by Patricia Sellers

Only 15.2% of directors of Fortune 500 companies are women, according to a new report from Catalyst, as we noted yesterday.

Today: Tips for breaking into the boardroom. Listen up, guys. This could help you too.

I recently talked with Julie Daum, who heads the board search practice at recruiter Spencer Stuart. She also co-lead a session on Corporate Boards at this year’s Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit. Her co-leader was former U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab, now a director at Fedex (FDX) and Caterpillar (CAT), and the breakout session’s participants included DuPont (DD) CEO Ellen Kullman, General Motors (GM) director Pat Russo, and Fortune’s resident expert on boards (and many other things), Carol Loomis. Their advice:

1. Get on search firms’ radar: Search firms are the source of 58% of director recommendations, according to Spencer Stuart,.

2. Know what corporate boards value: “The ABCs: Attitude, Behavior, Candor,” says Daum. Don’t forget “D”–Diversity. Most boards are looking for women, minorities and people with international expertise.

3. Consider corporate governance training. Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management has a very good three-day “Women’s Director Development Program” designed for senior execs who want to get on major boards and serve them well.

4. Know what you’re in for: The average board of an S&P 500 company met nine times last year, , according to Spencer Stuart. Average tenure: 8.4 years.

5. Don’t do it for the money. The average director at an S&P 500 company gets paid $213,000–58% of that in stock and options, according to Daum’s research. That may sounds like a lot, but she warns, “Make sure the company is worth the possible reputation risk.” That is, if you’re on the board of a company that gets into trouble, you’ll find your time stolen and possibly your personal reputation too.

One positive trend for anyone who is not a CEO but wants board experience to help get there someday: Boards are appointing fewer sitting CEO than in the past. Why? Because more and more CEOs just don’t have the time. And some companies–including Goldman Sachs (GS), General Electric (GE) and Disney (DIS)–prohibit their most senior executives from serving on outside boards. Which means: More boardroom opportunity for anyone on the way up.

by Jessica Shambora

Former White House press secretary Dana Perino (third from left) at the Minute Mentoring event she coordinated. Photo courtesy of Charlotte Sellmyer.

Dana Perino is only 37 years old and already has the title “White House Press Secretary” on her resume.

But at age 25, after working on Capitol Hill for two and a half years, she was saying to herself, “I thought I’d be further along than this.”

All around her, it seemed, men were leap-frogging into higher positions. She wasn’t sure which path would help her advance her own career.

That early confusion and uncertainty makes Perino particularly sensitive to young women in the same predicament today. She is, not surprisingly, also someone whom ambitious young women look to for advice. They ask her what they should do: Go to grad school? Ask for a promotion? Stay in D.C. or work on a local campaign?

Perino, who is now chief issues counselor at PR giant Burson-Marsteller (WPPGY), was struggling to find the time to respond to multitudinous requests when she thought up a solution that she calls “Minute Mentoring.” It’s speed dating applied to mentoring. She coordinated the first event last Thursday in D.C. at the offices of Bracewell & Giuliani, with the help of Susan Molinari, the former New York Congresswoman who is a senior principal at the law firm. (Read yesterday’s post about the Minute Mentoring event.).

Perino had lots of advice to dole out, some of it gathered within the corridors of the White House. Like the time her predecessor as press secretary, the late Tony Snow, told her that she would be briefing the press the following day. All she could think about was the challenge of replacing the man she calls “one of the greatest to ever grace the podium.”

Snow told her, “You’re better at this than you think you are.” And it’s a message Perino passes on to other women who doubt themselves. “It applies to everything in your life, not just your job. You’re a better friend, sister, wife, mother, daughter than you think you are.”

Perino, who was President Bush’s spokesperson for close to two years until he left office last January, told the young women that she used to catch Condoleezza Rice for quick questions as the former Secretary of State made her way from the Oval Office to the Roosevelt Room. “Some of the most effective meetings you’ll have will be in the hallway,” she said.

Perino also had plenty of practical tips:

On self-enrichment: “Turn off the television and read. One hour of reality TV is fun; four hours is destructive. Enrich your brain. Reading makes you a better writer. A lot of men and women coming out of college today are not good writers and it’s very frustrating.”

On health and battling stress: “Find a healthy fitness activity and start incorporating it into your daily life.” Each day before heading to the White House, Perino used to do one hour on the elliptical machine while reading the newspaper.

On taking risks: “Don’t be afraid to move.” Perino shared her own story of moving to England and San Diego before arriving back in D.C. at the job that led to her position at the White House. And she told the young women that if they wanted to run for Congress, they’d have to go back home. “You can’t run for office in D.C.”

What struck Perino the most about the inaugural Minute Mentoring event? The eagerness of well-known, accomplished women to be mentors, whatever their party affiliation. “For as partisan as this town is,” she says, “when it comes to women helping other women, there is no partisanship.”

