Now I know why I never quite made it to mega million CEO status. It wasn’t because my eyes glaze over when I see numbers. Or because I don’t own the requisite tailored black suit. Or even because I am heedlessly aggressive rather than the more P.C. “assertive” -- as well as being totally lacking in basic political smarts.
All that and more could have been overcome as I rocketed into the fast lane. But now I know I was missing a vital link that could have spun my dross into solid gold.
What was my fatal flaw? Are you ready? I never had an executive coach! I never even knew they existed until I heard one speak recently at a networking session. And I certainly never knew that executive coaches are a top manager’s secret weapon. The “dirty little secret”, as this practitioner put it, of the corporate world. All the really successful corporate officers have one, she said. Really.
An executive coach, it seems, is not a mentor. Everyone (how déclassé!) has one of those. An executive coach is someone who understands the corporate jungle because he or she has survived and prospered in it. An executive coach is an objective advisor who is not connected with your old company or your new company. Someone you pay by the hour or the day or on retainer to be there to interpret your every hiccup. Who rehearses that big job interview with you. Or deconstructs that crucial meeting before it happens. Or even dresses you for success. You can have this totally honest relationship with your executive coach because he won’t go running to anyone else in your company and tell on you because he isn’t part of your company.
Has an executive search firm come calling lately? Well don’t worry. It’s apt to have an executive coach ready to help you get that top job -- and to help you make a smooth transition into the new corporate culture. He or she will even stand behind you for as long as 6 months -- ready to nudge or even shove you in the right direction! But after that, apparently, you’re on your own. With his or her parting words – and I quote - “Always have an exit strategy because how you loose a job is often more important than how you win a job”. Right.
As I said earlier, now I know why I never climbed the success ladder high enough for the Securities and Exchange Commission to slap me with a corporate indictment. On the other hand, maybe the top officers of - say - Enron, World Com or Health South didn’t know about executive coaches either because they certainly could have used an exit strategy. Several of them.
I’ve never had an exit strategy – unless it was to wear padding because the door kept hitting me on the way out. But I at least can still collect unemployment. Kind of tough to make that weekly phone call to insist you’ve been looking for work… when you’re in jail.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Ode to Ed Bradley
Ed, I apologize. I didn’t go to your memorial service today. I thought about it. A lot. Half of me wanted to go to pay you tribute. The other half – the sad, shy, lost half – said no. And truthfully I have attended too many memorial services and funerals these past years. For colleagues, friends, and most of all – family. Like yours, most memorial services (including the one for my father) are supposed to be ‘celebrations of life”. But the reality is – even as we laugh at the funny, sweet stories -- they are being told only because their subject is no longer in the room. In any room.
It has always seemed strange to me to laugh at someone’s funeral. And don’t let anyone tell you differently; a memorial service is still a funeral. Just look at yours today – which through the good offices of CBS News (the switched camera feed) and C-SPAN I was able to watch as I tried to work here at home. It was hard enough to listen to your friends and family say goodbye to you. In words so intimate and so full of grief I sometimes felt outsiders like me and many of those sitting in Riverside Church shouldn’t be hearing them.
But it was some of the music that really did me in. Wynton Marsalis marching up the aisle – New Orleans style – playing a plaintive blues. And at the end – “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” (or just “The Saints” as I grew up hearing it called) -- courtesy of a real New Orleans jazz band walking through the aisles. After the minister explained the tradition, the church was a sea of waving white handkerchiefs as your mourners waved your spirit up to heaven.
It was a three hanky memorial, Ed. But unlike those Saturday afternoon B-movies I grew up with – yours was an A+ life. Our paths crossed so briefly. Two dates when we were both young – and then again in the hallways when we had both made it to the pinnacle of our dreams – CBS News. You – always the consummate gentleman – insisted you remembered those dates. But I’m sure you didn’t. I was just another in a long string of girls – until you finally found the woman who became your wife.
