the first african-american mayor of new york city. look for these titles this coming week and watch for these authors on the near future and on booktv.org. >> booktv continues with sylvia ann hewlett. she argues that the key is to find a sponsor in life. a senior-level person who will champion your career and advocate for you. she argues that mentors will build your self-esteem but will not help you move up. this is about one hour. [applause] >> belinda, thank you. welcome to this amazing evening. you know, this is our third book launch at the new york stock

exchange. and it is really great to be back here in the magnificent states. also, it is wonderful to be here with belinda. we know each other pretty well. and i want to start by paying tribute to the corporate leaders in this room. the task force has grown from seven to 75 companies over the last nine years. billion companies. we have moved from a very modest startup to being a global think tank, which has really changed especially how he can handle it. many accomplishments over the last few years the 250 best practices over the last few

years, none of this could've been done without your courage and your commitment. so thank you. i would like to also point out the companies that are so important in the sponsorship book. not only did these 12 companies help us to create the funds to create the data to make the case, but they have put on the ground initiatives which really demonstrate conclusively that sponsorship can crack those ceilings. particularly, i would like to thank those initial individuals on this research. so it is fair to have you and also roz and jennifer, i would like to thank you as well. it is wonderful to have you

tonight. i cannot stop i think use without acknowledging laura and melinda marshall. they sit at the heart of our research team and have contributed it enormously. so let's plunge on end.. and the urgent question is which kicked off this work three years ago was the fact that women and minorities are stuck. or have been stuck. there is progress in the lower and middle rungs of career ladders. but those numbers have hardly budged in years. one of my most favorite figures here is that women comprise only 8% of the top people in this

economy. that figure was at precisely the same 15 years ago. so why the story? and as we can see from this light, it is not because there are incredible candidates. you know, that rich and very sticky layer below the top has all kinds of women with established credentials and we are leaning in like crazy. but they don't get to the table. will we find in this research is the answer to this challenge. is that women and minorities are much less likely than white straight caucasian men to have this powerful champion to promote and protect them. so let's look very quickly at what exactly a sponsor does.

there are three things on the left that are very important. first off, a sponsor believes in you and understands your potential and is willing to take a bet on you. secondly the sponsor really is prepared to advocate for that next opportunity for you. it may be a race, it may be a promotion. certainly that sponsor is in your corner. so you can take some risks. it's often said that women are risk-averse. that's not true. in our data we can show that women are not suicidal. [laughter] and if you do not have a senior person on your side, you would be stupid to take all kinds of risks. it is the fastest way to get hired. but we cannot do anything

fabulous in this world without taking risks. so turning to protéges because one of the great breakthroughs is to show what kinds of investments the younger talent needs to make. so this was a friendly, senior colleague who was using some guidance. they sat and i took notes and they smiled and they said thank you, perhaps. right? that we are all mentors because it is good. but it's not going to get you the next job. because of sponsorship has to be earned, it's not some kind of gift. you have to demonstrate that you are worth taking that width. that you will come through.

it is huge and you have to deliver. you need to be reliable, trustworthy, to be a part of this creation of assurance that you can be led on. finally bringing this to the table. including maybe you have strengths and maybe you have wonderful smart or just know the german market so well. who knows what it is? everyone has this. what is yours? what can you bring to the table that no one else were very few other people have. so in the end we have this highly reciprocal two-way street

which serves to kind of propel the senior and the more junior persons to greater possibilities in their professional lives. and i will tell a story here which shows that this isn't a burden to the senior person. because both people benefit. this is part one of the fortune 50 companies. it is being considered one of my direct reports and i asked this critical question, which is how many people do we have, and how many people have sponsored the deals. this company or this organization, and if i were to ask you to do something totally

impossible, which involves this, you can do it. there are all kinds of things that can help you be who you are. and you will do your work and your project. he said i am not interested in anyone who doesn't have deep pockets and these days they better be deep and diverse pockets. as part of the geographical stats. so this is deeply valuable to both sides of the equation. as we can see, 46% or more likely to have a sponsor than women, applications, much more likely to have a sponsor than people of color. and as we can see from our data, it makes a huge difference men

and women are much more likely to get that pay raise, much more likely to stick around because of why wouldn't you? there is a senior person opening up opportunity for you, of course you will stay. we find we women who have recently had children or 30 something something percent match more likely to stick around if they have sponsorship that their organization. it impacts ambition because you know it shows that if you hit your head against the brick walls, you actually lose your drive. because again, women are not stupid. they downsize their dreams if they understand they are on a slow road to nowhere. anyone sensibly what.

