Search Results for: Harvard Business School

The (Re)selling of Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova is returning to tennis after her 15-month suspension for failing a drug test. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Sarah Nicole Prickett | Racquet and Longreads | April 2017 | 17 minutes (4,278 words)

Our latest Exclusive is a new story by Sarah Nicole Prickett, co-funded by Longreads Members and co-published in conjunction with Racquet magazine’s third issue.

To be in the backseat of a car, the cyanotype night on some minor highway, and pass at a distance of one or two hundred yards a rectangle of total green under pooled white lights is to see North American heaven. A community baseball field, a high school football field. A tennis court, occasionally. Say you’re a tennis-playing child from an oil town in Siberia where there are no courts, and no oranges, and in photographs of home it’s always snowing or sleeting or for another reason it’s gray. Around the age of 6, having first picked up a secondhand racket on the clay courts in Sochi, off the Black Sea, you arrive in Bradenton, Florida, home of Tropicana Products and IMG’s Bollettieri tennis academy. Will you ever get over it, the way the green lies shining against the dark? Maria did not. Maria Sharapova was, for a brief lambent time between 2004 and 2006, when she was 17 and 18 and 19, the best female tennis player on grass.

She was trained by Nick Bollettieri at the IMG Academy on mostly hard courts, to hone her technique absent variables. She moved on clay, she said later, jokingly, like “a cow on ice.” But on grass she was a dancer, a ballerina. One other body moves like hers, and it is that of the actual ballerina Sara Mearns, who shares with Maria a fissive mix of rigor and bounce. Some of Maria’s best serves in the middle 2000s are unbelievable when seen in slow motion. The extension of the right, working leg, reaching à la hauteur. The high toss followed by a hyperbolic swing of the racket, almost dismissive of the ball. Richard Williams, a former chief sportswriter for The Guardian who happens to share his name with the father and former coach of Venus and Serena, wrote that a poem about Maria “might start with a description of the moment when she tosses the ball up to serve and, as it reaches its apogee, a line through her left arm and right leg forms a perfect perpendicular.” Which is to say, the girl knew her angles.

Green clay and grass showed Maria to advantage in early photographs. The verdancy made wonder of her coloring, brought out the complementary flush of her cheeks, the gray-green in her cat’s eyes, the analogous streaks of gold in her long straight hair. She looked like a sixth Lisbon girl in Grosse Pointe, as if she’d been away at summer camp while the other five virgins were suiciding. She wore tank tops and little A-line skirts in white or pink or powder blue, obviously from Nike, and a simple gold-plated cross in the Orthodox style. No makeup. Quick-bitten nails. Goody-brand snap clips in her basic ponytail. Before each serve, she paused to brush back the newly escaped baby hairs with her ball hand, and the down on her forearm snagged the light. In 2003 she won no matches on the hard courts at the Australian Open nor on the clay at the French Open, but when she got to Wimbledon, to the grass, she beat the 11th-seeded Jelena Dokic and reached the fourth round, where she was beaten by fellow Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova. The tour made her Newcomer of the Year. A talk-show host began to compare her to Anna Kournikova, and she was ready, saying, “That’s so old.” Read more…

‘Let Them Buy Louboutins’: Ivanka Trump and Working Women

ivanka trump
Photo by Cvent (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

In a scathing piece in The Nation, Amy Wilentz methodically eviscerates and examines the guts of Ivanka Trump’s brand, and her efforts on behalf of working women — a specific brand of privileged, white, upper-class working women, that is.

IvankaTrump.com does have a section called “Wise Words” (“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says ‘I’m possible’”—Audrey Hepburn; or “It’s never too late to be what you might have been,” wrongly attributed to George Eliot; or “Challenges are opportunities”—so anodyne it’s not attributed to anyone.) But you’ll never read anything here about processing chickens or serving up burgers or sewing jeans, or what it’s like to be a secretary, a receptionist, a nurse, a hairdresser, a teacher, a saleswoman, a waitress, a bookkeeper, a cashier, or any of the other jobs at which most American women work.

IvankaTrump.com prefers to address style and fashion, what you can buy for work and what you should wear to work, rather than the substance of work. It includes tips on how to get promoted and tips for thinking like a Harvard Business School graduate; it includes pages about yoga for the workday, as well as about entertaining and lifestyle and exercise and what to eat and what to serve. So far, wages, discrimination, and sexual harassment have not been on the radar, not even in a Lean In–lite kind of way. That’s not the purpose of the website. It should be hashtagged #womenwhobuy.

