Latest / The Bold Lounge / Janet Foutty: Instincts in Action- Bold Decisions in Leadership

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Janet Foutty: Instincts in Action- Bold Decisions in Leadership · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Lee Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or douse along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Today I have Janet Fowdy.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Janet is an accomplished senior business leader, technologist, author and frequent public speaker.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: She spent over 30 years at Deloitte, during which she led numerous practices through change and growth, including technology government, and culminated her career by serving as CEO of Deloitte Consulting and US Board Chair of Deloitte respectively.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: Janet is focused on applying her leadership experience and passionate advocacy for diversity, equity and inclusion, women in leadership, and the need for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education through investing her time across nonprofit, public policy, corporate America and academia.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome, janet to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Lee.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: It is wonderful to be here with you today.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: We're going to jump right in.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: We had a great pre -conversation and we're going to jump right into your definition of bold.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: What does bold look like in Janet's world?
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: I love that question.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I have to say, as I was thinking about our discussion today, it's funny.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Bold is a word that I use a lot very casually, but I actually had to stop and think for a moment about what I thought it actually meant as it applied to the universe that I live in.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I've spent a lot of time in the recent years thinking about courage.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: I actually think I draw a lot of parallels between bold and being courageous.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: What I've come to think about over the decades that you highlighted in my very gracious bio is that being bold is doing something that is uncomfortable to you personally.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: What might be bold for you, lee, might be straightforward for me.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Things that might be bold for me might be straightforward for you.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: I've really come to a conclusion that bold is very much in the eyes of the person who is taking the bold action in terms of things that push them outside of what they're comfortable and confident in doing.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: For sure.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: There is no growth without discomfort.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: That's what you know.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: There's probably some famous person that said that, but it definitely.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's true.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's like we're not going to grow.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: If you're feeling comfortable, 100%, sometimes I feel like, oh, I feel comfortable, like, oh, what's wrong?
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: Well, as a lifetime consultant and then executive, I feel like you know, every short while if I start to feel a smidge complacent, my brain starts to buzz a little bit and say okay, got to push myself to that place of discomfort is sort of my natural state of being a bit.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So when based on your definition of courage and comfort level and really kind of moving forward into maybe something that could be fearful even you know, I don't think it's fearless.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: There's uncertainty sometimes when we're being bold, but we've thought it through.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: What is an example of what's one of the things that comes up for you is the first time you were bold.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Well, first time maybe I'll go back to in a moment.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I do have to acknowledge you shared in my bio that I just left Deloitte this past fall and that unto itself was a bold move after 30 plus years in the same place, which is pretty unusual in this day and age, and maybe we'll pull on that thread a bit in our conversation.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: Early in my career, one of the things that was hard for me was sort of being comfortable in my own skin, especially as it related to giving really direct and clear feedback, and I think we'll have that as a theme through our conversation.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: So it's something I've worked really hard on, probably the moment of where that boldness became the most clear to me.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I was a young leader at Deloitte and we were doing a very we and I was leading a very complex and very edgy acquisition and there was a lot of boldness in that moment.
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: There was boldness because we were acquiring a company that did not look anything like anything we'd done at Deloitte, and I'll maybe I'll share just a thread of a bold story.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: In the context of that, which was, I was also had a lot going on in my personal life in the moment and so, if I set up the context a little bit.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: We were acquiring a company and I was leading the charge, focused on really building what has since become Deloitte digital, which is a very significant part of the Deloitte ecosystem, and really set the ground for professional services, sort of leading into the digital business.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: We're deep into the acquisition and navigating all the twists and turns of an organization that, as I said, did not look at all like Deloitte.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: That unto itself we could talk about me walking into the Deloitte boardroom, which I then spent a lot of time in and convincing them that this was going to be key.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: But actually the most bold moment was even a bit more personal.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: We had the key primary meeting with the company we were acquiring the bankers and the Deloitte executive team and it was set by the bankers and I realized that that meeting and I met with the team a bit, but it had been very informal.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: That meeting was on my kids first day of high school.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: I'm the mom of twins and it was their first day of high school and the meeting was in Seattle and I live in Chicago and I hand wrung it, agonized over what to do and I finally called my banker and I said, listen, I cannot be there in person.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: It was before we had all the wonderful Zoom infrastructure we have today and I said I cannot be there in person and there's just no way I'm going to miss my kids first day of high school.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Now, whether my kids cared, that's a whole different discussion.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Well, they probably cared, but they never would have admitted it.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: And I said, listen, I will, it's on the West Coast, I will dial in and I will be very present in the conversation, but I cannot be there.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Well, our banker had a total meltdown.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: You're going to ruin the deal, you're going to take this all off course.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: And I sort of drew a line and said this is what is important to me personally and this lead took every ounce of my courage to do as a young leader.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And so I get on the phone and I decided, as part of my intro, I was going to highlight why I was not there in person.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: And I was someone who you know I grew up at the intersection of Wall Street and technology, very sort of buttoned up infrastructure, one of few women in the mix.
