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Unveiling Authentic Leadership: Insights from Jim Fielding · Unstoppable Success Podcast

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Unstoppable Leaderships of Life.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Influential leaders and their game-changing insights.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jacqueline Strummer, CEO and founder of Leap Tier Success.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's LeapTear Success.com.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: We help entrepreneurs, leaders, and CEOs who love their business become unstoppable high achievers and their careers in life in one person at it.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: We believe every professional leap to their greatest success.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: So stick around to the end of the show, and we will share with you how you can be our next guest.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: So stick around for those 15 to 20 minutes and let's be unstoppable.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello everybody, and welcome to another amazing episode of the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight Podcast, where we hear from amazing leaders in their game-changing insights that help change and revolutionize leadership and leaders today.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to welcome to the podcast my amazing guest, Jim Fielding.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: He is an amazing leader.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: He has worked at some awesome companies.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can keep going.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the key things that he is talking about right now is authentic leadership and that path to personal authentic.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the key things, you know, leadership and having you know human-centered leadership is so pivotal to the toll for today.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so we are going to hear a lot about that from Jim today.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So welcome to the show.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: My gosh, thank you for having me, Jacqueline.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thrilled to be here.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: I am so glad to have you.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I alright.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: So first, I have to ask a crazy question.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: When you look back at your at the companies, you know, Disney, Flairs, yeah, Drework, which one had the best leaders?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is a great question.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I would I and I I am not hedging.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would say there's two, but it's it's different.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the best retail leadership by far was my years at the gap.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was at the gap in the late 80s and most all of the 90s, and the leaders at gap at that time, Mickey Drexler on down, were incredible retail leaders.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I, you know, when I became a CEO, people said you're a CEO of a retail company, but you don't have an MBA, blah, blah, blah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, but I worked at the gap for almost 10 years, and that was like getting a retail MBA.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like it literally was amazing.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then I would say Disney, which I think Disney's known for.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, I was blessed with amazing leadership for 11 of my 12 years.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had a rough leadership situation the last year, which actually it made me leave the company and made me leave my favorite job.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, uh that my favorite job was president of Disney Store, and I had done that for four years, and I had one boss for three years and one boss for one year, and it changed everything.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so not that I want to talk about the bad, but I do want to talk about the bad thing.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: What was bad?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's the ugly part about it?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I just think from day one, uh, like it was weird that I was at Disney for 12 years and I had the same boss for 11 years.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's very odd.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and his name was Andy Mooney, and he he just understood how to manage me, and he mentored me and let me grow and set really aggressive goals and you know, was constantly giving feedback, but then he also let me go and just let me do my job.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and when he left the company, he was replaced by somebody who I knew because it was an internal promotion, not from in our group, from another group within Disney.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And from day one, it was pretty obvious that we were oil and water, and that the way that we approached things was quite different.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And my first touch base with him was eight weeks after he started.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was a pretty big indication because he only had like eight direct reports, and so I was like, I literally was going to my assistant every day, Jacqueline, saying, Did that did his office call?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, were did we miss something?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, am I supposed to be like, when's my what?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I was going to group meetings, but everybody else was having these one-on-ones, and I wasn't having them.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, okay, he's just putting me at the end.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the the first touch base, he was like, I, you know, I think you're a great executive.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know your reputation.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody in the company really likes what you do.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't like your business.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: He just did not like the retail business.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And like, put me instantly on the defensive with him the entire time I worked with him, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was justifying the existence of my business unit, right?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: This$2 billion Disney store business around the world.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it it just was a contentious relationship from day one.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um I had an executive coach and would go to my executive coaching sessions and work on how I was gonna communicate better and what I was gonna do differently.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it really was through the coaching where I realized the my boss wasn't gonna change.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was changing as much as I could, but I was changing in ways that I wasn't happy and that I was ultimately gonna have to leave.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, that I that it was a battle I couldn't win.