society has undergone three distinct revolutions. Each person has their own concept of these revolutions, and how they affect the lives of all of us.

1. 1. Survival – PreDepression—very few controlled what we have. Merging of Unions late 20s Early 30s – Roosevelt was the President. Bombing of Pearl Harbor, World WarII taught us we can do anything if we want to. As a nation we became unified – everyone wanted to win. Psychology after the war – get an education, go out get a good job. Lead the good life. It was an affluent society.

2. 2. Equity Revolution –60s saw the beginning of Civil Right Movement and Campus became confrontational

3. 3. Identity – today there is no lessening of concern. Bur one approach is different. Today most believe that the way to change is from within, the legal arena – today we sue about everyhting.

4. 4. Today young people coming from campus and interviewing for jobs ask different questions than they did. It is not all pay! They want opportunities along with their work to help solve the problems of the society.

Young people today are sensitive to the problems facing society and they are approaching them with openness. Education, crime, unemployment, drugs, etc. Greatest single change in the US labor market since WWII has been the influx of Women in the workforce.

Today nearly 2/3 – 66% of women in America between age 25 and 55 have careers outside “home” and still manage to keep up with a family. Women in this group represent all social and economic levels. Generally well educated.

Early 20s about 20% of women worked mostly in sweat shops, service industry – few nurses and tecahers

Increasing self awareness and creation of New jobs in the economy are compelling reasons to have women in Management. The increase in women managers is the greatest demand for good managers. This should be compelling enough argument for women in management – good managers are a scarce resource and it’s a good business decision for senior management to make – the best use of Human Resources.

How do women prepare for management:

1. 1. be aggressive (assertive) and well organized.

2. 2. See that you are properly trained

3. 3. Develop a skill in a technical area that’s in demand – computers, manufacturing, marketing etc.

4. 4. Never expect to be given a job, just because you are a a woman.

5. 5. The ability to assume responsibility

Be a crusader with a sword, only when being a diplomat does not work.

Old fashioned qualities such as hard work are nt to be forgotten. Look for this ability to upper management – learning to ask questions of management, to find out as much as you can. Keep learning.

Women should not be afraid to take a contrary position – when you can back yourself up well. not automatic yes!

Be a woman and let it show! It is ok to lose your temper (get mad, swear or even cry, cry) don’t lose your sense of humor. It’s a necessary quality of anyone in management

Don’t take yourself too seriously. Being yourself and not too concerned about your style of dress.

Women must be confident about their abilities.

Great speculation – men and women at work.

People assume men to be competent but women are expected to prove their qualifications over and over again.

Some say women are the largest stumbling block in society today. Our worst enemy. Women and men do not like to work for women.

Whole new dimension called reverse discrimination. You can probably understand the argument but those that have not been treated equally, should be given their enhance now.

Only 2% of nations corporate directorships and less that 6% of middle management jobs are filled by women.

Some say this is because of early training which consist of playing games based on personal realtionships.

Girls are taught to be nice girls. Don’t upset your parents or anyone else. Make lots of friends.

In contrast, boys are taught to be competitive, risk taking people.

Women are educated in liberal arts, education, psychology and English. Men are educated in business, professional and technical skills, science, math.

Girls are taught to find a good husband and learn to type. Boys are taught to work within an organization e.g. like little league, Boy Scouts and the Army.

They have to compete with a group. Boys will work as team with other boys. They don’t especially like for the good of the team. While girls tend to disassociate themselves from any girl they dislike.

Women who make it to the top are asked how they attained their positions: two answers most frequently heard are:

I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. I had a boss who believed I could do it.

However, men are not likely to help women as they previously did. They are afraid of women who are after their jobs. They feel threatened.

How do you prepare for a career in management. You must assume the responsibility for being prepared for getting ahead in business.

When will women get to the top?

One woman CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina says women in corporate America are still a generation away.

A recent survey of 201 CEOs of the nations top companies agree – not for a long time!!

A few pioneers are already there. A growing number of other women are doing all the right stuff.

Women today are nearly half of all US workers. A rise of 60% in just 5 years. There are 12 million female managers in 1990. Most of these women are in their mid 30s to mid 40s—up from 3.5 million in 1984.

This is the first generation to accumulate the same education, experience, and expectations as their male counterpart.

By the end of year 2000, 50% of the workforce will be women.

If firms want to remain competitive, recruiting and keeping women with children become a major challenge. Many women workers will be single parent or part of a 2 career family.

In the poll I refereed earlier, CEO cite a host of reasons why women will not get the top job. Only 216% believe that it is very likely for a woman to be the CEO in their company in next 10 years and only 18% think it is very likely in next years to run a company.

Why? Most think simple discrimination a very irrational one – plain and simple discrimination. One CEO –

John Bryan of Sara Lee says he is not sure there’s a lot women that can do anything about it.

The women are already working hard and are very qualified. The trouble with women advancing has more to do with men than women. Men are dragging their feet.

