Upsetting the Table

Upsetting the Table, Women Mentoring Women, A Business Fable, by Robbie Hardy, 2016

This is a difficult book, not because of the fact that women still make 77 cents on a man's dollar, or that women represent 40% of the global workforce but hold less than 15% of corporate executive positions, or that women still represent minority numbers on corporate boards, but because I've never seen, experienced, spoken to the kind of woman leader Robbie Hardy's book is directed to.  Not that there have not been creative, positive, occasionally helpful women execs, consultants, managers, supervisors, doctors, lawyers, book editors, designers, entrepreneurs - sure, there have been plenty, and I'm probably one myself - at times - but these exceptional women all have their own real jobs.  And none of their job descriptions included mentoring, preparing, or even squeezing in the next female leader.  

That's not to say that Hardy's mentoring idea is impossible.  It's just that what she's asking women leaders to do is often contrary to mostly male corporate hierarchy and culture.  And one thing surviving women leaders do is learn the culture, read the landscape, get the vocabulary,  understand the rules.  So we're not talking about acts of charity here, but clear structures designed to boost women's chances, as well as their learned skills, their toolkit.

Notes from Robbie

So here we are - a toolkit divided into too many chapters and no graphics.  There are, however, these short valuable "Notes from Robbie" at the end of each chapter, and they are the meat of the book.  For example, at the end of Chapter 18, the author talks about raising money, pitching a product, and getting through early growth stages - she says, "Working with investors is complicated.  You need them but they also need you or someone like you. Understanding what each side brings to the table is VERY important." In a few sentences she describes what investors are looking for and what to expect "when you take someone else's money."  These ending paragraphs should have been the chapter.  We need to hear more details, and less dialogue. 

Chapter 17, Conference

"It can be very challenging (try the word career-killing here) to attend a business function where there is lots of free flowing alcohol and not take advantage of the situation..."  Does every reader understand the difference between social drinking and business drinking?  And is alcohol in moderation or to excess EVER safe for women professionals?  The author doesn't really answer these crucial questions, and they are survival questions that all professionals, particularly females, must have the moment they step into the after-work reception or the holiday party.   The entire topic of alcohol and drugs in business is worthy of a complete and detailed chapter.

Chapter 14, Spa Day

The author recalls name-change pressures placed on women who choose to marry.  She conveys some of the indignation a professional woman might experience when  pressured to change her name, but the author fails to get behind that pressure.  How much more instructive would this section have been - again, it could have been an entire chapter - if the author had chosen to zero in on the real cultural, legal and financial pressures that shifted when women decided they would choose their own names - birth names, marriage name, "maiden" name, whatever - with all its implications of separateness and strength.  She got it, but she didn't get it all the way, or least as readers we can't tell.

Chapter 3, Asking for Help

At this point in Upsetting the Table, the author begins to describe the nature of mentoring, along with expectations, boundaries, what to expect.  She says "I have mentored over 40 women over the course of my professional career," - how incredibly strong that statement is, but the number loses its strength when she moves into the next, and the next mis-titled chapter.  How much more powerful this book would have been if she had given us portraits of these women's professional lives - the names, disguised if necessary, their challenges, where they worked, their failures - people love war stories, and the little moves that made the difference.  As my old editor Robert Wallace at Free Press said, "A book is forever, get it right."

Chapter 2, Liz

"A good mentor is generous with their time and is willing to meet you on your level.  That means, that when you meet with your mentor, your mentor  is focused on you, not telling his or her own war stories.  A great mentor realizes they have already accomplished and played the game in the big leagues and that you need help to get on the field (or in the stadium)."

Etc. 

I've not met Robbie Hardy, but I bet she was a helluva mentor.  I know she learned her craft well, and with over 40 stories under her belt, she had to have known how to combine advice with wisdom and patience at the  right time, in the right amounts, to help move these 40 careers along.  But I think in terms of this book, she could have done more for the reader, given us some checklists, a few action plans, more diagnostic look-backs at failures along the way.  People learn from failure and pain, even if experienced by someone other than oneself, is well-remembered and instructive.  I would have structured this book around Robbie Hardy's Notes.