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: So talking about my personal life was not something that came naturally to me growing up and I decided I was going to just put it out there and highlight why I wasn't there.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: So of course, we get through the meeting and the world does not stop spinning and we get the acquisition to done, with lots more twists and turns.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Probably three months later I'm sitting down with the owners who are now part of Deloitte and having a discussion about you know sort of how this all came to be, and one of the things that the owner shared with me because we were not the top bidder was that one of the reasons that the team felt comfortable joining a very sort of traditionally conservative organization like Deloitte was they took so much confidence that we really understood what mattered to individuals, both personally and professionally.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: From my sharing that crazy little funny story about taking my kid's picture on the first day of school with my son being like really, mom, do you have to take this picture Was part of why they joined the organization.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: So to me that was a culmination of a lot of boldness, trying to push my organization to do something different, but also taking a personal risk in sort of prioritizing what mattered to me and my family, sort of against the very traditional forces of you know, you must be here and you must be present.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a real moment for me and in the moment I probably didn't think of it as bold as I've looked back, but it felt very uncomfortable, yeah.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: But I look back over time and I tell that story, especially to women, to share that you have to be clear about what matters to you and take those sort of leaps of faith when you're in the moment.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So it was a little bit of a rambling conversation story but I thought it was important to help you understand a little bit who I am and where some.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: I sort of first acknowledge and recognize the importance of boldness, both in my business decisions and how they intersected with my personal life.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, early on, because there's we can't separate ourselves.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: We're whole beings, and I think that's the key thing, and I know it's more accepted now to say those things.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: But certainly, you know, growing up like I remember I was back at work six weeks after I had my daughter, so, like it wasn't, there wasn't a lot of.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I think the great things are happening now and evolving and still extremely slow and frustrating, but at times of just, you know, because I just have this sense of like we could do this better and faster and we don't need to do some of the things we're doing and have these wonderful reports every year of how we can do things better.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: I think, with regard to how we work, the cultures we create, though, what we, what we propose of what is a kind of, you know, typical type of culture, organizational structure for women, particularly with children, because that's where we're focusing here, and you did take a bold move and I think what's interesting is something you said is like I didn't consider a bold, because we don't usually go oh, today I'm going to do this bold move.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: This bold move, you know we're living life and that's what I think is, you know, really incredible about being bold is that it just becomes part of who you are.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: You're living your bold life by staying true to yourself, understanding your beliefs and how they form, and owning your success and your failure and learning from it, and then really making sure your life is designed the way that you want it to be designed, because you're the key architect.
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: I also think that creating those moments of vulnerability around our personal lives for women and men I think also builds confidence in how you make bold business decisions.
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: You know, lee, I know we're, I know I would love to interview you and talk about your boldness and how you your twists and turns in your professional life.
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: But I also think that the courage that came from being super clear about what mattered to me personally in a professional setting also started to build my confidence for boldness in in business decisions.
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: So I do think there's a really nice halo effect or sort of circular effect as it comes to how we how we think about sort of that that vulnerability around what matters to us and when we're going to take risks.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Right, I think your muscle kind of gets stronger the more you use it.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: In that area too, it doesn't mean it gets easier, and it doesn't.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, right, you know that.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Gulp, yeah.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: So I think, as you go through your career and you're still, you know, balancing that or line, I use alignment versus balance because I think it's it's very difficult to really truly yeah.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not a giant fan of the balance word.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: Like I know when I'm out of line, like I'm out of alignment, either one and that's just like that's what I kind of look for.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: But I think the stakes get higher as you go through your career and the decisions you make or the things that you're running, potentially or even broader and bigger, and certainly that was the case for you.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: But I want to hit home with you as, like, you made this bold move early on in your career which really set the stage for, like, this is the way I'm going to operate.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to put one part of my life in a drawer and have the other part be in the front and maybe open the drawer every now and then.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: So I think that's really important.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: When you, when you did that, when you made that bold move early on in your career, how did it affect, let's just say, the next move that you needed to make?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: So, like, as you progress from this moment in time to the career there, do you have one that comes to mind of like if that was another bold crossroad for me?