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was an extremely difficult decision, and it took me forever to make.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: But when I look at my path, so I left Disney in 2012, but when I look at 2012 to today, I don't think any of what I have done would have been enabled had I stayed at Disney.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think I my path would have looked completely different.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's there's a there's a saying if you can't change your team, change your team, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like so you've gotta right.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So in this case, you know, you just changed your team, which was the different company.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, and you know, I was a little bit, I mean, you know, the quote that's always you know ascribed to Einstein is the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like that's what was happening in our working relationship because I was trying, I literally wanted to be a team player, I wanted to be on his team and I wanted to perform.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And but there were things about the business that were just endemic and systemic to that business that I couldn't change.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had 400 stores around the world with leases and people working in them.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I couldn't snap my fingers and just make that go away.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um it was it was an interesting time.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: That year was an interesting time, and and I know from listening to your other episodes, you know, many of your guests have said, I actually think you learn more from the bad leaders in those situations than you do from the good leaders.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I definitely grew, even though it was painful, I grew out of that pain.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I became a better leader in my subsequent roles because of all the things that he was doing to me or with me.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't want to do that to anybody.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I never want, I never want to do that to anybody.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to be different.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna work differently.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's true, like you we we really learn in the down and we rise up to the next wave, so speak, and then we'll have something else as a that's a down and we'll keep learning, you know, it is that process.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and it's I love that you say that, Jacqueline, because when I meet with young leaders, I'm like, it is a roller coaster, you know, like everybody looks at your resume or looks at your LinkedIn and they think it was like this smooth linear, you know, ski ski jump thing, right?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, like it was and yeah, it's more like the moguls.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it is, yeah, and it's a lot of like knee injuries and ankle injuries and you know, bruises and and um, but I think it's so important for young people to understand that, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's not of course, what's on your LinkedIn it looks like the land of milk and honey, but it's not always like that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not it's not right, it's not, you know, and it and so so your next place you went to was DreamWorks?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: No, Claire's.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I became CEO of Claire's.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm like thinking like Claire's like my ears, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back to retail.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I went back to retail, exactly.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I as I was considering leaving, um, and listen, I was born in the Midwest and worked for a fireman and policeman, so I had to be prepared, right?
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't gonna leave without knowing where I was going, even though I didn't announce it when I left.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So as I was interviewing and kind of going through the what color is my parachute, I was because I had been president of Disney store, I was eligible for CEO of retail jobs.
• 10:01
  unknown: Right.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there was at that time, there was a couple of really interesting ones open.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I interviewed for three or four different brands, and I kept coming back to Claire's because I did understand the Claire's customer.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I understood from all my years at Disney, I understood that teen tween consumer.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, the ear piercing experience and the birthday experience and the um, you know, the Claire's thrived because of the mall, you know, the mall rats.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: We loved the mall rats, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Where they get dropped off by their parents with$20 and you know, they'd come in and buy three pairs of earrings and then go get a pretzel in the food court.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: We understood her and him.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: We had male customers as well.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I really was I was really drawn to that one.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I also love that it was global.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Claire's, we had stores in 41 countries, and I had been working so hard in global with Disney that I wanted global, you know, and some of the other opportunities were US only.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it it ticked all the right boxes for me.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it meant moving and it was also moving back to the Midwest because they were based in Chicago.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: So it was, I was, I think I was feeling my Midwestern roots a little bit.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: So so when you're thinking about, you know, this, you know, I mean the the places that you've been and what we were talking about before the at the start of the um podcast.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: What has led you to that mission, you know, having the mission of being a human, human-centered leadership?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I think it really was when I wrote the book and started going through, I've been a journaler since I was like 13.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And including the entire, you know, the entire time I was CEO and stuff, I I just I have a couple bins full of journals.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I really went back and looked at a lot of those journals as I was preparing for the book and you know, talked to a lot of people that had worked for me, worked with me, like as I was kind of doing the research for the book.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I never really thought I had a leadership style.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like there, like Howard Schultz, who's somebody I admire from Starbucks, was always called himself a servant leader, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of defined servant leadership.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And and I was like, well, I'm not really a servant, like I'm a servant leader, I believe in servant leadership.