Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)
304
Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)
304eBook
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Overview
No matter where you are in your career, Basic Black offers invaluable lessons that will help you land the job, promotion, or project you’re vying for. At the core of the book are Cathie’s candid, personal stories. She walks us through her decision to risk dropping a huge ad agency that handled the USA Today campaign in favor of a small boutique agency run by a wild man. (It was a smash.) She admits that her sometimes brusque style once led to a mutiny of staffers at Ms. (She learned to be more flexible in her managerial style.) She offers a clear-eyed look at what happened during the twenty-eight months between the launch and the close of the much-
buzzed-about Talk magazine. And throughout, she offers fascinating glimpses of media and business personalities, such as Rupert Murdoch, Tina Brown, Frank Bennack, Vic Ganzi, former CosmoGirl! editor Atoosa Rubenstein, Bonnie Fuller, and the legendarily difficult Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today.
Above all, Basic Black is motivating. It provides a close-up look at the keen judgment, perseverance, and optimism that have propelled Cathie Black to the top of her game, along with the kind of straight-up practical advice you get in a one-on-one session with a career coach. You’ll find out how to handle job interviews, which rules to break, and why you should make your life a grudge-free zone. Equally important, you’ll be inspired to pursue your passions and achieve your very best.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307405715 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Crown Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 10/23/2007 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 304 |
| File size: | 343 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Drive
One bright December morning, a young woman with a wild mane of black hair, tight jeans, four-inch stilettos, and feather earrings walked into my office at Hearst. Six feet tall, with a bombshell figure and striking dark eyes, she could have strutted right in like an Amazon. Yet I could see she was nervous—and why wouldn’t she be? At age twenty-six, Atoosa Rubenstein, a fashion editor at Cosmopolitan, had come to pitch me on her idea for a new magazine.
It’s pretty much unheard of in this business to give a twentysomething editor the chance to pitch a major new magazine directly to the president. But I’d heard about Atoosa’s idea for launching a publication for teenage girls under the Cosmopolitan brand—she wanted to name it CosmoGirl—and I was intrigued. Born in Iran, raised in a conservative family, Atoosa sat in my office and talked with real passion about the pressures teenage girls face, the kind of advice and comfort they seek, and her vision for how to provide that in a monthly magazine.
I liked what I was hearing, and told her so.
“Well,” she responded, “what would be the next step?”
“You should put together a prototype, or ‘dummy,’” I said. “Go to the newsstand, buy a bunch of magazines, and cut and paste them together into the kind of magazine you envision. Don’t go hire an art director on the side—this should be your vision and passion. Bring it to me when it’s ready.”
Atoosa didn’t hesitate. “When would you like to see it?”
“Sooner’s always better than later,” I told her. And with that, our meeting ended. Like a gangly teenager, Atoosa bounded out of my office with a good-bye wave, excited to get started.
Now, to be honest, Atoosa wasn’t exactly breaking the mold by pitching a magazine aimed at teenage girls—any glance at a grocery store magazine rack will show you that. In fact, we’d been discussing the possibility of starting a teen magazine at Hearst well before Atoosa made her pitch. But there were other things that set Atoosa, and her presentation, apart. For one thing, it was clear right away that she had a real emotional connection to teenage girls—she knew and remembered well their angst, insecurities, and hopes. But, more important, she had demonstrated the single most important element she’d need to succeed in her quest: drive.
Atoosa had demonstrated this in three ways:
• She planted the seed for getting a meeting with me by telling her boss, Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Kate White, about her magazine idea.
• Once in the meeting, not only did she communicate real passion for her subject, but she took it a step further by asking me what her next move should be.
• She asked for a specific deadline, so she could get me her prototype when I wanted it.
All this was good, and I took notice. But then Atoosa took it to an even higher level.
After our meeting, she went straight to a newsstand and bought dozens of magazines, took them home, and started cutting them up like crazy. She planted herself in her bedroom, surrounded by hundreds of clippings covering the bed, floor, and tables, and began gluing pages together left and right. She wrote the name “CosmoGirl” over and over in twenty-seven different shades of lipstick, trying to capture just the right youthful image, until she fell asleep exhausted, the lipsticks permanently staining her new white bedspread (to the chagrin of her new husband).
