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Cable Needs More Women
April 9, 2007
I am endlessly fascinated by the differences between men and women. I simply can’t read or hear enough about this topic. You’re thinking to yourself …. duh. Of course, women and men are different. I know. Even my three-year-old granddaughter has figured out that we’re different physically (she has a new baby brother … I don’t need to get into the questions she’s been asking).
But what’s not as obvious is that our brains are different, too.
The anthropologist, Helen Fisher, talks about women as “web thinkers.” We integrate information more quickly than men, we spot and understand nuance, we thrive on ambiguity and to us, context is everything. Men, in contrast, are laser focused -- they look at a big undertaking, they know how to break it into achievable segments, keep their eye on the ball and get things done.
What a team women and men would make if they actually worked together more often. Fisher describes this male/female combo like two feet -- one left; one right -- each needing the other to propel the body forward.
To propel the cable body forward, we need more of this collaboration. And more women at the executive level. The cable industry has undertaken some wonderful initiatives to celebrate the successes of our women. The Wonder Woman luncheon is one of the year’s highlights. WICT has done fantastic things for the industry -- the PAR initiative in particular has made us all better companies.
But the biggest way to celebrate the successes of our women is to promote them.
I spend a lot of time talking to women in our industry. I see incredible promise in this generation of women at some of our biggest cable companies. Women like Carol Hevey, Suzanne Keenan, Melinda Witmer and Jill Campbell are not only making their mark -- they are making a difference.
Women are leading the biggest cable programming networks (Sweeney, McGrath, Raven, Hammer, Zalaznick … the list goes on and on) But there are not enough of them on the operating side. For the cable industry to be as good as it can be, it needs to have more women at the senior-most levels. Consumers will be better served by companies that not only get things done, but can look at the business through eyes that understand context, nuance and collaboration. And in turn, all of us will benefit.
Posted by Geraldine Laybourne on April 9, 2007 | Comments (3)
