Men Ruin Everything, Right?

In the “News Analysis & Commentary” section of its 05/22/06 issue, BusinessWeek features a new book by two female executives at United Airlines (see the BusinessWeek article below).

Julie Bell, 32, and Donna Brown, 42, directors of strategic sourcing and corporate human resources, respectively, were going to divorce their husbands, whom they blamed for ruining their family lives. Instead, the two women collaborated to write The Scorecard: How to Fix Your Man in One Year or Less. Yes, they decided that, by fixing their husbands, using management techniques honed at the office, they could have the lives they always wanted.

Folks, this is but another example of women believing men to be the culprits of all problems. What’s more pathetic is that these husbands were willing disciples of their author/manager/dictator wives — especially after their wives kicked them out of their own homes. I suspect that the prospect of losing their wealth and their kids was enough to make them jump through fire. Moreover, I’m sure they were wondering, as I am wondering, where a woman derives the power and authority to kick her husband out of the house.

Not once did the wives ever wax introspective, asking themselves what THEY contributed to their failing marriages. Their book title says it all. What’s sad is that BusinessWeek, a respectable, otherwise-objective business publication, never grilled the women about THEIR culpabilities in their respective marital problems. No surprise, is it? The woman-good/man-bad virus strikes again.

Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, BusinessWeek promoting a book by two men called How to Fix Your Woman in One Year or Less? First, BusinessWeek is too politically correct to stand up to women. Second, if the editors were drunk enough to run such an article, NOW would shut down the magazine in one week.

About the Author

Marc H. Rudov is an investment banker and business consultant residing in Silicon Valley, CA. He is the author of the book, The Man’s No-Nonsense Guide to Women: How to Succeed in Romance on Planet Earth^TM (ISBN 0974501719), and 18 articles.

Rudov’s book, articles, blog, and podcasts are available at http://www.thenononsenseman.com/.

Copyright © 2006 by Marc H. Rudov. All rights reserved.

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Julie Bell and Donna Brown, executives at United Air Lines Inc. in Chicago, are each very happily married. That’s how this story ends. It begins a few years ago, when Julie and Donna were contemplating divorcing their husbands and raising their children on their own. Instead, over the course of a long year, they managed to change their men and save their marriages, and they did so by behaving like executives at home. They stated their expectations in no uncertain terms, set goals (for the wayward men) with corporate precision, and measured the results. “It’s like really good project management,” says Donna. And somehow it worked.

For Julie and Donna, applying business principles to their marriages came naturally. They were women who had accomplished much professionally. Julie, now 32, is director of strategic sourcing; Donna, 42, is director of corporate human resources. They had confidence in their skills in the workplace. But they were miserable at home, and they blamed their husbands for ruining their family lives. Things got so bad that in the fall of 2001 Donna kicked out Dave, who was then home watching their two kids; Julie told Phillip, a cop, to leave in the spring of 2002.

It wasn’t until 2004, after their husbands had become model partners and returned home, that Donna and Julie learned they had taken the same approach to their marital problems. Their boss, privy to the details of their private lives, had suggested they talk. Then she encouraged them to put together a book. The result is The Scorecard: How to Fix Your Man in One Year or Less, published on May 4, which they wrote with Judith Newman.

In the tradition of self-help books and management seminars, Julie and Donna offer a five-step program: set priorities, filter (is it a problem you can easily fix yourself?), analyze (how much cooperation are you likely to get?), plan the right approach, measure your progress. They describe their method as strategic (focusing on the root cause of a problem), not tactical (trying to fix the symptoms). And, as with any project, they suggest reassessing priorities from time to time.

When the two women presented their turnaround plans to Phillip and Dave, who were eager to reconcile, there was nonetheless a little of what executives would call pushback. And no wonder: Julie and Donna asked the men to rethink everything from their careers to their roles as fathers to their love lives. “We did start out being very demanding,” Julie says. “As they showed us they were willing to change, we became softer.” Donna tells of one test she gave Dave midway through the year. She had asked him to go into therapy to deal with what she thought was depression; he said they might benefit from marriage counseling. Instead of embracing the idea and making all the arrangements, she left it up to Dave to find a counselor, work out the insurance issues, hire a babysitter for the kids, and pick her up for each appointment. And, much to her surprise, he did.

WORKS BOTH WAYS
One thing led to another, and soon Donna and Julie realized they had to conduct themselves differently, too. “Our work selves had been the best of us,” says Donna. “Now, at home we’re more like the people we are at work.” She goes on to say: “I talk about managing communications all day at the office. You have to think about it or it will go wrong. How could I have been so idiotic at home? I left so much to chance.” Julie puts it this way: “At work you are never accidentally successful. You can’t be accidentally successful at home, either.”

So far, they say, male colleagues have reacted to the notion of managing a marriage with curiosity, if not enthusiasm. Julie and Donna are sure that husbands everywhere will come around as they realize that, as Julie says, this approach “does away with the drama and emotional blackmail” common in many relationships. And that it works both ways.

Dave and Phillip, for example, have learned to use their wives’ tactics right back at them. Recently, Donna says, she was getting increasingly anxious as she and Dave prepared to leave for a vacation with her parents. When she made a sarcastic comment about his efforts, he said: “Your to-do list isn’t the same as mine. If you need help, let’s talk about our priorities.” To which Donna replied: “Are you using my tools on me? That’s so sexy.”

By Susan Berfield