Beth Comstock
Beth Comstock’s just-published Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and the Power of Change tells in riveting style the story of rising from humble beginnings to the C-suite of a Fortune 5 company, General Electric. The writing pulls you along. The often vulnerable content engages you, as do the names she works with: Jack, Jeff, Bill, Steve, and others whom you only need to know their first names.
Any MBA or entrepreneur in New York City has known her as supporting us developing and reaching our potential—an influence rarely coming from such mega-institutions. I felt that support for years, even before meeting her, which I attribute to her leadership style.
Her CV is off the charts, but she’s down to Earth, so I’ll share her background in her words from her page:
MY MISSION
Hi, I’m
I’m driven to understand what’s next, navigate change and help others do the same. By cultivating a habit of seeking out new ideas, people and places, I built a career path that took me from storyteller to chief marketer to corporate Vice Chair and author.
MY WORK
My first book Imagine it Forward was published in September 2018. I am a director at Nike, trustee of The National Geographic Society and former board president of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum. I graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in biology.
MY CAREER
Until December 2017, I spent nearly three decades at GE. As Chief Marketing Officer and then Vice Chair of Innovation, I led efforts to accelerate new growth, develop digital and clean-energy futures, seed new businesses and enhance brand value.
As President of Integrated Media at NBC Universal, I oversaw TV ad revenue and digital media efforts, including the early development of hulu.com. Prior to this, I held a succession of roles at NBC, CBS and CNN/Turner Broadcasting.
Everyone can learn from Beth to reach his or her potential, building a supportive community in the process, getting results while improving morale.
(By the way, Welch, Immelt, Gates, and Jobs, if they weren’t obvious).
118: Beth Comstock 2: Action creates awareness
“To start, I need to build awareness.”
Who hasn’t said that about polluting less? It seems the standard starting point. On the contrary, it’s the standard delay tactic.
In a world where environmental issues are front page news and everyone sees the pollution that they create, claiming a goal of awareness more often delays action. You’re already aware. Plenty aware.
Action creates awareness more than awareness creates action.
Beth shows personal leadership—accountability, responsibility, openness, honesty, and more—in revealing that someone who is aware, when she chooses to act, reaches whole new levels of awareness.
I believe most people delay action because they anticipate how much awareness of themselves they know action will create. They’ll realize they could have acted long before and will feel bad about it.
She got hit over the head with how much more she depends on plastic than she expected. She didn’t hide from it. Unlike most people, instead of giving up, she used the opportunity to grow, to try to live by values that she thought she was but wasn’t. Thinking, planning, and trying to build awareness without acting is like standing still in comparison.
Yes, it makes us feel bad to live with our values in conflict with our values. We can try to cover up those feelings by ignoring the conflict. It doesn’t make it go away. That conflict manifests as anxiety, anger, shame, guilt, and other emotions we don’t like. Instead of changing, we cover up, blame others, and point fingers. Anything but changing.
The route out of feeling bad is to face and overcome the internal conflict creating those feelings. Other people and the world don’t create internal conflict. We do when we value one thing and do another.
Few people face such challenges, fewer still among renowned leaders, fewer still publicly, fewer still keep at it and find ways to use the challenge to recharge them.
Beth did.
107: Beth Comstock, part 1: Inside the Fortune 5 C-Suite
Beth personifies whom this podcast is designed to showcase: someone whose hard work, risk-taking, and personal challenge brought her to the pinnacle of her craft, which she is willing to share. That is, someone who did what leaders in the environment have to—to work hard before you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, having faith in yourself.
She shares inside views of cultural change toward environmental stewardship at General Electric, with over 300,000 employees, a world of suppliers and clients, a century of history including major environmental damage. To this day, when I mention swimming across the Hudson, people ask about GE, PCBs, and carcinogens.
She didn’t shy from the challenges. She took them on. As I saw it, she worked as successful leaders do, with people, seeing them as allies and resources. You’ll hear her story, results, and lessons, which apply to my work with large corporations. You’ll hear me learning from her how I can help my clients.
She also takes on a challenge that sounds big to me. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.