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Articles by Daniel Gulati
More Options, More Problems
An expanding class of smart, ambitious professionals have created so many options for themselves that they find it virtually impossible to do a darned thing. Tom, a reluctant 29-year-old management consultant, has the largest career option set of anyone I know.
3 Ways to Overcome Career Anxiety
At a recent dinner party, I was speaking with a friend who had just been promoted to vice president at a well-known New York hedge fund. The promotion was unexpected, involved an immediate 50% pay raise, and came with broad new responsibilities. When he should have been feeling optimistic and excited about his new position, why did he look like the unhappiest person in the world? This isn’t uncommon.
A new fund
I am excited to cut the ribbon on Forecast, a new early stage venture fund investing $500K-$2M in consumer startups. Forecast has actually been active since January: we have met over a hundred founders and led three (unannounced) seed rounds. Forecast was incubated within Comcast Ventures, and I will be managing the fund as Founding Partner. I’ll continue to work with my existing portfolio companies and the CV team. The next decade will be an exciting one for consumer startups.
Facebook Is Making Us Miserable
When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some seven years and 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future. But this new world of ubiquitous connections has a dark side. In my last post, I noted that Facebook and social media are major contributors to career anxiety.
How to Break Through a Career Deadlock
Many of the successful managers and professionals who come back to business school at mid-career are looking for more than honing their leadership skills. Many are stuck in their careers. They’re looking for direction and support for the changes they long to make in the near future. But, their networks just keep dragging them back to the past—and they don’t even realize it.
The Inexperience Advantage
Ever been shut down by someone who supposedly knows more than you? It happens to me daily. I get denied by people that are more senior, more polished, and more knowledgeable than me. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed professional rejection, but I try my best to dust myself off and move forward, reminding myself that that a series of controlled failures are necessary for eventual success.
You Need Both Passion and Compassion to Lead
Passion gets you up in the morning; it is the fuel that drives you to immerse yourself in your work and deliver results. Compassion is what you extend to others; it is the manifestation of caring and concern. Though these two concepts may not get equal time in the discussion of leadership, they are equally important.
Try Out a New Career Before You Make the Leap
Different paths can lead you to new careers, and there are ways to explore these paths with little to no risk. You can build different skills on top of the strengths you already have. There are brainstorming exercises to imagine new possibilities. You can research different fields of work, talk to friends, and attend company presentations. But what if you’re still puzzled? You may not know what works until you’ve tried it.
Plan a Better Meeting with Design Thinking
“Sometimes, when I sit in meetings, especially ones in which people don’t seem engaged, I calculate the cost in staff time. I’ve estimated that one standard weekly meeting in my bureau — 50 people sitting in a cookie-cutter conference room, looking both bored and anxious — costs around $177,000 annually, and surely this scenario occurs throughout the [organization] hundreds of times a day. It drains us, and it breeds cynicism.
The Top Five Career Regrets
What do you regret most about your career? I had just finished a guest lecture on business and innovation at Parsons School for Design, and a particularly attentive front-row audience member kicked off question time with the curliest one of the day. I answered quickly with the hope of getting back on target. But judging from the scores of follow-up questions and the volume of post-lecture emails I received, a talk on career regret would have been the real bull’s-eye.
The Real Reason New MBAs Want to Work for Goldman Sachs
What attracts top talent? Is it great benefits, flexible hours, steep pay packages, or state-of-the-art training? New research suggests it’s something simpler – but more difficult to obtain. The status of a firm is quite possibly the leading driver in attracting the best of the best, at least in investment banking, according to a paper recently accepted by the Strategic Management Journal.
Diversify Your Dreams
If you ever want to lie awake at night, go ahead and think about your “one thing” — the one thing you were born to do, the one career you were built to succeed at, and the one person you were destined to spend the rest of your life with. Attempting to solve these impossible optimization riddles is a sure path to emotional turmoil, an unsatisfying professional life, and, well, a pretty bleary-eyed morning.
Does an MBA Make You a Better CEO?
Are CEOs with MBAs actually stronger leaders? The answer might depend on the age of the CEO. Inspired by the raging debate last year over the role of MBAs in the financial crisis, we tried to analyze whether having an MBA influences overall CEO performance. In a large-scale study of CEO performance since they took office, we found that other things equal, MBA CEOs had a slight performance edge over their non-MBA peers.
Forgive and Remember: How a Good Boss Responds to Mistakes
Recently, I posted a list of 12 Things Good Bosses Believe. Now I’m following up by delving into each one of them. This post is about the eighth belief: “One of the best tests of my leadership — and my organization — is “what happens after people make a mistake?” I have authored or co-authored five books for managerial audiences in the past decade.
