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The calculated risk paid off. A year later, the SAP implementation had helped cut IT infrastructure costs by 10%. Nearly three years later, the dividends are still pouring in, Bayles says, as Tasty perfects its demand-driven manufacturing model. Inventory is tight, resulting in fresher products and fewer returns. Profit increased nearly 7% in 2006 over the prior year, and strong cash flow helped the company reduce its debt by 20%.
When it comes to risk taking, headhunter Suzanne Fairlie believes women have more to gain -- and more to lose. "For the women who are successful in a world where there are not that many women, their success makes them more visible," says Fairlie, a former IT executive herself. "The negative stuff will stand out more, but the positive stuff will stand out more. You can use that to your advantage. Right or wrong, people remember me more because I am female."
This doesn't mean women go it alone on their way to the top. In fact, a mentor had to shove Mary Finlay up the career ladder. When Finlay's boss promoted her to CIO at Brigham and Women's Hospital, she tried to talk him out of it. Finlay didn't feel she was ready for such a weighty position. "He said, 'You are, and I'll be right behind you,'" Finlay recalls.
She excelled in the CIO role and now holds the same title at Partners HealthCare System Inc. "My confidence has come from being pushed in an area where I felt out of my comfort zone and then succeeding and looking back and saying, 'Poof! I did it, and I can do it again,'" she says. Loath to connect gender and success in the workplace, Finlay admits her experience has shown one difference between men and women: Women are often less confident about their capabilities.
"There have been times when I have found myself working -- really working -- to convince a woman that she is really ready for the next step," Finlay says. "And I have never had to do that with a man.'"
Midwestern-born Nancy Mitchell climbed the ranks at State Street Bank before leaving in 2003. Serving as an IT executive for its institutional investment arm -- a division with $1.7 trillion in assets under management -- she needed an advocate.
She recounts the time a boss put in a pay raise for her that was initially rejected. "He was told that I had the same job as these other people in the same position, and that is what they make," Mitchell says. "He said, 'Yeah, but she's doing two or three times the work of these other guys.' He was so angry he ... showed me all the emails that had gone back and forth." Later that day, she got the raise.
Mitchell learned that strong managers support their staff and respect employees' abilities, insight she used during her ascension at State Street. During the boom years of the late 1990s, IT at State Street was as volatile as the stock market. "It was, 'Hey, we've got five new clients, and now you gotta make it work,'" Mitchell recalls. "When that would come to my desk, I would just get everybody in my group in a room and say, 'One, we have to figure out a way to implement it in a way we can afford it. And two, we're going to have to put a couple of things on hold.' It was a collective approach. That style of inclusion is good because everybody has a stake in it."
"Good leaders are those who can engage the strength of the people in their organizations," Compel's Shafer says.
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