ABSTRACT
Sandra Hale, former Commissioner of Administration for the state of Minnesota and winner of the prestigious Ford Foundation Award for Innovation in Government, once described to me an incident at a large public personnel conference sponsored by a leading university. After a long series of panel speakers, a woman in the audience brought up her concern that individual competition reduced cooperation and teamwork; why were the speakers so focused on increasing competition? All four male panelists, academic experts, proceeded to describe her as “naive” and “soft”; they clearly felt confident that their position was superior to that of the unfortunate woman’s. As the woman was being publicly embarrassed, Sandra stood up and spoke in her defense. Sandra (with whom I had discussed this chapter just the night before) gently suggested that there was perhaps a communication gap that might be related to gender. The public discussion ended, and the panel moved on to other questions. Several men came up later to privately thank Sandra for her comments and to inquire into the issue of a gender gap.
