Sunday, August 4, 2013

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead


1. The discussion of the imposter syndrome (~P29) is per se a bit arrogant, although quietly so. It is not problematic since the person seems to have the height and the foundation. 
2. The 'flat A' (p33): it is not that men don't regret that they forgot something in their exam answers. Men probably don't openly talk about that as often; doing so may appear weak. The trait that you get an A and still regret about is what makes you more successful in your next job. I admire that in SS. I am a bit turned off by people who drink a lot right after exams. I live in Chestnut Hill, MA, the middle of arguably the country's best college town. I see many student swamp bars and restaurants upon the completion of a quarter. I wonder how much regret is behind the drinks and parties
3. Connecting with Larry Summers: many say SS got lucky and was on fast track once getting into LS's wing and network. The thing is: as it turns out now, Larry's 'pick' of SS apparently is a great one. Obviously Larry cannot possibly pick everybody that passes into his radar. The deciding factor I suppose has lot of to do with SS 
4. This book is rumble-in-writing. It may not score very high as a sociological thesis. In citing findings and publications to get points moving, the skill is not there at advanced levels. The kill, the intellectual bent and edge, however, is felt throughout. If you read this book to get to know her better, this style serves better. I am glad she is not co-writing the book with a 'biographer'
I am not sure how and what to use the 34 pages of Notes (Page 183 to Page 217): why this book needs to put Notes at the end?
5. The 'sit-at-table' story (p27): Perhaps in the conference room in DC, the ladies were used to not come straight to the tables where seating means ranking, seniority, factions, power, authorities,... structured, while a conference room in the West Coast naturally is more unstructured. So attributing
the ladies slow to the table side to gender roles may be a bit too fast 'out of confounding' 
6. The book uses quite many experiment findings, many of which are self-reporting and are good for news reporting, but not analytically rigorous. A lot of generalizations are hasty. In the field of analytics, at least as far as I know, we don't comment on female colleagues’ style, success, personality, or likability. Your success is in your work. There could also be geo-difference: a DC suburban area may have very different gender culture from Brookline, MA
7. The whole page 42 deservers reading multiple times. Every graduate school dean who intends to improve his or her performance rating system must read this page 
8. How not to create environment where speaking up about one's own success is weighted too much towards self-promotion is interesting managerial subject. In the world today where emails prevail over speaker phone, girls are not necessarily lacking channel of speaking out
9. I don't agree that women go out to negotiate their salary and they have to justify it. Among other things, the one sitting across the table negotiating on behalf of the company is a woman 
The book, after page 90, starts to hurry up. 'Reading value' goes down precipitously. I don't have many bright spots to comment on.
 



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