Bell said that "Career GPS" includes her own knowledge and experience, in addition to featuring several "candid" accounts by women who have succeeded in the corporate world and who are eager to share advice. The book is intended for women of all careers, ages and ethnicities who want to learn more about balancing their careers with other parts of their lives, according to a press release.
"We help you organize and to structure your thinking about how to succeed and what next step to take," Bell said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "We help you to deep-dive into what it is that you bring to the table as a leader, so that you build on your self-awareness and your confidence to succeed."
Bell wrote about lessons learned from her experiences as a professor, a consultant to Fortune 100 companies and the founder of ASCENT-Leading Multicultural Women to the Top, the first leadership program initiative established for the professional advancement of women, the release said. Bell began working on the program in 2004, according to ASCENT's web site.
Although Bell said that early in her career she researched and focused her writing on the obstacles that women especially minority women experience in the workplace, she is now working to relate her findings to the modern corporate world.
"I think it's important to now flip my earlier research around and say, Okay here's how you do it,'" Bell said in the interview. "Not that there's one way of doing it, but there are certain processes and steps that you can do that can help you succeed."
"Career GPS" confronts introspective questions that women ask in trying to find their "passion" and "energy" in life and the workplace, she said.
"We keep looking for our passion like it's hanging on a tree somewhere, but it's really inside of us," Bell said. "We all ask the question continually: what do I want to be when I grow up?"
This question is repeatedly posed at every stage of one's personal "journey" through life and career, she said.
"In Career GPS,' I try to help people think about that broader question: what do I want to be?" Bell said. "What does success look like for me? Not someone else defining it, but what does it look like for me?"
Undergraduates in particular should focus on "feeding their curiosity" and discovering what it is that "really energizes" them, instead of adhering to their parents' expectations, she said.
"Dartmouth is like a wonderful candy factory," Bell said. "There are so many things that you can taste and experience, but it's really how do you zero in on finding out what really gets you excited, and then figure out how to get more of that experience, whatever it is."
Bell said she plans on promoting her book at several professional development conferences in the coming months. She will sign books at events centered on her research and ASCENT, she said.
Bell, an expert on issues of race, gender, career and organizational behavior in business, also co-authored a book, "Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity." She has written several articles for Essence magazine, a publication largely focused on issues facing African-American women and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Newsweek, Working Mother and Fast Company, according to the release.