But you were not just another guy. I remember you asking when you called after mutual friends fixed us up. “You know,” you said, “I’m black.” “So?” I said. I had grown up in a big city – an underaged kid hanging out at the slightly open stage door of a storied jazz club – worshiping the great musicians who occasionally smiled at me as they finished their sets. I dreamed of playing drums and when Louis Armstrong’s drummer showed me how to play basic time, I don’t think his first thought was “Gee, this girl’s white”.
But on that first date – both of us well dressed in business clothes – I found out what all those years of hanging with jazz musicians didn’t tell me. I found out what it really meant to be black. Even in Manhattan. We were cutting through a theater district parking lot, this handsome, educated, sophisticated man and I, when a middle aged man yelled out “Boy! Get my car!” I wanted to scream and yell and punch him out but Ed only smiled and said “Forget it”. And we walked on. I never forgot the lesson Ed. I never forgot my feeling of being violated. And I never forgot how you just put it aside as you must have put aside many similar slings and arrows – and kept your focus on the prize – your life as you planned to live it.
Probably no one will read this. It’s on my blog but no one knows how to get here. But nothing written down is ever truly lost. It’s from my heart, Ed, not the kind of polished prose I try to put here. But I wanted you to know. As you go on into that other existence, that other world whatever it is, where none of us can follow.
You made a difference, Ed. Not just be being Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes. That too of course. But a difference to that 20-something girl so long ago. A difference I have tried to remember in my life and my career. I think what you taught me is something as simple as respect. And although I haven’t always respected everyone and everything on this earth – I really do try.
It’s not a bad legacy, Ed. To add to the huge legacy you left the rest of the world.
It has always seemed strange to me to laugh at someone’s funeral. And don’t let anyone tell you differently; a memorial service is still a funeral. Just look at yours today – which through the good offices of CBS News (the switched camera feed) and C-SPAN I was able to watch as I tried to work here at home. It was hard enough to listen to your friends and family say goodbye to you. In words so intimate and so full of grief I sometimes felt outsiders like me and many of those sitting in Riverside Church shouldn’t be hearing them.
But it was some of the music that really did me in. Wynton Marsalis marching up the aisle – New Orleans style – playing a plaintive blues. And at the end – “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” (or just “The Saints” as I grew up hearing it called) -- courtesy of a real New Orleans jazz band walking through the aisles. After the minister explained the tradition, the church was a sea of waving white handkerchiefs as your mourners waved your spirit up to heaven.
It was a three hanky memorial, Ed. But unlike those Saturday afternoon B-movies I grew up with – yours was an A+ life. Our paths crossed so briefly. Two dates when we were both young – and then again in the hallways when we had both made it to the pinnacle of our dreams – CBS News. You – always the consummate gentleman – insisted you remembered those dates. But I’m sure you didn’t. I was just another in a long string of girls – until you finally found the woman who became your wife.
But you were not just another guy. I remember you asking when you called after mutual friends fixed us up. “You know,” you said, “I’m black.” “So?” I said. I had grown up in a big city – an underaged kid hanging out at the slightly open stage door of a storied jazz club – worshiping the great musicians who occasionally smiled at me as they finished their sets. I dreamed of playing drums and when Louis Armstrong’s drummer showed me how to play basic time, I don’t think his first thought was “Gee, this girl’s white”.
But on that first date – both of us well dressed in business clothes – I found out what all those years of hanging with jazz musicians didn’t tell me. I found out what it really meant to be black. Even in Manhattan. We were cutting through a theater district parking lot, this handsome, educated, sophisticated man and I, when a middle aged man yelled out “Boy! Get my car!” I wanted to scream and yell and punch him out but Ed only smiled and said “Forget it”. And we walked on. I never forgot the lesson Ed. I never forgot my feeling of being violated. And I never forgot how you just put it aside as you must have put aside many similar slings and arrows – and kept your focus on the prize – your life as you planned to live it.
