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CNN Live Saturday

"Dollar Signs": Women In Business

Aired November 15, 2003 - 16:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to "Dollar Signs," where we help you make the most of your money. Today we're going to talk about women in business. Do you have the right skills to get ahead? Diane Brady, an associate editor at "Businessweek" magazine joins us from New York. And author Gale Evans is with us in Atlanta. She was CNN's first female executive vice president. Gale is also author of "She Wins, You Win: The Most Important Rule Every Businesswoman Needs To Know." Well, welcome to you both, especially to Gayle who I haven't seen in a long time. Great to see you.
GAIL EVANS, AUTHOR: Great to see you.

KOPPEL: Women working with other women. Do they really support each other the way that they could or should?

EVANS: Well, I think one of the things that we're going to have to learn is that for every woman who succeeds, I succeed a little and for every woman who fails I fail a little, we need to get on the same team, which is something a lot of women haven't done yet.

KOPPEL: Diane, why is it that women aren't necessarily supporting one another as well as they should?

DIANE BRADY, "BUSINESSWEEK": Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, if you look at -- women may make up half, now, of professionals, but if you look in the top ranks among corporate officers it's 12 percent and I think it's 1 or 2 percent of CEOs. So, when the door opens there's a real sense it won't widen for the two of you, it will probably let 1 of you. And I think that's one issue.

The other issue is, I don't think there have been a lot women in the top ranks. I spoke to one CEO and she said she will utterly alone, which I think kind of sums up the experience of a lot of women going up the ladder.

EVANS: But I think one of the things that has to happen is, we have to stop being along. We have to start meeting other women, talking to other women, sharing experiences. We've all believed it was, I can do it. I think it's changed to we can do it.

KOPPEL: Well, let's talk about mentoring. I know that women, I can tell you this from experience right now, because I'm six and a half months pregnant, we get lots of advice from one another about how to raise families, but you don't necessarily get advice on career moves. Why not?

EVANS: I think one of the things that happens is we've sort of separated. We think we have our personal life and business life and we're happy to mentor each other, network, coach each other about everything in our personal life. But somehow or other we have not yet started to do that fully in our business life. And we have to.

You know, I think every woman who begins to get ahead has to reach her hand back and say am I mentoring other young women, am I bringing people through the pipeline? For some reason we haven't done that yet.

BRADY: I think Gail raises a good point, but what's equally important if not more I my mid is, are women getting mentoring by people in the top jobs who by and large still tend to be men. If you look at a company like G.E. for example, the new CEO has very much said to the top men in the company you have to mentor women and minorities and you will be judged on their ability to get ahead.

So I think that is important. Definitely we have to have women mentoring women, but we have to have men reaching out and mentoring women too because they're in the jobs that a lot of us want to be in.

KOPPEL: Let's talk about some of the generational problems among women. Some older women complain about younger women not helping them and vice versa.

EVANS: Right. One of the things that happen, I hear from younger women all the time, the older women make it more difficult for me. I hear from the older women, well, I worked so hard to get here and now she's here and she wants everything. I think one of the problems is that people in my generation, we told our daughters and our granddaughters, you can have it, you can be anything you want to be and then all of a sudden one day they turned 30 and people are saying, well, you can't have it all. Well, what is it? Can you have it or can't you have it? I think we've been sending mixed messages.

KOPPEL: So how do you convince the older generation, then, to reach out to the younger generation?

EVANS: Well, I think one of the things he have to do is to understand the reason we went through the battles we went through is was to make it easier for the next generation. Somehow a lot of women have forgotten that.

The younger generation can look very threatening because they're very well educated, they're smart, they're ambitious and a lot of older women, you know, got there by their seniority and longevity and that's all they really have going for them.

The young women, after they've been in the marketplace five years, want the same salary the older women are getting. So it's going to be a lot of understanding why you got there in the first place.