“A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message. He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic. Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say — and don’t say. “

–Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs. Lashinsky’s cover story, “Steve Jobs: CEO of the Decade,” in the current issue of Fortune, explains how the “showman…salesman…magician…tyrannical perfectionist” redefined not just one industry, but four: movies, music, mobile phones and computing. Check out the video below for more on how Jobs did it. –Jessica Shambora

“There hasn’t been a day in Steve’s life that he doesn’t get up, think about the company he works for, or what he’s going to do next. These are things that drive him.”

–Bill Campbell, Intuit (INTU) chairman and former CEO, about Steve Jobs–Apple’s (AAPL) CEO and Fortune’s “CEO of the Decade,” on the cover of the current issue. Once Apple’s VP of marketing and now on the board, Campbell  claims he’s never seen Jobs be anything but intense. In fact, Campbell says, Jobs is so focused on creating the next groundbreaking product, he doesn’t even stop to think about what it all means. “He wants to create something that has value, that has a legacy. ‘Legacy’ is my word. I’m not sure he ever thinks about legacy. He’s just driven like that.”

More big names in business offer their reflections on Jobs here. –Jessica Shambora

“He’s involved in details you wouldn’t think a CEO would be involved in.”

–Ken Segall, a former Chiat/Day creative director who has worked with Apple (AAPL) on and off for years, talking about Steve Jobs, Fortune’s “CEO of the Decade.” Jobs commissioned the 1997 “Think different” campaign, says Segall, long before any of Apple’s new products were introduced — or even described to the ad team. “He’d say, ‘The third word in the fourth paragraph isn’t right. You might want to think about that one.’”

The new issue of Fortune, featuring a in-depth retrospective on Jobs, hits newsstands today. –Jessica Shambora

“The threshold for the release of the first product should be, ‘What would Steve Jobs do?’”

– Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder, who often evokes Apple (AAPL)’s maestro CEO in his advice to entrepreneurs. Andreessen is quoted in the Fortune cover package, “Steve Jobs: CEO of the decade,” hitting newsstands Friday. Fortune’s retrospective of “all things Steve” includes timelines, online photo galleries, and testimonials from Jobs’ friends and colleagues. For the next week, our Power Points–the quotes we post frequently on Postcards–will be plucked from this coverage of the world-changer whose comeback is the ultimate story of redemption. –Jessica Shambora

by Patricia Sellers

Photo courtesy of Avon

Liz Smith, who was on track to succeed Andrea Jung as CEO of Avon Products (AVP), is moving to a new company and a new industry. Again.

The onetime star exec at Kraft (KFT), who made an unlikely leap from food to cosmetics in 2004, is the newly named chief executive of OSI, a chain of casual-dining eateries.

“What?!!” is a question that Smith admits she’s been asked often throughout her career. She says she follows her own guideline: “Be open to opportunity.”

There’s plenty of opportunity–and risk–at OSI, which you may not have heard of but is a giant in the casual-dining category. With 2008 revenues of $4 billion, OSI operates chains such as Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill, Roy’s, and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar. Good brands, as restaurant brands go–and as Bain Capital and Catterton Partners thought when they acquired the company for $3.2 billion in 2007. But the global recession brutalized the business, which operates across the U.S. and in 20 other countries. OSI lost $739.4 million last year, and it’s been suffering serious declines in same-store sales.

Which may be ideal for Smith, since she adores companies that are ripe for overhaul. “It’s really always been in my DNA,” she told my colleague Jessica Shambora in September, on the day she announced her departure from Avon.

Smith’s exit from Avon shocked many people, since she was crucial to the cosmetic giant’s turnaround, well-liked across the company, and widely viewed as Jung’s eventual successor. But “eventual” was looking to be too long from now. While Smith, who is No. 29 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list, is just 46 years old and has plenty of runway ahead, she lost patience. That’s understandable since Jung, who was named Avon’s CEO at age 41 a decade ago, has no plans to retire.

So now, Smith–who began her career at Morgan Stanley (MS) and then, as a Stanford MBA student, “wanted to start the next Microsoft or H-P”–is off in yet another new direction. Geographically, this time it is Manhattan to Tampa, Florida, where OSI is based. Smith plans to commute initially and then relocate with her husband and two young sons.

And though retail isn’t entirely new to Smith–she’s on the board of Staples (SPLS)–she’ll be testing herself against her own measure of leadership. “Nothing is more important than a nimble, agile leader who is comfortable with ambiguity,” she told me a few months ago.

“We have to be comfortable figuring it out as we go along,” Smith added. Definitely, she’s living her philosophy.

Situational awareness: being aware of what’s happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives.

This is how Wikipedia defines this concept that’s been bandied about a lot lately, since those Northwest (DAL) pilots got distracted on their laptops and flew wayyyy beyond Minneapolis, their destination. Whatever the rogue navigators were viewing or doing on their mini computer screens, they were oblivious to the world and to their job.

