Guest Post by Sharon Meers, co-author of Getting to 50/50

Photo courtesy of Vince Tarry

Do men resent powerful women?

One of the most intriguing statistics in “A Woman’s Nation,” the recently released survey by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress, is this: 69% of women think men resent women who have more power than they do. Only 49% of men agree.

Who knows who’s right. What we know for sure is that men and women can’t agree about power–and aren’t very comfortable talking candidly about it.

To research Getting to 50/50, the book I wrote with Joanna Strober, we found that fear of candid talk is the biggest logjam blocking the progress of women in the workplace. For one thing, men shy away from giving women honest feedback. One male CEO of a tech start-up told us: “Every senior male executive I know has been threatened with discrimination charges regardless of the goodness of their track record.” He added, “I’ve seen it make cynics out of a lot of men who started out very differently.”

All of us–men and women alike–contribute to this problem. In our politically correct workplaces, discussing male/female differences has become so taboo that the topic is broached only in heated moments, when colleagues let loose their true opinions about gender and power.

It’s a messy management issue. HR lawyers say that employers ask how to avoid suits when their priority should be retaining and promoting women, with the help of honest dialogue about everything from performance issues to maternity leaves.

But too often, men cower at giving feedback to female subordinates. That CEO of the tech start-up confessed that when he was at a big media company, his peers advised him to leave his office door open during reviews of female employees–and best to stay within earshot of his assistant so he’d have a witness if the employee made a complaint. “How much candor can you offer with your door open?” he asked me rhetorically, with understandable exasperation.

Moreover, lots of line managers keep women out of their networks (and even avoid going out to lunch with them) because it just doesn’t feel comfortable. Many managers steer clear of difficult conversations. Don’t be too hard on the guys: They’ve never been told how to engage the right way.

Rod Kramer, a professor and management expert at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, believes that men’s discomfort relates to a common insecurity: “Men often seem to think (heroically) that they should be masters at the conversation–that they should know the ‘right’ things to say.” His advice to men and women: “Be more curious about each other and their experiences. Just ask good leading questions–and invite questions in return.”

Meanwhile, women’s tendency to be super-serious (as men perceive them, at least) compounds the workplace dysfunction. “Women can make anything a chore,” a former Microsoft (MSFT) executive told me. “They’re too serious and don’t seem to understand that work is a game.”

What should women do? One of our interviewees, Larry, a partner in a national architecture firm, told us about a woman who blew up over her male colleagues’ risqué pin-ups and jocular behavior; she complained to HR and quit. Larry wishes that she had confronted the guys who offended her: “Tell guys to their face,” he says, advising women in general. “Say, ‘Hey, what’s that?’ And be funny about it. You have to do it in a way so that guys don’t feel threatened, but you are making your point.”

In the stories we heard, “right” and “wrong” were rarely obvious. But the need for a male/female lingua franca was clear.

Some wise employers are getting a jump on inventing this new language.

Deloitte, for one, has moved aggressively to bring male and female executives together to discuss questions like “Would you want your daughter to work for a company that has lower expectations for women?” Open dialogue and better insight into what women need to be successful has helped Deloitte command a lead among professional services firms in utilizing female talent.

The University of Michigan has also made strides. With backing from the National Science Foundation, the University enlisted male professors to comb research on implicit gender attitudes. For example, most people will select a resume with a male name over one with a female name, even when the resumes are identical. Professors turned their survey into a workshop and shared their insights with the University’s hiring committees. Female science hires have since risen dramatically.

It may be a long while ’til we reach 50/50. But understanding the issues and learning to understand each other is a good start.

Sharon Meers is the co-author of Getting to 50/50 and a former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs (GS).

“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

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.

“Life is long but time is short.”

– Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, on acting boldly and taking risks. This line—along with points about passion and vision and keeping customers first—is one of 10 lessons that author Ken Auletta says he took away from researching Google for his new book, Googled: the End of the World as We Know It. Auletta’s book is due out next week from Penguin Press.

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

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.