Probably no one will read this. It’s on my blog but no one knows how to get here. But nothing written down is ever truly lost. It’s from my heart, Ed, not the kind of polished prose I try to put here. But I wanted you to know. As you go on into that other existence, that other world whatever it is, where none of us can follow.
You made a difference, Ed. Not just be being Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes. That too of course. But a difference to that 20-something girl so long ago. A difference I have tried to remember in my life and my career. I think what you taught me is something as simple as respect. And although I haven’t always respected everyone and everything on this earth – I really do try.
It’s not a bad legacy, Ed. To add to the huge legacy you left the rest of the world.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
We Are NOT Going Quietly Into the Night!
If Ben Bernanke – the Federal Reserve Chairman – says it – then you know the impending retirement of the 78 million baby boomers in theUS is a real economic problem. Like many other economists -- Bernanke worries about Medicare and Social Security – programs he warns will be unsustainable when the boomer wave breaks over them.
But wait. Who says the boomers are actually going to retire? Survey after survey finds the bulk of boomers plans to keep on working -- many full time. The latest study -- from the Pew Research Center -- reports 77 percent of today’s workers will keep at it ---not just because they need the money but because they want the stimulation. And baby boomers are a huge, 40 percent slice of the current workforce.
They’re also a group which has famously spent its way through life. Which means little or no savings –when planners say to retire at 65 you’ll need enough money for at least another 18 years. At the boomer level of living – that’s a long time without a paycheck.
So get used to it Gen X, Y and Z. There won’t be much room at the top – until, perhaps, you hit the big 6-5.
But wait. Who says the boomers are actually going to retire? Survey after survey finds the bulk of boomers plans to keep on working -- many full time. The latest study -- from the Pew Research Center -- reports 77 percent of today’s workers will keep at it ---not just because they need the money but because they want the stimulation. And baby boomers are a huge, 40 percent slice of the current workforce.
They’re also a group which has famously spent its way through life. Which means little or no savings –when planners say to retire at 65 you’ll need enough money for at least another 18 years. At the boomer level of living – that’s a long time without a paycheck.
So get used to it Gen X, Y and Z. There won’t be much room at the top – until, perhaps, you hit the big 6-5.
Is There a Four Letter Word for "Functional"?
“You’re functional, right?” he said. “What?” “Functional”. I just looked at him. This doctor who had written a book about knees, Who was supposed to help mine. Functional! Sure it functions and so do I. I can walk and do most everyday things. I guess that’s functional to an average couch potato. But I was a marathoner. 28 finished … a few more not quite. I was a hiker – Mt. Washington and some of the other White Mountains. I skied (poorly). And tap danced (sort of). And never turned down an assignment because it was physically taxing.
Functional! A knee in this state is not my idea of functional!
Oh but he must have looked at my birth date. Old. Not worth saving. Perfectly functional for someone her age; what does she expect anyhow? She’s just another knee replacement candidate. Functional indeed.
Well damn-dumb-doctor-with-your-10-minutes-for-nearly-$400-no-insurance-accepted -- “functional” isn’t good enough for me. How dare you throw me away like your trash with a word like “functional”?
I have more energy than you do; I learn more new information each day; I drive a racing car at 50 on the 25 mph curves. I function all right. Like someone half my age. And you want to take all that away from me and lump me in with fat old ladies who are “functional” if they can get themselves a cup of tea without spilling it.
How dare you!
Ok. I’m a journalist. Let’s try to be fair. You didn’t actually say it. You just implied that because I’m not 25 or 35 my knee -- and I – don’t matter. But once before – when I was just 40 and struggling with my first major athletic catastrophe – another doctor did say it. Bluntly. “You’re over 40”, he intoned. “You don’t need that ACL. You’re never going to be an athlete.” Only the fact that I was interviewing him in the studio of a major radio network kept me from decking the man. And I have often wished I could find him again so I could take all my 28 marathon medals – and all the others from various shorter road races – and swing them – all together – hard. Against his thick head.