so you are much more likely to play in sustaining sustain the ambition. and it really does impact your next job. men and women with sponsorship or over 20% more likely to get the next promotion than those without. so just turning to a couple of these because we have these red flashing lights, if you like, and in the terms of one normally gets in the way here and this can be a whole battle, particularly for women and minorities. we find that women often times have very little latitude. it's very easy to be seen as too bossy or too quiet or to frumpy.

i find it particularly interesting because it turns out that they are about three years and there when you are just right. [laughter] man gets 17 years. and clearly there is a lot of bias in this data. there is much greater scrutiny that women and people of color get dealt. but we are also reflecting, i think, very eightfold motions of what leadership looks like. and it is much more likely to be met romney than hillary clinton. the thing that is more distressing than the mental latitude -- i mean, this is data and we have a huge data based on

this. many deeply believe that someone like them could not write up the ladder. this data is 2012, and i think that we are still struggling with ambition and sponsorship because of the culture that we are moving in that has clearly not transformed. and at the heart of this book is this roadmap partnerships. we have tens and perhaps hundreds of tactics, but we also have the stats that you need to go through if you attempt to earn and when this champion in your life. and let me just pull out a couple of them.

step number two is very interesting in terms of the differentiation between men and women. when women look for a champion, they want to find someone who is they see as a role model and they want to emulate and they want to admire. they are looking often times for a collaborative with those who allow pushback and feedback and the problem is only 16% of leaders work that way. so we have 40% of women going after a few leaders and there is a massive queue and what we say in this research is obviously you need models and mentors. but when you are thinking sponsorship, what you need is

someone who has a voice on the decision-making table. we want that person to understand our roots and values and to root for us. we need someone that has tremendous integrity, but we don't have to like them or want to be like that. so what we are trying to say here is that it is almost a transactional kind of relationship it does involve deep levels of respect. but let's not getting all confused. these are people that we are modeling ourselves after in lots of ancillary ways. the other thing i want to emphasize is the last one on this list because i'm very aware of the time this evening. again, a story from the financial services industry and

the cfo was telling me that he had just been trying to figure out who he was going to back. he was retiring, and is part of the process and he was in a quandary because there were seven rino candidates and the one he thought was the most able and the most kind of critical to the company was the only woman. but he was worried about her attitude. because he had found the women are very ambivalent. so he gave her a test. he walked into her office and said i had an opportunity for you. i need someone to go to omaha for six weeks, troubleshoot this client and had this up. and he said i want you to do it. it will make a huge difference to us and a fabulous piece of your experience. so she looked at him and said,

amazing, when will i start and she passed the test in the next day she remembered she had a 2-year-old, one or two other clients, and maybe it wasn't quite as easy, so she went back and said i'm going to do it. so how about putting my number two there for the time and she renegotiated the terms. and she said that is exactly what any man would have done. so no one would actually go to omaha for six weeks. [laughter] i mean, you've always got more other important things going on in your life. but he said the problem with women is that they are way too honest. they wear their ambivalence on their sleeve. they leave with a 2-year-old. and they forget to show their

extraordinary enthusiasm and the one thing i want to talk about here is the sponsorship work that shows how very accomplished woman and other minorities can finally take their rightful place on decision-making needs. and it is clearly fabulous for the individual. but as a piece of research, we are releasing later this month, which many demonstrate the depths of how important this is for our collective growth and prosperity. so it is called our innovation and diversity in market growth, with all kinds of data. it really quantifies precisely