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: There's.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: It's funny because, as you were talking about, it never stops.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: So the sets of big career moves that I made after that and that was in my first big leadership role, you know everyone.
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: You know I feel incredibly lucky because the career moves for me are not a place that gave me a lot of anxiety, because, you know, one of my superpowers within my professional life was actually never worrying about my next job or my next move, and it's funny, I didn't again didn't think about it at the time, but I was always incredibly focused on, you know, the moment that I was in and doing everything I could to make sure my team, my clients if I was serving clients were wildly successful and that, to me, was the outcome that I wanted and that led to great things for me as well.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: And so you know it's funny because you could think about that as courageous, to worry about your team instead of yourself.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: And I know that sounds very polyanna-ishly, but I deeply and I even say it out loud, it sounds like such motherhood and apple pie but I deeply believe that in today's complex business environment, which is insanely complex, that those people that surround themselves with really diverse teams and that the success of their team is a measure of their success.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: That was my sort of secret sauce.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: So I went from leading Deloitte's technology business to taking what, on paper, looks like a crazy twist and turn, which is and I actually think I briefly mentioned this I grew up on Wall Street.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: I went from leading Deloitte's technology business to leading Deloitte's federal government business.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: So the mindset shift from Wall Street to the federal government, you know, could not be more different, just a bit.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: And I remember and it was interesting because it was a move that was on an org chart If you looked at an org chart it would look like I was moving laterally.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: And it was funny because I didn't think about that.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I was like well, this, as we talked before, I've gotten sort of comfortable in my job leading Deloitte's technology business, not that there weren't twists and turns, and I had the opportunity to do this.
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, that sounds about as far different from Wall Street as you can get.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: So I took it without a lot of hand wringing, until one of the leaders that I knew said, well, that's interesting, why did you make a lateral move?
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh well, I didn't really think about it that way and well, that's a little deflating.
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: But you know, whatever, I think this is something really interesting and really different for me to sink my teeth into and so on paper that probably looked like a bold move.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a market I knew a lot about and it was not moving up, it was moving across.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I do feel that that chapter of my career I probably grew the most and learned the most and just had a tremendous impact.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: It was a very tricky time for being a government contractor.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: It was the time this will be for any policy wonks out there within the US of sequestration, when there were huge cuts to both defense and civilian budgets.
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: So it was a very complex time for the business and the business I did not, had not lived and breathed in myself Everything I'd done prior to that.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: I kind of knew the landscape and so that on paper was bold.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: It turned out to be a bold move because of the degree of difficulty.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: But it was when I probably grew the most and learned the most in my career because of the cultural and market complexities of going from running, living and running in a commercial business to living and running in a government business, still within the same firm, but a very different, very different kind of landscape.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of learning.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I think what's interesting there is like, from the outside, someone next to you says that's a lateral move and to you, like it's not lateral when it comes to learning, developing, using new skills, meeting new people.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: So this is something for people to hear too, because I hear that a lot in order to why would a lateral move?
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: I'm like, well, are you going to learn something?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Will you meet new people?
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Will you actually be happier because you're using more of your skill sets or you're getting new ones?