So situational unawareness can be dangerous these days.

I’ve thought about the concept a lot, actually, even before it came into vogue. Walking down Broadway to work each morning, I stare at my BlackBerry, thumb poised on my rollerball. I’m oblivious to traffic, at my peril.

Others around me are oblivious, but immobile. The New York Times recently published a rant on cellphone users who stand in the middle of sidewalks and subway stairways. “This new brand of boor,” the writer called these people. The blog post drew an avalanche of comments from readers.

Situational awareness is a challenge for every leader, from President Obama on down. “The hardest thing about my job is staying focused,” the President told 60 Minutes. And as I pointed out in a Postcard called “How the best bosses find focus,” former CEOs Meg Whitman of EBAY (EBAY), Anne Mulcahy of Xerox (XRX) and A.G. Lafley of Procter & Gamble (PG) are just a few of the corporate leaders who say that knowing what not to do is as key to success as knowing what to do.

Avon (AVP) chairman and CEO Andrea Jung, who is on the boards of Apple (AAPL) and General Electric (GE), made this same point to me last week. We were talking about Steve Jobs, actually, and Jung noted that “tightness of vision” has been one of the many reasons Apple consistently stays on course and rarely falters.

And then there’s the master of situational awareness in sports: Derek Jeter, who we’ll see tonight when the Yankees meet the Phillies in Game 1 of the World Series. In a fascinating story about the Yankee captain in the New York Times today, Jeter contends that his success is based on “simplifying things.” He’s better than almost anyone–in baseball, at least–at reducing the clutter that can overwhelm players, especially All-Stars in the spotlight. The story offers lessons for any leader–or anybody aspiring to stay in a job.

My Fortune colleague Carol Loomis passed on this YouTube video of a talk that Morgan Stanley (MS) CEO John Mack delivered last week at Wharton. It’s a remarkably candid play-by-play of living through the global economic meltdown.

Mack talks about being pushed by Tim Geithner, then head of the New York Fed, to do a deal with JPMorgan Chase (JPM) or Citigroup (C) or another partner that might stabilize the teetering firm and, with it, the cratering financial system.

Mack refused to be told what to do. As he says in the video, “Stand up for what you believe in. Do what you think is right. Be prepared to suffer the consequences. But don’t be pushed around when you know in your heart of hearts it’s the wrong thing to do.” He and Morgan Stanley survived by lining up a $9 billion investment from Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. And Morgan Stanley turned out to be one of two survivors, along with Goldman Sachs (GS), among the Wall Street giants.

Carol doesn’t mind–and I hope Mack doesn’t either–my sharing an email that she wrote to him this afternoon…and his prompt reply:

Loomis: I just watched your Wharton talk on YouTube. This is one of the best 26 minutes I have ever spent. I predict you will soon have more hits on
YouTube than Susan Boyle.

Mack: Carol, Thanks, but I would prefer to listen to Susan Boyle. John

P.S. Click here to see the video and read about Mack’s “Inside the Bunker” talk on Wharton’s website.

Yesterday on Postcards, we talked about viewing your career as a pyramid. That’s Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz’s image. I prefer the idea of a jungle gym. Same point: In today’s non-linear, difficult-to-predict environment, you should strive for diverse experience because the step-by-step ladder won’t take you far enough.

I was talking about this idea with Claudio Fernandez-Araoz, senior advisor at Egon Zehnder International. He’s a globetrotting Argentinian–not a headhunter like most at the big search firm, but a go-to consultant on talent development. His 2007 book, Great People Decisions, is based on research on how the best developers of talent–Southwest Airlines (LUV), McKinsey, Intuit (INTU), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), and General Electric (GE), among them–manage their high-potential people. These companies stretch their execs in all directions. And the execs learn not just multiple skills but also how to be flexible.

Fernandez-Araoz’s latest research involves “competency assessments” of executives in Japan–part of 6,000 or so talent assessments that Egon Zehnder conducts across the globe annually. To his surprise, Fernandez-Araoz told me, “In Japan, unlike in other countries, there’s a negative correlation between age and competency.” Japanese executives show higher-than-average potential early on, but later they tend to flag, according to Egon Zehnder’s research.

Actually, it’s not so surprising why “competency”–the firm’s measure of fitness for a job–declines as Japanese executives grow older. “Their potential is not being developed because they don’t switch jobs and companies and industries,” Fernandez-Araoz says, adding that in Japan’s age-based HR system, managers tend to get promoted for tenure, not competence. “This limits the development of the high-potentials, while lowering the overall level of competence.”

So go ahead, stretch yourself. And think about the four keys to successful leadership, according to Fernandez-Araoz: strategic orientation, results orientation, influence and collaboration, and team leadership. In today’s collaborative world–where success also rides on lifting confidence in all around you–team leadership, I’d guess, is most important of all of these.

“We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.”

– Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs said this to Fortune’s Betsy Morris last year but his words resonate now more than ever. Today, Apple reported its most profitable quarter in history, earning $1.82 a share on revenue of $9.87 billion for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009. The results far exceeded expectations and sent shares soaring, up from the closing price of $189.86 to $202.87 by 5:41 p.m. — an all-time high. “We are thrilled to have sold more Macs and iPhones than in any previous quarter,” Jobs said in a prepared statement. While the monastery, sailing and golf are all interesting options, can there be any doubt that Jobs made the right choice? –Jessica Shambora

There comes a fork in every career. Should I do this or do that?

Charting a successful career was the topic on Tuesday at Wal-Mart (WMT), where the company’s female officers staged a “Fortune Most Powerful Women” event and I interviewed two stars of the 2009 MPWomen rankings: Wal-Mart EVP of People Susan Chambers and Xerox (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns.

Their bios tell the paths they chose. More inspiring and instructive, as they revealed on Tuesday, are the career paths they decided not to take.

Chambers, who joined Wal-Mart from Hallmark a decade ago, once dreamed of being a professional opera singer. Her mezzo-soprano might have been, but she didn’t love the idea of traipsing around the world as artists must do. “It’s still in my heart,” said Chambers, who now plays piano and sings–at home and at church–to lessen the stress of overseeing the largest private-sector workforce on earth. “Make sure you spend some percentage of time doing something that brings you joy,” she advised.

Burns told a story that few people know–how in 2001, she almost left Xerox.

Having joined Xerox as an intern in 1980, Burns by then had ascended to SVP in charge of manufacturing and supply-chain operations. a stellar rise, but Xerox was teetering–facing potential bankruptcy–and its CEO, a former IBMer (IBM) named Rick Thoman, had lost the faith of investors and management.

Burns was outta there–or so she thought. She had lined up a job at a healthy, younger company and was about to move to Texas with her husband and two children when she got an unexpected call from a Xerox board member.

This director said to her: “If your spouse was old, but now they are sick, would you stay and care of him?”

Yes, of course, Burns replied.

“If you and your spouse both made it through to a long-term relationship, but now a young, ‘pretty’ suitor came along, would you stay in the relationship you’ve invested in–or leave for something new and unknown?”

Stay–absolutely, Burns told the director.

It was at that moment, Burns said, that she realized she was key to saving Xerox. And when she learned that the board was going to name Anne Mulcahy, another lifer who embraced the need for radical change, as the new CEO, Burns ditched her departure plan.

So, what was that healthy, younger company that almost lured Burns away? “Dell,” she told the Wal-Mart gathering.

And who was that Xerox director who persuaded her to stay? “Vernon Jordan,” said Burns, referring to the well-known Lazard (LAZ) lawyer who, besides serving on Xerox’s board, advises American Express (AXP), where Burns is a director. By sticking it out, she eventually made history: The Mulcahy-Burns succession, in July, was the first-ever woman-to-woman CEO handoff in the Fortune 500.

P.S. For more Wal-Mart wisdom, read my Wednesday post, “A visit to Wal-Mart’s home.”

by Patricia Sellers

“Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage.”

That was said, simply enough, by Wal-Mart (WMT) founder Sam Walton. And though today it’s widely known that Wal-Mart is the world’s most efficient retailer, a little-known fact is that for 25 years–long before Wal-Mart became America’s largest retailer–it ranked No. 1 in its industry for the lowest ratio of expenses to sales.

Efficiency runs in the water here in Bentonville, Arkansas, where I’ve spent the past 36 hours. I hadn’t been to the center of the retail universe since 1996, when Wal-Mart crossed the line of $100 billion in annual sales. This past year, the company, which started in 1962, crossed the $400 billion line.

And while it’s now 17 years since Sam has died, the rules he established when he opened his first five-and-dime, on Bentonville’s town square, still apply. On Monday night, when I had dinner with Wal-Mart financial services president Jane Thompson and seven other corporate officers, everybody chipped in $20 a piece for the wine. That’s because Wal-Mart’s founder refused to pay for alcohol of any kind.

Over at the home office (which Sam Walton preferred to “headquarters” because he thought the latter term sounded highfalutin), I ran into Mike Duke, Wal-Mart’s CEO who took charge in February. I asked Duke if I could take a peek of his office–which are Sam’s old digs–and as he escorted me into the tiny room, he noted with pride, “Same wood paneling from 30 years ago.” Duke’s fanciest decoration is an aquarium in the corner. “That’s from David Glass,” he said, referring to Wal-Mart’s chief after Sam, “and I’m just trying to keep the fish alive.” What did Duke add to the space? “Just the pictures on the wall,” he replied. Two framed photos above his desk show Sam’s first store and below that, a picture of the world. “Because that’s where we’re focused now,” the CEO said.

