Why Women Don't Self-Promote, NYT's Reinvention and a Life Assessment Checklist
Stuff & Things #15
A warm welcome (and virtual hugs) to my new subscribers!
My last week in Monterey ended with a trip to Pinnacle National Park. 23 million years ago, multiple volcanoes erupted, flowed, and left interesting structures behind:
Next week, I’ll be packing my bags to north of San Francisco for my next adventure.
Read on for this week’s updates…
Business
The Reinvention of New York Times
At the start of the decade, NYT had a dying business model. They were saddled in debt, largely due to poor acquisitions. Fast forward to 2020, NYT is far ahead of its competition, is debt-free, and makes money from its investments. By reinvesting in tech and generating new income streams, it is positioned for massively profitable growth in the next 5-10 years. (Read for the content, stay for the well-made deck)
Career
Why Don’t Women Self-Promote As Much As Men? (HBR)
To climb the ladder of success, you have to be seen. Colleagues who self-promote may have higher chances of being hired, being promoted, and getting a raise or a bonus. Yet, so many women consciously reject this strategy.
In an analytics test, men rated their performance 33% higher than equally performing women. In every version of this test, women systematically provided less favorable assessments of their own past performance. There’s no clear answer to what’s driving this, but there are strong signals that it is a combination of underconfidence, avoiding backlash, and parenthood pressures.
This survey shows that many companies report that they are committed and taking action, but it is not always visible in the organization or the results:
While we continue to challenge stereotypically masculine definitions of leadership, here are two actionable resources to ensure that your contributions are recognized at work:
List out your accomplishments by maintaining a brag document. This also doubles up as an archive during performance review season.
For $5/month, Hype Docs doubles up as a living list of achievements. It gives you weekly reminders to update your doc and helps track your wins.
Marketing
Reinvest the time you spend creating ‘personas’ into creating meaningful audience segments:
Interesting Finds
The Life Assessment Checklist: Are you spending enough time caring for yourself? Take a moment of self-reflection, and check off the statements that apply to you.
A Primer on Algorithms and Bias: It’s hard to ignore the growing influence of algorithms in our everyday lives, and we need to be more conscientious of the quality of the data we feed into them. Since algorithms are written by humans, we often code our biases right into them.
Watch Viola Davis talk about her battle with low-self esteem:
Until next week,
Shrikala