Category college and work

Do you deserve the extra cookie? Leadership lessons from Michael Lewis’ Commencement Address

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

‘Don’t Eat Fortune’s Cookie’ was the title of the 2012 Princeton University commencement speech delivered by alumnus Michael Lewis. His message: “recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation.”

Michael Lewis graduated from Princeton with a degree in art history believing he “was of no possible economic value to the outside world”.

The experience of writing his senior thesis introduced him to the possibility of building a career on his talent for words. With no experience and little encouragement from his thesis professor:

“I did what everyone does who has no idea what to do with themselves: I went to graduate school. I wrote at nights, without much effect, mainly because I hadn’t the first clue what I should write about.”

And one night he makes a connection at dinner and ends up working as a derivatives expert at the financial firm, Salomon Brothers. Two years later he realizes he has found something to write about.

“I didn’t need to think about it. I knew what intellectual passion felt like — because I’d felt it here, at Princeton — and I wanted to feel it again. I was 26 years old. Had I waited until I was 36, I would never have done it. I would have forgotten the feeling.”

Imagine, reader with the perfect resume and highly regarded credentials, that the luck of a seating arrangement could lead you to a position that allows you, in time, to connect the dots back to your passion.

“People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don’t want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either.”

But accidents do happen and the best you can do is consistently put yourself in front of the oncoming ‘career possibilities’ truck.

And now, about the cookies. The leadership lesson is humility, and Mr. Lewis illustrates with a story of a ‘teamwork’ exercise.

Two Cal researchers recruited students for an experiment.

“…they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, per team. Then they put these teams of three into a room, and arbitrarily assigned one of the three to act as leader. Then they gave them some complicated moral problem to solve: say what should be done about academic cheating, or how to regulate drinking on campus.

Exactly 30 minutes into the problem-solving the researchers interrupted each group. They entered the room bearing a plate of cookies. Four cookies. The team consisted of three people, but there were these four cookies. Every team member obviously got one cookie, but that left a fourth cookie, just sitting there. It should have been awkward. But it wasn’t. With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it.

This leader had performed no special task. He had no special virtue. He’d been chosen at random, 30 minutes earlier. His status was nothing but luck. But it still left him with the sense that the cookie should be his.”

We probably cannot remember our commencement speaker or their message. That’s why each year at this time we should reflect on the words we missed, now that we have the context of experience to help us understand.

There are no straight lines along a career path. Michael Lewis is a highly regarded, bestselling author who has written stories of Wall Street and baseball. The lessons he shared that spring day:

Don’t put too much distance between you and your passion, because you may forget the feeling.

Be Humble. Don’t eat the last cookie. You may sit at the head of the table and truly believe you deserve the extra cookie, “But you’ll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don’t.” 

Why aren’t we asking about the value of work?

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

We seem to have ‘consumerized’ every decision from buying a car to choosing a college. But when it comes to the workplace, where we spent the majority of our days, we don’t take the time to consider the value of the experience or fully assess the impact on our professional portfolio.

David Brooks wrote a ‘letter’ to employers in 2014. “Dear Employers, You may not realize it, but you have a powerful impact on the culture and the moral ecology of our era. If your human resources bosses decide they want to hire a certain sort of person, then young people begin turning themselves into that sort of person.”

Google consistently ranks at the top of surveys of best employers. Recent reports indicate that their hiring process is more selective than the admissions process in top ivy league schools.

Yesterday, Laszlo Bock,  the Senior Vice President of People Resources at Google published a new book that fundamentally describes how to get hired at Google. Even as I write, I imagine potential candidates reworking their job search strategy to meet the standards described in the book.

This is the most recent illustration of how candidates are encouraged to alter expectations in order to perform the magic required to obtain an offer.

What happens after you accept the offer?

Reading the Wall Street Journal review of the book we learn that “…Google spends more than most on recruiting, it spends far less on training. Top people need less training. And the lesson for talent is watch how you’re recruited: it’s an indication of the company’s mind-set and the talent you’ll be working with.”

Similar to our most elite academic institutions, Google has created a process to attract the best and the brightest; generalists who know when to lead and when to step back, can learn and solve problems and do so with ‘intellectual humility’. The ‘hook’ is the promise of a workplace where your colleagues will mirror your talents and learning will spontaneously combust.