Before moving into Wal-Mart’s top job, Duke headed international operations and worked in a low gray shed next door. At 40,360 square feet total, this may be the world’s smallest office responsible for $100 billion in sales. (Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKB) headquarters in Omaha comes close, in terms of efficiency. See Monday’s Postcard on “How Warren Buffett manages his managers“). Now Doug McMillon, who succeeded Duke as international chief, works out of the unsightly barracks, where a few fortunate execs get a jailhouse-type window through which, as Duke says, you have to crank your neck to see the sun.

I was invited to Bentonville by Wal-Mart’s women officers, a group that just passed 100 in number and self-finance their events by chipping in $100 each every year–another mark of management’s extreme self-denial. (Anyone who sells to Wal-Mart knows that its managers aren’t allowed to accept even a bottle of water without paying for it.) Yesterday, at their special ”Fortune Most Powerful Women” event, I interviewed Susan Chambers, EVP of Wal-Mart’s Global People Division, and Ursula Burns, the new CEO of Xerox (XRX)–which you’ll read more about on Postcards later. Before the day ended, Thompson, the financial services chief, drove me past the spot where Sam Walton is buried, alongside his wife, Helen. It’s a barely noticeable grave in a crowded cemetery tucked behind Wal-Mart’s home office. Even in the afterlife, Sam Walton is saving money.

Warren Buffett calls the CEOs who run his companies “All-Stars.”

The world’s most renowned investor picks his managers practically as well as his stocks. But branding the bosses of businesses owned by Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) “All-Stars” may also be a clever people-management ploy on his part–to inject so much confidence in his people that they feel they must be the best…and duly pressured, they are.

At the recent Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit (where Buffett, one of the few male attendees, says, “For a guy who couldn’t get a date in high school, this is heaven”), he and two of his All-Stars clued us in on how he motivates.

One “All-Star” in attendance, Cathy Baron Tamraz, sold her company, Business Wire, to Buffett sight unseen, after speedy negotiations by phone, in 2006. The deal worked out well, because “if I had met her, I would have paid more,” Buffett said, calling the news-distribution service “a fabulously successful business.”

Tamraz suspects that Buffett has a psychology degree because, she said, “Warren makes us feel like we can do no wrong.” He’s no trained psychologist, but he may be as good as one. “It’s a very frightening thing to do to us,” Tamraz said. “We’re not going to sleep at night because we’re going to get it right every single day. It’s extraordinary.”

The other “All-Star” at the Summit: Susan Jacques, the CEO of Borsheims Fine Jewelry and Gifts in Omaha. Twenty-seven years ago, Buffett explained, Jacques arrived at Borsheims as a $4-an-hour clerk. He detected certain skills in this dynamic young woman from Zimbabwe, and 12 years later he made her CEO of the jewelery retailer. The promotion surprised many people, he admitted, but “she turned out to be a fabulous CEO.”

Jacques said that the best advice she’s gotten from Buffett comes in a memo that he sends to his 77 All-Stars every couple of years. Every memo includes some version of this message:

We can afford to lose money–even a lot of money. We cannot afford to lose reputation–even a shred of reputation. Let’s be sure that everything we do in business can be reported on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter. In many areas, including acquisitions, Berkshire’s results have benefitted from its reputation, and we don’t want to do anything that in any way can tarnish it. Berkshire is ranked by Fortune as the second-most admired company in the world. It took us 43 years to get there, but we could lose it in 43 minutes.

“This is the mantra I use every day in both my personal and professional life,” Jacques said, noting three more pieces of wisdom from Buffett: “Think like an owner. Tell us bad news right away. And if you don’t know jewelery, know your jeweler.”

P.S. Buffett introduced a Summit session called Most Powerful Women in Small Business, which spotlighted a new program from Fortune and American  Express (AXP)–where Buffett is the largest shareholder. We selected 10 extraordinary female entrepreneurs and brought them to the Summit. Stay tuned to Postcards for more about this new initiative.

by Patricia Sellers

Sallie Krawcheck

A hot job offer dangles before you. How do you know if it’s right? Sometimes you feel it in your gut. And sometimes you get a big, bloody warning sign. Like Sallie Krawcheck did before she opted to join Bank of America (BAC).

Krawcheck, the former Citigroup (C) star who joined BofA in August to head its Global Wealth and Investment Management unit, told a story last evening in an on-stage conversation with my Fortune colleague Carol Loomis at Manhattan’s Museum of American Finance. While she ducked all questions about who might replace departing BofA CEO Ken Lewis (she’s rumored to be in the running, but she’s a longshot), Krawcheck had the audience rolling as she talked about another job that she almost took–until things went awry.

This other job, explained Krawcheck, 44, was “a leadership opportunity at a troubled financial-services company.” The initial meeting with the prospective employer required a flight out of New York. “For the first time in my life, I overslept and almost missed the plane.” No time for a shower, she threw on her clothes. “I think my pajamas were on underneath,” she said.

She thought to herself: “This doesn’t feel very good.”