how things like gender response, how it really does add up innovation and drive market share and new market development. so this is pretty magical because we are coming to the end of the sponsorship story and we also have this work, which i think underscores in red ink why it is so very important to embrace the power of difference and insured that there is all kinds of fabulous folks who do not get caught up at the top of our organizations. and if i may just take one minute before a final story, because i think in a way one of

the people was pat. she is someone that we know, many of us know her. she's the chairman of nbc news. pat was remarkably honest. she was honest about her success, and she started as a secretary at abc sports. and she will tell you very frankly that i worked my tail off. i have also done one other thing enormously well. i am a fabulous protége. i've always known how to deliver and how to make my boss look great and how to be in his or her corner. now, her first protége was the ceo of disney now. they met at the xerox machine when she was starting off at abc

sports. at that point she was not reporting to him, but she noticed her attitude as well as her work effort and brought her unto his team. she delivered and so did he. every time he got promoted, and he made sure that she was first in line. within a few years, she was president of abc daytime television. but there are two truths here. it is amazing tact. one of the things that she did with spearhead the program, which transformed the ratings of that network. so she is no slouch. but she says when the crunch came, the reason she was chosen with the high-performing talent

is that she had these extraordinarily strong responses in her current sponsor steve burke, told me in an interview a few weeks ago that he knew that if he could get in this, he could breathe easy. and he would not have to worry because she was 100% trustworthy he then went on to say what she was doing in terms of changing the culture in producing the people skills that he thought were critical in the success of the company, but when he started this trust, one of the reasons that we have to be so transparent and so clear about the importance of growing sponsorship is that it does not cross the lines of gender and

race very readily. because it does center on comfort zones and trust. and so in this roadmap in this work, we focused at least as much on that factor as we do on performance. so i would hand this back to you. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you, sylvia for sharing that impressive data. so important for us to all think about and some great stories as well. and now we are going to tell some stories and how it has worked in the lives of special people. so i'm pleased to introduce our

first act, edward gilligan, who is the president of american express, and he started out there in 1980 while a student at nyu. and he started in the proverbial mailroom, no less. and he is now the president. so he has had a storied career there and i'm sure that this has played a significant role. so i would like to introduce him at this time. [applause] [applause] >> it was close enough to the mailroom, i was attempted in accounting. thank you so much. i really appreciate it. thank you. hearing you in action like that is always inspirational. you made such a passionate and articulate way of telling a story that is very motivating to me. it is a pleasure to be here.

i have to tell you that i'm cohosting a dinner and i couldn't say no to sylvia to be here. you can't say no to sylvia, for two reasons, this work has made a big impact and so the least i can do is to come in and share a little bit with all of you. this work has had a major impact at american express. i will say that we haven't solved it, but we have made a very positive impact on the role of women in american express and i feel if we that we are just beginning and there is more to go, certainly more and the difference between this has made a big impact. you know, there are impressive credentials of yours that speak for themselves. but i did want to tell you a bit more of that on american express

and what it meant to me. we have worked with sylvia for more than a decade in american express and she has become a trusted advisor and a strong strategic partner and a friend. and has consulted with us in a range of program around talent and culture and has done a fantastic job. the work that we have done has also changed as well. it has changed our company. we have had five or six different mentoring programs during last decade or two that has worked. and there is nothing wrong with mentoring. so we have always had the commitment to say, what can we do to move the needle, but i think that we lack some of the tools and research and that is where sylvia came in. back in 2010 when we partnered with sylvia on the

groundbreaking research, something clicked for me. every now and then come you have a light shining on you where all of a sudden all the experiences you had come together and you see them in a new light and it makes sense in a way that it hadn't before. that's when it was like this personally for me in the learning of sponsorship. the research helped with career retention and we are also focusing on why women weren't getting as many sponsors as men as sylvia pointed out tonight. it was an ah-ha moment. we could actually do something and make a difference. so i did come to understand that women at american express were at a disadvantage in sponsorship. and it was clear that this was relevant and it made sense to me