Keeping Your Options Open Could Be Hurting Your Career
Are you the seven-foot superhero, the conniving villain, the strong-willed woman, or the family-man cop? You’d better be one of them, or risk being cut from the cast. After studying Hollywood actors for three years, MIT Professor Ezra Zuckerman found that actors who typecast themselves (PDF) early in their careers tend to earn more money, have longer lifespans, and enjoy more fame compared to generalist actors.
Five Mistakes to Avoid When Managing Digital Teams
With digital becoming part of every line of business, effective marshaling of digital capabilities is a critical competency. Management is often maligned (sometimes for good reason!), but strong management is an important differentiator in both digital delivery and in aligning that delivery to strategic goals. So what’s the best way to tackle management of digital teams to keep engagement and output high?
7 Ways to Master a New Skill
It doesn't happen in a day.
Physical Fitness Is the Foundation of High Performance.
Peak performance in business has often been presented as a matter of sheer brainpower, but we view performance as a pyramid. Physical well-being is its foundation. Above that rests emotional health, then mental acuity, and at the top, a sense of purpose. The Ideal Performance State—peak performance under pressure—is achieved when all levels are working together. Rituals that promote oscillation—the rhythmic expenditure and recovery of energy—link the levels of the pyramid.
Are You Overdoing Your People Skills?
In our work with leaders on overplayed strengths, people sometimes object to the idea that every strength can be taken too far. For instance, an academic journal editor once held up publication of a research article stating flatly that “it is impossible for a leader to be too supportive, caring, and loyal.” Did that journal editor have a point? Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest American presidents offers a fascinating example.
How Content Marketers Can Tell Better Stories with Data
Content marketers have started to tell stories with data, and best practices are quickly emerging. The first step is to find the story you want to tell: how you approach data collection and analysis will determine what kind of content you’ll be able to develop. Once the story becomes clear, craft your message without letting the data overwhelm it. Start with your dream headline.
How to Get Yourself Invited to Important Meetings
In a work culture with too many meetings, we often look for tactics to get out of meetings. But sometimes you need to get into a meeting, perhaps because the decisions made there will have implications for you or your team, or maybe because you feel you’ve been left out of important discussions. Whether you haven’t been invited because of an oversight or an intentional decision by the meeting organizer, you can take action to secure your seat at the table.
Facebook Is Making You Miserable
When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Today, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and has become the dominant communication platform of the future. But this new world of ubiquitous connections has a dark side. In a previous post, I noted that Facebook and social media are major contributors to career anxiety.
It’s Time for a Vendetta Against Email
The better I get at filtering and managing my email, the more convinced I am that email overload may be an intractable problem. All the email tips, strategies and systems I have seen — my own included— rest on two fundamental assumptions: I’m not sure exactly when or how it started, but assumption #1 has started to break down. If you’re getting 10 emails a day, that seems like a manageable volume. What if you’re getting 100? Many of us can, and do, stay on top of that many emails. What if it’s 500?
The Comparing Trap
When I joined the Harvard Business School faculty, I received cards and letters from friends and family congratulating me on achieving one of the ultimate brass rings of academics. I felt pretty good about myself until I visited my assigned office in Morgan Hall. In an adjacent office was a colleague who had written something like 12 books and was an internationally recognized scholar in the area of organizational innovation. He had a beautiful summer house near Cape Cod.
Why You Won’t Quit Your Job
When I began writing Passion & Purpose, I met Susan, a young woman on the brink of quitting her investment banking job to pursue her lifelong passion of starting a nonprofit. A year later, when I asked how her new venture was going, I was surprised to hear that she “couldn’t bring herself to quit” in the first place. And when we bumped into each other last week, I found her toiling away in exactly the same role, still dreaming of her nonprofit venture, but now more depressed than ever.
If Your Boss Has a Lot of Integrity, You May Be More Likely to Compromise Yours
The idea that leaders should follow a set of sound principles and support policies that reflect their own values is a widely held standard, and for good reason. But there is a downside to integrity. In our research, we have found that when leaders behave with high integrity, their followers may compromise their own. They create a façade of conformity, suppressing their own values and views and pretending to share the organization’s values in order to survive and succeed at work.
3 Ways to Overcome Career Anxiety
At a recent dinner party, I was speaking with a friend who had just been promoted to vice president at a well-known New York hedge fund. The promotion was unexpected, involved an immediate 50% pay raise, and came with broad new responsibilities. When he should have been feeling optimistic and excited about his new position, why did he look like the unhappiest person in the world? This isn’t uncommon.
Do Women Make Bolder Leaders than Men?
A common stereotype is that men have a tendency to be bolder than women. And numerous studies have shown that male business leaders do tend to take more risks. But looking through our database of 360-degree assessments from 75,000 leaders around the world, we noticed that on average the women were bolder than the men. We created a “boldness index” out of seven behaviors we commonly assess.
