女孩害怕金钱吗？

    本月早些时候，我在乔治城大学拜访一位友人的女儿时，被一场由15位本科生组成的小组讨论所吸引。整场讨论很有意思，富于启发。这些聪明的年轻女性志向各异，从清理全球环境到实现世界和平，再到打造《财富》美国500强公司不一。

    这里没有一个羞怯的女生。

    组织这些学生每周小组讨论的是The Judgment Group的首席执行官、《财富》(Fortune) 2009年最具影响力的商界女性之一苏珊•威尔森。威尔森在闲暇时间为帮助其他女性企业家做了大量工作。最近，她进行的一项极不科学的实验可能会引发你深层的思考——女孩们害怕金钱吗？如果是这样，这对于前途无量的下一代的未来意味着什么？——Patricia Sellers

    我现在在母校乔治城大学为15位女性本科生提供小组辅导。由于我的两个儿子已分别到了14岁和13岁的年龄，几周前我带他们一起去了母校，希望他们体验一下一屋子聪明能干的年轻女性所散发出的独特魅力。

    在开始之前，我在教室里随机选择了几张课桌——参照教室半满时人们通常选择的位置——在上面放上了一共5张20美元钞票。我可以看到两个儿子都盯着这些钱。感到他们可能很快采取行动，我把他们请到了教室后排的座位上。

    13岁的儿子有些郁闷地问，“用什么阻止这些女孩拿这些钱呢，妈妈？”

    我笑了。“没什么，”我告诉他，“你们能就坐在这儿看着吗？”

    这似乎违背了他们的天性，但他们同意了。

    接下来十分钟，女孩们陆续到了。儿子们和我注意看着。有女孩像我儿子担心的那样，拿走了全部100美元吗？没有。

    女孩们有争抢这些20美元吗？没有。

    实际情况比这更糟糕——我两个儿子到现在还莫名不已。

    一句话都没说，女孩们似乎就达成了一种默契：应该忽视这些钱。她们不仅没有拿这些20美元的钞票，而且还选择了离20美元钞票较远的座位！

    经过一番劝解，最终我成功地让几个女孩拿起了钞票。但她们立刻宣布要捐出去。为什么？因为没人想“成为一个贪婪的人”，她们说。

    我没有太过震惊，但决定在下周的小组讨论上再谈谈这个问题。我举起了一张20美元钞票，问谁想要它。没有一个人动。整整30秒后，一个女孩举起了手，说，“我们应该制定一条规则，决定由谁获得。”

    另一个女孩举起了手，说“应该归第一个到的女孩。”

    所有人都环顾四周，点头表示同意。

    接下来一个小时，我们讨论了女孩如何看待金钱和做决定。即便是在规则没有必要的时候，这些女孩也拒绝行动，将精力集中于制定规则，以决定由谁获得。

    显然，如果有男性在这间教室里，女性不会有任何机会。

    我问，“为什么？”小组推崇规则，是因为规则能建立一套标准。“然后，”一个机敏的女孩笑了，“我们可以在规则框架内，利用规则达到我们的目的。”

    我的直觉反应是，“而且仍被视为好女孩？”

    毫不迟疑地，整个小组都点头表示同意。

    这让你意外吗？我已经从各个角度对此进行思考，令我尴尬的是在发现不仅是我对金钱有这样的感受后，我的内心略感轻松。即便是这些聪明的年轻女性——没有成年人的经验、责任、妥协和失败等包袱——面对金钱心理也感到有些障碍。

    这让我从另外一个角度感到自责。但这带来一个问题，女性如何才能在商界有出色表现？我能做些什么来帮助这些女孩——和我自己？

    While visiting a friend's daughter at Georgetown University earlier this month, I got lured into meeting with a group of 15 undergrads. The session was great fun and illuminating. These were bright young women whose ambitions ranged, they told me, from cleaning up the global environmental to achieving world peace to building Fortune 500 companies.

    Not one shrinking violets here.

    The weekly convener of these students is Susan Wilson, CEO of The Judgment Group and one of Fortune's 2009 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs. In her spare moments, Wilson does lots of stuff to help other women entrepreneurs. As part of her effort, she recently conducted an experiment that is profoundly unscientific and will make you wonder, profoundly: Are girls afraid of money? And if so, what does it mean for the future of the most promising next gen? -- Patricia Sellers

    I'm mentoring a group of 15 female undergrads at Georgetown, my alma mater. Given that my sons are now 14 and 13, I brought them with me a few weeks ago so they could experience the inimitable beauty of a room full of smart, empowered young women.

    Before the session began, I placed five $20 bills on random desks throughout the classroom--based on where people typically sit when a room is half-filled. I could see my boys eyeballing the money. Sensing an imminent attack, I scooped up my boys and escorted them to their NEW seats in the back of the room.

    Far from thrilled, my 13-year-old son asked, "What's to stop one of the girls from just taking the money, Mom?"

    I laughed, "Absolutely nothing," I told him. " Can you JUST sit here and watch?"

    It was as if they were going against nature, but they complied.

    Over the next ten minutes, the girls trickled in. My sons and I watched. Did one girl scoop up the entire $100, as my son feared? Nope.

    Did the girls fight over the twenties? Not exactly.

    What happened was even worse--and my sons are still dumbfounded.

    Without saying a word, the girls somehow agreed that they should ignore the money. Not only did they NOT take the $20 bills. They sat anywhere but NEAR the money!

    It took some convincing, but I did manage to get a few of the girls to pick up the bills--finally. But they immediately declared they were donating the money. Why? Because no one wanted "to be greedy," they told me.

    I wasn't shocked, but I decided to revisit the issue when I met with the girls a week later. I held up a $20 bill and asked who wanted it. No one moved. A good 30 seconds later, one of the girls raised her hand and said, "We should make a rule about who gets it."

    Another girl raised her hand and declared, "It should go to the girl that got here first."

    Everyone looked around, and they all nodded in agreement.

    We spent the next hour discussing how girls think about money and make decisions. Even when rules weren't necessary, the girls refused to act and instead focused their energy on creating rules about who got the money.

    Clearly, if men had been in the room, the women wouldn't have stood a chance.

    I asked, "Why?" The group preferred rules because rules establish a system of norms. "Then," one astute girl laughed, "we can play within established parameters and still manipulate the rules to get our way."

    Instinctively, I responded, "And still be considered good girls?"

    Without missing a beat, the group nodded in agreement.

    Does any of this surprise you? I've thought about it from every angle and I'm embarrassed that a part of me feels slightly relieved that it's not just me who feels this way about money. Even these bright young women--without the grown-up baggage of experience, responsibility, compromise and failure--have a dysfunctional relationship with money.

    Which makes me feel guilty in a whole other way…argh! But this begs the question: How are women ever going to excel in business? And what can I do to help these girls--and myself?