when i looked at the history and management. because of that, there wasn't a level playing field. and that is something that i really wanted to make a difference with. i wanted to be able to change this and level the playing field and break through the glass ceiling is much as possible. and now we have information we have tools to do so. so once i learned that, it was motivating that we can change this. and working with a small group of people with mike partner, we have a team of people here tonight and what we need to make a difference and do it now. the actionable, have results, measured results. but i knew that it started with me, so i had to become a sponsor and on being a sponsor and luckily i was in a position to influence a number of key jobs that we were filling over the next 12 or 15 months and the

concept of sponsorship was alive and i was looking for ways that we can make a difference. so it did come together nicely for me and from the people involved. and for the women who had earned me being their sponsor. so we went about making changes and this occurred literally in the course of a year and a half. we nearly doubled what we called global management team, which is one of the top 50 people in the country and it was clear that this was possible. it was also clear that it can't just be me. but i wanted to own it and i felt like i needed to go out and make a difference, and i needed to figure out a way of my colleagues in human resources to institutionalize that so was it just me being a sponsor. but i knew that i had to walk the talk before i could start telling other people to learn about sponsorship and to be a sponsor and that we were going to hold people accountable for

being sponsors, particularly people outside of their comfort zone. so they had to go and reach out and learn about other people in the company, those you who may not work directly with or just in a situation that they nato. they had to go well beyond that. there was action involved and it did happen and it continues to happen at american express. we wanted to make it personal difference in how to we scale the impact and institutionalize it and how do we seek the sponsors. it's an important thing to earn the sponsorship. in this part of that we have to develop a pathway to sponsorship program in american express. we are getting our talent and pay attention to earning it at the earlier points of their career. when we say that we helped them earn it, it's a critical point. you can't just ask someone to be

your sponsor. but sponsors have to look beyond the people they are most comfortable with in order to give their sponsorship. so we are formalizing the concept by labeling it. and that helps a lot when you have common language and why women don't have more sponsors. the more you can label and talk about it from the more you can action it and it becomes part of the everyday points. the moment of truth when we are filling this job. when there is a hiring manager that will go out on a limb to put someone in that job. i have thought a lot about that and i have told you about the experiences, there are things you know, experiences and trust. even though it may be a stretch, it is going to come through. so that is when you are sponsored and you realize that

you're going outside your comfort zone and trusting people that that if you make this column, you know that person will do everything in her power to be successful at that job. we are building a program around us. we have labeled it and we are holding people accountable to these sponsors and we're talking to a lot of people, particularly women about what it takes to earn sponsorship. but it's in the conversation and the dialogue and it makes it a lot easier. we have had good success. and so i would admit that it is not perfect, like anything else, when you go out on a limb and you're taking a risk and you go through a financial recession and things happen, not everyone who you have sponsored is going to be a star, and that is okay, too. you learn from it because if he does put a man and a job, not every man is going to be a star. but you have to realize to put

someone in the job, you need trust and you have to think about what it is to be a sponsor and how that differs from being a mentor and you have to be working to make a difference. we are very pleased with the progress in all of the women that we have put through this program, half of them have taken a strategic lateral move or have gotten promoted. sometimes i think it's important, as important to take a lateral move to learn something and have exposure to other parts of the country to work with different kinds of people. we have learned a new business and have a higher probability with sponsors. i think we're well on our way and it has been a pleasure working with sylvia and we have

made very good progress and i know there is more to be done. i'm looking forward to looking more on this chapter, particularly as the end result of the end result in a volatile company. the commitment to these sponsors and to level the playing field and break the class dealings are ingredients for successful companies to grow. and i want to thank you for the contribution you have made to american express. it has been a pleasure. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much. it is wonderful to hear how american express has translated important research with measurable results. and i'm sure that some of you have questions and i just wanted to mention that we are going to let all of our speakers speak

first. then we will go out and collect a couple or three questions are so at the end. hold on to your questions if you have any. my first guess is roslyn. she is a vice president of human resources at intel and she serves as director of a global employee communications and external communications. she joined intel and in 1996. her time there, which included a number of innovative and award-winning initiatives and workforce diversity. please welcome her to the podium. [applause] [applause] >> good evening. i am trying to figure out if i'm in the three years where i'm supposed to be perfect.

