The Memo

May 27, 2019
Harts, an assistant professor of public service at NYU’s Wagner School and CEO of career-coaching company The Memo, issues a direct rejoinder to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In in this urgent career guide. While reading Sandberg’s book, Harts recalls, she realized that all of the books she had read about female business success came from a white perspective. Moreover, she had no interest in a narrative of overcoming career roadblocks by just working harder, when systemic injustice is the obstacle in place. By writing this book, Harts explains, she wants to keep women of color from leaning out of the workforce because of bias and limited opportunity. Buoyed up by examples from her own experiences, such as how she confronted a white colleague who consistently called her “the black girl,” Harts provides a necessary guide written from and to women of color, focusing on “building your squad,” navigating office politics, managing in a world that is anything but postracial, and investing in oneself and one’s career. “Don’t take sh— from anyone,” she advises, followed by a much-needed wake-up call for her white readers, in how—and how not—to be an ally. The result is a much-needed new perspective on an overwhelmingly white genre.