TransformingYourCareerTransformingYourself

"We had our time." Says C. Z. Guest in the Hulu streaming series "Feud: Capote vs The Swans," episode 6. Truman Capote captures the pickle he is in with, "I've gone out of style." And Babe Paley goes to a posh department store to purchase gloves, only to be told that such inventory belongs to another era - or at Lord & Taylor. Today - each new episode streams on Thursdays - the meme is about getting caught in another time period and lacking the strength, drive and imagination to exit into the present. The vitality of a writing career and the creativity of putting together special events such as the Black and White Ball are on hold for Capote. Meanwhile those others in that orbit drift purposeless.  Obviously, in the current era where we not only have to be totally present but five minutes ahead, there are plenty of lessons embedded in this Lost Generation of former style-setters.  At the top of the list is: Leave your ossified circle. Way back in t...

  38,974.70 USD ▲  +25.68 (+0.066%) today February 29, 11:13 AM EST  ·  Market Open UPDATE: Opps. Hopes dashed, for now. 38,814.87 USD ▼  -134.15 (-0.34%) today February 29, 11:40 AM EST  ·  Market Open UPDATE: Okay finish. 38,996.39 USD ▲  +47.37 (+0.12%) today February 29, 4:20 PM EST  ·  Market Closed

The call for Sundar Pichai's head is getting louder. There is now a major badmouthing article about Google in  Business Inside r by Hugh Langley and Lara O'Reilly.  REPLICATING IBM IN EARLY 1990S? The most scathing aspect of the take-down is a comparison with where IBM had been in the early 1990s. We boomers vividly remember that reversal of fortune. Once the dominant tech leader with the unique model for starting up businesses in other nations IBM had become lunch, dinner and breakfast for Microsoft and Apple. In April 1993, in a stunner of a change for IBM, CEO John Akers lost his job. Outsider Lou Gerstner parachuted in. That was the first non-homegrown IBMer to lead. Gerstner disrupted the lackluster giant into becoming a relevant player again. Gerstner chronicled that turnaround in the bestseller "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance." SO RISK AVERSE, AT EXACTLY THE WRONG TIME Essentially, Google is depicted as shifting from aggressive innovation to being...

  SHORT SHORT FICTION BY JANE GENOVA Those loser types who had it way too hard assume there is more going on in us than there is. Yeah, like a Rosebud moment that drove us to a drug death at age 19 or being carried in a job, no talent. Internally, we must be all torn up. It’s nothing like that. It’s just life. Mostly ordinary stuff and a bad decision. On Episode 5 of “Feud: Capote vs The Swans” James Baldwin puts it plain: We are all in pain. Mine wasn’t the big shit they feel compelled to post on social media, like losing a four-year-old brother to cancer or having an alcoholic mother who shares that she almost aborted you. Actually, my own sad story worked out for me. After the parents divorced my father married a lot and had lots of children so he didn’t mind that the stepfather adopted me. Since I took the step’s name few even know I am a nepo babe. You bet when I made equity partner at age 32 in a large law firm those losers, along with the gunners with no pedigree, ...

 Thing not so great today. 38,784.88 USD ▼  -187.53 (-0.48%) today February 28, 9:51 AM EST  ·  Market Open UPDATE: Dow didn't totally betray us. 38,949.02 USD ▼  -23.39 (-0.06%) today February 28, 4:12 PM EST  ·  Market Closed

  “… a billionaire class anxious it no longer rules the world.” New York Magazine , February 27, 2024. The focus of the New York Magazine article is hedge funder-activist Bill Ackman. But it could be any rich man or woman, ranging from Leon Black to Shari Redstone. Here we are, feeling foolish that we once assumed that we should be striving to be like them, yeah, get where they are. WHAT DO YOU THINK, THAT YOU ARE A ROCKEFELLER At one time those with “real money” oversaw a gilded-age dimension. We who were excluded from it were easily made to size up ourselves as “less than.”  There was that old outburst from an angry parent about an offspring’s behavior, “What do you think, that you are a Rockefeller.” My own mother’s version was, “What do you think, you are Jackie O.” Actually, the parent was well-meaning in introducing the child to the assumed reality of “knowing your place.” That place had no opening for risk-taking. Be cautious. Only the rich had a margin for er...

