We’re Not Losing. We’re Just Playing a Different Game.

You have read the statistics. You know the score. Women hold only 11.1% of board seats in the Fortune 500; only 11.2% of corporate officers are women, http://www.breaktheglassceiling.com/statistics-women.htm, yet, in 2006, women were 46% of the U. S. labor force and 51% of all workers in the high-paying management, professional, and related occupations. http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-laborforce-06.htm. In the game of business, women just aren’t hitting the homeruns. They’re not going for the gold. Not winning the game.

Well, I have decided that it’s time someone stood up and said what some of you are probably thinking (and certainly what I’m thinking): WHO CARES!! Don’t get me wrong. I am not complacent about women’s role in big business. I firmly believe that women should be swinging the bat in these high-profile, big-money positions – if they want to be in that game.

But what about all of the women (and men!) who don’t want to play that type of game? What about the people who want to take full advantage of the choices that are supposedly available in our modern society?

The fundamental problem is not that women are not winning at the game of business. The fundamental problem is that we have all failed to recognize that many women ARE SIMPLY PLAYING A DIFFERENT GAME.

So, here is where maybe I am a radical: I believe that success must be redefined; it’s time for a paradigm shift, for the recognition that it is a whole new ballgame in the world of business. And until we do so – until we develop an idea of success that truly values the different choices that people make – and until we extend that definition to everyone, women and men, the strides we have made are meaningless.

In the wake of the women’s movement of the 60s and 70s, we have not lost sight of the fact that it’s all about choice: choice to work, choice to work at a particular job, choice to stay home, choice to make your own path. Almost every little girl now grows up hearing, “Girls can be anything!”

What we have failed to do, however, is to incorporate all of the myriad choices into our definition of success. In spite of our greater choice about how to integrate our personal and professional lives, we have continued to place value only on the choices that have traditionally been valued. Sure, you can stay home if you want to and raise a great family full-time, or you can work part-time or in some alternative schedule, or you can embark upon some “alternative” career, a “choose your own adventure” job. But, in the game of business (and in the bigger game of life), we as a society have continued to say that if you don’t win the traditional game the traditional way, you’re still a failure.

Think about it. Writers on the topic lament that women who go part-time in their work (and, I would argue, remain full-time in their personal lives!) are not “getting ahead.” They are not succeeding. Why? Because they are often not getting the same type of work or pay as full-time counterparts. But we have to ask whether that is so bad. Could these women be succeeding in a way that is not being considered? Could there be trade-offs for lower pay and different work that make these women just as successful as their full-time counterparts?

So how do we get to some new rules for defining the game?

First of all, can we please admit that there’s no such thing as “work/life balance?” For the vast majority of us (Paris Hilton and her compatriots excepted), work is part of life. It is not something we do when we’re not living our lives. If that were the case, then most of us are spending most of our days doing something other than living! Work is, however, something that must be balanced with the demands of our personal lives – our families, our friends, our pets, our hobbies. I know it may seem to be semantics, but it’s difficult to discuss making your work and the rest of your life balance if we keep, at least linguistically, separating work out from “life.”

To borrow a term from a life coach friend, I prefer the idea of integration. What we’re striving to do is not so much balance our “work” with our “life” but to integrate our work into our lives in a meaningful, fulfilling way. This leaves open the possibility for various levels of commitment to work – flextime, part-time, full-time, all-the-time – and to personal pursuits – parents, children, siblings, other family, friends, hobbies, religious avocations, etc.

Once you embrace the concept of integration, the next step is accepting that there is such a thing as being successfully integrated, just successful at being. Every person, if she wants it, deserves a job that at least brings in the bacon even if it doesn’t make her blissfully happy to head off to work in the morning and the opportunity to take that job to her ultimate level of compensation and authority. But every person also deserves the opportunity to find additional fulfillment in other areas of her life.

Maybe those women holding the 11.1% of board seats (and the men holding the other 88.9% as well) are terrific people with fantastic personal lives or maybe they’re total drudges tied their job with no other real connection to anything. And maybe all those women NOT sitting in corner offices and running big companies or law firms are trapped by the glass ceiling, held back by their demanding families and complicated choices, or maybe they’re incredibly fulfilled in ways that money can’t compensate. Either way, we need to stop linking our idea of success to one aspect of these people’s lives!

Work is great, don’t get me wrong. If you’re one of those women who finds total fulfillment from work, who wants to play that traditional game and go for the big bucks and the power position, more power to you. If you’re one of those women who wants to work part-time and spend part of your time volunteering, at home pursuing a hobby, caring for aging parents, or raising children – go for it! Want to stay at home full time? Yay, you!

Regardless of the choice, what we need to start doing is focusing more on the success of someone’s overall life not just one aspect of it. We need to recognize that having a healthy relationship with one’s spouse, any children, parents, other family members, and friends is just as “successful” – and requires just as much work, sometimes more! – as bringing home a six-figure paycheck from a high ranking job. In addition, the truly integrated person recognizes that a huge aspect of success is being in a healthy relationship with oneself – doing the things that make one feel healthy, content, satisfied, happy, challenged, whether that’s the job or the family and friends thing or a favorite activity outside of work.

Really, isn’t that what we want to be remembered for when we’re long gone and all we are is memories and passed-along stories in the minds of our children and grandchildren and beyond – for who we were as people and not what job we held and how much money we made??