What We Can Learn from Taylor Swift

Women at Work

Harvard Business Review

Entrepreneurship, Workplace, Business/management, Business/entrepreneurship, Progress, Resources, Gender, Equality, Business/careers, Women, Hbr, Careers, Management, Business, Harvard, Human

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When our colleague Kevin Evers wrote There’s Nothing Like This: The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift, we knew we had to talk about it. For so many women, she’s a role model—personally and professionally. Four HBR Swifties who read the book highlight how her instincts and decisions offer lessons in leadership, strategy, and staying power.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review.
0:05.2	I'm Amy Gallo, here with Maureen Hoek, who's the editor of HBR.org, and who has a book recommendation for us.
0:12.7	Hi, Amy.
0:13.4	Hi, Maureen.
0:14.5	So my recommendation is a new book from our colleague, Kevin Evers, who's a senior editor here at HBR, and it is called
0:23.1	There's Nothing Like This, The Strategic Genius of Taylor Swift.
0:26.8	I have to tell you, I'm very proud to work for an outlet that has published a book.
0:30.6	I know.
0:31.6	Taylor Swift.
0:33.5	And so here's a question for you, actually.
0:36.2	Yeah.
0:36.8	What do you know of the strategic genius of Taylor Swift?
0:41.8	Well, as the mom of a teenager, when I hear Taylor Swift's name, I get a little disappointed that I didn't raise a Swifty because I felt like that was going to be my entree into her.
0:53.0	So I haven't been as much into her music as I sort of want to be, although folklore didn't get me through some dark pandemic times. But I have been a real keen observer as someone who thinks about women and work and have just always been impressed with her career and how she manages her brand and herself.
1:13.4	And, of course, it's hard to miss the controversy and the shade thrown her way.
1:17.6	And she just always bounces back and always continues to build this amazing business.
1:24.5	So how did you get into Taylor Swiftie? Is Irene a Swifty?
1:29.0	Irene, my daughter, my 10-year-old daughter, I don't know if she'd call herself a Swifty,
1:32.5	but she does have a lot of interest in and admiration for Taylor Swift. And I think one of the
1:38.7	things that Taylor does well is she knows how to hit a moment, right? You know, she's got a really
1:42.9	good sense of timing when she was on SNL and did the 10-minute
1:47.4	version of All Too Well.
	...

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