Over the course of forty-eight hours, Atoosa hardly slept at all, determined as she was to get her dummy finished by the close of business on Friday afternoon. She’d found out from my assistant that I was scheduled to leave the office at five-thirty, and she was anxious for me to have it for the weekend. Then, just as she was ready to print out the final pages, the inevitable glitch happened—the printer in her office went down. She watched in dismay as the clock ticked past her self-imposed deadline.
When the machine was back up and running, she printed out the final version. Disappointed at missing her chance to get it to me for the weekend, she asked her assistant to call my office. By then she figured she’d just send it over via interoffice mail, and I’d get it on Monday. But, to her surprise, I hadn’t left yet. “Why don’t you come over now,” I told her, “and show me what you’ve got.”
Though the Cosmopolitan offices were a five-minute walk away, Atoosa arrived breathless about two and a half minutes after she hung up the phone. She walked in, handed me the dummy, and began excitedly telling me about what she’d done.
“Slow down,” I told her. “I’m not going anywhere.” And indeed I wasn’t. I was too busy flipping through the prototype of what I already knew would be Hearst’s next new magazine.
It was fantastic—so full of energy and feeling, and different from other teen magazines in that it had Atoosa’s personal, more emotional touch. She had, in her own words, been the classic “ugly duckling” growing up, a gawky, uncertain girl with constellations of pimples and a lingering sense of being the geek. The magazine she envisioned was what she had craved herself as a teenager. For her, CosmoGIRL! would be more than a magazine—it would be a mission. She would be the “big sister.”
I put the dummy up on a display shelf in my office, along with the latest issues of all of Hearst’s magazines, from Cosmopolitan to Harper’s Bazaar to Marie Claire to Esquire and Popular Mechanics. “Atoosa,” I said, “it looks like we might have ourselves a magazine.” Later she’d tell me she didn’t know for sure what that meant—was she to be the editor? Or would Hearst take her creative idea and pick someone more experienced? That would have been crushing, but at least she knew that whatever the case, her magazine would become a reality. And she was so excited that when she reached to shake my hand, she grabbed my wrist instead, eagerly pumping it up and down.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines drive in two ways:
• a strong, organized effort to accomplish a purpose
• energy, push, or aggressiveness
Here’s how I define it: doing whatever it takes to propel yourself to the next level, whether it’s aiming for a big promotion, looking for a new job, accepting a transfer, starting a whole new career, or just figuring out the next step in a project. Drive is the act of moving forward on your own initiative, and it’s one of the most important traits to have if you want to succeed in your work and in life.
Yet you don’t have to pitch a whole new business idea, magazine, or TV show like Atoosa did to prove you’ve got drive. At its most basic level, drive involves being motivated enough to track down information you need for tasks ahead, so you don’t make obvious mistakes. It’s as simple as this:
If you’re well prepared for meetings, presentations, or just everyday work tasks, you’re far more likely to advance in your job. If you aren’t, not only will you thwart your own progress, but you’ll almost certainly end up making embarrassing mistakes.
Here’s a perfect example: When I was just out of college, working at Holiday magazine, I had a roommate who worked as the assistant to the cartoon editor at another magazine. She’d been there about a week, and one evening when she came back to our apartment, we got to talking about our days, what we’d done, and different aspects of our jobs, including sending out correspondence.
“My boss writes his letters on a yellow legal pad,” she told me.
“Can you read his writing?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Well,” I said, “deciphering someone’s handwriting to type a letter is always so hard.”
She looked at me blankly. “I don’t type them,” she said. “I just fold them, stick them in envelopes, and send them out.”
Now, I was pretty inexperienced myself at that point, but I knew that sending out hand-scrawled letters on yellow lined paper just couldn’t be right. “I don’t think that’s what your boss had in mind,” I said. “I’m pretty sure he’s expecting to get those back, typed, so he can sign them.”