Functional indeed.
Functional! A knee in this state is not my idea of functional!
Oh but he must have looked at my birth date. Old. Not worth saving. Perfectly functional for someone her age; what does she expect anyhow? She’s just another knee replacement candidate. Functional indeed.
Well damn-dumb-doctor-with-your-10-minutes-for-nearly-$400-no-insurance-accepted -- “functional” isn’t good enough for me. How dare you throw me away like your trash with a word like “functional”?
I have more energy than you do; I learn more new information each day; I drive a racing car at 50 on the 25 mph curves. I function all right. Like someone half my age. And you want to take all that away from me and lump me in with fat old ladies who are “functional” if they can get themselves a cup of tea without spilling it.
How dare you!
Ok. I’m a journalist. Let’s try to be fair. You didn’t actually say it. You just implied that because I’m not 25 or 35 my knee -- and I – don’t matter. But once before – when I was just 40 and struggling with my first major athletic catastrophe – another doctor did say it. Bluntly. “You’re over 40”, he intoned. “You don’t need that ACL. You’re never going to be an athlete.” Only the fact that I was interviewing him in the studio of a major radio network kept me from decking the man. And I have often wished I could find him again so I could take all my 28 marathon medals – and all the others from various shorter road races – and swing them – all together – hard. Against his thick head.
Functional indeed.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Dream On!
The electric car is dead, right? Sony is distributing a documentary this summer that painstakingly details the car's murder at the hands of GM and the like. But apparently the film's director never heard of a little motor car company in California called Tesla Motors whose chief investors include Google guys Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Why Tesla? Well -- Nikola Tesla pioneered modern electrical engineering. And his namesake car company has juunveiledled its sole product -- a 100 percent electric sports car.
The Tesla roadster demo car is bright red. With Lotus- designed styling that rivals the legendary Corvette and a zero to 60 profile to match -- four seconds. Its makers claim it gets the equivalent of a hundred 35 miles a gallon with its lithium-ion batteries -- the same kind used in most laptop computers.
A few drawbacks. You will have to charge the roadster every two hundred 50 miles. And if you order one -- figure on paying at least 90 thousand bucks for it.
Why Tesla? Well -- Nikola Tesla pioneered modern electrical engineering. And his namesake car company has juunveiledled its sole product -- a 100 percent electric sports car.
The Tesla roadster demo car is bright red. With Lotus- designed styling that rivals the legendary Corvette and a zero to 60 profile to match -- four seconds. Its makers claim it gets the equivalent of a hundred 35 miles a gallon with its lithium-ion batteries -- the same kind used in most laptop computers.
A few drawbacks. You will have to charge the roadster every two hundred 50 miles. And if you order one -- figure on paying at least 90 thousand bucks for it.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
When Worlds Collide: Freedom vs. Religion
This week a bunch of European newspapers published a set of Danish cartoons satirizing Islam’s Prophet Mohammad as a terrorist. The cartoons had been floating around since September when a tiny Danish newspaper gave them a platform. But their wider dissemination across much of the Western world outraged ultra-religious Muslims who have rioted and protested and demanded apologies. And now our State Department has barged into the controversy – essentially saying freedom of religion trumps freedom of speech.
As a broadcast journalist, I find this a difficult issue. I feel very, very strongly about press freedom and freedom of speech. I also feel very, very strongly that we long ago crossed over into PC-land in the US -- which doesn't help foster understanding among differing cultures. But I am not sure what the purpose of publishing the cartoons was -- simply to lampoon? Or to insult? Or were the editors just basically heedless of the tempest that might be triggered? There are such problems surrounding the growing Muslim population in Europe that without living there -- I hesitate to pass judgment.
Major dailies here have NOT printed the cartoons, preferring to talk around them.