In some ways it sounds like graduate school. You take from the work experience what you put into it. In other words, we set the table, provide the kitchen but you cook the meal. There will be no gourmet flourishes, because attracting you to the feast is more important than the meal itself.

When you leave Google are you transformed by the experience or are you pretty much who you were on your first day of work?

You will have Google on your resume and future employers will be mesmerized by your fortune, but who will you be after a few years at Google?

These are universal questions. When you go to work for any employer, over any period of time, will the work transform you? Will others remark on your growth? Will a spectacular failure result in termination or be viewed as a critical learning tool?

The process of being courted for a position whether it takes a few weeks or a few years is intoxicating in its’ flattery. Remember that it’s a conversation about your future as well as your contribution to an organization.

What is the value of the promised work experience? When you invest your energy and ideas solving problems for others, do you also fill a void in your portfolio?

Choose a challenge instead of a competence

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

I think we have created a bumper sticker approach to career choice; serious decisions truncated into platitudes designed to market books and sell tee shirts: ‘Lean In’, ‘Thrive’, ‘Do what you love, love what you do’.

It’s not that simple. Having a dream and executing it are two very different things.

And it’s very easy to be distracted from the very beginning.

In 2011 Marina Keegan, an undergraduate at Yale wrote a short piece in The New York Times, “Another View: The Science and Strategy of College Recruiting”.

“When I arrived at Yale as an eager 18 year old, I had never even heard of consulting or I-banking. And to be honest, I still didn’t totally understand the function of a hedge fund. But what I do understand is that students here have passion. Passion for public service and education policy and painting and engineering and entrepreneurialism. Standing outside a freshman dorm, I couldn’t find a single student aspiring to be a banker – but at commencement this May, there’s a 50 percent chance I’ll be sitting next to one. This strikes me as incredibly sad.”

It’s hard to sustain the ‘semi-fictional’ goals in personal statements written to gain admission to college. It takes a significant degree of courage to withstand the influence of corporate recruiters, family, peers and looming financial obligations to become an artist, writer, teacher or entrepreneur.

David Halberstam, speaking to the University of Southern California Class of 2002 reflected on a visit back to Harvard and the campus newspaper where he had been managing editor as an undergraduate. He talked with a few of the graduating editors who had wanted to be reporters. On the way to graduation they were offered three times an average journalists’ salary and had decided to become consultants.

He challenged their choice.“Did it ever occur to you that the salary you are being offered reflects the fact that this is a choice that you might not make were it not for the size of the salary? And that in some way that you do not yet entirely comprehend, you are being manipulated.”

Finding your ‘work place’ is hard work. It’s a process of discovery that will only occur when you take the lead. It’s a process that involves ongoing conversations with those who have gone before and healthy skepticism for those who might persuade you to change course.

Your first choice of work is not your last. If you are one of those students Marina or David described, you have time to change and become the artist or journalist you imagined yourself to be.

We learn from the wisdom of others and sometimes we have to look back 54 years to capture that guidance. Former First Lady, Eleanor Roosevelt expressed her thoughts and perhaps added a phrase to the ‘bumper sticker’ canon when she wrote an article in the April 1961 issue of The Atlantic.

“Perhaps the older generation is often to blame with its cautious warning: “Take a job that will give you security, not adventure.’ Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, and imaginatively; unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.”

Choose a challenge instead of a competence.

The week@work – March 30 – April 5

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This week@work stories ranged from college admissions to a debate over foreign players in England’s Premier League and a stagnant US Jobs report.

On the college admissions front, McSweeney’s published ‘A Honest College Rejection Letter’ by Mimi Evans. In part:

“Dear Applicant,

The Admissions Committee has carefully considered your application and we regret to inform you that we will not be able to offer you admission in the entering class of 2015, or a position on one of our alternate lists. The applicant pool this year was particularly strong, and by that I mean the Admissions Committee once again sent candidates like you multiple enticing pamphlets encouraging you to apply, knowing full well we had no intention of accepting you.

However, you will be pleased to know that you have contributed to our declining admissions rate, which has helped our university appear exclusive. This allows us to attract our real candidates: upper-class kids and certified geniuses who will glean no new information from our courses or faculty, whose parents can incentivize us with a new swimming pool or lacrosse stadium…”

A high school senior in North Carolina responded to a rejection letter from Duke:

“This year I have been fortunate enough to receive rejection letters from the best and brightest universities in the country. With a pool of letters so diverse and accomplished I was unable to accept reject letters I would have been able to only several years ago.