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's also very human focused.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I said, what I realized, and I think part of it was having moved through corporate as an out gay man, I was always about creating cultures and environments where people could bring their full authentic selves to work and could feel physically and psychologically safe to be themselves.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was managing diversity and DEI before it was an acronym, before it was woke and all the things it is.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always believed that our team had to be diverse, not only in its makeup, but diverse in thought and diverse in experience and diverse in age.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I was always very human-focused.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I was known for people still to this day would be like, I can't remember how you remembered everybody's names, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was known for walking around the floor and talking with people and calling people by name and asking them about their children.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was just naturally me.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So when I had a kind of did the research on like what was my style, I kept coming back to authentic leadership, that there was a movement on authentic leadership.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, that's what I am.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've been morphing that lately with some stuff I'm working on into this human-centered leadership, where it's just it's it's leading with empathy, it's leading with kindness, it's leading with equity and justice, and it's just leading with creating, like I said, thriving environments.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really about building culture, right?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like my leadership style was about building culture.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it was about.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I think that it's so true, and it's it's so important.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, it's been a topic of conversation quite with a lot of of guests, you know, we're talking about, you know, making sure that no matter what, whether you're the CEO or whatever your position is, if you are leading a team, you know, to share the vision and mission of what the team is doing, but also really get to know the people in in your on your team so that you can relate it back.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like so if I know that, you know, if you if you're on my team and I'm and you said to me, you know, I have this dream of one day whatever it is, I want to be able to say, okay, guess what, Jim?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: This position and what we're doing, I want to explain to you how I think it ties back to your vision for you or your personal mission.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: This this is why I love listening to you, Jaclyn, because I always said, like, the mission and vision can't just be some statement that's up on a wall or on a piece of paper.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's your job as the leader to chunk that mission and vision out and make every person understand on the team how they're contributing to the mission and vision.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, how is the accountant doing it?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And how is the graphic designer doing it?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And how is the intern doing it?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're all contributing to that mission and vision.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm not saying I want you to be like a cult, but I want you to believe that what you're doing is moving that mission and vision forward.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right, no, it's it's true.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: In some ways, it is.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's like being the cult.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like and it's it is it's your job.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's like to embody that like desire to know that each and every one of the people that are in that company, and I say everybody's a team player, that everybody on the team, from the person that might be the security guard, yeah, that is cleaning the bathrooms, we all are on the same mission of whatever that greatness is that we collectively want to do.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you said something that I that I really want to um tap into.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that is you said really having a great diverse group.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and I personally will tell you that I hate like I hate labels.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I don't want to like no offense, when DEI became a label, I was like, ooh, you just ruined it, you know.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It became it became performative and something that we were counting, and that's never what it was supposed to be, but anyway, yes.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: So it's and I I'll go back to one, you know, what I in the 80s when I was applying to colleges and all those interesting fun things.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, you know, you were like, oh, I well, I I hit the quota of the diversity for women at this school, yeah.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: But and or if I'm getting a job, you just you just never want that to be a thing.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna say, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I never I never wanted to be a diversity hire.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, like it no, no, but I think when I when the word diverse that I use, and I could interchange it with unique, is because of exactly what you're saying, because I think good ideas can come from anywhere.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's I'm not title driven, I'm not hierarchical driven, where it's like all the ideas happen at one level and then everybody else just executes.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in that.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: That I wanted diversity of thought and diversity of experience.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And especially in retail and in media and entertainment, I was in consumer-facing businesses.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I always wanted the teams that I was building and working with to also reflect our customer base, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really wanted them, like when you talk about a brand like Disney, Disney is ubiquitous, right?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Disney, I mean, most people like Disney, and most people go through a phase, especially if they have children, where Disney is a big part of their life.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and that means all different countries and different regions within the United States.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there you go.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's part of that, it's part of people's stories.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I grew up on it.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: My mom, my mom, oh my god, my mom and my grandmother are huge Disney fans.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was raised on Disney.