Krawcheck made it to the meeting, however, and it went well. The second meeting took place, conveniently, in Manhattan. This was a beautiful spring day. Wearing a new suit and new shoes, she recalled, “I couldn’t have been feeling more pleased with myself.”

That is, until Krawcheck, while walking down Madison Avenue to her meeting, caught the heel of her new shoe in a crack in the sidewalk.

“I went flying down onto a grate,” she said. “I stood up, spit out a tooth. Blood was everywhere.”

Still, she was determined: “I can make the meeting. I can make the meeting!”

“I did not make the meeting. Nor did I eat solid food for the next six weeks.”

“I ended up with six stitches, one broken tooth, a hairline jaw fracture, a dislocated jaw and whiplash.”

Yes, the meeting happened, eventually. In fact, the fit between Krawcheck and this financial-services company seemed ideal. She accepted the job offer.

And then, when she went to sign the employment agreement, “I promptly threw up. And I thought, I don’t think this is right for me.”

And that’s how Sallie Krawcheck, No. 30 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women in Business list, passed up one big opportunity before accepting another at BofA.

by Jessica Shambora

Who’s hiring? Hardly anybody, yet. But as you dream about recovery, you’d better be thinking about how to upgrade your talent. You’ll be hiring again someday. Really.

We talked about hiring at the recent Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, where this year’s theme was “Betting on the Future.” A session called “Building a Standout Start-up” was led by two CEOs who are in major hiring mode. We thought we’d share some of their expertise.

Susan Lyne, who left the helm of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) to run the much-buzzed-about Gilt Groupe, is in a hiring frenzy. When she joined the company a year ago, there were 55 employees. Today Gilt Groupe employs more than 300. That equates to adding 10 employees every week.

When she arrived at Gilt, Lyne inherited a policy: No one can be hired after  being interviewed only by people in their intended department. “They always have to meet with two or three other departments so that there’s a consensus–so there’s a cultural fit,” Lyne says. This can mean six different interviews for some candidates.

It’s worth it. “It’s often hard to articulate exactly what makes a fit,” the Gilt boss explains, “but people tend to know it when they see it. So if you can get someone out to enough people, you tend not to make the same mistakes.”

Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, co-lead the “Standout Start-up” session with Lyne. She launched her company, which helps you build your own customized social-network, with the help of Netscape founder Mark Andreessen. What does she look for in recruits? Exceptional passion and comfort with uncertainty, she says.

Bianchini illustrated her point by telling a story about hiring Ning’s chief technology officer, Diego Doval. She found her Doval by reading his blog. The fellow was getting his PhD at Trinity College in Ireland and, she says, clearly had a passion for “large-scale distributed networks,” which is what Ning is all about. He was from Argentina–which turned out to be quite appealing. “He was telling us in our initial conversation how in one day the price of bread would go from 50 cents to $50,” Bianchini explains. “I was like, ‘You’re hired.’ Because that is truly the reality of a start-up situation.”

Bianchini seeks “people who have been through high highs and low lows,” she says, recalling the dotcom bust in 2001. Back then, she was struck by how many people showed up in her office with “looks of terror.” Many had come from big companies; that’s what everyone was doing then. Although she was much younger than many of these execs, she found herself telling them: ‘You’re going to have to chill out. You’re going to have to just get it together because this is an uncertain situation, but we need to move forward.”

She finds herself saying the same thing today.

All the more reason to hire wisely. And then you have to build the culture. Lyne certainly knows about culture, coming from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and Walt Disney (DIS). At Gilt, where so much talent is coming on board so fast, she says she has to communicate more than ever before. So every morning at 10 a.m., Lyne holds an “all hands” meetings for any employees who want a daily update on the company’s doings and direction.

Culture-building also includes events like bowling nights and Halloween dress-up. These are also ways to “democratize perceptions” of Gilt’s leaders, Lyne says. Translation? “I’m not great at karaoke,” she adds.

P.S. We agree that comfort with uncertainty is a must for any leader today. Former Avon (AVP) President Liz Smith, who recently left to become a CEO elsewhere, has talked about it. So has new Xerox (XRX) CEO Ursula Burns, who says that the best managers “make a decision, and when they find out it’s not right, they change and get on with it.” American Express (AXP) CEO Ken Chenault, in this post, noted one of his favorite quotes from Darwin: “It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptive to change.”

The uncut version of Yahoo (YAHOO) CEO Carol Bartz’s first-person “Just Deal With It,” which we published on Postcards last Monday, drew lots of traffic. So we’re giving you an unedited version of another first-person piece that appeared in Fortune’s Most Powerful Women issue (September 28). This one is by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. The most senior woman at Google (GOOG) before she joined Facebook, Sandberg is one of the fastest rising stars in business–leaping to No. 22, from No. 34, on this year’s MPWomen list–and one of the youngest too. Her resume includes two degrees from Harvard, stints at the World Bank and the U.S. Treasury, board memberships at Starbucks (SBUX) and the Brookings Institution…and she’s only 40.

