Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. Advice at the intersection of work and life.
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Browsing category "Diversity"

Racism at work, and why it doesn't work to just say no

Posted to: Diversity
August 13th, 2007
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Last week I was on a radio show that I've been on a bunch of times. It is a major radio station in a major city. The host likes me because I say inflammatory things like, "If your boss is terrible, stop complaining and start looking for another job." Then listeners call in and tell [...]

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Coachology: Redesign your blog and get more readers

Posted to: Diversity |  How to blog
June 29th, 2007
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Just after I redesigned my blog last March, Cory Miller sent an email to me giving me some suggestions on how to tweak the layout to get more traffic.
My first instinct was to delete the mail because I had just spent $3000 on a blog design and I didn’t want to hear it was already [...]

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The unimportance of being right (growing up in a colorblind family)

Posted to: Diversity |  Office Politics
June 26th, 2007
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At some point in our lives we each have felt surrounded by people who see the world incorrectly. Sometimes it's the accountant who works for a management team that doesn't understand numbers. Or it's the artist who works for a marketing team that doesn't understand font. Sometimes we feel so certain that we are right and [...]

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Don't be an annoying white person at work

Posted to: Diversity
February 13th, 2007
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One of the most dangerous ideas in the workplace today is that racism is gone. Because it's not.
Jesse Rothstein, professor of economics at Princeton University, shows the prevalance of racist thinking, even today. "Some people think racial discrimination is something that ended in 1972 or something. Some people think that segregation persists because minorities cannot [...]

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How to make ladder-climbing a positive experience

Posted to: Diversity |  Office Politics
January 30th, 2007
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The work world offers a continuum of means to stability. Huge risk takers might choose to pay off the Russian mob and try to corner to oil market in Siberia. If you're looking for stability, you might try climbing a corporate ladder in a large, publicly traded company.
Climbing, of course, could lead to instability. The [...]

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I can't pronounce my son's last name

Posted to: Diversity
January 15th, 2007
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The first time I had my own company, we ignored Martin Luther King Day. And it felt really bad, like I was not living my own values. Now I am careful each year to do something to mark the holiday. So today I'm posting a piece I wrote a few years ago, before I had a [...]

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Workplace diversity is here, but it's not what we expected

Posted to: Diversity
January 8th, 2007
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There is plenty of data to show that diversity is good for the workplace. But in general we don't really create it for ourselves, because we like to work with people who are similar to us.
"In terms of innovation, diverse teams way outperform non-diverse teams, but people are very comfortable working with people they have [...]

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Christmas at the office is bad for diversity

Posted to: Diversity
December 14th, 2006
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Countless workplace studies have shown that a diverse staff is likely to outperform a homogenous staff. So with all this talk about diversity, why are we still hanging Christmas wreaths at work?
Not everyone at the office celebrates Christmas, and acting as if everyone has the "holiday spirit" squelches the spirit of workplace diversity.
Diversity in the [...]

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How to decide where to live

Posted to: Diversity |  Knowing yourself
November 12th, 2006
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Take the question of where to live seriously. Don't let inertia push you toward a big-name city, the place you grew up, or your old college haunts. Make a conscious decision to live somewhere that will improve your quality of life by really understanding what your core needs and interests are–and will be.
City leaders understand [...]

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Don't report sexual harassment (in most cases)

Posted to: Diversity |  Office Politics |  Women
November 2nd, 2006
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Sexual harassment in American work life is pervasive — as much as 80 percent in some sectors. But most women don't stand a chance of winning a lawsuit. So having a plan to deal with the problem is a good idea for all women.
When it comes to harassment, Georgia Gatsiou, chef at Beard Papa, says: [...]

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Knowing when to make your move

Posted to: Diversity |  Fulfillment |  Self-management
November 1st, 2006
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Just because you're adamant about making sure you have a personal life doesn’t mean you can’t be top in your field. Top is different today than it was even ten years ago. Top doesn’t mean climbing a ladder to make the most money. Top means having influence in discussions that matter to you, and having [...]

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How to succeed in China

October 8th, 2006
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My Chinese radar really perked up last week when I read the Economist article about Alibaba. This Chinese company is the largest online business-to-business marketplace in the world, and it just purchased Yahoo! China, which makes Alibaba the12th most popular site in the world.
I checked out the site right away, and, guess what? It looks [...]

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How my friend copes with her disability at work

Posted to: Diversity |  Self-management
September 13th, 2006
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Wendy Waters suggested that I write about how to deal with disabilities in the workplace. So here's a story about my friend Ann, who has a really deep voice. It isn't a sexy deep voice; it sounds more like Oscar the Grouch with a sore throat or Darth Vader on Prozac.
Her voice, which is a [...]

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Donald fires Carolyn, Trump kids benefit: A lesson in affirmative action

Posted to: Diversity
August 31st, 2006
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Donald Trump fired Carolyn Kepcher, which is obviously big news if you watch The Apprentice, and still big news, though in a less obvious way, if you don't.
Kepcher started her career as a waitress and she worked her way up in his organization. Recently she has become a counterpart to Trump (and generally more respected [...]

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Race matters too; but saying that is hard

Posted to: Diversity
August 18th, 2006
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In response to my post about how to choose where to live, Ayann wrote a comment saying that race is a factor as well. She's right. And the truth is that my husband and I talked about race constantly during our decision making process because he is Latino and, therefore, so are my kids.
My husband [...]

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Battle cry against power tripping

Posted to: Diversity |  Leadership |  Managing Up |  Office Politics
August 7th, 2006
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Here's a new word for the workplace: Rankism. File it in your brain next to racism and sexism. And brace yourself for a big change at the office, because rankism is another kind of discrimination we should not tolerate.
What's rankism, or rankist behavior? It is hiring an intern and ignoring her all summer. Or pointlessly [...]

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Make time for big ideas: Twenty minutes

Posted to: Diversity |  Self-management
August 4th, 2006
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I interview two or three people a week for the various columns that I write. One thing I have learned from this is that people can tell you the major ideas they have in about twenty minutes. After twenty minutes you end up getting into the details of the ideas – probably more than you [...]

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The Wall Street Journal tries to guilt women into giving up maternity leave

Posted to: Diversity |  Managing Up |  Parenting |  Women
July 6th, 2006
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The Wall Street Journal gives terrible advice this week on "going from maternity leave to permanent resignation."
Columnist Sue Shellenbarger writes, "Once a mother is absolutely sure she isn't going to return to work after maternity leave, I believe she's obligated to reveal her intentions to her employer."
WHY? There is no description in the column about [...]

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What it's like to be black at work

Posted to: Diversity
July 1st, 2006
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The business pundits can write forever about how important diversity is. But we are not achieving it, and the people losing out the most are black men. Associated Press writer Erin Texeira did the world a favor by writing an article that describes the black man's experience of confronting constant racism, especially at the office.
The [...]

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Big news for Episcopal Church, and we all benefit when one industry shines

June 19th, 2006
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Overheard at synagogue: "I would like to grow up and become a rabbi like you, but my dad doesn't think women should be rabbis." From the head rabbi's seven-year-old daughter to the assistant rabbi who is a woman.
Religious groups seem to be one of the last standouts — along with coal mining and construction — [...]

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