  38,923.12 USD ▼  -146.11 (-0.37%) today February 27, 10:39 AM EST  ·  Market Open UPDATE: Moods darken. 38,892.78 USD ▼  -176.45 (-0.45%) today February 27, 12:17 PM EST  ·  Market Open UPDATE:  That wasn't so bad. 38,972.41 −96.82  (0.25%) today Feb 27, 5:08 PM EST  •  Disclaimer

  "Do you know how old I am?" Instead of struggling to conceal aging, there is a break-out of boasting about how many years they have been on planet earth. That's what a woman at the gym pressed me to answer. We were next to each other on the rowing machines. Turns out she, a member of the Silent Generation, is 88. She beamed when she added,  "My numbers (as in those blood tests) are so good. I am still working, two days a week. I want to add you on LinkedIn."  ENCOUNTERS OF THE AGING KIND All that was way more than I wanted to know. But these kinds of encounters are happening frequently. The combo package of longevity, good health and paid employment has evolved into the new cool.  Those who can continue to hold onto/grab onto work in this crazy global labor market are exuding a wild self-confidence.  Actually quite aggressive. A guy in the trades at my church lets us all know that he gets up at 4:30 AM to assist his son with closing down/opening resi...

Continually I tutor my intuitive coaching clients on the need to have multiple sources of income. In a volatile labor market it is too much of a risk to have just one. In addition, with inflation, making ends meet increasingly requires more than one source of income. Well, today I have transacted my first sale in what represents to me an additional source of income. As in the counterculture, I have been dumpster diving.  Here is what I had hauled back to my residence, cleaned up and decorated. Next I placed an ad on Craigslist, with the above photo. I had to reduce the price twice.   This afternoon, a couple swung by to purchase it for their three-year-old granddaughter.  How am I spending what I had earned? Some of it went for chicken for dinner. No cereal for me, as recommended by Kellogg CEO Gary Pilnick. You bet, I have the confidence in my hustling abilities that I will never have to eat Corn Flakes for dinner. 2024. You can transform the craziness of this time ...

  39,069.23 USD ▼  -62.30 (-0.16%) today February 26, 4:20 PM EST  ·  Market Closed

  " Program manager? Why is anyone still hiring them. Why not hire someone with an actual skill set" - Fishbowl Consulting , February 25, 2025 The 2024 workplace wants hands-on skills, not personnel to "oversee" the processes. Usually any managerial tasks needed in a business are folded into the skills-based role.  This development mirrors the hollowing out of managerial layers in Corporate America during the late 1980s. That strategy had been kicked off by GE's Jack Welch and Chrysler's Lee Iacocca. Part of that was to restructure the organization into profit centers, eliminating the expensive corporate overhang.  The law-firm sector, focused intensely on Profit Per Equity Partner, has long required lawyers, including partners, to take on administrative responsibilities.  Obviously in doing resumes/cover letters, detail skills, along with what those skills helped achieved. In addition, on the job keep acquiring new skills. If a position isn't prov...

Layoffs seem so yesterday and ham-handed. They have the downsides for employers of bringing negative media headlines and having constituencies including investors question those as a sign of current or emerging financial/management problems. There is also the burden of severance and unemployment.  What is replacing that old-line employee-reduction method are, documents Business Insider,  a growing number of "stealth" strategies. They include: RTO.  Since that involves disrupting everything from a lifestyle to childcare responsibilities + doing the commute some employees will be unable or unwilling to comply. Gone could be the job. The process could begin with halting promotions and pay raises for non-compliance with RTO. There is no ambiguity about the message transmitted. Harsh performance reviews.  That assessment of how workers are doing can be configured and then graded in myriad ways to verify that there is cause for termination. In a sense, if that r...

  Found guilty on all counts  by a jury in connection with the death of two young boys, Rebecca Grossman probably won't be receiving much compassion. Note that the media headlined with and make prominent in the coverage terms such as: Socialite Mercedes Alcohol Dr. Grossman (her husband) I classify those developments as the effects of the Hulu streaming series "Feud: Capote vs The Swans." In particular, Episode 5. Last Thursday that latest installment truly vilified the kinds of people who inhabit those wealthy realms. Oh, to use one of their fav expressions: How “dreadful” they are. The women are self-absorbed, ultra status-conscious, insecure, mean-spirited even to those who supposedly are their close friends, extremely critical of others, lousy inattentive mothers, lack the intimacy skills to keep a marriage going and often have eating disorders.  The men are compulsive about sexual conquest. Bill Paley even beds down his wife Babe's friend Slim...

Like the media and politicos, the influential professional anonymous network focused on consulting - Fishbowl Consulting  - is reviewing the implications of McKinsey's work for China. Recently there have been multiple postings. ANATOMY OF A SCANDAL Let's cut to the chase. McKinsey, after being roughed up by all that bad publicity/GOP scrutiny, will bounce back soon enough. That's how scandals play out. This latest challenge is (which makes John Oliver’s spoof seem public relations small potatoes), as The Financial Times  reports: "A McKinsey-led think-tank [Urban China Institute] advised China to deepen co-operation between business and the military and push foreign companies out of sensitive industries as part of a project for the central government in 2015." That took the form of a book detailing what needs to be done for China's five-year plan. Some contend it could have endangered national security. And the threat is that McKinsey could be banned...