In fact, it was Sandberg’s out-of-the-blue phone call from Mexico, where she was celebrating her 40th birthday with old girlfriends, that led to this piece. “I want to write something called “Don’t Leave Before You Leave,” about young women cutting back their career ambition, and would you consider running it your Most Powerful Women issue?” she asked me over a static-y cell connection. I immediately said “Yes” because I knew Sandberg’s commitment to encouraging the next generation of women leaders. (Her home dinner gatherings of established and up-and-coming women are sought-after invites in Silicon Valley.) I also knew Sandberg to be an adept juggler of family and career. What I didn’t know: She can write. So here is Sheryl Sandberg’s “Don’t Leave Before You Leave,” the unedited version:

Last week at work I had a conversation with a woman I will call Jamie. We have a new project, and I offered her the opportunity to be its leader.  She seemed flattered to be asked but then quickly became very hesitant. She told me she wasn’t sure she should take on more right now. Just before she got up to leave, I looked at her and quietly asked, “Are you worried about taking this on because you are considering getting pregnant sometime soon?”

A few years ago I would have been afraid to ask such a direct and personal question. Nothing is more private than the decision to have a child. Bringing up that topic in the workplace feels like a dangerous thing to do.  We are not supposed to show any bias or take childbearing plans into account as we manage people. But after watching talented woman after talented woman let her career go before she actually leaves it, I now ask this question and I ask it directly.

I always give people the option of not answering, but so far, everyone has appeared grateful for a chance to talk.  There is just one reason why I ask–to make sure people aren’t leaving before they leave.

Here is what happens.  An ambitious and successful woman starts considering having children, typically once she finds a domestic partner. She thinks hard about how busy she is and realizes that finding time for a child means something will have to give. As soon as that thinking process starts, she is already looking for ways to scale back. She no longer searches for new opportunities; if any are presented to her, she is likely to decline or offer the kind of hesitant “yes” that gets the project assigned to someone else, just like “Jamie” did last week in my office.

The problem is that even if she gets pregnant immediately, she still has nine months of pregnancy ahead of her, months of maternity leave and then another lengthy period after returning to work to even catch her breath. And since women usually start the thinking process before even trying to conceive, often several years actually pass. By the time she is back to focusing on her career, she is in a radically different place than she was before.

She was always a top performer–always on par with her peers in responsibility, opportunity, and pay. But now she is not. By not finding ways to stretch herself during the years before she has a child, she has fallen behind.

While I don’t believe that the choice to work fulltime and be a parent is the right choice for everyone, it is a wonderful–and often necessary–choice for many people. I also believe that once you have a child, it becomes necessary to make real changes, including potentially deemphasizing your career. But slowing down too early is a mistake that too many women make today, often without even realizing it. Because they sincerely want to stay in the workforce, they try to make room for everything and they slow down–or unconsciously pull back–well before their circumstances actually change. By the time they fully return, they are in jobs that no longer challenge or reward them enough to hold their attention.

I don’t know any women–or men for that matter–who do not have days when they wonder if leaving their children in someone else’s care for their careers is the right thing to do. I know I do. If your job feels less fulfilling because you have been in the same role for too long or are no longer paid comparably to your peers, that choice becomes a hard one to make day after day. One of the tragic ironies for working women today is that the very desire to stay in the workforce leads to decisions that eventually cause them to leave.

No one can know in advance the choices they will make after going through a life change as profound as becoming a parent. But if you want to preserve the option of staying in the workforce and building a career, my advice is simple.  Stay fully engaged, take on new and interesting challenges, and do so until you have a child. Keep your foot on the gas pedal until your life actually changes. Then you can make the decision to keep driving quickly, slow down, or step out of the car.

I joined Facebook as its COO when I had just returned to work from having my second child. The timing was far from ideal. As many people had told me–but I had not believed–having two children was more than double the work of having one. At the time I was not looking for a new opportunity but rather trying to get through each day. But both my husband and I recognized that if I waited until the time was exactly right, the opportunity would be gone. So I jumped in.

I can’t say it was easy. The first six months were a struggle both at work and at home. But now I am settled in, finding just enough balance to make it work, and learning and growing with new responsibilities and challenges.  Looking back, if I hadn’t taken on something new, I might easily have left the workforce by now, because it would not have been worth making the daily tradeoffs to continue in the job I’d held for the previous six years.

There is a broader lesson here that applies not just to women contemplating starting a family, but to anyone trying to plan for the future. Making decisions too early, trying to plan life too carefully, can close doors rather than keep them open. Any time you make a plan, you do it with imperfect information; the further in advance you make that plan, the less information you have. You never know how you will feel or what choices you might face.  Take life one step at a time and don’t make decisions before you have to.