Mgmt. 495/579

It’s Her Job Too

When Lorna Wendt’s 32 year marriage to GE Capital CEO Gary Wendt came apart 3 years ago, she wanted half of the $100 million she estimated he was worth. She wanted to tap what she considered her rightful share of the treasure-trove of unvested GE stock options and pension benefits accumulated during the marriage but not due until later in his career.

In January on 1998, Connecticut Superior Court Judge Kevin Tierney ruled that she should receive $20 million – far less than the $50 million she’d sought, but far more than the $8 million plus alimony that Wendt had originally offered. She got ½ the hard assets, but none of Wendt’s stock options outright. The judge did rule that those granted during the marriage were marital property and she should be compensated for some of their value.

The case has “struck fear in the hearts of primary breadwinners everywhere.” “The question becomes, Is the person who is making the money – is that person’s contribution greater than the person who stays at home and runs the house?”

Lorna Wendt is rich, privileged, hardly Everywoman (she told the court that she needed a $10,000-a-month clothing budget. As the woman behind the success story, she has come to stand for the many things that wives still mostly end up doing and that society seems mostly to take for granted: child rearing, tending a family’s emotional and spiritual needs, and the unglamorous stuff like car pools, doctor’s appointments, sympathy notes. In a poll conducted by Yankelovich Partners for Fortune, far more women (57%) than men (41%) say this kind of support is extremely important to a man’s career. Far more women (51%) than men (28%) feel that the duties of a corporate wife – travel, entertaining, and charity work in addition to child rearing and housework are extremely important to a husband’s success.

The Wendt case also highlights the struggle this country’s courts have had over the past three decades in determining how to divide fairly the goods in this age of divorce and women’s rights.

In recent years, many courts have been responding to the notion of marriage as a partnership. In lower-asset divorces, judges already are often steering cases toward more of a fifty-fifty split. It is in the high-asset – where the primary breadwinner often argues that his success has resulted from a special gift or talent – that big gaps still exist. But even here, the stay-at-home spouses are getting a lot more assertive. They’re beginning to say, “Hey, I’m a full partner.”

What impact Lorna Wendt’s case will have on all this is difficult to say until the judge renders his full opinion. Judge Tierney didn’t put a dollar value on her contributions, but seems to have found that Lorna Wendt’s contributions, while substantial, weren’t as great as Gary Wendt’s. Her attorney said, “she’s gotten the door open” in winning half of Wendt’s hard assets and in persuading the judge that perks like stock options are marital property.

At first glance this might seem like a commotion over an anachronism. After all, in 84% of the marriages in this country both spouses now have jobs. Yet the topmost rungs of corporate and professional America still are heavily populated by “traditional” couples. And while it has become very un-PC for a company to have any overt expectations of its employees’ spouses, the truth is that at many places it’s still very difficult for a man to get into the executive suite without a corporate wife.

That’s why Lorna Wendt has been so adamant. “I complemented him by keeping the home fires burning and by raising a family and by being the CEO of the Wendt corporation and by running the household and grounds and social and emotional ties so he could go out and work very hard at what he was good at. If the marriage isn’t a partnership between equals, then why get married? If you knew that some husband or judge down the road was going to say, ‘You’re a 30% part of this marriage, and he’s a 70% part,’ would you get married?”

With such arguments, she has stirred the pot in a lot of other divorce cases. Just since her case went to trial a year ago, two of her star witnesses, Columbia’s Fineman and Stanford University economist Myra Strober, have served as consultants in divorce cases across the country.

Lorna Wendt has encouraged others to speak up. She has begun the Foundation for Equality in Marriage, which she hopes will carry on her cause through a speaker’s bureau and other educational programs. By the time its board held its first meeting last month, she had already received nearly 1,000 e-mails.

Nobody is more stunned by all this than Gary Wendt. His side of the story is very different from hers. He has always maintained that he was worth a lot less than she claimed – approximately $21 million at the end of 1995, when the case began, and roughly double that now. (The big difference in their valuations: taxes – he has deducted them – plus unvested stock options, restricted stock, and other deferred benefits that he says have no current value because he needs to continue working to get then.)

She and Wendt grew up in small towns in Wisconsin and met in high school in Rio, Wisconsin. Her mother taught her to always think of her husband and family first. She went with him to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he attended Harvard Business School. She worked to help support them and typed his papers at night. Then they moved to Spring, Texas, outside Houston, where he worked as a developer; then to Atlanta; then to Coral Gables, FL; and finally to Stamford, Conn., where they settled in 1975 when he joined GE Capital. She took her duties seriously, smoothing the way for each move, buildin

Where Female Execs Do Better: A Scorecard

Men

MOTIVATING OTHERS

Women In Management

Women In Management

Very likely

Increased

Women lack long enough experience

Develop a broad base of experience

SHOW SYLLABUS, READ FROM IT

GO TO NOTES YOU’VE USED BEFORE

Mgmt. 495/579

It’s Her Job Too