Like any new college graduate, I was wide-eyed and excited to start my job as a food scientist for Kraft Foods. With my degree from Cornell in Food Science/Chemistry, my first project was inventing synthetic blueberries — what could be more exciting?
About nine months into the role, my boss’s boss, Bob, held a contest across all the laboratories: Each scientist could submit three new product ideas, and Bob would pick the best ones and present them to the incoming new director of R&D. I submitted not three, but 15 new product ideas.
The following week, I was talking to Bob’s executive assistant and glanced at her computer screen. I said, “That’s my list of new product ideas. Why are you retyping it?” The assistant gave me a grim look and said, “Bob had some changes.” She pushed my original piece of paper across the desk. Bob had crossed out my name and put his instead — that was the only change. “Seriously?” I said. The assistant shook her head in disgust.
I was in shock. Bob was planning on presenting my work as his own? Although it was early in my career, I knew this wasn’t right. I spoke with my direct boss. Her advice? “Just accept it, Shaz. This is corporate America; these things happen, especially to women.” But I could not just accept it. I told her I wanted to speak directly to Bob about it. She said, “Good luck! Go ahead and try.”
A couple of days later, I was in Bob’s office. He had turned off all the lights except his desk lamp, which cast a sinister glare on his face. I explained, “Look, Bob, I worked hard to come up with these original product ideas. I don’t feel comfortable about you presenting them with just your name on them.” Maybe he’d reconsider? Instead, he said, “Well, I’m in charge, and I can do whatever I want. And if you don’t like it, too bad. Someday when you’re in charge, you can do whatever you want.” I retorted, “When I am in charge, I certainly will never treat someone the way you are treating me now.” End of meeting. I walked away, realizing that I was on my own.
This was a disaster — and a life-changing situation. I realized that the same thing could happen to me in a week, a month, a year — and it could keep right on happening to me if I stayed in that job. I needed to be in control of my career and my destiny. At that moment, I decided to make a career change with the goal of someday running a business or company. But there were no scientist CEOs at the time, so I realized I’d need to get an MBA. My first lesson in resourcefulness was to recognize the downside of my job and shift gears.
Two new situations arose that helped set me on my new career trajectory. The first was that I was invited to present new product ideas to the marketing team that would choose which projects to fund. The VP of marketing, Dave, had a diverse team and a great marketing mind and was highly collaborative. I realized: Dave is exactly the kind of executive I need to get to know. After the meeting, I chased Dave down the hall and told him how impressed I was with his marketing savvy and that I was planning on getting an MBA in marketing. I offered to buy him lunch so I could pick his brain on marketing, and to my delight, he agreed. We had an engaging discussion, and Dave surprised me by suggesting that we have lunch together once a month. I had finally met a talented executive who was kind, ethical, and interested in developing the careers of younger employees.
Then there was the new director of R&D, Charlie — the boss of Bob. At lunch in the cafeteria, another scientist pointed out Charlie, so I took the initiative to go welcome him and introduce myself. I invited Charlie to come by the lab so I could show him what I was working on. It became a common practice for Charlie to visit me in the lab on Friday afternoons to chat about scientific progress.
So, the second lesson I learned about resourcefulness was that while the company had no formal mentoring program, I was able to acquire not one but two fantastic mentors, Dave and Charlie. That set the stage for what would come next.
Over the course of my normal lab work, I noticed a problem with the sample procurement process across all the labs. I came up with some ideas to fix it. Dave and Charlie supported my solution but said we needed the support of Rick, the VP of R&D, before moving forward. The catch? Rick’s calendar was jam-packed for months.
Rick’s assistant mentioned that he worked out at the company gym every morning at 5:30 a.m. That was our in. We came up with a plan. We quickly created an audio tape with a Mission: Impossible theme that explained the problem and our solution. I slipped it to the gym manager that night and asked him to play it when Rick was on the treadmill the next morning. By 9 a.m., we were called in to Rick’s office. He loved the tape, was enthusiastic about the program, and wanted us to implement it right away. The sample procurement effort saved the company $1.3 million in the first six months.
At that point, I had already been accepted to Wharton. But a huge surprise was that Charlie and Dave had nominated me for the Kraft Leadership Fellowship, which provided a full scholarship to a top-tier MBA program. This was a gift I would never have received if I hadn’t been resourceful — a skill that has been critical throughout my career. A postscript: I did eventually lead companies and teams and never treated anyone the way Bob had treated me.
The lesson? The next time you’re confronted with obstacles, think about how you can use the Superpower of Being Resourceful. Find ways to create opportunity for yourself, be proactive, think of ingenious approaches to problems, and if the ideal career conditions don’t exist for you — then make them.
Shaz Kahng WG89 is a multiple-time board director and CEO and a founding member and board director for Wharton Alumni for Boards. She has served on boards for public and private companies, including GoPro, InsideTracker, and Gymboree. She is also a board director for the nonprofit LiveGirl. Previously, Kahng was the CEO of Gymboree and Lucy Activewear and led global businesses at Nike. She is the author of the award-winning Ceiling Smashers novels that spotlight what it takes for female business leaders to succeed. This is the first article in a series about the real-life events that inspired those books.
