My father was the pastor in a small town. He didn’t make much money and had no resources beyond what he and my mother had saved in the decade they had been married.
Dad liked to fish and he coveted some fishing gear in a local store. My mother decided to save some money from her household budget and give the fishing gear to him as a present. She wanted to open a savings account for the project.
But the year was 1952. In those days women couldn’t have their own bank account. She persuaded the local banker to set up an account in my father’s name that he wouldn’t know about. She saved for a little over a year, putting money into the secret account.
Then, one day when they were downtown window shopping and my father was admiring the gear, she handed him the passbook. My father’s first reaction was worry that they would get into trouble. Every time he told the story, though, he ended it this way: “Your mother was always willing to find a way around things she thought were stupid.”
Viewed from here things seem pretty stupid for women back then. 1952 was the year that Sandra Day O’Connor got her law degree from Stanford where she served on the law review with William Rehnquist. She contacted forty law firms who advertised for Stanford graduates. Not one would interview her.
Ms O’Connor got around that by taking a job with a county attorney’s office. She worked for free, in an office she shared with the county attorney’s secretary, until he could find money to fund her position.
We will soon have our first granddaughter and I’ve been thinking about what her life will be like, compared to my mother’s. My granddaughter will certainly have more opportunities to use her talent than my mother did. But, when my granddaughter joins the workforce in twenty years or so I want it to be better still. Late last year, Fortune said:
“It has been a banner year for women in business. The Fortune 500 executive ranks now include a record 18 female chief executives.”
Three and a half percent doesn’t call for a banner. It calls for improvement. And I’m not talking about having it all. I’m talking about having a shot.
In this competitive, global world, we need every willing brain in the game. The job of talent development is to help everyone who is willing become as much as they want to be and contribute as much as they possibly can. We’ve still got a ways to go.
