The Real Secrets of Success

By FINS Staff

Women are still underrepresented on boards an on executive teams at many companies, the result of a persistent gender gap supported by an inadequate promotion system, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Nonetheless, some women have reached the top -- and others can learn from their experiences.
We asked high-level women -- and men -- in finance, technology and marketing how women can surmount barriers to leadership positions and what should be done next.


FINS: What advice would you give to young women about their careers?
Luanne Tierney: I have a lot of interns and I coach younger women. I'm frank with them about their attire. I tell them, "We're not in Hollywood, this isn't the movies. If you dress provocatively, that's going to distract from what you're saying."
I have a presentation that I give to young women called "Eight Ways to Have a Rockstar Career." The first and most important thing on the list is to give up the guilt [about balancing work and family]. You can't keep saying to yourself, "if only I didn't have these personal relationships distracting me." You can't be everything to everyone all the time. You have to be in the moment, to live in it and do your best. Letting go of the guilt allows you to start thinking big.
I asked [the late] Ann Richards [former Texas governor] at an event one time for some advice on balancing work and family. She said the best thing you can do is integrate your kids into your work life. On the other side, I heard Anna Quindlen [former New York Times columnist] say one time, "Don't come home and complain about your job." Nobody wants to hear that.
-- Luanne Tierney, 47, vice president of global partner marketing at Juniper Networks


FINS: Why are there relatively so few women at the top?
Rosemarie Ryan: I suspect that women tend to get on with the job and tend to be less self promotional. They don't take credit for what they do. They're also not very good at asking for what they need. They need to get better at that. Guys are better at that than we are.
-- Rosemarie Ryan, 48, former co-president of JWT and founder of Co:


FINS: How did you climb the ladder at Goldman? How important is self-promotion?
Jacki Zehner: I believe success is a function of three things: opportunity, talent and luck. I was blessed with all three, which is why I made partner so early in my career. I had the opportunity to trade; those are positions that are very valued and performance is easy to measure. I was good at my job, which meant making money, managing well, and being a culture carrier. Lastly I was lucky that I worked for some great people who cared about my success. My experience was much more the exception than the rule. It is much harder for women to succeed as they are given fewer opportunities and they don't have the support that men do.
[With regard to self-promotion:] It's such a delicate balance. If a man is aggressive, it's valued. If a woman's aggressive, she's often seen as a bitch. There is still very much a double standard where the same trait is viewed positively in a man and negatively in a woman. Our culture generally sees success in masculine terms, when in fact the more feminine leadership characteristics of team-building, engaging and positive framing are proving more successful.
-- Jacki Zehner, 46, youngest woman and first female trader to be named a partner at Goldman Sachs


FINS: You are very involved in advocating for women to have a stronger presence in senior positions. What do you think the problem is and what needs to be done?
Catherine Coughlin: I think it starts with the focus at the very top of the organization. One of our beliefs is that our board, our senior team needs to reflect the marketplace, whether in gender or color. It should be about building leadership for the next generation.
My advice to anyone is to expose yourself to as many different experience sets as you can because they all feed into each other.
-- Catherine Coughlin, 53, global CMO of AT&T


FINS: What's the best approach for women in technology to move ahead?
Lauren States: I've had a wonderful career in technology and I've always thought of technology as gender neutral. When I started in technology in the '70s it was such an exciting thing. There were no preconceived notions about who should and should not be in technology.
I feel it's always about understanding what you need to do to perform and do your job successfully. I've always run my career with that in mind.
-- Lauren States, 54, VP cloud technology and client innovation, IBM


FINS: There aren't many women at the top in the finance industry. How can more women reach the upper echelons of power?
Karen Peetz: Profit and loss is a big part of the experience that women should be focused on. It is unlikely you'll get to the top if you don't have that. If you want to have scope, you need that P&L [experience]. We're trying to introduce that at a more junior level. I'm very fortunate that I got my experience in my early 40s. Scope is something you have to adjust to. Having the experience of running something and it getting progressively bigger is the best way to work up the ladder.
-- Karen Peetz, 55, vice chairman at BNY Mellon