Her face went pale. “Oh my God!” she shrieked. “He never told me that!”
Well, no, he didn’t—because it wasn’t his job to make sure she understood the basics of her duties. That story’s funny now, but I guarantee it wasn’t funny for my roommate when she went to work the next day and had to tell her boss what she’d been doing. In any work environment, it’s essential to know what’s expected—the do’s, the don’ts, and the don’t-forgets. And if there’s anything you’re unsure of, the act of asking is one of the most important elements of success. All too often, people fear that asking questions reveals ignorance, yet the opposite is true. The root of the word ignorance, after all, is ignore. The minute you ask about something, you’ve taken a step toward understanding it. On the other hand, if you just ignore the fact that you don’t know—believe me, you won’t get away with that for long.
There’s another, less obvious benefit to being the most prepared person in a room. Not only will you know what the hell you’re doing, but others—your boss, colleagues, clients, customers, and even competitors—will take note of it and perceive you differently. Sometimes that can be the most important thing, as this next story shows.
One morning during my time at USA Today, we had a meeting scheduled with an advertising agency that was trying to win our account. At that time, in the early startup years, we were spending money like crazy trying to promote the paper. So landing our account would be a huge, lucrative “get” for whichever agency won it.
Just before the meeting was to start, I walked out to the reception area to greet the ad agency’s senior account guy. He was sitting on a couch, flipping idly through that morning’s copy of USA Today. When he saw me, he tossed the paper down on the coffee table, said something like “Well, that’s a nice quick read,” and got up to shake my hand. All I could think was You idiot. There’s no way you’re getting our account.
This guy had come to pitch us on representing our product—yet he hadn’t even bothered to read that morning’s paper until he could grab a free copy in our reception area? To be truly prepared, he should have devoured at least the last two weeks’ worth of issues, as well as those of our biggest competitors. How in the world could he know what set USA Today apart from other newspapers if he hadn’t bothered to read it? And if he didn’t know, then how could he possibly communicate it to others? Was he, and by extension his agency, someone we could trust to create the right brand image for our newspaper? In that first minute, I already knew the answer was no.
Making sure you’ve prepared yourself with the information you need is Step One. Making doubly sure that that information is correct is Step Two, and no less important. Remember to
There’s an old saying among journalists: “If your mother says she loves you, check it.” And in fact you can be sure that the minute you take something for granted, it won’t be what you thought it was. Take my name, for example. When I was in junior high, a skinny, awkward preteen with big dreams, I decided I wanted to be different, so one day I changed the spelling of my name from “Cathy” to “Cathie.” Silly, I know—but what can I say? When you’re twelve, these kinds of things seem desperately important.
I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve received letters addressed to “Cathy Black,” or “Kathy Black,” or “Kathleen Black.” It seems like a little deal, but it’s a big deal to me—and it’s the quickest way to lower my opinion of the letter writer. After all, it takes about five seconds to go online or call Hearst and find out how my name is spelled and my exact title. Anyone who can’t spare that little bit of time to avoid making a basic mistake has really damaged her chances. Don’t let little, easily corrected mistakes ruin your chances for getting a job, winning an account, or being taken seriously before you can even state your case.
Showing drive, and persistence, during the hiring process is the best way to improve your chances of landing that big interview or dream job. Yet for some reason people often choose the most passive route possible when pursuing a new job. Do you ever
• send out a letter and résumé and wait (in vain) for someone to call you?
• assume you shouldn’t call to follow up, because, well, they’ll call if they want to talk to you?
• choose not to ask someone for help getting your foot in the door somewhere, because you want to do it on your own terms?
If you’ve done any of the above, you’re certainly not alone; they’re all-too-common mistakes. But what better way to get on an employer’s radar screen than a follow-up call, which in one swoop demonstrates pluck, initiative, interest, and drive? Sitting back and waiting for someone to call you shows the opposite. So don’t be afraid to. Believe me, employers are not turned off when you call and politely inquire whether your résumé was received. And they honestly don’t mind if you then take that opportunity to reiterate how interested you are in the position. If nothing else, the fact that you called will differentiate you from the mob of other candidates who are applying.