ABC in its evening news story showed them – but not in great detail. NBC and CBS told staffers it was network policy NOT to show the cartoons.
This issue I don’t find difficult. Once something becomes a story -- it needs to be fully vetted. And pictures are what TV does. I'm for letting it all hang out, as it were, for a true and honest discussion of issues. Covering up the truth – be that in words or pictures – is never the way to settle differences. But from a network/publisher standpoint I would imagine this was more about fear of boycotts or worse rather than a true editorial judgment.
As for the State Department jumping in -- well we all know the Bush Administration doesn't exactly love and respect a free press. Plus the Administration is desperate to dispel Muslim hatred for the US. Since we can't just pull out of Iraq and say it was all a mistake, sorry for the death and destruction and for unleashing the genie from the bottle --- we are trying the propaganda method (remember the US payments to the Iraqi news organizations to publish favorable stories written by the US military).
These are not easy issues. There are many nuances that need to be debated – calmly and rationally. Like so many big issues today -- there are more shades of gray than black and white.
As a broadcast journalist, I find this a difficult issue. I feel very, very strongly about press freedom and freedom of speech. I also feel very, very strongly that we long ago crossed over into PC-land in the US -- which doesn't help foster understanding among differing cultures. But I am not sure what the purpose of publishing the cartoons was -- simply to lampoon? Or to insult? Or were the editors just basically heedless of the tempest that might be triggered? There are such problems surrounding the growing Muslim population in Europe that without living there -- I hesitate to pass judgment.
Major dailies here have NOT printed the cartoons, preferring to talk around them.
ABC in its evening news story showed them – but not in great detail. NBC and CBS told staffers it was network policy NOT to show the cartoons.
This issue I don’t find difficult. Once something becomes a story -- it needs to be fully vetted. And pictures are what TV does. I'm for letting it all hang out, as it were, for a true and honest discussion of issues. Covering up the truth – be that in words or pictures – is never the way to settle differences. But from a network/publisher standpoint I would imagine this was more about fear of boycotts or worse rather than a true editorial judgment.
As for the State Department jumping in -- well we all know the Bush Administration doesn't exactly love and respect a free press. Plus the Administration is desperate to dispel Muslim hatred for the US. Since we can't just pull out of Iraq and say it was all a mistake, sorry for the death and destruction and for unleashing the genie from the bottle --- we are trying the propaganda method (remember the US payments to the Iraqi news organizations to publish favorable stories written by the US military).
These are not easy issues. There are many nuances that need to be debated – calmly and rationally. Like so many big issues today -- there are more shades of gray than black and white.
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Alito, Democracy, Freedom, Privacy, America
So it’s now Associate Justice Samuel Alito. What will become of my America now?
What will become of the checks and balances the founding fathers (mothers were considered chattel in the “good old days”) so carefully constructed in the Constitution? That very same Constitution Alito and his fellow strict constructionists profess to revere? The current White House occupant has stretched the concept of the Imperial Presidency to its zenith; President Bush obviously thinks can do anything he wants to do – just as long as he can tie it – however tenuously – to national security, the war on terror, al-Qaeda. And a newly right-tilting Supreme Court is unlikely to tighten the leash on even this runaway Presidency especially if Alito – who has upheld executive branch power in his lower court rulings – becomes the deciding vote.
And what of privacy in a world where the White House thinks it can eavesdrop on any American’s phone conversation without court permission – just on some low level operative’s suspicion there may be an insipient terrorist supporter on the other end. Next will be e-mail; the Bush Administration has already asked the FCC to force internet providers to build the equivalent of wiretapping code into their software. The Justice Department has already demanded search companies turn over millions of websites scanned by users – a demand only Google is resisting. This time our names are stripped off the searches; next time they won’t be.
And oh yes --- there’s that other privacy issue. A woman’s right to control her own body. Otherwise known as Roe v. Wade. Will we be forced back to the future --- and have only dangerous back street abortions again or desperate, botched wire hanger attempts in our bloody bathrooms?