FINS: What has worked for you as a woman working at IBM?
Bridget van Kralingen: As a woman, that low-key consultative approach is also to your advantage. I've never found it to be an issue here or anywhere else I've worked.
-- Bridget van Kralingen, 47, general manager of North America, IBM


FINS: There's statistical evidence that women are leaving the finance industry. Do you think firms are doing enough to recruit and retain female employees?
David de Weese: I think both finance and the private equity industry, specifically, are particularly bad at this. Of the seven partners who run our secondary business, one is a woman …We're trying, but I haven't met any firm that does a particularly good job of it, unfortunately. Partly, it's the pool you're recruiting from and partly it's just a mindset that needs to change.
-- David de Weese, 69, partner, Paul Capital


FINS: What can Wall Street do to cultivate greater gender equality?
Jim Millstein: As the father of two daughters, I'm concerned about it for sure, because it's glaring. Law firms have done a better job than the investment banks generally -- designing programs and policies that allow a woman to better manage the demands of motherhood and the demands of a career. But all of these jobs put tremendous strains on parenting. ...I think it's going to be an ongoing struggle. It may be peculiar to a certain strata of the industry. For example, I think in many places there's better balance out there between personal and professional life than there is in New York and Washington.
-- Jim Millstein, 55, former chief restructuring officer at the Treasury Department


FINS: What can women do to rise to the top in a male-dominated industry such as finance?
Maura Markus: You need to build a track record of success and be a team player. And not just worry about your own business. You need to be a contributor to the overall health of the company.
Also raise your hand and take on more than just your job, whether it's helping start some kind of special project or leading a task force. It's good to have a healthy sense of competition.
-- Maura Markus, 53, president and chief operating officer of Bank of the West


FINS: Is it easier for women succeed at companies such as IBM and Cisco through sales roles rather than technology roles?
Stephanie Carullo: Generally speaking, yes. Because tech companies are really viewed as great companies to work for, they attract a lot of people. And they're attracting engineers, but also business talent. I have a number of strong women on our team who are business people, not tech. You can teach a smart person anything.
-- Stephanie Carullo, 42, vice president of sales at Cisco.


FINS: You hear tales of female marginalization in the finance industry all the time. How do women get more spots at the top?
Mary Tuuk: There's no one silver bullet. Part of it is women have to be really proactive and disciplined to be open to new opportunities. As part of that, you develop business acumen for how the company makes money. Women should take on profit and loss responsibility in the early stages of their career. Beyond that, I really believe that it comes back to not only having that track record and competency, but having appropriate emotional intelligence.
We have a women's network that provides a lot of opportunity for women in the earlier stages of their career. It allows them to meet a lot of people in the company they wouldn't meet.
-- Mary Tuuk, chief risk officer for Fifth Third Bancorp

I’ve got to hand it to him

「I have to hand it to某人(him, her 或you)」都只有一個意思。(hand it to someone)既不是“轉交” 、“交給”、“拿給”，更不是“交給某人“。

那麼，它是什麼意思呢？「I’ve got to hand it to him」是「我很佩服他」（因為在節目裡，這個求生教練花了一小時時間生火，真有耐性）

半年前，CNN拍到美國機場有位老兄穿著T恤，上面寫著：「Don’t taser me.」（不要用電擊棍電擊我！）

今天，CNN的標題「Tasered Tape」「某女性被電擊的錄影帶外流」。動詞taser變成「名詞當動詞用」的taser語字變化是可以理解的。因為有太多新玩意兒（如電擊棍）的出現，使用者的習慣改變，語字也跟著改變。

- by 王麗莎

Hope this finds you well

Hope this finds you well
In advance, thanks so much for your help with this, and I’m looking forward to your YES or NO response

