The Paula Principle

Month: February 2014

Careers and progression

I've been doing a few interviews for the putative PP book, and they've prompted some thoughts about how different kinds of organisation do or don't foster careers and progression.  In particular, is working in a large bureaucracy more likely to help or to hinder a woman making her way up, at whatever level? I caught some of Lucy Kellaway's radio series, broadcast last year, on A History of Office Life.  One episode dealt with the invention of the career ladder (it's from that that I pinched the Dickensian illustration below), another with nepotism vs meritocracy.  A third covered the arrival of women in the office.  She slily sketches in the way office…
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Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
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Autumn Sonata

We're working our way through a box set of Bergman films, and came last night to Autumn Sonata. It stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman, as mother and daughter. There's a lot of quite heavy duty digging-down as LU reproaches her mother, a high-flying classical pianist, for neglecting her and, especially, her handicapped sister. In this film at least, Bergman doesn't leave much to the imagination as far as psychological exploration is concerned. At the time, this very explicit examining of parent-child relationships must have been revelatory. It still packs a punch, due especially to Ullman's extraordinarily expressive performance.     There's a scene in which LU, or rather her…
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Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

Careers and progression

I've been doing a few interviews for the putative PP book, and they've prompted some thoughts about how different kinds of organisation do or don't foster careers and progression.  In particular, is working in a large bureaucracy more likely to help or to hinder a woman making her way up, at whatever level? I caught some of Lucy Kellaway's radio series, broadcast last year, on A History of Office Life.  One episode dealt with the invention of the career ladder (it's from that that I pinched the Dickensian illustration below), another with nepotism vs meritocracy.  A third covered the arrival of women in the office.  She slily sketches in the way office…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Autumn Sonata

We're working our way through a box set of Bergman films, and came last night to Autumn Sonata. It stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman, as mother and daughter. There's a lot of quite heavy duty digging-down as LU reproaches her mother, a high-flying classical pianist, for neglecting her and, especially, her handicapped sister. In this film at least, Bergman doesn't leave much to the imagination as far as psychological exploration is concerned. At the time, this very explicit examining of parent-child relationships must have been revelatory. It still packs a punch, due especially to Ullman's extraordinarily expressive performance.     There's a scene in which LU, or rather her…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

Careers and progression

I've been doing a few interviews for the putative PP book, and they've prompted some thoughts about how different kinds of organisation do or don't foster careers and progression.  In particular, is working in a large bureaucracy more likely to help or to hinder a woman making her way up, at whatever level? I caught some of Lucy Kellaway's radio series, broadcast last year, on A History of Office Life.  One episode dealt with the invention of the career ladder (it's from that that I pinched the Dickensian illustration below), another with nepotism vs meritocracy.  A third covered the arrival of women in the office.  She slily sketches in the way office…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Autumn Sonata

We're working our way through a box set of Bergman films, and came last night to Autumn Sonata. It stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman, as mother and daughter. There's a lot of quite heavy duty digging-down as LU reproaches her mother, a high-flying classical pianist, for neglecting her and, especially, her handicapped sister. In this film at least, Bergman doesn't leave much to the imagination as far as psychological exploration is concerned. At the time, this very explicit examining of parent-child relationships must have been revelatory. It still packs a punch, due especially to Ullman's extraordinarily expressive performance.     There's a scene in which LU, or rather her…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More

Careers and progression

I've been doing a few interviews for the putative PP book, and they've prompted some thoughts about how different kinds of organisation do or don't foster careers and progression.  In particular, is working in a large bureaucracy more likely to help or to hinder a woman making her way up, at whatever level? I caught some of Lucy Kellaway's radio series, broadcast last year, on A History of Office Life.  One episode dealt with the invention of the career ladder (it's from that that I pinched the Dickensian illustration below), another with nepotism vs meritocracy.  A third covered the arrival of women in the office.  She slily sketches in the way office…
Read More

Valuing work – what measures?

Mrs Moneypenny, a Financial Times columnist, wrote this weekend about how depressing she finds it that Mary Barra, the new head of General Motors, is being paid a basic salary of $1.6 million.  This is 25% less than her male equivalent at Ford. The gap is a significant one, and not atypical, though I find it hard to get too worked up about discrimination at this level.  What I find depressing is Mrs M's subsequent argument.  Apparently Ms Barra's predecessor at GM is being rehired as a consultant, at $4m (we aren't told if this is an annual fee, but I assume so). Mrs M comments: "That is someone who…
Read More

Autumn Sonata

We're working our way through a box set of Bergman films, and came last night to Autumn Sonata. It stars Liv Ullman and Ingrid Bergman, as mother and daughter. There's a lot of quite heavy duty digging-down as LU reproaches her mother, a high-flying classical pianist, for neglecting her and, especially, her handicapped sister. In this film at least, Bergman doesn't leave much to the imagination as far as psychological exploration is concerned. At the time, this very explicit examining of parent-child relationships must have been revelatory. It still packs a punch, due especially to Ullman's extraordinarily expressive performance.     There's a scene in which LU, or rather her…
Read More

Why it’s men that should be discussing the PP

I went on Friday to talk about the PP with the sixth form at South Hampstead High School, a single-sex school.  The 60 or so girls engaged with the issues in lively fashion (or so it seemed to me), and I learnt much from the discussion. Towards the end of the discussion one girl observed that I shouldn't really be talking to them, but to boys - and men - instead. How right she is, for two reasons. First, here are the latest UCAS figures on university applications. In England, in 2014, 39.9 per cent of 18 year old women have applied compared with 30.0 per cent of men, making…
Read More