KOPPEL: I think this sounds a lot -- Diane I think we're going to go to a break in just a moment and I was going to say, this sounds a lot like, I'm sure there are a lot of men out there -- older and younger men that could say the same thing about the generational issues. But we're going to get to both of you, Diane Brady and Gail Evans right after the break.

Is something holding you back from succeeding at work? Please send us your questions, we'll help you get ahead in the workforce. The e-mail address is right there on your screen, dollarsigns@CNN.com. Or you can call us at 1-800-807-2620. We'll be right back with your questions and e-mails.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs." We're talking about women in business and the rule that every women needs to know to get ahead. Diane Brady with "Businessweek" is in New York. And author Gail Evans is with us in Atlanta.

Ladies, we have a phone call from Vicki in Maine. Vicki, go ahead with your question, please.

CALLER: Well, thank you for taking my call. I'm 38, and I'm thinking of starting my own business. I'm very much aware of mission- based businesses and keeping a balance and knowing that, excuse me, having enough is okay. Not to oversucceed, I want to stay living in Maine.

I wonder what resources you would suggest people to go to to look for trends and also information on grants and loans for women and minorities starting their own business.

KOPPEL: I have to imagine, ladies, there would be a lot of information out there on the Internet.

BRADY: Yes, I think the Internet's a good place. I would encourage also networking, which I think has been very effective for men. Is very effective for women and small businesses as well as women in corporate America.

And I think that when I talk to people around the country, that's been key for them to succeeding in small business. Certainly grants has one thing, but networking has been the big important determinant of success.

EVANS: And there's a wonderful one-day program for entrepreneurs called the Women's Leadership Exchange. Which you can find on the Web. That tells you about it. And then there are things like springboard enterprises which helps women that are entrepreneurs. Both of those are good places to start.

KOPPEL: Okay, Vicki, good luck to you. We have an e-mail now from Brandy in Atlanta. Who writes, "are women really that underpaid compared to men. How large is the problem really? Is it slowly improving at all?" I have to imagine the answer is yes and no.

EVANS: No.

BRADY: Well, it is slowly improving, I mean, it definitely is not at parity. But one thing interesting, if you look apartment the gender gap right now in education, women are getting at least a third more BA's, they're getting far more Master's. In essence a lot of men are dropping out of the workforce and a lot of highly skilled women coming in. We're seeing a lot more parity and it goes across racial barriers, too.

Gail, you may have different findings. Certainly, it's not equal but it is improving.

EVANS: Well, statistically the problem is we were up to 86 cents on the dollar a few years ago, we're now down to 76 cents on the dollar. But a lot of the question is whether it's all about the parity comes -- possibly because women are not very good at negotiating for themselves. Women are great at negotiating for everybody else and they are fabulous negotiators for their own company. But when it comes to negotiating their own salaries, women seem to be falling behind. So one of the things we wonder about with the lack of parity is whether it's actually that we don't ask or don't understand how much we're worth.

KOPPEL: Gosh, I thought I was the only one.

EVANS: No, it's all -- everybody, Andrea, I can't tell you, all the way to the top. It is a problem. Women who are in the very top echelons still don't make the same as men and a lot of it's about what their expectations are.

KOPPEL: Well, I hope we helped Brandy there. We've got Karen who joins us on the phone now from Michigan. Go ahead, please, Karen.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call. I'm a registered nurse here in Michigan. I've been a nurse for 15 years. The biggest problem that I have seen is with nurses who have been in an area for any length of time, basically chewing up new nurses up and spitting them out. There is a major nursing shortage, as you know, and I wonder why the majority of nurses are women, why they continue to do this. I have left nursing because of this.

EVANS: What we hope is that women are going to begin to understand we're now 48 percent of the workforce. Things can be better for us, but we're going of to to start playing our own game together and not spitting each other up and not operating out of scarcity but understanding there's room for all of us.

