Book By Its Cover #3 - A good Time To Be a Girl.

A good time to be a Girl — begins with the Author’s personal memoir of how her career took turns solely because of her own decisions. She outlines some valuable lessons on how to excel at workplace and what are the true corporate virtues to make your voice heard. The book covers some vocal and some “elephants in the room” when we talk about diversity and excellence at workplace. Starting from her 30% club to how CEO thinks and how they should, Helena Morrissey has won hearts and gained nemeses simultaneously

One of the Chapters titled “Men Women Equal Different” explores the inherent differences in the psychology and attributes the same to their decision-making abilities. Many seasoned corporations, start-ups and small businesses commit the basic folly of setting wrong expectations from gender diversity. They see to inculcate diversity in their corporate value system but peg both the genders on similar levels of expectations in terms of decision-making output. The write beautifully brings out the essence of these differences and how Diverse though process in a team often offsets some major unforeseen blunders,

For example — The author quotes the example of Financial Market traders of the 1990s. John Coats, a trader observed how a group of male traders fell prey to the domino effect of risk taking in the trading floor. When they made above average profit, the increased levels of testosterone made them bid too high leading to a series of irrational decision making. Therefore, he suggests that its only prudent to hire women to offset this “Winner effect” because they barely indulge in the euphoria

However, There is a very striking Quote — “After the financial crisis, it was suggested that “Lehman sisters might not have suffered the same fate as Lehman Brothers”. This opens the floor for debate and I would personally welcome views to support or counter because frankly I felt the nuances behind ascertaining the same was somewhat lacking. I would have loved to see more points to build the same

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From a very personal Point of view, I feel the author rightly points out the major issue. No one has an issue with gender diversity. The main issue lies with inclusion of those differences and diverse working style. Many people attribute the differences to biology, many dissent in this regard. Fair enough. The author points out that Distorting science its only fair that we voraciously question why Female traits are perceived as inferior.

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Chapter 10 is a refreshing diversion from the equivocal debate to understand a woman caught in the quagmire of personal and professional life. This should have been in the first part which actually justifies the cover page. In a way chapter 10 is the Sermon I personally had picked up the book for.

In a nutshell, the book is a fine balance of Radical and moderate views. Its up to the reader to incline himself/herself in the direction desirable. While some views are in sync with what the system demands, some merely dissuades you to conform just for the sake of it.