A few months ago we were interviewing a fantastic woman to join Facebook’s Business Development team. After we extended an offer, she came in to ask some follow-up questions about the role. She did not mention lifestyle or hours. But she was the typical age of the people who leave before they leave.  So I shocked her by asking the question no one asks. “Priti,” I said, “I’m sorry for bringing up something so personal, and feel free to tell me you don’t want to discuss it. But just in case you are thinking that you might want to have a child sometime soon and need to stay where you are to have room to slow down, I’d love a chance to tell you why that makes it even more important that you change jobs now.”

Priti accepted our offer. And just a few weeks later, she found out she was pregnant. Her timing could not have been better.

One of the highlights of last week’s Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit was an appearance by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who sat down with Fortune’s Washington editor, Nina Easton. Rice got personal about her parents and passion for education. She also waxed political, on Russia, China, Afghanistan and Iran. Whatever their views, Summit audience members were moved, giving Rice a standing ovation as she left the stage. (Read Easton’s take on the interview here.)

Rice’s statement during the interview that the Iranian “regime is done” seems especially prescient in light of recent events.

Last week Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to rally support by denouncing Israel, only to be met by thousands protesting his alleged victory in June’s election. Earlier today in New York, prior to an appearance before the UN General Assembly, Ahmadinejad softened his usual incendiary rhetoric, urging President Obama to view Iran as a friend, not a threat.

A clip of Easton’s interview with Rice (see below) was shown this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America and last night by Campbell Brown on CNN. –Jessica Shambora

Today, former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman will formally announce her bid for the GOP nomination for the 2010 California gubernatorial race. Whitman wants to cut state spending by another $15 billion and create 2 million private-sector jobs by 2015, according to a speech prepared for today’s announcement in Fullerton, Calif.

But Whitman’s candidacy has been in the works for a while. In March, Pattie wrote a Fortune cover story called “Can Meg Whitman Save California?” about joining Whitman as she hit the campaign trail. Pattie also talked with Whitman on stage last week at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, where Whitman said that campaigning is “more consuming than eBay.” In the interview (see video posted below), Whitman discusses her struggle to remain authentic while campaigning, her position on Prop. 8, and how to keep jobs in California. –Jessica Shambora

by Jessica Shambora

On the heels of last week’s news that Avon (AVP) president Liz Smith is leaving to pursue a CEO job outside the company, another powerful woman is departing to seek a new C-suite challenge. eBay (EBAY) announced today that Stephanie Tilenius, head of marketplaces for North America, is leaving.

Tilenius, 42, will stay on as an advisor to CEO John Donahoe for the next few months, but her position will not be filled. Instead, Lorrie Norrington, global head of  marketplaces (and No. 40 on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list) will assume responsibility for the division–reinforcing Norrington’s rising profile at eBay.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while and it feels like the right time,” Tilenius told Fortune on Monday. “I spent nearly at decade at eBay and I want to look for where I’m going to spend the next decade.”

During her nine years at eBay, Tilenius covered a lot of ground, from leading operations in Korea and Asia-Pacific, to heading  eBay Motors, to building PayPal to $1 billion in revenue — and finally, to helping to revitalize the marketplaces division. That these assignments involved creating or building businesses within eBay is no coincidence. Tilenius’s entrepreneurial roots go back to her first job out of Harvard Business School. Instead of accepting an offer from Goldman Sachs (GS), Tilenius went to work for a startup named Firefly.

“I was probably one of 10 people that joined an Internet company out of Harvard in 1996. It was definitely the path not traveled,” she told Fortune last September.

After Firefly was sold to Microsoft (MSFT), Tilenius went on to co-found PlanetRx.com, which she took public in 1999 (postponing her honeymoon for the company’s road show). But the Internet startup–an online healthcare and e-commerce site–burst with the Internet bubble. Laying off 400 people was one of hardest things Tilenius has ever done, but she made a list of lessons  learned that she still refers to today.

That list–and several others like it that Tilenius has made in the wake of her many leadership experiences at eBay–could come in handy as she prepares for her next job. In a note to employees today, Tilenius wrote, “I am eager to explore new learning curves and other adventures in life such as becoming CEO of a smaller company.”

Lorna Borenstein, a friend and former eBay colleague says she can see Tilenius as either a CEO of a late-stage startup or as head of a large division of a multinational company. “She’s such a great strategist and she loves growing things,” says Borenstein.  “I see her looking for a big meaty opportunity where she can have her fingerprints all over it.”

Tilenius, who enjoys competing in triathlons and open-water swims, says her next gig “has to be something where there’s a big leadership challenge, an opportunity to make an impact and change people’s lives.” Given her background in the hot areas of consumer Internet, e-commerce, and payments, Tilenius may want to take her time deciding and hold out for the highest bidder.

For more on Tilenius, click here to watch a video of her discussing how she defines power at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in San Francisco  last summer. Tilenius was also featured in Pattie’s story on female rising stars in Silicon Valley, “The New Valley Girls“, in last year’s Most Powerful Women issue, and in a related Q&A online.