Some of Hollywood's most powerful women gathered to discuss “The Power of Women in Media 2.0” Tuesday morning at Cecconi's in West Hollywood.
Presented by TheWrap and hosted by CEO and editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, the gathering focused on the book “Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success,” by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.
The event was sponsored by Lifetime Networks, BlackBerry and Cecconi's. (View the slideshow from the event.)
The book's subtitle tells the story: Women are trying to figure out ways to restore balance in their lives, to address the out-of-control feeling engendered by demanding jobs and to find creative solutions that give them more time.
“We're all exhausted!” Waxman told the crowd, kicking off the discussion. “Good Morning America's” Shipman agreed, saying her book was “born of exhaustion in a way.”
Shipman (pictured below; photographs by Jonathan Alcorn) said she and co-author Kay, of the BBC, would huddle in corners at parties and “give each other counterintuitive advice, like how not to be on TV.”
After turning down promotions, they realized there was “a real need to have this conversation” about a new model for working women.
“The key is you have to figure out what success is for you,” Shipman said. “That's the hardest thing.”
Mixing anecdotal evidence with hard numbers, Shipman and Kay discovered some interesting things.
For instance, Shipman said, the more women in a company's top positions, the more money the company makes. And the presence of just three or more women on a corporate board indicates a company that outperforms its competition.
Claiming that women are more conciliatory and collaborative than men -- and less prone to risk-taking -- she suggested the current financial crisis could have been avoided or ameliorated were there more women in top positions in the banking world.
“What if, instead of Lehman Brothers, it had been Lehman Brothers & Sisters?” Shipman asked. “The lack of diversity at the top does not help a company to flourish.”
With time becoming as valuable as money, or perhaps even more so, women are seeking less responsibility and power in exchange for more freedom. And some companies are responding, Shipman said.
For example, Best Buy has shifted to a “results-only” environment, where scheduling is flexible and the measure of success is results, rather than merely showing up for work; Capital One is experimenting with a similar scheme.
Wal-Mart, too, is finding success by giving workers more of a say in their work hours, Shipman said. While they may work the same amount of time, they feel they have more control and that the company is responsive to their needs.
Waxman, however, pointed out that Hollywood is a business where “there are no hours, we're always working.” Also, she said, in the relationship-based industry, face time is of paramount importance.
At this point, Lifetime president Andrea Wong introduced several more panelists, who joined the discussion: Willow Bay, senior editor at the Huffington Post; Kim Moses, principal in Sander/Moses Productions and executive producer of “Ghost Whisperer”; and Diane Nelson, president of DC Entertainment.
