The death recently of Sloan Wilson, author of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” will evoke nostalgia for the novel-turned-Gregory-Peck movie that struck a cultural nerve in the mid-1950s. Yet the grand themes in “Gray Flannel” live powerfully today – though not just via the image of the corporate “rat race” for which the film in particular has become an enduring emblem.

My wife, Jody, has an interesting take on “Gray Flannel’s” modern meaning, so whatever you like or don’t like in the rest of this column, I’m merely channeling her here. (In the post-Jayson Blair-Rick Bragg era at The New York Times, I would never risk not properly sourcing this analysis.)

There are two essential moments in the movie, Jody says. The first comes when the driven CEO is informed that his estranged daughter has eloped, and the CEO’s wife, far from wanting her husband’s comfort at this distressing moment, announces that their chilly marriage is essentially over.

In a wave of bitterness and self-pity, the boss says to junior executive Gregory Peck that “big successful businesses aren’t built by men like you – 9 to 5 and home and family.” They’re built by workaholics like me, he explains. The personal toll is obvious.

“My mistake,” he then adds sadly, addressing his glass of scotch, “was in being one of those men.”

Later the boss asks Peck to join him on an out-of-town business trip – a chance to work closely with the boss that any ambitious young executive would seize.

But Peck, feeling the tug of family, decides he won’t go – a choice that plainly dooms him never to rise to the top. “You remember those 9-to-5 fellows?” Peck tells the boss. “I’m afraid I’m one of them.” Wistfully, the boss confides that were he doing it over again, he’d choose Peck’s path.

My wife’s point is that as a society, when it comes to work-family tradeoffs, we’re still basically stuck in the choice between extremes that Sloan Wilson depicted a half century ago. Either you’re a maniacal workaholic who runs the world or you’re basically punching a clock with little power and authority in the organization.

For many people, of course, these extremes seem unavoidable – driven entrepreneurs will always build businesses, and most of the rest of us will work for them. But as I can attest from being married to a mom who used to run a company, female executives who discover that they also love being mothers find this gray-flannel dichotomy a true straitjacket. And in their search for a “third way,” they are poised to drive the next great evolution of business organization in America.

Today women like my wife, if they are working, work half or two-thirds of the time (often in less-challenging roles) for far less than their market value. That’s the price they pay for the flexibility to be with their kids. And that’s OK – compared to most of the world, it’s a choice they’re happy to be able to make.

The modern equivalents of the CEO in “Gray Flannel” say that’s just the way of the world. But there’s an obvious question missing: Why can’t we change the way big organizations are run so that people in senior roles can strike a better balance?

This isn’t just a problem for women – it’s a problem for human beings. After all, as my wife says, if the only way to run these institutions is with the kind of 24/7 intensity that kills family life (and every other interest outside the workplace), we’re doomed to be led by people whose values and choices are alien to those held by the vast majority of Americans.

It’s hard to think that’s a desirable state of affairs. Or sustainable.

The revolution we need will usher in creative new ways to manage time and talent – a style of management that will itself become a source of competitive advantage, as pioneering firms find it better meets the aspirations of the talent they seek to attract and retain.

This won’t happen overnight. But, like most important economic innovations, it will start at the top (that is, in the executive suite) and trickle down. My wife insists this isn’t pie-in-the-sky but both possible and necessary – and as she’s trained me to realize, she’s pretty much always right.

Matt Miller is a syndicated columnist. His e-mail address is: [email protected].