BRADY: Well, I think one thing that's helping is the way you're seeing, for example, team sports in school. I don't think that we've been given a lot of opportunity coming up from childhood, basically, to be team players. I think that is changing.

I think as you see more women, you know -- it's interesting with nursing, my mother is a nurse and I certainly don't think that's her experience, but it's unfortunate that's what you've found. I do think as we see more women in certain jobs we'll be more comfortable with it and we will work together, it will not mean it's two of you and perceived as a threat.

KOPPEL: Karen, thank you so much for your call. We've got another e-mail from K Wise in Castle Rock, Colorado and she writes, "How can women succeed when terms such as women and minorities should apply continue to pervade our job market?" Ladies?

BRADY: This is -- basically what I take from this question is this is talking about affirmative action, where there's a feeling that there's tokenism. And I think that, you know, I suppose it's a problem. What interests me about that is when you see -- and this is a bit of a digression, I think definitely you don't want to be seen as somebody who got the job because you're a woman.

One thing that's interesting with CEO's in America is you find that when they're female CEO's they tend to be five years younger than male ceos and they are these superstars that are often plucked before they're ripe and I think are set up to fail. That's what interests me about the type of tokenism we may be seeing.

At the lower levels, I don't know, Gail may have some comments on that. I don't personally think it's a problem. I don't see a lot of jobs where they're encouraging women at the expense of men to go into them.

EVANS: I'm with you on that. We're now half the workforce. I think the real questions that have to get raised are about how we're going to do this together so that we're not so scarce when it gets closer to the top. Because one of the huge issues for women is about work/life balance.

Andrea you're getting ready to have the baby. You know, that becomes the big issue. Until there are more women, I don't think until one or two, until there are three women in the executive suite we're not going to begin to solve those issues and create more work/life balance which is really the key issue that women have to deal with.

KOPPEL: And maybe a woman going into business on her own, now the stats are one in every 11 adult women has her own business, is the answer and perhaps that's why women are getting there. But we're going to have lots more questions, lots more e-mails out of this break. Hope you'll stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs." We're taking your questions about the secrets and tools businesswomen need to succeed. "Businessweek's" Diane Brady and business writer Gail Evans, are sharing their expertise with us. We've got Janet in Florida who's on the phone with a question for you ladies. Janet, please go ahead.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.

KOPPEL: You're very welcome.

CALLER: Is there any organizations for mentoring similar to women business organizations or some people say they want mentoring but they don't want to give up what we had to or to work as hard. Thank you.

BRADY: You know, I -- it's a good question. It would be great if there there were -- I don't know organization for mentoring. I think certainly there are a lot of organization like Catalysts that track how women are doing in business and judge companies, among other things, by how well they mentor.

But the key to mentoring really is within your own organization. If you're in a corporate setting. If you're a woman who is going into business, which as Andrea said a lot more women are doing, then the key is I think networking and I think Catalyst is a great place to look at companies that are doing well.

And also I look at things like "Working Mother" magazine, 100 best places for women to work, things like that give you a good gauge. I can tell you companies are fighting really hard to get on that list these days, because the real issue is there aren't going too many too many skilled people, not that there will be too few.

KOPPEL: Gail, you mentioned WLE.

EVANS: Right. WLE's one and there are organizations in every town. There's women's organizations. If you're in the real estate business, there's CRW, which is the Commercial Real Estate Women, there's the Healthcare Business Association, if you are in the healthcare industry. There's WITY (ph) if you're in the technology industry. So there are organizations out there. And one of the main purposes of most of those women's organizations is be able to mentor the members.

But one of the other things about mentoring that people have to remember is a lot of mentoring is about what you read, what you listen to, what you see, watching people at your company who are doing the kind of job you want to do and allowing yourself to get self-mentored.

Mentoring is not just about having a formal person who guides your career. It's about a totality of things you can do for yourself. But in any town, I'm -- there's an organization that's built around the industry that most people are in.