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And so sometimes people don't consider that like as a move that they would make, because they might be looking at the dollars and sense of things which are important.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: But I'm just saying like there are moves that you can make that may seem lateral, but they're not in what you can do when you want to grow and learn, to meet new people and connect.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: And I do have you know I joke that there was a little naïve thing in some of my comments I've had the good fortune of letting sort of some trust in the system and trust in my instincts of things that will be interesting, leading to a very different set of things.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think that people look from the outside of this opportunity for me to take this lateral move that that would be a fairly quick stepping stone for me to be the CEO of Deloitte Consulting, because I went from there to be the CEO of Deloitte Consulting just three years later.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: And my time in the board room, because it was, you know, a very complicated time for the business, so the board wanted to spend a long time with me understanding the business.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: The muscles I built in terms of both you know how to how to run a regulated business, which I hadn't done before, how to think about a very big cultural transformation as well as the market repositioning, were incredible, and so that sort of leap of faith and trust in the system were invaluable for me in terms of then having a sort of a hyper advancement to my career, and I will tell you that way, earlier than the story I shared with you earlier.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: I was probably in my early 20s and I tried to over manage my career.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: I was asked to go on to a certain assignment and I did not think it was worthy of my skills and capabilities which is just makes me giggle and laugh and I'm embarrassed to even say those words out loud and I had a little bit of a fit and I told the partner that I was working for at the time that I don't think this is the fitting of me and I was gracious about it, but I was.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: I sort of stopped my foot a little bit and they caved and let me do something different.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: And I was 100% wrong.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: The thing that I wanted to do was not that interesting and didn't push me at all and I had to go back hat in hand and say you know that other opportunity is, there's still a chance to go do that.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: So it's a very humble learning moment for me earlier in my career about where you, where you trust people around you to help guide you and where you sort of you know lean your own children, which is not at all to say that you shouldn't have a strong opinion and perspective, but it just gave me a little bit of that voice to say you might not always know.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: It's certainly good to have a variety of opinions and especially early in my career I wasn't nearly sophisticated enough to understand what would push me and help me grow.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: That's when you're 20s.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I thought in my 20s that everyone wanted to learn and know my opinion and you know, and that because I was raised of like you know you have a voice, you have a seat at the table 100%, you know, like that was my mom.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: So I kind of like thought life was like and I very quickly learned.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: You know, being in academia, like particularly like your opinion, is not always welcomed publicly, maybe privately and maybe never at some times, but it's like I think I learned the hard way and had some humbling moments and just figuring out how to navigate.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: And that's that's life and learning and experience.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: And that's why, like, we all have these ups and downs and bumps and blueness, but I wouldn't erase any of them.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Like you say, well, would you go back and change this, or I'm like no, I actually learned.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: It was a hard learning or that was a phenomenal moment, but like I learned from all of them and that's probably sounding like I'm in my 50s, so from the particulars of that, like those humbling moments actually lead you now to like laugh at that, but you know that was a learning for you.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, 100%.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: I want to be clear.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: You know I, so it's funny.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: I think how we grow up is such an important part of how we lead as professionals.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: I'm the daughter of an academic and an artist.
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: You know the business conversation was certainly not central to our family, to our family dinner table conversation.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: You were expected to have an opinion and a point of view and lean into the conversation.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: The expectation is the conversations were interesting and lively, and so my sister and I always had to be on our A plus game in terms of being in the conversation.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: But it was certainly not certainly not a business centric conversation, but it helped me build those muscles around leaning in, learning, having confidence, getting lots of opinions and, frankly, having an ego that, while you want to be competent in your opinions, is also really open to lots of others perspectives, because I actually think that's maybe it's funny.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: You know your opening question around sort of what is boldness?
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I think in this market right now, today, you know whether you're early in your career or experienced leader, I think a lot of boldness is who you surround yourself with and getting a variety of perspectives and inputs, because there is no one of us that is smart enough to know how to navigate in this moment all the things that are coming at us.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: The degree of difficulty and the level of complexity is extraordinary.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: It's incredible opportunity and incredible time to get to lead, but it means you need really big brains, with you helping you, challenging you, pushing you to make sure you're making the best, the best informed and thoughtful decisions.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely not an easy time to be a leader although I don't know if there's such a time in general, as I've led teams and can continue to kind of lead board with our organization but it definitely is a complex time.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: That is the perfect word for leadership in 2024 is the complex level, the complexity of it all.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: So, like you have these moments, you get this fast track moment, which really you worked very hard for that moment.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: You did a lot of things during those years and exposure and you know to others and being able to deliver and implement and problem solve and get things done.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: So you had this incredible opportunity to be CEO and then to to have a 30 year career at Deloitte.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: What was the process that you went through?
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Is this the time to lead?