Is this the America I signed up for? Stop the world; I want to get off.
What will become of the checks and balances the founding fathers (mothers were considered chattel in the “good old days”) so carefully constructed in the Constitution? That very same Constitution Alito and his fellow strict constructionists profess to revere? The current White House occupant has stretched the concept of the Imperial Presidency to its zenith; President Bush obviously thinks can do anything he wants to do – just as long as he can tie it – however tenuously – to national security, the war on terror, al-Qaeda. And a newly right-tilting Supreme Court is unlikely to tighten the leash on even this runaway Presidency especially if Alito – who has upheld executive branch power in his lower court rulings – becomes the deciding vote.
And what of privacy in a world where the White House thinks it can eavesdrop on any American’s phone conversation without court permission – just on some low level operative’s suspicion there may be an insipient terrorist supporter on the other end. Next will be e-mail; the Bush Administration has already asked the FCC to force internet providers to build the equivalent of wiretapping code into their software. The Justice Department has already demanded search companies turn over millions of websites scanned by users – a demand only Google is resisting. This time our names are stripped off the searches; next time they won’t be.
And oh yes --- there’s that other privacy issue. A woman’s right to control her own body. Otherwise known as Roe v. Wade. Will we be forced back to the future --- and have only dangerous back street abortions again or desperate, botched wire hanger attempts in our bloody bathrooms?
Is this the America I signed up for? Stop the world; I want to get off.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
You Can't Google This
In a way Google has become a synonym for everything the internet can offer. How many times a day do you say “I’ll just Google it” when you need to know something, anything? I’ll bet Gen Y-ers don’t even know that “to Google” isn’t really a legitimate verb.
So what’s going on with Google? First – the California search company resists a Justice Department subpoena for tons of web search data. And then it complies with China’s censors and deploys a stripped-down search engine for Chinese web surfers that won’t pull up sites devoted to human rights, or freedom of speech, or even sex.
Google of course isn’t the only company kowtowing to China. The continuing accommodation of ALL companies to China's communist government is extremely worrisome to free speech advocates. Companies are so desperate for China's business -- because of the market's size -- it seems they are willing to do almost anything to get it.
It is particularly ironic that Google was the only search company in the US to resist DOJ's subpoena for search results (with names stripped out) -- an admirable stance at a time when the Bush administration wants to get its hands on more and more personal information. And it seems rather inconsistent -- until you look at Google’s stock price. It went down on resistance in the US last week -- and up yesterday morning on the prospect of more Chinese business.
Since the short term focus of the big investors and hedge funds drives almost all business decisions these days --- you can see where all this is heading. Right to a world where the really important things in life like human rights and free speech will be blithely jettisoned -- when and if they get in the way of making more money! Just my not-so-humble opinion.
So what’s going on with Google? First – the California search company resists a Justice Department subpoena for tons of web search data. And then it complies with China’s censors and deploys a stripped-down search engine for Chinese web surfers that won’t pull up sites devoted to human rights, or freedom of speech, or even sex.
Google of course isn’t the only company kowtowing to China. The continuing accommodation of ALL companies to China's communist government is extremely worrisome to free speech advocates. Companies are so desperate for China's business -- because of the market's size -- it seems they are willing to do almost anything to get it.
It is particularly ironic that Google was the only search company in the US to resist DOJ's subpoena for search results (with names stripped out) -- an admirable stance at a time when the Bush administration wants to get its hands on more and more personal information. And it seems rather inconsistent -- until you look at Google’s stock price. It went down on resistance in the US last week -- and up yesterday morning on the prospect of more Chinese business.
Since the short term focus of the big investors and hedge funds drives almost all business decisions these days --- you can see where all this is heading. Right to a world where the really important things in life like human rights and free speech will be blithely jettisoned -- when and if they get in the way of making more money! Just my not-so-humble opinion.
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