KOPPEL: Janet, thanks, for calling "Dollar Signs."

We've got another phone call. This one is from Barbra in Ohio. Barbara, please go ahead with your question.

CALLER: Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I work in a primarily male-dominated industry, the trucking industry. And my question is I wondered whether you might have any advice as far as jealousy in the workplace with the few women who work in my industry? I'm a middle manager. And I've managed a number of women. But I found -- find a lot of them seem to have this attitude of they can get your spot if they just complain about you enough, knock you off.

What kind of recommendations do you have if -- I've gotten along great with all of the men that I've managed, but the women just seem to have some sort of attitude of there's only one spot for a woman and they can just get your place if they knock you out of the way.

EVANS: I tell you -- I hear that from women all the the time and one of the things I say is we've got to learn to shut up about each other. We've got to learn to start taking care of each other.

You know, when you sit and talk to these women, you know, somehow or other they've got to come to understand that your success is not their failure. Your success actually helps them. And one of the things we believed is when one us is up then the other one needs to be down, but the truth is there's more than enough room in today's marketplace for a whole bunch of us to be up.

You know, I keep saying it's very trite, but we need to make being good to be fashionable again. I hear great stories about it all the time.

BRADY: I think another issue, not an issue is how inclusive are we as managers. I know that, you know, if somebody is feeling threatened, my advice would be to confront them, talk to them, try to figure out what their fears are and put their minds at ease.

I mean, I think all too often when we're managers, and I'm not that senior, your focused looking up, you're not focused enough looking necessarily down and looking at some of the issues that your female subordinates may be dealing with.

KOPPEL: Unfortunately, Diane, Gail, we have run out of time, this half-hour just seemed to zip by. I want to thank both of you, Diane Brady, Gail Evans, hopefully we helped some women out there as they try to steer their way through the rocky shoals of the world of business. And try to deal with women and men alike. Thank you both.

BRADY: Thank you.

EVANS: Thank you.

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Aired November 15, 2003 - 16:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to "Dollar Signs," where we help you make the most of your money. Today we're going to talk about women in business. Do you have the right skills to get ahead? Diane Brady, an associate editor at "Businessweek" magazine joins us from New York. And author Gale Evans is with us in Atlanta. She was CNN's first female executive vice president. Gale is also author of "She Wins, You Win: The Most Important Rule Every Businesswoman Needs To Know." Well, welcome to you both, especially to Gayle who I haven't seen in a long time. Great to see you.
GAIL EVANS, AUTHOR: Great to see you.

KOPPEL: Women working with other women. Do they really support each other the way that they could or should?

EVANS: Well, I think one of the things that we're going to have to learn is that for every woman who succeeds, I succeed a little and for every woman who fails I fail a little, we need to get on the same team, which is something a lot of women haven't done yet.

KOPPEL: Diane, why is it that women aren't necessarily supporting one another as well as they should?

DIANE BRADY, "BUSINESSWEEK": Well, I think there's a couple of reasons. First of all, if you look at -- women may make up half, now, of professionals, but if you look in the top ranks among corporate officers it's 12 percent and I think it's 1 or 2 percent of CEOs. So, when the door opens there's a real sense it won't widen for the two of you, it will probably let 1 of you. And I think that's one issue.

The other issue is, I don't think there have been a lot women in the top ranks. I spoke to one CEO and she said she will utterly alone, which I think kind of sums up the experience of a lot of women going up the ladder.

EVANS: But I think one of the things that has to happen is, we have to stop being along. We have to start meeting other women, talking to other women, sharing experiences. We've all believed it was, I can do it. I think it's changed to we can do it.

KOPPEL: Well, let's talk about mentoring. I know that women, I can tell you this from experience right now, because I'm six and a half months pregnant, we get lots of advice from one another about how to raise families, but you don't necessarily get advice on career moves. Why not?