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: So, lee, I will.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: I love that question and you know we've talked about boldness a lot in this discussion today and I talked about boldness and being, you know, a youngish mom.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: You know I had a very bold moment when I made the decision to talk about being a breast cancer survivor, which is something I had kept very much under my hat, and I remember exactly where I was when I decided to start sharing that openly.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: And I've not talked widely about this decision, so you're pushing me in my own boldness in this moment.
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: So I appreciate that and I obviously shared with my partners at a high level why I made the decision not to serve a second term.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: So just a tiny bit of backdrop the two roles at Deloitte that are the most senior roles are elected by the partners and it's a termed role.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: So we're in an election year, so that's very familiar to everyone and our elected leaders can serve two terms.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: So I just finished my first term.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Actually, I was at year three of my first term and I had to tell my board whether I wanted to serve a second term, and I will tell you that I, you know, certainly shared that.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I had not sort of thought deeply about my career moves, except for that one, when I was in my early 20s and, you know, things happened pretty organically.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: But I got to the moment where I said do I believe that the best thing for me and the best thing for my partnership is for me to do this same role for another four years?
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: You know, I said I lots of twists and turns in my career and the opportunities to do a lot of thing, and it's an incredible role and certainly one that is, you know, very unique and, you know, comes with lots of opportunities and lots of stature and lots of responsibility.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: But I, when I really thought about it, that three year mark, could I do this for another five years and give every ounce of my being to my partners?
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And that was a moment where I said, you know, I think it's it's time to let someone else have have a turn at leading in this manner.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Now a little bit about the role the role has.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: You know, we have two roles that are elected by our partners and the role that I was elected into was a governance role.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Now, it's different than you traditionally think about a governance role, because you think about a governance role being a part-time role.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: This is a full-time role, part of the executive leadership team, but with sort of governance as its main focus, as opposed to management, and you can probably tell from our conversation together, lee, I'm sort of high energy and hands-on person and I didn't feel like I could Play the role the way it should be played, which is about, you know, part of the executive team, but not as hands-on as I am in the core of my DNA.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: And so I got to the place where I said you know what, I think that this would be better served by by someone else to take the next turn.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: And, by the way, well, actually, let me talk about why it was hard and then let me talk about why it was easy.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, so why it was hard?
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: Because I love the Deloitte partnership.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: It is in my you know, it is in my DNA at this point, and it was, as I said, an amazing platform, both within the partnership to help shape things and externally as well, and you could sort of make it what you wanted, which I did by Writing a book, by spending a lot of time with my clients in Silicon Valley, by spending a lot of time on on Diversity and equity.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: I was able to make it what I wanted.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: But the essence of the role was not the one that I thought that I could do you to my fullest for another five years.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: But giving up being a partner at Deloitte was really hard, because that was that is who I am as a leader and what I've woken up thinking about every day for a few decades.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Why was it?
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: Why was it easy and and how did I make that decision with confidence?
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: One is it was still only another four years and then I'd be done.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: So it sounds kind of funny to people who don't live in the world of termed roles, but after that I was done anyway.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: So you know, I said my dad is a scientist, my mom is an artist.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: You know, lee, you and I've talked a little bit about for your career journey as well.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: You know my mom is really productive as an artist in her mid-80s.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: She's in her studio every day.
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: My dad, you know, very unfortunately we lost him about a decade ago, but he was, you know, up until his, up until his death, he was busy and productive as a scientist, and so my from my dinner table as a childhood DNA is, you know, you keep doing what you love and what gives you energy, and I knew that it was only another four years, which in the grand scheme of your life is is not that long and so the opportunity to start to create what was next gave me a lot of energy, and so that made it an easier decision to know that there was an end in sight regardless.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: I was just pulling the decision forward a few years and getting into that uncomfortable place.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: You know, I talked about my superpower one of my superpowers being not worrying about what was next.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Well, now I have to actually worry about what's next, and that's putting me to that place of discomfort that you so articulately talked about earlier in our conversation.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're, you're like really heavy in the bold zone right now, exactly, but like you made those decisions and one other thing that you said was that it created, actually, more energy for you, like just the opportunity to create something, knowing that you had an end in sight, like you knew you were going to whether you took all.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: If you did the next term, you were going to stop, that, you were going to leave at that point.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: So you're almost just kind of saying, well, I'm gonna expedite this from that perspective.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, I think what's hard to do is like well, it's certainly a wonderful job, I love who I work with, exactly, so that's where the the push and pull comes.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Interestingly because it's actually been gradual as opposed to an aha moment.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so I pretty much ran through the tape in the early to mid fall in my time at Deloitte, with Finishing my role, running the election for my successor, still being busy with clients doing lots of transitions, trying to avoid too many farewell parties and dinners, and and the reality is, I think the pandemic and it's interesting To hear whether you felt this the pandemic did give a different rhythm to my life than pre-pandemic, even though for the last year of my time at Deloitte I was back to more sort of normal travel schedule and and sort of intensity of, yeah, travel.
