Those elusive 21st century female role models

Posted on May 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

Is anyone else entertained?  Can you recall any male executive who was held accountable amidst all of the hoopla surrounding the global financial crisis in 2008?  We had a crisis that resulted in the collapse or near collapse of large financial institutions, like Lehman Brothers or AIG; the federal bailout of financial services and large industrial companies, recall TARP and GM; downturns in the global stock market and the housing market; and widespread unemployment that reached and still remains at historic highs.    Now answer this:  is there anyone in America who can’t tell you who Ina Drew is? Continue reading →

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Transition through a techie lens

Posted on May 10, 2012 | Leave a comment

What’s your take on social media?  Earlier today I experienced social media deja vu for the first time.  Who knew?   A friend tagged a Forbes.com post on LinkedIn entitled,“The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness)” by blogger Jessica Hagy.   The caption included a few little drawings.

https://i0.wp.com/blogs-images.forbes.com/jessicahagy/files/2012/02/IMAGE00021.jpg

The Six Enemies of Greatness ( and Happiness) by Jessica Hagy, Forbes.com 2/28/12

The drawings looked and felt like the illustrations that I’d been seeing all week in “The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization by Peter Senge.”   What can I say, the drawings spoke to me…. Continue reading →

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Transition: How do you start?

Posted on May 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

“This is an evolution not an event,” I added sincerely as I sat with a colleague on the eve of his first major downsizing.  He was the CIO of a major insurance company.  It was the early 90’s. None of us were fatigued yet by downsizing.   He was visibly worried as he sat thinking through the likely impact of a meeting scheduled for the next morning.   I was on my soapbox of ‘enlightenment through defining a problem correctly.’  I urged him to think about a broader set of actions: the message to the employees who would stay, the required behaviors of his management team in the days and months that followed, his willingness to help those who would be on the receiving end of a sobering message. Continue reading →

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Transition: Learnings and laughs one year in…

Posted on April 26, 2012 | 3 comments

I was in tears and, at the same moment, utterly surprised at my reaction.  Crying?  I was watching Iron Lady, Meryl Streep‘s Academy Award victory lap in which she portrays Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979-1990.  The movie caught me off guard.  The twist for me came in the movie’s lens into Mrs. Thatcher’s life; the view is of her nearing dementia with life ‘highlights‘ told in retrospect.   A wave to young children who were pleading with her not to go as she sped off to the Conservative Party‘s leadership.  An aging person alone washing out her tea cup in the sink of a lovely, closeted London home.   Adult children operating on the periphery.   Why did it hit me so? Continue reading →

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Transition’s detractor: ourselves?

Posted on April 19, 2012 | 1 comment

“You kept saying that you ‘didn’t want to go’ but you kept walking backwards so I didn’t stop you,” said an affable guide during a debrief session about my performance.   The event in question was rappelling down a sheer rock face during a 10-day Mountaineering Course with Colorado Outward Bound.   Did I mention that I had never camped before? Continue reading →

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Knowing when to act…

Posted on April 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

“What if you did nothing for twenty-four hours?” said my friend Marla as I related to her an incident that had me close to coming undone.  Her calm advice couldn’t have been more foreign to me at that moment.  I was in a leadership role that I believed compelled me to act.  To address. To solve.  To direct.  What was this ‘stand down’ approach?  Could it possibly work? Continue reading →

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Transition: Crafting an approach

Posted on April 5, 2012 | 1 comment

“I wasn’t interested in leading a double life,” said AJ a former colleague of mine who co-founded Infuse, a not-for-profit entrepreneurship program for inner-city high school students in Silicon Valley.   Her dual risk arose because she works as a program manager at Infinera, a publicly traded optical networking company.   It’s easy to get inspired when speaking with AJ.   She is a bundle of energy and passion.  Aside from being enthused about her work at Infuse I’m fascinated by her dual dilemma ‘approach.’  Continue reading →

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Voices of Transition: Choices and Learning

Posted on March 29, 2012 | 3 comments

“I got a sense of breathing for the 1st time,” said Shannon Breuer, a former Sunoco executive who shared with me her truly inspirational journey through transition as part of Novofemina’s Voices of Transition column.   “I had no idea how much I was going to grow…I feel so fulfilled.” Continue reading →

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Risk and Failure

Posted on March 22, 2012 | 7 comments

“I finally got around to reading your interest card,” said Andrall Pearson former President and COO of Pepsi Co. and my professor during a second year course at the Harvard Business School.  His quip came as he leaned on my desk with hushed tones moments before class started.   The card, an arcane pre-Internet system – think index card – held a few sentences authored by students to convey our interests to professors.    On my card I’d divulged my dream of running an emerging business.  That day the class was scheduled to discuss a 1980’s-style emerging business, Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT).   OAT was founded in 1978 by a high school anthropology teacher in her three-story house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.   My little visit from Andrall was my heads up, referred to as a soft-call, that I would be leading the class’ discussion that day.  I had about a minute and one-half to prepare. Continue reading →

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Goldman Sachs and Transition: anchors and aspirations

Posted on March 15, 2012 | Leave a comment

“I want to go with crazy good,” said Sal, an animated presenter at a meeting at my children’s school a few nights ago.   By crazy good I interpreted him to mean a ‘good’ outcome juiced up with steroids to make it an ‘exceptionally’ good outcome.  “I am always trying to think about the ‘stretch’….use my imagination to think bigger,” said the authentic youth leader as he was trying to engage a desperately tired audience of parents.  “Why not?” he posed. Continue reading →

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