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I I always wanted a group that reflected our customer base, right?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So if I walked into a room at Disney store and I saw a bunch of young, bright college graduates who had all gone to Ivy League schools and or all West Coast, I was like, we're not really reflecting what we're building this product for, what we're building this experience for.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's really when I was working with HR and my chief people officer and building teams, it wasn't about quotas, it wasn't about counting, it was about anytime there was an open position, I just asked recruiting and HR, present a wide array of candidates.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Do not present me five people that look exactly the same, that have the same resume.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I want the hiring managers to have choice and I want them to be challenged to think differently.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I think it was particularly important in global businesses because uh the worst thing when I was the global head of Claire, when I was CEO of Claire's and global head of Disney Store, I never wanted to be called too American because we did more business at Disney Store outside the US than we did inside the US.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And even though corporate headquarters was in the US, I had very strong teams in London and Tokyo, in South America.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted their voices to be represented at the table.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted their customers, their guests, as we called them at Disney, to be represented.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was very cautious of being too American and having like an American bias.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody said to me that product is too American, it won't work in our market, I really had to look at it and say, okay, are they are they right?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is this a non-invented here syndrome or is it just too American?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was so important for global teams.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: So important.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, and so so this is what I was gonna ask you about.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's diversity versus values.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's again, I think it goes back to the authentic leadership and the human-centered leadership.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's I want everybody's uniqueness.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I love cooking.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Cooking is one of my passions, and I love creating stews and soups.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think again, it's Midwestern, right?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's fun when you put unexpected ingredients together into the gumbo, and all of a sudden the gumbo, like if you look at a gumbo recipe, like a New Orleans gumbo recipe, it honestly doesn't make sense on paper because you're like, wait, it's got shrimp and sausage and crawfish, and like it's got the weirdest assortment of things, and you think this is gonna be a train wreck.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And when you bring it all together and let it simmer and let it stew, all of a sudden you've got this bowl of amazingness with red beans and rice.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's to me, like I was always trying to create that stew where it was like I didn't want an echo chamber.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want, you know, I mean, my God, Disney Store had 10,000 employees, but say we had 800 people in headquarters.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: I did not want eight.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: hundred clones of myself.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want, and I didn't want people who are just going to be syncophants and just say back to me, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to be challenged.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted, I, I wanted um people who are like, well, you know what?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: I worked at NBC Universal and we did it this way and this really worked.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, okay, let's talk about that.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, that's so that's why I say diversity of experience.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think diversity of age, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like generations.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like yes, I loved the interns of the new college graduates, but I also loved my 30 year veterans who had been there, done that, seen it all, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like had weathered every storm.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the roller coaster had had weathered every storm.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um I and I loved putting them on teams together and making them figure out how to work together to see what would come out of the stew.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that's really what it was about.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah no and I think it's not easy.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: No I don't think it is easy.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: So let me ask you so you you you started you were at the gap right and department stores and then gap okay so what what do you think was the quintessential tipping point that helped you rise up to where you be I 100% no I a hundred percent know the tipping point.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's a really important lesson and I again when I'm with students I tell them this.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was hired by the GAP I was hired as a district manager which meant I ran stores.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was originally hired in Detroit and then I got moved to Chicago.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I had like at any time between 10 to 12 stores I was in the field organization like we were running stores and I was very good at running stores.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was very neat clean well merchandised motivated teams we hit our numbers and I was on a field career path which meant I was going to be a district manager and then a regional manager and then I wanted to be the vice president of stores.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: That was the career path I was on.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you 100% the tipping point I was running stores in Chicago Mickey Drexler, who was the CEO of Gap, brought four of his executives from Gap headquarters in San Francisco to visit stores in Chicago and we were on a cost cutting time.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we did not rent cars with drivers that meant we had to drive different people around between the stores.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you're very nervous because you're like first off you're driving and you don't want to get in an accident but you're basically being interviewed the whole time you're in the car, right?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: I got the pleasure of driving Mickey between a couple different stores and one of his other executive vice presidents.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: And about a week after that visit my boss called me and said hey uh San Francisco thinks you're a merchant and I said what like what what's a merchant?
