Does Ivanka really mean business?
If this is the Trump daughter’s idea of a self-help book for women, then... IVANKA,
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Adecade ago, manufacturers of everything from sausages to sofas felt obliged to claim they were ‘passionate’ about what they did. Signs appeared in shop windows saying ‘Passionate about olive oil’, ‘Passionate about tents’ or even ‘Passionate about stationery’.
But after a year or two, passion took a back seat and gave way to fanaticism. Frozen fish-finger merchants were ‘Fanatical about fish’ and every coffee outlet was ‘Fanatical about great coffee’. I even saw a sign over a buffet that read ‘Fanatical about hot and cold baguettes’.
Clearly, America is lagging behind. Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka remains passionate or, more often, ‘deeply passionate’ about anything and everything.
In the preface to her new self-help book, she says she is ‘deeply passionate’ about ‘levelling the playing field’ for women. Chapter one – ‘Dream Big’ – is subtitled ‘Identify your passions to create a life you’ll love’. Its first sentence is: ‘Passion to me, and to many of the women I know, is our purpose, our reason for being.’ On the same page, Ivanka reveals ‘my greatest passion is being a wife and a mother’ and also that she is ‘deeply passionate about being an entrepreneur’.
And so it goes on: she’s passionate about inspiring communities, passionate about her career, passionate about success, passionate about developing passions. ‘Passion equals happiness’ reads one subheading, and ‘Prioritize your passions by being proactive’ reads another.
All the CEOs she interviews are similarly fired up with passion. Someone called Michelle Kohanzo, ‘now managing director of The Land Of Nod’, states that ‘The Land of Nod is truly my passion’. The senior vice-president of human resources at the Trump Organisation advises: ‘Hire for passion… You cannot teach passion. Passion is what you bring to the party.’ Tina Wells (‘CEO of Buzz Marketing Group’) advises writing a ‘personal brand statement’ that ‘not only says what you do, it also says what you’re passionate about’. To create one for yourself, she suggests writing out the following sentence and then filling in the blanks: ‘I’m passionate about ___ and this is what I do with that passion ___.’ By now, you may have gathered that Ivanka Trump’s Women Who Work is yet another how-to-succeed manual, destined to join many others, including her father’s, on the front tables of America’s bookshops. These manuals hold out the promise of untold wealth, success and happiness in a few easy steps. Follow my advice, they suggest, and you, too, could end up as rich and smiley as me.
Although each of them claims to have found a unique formula for success, they all copy each other and devote an inordinate amount of space to quoting from their fellow snake-oil salesmen.
In line with this successful formula, Ivanka, or more probably an assistant, has passionately copied-and-pasted passages from books such as The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People, How Remarkable Women Lead and Grit: The Power Of Passion And Perseverance – and then larded the rest of her book with passionate coatings of cliches and truisms.
One easy way to judge the worth of any given statement is to ask yourself if anyone would ever suggest its opposite. ‘I know lots of people who are outwardly successful and inwardly miserable – to me that’s not success,’ writes Ivanka. Well, fancy that! But has anyone ever argued that inward misery is a sure sign of success? Every page arrives piled high with platitudes: be bold, follow your dreams, embrace
challenges, lead with a purpose, it’s all about teamwork, be inspired and inspiring, every problem is an opportunity, blah, blah, blah. ‘I believe that we each get one life and it’s up to us to live it to the fullest,’ she writes on page 8. ‘This concept is central to our mission.’ She clearly believes this nugget deserves repetition, because on page 145, she is still saying it. ‘I believe that we each get one life – and it’s up to us to live it to the fullest,’ she writes. Perhaps she thought that by inserting that dash in the middle she would make it sound new and exciting.
Under the heading ‘Master the art of conversation’, she asks: ‘One of the best ways to master communication?’ She then answers her own question: ‘Ask questions and listen well.’ Who’d have thought it? And there was me thinking that ‘Block your ears and don’t let anyone else get a word in edgeways’ was the best way to communicate.
‘Another way to foster your curiosity,’ she advises, ‘is to talk to people.’ Whatever next? ‘Drinking water is a great way to quench your thirst’? ‘Swimming is the best way to avoid drowning’?
After leaving university, Ivanka worked for a year in a Brooklyn realestate company (‘I’m passionate about real estate’) before deciding to ‘take the leap’ and join her father’s business. As the big day approached, her mind ‘swam with questions prompted by the unknown’. But – you’ll never guess – joining the Trump Organisation turned out to be a canny move. Soon, she was shooting up the hierarchy. ‘Today, I’m an executive vice-president at the Trump Organisation, co-founder of Trump Hotels and Scion, and founder of my own eponymous fashion brand,’ she says, proudly, before modestly acknowledging that ‘my family’s name’ has ‘undeniably’ been ‘one factor in my success’.
After joining her daddy’s organisation in early 2005, Ivanka ‘discovered early on that I had an intuitive understanding of marketing as well as an eye for design and a strong aesthetic point of view’. Quite how a command of aesthetics would have helped her succeed in the hideous world of Trump Hotels, she fails to say.
I wonder if President Trump has grabbed a moment to absorb his daughter’s advice? ‘Know that you can be kind and still be effective.’ ‘Be nice, no matter what.’ ‘Be gracious, no matter the outcome.’ ‘It’s crucial not to burn bridges.’
If only Daddy had known all this before he started dealing with his fellow Republican leadership contenders, the Clintons, Barack Obama, the head of the FBI, the Chinese, the Mexicans and the world’s media, the world might now be a very different place. The only piece of Ivanka’s advice Donald has definitely taken to heart is: ‘As leaders, we need to create and cultivate a culture that truly embraces women.’ Though not, perhaps, in quite the right way.
She pays tribute to her father in her lengthy gushing acknowledgments at the back. ‘Dad, you never cease to amaze me!’ she coos. ‘You have taught me to dream big and then surpass these goals – and to never, ever give up.’ Her sense of drive seems almost manic. ‘Winning a deal is exciting,’ she says, ‘but I always joke that that’s when the real work begins.’ The operative phrase in that sentence is ‘I always joke.’ It’s all a far cry from Tommy Cooper.
Ivanka’s world is peculiarly joyless, ruled by work and achievement. She schedules quality time for her children into her calendar ‘as I would a meeting – it’s just as important to me’. She also schedules a ‘date night’ for her husband, which takes place every other week. Every New Year’s Day she takes time off from her family holiday to ‘brainstorm a long list of high-level objectives… And I write a list for connecting with each of my kids.’
Her advice is written with all the grim, manic zeal of someone who believes that the world is about to come to an end. Does she know something we don’t know?
‘Every page is piled high with platitudes: be bold, follow your dreams, be inspired… blah, blah, blah’