Therefore I will be attending Duke University’s 2015 freshmen class. I look forward to seeing you then.”

The student will be attending the University of South Carolina in the fall and should be encouraged by the comments of 26 year old Jenna, described in Frank Bruni’s article on college admissions.She was not offered admission to her first choice college:

“I felt so worthless,” she recalled.

She chose Scripps. And once she got there and saw how contentedly she fit in, she had a life-changing realization: Not only was a crushing chapter of her life in the past, it hadn’t crushed her. Rejection was fleeting — and survivable.

As a result, she said, “I applied for things fearlessly.”

It’s Final Four weekend. Talented college athletes will be competing in both men’s and women’s basketball. Marc Tracy, writing in The New York Times, takes us back to 1965 when the Final Four included Princeton University and their star player, Bill Bradley. The story is about the athlete and the writer, John McPhee at the beginning of their careers. Published in The New Yorker, ‘A Sense of Where You Are’ was later released in book form. How did Bradley choose Princeton?

“Bradley was affluent. Having initially accepted a scholarship to play basketball at Duke, he chose Princeton, he said, because the summer before his freshman year he had visited Oxford University and was determined to return. A Rhodes scholarship seemed like a great way to do so, and he had read that Princeton produced the most Rhodes scholars.

“I came home from a date, woke my parents up, and said I’d like to change my mind,” Bradley recalled.

And yet in its way the book does argue the merit of incorporating athletics into education. Watching Bradley’s dual sense of where he is — on the basketball court and in life — serves as a reminder that most young people lack a sense of where they are, and that sports are one way to try to find it.”

In 2010 author Franklin Foer published his book, ‘How Soccer Soccer Explains the World’. He looked at soccer and it’s role in various cultures explaining how international forces affect politics and life around the globe. This week, in England an anti-globalization sentiment is growing as Premier League fans question how many potential players in soccer academies are losing opportunities to international players. The English league owes its popularity and skyrocketing salaries to globalization. Will England restrict the number of players recruited from abroad? The debate illustrates conversations that go beyond the ‘workplace’ of soccer and fuel the immigration controversy in both the US and EU.

The New York Times reported on the latest economic report:

“The yearlong streak of robust monthly job creation was broken on Friday with the Labor Department’s report that employers added just 126,000 workers in March, a marked slowdown in hiring that echoed earlier signs that sluggish business investment and punishing weather were exacting a toll on the economy.”

Recapture the global imagination

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

‘The whole world is going to university’ is the cover story in the March 28 issue of The Economist. In the special report ‘Excellence v Equity’, a series of articles examines the current state of global higher education beginning with a thumbnail summary of its’ history to date:

“The modern research university, a marriage of the Oxbridge college and the German research institute, was invented in America, and has become the gold standard for the world. Mass higher education started in America in the 19th century, spread to Europe and East Asia in the 20th and is now happening pretty much everywhere except sub-Saharan Africa.”

According to the report, we question of the value of university today because of the tension between research and teaching, and between excellence and equity.

Why the tension between research and teaching? Why are these written about as if they were mutually exclusive activities?

Let’s look at it from the perspective of the work and compensation. A tenure track faculty member is rewarded for research and publications. The percentage of compensation dependent on teaching is only a small part of his or her package. So where would you put your effort? You set your priorities on advancement and compensation.

The skill set of a researcher is not always the same as a great teacher. It’s the rare faculty member who can combine the talents  of research, emotional intelligence and public speaking. On a large research university campus you can probably name 10-20 and these are the classes students place at the top of their list.

To address this, universities spend significant effort working with aspiring faculty who serve as teaching assistants to help them develop their  skills in public speaking and curriculum development. In many cases you are forcing a size 12 foot into a glass slipper.

The tension comes from the culture where teaching and research are not equally valued.

Why can’t we have ‘master’ teachers exist next to researchers in a partnership that clearly articulates research results, identifies ‘real world’ applications and motivates students to dig deeper?

There are many articles and opinion pieces that have circulated recently confirming the belief that adjunct faculty are viewed as ‘second-class’. This is not healthy for an institution advertising itself as ‘world class.’ A university benefits from a faculty that is diverse and combines research with practical application.

