Brian Krzanich Quotes

Women often are so focused on getting their jobs done well that they forget that building relationships is a key part of being a leader - and increasingly so, the higher you go.

I found people I really wanted to work for; I made myself available to do whatever I could with the skills I had; I took some risk, packing up and moving to Chicago; and I looked for the opportunities that fit for me. So I think the biggest advice is to find people you love to work for who you're going to learn from.

It wasn't until the second half of my first year that I realized you have to try to make friends and meet people at Harvard; the chances don't come to you.

In my 20s, I was too shy to reach out to successful DPs and directors for an internship or to shadow them. I see young people nowadays doing that all the time. I think that experience would have been cool.

I do a lot of schmoozing.

And that's another piece of advice I'll give junior writers; when you get to the point where they take you to lunch, let the editor suggest where to go.

Sometimes I call directors. Sometimes I just meet with them. It just happens. It's not that I'm pushy. It comes naturally. But I go ahead. I don't stay in my armchair, waiting for the phone to ring.

I feel that I don't have to wait around for good scripts anymore, that I can get things moving more quickly. I can ring up directors I like and say I'm keen to work with them, which is pretty great.

I just like to talk to people. I don't know how to bridge the gap between getting to know someone and then schmoozing and sort of working contacts and business connections.

You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.

You should be accumulating really great relationships throughout your career.

Bottom line: if you show a genuine interest in learning about how others became successful, you can open up a world of opportunities.

You must develop personal contacts if you want to be successful.

I'm from a generation of women that shattered the glass ceiling. We didn't wait for doors to open. The lesson I learned is that you need to open some doors for yourself in pursuit of career advancement.

It's hard to enlist the support of people you don't know, but it's critical to growing your career, finding new customers, and building out your team.

You need to be really great at your job. You need a strong network of peers, and you need a strong network of mentors.

I sometimes tell a director that I want to work with him. I tell him twice. After that if he still doesn't give me a call, I move on.

The biggest thing I learned at Wisconsin was, it's all who you work for, not where you work or what level.

I'm not the type who will go and ask people for roles.

I was networking every day from 21 to 28 years old. I sent 10 letters a day, which means I reached out to 3,000 people in a year.

Find someone within the company who is on another team but is at a similar level or role as you to be a friend, a sounding board, and a place to go for candid feedback. Find a mentor within the company who resembles the leader you'd like to grow to be.

I hate to see people frustrated or leave a company for an opportunity they could easily have had at their current company if they had only asked.

The thing is, I wasn't surrounded by lots of people who were helping me build a career.

You have to take control of your own career.

If you can get better at your job, you should be an active member of LinkedIn, because LinkedIn should be connecting you to the information, insights and people to be more effective.