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A profile of Gov. Mitt Romney’s eldest son Tagg, and his family’s “myth of self-reliance”:

Not long after graduating from Harvard Business School, he turned down offers from several prominent firms to join an obscure start-up called eGrad, whose meager resources gave it a kind of grunge aesthetic: secondhand furniture and heating so erratic he brought in blankets to keep warm. When Tagg wasn’t cold calling would-be corporate partners, he could sometimes be found packaging merchandise and mailing it. But making it on your own is never so clear-cut when you’re a Romney. Some of the biggest meetings he landed were with Staples, which his father had funded at Bain Capital, and General Motors, a company where his last name still carried weight.

Tagg’s biography is littered with similar stories—short cuts he couldn’t have taken without his last name, obstacles that melted away before he was even aware of them. And yet, thanks to the Romney myth, he and his family believe that most of what he has achieved comes from old-fashioned industriousness, not older-fashioned status and wealth.

Tagg’s blind spots, however, are largely forgivable. Everyone looks in the mirror on occasion and sees a taller, thinner, more virtuous version of himself. The problem is that Tagg’s blind spots are also Mitt’s. And Mitt’s peculiar version of reality doesn’t just drive him personally; it skews his politics and shapes his policies. It distorts his entire vision of how a president should govern.

“Growing Up Romney.” — Noam Scheiber, The New Republic

More by Scheiber

Growing Up Romney

Longreads Pick

A profile of Gov. Mitt Romney’s eldest son Tagg, and his family’s “myth of self-reliance”:

“Not long after graduating from Harvard Business School, he turned down offers from several prominent firms to join an obscure start-up called eGrad, whose meager resources gave it a kind of grunge aesthetic: secondhand furniture and heating so erratic he brought in blankets to keep warm. When Tagg wasn’t cold calling would-be corporate partners, he could sometimes be found packaging merchandise and mailing it. But making it on your own is never so clear-cut when you’re a Romney. Some of the biggest meetings he landed were with Staples, which his father had funded at Bain Capital, and General Motors, a company where his last name still carried weight.

“Tagg’s biography is littered with similar stories—short cuts he couldn’t have taken without his last name, obstacles that melted away before he was even aware of them. And yet, thanks to the Romney myth, he and his family believe that most of what he has achieved comes from old-fashioned industriousness, not older-fashioned status and wealth.

“Tagg’s blind spots, however, are largely forgivable. Everyone looks in the mirror on occasion and sees a taller, thinner, more virtuous version of himself. The problem is that Tagg’s blind spots are also Mitt’s. And Mitt’s peculiar version of reality doesn’t just drive him personally; it skews his politics and shapes his policies. It distorts his entire vision of how a president should govern.”

Published: Oct 19, 2012
Length: 17 minutes (4,294 words)

President Obama is less skilled than Presidents Clinton and Bush when it comes to buttering up campaign donors. Is this a good thing?

As the Washington fund-raiser sees it, the White House social secretary must spend the first year of an Administration saying, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ Instead, the fund-raiser says, Obama’s first social secretary, Desirée Rogers—a stylish Harvard Business School graduate and a friend from Chicago—made some donors feel unwelcome. Anita McBride, the chief of staff to Laura Bush, says, ‘It’s always a very delicate balance at the White House. Do donors think they are buying favors or access? You have to be very conscious of how you use the trappings of the White House. But you can go too far in the other direction, too. Donors are called on to do a lot. It doesn’t take a lot to say thank you.’ One of the simplest ways, she notes, is to provide donors with ‘grip-and-grin’ photographs with the President. ‘It doesn’t require a lot of effort on anyone’s part, but there’s been a reluctance to do it’ in the Obama White House. ‘That can produce some hurt feelings.’

Big donors were particularly offended by Obama’s reluctance to pose with them for photographs at the first White House Christmas and Hanukkah parties. Obama agreed to pose with members of the White House press corps, but not with donors, because, a former adviser says, ‘he didn’t want to have to stand there for fourteen parties in a row.’ This decision continues to provoke disbelief from some Democratic fund-raisers. ‘It’s as easy as falling off a log!’ one says. ‘They just want a picture of themselves with the President that they can hang on the bathroom wall, so that their friends can see it when they take a piss.’ Another says, ‘Oh, my God—the pictures, the fucking pictures!’ (In 2010, the photograph policy was reversed; Rogers left the Administration that year.)

“Schmooze or Lose.” — Jane Mayer, The New Yorker

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Schmooze or Lose

Longreads Pick

President Obama is less skilled than Presidents Clinton and Bush when it comes to buttering up campaign donors. Is this a good thing?

