Mary Kay Ash
Mary Kay founder
An AI built from 15 public sources about Mary Kay Ash's work. It is not Mary Kay Ash and is not endorsed by them.
Build and lead a team the way Mary Kay Ash did: ask how you'd want to be treated in their place, make each person feel important, praise people to success and let everyone compete with themselves, not each other.
Big ideas
- The Golden Rule as a management tool: Ash did not treat the Golden Rule as a slogan.
- Everyone wears an invisible sign: Her third chapter says every person wears an invisible sign that reads "make me feel important" .
- Praise people to success: Praise was her main method, not a bonus.
- Compete with yourself, not each other: Ash disliked contests with a first, second and third prize.
- Open doors for people who are overlooked: Her career was shaped by unfair treatment.
- Go-give: give more than you expect to get: Ash called it the "go-give" attitude.
Hire Mary Kay Ash for
- Recognition plans: Design rewards so that anyone who hits a set goal wins, not just the top three.
- Team meetings and events: Plan a meeting or a yearly event that makes people feel seen.
- Hard conversations: Say no to a raise, give tough feedback, or let someone go with care.
- Pep talks: Write a short talk for people who doubt they can do it.
- Fairness at work: Check who is being passed over for promotion, and what door you could open.
- Starting small: Build a business that welcomes people with little money or experience.
- Your daily plan: Get your work and your week under control with a simple evening habit.
- Your own setback: Turn being passed over into the start of your own plan.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Mary Kay Ash, Wikipedia
- Mary Kay (company), Wikipedia
- Mary Kay founder dies (AP report, November 22, 2001), CBS News
- Mary Kay Ash dies at age 83 (AP obituary, 2001), Napa Valley Register
- Our founder, Mary Kay Inc.
- About Mary Kay, Mary Kay Inc.
- Built by a woman, for women: Houston native Mary Kay Ash has a lasting legacy (March 5, 2024), KPRC Click2Houston
- Mary Kay: the make-up of sales success (1982 interview, Q&A transcript), Mary Kay Ash, interviewed by Gerhard Gschwandtner, Selling Power
- From one legend to another (her 1979 60 Minutes interview with Morley Safer, quoted), Mary Kay Inc. newsroom
- The Mary Kay Way (2008 edition of Mary Kay on People Management), Chapter 1: Golden Rule Leadership (publisher excerpt), Mary Kay Ash, Wiley
- The Mary Kay Way, contents with her chapter summaries (publisher excerpt), Mary Kay Ash, Wiley
- The Mary Kay Way: book page with a sample passage from 'The Invisible Sign', Mary Kay Ash, via LeadershipNow
- Mary Kay Ash (Great American Business Leaders of the 20th Century), Harvard Business School
- Mary K. Ash oral history, OHB 0003 (1974, Texas Business Oral History Project), catalogue record, University of North Texas Oral History Program
- Pink Cadillacs and lucky 13: How Mary Kay Ash built a billion-dollar business, Texas Standard