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: In particular, the pandemic did force me to Reacquaint with my husband.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: To, you know, I was on the road except for the first seven years of my kids life.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I was on the road three to five days a week for my entire career.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: You know I'd probably spend two business days a month in Chicago, my hometown, for the last five years.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: So the pandemic, I think, sort of created a bit more space, still working intensely but in one place, and so it's felt much more gradual and much more organic.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Then I expected it to feel now it was a long band-aid pull, because I told my board and then my partners a year in advance Right now, because I was still in an elected role, I couldn't just be like I'm done, I'm out of here and and just be on the party circuit.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: So I was still pretty busy, but it's felt much more natural.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I think the hardest thing for me has been to create the space To actually reflect on what matters to me in this chapter, which, you know, for those listeners who are in their 20s it's very different than those in their 40s and those where I am in my 50s.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: But Self-reflection is something that is not my superpower and I've probably underserved.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: You were talking earlier about regrets and I'm a person when people ask me what would you have done differently?
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: I'm not so confident to say there aren't things, because there's lots, but the general arc of the things I've done I feel really good about.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the place where I've under invested is in being clear about what matters to me at a macro level.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: Obviously, the micro decisions I've gotten very good at.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the hardest thing, lee in a bit of a roundabout way to answer your question is Creating the space to figure out what gives me energy to say no to some things that have come along and to not Refill my plate instantly, which is just my natural order of things, so that I can create the time and space to say what matters to me.
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: There's a wonderful book for your listeners who are in the Not too late of chapters, but slightly later chapters, called from strength to strength, by Arthur Brooks.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Yes, wonderful yes and you know, in the analogy he uses that resonated the most with me.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: In Western art we keep adding brushstrokes on.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: In Eastern art you take a block of marble and you chip it away to its essence.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: So I'm trying to make sure I just don't add more brushstrokes and I chip away to do the things I'm like our conversation today, lee, actually that give me energy and that I feel are not just busy to be busy, because I'm.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I get a lot of energy actually from being busy, but I'm trying to make sure the things I'm busy with are the right things to do.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So it's a great segue for you, because one of the Concepts and the practices is asking yourself when are you at your absolute best?
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: So the book is arrived and thrive, and this came out in 2022.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: So people thinking when are you at your absolute best?
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And having that reflection moments.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And you know, you know you're at your best when you're busy, but busy on the right things, busy on the things that mean are meaningful, busy on the thing like there's a list that goes under.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: Being busy isn't just for busy for busy sake.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Right, there's more to it than that, and so I think that's a piece of it.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: Right now.
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: I'm just trying to understand for you, like, what does thriving mean?
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: What is your definition of thriving?
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so let me just give you two seconds of backstory on the book.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I had so many authors now I've recognized, say because I hear everywhere had not intended to become authors.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: I had the incredible opportunity to work with two fabulous women, susan McKenna Brady and Lynn Perry Wooten, on writing a book on women's leadership.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: All of us thought that women did not need another book on leadership, but we actually found a space that that that turned out was missing from the conversation, which is not just how do you get there, how do you arrive at, how do you thrive when you're there and very rooted in practical exercises.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: The Essence of the book is twofold.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: One is you are not in it alone and there is an incredible community here to help you thrive.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: And the second is that the cut, the the practice of arriving and thriving, is ongoing.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: It is not just that you arrive once in your career and you thrive there, and I've probably given ten examples in our conversation today of my own arriving and thriving.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: So for me, I'm now focused on sort of I've arrived at this next chapter what does thriving look like?
