Postcards

Flexible options for the rest of us

by Jessica Shambora

We all want flexibility in our workplace. We want to choose the types of projects we take on, and where and when we do our work.

Pattie has written a lot about flexibility on Postcards. Look at all the high-powered women who recently left high-powered jobs: Suhkinder Singh Cassidy, who was president of Asia-Pacific & Latin American operations at Google (GOOG); Dawn Hudson, former chief of Pepsi-Cola (PEP) North MORE

Power Point: Help us do our taxes

"We need to simplify a monstrous tax code that is far too complicated for most Americans to understand, but just complicated enough for the insiders who know how to game the system."

-- President Barack Obama in a speech at the White House on Wednesday. The first couple paid about $855,000 in federal taxes and would have gotten $26,000 back, but applied the amount to their 2009 income taxes instead. Happy MORE

Blackstone boss shares his capitalist angst

Blackstone Group (BX) CEO Steve Schwarzman is worried. Very worried.

Last evening, at the firm's annual press dinner, the big boss of the buyout industry riffed about what he's been hearing as he has circled the globe. I was lucky enough to sit at his table -- and I asked him that question, in fact: So, Steve, how do you think the U.S. and its economic policies are being viewed abroad? MORE

Power Point: Don't waste your gray matter

"I'm one of these who believes you have so much gray matter in your head. And if you take all your gray matter and you worry about what you can't control, you're wasting an awful lot of good gray matter, right?"

--Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) CEO Bill Weldon, in a recent interview with Fortune. The New Jersey-based maker of Band-Aids, knee replacements, and prescription drugs--and a bellwether for the health-care industry--announced MORE

Defying the downturn: Bravo and beyond

Defining a brand and sticking to it is always difficult. Particularly in a downturn.

Which is why the success of Bravo - the NBC Universal cable network that serves up food, fashion, beauty, design and pop culture to upscale audiences - is all the more impressive.

This morning, I went to Bravo's "upfront" presentation, where NBCU's Lauren Zalaznick, who built the network, and her team pitched their new season and their growth MORE

Power Point: Be a healthy skeptic

"When I call Charlie with an idea, and he says, 'That is really a dumb idea,' that means we should put 100% of our net worth into it. If he says, 'That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard,' then you should put 50% of your net worth into it. Only if he says, 'I'm going to have you committed,' does it mean he really doesn't like the idea."

--Berkshire Hathaway MORE

Looking for inspirational leadership

Leadership is changing--for the better. That's one good thing that will come out of the global crisis.

On Friday I wrote about empathy as a key component of leadership--and got lots of feedback about the post. One senior executive at a Fortune 500 company called me today to say that he shared it with some community leaders in his hometown. "If you can't empathize, no one will follow you," this exec MORE

Power Point: Stop the free fall

"I think we can be reasonably confident that that's going to end within the next few months and that you'll no longer have that sense of free fall."

--White House economic adviser Larry Summers, at the Economic Club of Washington on Thursday. Summers compared the economic crisis to a ball falling off the table. Let's hope for a soft landing.

As Summers spoke, a banner unfurled behind him: "We Want Our $$$ MORE

What makes a leader? Empathy

Empathy. It's a not a word that usually comes up first and foremost when people talk about leadership.

But it should.

I've been thinking a lot about empathy--the capacity to see things as others do. Consider Detroit's myopic auto executives, Wall Street's clueless CEOs and the many arrogant titans of industry who have stirred populist wrath. Many have fallen because they've failed to understand how their actions--their planes, their perks, their out-sized MORE

Power Point: Wish for broader shoulders

"There's an expression that I like that I always use: 'Don't wish for a lighter load, wish for broader shoulders.' I see a lot of broader shoulders these days. People are really working on the delts, you know?"

--Michael J. Fox on Larry King Live Thursday. Fox, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1991, has written his second book, Always Looking Up, which explores the nature of optimism. Fox says that MORE