“As the Washington fund-raiser sees it, the White House social secretary must spend the first year of an Administration saying, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ Instead, the fund-raiser says, Obama’s first social secretary, Desirée Rogers—a stylish Harvard Business School graduate and a friend from Chicago—made some donors feel unwelcome. Anita McBride, the chief of staff to Laura Bush, says, ‘It’s always a very delicate balance at the White House. Do donors think they are buying favors or access? You have to be very conscious of how you use the trappings of the White House. But you can go too far in the other direction, too. Donors are called on to do a lot. It doesn’t take a lot to say thank you.’ One of the simplest ways, she notes, is to provide donors with ‘grip-and-grin’ photographs with the President. ‘It doesn’t require a lot of effort on anyone’s part, but there’s been a reluctance to do it’ in the Obama White House. ‘That can produce some hurt feelings.’

“Big donors were particularly offended by Obama’s reluctance to pose with them for photographs at the first White House Christmas and Hanukkah parties. Obama agreed to pose with members of the White House press corps, but not with donors, because, a former adviser says, ‘he didn’t want to have to stand there for fourteen parties in a row.’ This decision continues to provoke disbelief from some Democratic fund-raisers. ‘It’s as easy as falling off a log!’ one says. ‘They just want a picture of themselves with the President that they can hang on the bathroom wall, so that their friends can see it when they take a piss.’ Another says, ‘Oh, my God—the pictures, the fucking pictures!’ (In 2010, the photograph policy was reversed; Rogers left the Administration that year.)”

Author: Jane Mayer
Source: New Yorker
Published: Aug 20, 2012
Length: 28 minutes (7,190 words)

From Clay Christensen’s forthcoming book How Will You Measure Your Life?, an examination of how businesses and individuals fail to understand the challenges posed by smaller competitors with less to lose:

Case studies such as this one helped me resolve a paradox that has appeared repeatedly in my attempts to help established companies that are confronted by disruptive entrants—as was the case with Blockbuster. Once their executives understood the peril that the disruptive attackers posed, I would say, ‘Okay. Now the problem is that your sales force is not going to be able to sell these disruptive products. They need to be sold to different customers, for different purposes. You need to create a different sales force.’ Inevitably they would respond, ‘Clay, you have no idea how much it costs to create a new sales force. We need to leverage our existing sales team.’

The language of the disruptive attackers was completely different: ‘It’s time to create the sales force.’ Hence, the paradox: Why is it that the big, established companies that have so much capital find these initiatives to be so costly? And why do the small entrants with much less capital find them to be straightforward?

“Excerpt: The Trap of Marginal Thinking.” — Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business School

More #longreads from Harvard Business School

Clayton Christensen: The Survivor

Longreads Pick

The Harvard Business School professor’s work took on new urgency the past few years as he suffered a heart attack followed by cancer followed by a stroke. For Christensen it was not a reason to get too upset. It was another opportunity, in a lifetime full of them, to gain insight into how to make the world work better. Because of his July stroke it took a long time for Christensen to be ready to sit down with Forbes. He was in intensive speech therapy, eight hours a day at the beginning. But he graciously agreed to tell his inspiring story in January, the same month he went back to teaching. Here it is in his words, along with those of his family, friends and close colleagues.

Source: Forbes
Published: Feb 25, 2011
Length: 30 minutes (7,727 words)

How to Survive in Vegas

Longreads Pick

Gary Loveman left a Harvard Business School professorship to join Harrah’s Entertainment. By putting his theories about customer service into practice, he built the world’s biggest gaming company. Then came the crash.

Source: Businessweek
Published: Aug 5, 2010
Length: 17 minutes (4,305 words)

How Four Americans Robbed the Bank of England

The Great City Forgeries: Trial Of The Accused At The Central Criminal Court. Austin Biron Bidwell; George Macdonnell; George Bidwell; Edwin Noyes; Henry Avory, Esq., Clerk Of The Court; Mr. Justice Archibald Alderman; Sir W.r. Carden, 1873 Engraving. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Paul Brown | Longreads | June 2020 | 22 minutes (5,961 words)

On April 18, 1872, Austin Bidwell walked into Green & Son tailors on London’s renowned Savile Row and ordered eight bespoke suits, two topcoats, and a luxurious dressing gown. Bidwell was 26 years old, 6ft tall, and handsomely groomed with a waxed mustache and bushy side-whiskers. If the accent didn’t give it away, his eye-catching western hat marked him out as an American — a rich American. London tradesmen called Americans with bulges of money in their pockets “Silver Kings,” and they were most welcome in upmarket establishments like Green & Son, which charged as much for the strength of their reputations as for the quality of their goods.

Read more…