>> first of all, sylvia, congratulations. you have done it again. you have written a book that actually is going to help make an impact and change their lives. that is not an easy thing to do. we would really like to talk tonight from a couple of standpoints. i believe if you read the book, some of my stories are in their and has sponsorship that has impacted my life and career, as well as research that we have been privileged to enjoy. i think that there are 75 companies that include what i call a sponsorship movement. if we all work together, with god should absolutely help that number breakthrough the marzipan layer. and then also talk about what

does it mean particularly for those of us, some of the challenges that we have and the role that we play. i wish that i could tell you that i started out knowing exactly what a sponsor was, being as deliberate as possible, giving the sponsor, but that's not what we are about. i joined this company called intel, i wasn't technical. i joined this company that was incredibly technical and so i honestly looked around for the smartest person i could see that i thought would give me some time. i happen to be a woman and i happen to be intel's first vice president. and i remember going to her and asking her to be my sponsor. i just wanted to learn from her.

the one thing that i remember her telling me is look, this is what you do at any time. you perform and you ask for more. they perform one and you ask for even more. call me, when you get ready for more, and i will tell you how to do it. what i learned from that is what she was basically saying is that success comes from delivering results. but don't get it twisted. when you deliver results, we owe you, and there will come a time when what you will be greater than what you can get on their own and i am here. that was an incredible lesson. no matter how good i am, at a certain point, someone much more powerful than me, i'm going to need that person and i have to tell you that that was my lesson of what delivering results empowerment. and so my sponsorship story really has been about that.

i always felt honored to have someone that cared about my career and the results that i need. i always felt this responsibility that i want them to be proud that they sponsor me and i want to make them look so good. and so i wanted someone to sponsor me too. ultimately i think that sponsorship isn't always about as long relationship where you're trying to meet somebody every month for an hour. eventually powerful people will sponsor you in the moment in the story that i talk about is when i didn't really see it coming. and i have had the honor of working with intel which was chaired by a woman, which we are

incredibly proud of, and which we have a major technology company. we have been working very closely to change the language in our statement about diversity. including women around the world. and i really didn't think of her as a sponsor. i mean, she was the chairman of the board of intel. that felt a little bit, you know, too much of me to think of her as a sponsor. but what jane said was a she invited me to her retirement dinner. i thought this was the retirement dinner that everyone has when you walk in and there are 200 people there, you're one of 200 people, and people give speeches and it's a nice dinner. i walked into the room and it was the board of directors of intel. she had invited me to her private board retirement dinner. that moment was beyond any sponsorship that i had ever had. because what she wanted to do is

make sure that the board knew who i was. wanted to make sure that they knew the impact and results that is delivering for intel. when i learned that moment was when you are doing great work and you ask for help, every once in a while somebody of tremendous power want to help you. so what i did in the work that we did at intel, we provided this really phenomenal power of language. in spite of technology that many of you heard about how we think of ourselves as a meritocracy and we are really not an industry that talked about the fact that we treat people differently. there wasn't really language around sponsorship. when you listen to executives talk many would always talk about the person that took them under the wing or the person that they took under their wing because that person reminded

them of themselves. we have all heard that story. what they were talking about was sponsorship. it took the research really putting language around this. and that reminded us to begin to talk about the power of sponsorship and how it really impacted careers. we began to talk to various senior people inside of our company and i would ask the question, did you really get here by yourself. did you really getting by yourself and 80,000 have technical undergraduate degrees, and about 6000 have phd's. this education does not make you special at any job. so it could not have done that. they all begin to recognize action and they had somebody who sponsor them that gave them that opportunity and allowed us to put important programming around us. so we do have a lot of work