Need a Turnaround? Make a Comeback the Starbucks Way

By Herb Schaffner | April 12, 2011

It’s no surprise to me that the new memoir by Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, is on the top of the best seller lists.  Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul is a comprehensive, step-by-step personal account of how an entrepreneurial, growth-driven CEO learned from others, changed his leadership style in a difficult time for his company, and reignited passion and confidence in his brand.   Onward is a must-read for any manager and ranks as one of the best corporate memoirs written in recent years.
Yes, it has been criticized. Samantha Ettus, a branding blogger at Forbes, called the book misguided and ill-timed, “a marketing exercise which is using the hallowed Starbucks brand as a sacrificial lamb.”   But I have no clue what book she and other critics are reading. Schultz’s book is far too transparent, detailed, and honest to be considered a marketing document. Schultz recounts in thorough detail the meetings, memos, consultants, studies, and personal experiences that drove the Starbucks reboot through the end of 2010.
In 2008, Schultz returned as CEO of the company and his agenda was simple: to bring the company back on track after it had badly stumbled, pursuing a high growth strategy. Rather than sacrificing the Starbucks brand, Schultz reveals himself to be consumed by the appeal of Starbucks’ connection to consumers and on a quest to restore every inch of its aura.  As Schultz writes:

“outsiders failed to appreciate the nuances of invigorating a service-based  business, especially a brand as emotionally charged as ours.  Starbucks is not a coffee company that serves people.  It is a people company that serves coffee, and human behavior is much more challenging to change than any muffin recipe or marketing strategy.”

So what do managers have to learn from the Starbucks transformation? Quite a lot. Here’s a couple I plucked from the book:
Never forget the basics.  Schultz knew the appeal of Starbucks’ coffee was essential–and that the race for growth had undercut quality.  Schultz and his team closed every Starbucks store for one day to train baristas in making the best espresso.   They upgraded espresso machines to the Mastrena worldwide and improved training.   Schultz and other executives visited restaurants and coffee houses, investigating high end food selling techniques.  In fact, Schultz was drinking coffee in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, when he discovered the Clover, the french press single serving coffee marker, sought out its maker and put it in stores worldwide.
Be willing to listen and work with consultants, but know your North Star.    Schultz brought a few management consultants into his trust and credits them heavily in the book.  He also listened to friends such as Jim Sinegal, cofounder and CEO of Costco, who reminded Schultz to “protect and perserve your core customers” during a downturn.  When the product lunch for Starbucks instant coffee hit a design snag, he turned to his most trusted design consultant.  In each case, however, Schultz had to be convinced outsiders understood and shared the values and iconic power of the brand.
If you need to reduce operations to become leaner, make sure you cut enough.  For Schultz, Starbucks’ commitment to workers, to health care benefits, and to the role of stores in local communities are hugely important.  Burdened by too many stores as the recession dragged on, Schultz and his team knew they needed to close hundreds of doors and reduce the workforce.   This was painful–but, after the initial analysis, Starbucks closed more stores and laid off more people than they’d originally planned.   They needed to ensure that they would not have to go back and cut again.
Give customers a voice in your redirection.  Schultz embraced social media and the idea sharing website, mystarbucksidea.com, which has over 250,000 registered members who have submitted 100,000 ideas since launch in 2008.  A retail company that invites customers to cocreate their own drinks and use stores as a second living room must actively engage their ideas.
Communicate heavily–and communicate some more.  Schultz’ capacity for hands-on communication is impressive. He blitzed each core constituency–senior managers, store managers, customers, media, analysts, shareholders, and employees–with various communications concisely presenting the case for change or a particular decision.   He wrote a stream of internal memos, staged interactive presentations and multimedia displays at Starbucks conventions, made careful pitches to analysts, and invested time and energy in his corporate communications strategy.
Reinvigorate corporate responsibility and production practices. Starbucks’ hard times were not an excuse for the company to be less responsible, but an opportunity to do more.  Schultz expanded partnerships with Fairtrade and Conservation International, reduced store environmental impact, and expanded local community service.
The next time you’re asked to turnaround a project, a team, a product or a division, get a cup of good coffee, a copy of Onward and make some notes. In the meantime, commenters: have you tried a turn around? What worked, or didn’t work, for you?