If you’ve ever worked in an office, you know the kinds of things that go on. Correspondence is misplaced. Meetings pile up. Deadlines slide. When you send a résumé and don’t hear anything back immediately, chances are good that it has nothing to do with you. So take a minute and make that call—it can’t hurt, and it certainly might help. (For more tips on résumés, interviews, and follow-ups, check out the Black & White section called “Landing Your Dream Job” later in this book.)
In that same vein, don’t be afraid to call and ask friends, colleagues, former bosses—anyone who might have clout—for help in securing a job interview. What’s the worst thing that can happen? That someone can’t (or, very rarely, would rather not) help you—in which case you haven’t lost anything. More often than not, seeking a little inside help is the smartest, quickest way to get access to the person who might be able to hire you.
Early one morning when I was working at Ms. magazine, I made a call to George Hirsch, my former boss and the former publisher of New York magazine. I hadn’t worked for George in several years, but I’d made a point of keeping in touch and asking his advice from time to time. That morning I called him at home before going to the office, with a very specific request.
“Can we get together?” I asked him. “There’s something I need to talk with you about.”
“Well,” George said, “I’m going out of town today. Can we do it when I get back?”
Table of Contents
Prologue: Black on Black 1
Drive 11
Case Study: Don't Take No for an Answer: Al Neuharth 33
Risk 43
Black & White: First Impressions 65
People 73
Case Study: Make Your Moment Count: O, the Oprah Magazine 93
Fear 103
Black & White: Landing Your Dream Job 123
Power 133
Case Study: Talk Magazine 157
Black & White: The Devil Is in the Details 167
Passion 181
Case Study: The 360[degree] Life 197
Attitude 209
Case Study: Cosmopolitan 229
Leadership 237
Black & White: Advice from All Over 263
The Future Is Now 271
Epilogue: In the Black 281
Acknowledgments 285
What People are Saying About This
Basic Black does a great job of telling the story of how Cathie deftly navigated the challenges of the workplace and the media business, while also trying to balance the demands of a busy life. Her practical tips on handling typical workplace situations make this an important read for any woman who wants to become a better colleague, a better leader ... and a better person.
—Meg Whitman, President & CEO, eBay Inc.
Bravo for Basic Black! After reading this book, I understand more than ever why Cathie Black is the huge success she is today. She’s totally fearless! She shares her triumphs, but perhaps best of all, she shares her mistakes so that we can learn from them. I love her candor. Whether you're starting your career or going full throttle, you will benefit from Cathie's insights into business--and life. Basic Black is a true must-read.
—Gayle King, editor-at-large of O, The Oprah Magazine
I’m a big Cathie Black fan–in part because we both believe that where you come from in no way determines where you can get to. If you think it, you can create it.Cathie’s career is living proof of that and her experiences, both professional and personal, make for fascinating reading. The life lessons in these pages are smart, true, and reassuring, no matter where you are in your career.
—Suze Orman, author of Women and Money and The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom
Cathie Black is exactly the kind of mentor every woman needs: a talented executive at the top of her game willing to tell it like it really is. Imagine having a private lunch with one of the most powerful women in business, and then feast on her wonderful book. Basic Black is among the very best insider accounts of how to succeed as a leader.
—Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School professor and author of Confidence and America the Principled
Cathie Black demystifies the workplace with her typical brand of pragmatic insight and engaging humor. Basic Black provides a practical guide to the traits we see demonstrated by our greatest leaders at GE---passion, drive, attitude, risk taking, and the ability to nurture and develop great talent. I had fun reading Basic Black, and thought to myself...This is someone I would like to work for.
—Jeffrey R. Immelt, Chairman and CEO, GE
As every woman needs basic black in her wardrobe, she also needs Basic Black on her bookshelf. This is the perfect handbook on getting ahead while staying true to yourself.
—Donna Karan, Designer