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know what a merchant was and she said that yeah the people that do the product in the stores they think you'd be a really interesting merchant and they're starting this training program where they're going to train merchants they want people from the field to train merchants.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: She said no I'm going to be honest with you it's it's going to be a lateral almost backward move because you're going from being a district manager to being a merchant trainee.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to I think you should go out to San Francisco and interview for this and see what you think.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to fly out spend a week go to some meetings and see what you think.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like all right and uh so I went out and by the third meeting of the first day I was like oh I'm a merchant I didn't even know I was a merchant.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: The way that I looked at the business was from the product standpoint not only the people standpoint but the product standpoint.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of the week and all the interviews and meeting the people I met it's I wanted to do it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I made a calculated move but a risky move.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: I left a a career path that I was thriving in and moved into becoming a trainee overnight like literally a a starty like I mean I was basically in a a neophyte and those first six months I had so much self-doubt and insecurity because I was like what did you do?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would be in meetings and I wouldn't know what they were talking about.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I would think oh my God you've completely screwed up your career and and I those first six months I was taking work home every night I was studying like I was in a master's class.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden at like six months the light kicked in and I became a really really successful merchant and I did men's knits I did sweaters I did active wear.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when I became a president of a retailer and a CEO of a retailer I was a unique person because I had both the field side and the product side and not many people had that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So even though I never sat there when I made that decision uh to make that move and say oh this is going to help me be a CEO someday it did help me become a CEO someday.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean that changed my career path for sure.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the learning and going around the world I traveled around the world making gap product Southeast Asia Africa Italy it was it was unbelievable.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: I made denim in the old days when we still made denim in the United States and oh my god I love it I used Georgia denim that was then cut and sewed in Kentucky and washed in Texas it was uh it was an incredible education but it was an on-the-job training program basically you know I love that and I and and I so I you know listeners as you hear that this is a huge game changer because there's a couple things it's like giving people an opportunity you know sometimes you know somebody you know and I know that not everybody can get in front of the CEOs totally you want to know what everybody can if you want to I am sure if you want to the CEOs like oh make the appointment happen you know be that be be the nail that's you know driving and and if you want that meeting make it happen.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but really the key is is is is looking at the people that are in your tribe and helping them pull out the best in them.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah they saw a spark in me that I didn't know existed and and and because people invested in me I think that's why I'm so invested in mentoring and training and leadership development because I I want to help people find their true calling their true passion and um I people invested in me.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I've been very lucky I write about it in the book I had some incredible bosses and mentors along the way and I then I had some bad ones but I learned from all of them and right I mean I'm still I'm still in touch with all of them today.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean some of them aren't living anymore but anybody that's living I'm in touch with those people uh yeah I'm of a certain age now where unfortunately some of your bosses have passed on but um I I mean even even my last my last quote corporate box boss Stacy Snyder at Fox like I learned so much from her and I spent three years at Fox and 18 months of that was when we were being acquired by Disney like that was a high stress time when you're being bought by a competitor basically and her leadership and style and grace under pressure and compassion for how she led us during that transition made me be a better leader for my people during that transition for sure because I would be like oh Stacy's incredible at this I gotta up my game like I I've got to get better at this um and you know anybody who's been through a merger and acquisition when you're the little fish being eaten by the big fish it's a really really hard yes it's a really hard role it's you know it's really demoralizing and um you're basically just trying to hold on to a team and you keep smiling and saying it's business as usual and it's business usual when you know that's like a croc.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not business as usual and everybody's panicking about what their job is and do they have a future and um it's so hard like that was probably my hardest management challenge ever was managing those 18 months.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: But because I was being managed well I think I did it okay.