around sponsorship to reach the program, which is done by our intel network. there's a lot of work with her leadership council, which we are looking up for sponsorship and it reminds them that they had a responsibility. what i think is beautiful about this book and about the research is that it really breathes the whole language around whether we need sponsors or mentors. and it's really language about the joint responsibility. as a sponsor, i have a responsibility to be to beat with the people i sponsor and what i do with them. it is to deliver and even beyond helping me look good to deliver results for the company. it is not an either or, if the joint. when you can really get that relationship together in that way, it is incredible and very

powerful. today it has been very interesting for me. intel, over 100,000 are entry level and i found myself in that role. what has been wonderful about that is the amount of people that think that this is interesting, but they, too, can be wise, and many of them don't we because they can't see where they believe that they can do it as well. but the challenge is, quite frankly, that i don't want people to just be sponsored by people that look like them. i sponsor people do have the power to sponsor and i advocate those that need it and i try to connect with those. it's not that mentorship is not important. but the only way that you can really sponsor is if you have

the power to actually make a decision about someone's career. this is what i talked to people about. it is important to have external sponsors. ..

>> jennifer has been with us since 18859 delivers the world-class talent model and as a deeper understanding of sponsorship as it has it played a key role in your career now she serves as mentors to many developing leaders and her organization. so here to tell us more i introduce jennifer sideman. [applause] >> it's a real honor to be here tonight to spend time with you also the opportunity and to read the book which has really resonated and i will share why i started in 1985 into 1983 marks the first year of

the women's initiative 1994 the first year of the diversity of initiative in 1995 the first year of the business resource group initiatives i have been the beneficiary of all of those initiatives over the course of the last 20 years. we have done mentoring programs, counseling, and yet in 2013 we struggle with many of the same issues. and continue to do so. as we look at that own data as a dated driven company we got similar results everything talked about tonight is from our experience and the key focus of the next few years to change the dynamic to make a change. one of the things that we did over the last few years

is to have some objective that anything surrounding inclusion would no longer be the initiative. bridge is so ingrained in this culture would be real change. we still need to work on these things we have to have a certain initiatives to get there but we need a world where everybody believes they can advance to their potential. what of the things that i was supposed to do is jerry -- share my personal story i join the partnership in 2003 and about 10 days into the partnership by got a note from someone now the chairman of the board congratulating me running this strategy and operations practice and said he would like to talk to me to get my opinion. i did not know any better i

thought is that the top but not because i was at the bottom of the top. we did not talk too much after that but i think he did is to be and to see what i read to in the marketplace it was important for me to be market relevant and a couple years later we sat down at the height of the recession and he gave me my first big job to run strategy operations for the region and there were several other qualified candidates that had more experience but he took a chance on me. that was that. we were off and running every single move i made since then has bet with his backing to have been lucky enough to have another sponsor along the way be started the journey and it is mutually beneficial as i looked again tonight though

left-hand side in the right-hand side check to all of those things especially to say yes. 2011 in march i get a phone call from a blocked number so i know it is him and he says would you be interested in interviewing for the chief talent officer? i had my sights set on the consulting job thinking it was five for seven years i did not even conceived of this job to think it was even possible and i said yes. absolutely. we hugged up and i talk to my husband and i said shoot. maybe not that. [laughter] i am pregnant. i may need to tell him. i wrote a note and 30 seconds later and another

phone call and we had a very pointed conversation and at the end he said if you want to do it i tur the right person i will put you up before the ceo. i was on a plane 24 hours later and went to miami and met with the deputy ceo who is now with sponsor is now ceo of our firm and that was that. it is a remarkable story of somebody who was willing to take a chance every step of the way i was there to demonstrate i would make him look good and there is a mutual benefit to that relationship but i think it is very important to have the vocabulary i believe the book does that to help identify those who have the line between sponsorship and vendor ship and with a

