I have Cathie Black’s book, Basic Black, The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life) on my Kindle and read it, while riding the subway each afternoon, on the way to pick up my daughter from her public elementary school. It makes me nauseous.
The thing about Cathie Black, the former President and Chairman of Hearst Magazines, is that she was successful in a very specific corporate culture of money, status symbols and posturing. She came out of college during the era depicted on the television show, Mad Men. She rode the wave of the Feminist Revolution as the advertising manager for Ms magazine (where she clashed with Gloria Steinem over Phillip Morris Virginia Slims cigarette ads; “she felt strongly that accepting them would compromise our mission and our ethics. From a business perspective I didn’t much care for her decision.”). She helped to dismantle the craft and culture of local journalism while promoting USA TODAY. She lives alongside executives, like those portrayed in the movie, Wall Street, in a Park Avenue apartment and a house in the Hamptons. Her children attended boarding school in Connecticut.
I don’t see how her appointment as Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, the largest public school system in the country, can possibly play out well for anybody. Two-thirds of the public school children in New York City are eligible for free or reduced price lunch. (Full price lunch is $1.50 including milk!) Forty percent of the public school families speak a language other than English. One third of the students were born in another country and only 15% are Caucasian. Think Jonathan Letham’s Fortress of Solitude, Spike Lee’s Brooklyn movies or any book by Jonthan Kozol.
Although she mentions her first year of work after college and the financial difficulties of Ms magazine, most of the anecdotes Ms. Black has chosen for inclusion in her book (intended for a young woman fresh out of an MBA program and entering the corporate world) are patently offensive to anyone who has ever tried to live on a budget.
For example: When Cathie Black felt the need to find something to energize the executives at the company’s management conference, something –in addition to the resort location. She paid whatever it took get Bill Clinton as a speaker and felt the cost was justified even though it was so much money that she refused to ever tell her boss how much she had spent. She said, “The benefits our company got from having one hundred employees rush home to tell their friends and loved ones, ‘I got to meet Bill Clinton!’ was worth every penny we paid.”
If this woman continues to think in this vein and decides to spend several million dollars to energize one hundred specially selected students, teachers or administrators, or if she opens one perfect school while the rest of the million-plus students lose teachers; after-school programs; librarians; books; computers; sports teams; playground aides; music; art; science and janitors, in order to pay for it… Things could get really ugly. She’s in a position to cause a great deal of damage.
For another executive retreat, Cathie Black selected the Deleno Hotel in South Beach Miami, Florida “…a vision in white. With it’s sleek furniture, polished mahogany floors, open spaces, simple elegance, and crisp white color scheme, it’s a monument to cool, modern design. But, the best feature of all is the profusion of sheer, billowing, white linen curtains”…There’s something about removing yourself from the traditional setting and being in a place where the visual cues are powerful that really serves to reinforce a simple message…that I was the change agent.”
The current rate for a suite at the Delano Hotel in Miami is $885 to $1400 per night.
In the last two years New York City Schools have already suffered a number of across the board cuts resulting in the loss of many teachers and educational programs. Yellow bus service has been cut. Many schools have infrastructure concerns such as asbestos, loose bricks, broken windows, exposed wires, and toilets that don’t work. Not to mention over-crowded classrooms.
I’m pretty sure there aren’t any public school teachers using white linen curtains to communicate leadership strategies.
Basic Black contains numerous anecdotes involving private corporate jets. Coded messages are sent from one executive to another when someone is invited to take the corporate jet and someone else is not. Oh, and it is a major faux pas to bring carry-out barbecue ribs onto a private jet if the owner is particular about his white leather upholstery –just in case you couldn’t figure out that one on your own.
On the topic of first impressions, Ms. Black quotes a colleague’s advice to a young executive on preparing to attend “the company’s lavish Christmas party,” at which she might have a chance to be introduced to the cosmetics company founder, Estee Lauder: “go shopping at lunch today and buy yourself the most fabulous, most expensive dress you’ve ever imagined buying. You have to be prepared.”
Where I live –in the world of most people who send their children to public school– even a bride choosing her wedding dress is on a budget and can’t play fast and loose with a credit card. That kind of thinking has no place in our lives.
How will Cathie Black and her new constituency ever understand each other?
In her book, she suggests tailoring the message to the audience. For example, if you’re pitching a magazine concept to television personality Oprah, why not show her a video you’ve had your people produce.
Another one of her pieces of advice happens to be “Seize the moment”.
“More often than not you get only one real chance to make your pitch–so make it count.” she said.
Apparently this advice was not taken by Mayor Michael Bloomberg when he introduced her to New York.
So now, I don’t trust her.
Our first impression of her was mishandled…
…blown!
…as it were.
The message wasn’t tailored to the audience of taxpayers, teachers and parents.
As far as I can tell, Cathie Black and Michael Bloomberg know each other socially.
She’s 65 years old and over the summer she was replaced as President of Hearst Magazines by David Carey of the Condé Nast group and she became Chairwoman which everybody knows is a retirement position. So she was knocking about looking for something to do.
I imagine that one evening over dinner, or maybe at an equestrian event, Mike Bloomberg leaned over and said to her:
“You know, Cathie, Klein is ready to make some real money again and he’s got an opportunity he can’t pass up developing business strategies for the educational marketplace. So he’s going to be working with Rupert Murdoch at News Corp and we’ve got an opening. Why don’t you come on board as our new Chancellor of Education?”
And she answered:
“Yes! Retirement seems boring to me. I like a challenge, something I’ve never ever done before. Education sounds like fun! Lots of my peers have expanded their horizons during their golden years. Let’s do it!”
Did Mayor Bloomberg neglect to tell her that the New York City Department of Education has no use for private jets and that meetings are never held at 5-star resorts?
In the public education culture such things are considered criminal behavior on account of the whole that-would-be-stealing-from-the-children concept.
Just sayin’…