EVANS: I think one of the things that happens is we've sort of separated. We think we have our personal life and business life and we're happy to mentor each other, network, coach each other about everything in our personal life. But somehow or other we have not yet started to do that fully in our business life. And we have to.

You know, I think every woman who begins to get ahead has to reach her hand back and say am I mentoring other young women, am I bringing people through the pipeline? For some reason we haven't done that yet.

BRADY: I think Gail raises a good point, but what's equally important if not more I my mid is, are women getting mentoring by people in the top jobs who by and large still tend to be men. If you look at a company like G.E. for example, the new CEO has very much said to the top men in the company you have to mentor women and minorities and you will be judged on their ability to get ahead.

So I think that is important. Definitely we have to have women mentoring women, but we have to have men reaching out and mentoring women too because they're in the jobs that a lot of us want to be in.

KOPPEL: Let's talk about some of the generational problems among women. Some older women complain about younger women not helping them and vice versa.

EVANS: Right. One of the things that happen, I hear from younger women all the time, the older women make it more difficult for me. I hear from the older women, well, I worked so hard to get here and now she's here and she wants everything. I think one of the problems is that people in my generation, we told our daughters and our granddaughters, you can have it, you can be anything you want to be and then all of a sudden one day they turned 30 and people are saying, well, you can't have it all. Well, what is it? Can you have it or can't you have it? I think we've been sending mixed messages.

KOPPEL: So how do you convince the older generation, then, to reach out to the younger generation?

EVANS: Well, I think one of the things he have to do is to understand the reason we went through the battles we went through is was to make it easier for the next generation. Somehow a lot of women have forgotten that.

The younger generation can look very threatening because they're very well educated, they're smart, they're ambitious and a lot of older women, you know, got there by their seniority and longevity and that's all they really have going for them.

The young women, after they've been in the marketplace five years, want the same salary the older women are getting. So it's going to be a lot of understanding why you got there in the first place.

KOPPEL: I think this sounds a lot -- Diane I think we're going to go to a break in just a moment and I was going to say, this sounds a lot like, I'm sure there are a lot of men out there -- older and younger men that could say the same thing about the generational issues. But we're going to get to both of you, Diane Brady and Gail Evans right after the break.

Is something holding you back from succeeding at work? Please send us your questions, we'll help you get ahead in the workforce. The e-mail address is right there on your screen, dollarsigns@CNN.com. Or you can call us at 1-800-807-2620. We'll be right back with your questions and e-mails.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs." We're talking about women in business and the rule that every women needs to know to get ahead. Diane Brady with "Businessweek" is in New York. And author Gail Evans is with us in Atlanta.

Ladies, we have a phone call from Vicki in Maine. Vicki, go ahead with your question, please.

CALLER: Well, thank you for taking my call. I'm 38, and I'm thinking of starting my own business. I'm very much aware of mission- based businesses and keeping a balance and knowing that, excuse me, having enough is okay. Not to oversucceed, I want to stay living in Maine.

I wonder what resources you would suggest people to go to to look for trends and also information on grants and loans for women and minorities starting their own business.

KOPPEL: I have to imagine, ladies, there would be a lot of information out there on the Internet.

BRADY: Yes, I think the Internet's a good place. I would encourage also networking, which I think has been very effective for men. Is very effective for women and small businesses as well as women in corporate America.

And I think that when I talk to people around the country, that's been key for them to succeeding in small business. Certainly grants has one thing, but networking has been the big important determinant of success.

EVANS: And there's a wonderful one-day program for entrepreneurs called the Women's Leadership Exchange. Which you can find on the Web. That tells you about it. And then there are things like springboard enterprises which helps women that are entrepreneurs. Both of those are good places to start.

KOPPEL: Okay, Vicki, good luck to you. We have an e-mail now from Brandy in Atlanta. Who writes, "are women really that underpaid compared to men. How large is the problem really? Is it slowly improving at all?" I have to imagine the answer is yes and no.

EVANS: No.

