Business executives call the shots while lawyers merely execute
Carla Harris · Carla Harris – Pearls of Career Wisdom (Capital Allocators, EP.267) · Aug 22, 2022 · at 12:29
Morgan Stanley Senior Client Advisor Carla Harris discusses realizing during her sophomore college internship why she preferred a career in finance over corporate law.
0:00 / 0:07exact quote · 7.3s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“That was the summer I realized that the lawyers didn't call the shots. The business people called the shots, and the lawyers helped you get it done within the context of the law.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Carla Harris
Workplace sponsors matter more than mentors for pay and promotions
“Because that's even more important than mentorship. The sponsor uses their capital on your promotion, your pay, your ability to get new opportunities. The mentor, in my parlance, is the person that will give it to you straight, no chaser. Good, bad, and ugly. …”
Professionals have about 90 days to establish workplace impressions
“You have about 90 days to create an impression when you go into a new space or you're working with somebody for the first time, because it's just natural. To form an opinion that is pretty solid by then.”
Colleagues' perceptions dictate treatment and mirror role-specific success traits
“How people perceive you will directly impact how they deal with you. In order for you to train people to think about you and the way you want them to think about you is you first need to understand the adjectives that are associated with success for that seat.”
Mimicking successful peers destroys your competitive edge
“The temptation is to now do it the way Ted is doing, or say it the way Mary is saying it. And before you know it, you start losing your edge because all you're trying to do is walk and talk like Ted and eat and drink like Mary. You lose the thing that only you…”