BOOK REVIEW - Beyond the Label, Maureen Chiquet.
It was yet another pink designed book jacket, dedicated to women in business. Despite it’s predictable aesthetic, it was this simple question that made my heart skip a beat;
“Why can’t you study literature and become a CEO?”
I spent three years in Dublin studying English Literature and Art History. Now the big girl business owner in Hobart, I’ve lived with 20+ years of legitimising my Art’s Degree. Reading Chiquet’s words was suddenly like the permission, the approval, the YES you are good enough, love letter I have waited so long to receive:
“Every discipline in the humanities - literature, history, art history, philosophy or religious studies - teaches us how to question how we see and interpret the world and who we are as human beings. These courses of study call upon us to become close observers of people and images, of so called facts of variegated points of view. They ask us to draw relevant connections and to develop our own narratives about their significance. We do the same thing in nearly any business and in our lives all the time.”
Maureen Chiquet, a graduate herself of Literature, albeit from Yale University, never followed the traditional path of business executive, instead using her distinct ability to blend creativity, curiosity and tenacious self-belief to find her seat at prestigious boardrooms across Europe and the US.
She writes with a clear empathy for the everyday woman in her part-memoir, part leadership journal, which I found was distinctly devoid of ego. The Converse-wearing fashion executive challenges the traditional principles of the Executive, sharing her unique approach and the strategies she used to build her career from L’Oreal sales rep to Global CEO of Chanel.
If you’re like me and often queried her Jack of all Trades career path, then Beyond the Label might be the read you need. For someone who accidentally landed in marketing after a life in the Creative Arts and the world of Interiors, it’s these reassuring words from someone who also fell in love with France, is fascinated by subversion and values the power of listening that made me swallow this book up and dog-ear many of its pages.
“A great marketer has to learn the rules, to read the score, as it were, before trying to come up with her own riff. But coming up with an original riff, is, ultimately, the whole point. Ask customers who they want, and they’ll tell you pretty much what you expect to hear. But ask them what they crave, and they may not know the answer. Great marketers provide products and communication that have unexpected, and therefore compelling emotional appeal.”
Beyond the Label is published by Harper Collins and can be found in your favourite bookstore. Mine is Fullers Bookshop, Hobart