Work and Life with Stew Friedman

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Ep 214. Gorick Ng: The Unspoken Rules for Early Career Success

Gorick Ng is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School and is now a career adviser at Harvard College, specializing in coaching first-generation, low-income students. He’s also a researcher with the Managing the Future of Work project at Harvard. His new book, The Unspoken Rules:  Secrets to Starting Your Career Off Right, is now offered to employees at companies such as IBM, Houlihan Lokey, Invesco, Cigna, Qualcomm, GE, and others. Harvard Business School has also given The Unspoken Rules to every 2021 MBA student to give them an edge in their internships and full-time jobs. 


In this episode, Stew talks with Gorick about specific guidance for how young people can navigate school and their first jobs for early career success, with particular emphasis on first-generation and low-income students.   Gorick’s research and practice reveals there are three critical questions one must answer well: Are you competent? Are you committed? Are you compatible?  After Gorick describes how his personal history led him to devoting himself to this field, he gets into some practical tips with examples for how to go about demonstrating competence, commitment, and compatibility.  


Here then is an invitation for you, a challenge, after you’ve had a chance to listen to this episode.  For yourself, or for a young person you know, ask  the three critical questions and come up with an action implied by whatever the answer might be.  Share your reactions to this episode and your suggestions for future shows with Stew by writing to him at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn

More Episodes

5/10/2022

Ep 229. Diana Kapp: Girls Who Green the World

Diana Kapp is the author of Girls Who Run the World and now Girls Who Green the World; Thirty-Four Rebel Women Out To Save Our Planet. Her work as a journalist has taken her inside San Quentin prison and to deepest Afghanistan. She’s covered teen suicide clusters in Palo Alto, apps and bots to fight depression, and her father falling headlong in love at 85. She’s also worked for a senator and a biotech start-up, made ads for Nike, and helped launch women’s sportswear retailer Lucy. She’s got an MBA from Stanford, loves the Sawtooth Mountains, Neil Young, her 5am running club, and climbing mountains. She’s also a wannabe “rancher.” This episode, which is about the biggest work/life issue we can imagine, starts with Diana talking about her father’s finding love at 85, after her mother’s death, and how this demonstrated hope for the future emerging from the despondency of loss.  This heartwarming story sounded the keynote of Stew’s conversation with Diana about the inspiring stories of how the women profiled in her book are, in the face of our rapidly failing natural environment, taking action to make things better.  These powerful narratives not only tell us about the creative experiments abounding in our midst, they offer empowering ideas for how each and every one of us can do something good for our world. Here then is an invitation for you, a challenge, after you’ve had a chance to listen to this episode.  Find one small thing you can do to reduce your carbon footprint and tell someone else about what you did, why you did it, and what you’re going to do next.  Share your reactions and suggestions for future shows with Stew by writing to him at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn. 
4/25/2022

Ep 228. Amy Beacom: The Parental Leave Playbook

Dr. Amy Beacom is the founder and CEO of the Center for Parental Leave Leadership, the first consultancy in the US to focus exclusively on parental leave, and the author of The Parental Leave Playbook: Ten Touchpoints to Transition Smoothly, Strengthen Your Family, and Continue Growing Your Career.  She is recognized as the United States’ premiere expert on the personal and professional interplay around parental leave for employers and employees. Amy created the first evidence-based parental leave transition coaching model. She has trained and supervised parental leave coaches both in the US and Australia and the manager-focused training program she created can be found in over 80 countries around the world.In this episode, Stew talks with Amy about her evidence-based model for how to manage parental leave, as a working parent and as a manager or co-worker.  They talk through the three phases of preparing for leave (which is mostly about work), during leave (about parenting), and returning (about being a working parent).  Amy describes the crucial touch points in each of these phases and offers practical advice for anyone experiencing the joys and trials of taking time from work to care for children and for all those who support working parents.  Here then is an invitation for you, a challenge, after you’ve had a chance to listen to this episode, if you’re a manager of someone approaching parental leave or a person about to take one yourself:  What’s your vision of how you want things to be upon return?  Share your reactions and suggestions for future shows with Stew by writing to him at friedman@wharton.upenn.edu or via LinkedIn.