BRADY: Well, it is slowly improving, I mean, it definitely is not at parity. But one thing interesting, if you look apartment the gender gap right now in education, women are getting at least a third more BA's, they're getting far more Master's. In essence a lot of men are dropping out of the workforce and a lot of highly skilled women coming in. We're seeing a lot more parity and it goes across racial barriers, too.

Gail, you may have different findings. Certainly, it's not equal but it is improving.

EVANS: Well, statistically the problem is we were up to 86 cents on the dollar a few years ago, we're now down to 76 cents on the dollar. But a lot of the question is whether it's all about the parity comes -- possibly because women are not very good at negotiating for themselves. Women are great at negotiating for everybody else and they are fabulous negotiators for their own company. But when it comes to negotiating their own salaries, women seem to be falling behind. So one of the things we wonder about with the lack of parity is whether it's actually that we don't ask or don't understand how much we're worth.

KOPPEL: Gosh, I thought I was the only one.

EVANS: No, it's all -- everybody, Andrea, I can't tell you, all the way to the top. It is a problem. Women who are in the very top echelons still don't make the same as men and a lot of it's about what their expectations are.

KOPPEL: Well, I hope we helped Brandy there. We've got Karen who joins us on the phone now from Michigan. Go ahead, please, Karen.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call. I'm a registered nurse here in Michigan. I've been a nurse for 15 years. The biggest problem that I have seen is with nurses who have been in an area for any length of time, basically chewing up new nurses up and spitting them out. There is a major nursing shortage, as you know, and I wonder why the majority of nurses are women, why they continue to do this. I have left nursing because of this.

EVANS: What we hope is that women are going to begin to understand we're now 48 percent of the workforce. Things can be better for us, but we're going of to to start playing our own game together and not spitting each other up and not operating out of scarcity but understanding there's room for all of us.

BRADY: Well, I think one thing that's helping is the way you're seeing, for example, team sports in school. I don't think that we've been given a lot of opportunity coming up from childhood, basically, to be team players. I think that is changing.

I think as you see more women, you know -- it's interesting with nursing, my mother is a nurse and I certainly don't think that's her experience, but it's unfortunate that's what you've found. I do think as we see more women in certain jobs we'll be more comfortable with it and we will work together, it will not mean it's two of you and perceived as a threat.

KOPPEL: Karen, thank you so much for your call. We've got another e-mail from K Wise in Castle Rock, Colorado and she writes, "How can women succeed when terms such as women and minorities should apply continue to pervade our job market?" Ladies?

BRADY: This is -- basically what I take from this question is this is talking about affirmative action, where there's a feeling that there's tokenism. And I think that, you know, I suppose it's a problem. What interests me about that is when you see -- and this is a bit of a digression, I think definitely you don't want to be seen as somebody who got the job because you're a woman.

One thing that's interesting with CEO's in America is you find that when they're female CEO's they tend to be five years younger than male ceos and they are these superstars that are often plucked before they're ripe and I think are set up to fail. That's what interests me about the type of tokenism we may be seeing.

At the lower levels, I don't know, Gail may have some comments on that. I don't personally think it's a problem. I don't see a lot of jobs where they're encouraging women at the expense of men to go into them.

EVANS: I'm with you on that. We're now half the workforce. I think the real questions that have to get raised are about how we're going to do this together so that we're not so scarce when it gets closer to the top. Because one of the huge issues for women is about work/life balance.

Andrea you're getting ready to have the baby. You know, that becomes the big issue. Until there are more women, I don't think until one or two, until there are three women in the executive suite we're not going to begin to solve those issues and create more work/life balance which is really the key issue that women have to deal with.