How to Be Friends with Someone Who Works for You
Working as a senior executive can be a lonely job. You have to deliver tough messages. You can’t always be transparent about your own challenges. And you must keep key decisions confidential until the timing is right. There’s no way to escape the necessary burdens of authority. And, from time to time, you may develop a friendship with someone in your organization. It’s one thing to have a peer-to-peer friendship at work, but another to have a power imbalance with your friend.
5 Ways to Get Over Your Fear of Public Speaking
We all want to be fearless public speakers. We dream of confidently striding onto the stage to give a speech or presentation, breaking the ice with the perfect joke, captivating the audience with compelling stories, handling the most difficult questions with ease, and exiting to cheers and applause. But the reality is usually less than perfect. Often, our fears take over and we imagine ourselves stumbling on the stairs, forgetting our lines, drawing a blank, or losing the audience.
Multitasking’s Real Victims
While I was at the gym last week, I was shocked to see a fellow member lifting a fully stacked bar while simultaneously arguing with someone on the other end of his hands-free headset. Not only was he was ruining the quality of his own workout, he left everyone else in the gym shaking their heads and frustrated as they became unwilling, passive participants in his one-way shout fest.
Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition
Rebecca, a tech entrepreneur, would love you to equate her company’s expansive press coverage with real value creation. “Yesterday, we got written up in TechCrunch and LA Magazine, and we all had dinner at Nobu to celebrate!” She will, however, conveniently forget to mention that her startup has yet to settle on a viable business model and has zero paying customers.
3 startup career advice questions for Comcast Ventures' entrepreneur in residence
Today I’m excited to publish our interview with Comcast Ventures’ entrepreneur-in-residence, Daniel Gulati. Daniel recently led the company he co-founded, FashionStake, to an acquisition by Fab.com. In this post Daniel gives some pointers on how MBAs should approach their startup job search and interviews. He also shares some great tips for connecting with and through venture capitalists to find startup jobs.
Our Dangerous Obsession with External Recognition
Rebecca, a tech entrepreneur, would love you to equate her company’s expansive press coverage with real value creation. “Yesterday, we got written up in TechCrunch and LA Magazine, and we all had dinner at Nobu to celebrate!” She will, however, conveniently forget to mention that her startup has yet to settle on a viable business model and has zero paying customers.
The Top Five Career Regrets
What do you regret most about your career? I had just finished a guest lecture on business and innovation at Parsons School for Design, and a particularly attentive front-row audience member kicked off question time with the curliest one of the day. I answered quickly with the hope of getting back on target. But judging from the scores of follow-up questions and the volume of post-lecture emails I received, a talk on career regret would have been the real bull’s-eye.
How to (Finally) Quit Your Job
As you wait for the elevator to arrive after another mediocre day at the office, you give yourself an all-too-familiar pep talk. “I’m better than this, and I’ve completely had it with this job,” you tell yourself. “I’m outta here for good.” As you ride the elevator to the lobby, you visualize your last day at the company. You fantasize about walking into your manager’s office, tabling your resignation letter, and cleaning your forsaken cubicle for the final time.
Stop Documenting, Start Experiencing
The unthinkable happened at a friend’s wedding last month. As the groom was asked to confirm his desire to accept the bride as his lawfully wedded wife, he held up his hand, as if to say “wait a minute.” The audible gasps among the attendees turned to relieved chuckles as he pulled out his iPhone in the middle of the vows. He was tweeting, “I Do,” to his hundred or so followers.
Beware the Everyday Expert
Have you noticed that everyone around you now seems to be an expert at something? How your boss gives you unsolicited career advice, based on his own (self-proclaimed) stellar career? Or how your annoying colleague emails you stock tips after reading the morning news headlines? Welcome to the age of the Everyday Expert.
Why You Won’t Quit Your Job
When I began writing Passion & Purpose in 2009, I met Susan, a young woman on the brink of quitting her investment banking job to pursue her lifelong passion of starting a nonprofit. A year later, when I asked how her new venture was going, I was surprised to hear that she “couldn’t bring herself to quit” in the first place. And when we bumped into each other last week, I found her toiling away in exactly the same role, still dreaming of her nonprofit venture, but now more depressed than ever.
Facebook Is Making Us Miserable
When Facebook was founded in 2004, it began with a seemingly innocuous mission: to connect friends. Some seven years and 800 million users later, the social network has taken over most aspects of our personal and professional lives, and is fast becoming the dominant communication platform of the future. But this new world of ubiquitous connections has a dark side. In my last post, I noted that Facebook and social media are major contributors to career anxiety.
Your Credentials Are Holding You Back
“I can’t leave now. I don’t want to waste the 50 grand I paid for my master’s degree.” Susan mulled over her second-year experience at a large consulting firm. She was hardly experiencing flow but didn’t despise her job either.
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