In season three of Mad Men, Sterling Cooper’s rainmakers — including Don Draper and Roger Sterling — are planning to leave the ad agency and to take as many clients as possible with them. They’re in the firm’s Manhattan offices on a Sunday morning, plotting their exit, when the knowledge dawns: they don’t know where the client files are. They stare at each other, aghast. Fans everywhere screamed, “Joan! Get Joan!!” And indeed, the hyper-competent office manager, Joan Holloway, joins the men in the next scene, finds the files, and later recreates Sterling Cooper’s smooth-running routines in a new agency.
Don Draper Is Replaceable; Joan Holloway Isn’t
Research on the cost of losing internally facing executives.
August 12, 2014
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Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Marketing Essentials. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Learn how to communicate with your customers—strategically.