Several years ago when I was a visiting faculty member at London Business School there was a poster in the hallway outside my office. A quote from Andre Gide, it said: "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time."
I am getting ready to "to lose sight of the shore" for three weeks as I travel and do some work in Northern Ireland and Switzerland and vacation in Italy. I fully expect to discover, as I always do, new worlds being shaped by women on distant shores.
In Northern Ireland I'll have time with many of the wonderful women I have met and worked with over the past ten years; women who are entrepreneurs, leaders in the corporate and not-for-profit sectors and in the civil service. A February 2006 report on women in the workplace in Northern Ireland, (www.detini.gov.uk) gives us a snapshot of the opportunities and the great challenges for women in Northern Ireland and the 2005 GEM Report on Women Entrepreneurs widens the lens to include women around the world. But neither of these reports can really capture the power and courage of these women who are changing their lives, their workplaces and their worlds. You have to be there.
In Switzerland, as a part of the International Teacher's Program, I will be reconnecting with about four dozen young colleagues (including twelve women) who teach in business schools around the world. Although the young ITP women make up about a quarter of this group (women faculty in U.S. business schools now averages about 14%), in their countries, universities and departments these young women are often a very, very tiny minority. None of them has a female president or dean and only two have (or ever had) a woman as the department chair. Most of them have only a handful of senior female role models. Rarely do they have more than two female colleagues in their department or division. They teach in classrooms where there are few women students. They are preparing students to enter a world of work where women in leadership remains the exception.
But they are intellectually formidable and fearless and (sometimes) even fortunate to reside in countries that have (by U.S. standards) very liberal family leave policies, stable and well funded child care and (particularly by U.S. standards) very generous paid vacations! And now they also have one another as a strong, supportive network.
So I'm going to spend two weeks listening and learning (and no doubt laughing) with these amazing women. I will consent to lose sight of a shore that is familiar, if not entirely exemplary. I will no doubt discover very new lands.