clearly articulated definition is important and some of the rules of the road are important to understand because there is quite a bit of work to be done on the protegee and reinspect it is disproportionately balanced on the sponsor but it is really horrible size of the equation add delete rework on a series of things trying to have something that is personal and customized tried to do that and 50,000 person organization of a similar we are still working on it and onager be but we find it is important to have the ability to access the entire talent pool to give the opportunity for all leaders to be merged so with a series of development programs with the sponsorship component and we

have gone after people whom we believe are right in the talent those high performers that have demonstrated to form these relationships across the organization also instituted objectives for all to have sponsorship as well over the last several months reporting to the board is something we take very seriously in this day journey we here aren't we will learn more over the next few years but i congratulate soviet on the work that you have done it is very important. thank you. [applause] >> that is a great story. we are a little overtime but if you will stay may be five

more minutes i would like to take a couple of questions. we have pioneer's year that were doing this long before it sold leo wrote the book so they have a lot of good knowledge and experiences to share if you have any questions. if you do we will send somebody over with a microphone. any questions? no? in that case i think we will call it a night. thank you very much. think you to the center of talented and innovation. [inaudible conversations]

>> when i returned to washington in 1984 i was a reformed character and vastly more open-minded than receptive to ideas.

but on a war monday level but i first needed a job and since i did not have the benefit of being a part of carlos' group or even knowing about her i took the more traditional approach to read the classified ads. carl and i would spend a lot of time of the classified section of the "washington post". there was the ad foray a bookstore richer for the anonymous source who was opening a bookstore i sat down and wrote a letter to the blind p.o. box sure it was the perfect job for me then i got a job the next day from the woman who said she had received my letter in her name was carla and she already selected the name of the soon to be bookstore and it was

politics & prose. as it turns out, this was our first agreement i am sorry, a disagreement right there on the phone i said i thought she was making a mistake. [laughter] the name was much too limiting. as it turns out between carr led into the we were both partially right to impose partially wrong. the name has created the mistaken impression that we are a political book store but if you are under the impression we are a political bookstore weeder now we are a general bookstore including our recently upgraded children's section but the name has such a kitschy following i think in the end it has been a plus especially for memory retention and very few people forget the name politics & prose.

so carla called me and we met for coffee and a seeing we talked for about an hour. i don't think i was ever formally hired but some hall -- somehow found i was the manager of the new store that would open in a month. identity she ever checked a single reference i suppose if i was a wise job applicant i would have done friday initial checks on cars but if she could meet payroll but none of us did anything to find out anything about the other person. [laughter] i take we started what it still stands that serves us well everything we do started then is done on the

basis of intuition and hunched. [laughter] one of my favorite stories actually is when we were considering moving across the street. i dunno if you note the small store we had across the street. we had to very sophisticated financial advisers, men. who showed us that all the figures showed all financial planning showed it was the biggest mistake we could ever make that we would go out of business within two years if we moved across the street. we said they q very much and we've moved across the street. [laughter] and within two years the business had doubled if i am wrong on that she does not have to correct me now.

she can say that on her part later. carla started the store i was the manager this was our dating period no doubt the cultures we came from were very, very different. i was so overloaded with children during the 1960's to even be involved in the civil-rights movement in this is where she could breeze. then there was the very basic difference that neither of us were very faithful followers of our own flocks. [laughter] and i could go on forever about our differences. as the people of work describe us as the cat and the job. i am the cat who walks quietly into a room then

sits on the periphery intently studying what is going on. carla balances in in jumps up on everyone. [laughter] i am always early in she is always late. she is zippier and the easiest guy in the sceptic she is the big picture kind of woman and i read the fine print. i am the expert when it comes to avoidance in denial carla has a message of confrontation that takes my head out of this ancient and makes be faced with ever comes out. it does not sell like the ingredients for a good partnership but just like arranged marriages we both had the wisdom we can share our strength's and compensate for each other's weaknesses that made our

dating period relatively smooth and in 1987 we officially became partners i want to make something very explicit that i amusing carter's as a phrase as business partners and it is just that. i cannot tell you the number of people who assume that they assume we are lesbian partners also. [laughter] we are not. we have visible rebuttals to this misconception. so here we are starting with the small neighborhood bookstore was just the two was as though leading independent store. of the one thing i think of as a constant if we were men each one would have a wife

