Good morning, Broadsheet readers. In two days, Coins2Day will announce its 2014 Most Powerful Women in Business list. Email me at [email protected] with your prediction for this year’s #1 woman, and read on for the three top reasons why CEOs fail within the first 18 months of taking a new job. Have a great Tuesday!
EVERYONE'S TALKING
•NFL brings in women leaders. Comissioner Roger Goodell announced Monday that the league is adding three women to advise on policy. Lisa Friel, Jane Randel and Rita Smith will join the NFL to "help lead and shape the NFL's policies and programs relating to domestic violence and sexual assault." He wrote in a letter. All three women previously worked in the field of domestic violence prevention and education. Goodell also said that Anna Isaacson, currently the NFL's VP of community affairs and philanthropy, will serve as the league's VP of social responsibility. Time
ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
•The corporate exodus begins. The Radisson hotel chain has suspended its sponsorship deal with the Minnesota Vikings as star player Adrian Peterson faces accusations of child abuse. The NFL running back was charged with hitting his 4-year-old son with a tree branch and now stands accused of hitting another son. Businessweek
•The woman keeping Sesame Street relevant. The veteran children's show is still a hit, and executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente has a lot to do with its enduring success. In her 25 years of work with Sesame Workshop, Parente has focused on keeping the brand contemporary. “The show has to be furry, heartfelt, educational, funny, and clever for both adults and children,” she says. Fast Company
•Chelsea Clinton gets fashionable. Bill and Hillary's daughter is working with online shopping site BRIKA to launch a collection of elephant-inspired apparel and knickknacks. Roughly 10% of the proceeds will go to save African elephants."Women control two-thirds of the spending in the U.S. That’s remarkable power that we have. The products that we buy for our homes and lives should hopefully make us feel beautiful and make us feel good, but also be products that express our values," says Clinton. Refinery29
•GM death count grows. The Detroit automaker raised the death count from its faulty ignition switches from 13 to 19, and company execs noted that the number may go even higher as it continues to review compensation claims. The news comes after GM CEO Mary Barra announced on Thursday that the company has "substantially completed" its vehicle recalls. WSJ
•Neiman Marcus CEO targets international luxury. The luxury retailer, which operates only in the U.S., announced the acquisition of Munich-based Mytheresa.com, an online luxury business. The deal will allow CEO Karen Katz to cater to wealthy shoppers around the world without opening new physical stores. Coins2Day
BROADVIEW
3 ways not to fail in a new job
Today's Broadview comes to you from Coins2Day Senior Editor at Large Pattie Sellers. Sellers co-founded Coins2Day's Most Powerful Women franchise in 1998, and continues to interview many women (and men!) In top corporate roles. Yesterday, Sellers reported on a new study out about failure in the C-Suite.
At least 50% executives fail within the first 18 months of taking a new job, research shows. How do you avoid the failure trap?
This is the question that Ron Carucci and Eric Hansen, partners in a consultancy called Navalent, sought to answer by interviewing 2,600 executives—most of them at Coins2Day 1000 companies—over a 10-year span.
1. Diagnose, don’t indict.
Executives new to an organization often turn over rocks to discover what they’ve gotten themselves into—and fail to manage their shock. Saying “How have you people survived this long?” Is the worst reaction. “Actively solicit feedback about how you and your actions are being perceived,” Carucci advises. “And find ways to honor the heritage of long-standing employees.”
2. Decide, don’t defer.
“Leaders begin their role in the relational red,” says Carucci, noting that leaders in general are less trusted today than in the past before social media empowered everybody. Making employees feel valuable and part of decision-making is crucial, but here’s the hitch: Decisiveness is more critical than ever. Make tough choices for the good of the organization without getting handicapped by inordinate worry about how employees feel.
Click over to Coins2Day.com for the full story and third tip.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
•Wonder Woman returns. For years, critics have said that the Wonder Woman comic series wasn't big enough to warrant its own feature-length film. The New Yorker's Jill Lepore explores why that argument had nothing to do with the size of the superheroine’s following and everything to do with politics. "Superman owes a debt to science fiction, Batman to the hardboiled detective. Wonder Woman’s debt is to feminism. Wonder Woman is so hard to put on film because the fight for women’s rights has gone so badly," Lepore writes. New Yorker
•How GoldiBlox got big. Debbie Sterling founded GoldiBlox, a engineering-inspired toy line for girls, through a 2012 Kickstarter campaign. Now GoldiBlox finds itself with thousands of customers and in the aisles of Toys "R" Us. Sterling is also in Coins2Day'sMost Promising Women Entrepreneurs Class of 2014. "If you’re too nervous or afraid to put something out there for fear it won’t be perfect, you can’t move forward. Just keep improving it," says Sterling. Fast Company
ON MY RADAR
What Polyvore CEO Jess Lee learned from Marissa MayerBusiness Insider
L'Oreal's makeup genius Businessweek
The final days of Hillary's unofficial campaign Slate
Taxi service for women needs more female drivers NYTimes
QUOTE
I pretty much make things up. I mean: What is an entrepreneur? Someone who just dives right in and tries something and if it doesn’t work, tries something else. You don’t overthink it. You don’t strategize. You just do it.
Bobbi Brown tells Harvard Business Review how she got started with her own makeup line.