The second point of tension identified in the article is between excellence and equity.

How do we determine excellence in higher education? How are we to compare institutions?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article in The New Yorker magazine in 2011, ‘The Order of Things: What college rankings really tell us.’ In it he tries to demystify the college ranking system. And he finds “There’s no direct way to measure the quality of an institution – how well a college manages to inform, inspire, and challenge its students.” He finds the ‘proxy’ measures used by U.S. News to be lacking. He is particularly critical of comparing universities with missions to serve a wide range of students to those who are more selective. “Rankings are not benign. They enshrine very particular ideologies, and, at a time when American higher education is facing a crisis of accessibility and affordability, we have adopted a de-facto standard of college quality that is uninterested in both of these factors.”

The larger consequence of this process results in employer recruiting behavior that targets graduates of the most highly selective universities, ignoring the potential candidates who might be a better ‘fit’, congratulating themselves in annual reports for their ‘elite’ candidate pool.

How we value higher education is about how we value the people in a university community: faculty, students, administrators and alumni. Leaders in higher education should step back an reevaluate what it is that makes their community unique. Have the courage to ignore the ratings and compete with the talent and resources they have to articulate a clear vision of their place in society. Create a place of work, study and research that anticipates global problems and is situated to be the first responder with solutions. Recapture the global imagination.

‘Uncommon Women and Others’ – The advantages of attending a women’s college

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

On November 21, 1977 a play opened in New York in a small theater at Marymount Manhattan College. ‘Uncommon Women and Others’ written by Wendy Wasserstein is a memory play set in1978 with reflections back six years earlier at a college for women.

Act One, Scene 1

Man’s Voice: “The college produces women who are persons in their own rights: Uncommon Women who as individuals have the personal dignity that comes with intelligence, competence, flexibility, maturity, and a sense of responsibility. This can happen without loss of gaiety, charm or femininity. Through its long history the college has graduated women who help to make this a better, happier world. Whether their primary contributions were in the home or the wider community, in advocations or vocations, their role has been constructive. The college makes its continuing contribution to society in the form of graduates whose intellectual quality is high, and whose responsibility to others is exceptional.”

Wendy Wasserstein graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1971. The play opened at a critical moment in the women’s movement and was the first to depict contemporary women and their efforts to negotiate the world of careers, relationships, family, and society.

The play’s dialogue has passed its’ expiration date, but the value of a women’s college is as relevant today as it was in the early 70s.

A woman’s college is a place dedicated to the success of women, academically and professionally. In some ways it’s a more relevant ‘incubator’ of self-esteem and self-confidence. It’s a place where you see successful women as faculty, administrators and alumni and you have the opportunity to take on leadership roles and build life long networks. In laboratories and classrooms you engage in research and discovery absent of preconceived gender bias.

There are fewer than fifty women’s colleges remaining in the United States. Most recently Sweet Briar College in Central Virginia has announced it will be closing at the end of the spring semester.

I attended a women’s college. I developed my own voice, but more important I was given leadership roles as a student that prepared me for work. I managed budgets, planned events and interacted with administrators and alumnae. I learned how to make decisions and deal with their consequences. Most important, I left campus believing my dreams were without limits.

Near the end of the play, the offstage man’s voice fades into a woman’s voice “A liberal arts college for women of talent is more important today than at any time in the history of her education. Women still encounter overwhelming obstacles to achievement and recognition despite gradual abolition of legal and political disabilities. Society has trained women from childhood to accept a limited set of options and restricted levels of aspirations.”

A women’s college is a portal to unlimited options.

An inclination to learn from life – the value of college

Eileen Kohan Leave a comment

College presidents used to be the influential, ‘thought leaders’ of their time, consulted by heads of state and corporate CEOs. It’s the rare college leader who steps out today and takes a stand amid the conflicting pressures of donor interests, state legislatures and government regulation.

In 2007 Michael S. Roth became president of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Five years later he wrote an opinion in The New York Times with the title ‘Learning as Freedom’. In it he borrows heavily from the writings of John Dewey, an early twentieth century philosopher and leader in education reform.

At this time of year when students are deciding where to attend college amid a growing conversation on the value of college, it’s refreshing to take a step back into history and revisit the ideas of those who defined American higher education.

