The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything

A conversation with contributing writer Jamie J. Ladge

I think a woman's nation changes everything because it represents that there's been a significant shift in this country in terms of where our workforce is headed. Brad Harrington and I co-authored the chapter on business, and our key focus was really on how businesses really need to get up to speed on the changing nature of the workforce, and really understanding that half the talent are women in the workforce, and they have unique needs.

One of the problems with a lot of businesses is that the underlying ideals of how businesses have been shaped really have not changed much over time, and they're really at odds and they're counter to how most people have to manage their families and be able to balance both work and family demands. Both businesses and the individuals have to negotiate careers and career decision making. And in businesses, we tend to assume that there's only one way to be successful, there's only one career track to move up and climb up the corporate ladder. One of the things that we talk a lot about and we talk specifically about research that supports the idea that individuals and businesses can help customize careers and define their own attitudes about what it means to be successful, as opposed to having one platform for being successful and one way to climb the corporate ladder. There's many ways to be successful, and that might mean taking some time out to do other things, to care for children, etc, and then maybe coming back in. But offering these customized platforms to alter one's career so that they can manage their outside responsibilities is really important.