Overcoming Career Setbacks
Reaching the top of the corporate pyramid is rare, but it’s especially tough for women and minorities.
Every career has its chutes and ladders, pauses and moments of opportunity.
We turn to two executives who faced periods of indecision during their careers and found inspiration for what to do next. As it happens both are black.
When Deborah Wright, CEO of Carver Bankcorp, New York was laid off from the investment bank First Boston she turned to Robert Holland, the first black partner at McKinsey and Company but is perhaps better known as CEO of Ben and Jerry’s for advice about what to do next. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: career decisions, Carver Bankcorp, consultants, executives, Globalhue, intutition, McKinsey and Company, mentors
Combining Great and Leadership
On Saturday, I traveled 100 miles round trip the original Hall of Fame of Great Americans on the Bronx Community College campus that once belonged to New York University.
The 630 foot sweeping colonnade punctuated by busts of famous Americans was designed by Stanford White at the turn of the last century.
The “greats” were clustered by categories—statesmen, inventors, authors. Still, many of the names that might be synonymous with commerce seemed in short supply. As an example, George Westinghouse was primarily known as an inventor.
The only clearly recognizable business bust was that of Andrew Carnegie, as well known as a philanthropist as he was an investor. Even he was a fairly late arrival, added some three quarters of a century after the Hall was inaugurated.
Only the day before a newly released book from Random House arrived. Entitled When Remarkable Women Lead, it was written by two McKinsey consultants. McKinsey appears to gain traction when the economy goes into the reverse. They have recently been in the news for their recommendations for streamlining Conde Nast.
The first two chapters seem like a direct descendant of the book The Managerial Woman by Margaret Hennig and Anne Jardim which coincidentally came out in 1976, the year that Andrew Carnegie’s bust was added to the Hall of Fame. The authors promote the idea of “Centered Leadership.” I’m interested to see how they develop their theme.
Tags: consultants, female executives, leadership
