Put in Our Place

By | Executive Coaching, Gender issues in work, Leadership, Management | 2 Comments

By the time this essay sees the light of day, our election will be over and some of the vitriol of this campaign may be behind us.  It will be remembered for many things, not the least of which will be the discussion of sexual harassment and the treatment of women in the workplace.  The presidential campaign was the “highlight” of the news but the advertising and the media industries have had their shares of gender harassment scandal this year as well.  The CEO of J. Walter Thompson resigned after being accused of making rape jokes, the executive chair of Saatchi and Saatchi resigned after making dismissive comments about gender diversity and a 4A’s survey showed that more than 50% of…

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The Woman Who Wouldn’t and Organizational Change

By | Executive Coaching, Leadership, Management | 2 Comments

The company for which I was hired to be CEO played an important role in the advertising industry, so I was surprised when I actually arrived and learned how lean the staff really was. In my first week the office manager was diagnosed with an advanced cancer and went out on sick leave, never to return. Adding insult to injury the head of sales quit during my second week. We had no head of sales, no strategic plan and no marketing department, let alone any bench strength. If someone came down with a bad cold an entire area could grind to a halt. I still didn’t know where to find the pencils. But I knew that there many things that needed…

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Doing What You Love vs. Loving What You Do

By | Executive Coaching, Leadership, Management | One Comment

Many years ago I took my two sons up to the Omega Institute for Family Week and enrolled them in an experiential workshop called “Little Forest People.” They played in mud and snuck up on the adults and identified plants and generally were supposed to have a terrific time being kids in the woods, shepherded by enthusiastic teens.  Except one son – the one who currently has a subscription to Outside – hated every minute of being outdoors and was miserable every stinking minute of the entire week, leading me to miss most of my workshop, “Wanting What You Have Instead of Having What You Want.”  Blame him for my next decade of materialism! But I have always been intrigued and…

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