President Roth asks the question, “Who wants to attend school to learn to be ‘human capital’ ? Who aspires for their children to become economic or military resources?”

Why do we attend college? For Dewey “…schools first and foremost should teach us habits of learning…these habits included awareness of our interdependence; nobody is an expert on everything. He emphasized ‘plasticity’, an openness to being shaped by experience: “The inclination to learn from life itself and to make the conditions of life such that all will learn in the process of living is the finest product of schooling.”

President Roth concludes,“Dewey’s insight that learning in the process of living is the deepest form of freedom. In a nation that aspires to democracy, that’s what education is primarily for: the cultivation of freedom within society…Higher education’s highest purpose is to give all citizens the opportunity to find ‘large and human significance’ in their lives and work.”

For high school seniors, this is an important message. For the past twelve years of education your struggles are about to be rewarded with an invite to attend the college of your choice. But what about life after admission?

Frank Bruni gives voice to the concern that it’s all about the process in his article ‘How to Survive the College Admissions Madness’. “College is a singular opportunity to rummage through and luxuriate in ideas, to realize how very large the world is and to contemplate your desired place in it. And that’s lost in the admissions mania, which sends the message that college is a sanctum to be breached – a border to be crossed – rather than a land to be inhabited and tilled for all that it’s worth.”

Look beyond the letter and imagine who you’ll be a year from now. Where will you best exercise your inclination to learn from life?

When did we start ‘shopping’ for college’?

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When did college become a commodity? When did the decision of the best place to go translate into a monetary return on investment? When did we start shopping for college as we would for any other ‘big ticket’ consumer purchase?

I’m guessing it started when the average cost of college exceeded the average annual income of the majority of Americans.

Add to that a financial aid vocabulary that includes terms similar to those we use when we buy a car: ‘sticker price’ (tuition without room and board and books and lab fees) and ‘discounting’ (need-based institutional grant aid and discounts granted in an effort to increase the probability that particular students will choose to enroll).

Unfortunately price has become the determinant where ‘fit’ and values should predominate.

This week high school seniors will log on to websites to learn if they have been admitted to the college of their choice. For some, the financials will limit the choice, but for all it’s time to commit to a plan for the next two to four years.

In recent years there has been a trend to vocationalism in the choice of college and major. At the top schools business and economics departments are growing while humanities shrink. And why? Because parents and students are ‘buying in’ to a belief that the highest ranked schools with majors closely linked to employers are the best choice.

I disagree.

There are no guarantees. In a past life I would meet in large auditoriums where parents would arrive with the ‘ten questions you should ask when visiting a college campus’. One was always: How many students were employed at graduation? Does it matter? If your child does not have a job when he or she graduates and the other 99% of the Class of 2019 does, it doesn’t matter. Given the volatility of the job market and the ever changing complexion of entry level opportunities, can we really project out four years? That didn’t work out so well for the Class of 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Here are three things I would consider above all in selecting a college today: faculty, location and internships.

You should select a place where the faculty is expert in their field, but also accessible. It’s important to spend time with professors outside of the classroom to truly optimize the academic experience. Too many students take a class and never meet with their teachers outside the classroom. For those of you in the ‘vocational view of higher ed camp’, faculty provide an underutilized professional network.

Next, location. I recommend a location near a large city, with a strong international presence for study abroad. If you are funding your education, you want to earn money during the summer months. In an urban area there will be multiple opportunities to acquire internships and work experience along with your class schedule during the academic year. Global experience is also critical. Students should study at least one semester outside the US, preferably in a country where english is not the spoken language.

Finally, internships. A few years ago employers visiting college campuses began to regard internship experience as a more important predictor of success than GPA. Internships are no longer an option. It’s equally important for a student to test their interests in the workplace as it is for an employer to preview the talent of the intern.

I haven’t mentioned major, because I think you should sample courses in your first year before you commit to an area of concentration. Interests change over time and students should explore a variety of academic areas.

Over the years I have asked hundreds of students why they selected where they attended college. Almost unanimously, the answer is about a ‘gut’ feel that this was a place were I ‘fit’ and could be successful.

You can’t shop for ‘fit’. Values are not for sale. Choice of college is about growth, transforming from the high school senior to a contributing member of a global community.