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: And it is different than it was in my past chapter.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: So I'm trying to build on the things that I've done in the past, really having sort of courage at the core, really having diverse and inclusive teams at the core.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: But for me it is about setting my own agenda as opposed to agendas that are set for me and I.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: That's still very much a work in progress for me in figuring out what does that goodness look like?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it is very timely in the sense of, like you wrote this book and, with you know, finding the exact space that it was needed for, because there's a lot of books around how to get there, how to solve a problem, how to change, how to do this, but, looking at something holistically, there isn't a lot that there's a few for sure, but I mean finding a place that actually Asked you to reflect, ask you to think thoughtfully and thoroughly about something that really is about you and and I think it's important for people to to understand, like what you said is you arrive and thrive maybe a hundred times over In your career, and that you're, at this point of you know, really defining for you what that looks like now, and it's okay at times I think this is important here too is like for it to feel unknown or hard or risky, which is also one of the things you talk about, which, to me, like connected to being bold, is that you know everything that you take action on it can be hard, risky and scary.
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: They might be all of that same time, and and so I think it's it's just interesting kind of how the book, if you think about it, you can pick up this book at different points in your career and apply it, you know multiple times over, so that was not our intention when we started, but when we finished we recognized that we had this idea that there wasn't just a moment.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: And because the three of us have such different backgrounds mine as an executive, lins as an academic and Susan's as an as a leadership coach we kind came in it from very different places and, frankly, we, our own leadership journeys were quite different.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: In academia versus business, for example, you know, you don't lead in academia so much later in your career than you do in the business environment.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: We wrote it for senior women.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: We quickly found out that there was a lot that applied for men as well, and so we got a little flack rightly so, for, but we wanted we obviously wanted to focus on women in particular, but there's a lot that applies, I think, very broadly to men as well.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: But then the fascinating thing happened, which is that the leaders that we shared this book with started sharing it with their daughters and with their young teams, and there was lots of opportunities to talk to young women.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: I just did a session for up and coming women in a business, in a local business community, and what we found is that this idea of arriving and thriving was constant and many of the things that we talked about Knowing yourself, cultivating courage, thinking about how you build your teams are relevant for your first leadership role as much as they are for the moment that I'm in today, which is which is thinking about what, what comes next for me.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: So it is a very iterative journey and it builds on itself, which is not where we started, which is part of the incredible Sort of journey of writing a book with these co-authors, to figure out that it was actually a different space and a broader space than what we thought or where we intended to start the conversation.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: So, as we kind of close out, one of the things I would love to hear is, like Word guidance, your advice.
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: If someone came to you and said you know, I'm just not sure I'm in the right place right now for me with regard to my career I'm I'm at this point where I need to make a decision and I really want to make the right one, what would be your guidance?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: And this could be like they they want to retire, or they retire earlier.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Maybe they want to like seek out a different role in a different organization, maybe they just want to take some time off and reset any guidance you would have for someone.
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: There's two things I would say.
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: One is to use your Board of directors to push your thinking and to help build your confidence.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: And I use the word of board of directors sort of in air quotes.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Right, because your board, you know every, everyone should have a board of people that Challenge them and push them and support them.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Because, right, think about that's what a board of directors does.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: A board is there to make sure the CEO and the management team are wildly successful and to push them.
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: Now there's other roles of boards, but use your board, figure out who your board is and use them to help build your confidence in that decision.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: But the second thing is to know that there is no decision that you're going to make.
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: That is the end, all be all.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: And in this environment in particular, your career is going to take a lot of twists and turns, and some of them are going to be super clear.
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: And so I think this idea that none of us have a perfect roadmap and if we did, we'd be wrong anyway and to get comfortable that if you make a decision it turns out to be not the right one, there are so many other avenues and paths open to you, and not to To make your decision with confidence and know that it's not the end.
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: All be all.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I usually say work on making the right decision for right now and for you, for your family, for your career, you know, looking at the totality of all the things that are important to you and when you can actually work and be at your highest levels of, you know, happiness and joy and feeling at your best right now.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Like how would you answer that?
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: And that's a thoughtful, pragmatic process.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: But I think, like you said it, you know, maybe two years from now or a year from now, the decision is different and you want to do something different.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: So, exactly a really great guidance.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being on the bold lounge.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I could talk for a very long time, but really appreciate you sharing with us today your bold moves and your bold journey.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, li.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: I love the work that you're doing and pushing this conversation for all of us, so thank you for having me.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the bold lounge podcast.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories Vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.