If you do an Internet search on leadership and change management the results might surprise you. First of all, you’ll find thousands of citations returned but perhaps that’s to be expected.  I was a bit taken aback by the sheer number of academic programs, institutes and centers that are researching and instructing on leadership and change management.  But what really surprised me was the fact that you could get a PhD in Leadership and Change Management from a number of institutions.  I made a note to go back and see which programs “transfer” real world credit. Change is hard.  But before we even get to the hard part we have to acknowledge that change is necessary.  Sometimes the necessary part smacks…

The day I announced I was leaving my company I was teary and euphoric. If I had any reservations about my decision, the die was cast. I asked my son to have lunch with me and I drank too much. I pouted out loud a bit as one of the regional executives who attended my announcement meeting in case any staff member had questions about the transition just walked out afterwards, not thinking it was important to note that people were actually crying as I said goodbye. The day after my last day – or the first day of the rest of my life – I bought a new iMac, met with my accountant, met with my attorney, filed papers to register…

When I was being interviewed for the top job at MRI, the process was long and arduous.  United Information Group owned the company at that time, and, toward the end, I was flown to London to undergo a series of interviews and assessments with the UIG consultant.   I was offered the job and up to my neck in problems when I received a packet with my “results” in the mail.  The assessments and interviewer had scored me on a number of dimensions: intellectual ability, thinking style, relationship management, drive and resilience, change capability, risk management, teamwork, commercial and customer skills and international potential.   But it was the assessor’s comments that left me fascinated and disturbed.  I won’t bore you with all…

Today is my birthday and on my birthday I wear a tiara.  No kidding. I wear it on the subway and the bus and to client meetings.  Last year I wore it to the mall, much to the delight of the sales staff in Sephora where boys and girls took turns trying it on and taking selfies (no fear – I carry a spare just for sanitary reasons when the occasion requires sharing). Over the years it’s become an amusing joke among my staff and my friends in the industry.   Why do I do it – other than the fact that I am an attention-seeking extravert who is an only child and grew up listening to Sally Starr sing that your…

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…

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…

I’ve often heard managers say to employees that they expect them to go above and beyond their job descriptions.  Even most performance review forms have a category labeled “Exceeds Expectations.” As managers, we all know that the standout employee does just that; not content to just satisfy requirements these people see wider or dig deeper or broaden the context of an assignment creatively.  As I became a new manager, we looked for employees who “took initiative.”  I was great at taking initiative, seeing ways to expand assignments that allowed for a better execution or for the results to have a more far-reaching impact.  As I grew in business knowledge and managerial experience, I got better at making the decisions that allowed…

I write this essay to honor my friend Dan, another friend who died recently, and another friend whom I met at work.  To describe my friendship with Dan I first have to describe my relationship with myself at that time of my life: I was self-conscious, believed I was not good enough, acutely aware that I was the first person in my family to go to college and every day felt unworthy.  And Dan was part of the family who controlled The New York Times.  He scared me.  To be truthful everybody scared me, but few more than Dan.  He was brash and direct and funny and biting and quick-witted and I could not keep up. We were assigned to a…