Sorry I dumped those bleak McKinsey & Company reports on women on you last week—you know, the ones that find that women in the United States and Europe are stuck in the mid-management box. Both reports poured cold water on all those wonderful mentoring programs and women’s initiatives, saying what we’ve been suspecting—that they aren’t making much of a dent in women’s progress.
As you know, I’m prone to be negative when I read those type of reports, but thankfully, there are those who strike a more positive note. Harvard Business School professor Herminia Ibarra, for one, thinks the solution is to redistribute women’s focus at work. Instead of placing so much weight on mentoring, Ibarra says, it’s time for women to focus on the assignments they take on.