and secretary of all the services they entail but we still into our own phones, tyrone netters, due to go shopping and take your own clothes to the dry cleaners. but i think these are the only ones. as much as we have grown up business has grown us. to adapt to every news service stand in the competitive environment. the most important quality is flexibility and openness to change. good democrat attributes and although i spoke of the limitations of our gender we're also invested by the benefits of "the washington post" an article about partnerships that are much more susceptible to breakups

and that the common wisdom is that it makes better partners as women than men. survey that id if you have a tremendous emphasis put on many icahn not remember a single coral that car line and i have ever had over many. the female perspective is that many pales in comparison to the relationships we have with each other and with their customers and our staff and that is where the energies along. thank you. [applause]

>> i have nothing to add. [laughter] that was great. i will give bill a little bit of the history of the store and the reflections as be are about to celebrate our 15th anniversary in september. we spent a lot of time this year excepting where we are now and where we're going it has been thinking about these things for the last three or four years but there is something about the number 10 or 15 or 20 that makes you do that even more. i don't know if any of you were here when i spoke to the women's democratic club.

i think it was either 12 or 11 years ago. then we were in existence three years for years and growing very well each year. by number five it is clear we had outgrown our store at 50 -- at connecticut college convicted of the across the street and then we get the landlord to law were the bench when there was a lot of vacant stores so we had a better chance to get a decent deal. we reenlisted that customers and they were enthusiastic and on a hot july morning 200 people came out and it

was very touching than fed moving to the east side of our business immediately jumped 40% with the new visibility we were somewhat headed by the store next door in the presence of the parking boosted sales tremendously by 1982 we wanted to expand again and decided to add a coffeehouse. and revisited a coffeehouse in seattle that heard neece was working at it and we do she said it is what we

wanted to we had an idea in their recipes last week in "the new york times" magazine and that is the presence we were trying to achieve it in a coffeehouse. so early date to 93 be opened on inauguration day with the hopes with the democratic administration and what it brought with it. we practically gave our manager a nervous breakdown as we went to open on january 20th. and sales jumped 40% again my friend said the only place schaede knew where she got a $50 cup of coffee.

[laughter] but in two more years in the middle of 1995 we were able to takeover the video store next door a round of world cheered as we moved into a space that was previously occupied by videos and begin sales increased substantially. and we find ourselves able to do a lot of things when sales increase to pay staff better and have more division of labor and all kinds of good things happen. later on we get to the bad things but this year we were concerned of the effects of competition. not so much from the us superstores so with ease of

buying the books on the internet. this year with a combination of hard work and great luck in then selling more books outside the walls at meiji private events celebrating authors. and with the staff of the former gesture cat that closes its doors at the end of april and we have been able to absorbent with the founder of the edge gesture cat he had retired not too long ago and she said yes.

and as the staff has come over and it has just been fantastic. added is good luck. so the strength that berbera pointed out we call ourselves the of on a and a bomb store he said that she said i don't they she comes into the store with her children and i don't think bobby receives phone calls in the middle of the day with an important meeting. so the bomb and bomb store i completely agree with barbara that what we have

brought to it as women is incredibly important and what we bring to web at booksellers is it will chosen selection of books it is fun to shop that politics & prose we have created a community space with people, here they don't, just to shop but to have a pleasant time come to be friends, rest with a cup of coffee or hear a lecture about undue bocor discuss it with others we perform a myriad of tasks. we have to people who spent time ordering books for customers in 25 and others helping customers and people making coffee and sandwiches and many other staff behind the scenes working on publication's editor of special events and paying

bills. that is what we brought to the equation we are designing a questionnaire to give to our customers also potential customers to find out why they don't shop that politics & prose. what we have learned to the biggest challenge is the management of our ever expanding staff we are that generation of women who were not trained to manage others. the savings we have learned to in the area of management that change makes people anxious