Sheryl Sandberg is someone in the business world whom I have come to really like over the years. I read a great profile of hers from the New Yorker and I wanted to write down few thoughts that came to me as I read it. Here goes. Check out the article if you have time. It's pretty good read.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_auletta
Unlike most students
You would agree with me when I say Sheryl Sandberg must have been unlike most students. There must be something different in how she got things done and how she gets things done now.
In the article, Lawrence Summers tells a story of how Sandberg typically works. At the World Bank, in 1991, when Sandberg was working as a research assistant , Summers gave her a task of researching on bailout of Russia. "What most students would have done," Summers says, "is gone off to the library, skimmed some books on Russian history, and said they were't sure it was possible. What Sandberg did was call Richard Pipes," who was a leading historian of the Russian Revolution and a professor at Harvard. "She engaged him for one hour and took detailed notes." The next day, she reported back to Summers.
I was particularly struck by this section and a sentence following "What most students would have done" because I wondered what I would have done under similar situation. Would I have been like most students? Maybe. Maybe not. What's so impressive with what Sandberg had done is that she knew who to go to and went right to the expert and engaged him for hour and took detailed notes, saving herself a ton of time.
I reflected on my seven years in tech industry where I was more like most students and less like Sandberg. At times, I tried to figure out the answer on my own, when the right approach was to go and talk to the manager who was in charge or knew history of that particular issue. The key is to know who to talk, find out who to talk to, how to develop relationships with such right person, and how to engage that person. Doing so will get the job done right and with speed.
Ambition and Humility
As I was reading the article, I realized why I came to like Sandberg over the years. It's because she is the kind of person I would like to be: ambitious and yet humble. In the article, Ken says that Sandberg neither flaunts nor hides her ambition. Mark Zuckberg says "she really wants to get her hands dirty and work, and doesn't need to be the front person all the time." Howard Shultz of Starbucks says of her, "Most people you meet who are highly qualified and accomplished tend to want to tell you all the things they've done and how smart they are. Or they want to impress you. Sheryl is not like that at all."
Smart. Ambitious. Humble. Sheryl Sandberg.
Connecting the dots or not
Didn't Steve Jobs say you can't connect the dots looking forward and you can only connect the dots looking backward? Well, Sandberg must have been a fan of Jobs because, in the article, asked what she can imagine doing next, she responded, "I always tell people if you try to connect the dots of your career, if you mess it up you're going to wind up on a very limited path. If I decided what I was going to do in college -- when there was no Internet, no Google, no Facebook.....I don't want to make that mistake. The reason I don't have a plan is because if I have a plan I'm limited to today's options.
I think everyone has a plan or thought about a plan to get ahead in his or her career. I, for one, have thought about a plan. Working hard. Getting noticed. Getting an MBA. Rising up the corporate ladder. Does this help me to achieve or limit me to one path and close other paths or options out there?
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