KOPPEL: And maybe a woman going into business on her own, now the stats are one in every 11 adult women has her own business, is the answer and perhaps that's why women are getting there. But we're going to have lots more questions, lots more e-mails out of this break. Hope you'll stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KOPPEL: Welcome back to "Dollar Signs." We're taking your questions about the secrets and tools businesswomen need to succeed. "Businessweek's" Diane Brady and business writer Gail Evans, are sharing their expertise with us. We've got Janet in Florida who's on the phone with a question for you ladies. Janet, please go ahead.

CALLER: Thank you for taking my call.

KOPPEL: You're very welcome.

CALLER: Is there any organizations for mentoring similar to women business organizations or some people say they want mentoring but they don't want to give up what we had to or to work as hard. Thank you.

BRADY: You know, I -- it's a good question. It would be great if there there were -- I don't know organization for mentoring. I think certainly there are a lot of organization like Catalysts that track how women are doing in business and judge companies, among other things, by how well they mentor.

But the key to mentoring really is within your own organization. If you're in a corporate setting. If you're a woman who is going into business, which as Andrea said a lot more women are doing, then the key is I think networking and I think Catalyst is a great place to look at companies that are doing well.

And also I look at things like "Working Mother" magazine, 100 best places for women to work, things like that give you a good gauge. I can tell you companies are fighting really hard to get on that list these days, because the real issue is there aren't going too many too many skilled people, not that there will be too few.

KOPPEL: Gail, you mentioned WLE.

EVANS: Right. WLE's one and there are organizations in every town. There's women's organizations. If you're in the real estate business, there's CRW, which is the Commercial Real Estate Women, there's the Healthcare Business Association, if you are in the healthcare industry. There's WITY (ph) if you're in the technology industry. So there are organizations out there. And one of the main purposes of most of those women's organizations is be able to mentor the members.

But one of the other things about mentoring that people have to remember is a lot of mentoring is about what you read, what you listen to, what you see, watching people at your company who are doing the kind of job you want to do and allowing yourself to get self-mentored.

Mentoring is not just about having a formal person who guides your career. It's about a totality of things you can do for yourself. But in any town, I'm -- there's an organization that's built around the industry that most people are in.

KOPPEL: Janet, thanks, for calling "Dollar Signs."

We've got another phone call. This one is from Barbra in Ohio. Barbara, please go ahead with your question.

CALLER: Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I work in a primarily male-dominated industry, the trucking industry. And my question is I wondered whether you might have any advice as far as jealousy in the workplace with the few women who work in my industry? I'm a middle manager. And I've managed a number of women. But I found -- find a lot of them seem to have this attitude of they can get your spot if they just complain about you enough, knock you off.

What kind of recommendations do you have if -- I've gotten along great with all of the men that I've managed, but the women just seem to have some sort of attitude of there's only one spot for a woman and they can just get your place if they knock you out of the way.

EVANS: I tell you -- I hear that from women all the the time and one of the things I say is we've got to learn to shut up about each other. We've got to learn to start taking care of each other.

You know, when you sit and talk to these women, you know, somehow or other they've got to come to understand that your success is not their failure. Your success actually helps them. And one of the things we believed is when one us is up then the other one needs to be down, but the truth is there's more than enough room in today's marketplace for a whole bunch of us to be up.

You know, I keep saying it's very trite, but we need to make being good to be fashionable again. I hear great stories about it all the time.

BRADY: I think another issue, not an issue is how inclusive are we as managers. I know that, you know, if somebody is feeling threatened, my advice would be to confront them, talk to them, try to figure out what their fears are and put their minds at ease.

I mean, I think all too often when we're managers, and I'm not that senior, your focused looking up, you're not focused enough looking necessarily down and looking at some of the issues that your female subordinates may be dealing with.

KOPPEL: Unfortunately, Diane, Gail, we have run out of time, this half-hour just seemed to zip by. I want to thank both of you, Diane Brady, Gail Evans, hopefully we helped some women out there as they try to steer their way through the rocky shoals of the world of business. And try to deal with women and men alike. Thank you both.

BRADY: Thank you.

EVANS: Thank you.

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