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It helps you do it yeah it's right because because when you see it you can and you can model it too right it's a great it's a great yeah yeah and I yeah I just had to be accessible at all times.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way she was yeah so you know Jim I could talk to you for hours um you know if if there's one key lesson I mean we've shared quite a bit you know we've talked about um you know obviously you know mission centered leadership but you we also and I think this is the part that I that I that I think is really important we also we haven't we've touched on it but haven't touched on it a lot of the companies that you've been with there's been a creative element to it and we talked about the important you know beforehand the before the show started storytelling and I think storytelling in business is really important.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: So can you share your insights on storytelling and the impact it can make oh my gosh I mean I I don't I am a storyteller yeah no I know I am a storyteller that's why I'm like okay I gotta do the edited version but to me yeah when I look back at my my uh career every company I worked at had authentic it had an authentic story or authentic stories at its core and I I always felt that it was easier to market it was easier to create product it was easier to create training programs when you were coming from a place of an authentic story where you weren't having to make anything up right and um I just think that storytelling is you know tale as old as time it's been around for the millenniums and people learn I think more effectively through stories and through story sharing than they do in like a classroom especially for adult learners where it's like one-way communication like I think what I love about storytelling is it's usually inherently two-way communication or group communication and people are sharing stories and it's like a different way of communication than going to like a one-way training for four hours where someone's just reading you a PowerPoint and you're trying to learn as you go.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think um I think storytelling influences the product you're working on the marketing programs you're working on the communication the training programs all of it I mean I think it's it's at the core of of everything.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't think I could work for a brand or a company that didn't have an authentic story at its core even like the authentic story of Gap, which was founded by the Fisher family in 1969, named after the generation gap like that literally you know founded in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco that was at the core of our DNA what definitely was at the core of our DNA and I so it's you know it's I think it's such a key important message because it also ties back to that vision and mission of a company of where it is and knowing that story about the about the why we want it to be and what we are we need to incorporate.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So um for sure so for sure I could talk to you for hours thank you there's so much great wisdom that you have um how can people can how can our listeners connect with you learn more even more about you you know maybe jump into some of your coaching get some of your books where can yeah I mean that well my website is super easy it's hi h i jimfielding.com like hi jimfielding.com I'm Jim Fielding on LinkedIn and it is me it's not a bot answering you people DM me all the time my book all pride no ego is available anywhere books are sold Amazon uh any local bookstores uh instagram is hi Jim Fielding it's um I'm really transparent I post every day on LinkedIn I'm telling stories all the time on LinkedIn uh the website I'm constantly updating and then yeah I mean you know coaching services I'm I do public speaking all over the country I've been around the world now doing public speaking I love being in community I love being um with groups of people I'm a people person so um and I I love meeting new people through LinkedIn it's really easy yeah no that's really fantastic so listeners please do me for reach out to Jim I will put links in the show notes um so you can reach him connect with him but please do go to LinkedIn go to his website go to follow him on Instagram you know I will be um and if you have gotten great value out of this podcast episode which I am sure you have because we've had some amazing game changing insights of clicking the altogether amazing subscribe button do me one other favor and please share this episode with your friends your colleagues and other people who you think could be an amazing leader or can get value out of this and remember we're each and every one of us is the CEO of our own lives so we lead ourselves so and you know I am Jacqueline Strominger the host of Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast thank you for listening and thank you Jim for being an amazing guest.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me I'm Jacqueline Strominger and I want to thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight Influential Leaders and their game changing insights podcast.
• 36:48
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• 36:58
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• 37:04
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• 37:16
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• 37:29
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• 37:33
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• 37:37
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• 37:44
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• 37:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to know more about the podcast or about Leapture Success just go to the website leapturesuccess or follow me, Jacqueline Strominger on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram just plug in my name Jacqueline SJ L I N Strominger S T R O M I N G E R and follow me on all the socials so thank you so much for listening and remember be on