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E3: Krista Crawford of Vistage · Executive Alliance Podcast

• Rebecca Snyder: Welcome to the Executive Alliance podcast. I'm here with Krista Crawford in our studio. Thank you so much, Krista, for joining us to talk about women's leadership journeys. Krista Crawford: My favorite topic. I'm very excited to be here and thank you. Rebecca Snyder: Well, and it is exciting. So sort of your your day job and you have so many interesting things that you're involved in, but you ⁓ act as the chair for a group of CEOs for Vistage worldwide. And ⁓ also I know you've been a professor, but you're also the chair of the Executive Alliance ⁓ mentoring ⁓ program. And so so many different interesting lenses to look at women's leadership. through. So I'm glad you're here to to talk. Krista Crawford: Thank you. And I will let you lead which one you want to talk about first. Rebecca Snyder: Let's talk about vestige and sort of how you how you got involved in that and sort of what you're drawing from your previous experience. You know, ev every time you you get a new role, you sort of bring all the culmination of your experiences to bear. So let's talk about where you are now and and how you're using some of some of the elements of your journey there. Krista Crawford: Sure. Well Vistage, I think, is this combination of all of my history coming together. It's pierces the arrow of my history. Very briefly, I had a degree undergrad in personnel management, which is what we called it back in the day. It's now HR. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: I graduated from during recession and I got a job as a loan interviewer because I took interviewing classes, so I must be able to interview for loans, right? I knew nothing about banking, but that led to me ultimately being in charge of two branches of a bank at one time, which was sort of rare. And finally the HR role came available. So I'll f flash forward after leading 600 employees and then 8,000 employees. Then Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: I started an HR department for a sheet metal fabricator. You have to say that very carefully. And I started their HR department, and it was fascinating. It was white-collar to blue-collar. I was the only woman in the C-suite. And that plays, I think, a really important role with where I am now. Rebecca Snyder: how interesting. Krista Crawford: I decided because of ⁓ my mother's life event that took place, she had a stroke-like event, and went from reading five novels a week to not being able to even watch television or read a book. And in a time when other people might not have done it, I went ahead and went back and got P did my PhD. It was a good way to think in another way while I was caring for my mom. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. ⁓ wow. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: And that was in cultural intelligence, ⁓ how well you adapt to other cultures. That led to, because I love being back in school so much, that led to me deciding when I was doing my PhD work, I didn't want to hang a shingle, I wanted to teach. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: And I did that for 15 years for two different schools, Virginia Tech and Champlain College out of Burlington, Vermont, mostly online, blended programs. I wrote the ethics class, I wrote the strategy class, I taught the HR class. So I and I was just hearing someone talking on their deck during COVID. And I could tell they were using executive coaching language. And Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: I asked them when I saw them a couple weeks later, I'm like, are you an executive coach? And he said, no, no, no, no, no. But but you should be a chair, that's what we call it. And I had no idea who Vistage is or what the organization is. And six months later, I was one. I was a Vistage chair. Rebecca Snyder: So what does a vestige chair do? 'Cause that does sound a little unique. Krista Crawford: Yeah, so we curate and grow a group of CEOs in our geographic region. No one at the table can be in a competing industry. You can have multiple construction industry people, but there can only be one electrical contractor, only one concrete. ⁓ Currently I have three high-tech companies and I have a a legal team and I have an accounting group, I have a landscaper. I have this wonderful variety of leaders. They walk away from their business for a full day every month to work on their business. I facilitate that. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: Vistach has the one of the largest private speaker bureaus in the country, and I can bring someone in eight times a year for a three hour presentation. It could be on AI, it could be on team building, it could be on conflict resolution, whatever I feel the group needs the most of. And then in the afternoon, this is the sweet sauce. That group of people, me facilitating, they bring their issues, or as you would call them, messes. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Krista Crawford: And each individual person at the table offers constructive criticism or suggestions. Person doesn't have to do anything that's suggested, but they almost always do some one of those things or a combination of them. And I get to participate in that and facilitate that. It's it's just my favorite job I've ever had. I feel so honored to be a chair for Vistach. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Well and ⁓ gosh, there's so many things that that we can un unpack there. I feel like the thread for me is that lifelong learning. Like you have such an innate curiosity about the world around you and being in that environment where you're bringing in different industries and different roles to to really like run workshops about how to make people's lives better, their professional lives better. That does sound like the culmination of of of what you have really been working on throughout. and I also love I mean, you you were talking about bringing your messes, which is a reference for those of you who don't know, it's a reference to one of our mentoring sessions in this past year's program and and Krista is a co chair, as I said, of the program. And I was really i We always do a freestyle program in in March where people where the group can decide what they want to learn and they wanted to really talk about how to navigate sticky situations and you and I'd love for you to talk about the framework that you adapted for this particular group 'cause I thought it was really helpful and I and it's really I think it's indicative of your systems thinking of you know, you like to help to provide a framework where people can find their solutions. So tell us about the bring your mess ⁓ framework that you created. Krista Crawford: Yeah, and I won't walk through every step, but the key to getting people to drill down into a piece is to to get them to do a very brief background on what the issue is. What often happens when people start talking about the thing that's troubling them They go off in tangents, they I mean it's just almost cathartic and there is value to that, but when you're getting a bunch of people together, you really don't have time for the scrapbook. So they have to be concise with what it is they really want help with. And then you get people to ask them questions to learn more. That's where it kind replaces the scrapbook. The people are curious about something. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Krista Crawford: Then they get to hear people make some suggestions, and ultimately the individual decides if they're going to do something or not, and what it's going to be, and what that would look like. But the piece that really can come out of it when you're giving constructive criticism or when you're helping someone make decisions is learning to ask the right questions and then listening for their answers. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Tell me more. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: Too many times we get in our head and we're asking questions, we don't really listen what the responses are 'cause like, ⁓ I've got another really great question I want to ask. Rebecca Snyder: Right, and I have these pearls that I wanna share and all those pieces. Krista Crawford: I have so much. They were gonna learn so much from me when really you're learning just as much because many of the things that we find challenging, they're all the same. It's just how we scale them or how we deal with them in our individual situation. Their people problems, their hiring problems, their family issues, they all impact, you know, what we do in our work. Maybe the issue is You're in the wrong job, you're in the right company, you're just in the wrong position. Usually those don't flesh out in these situations though, because people are pretty rooted where they are. But that's just a an overview of the power of getting a group of people together. Rebecca Snyder: Sure. Krista Crawford: I think that's why my work with Vistage and my work with the Executive Alliance meshes so well is because it's both both of these situations are it's group work. It's getting groups to be more effective, it's getting groups to bond, it's getting groups to offer each other solutions. My job is to step back and let that happen. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Well, and I think that's really interesting as a leader because I I think our conception of leadership is, you know, you're you're charging out in front, you're leading, you're the point heading heading forward on something. But a lot of what you just described is sort of like leading almost from below and raising people up to share that solution. So ⁓ I mean, not to get too esoteric, but does th how does that relate to your concept of of leadership and when did you when did that spark for you? Krista Crawford: Well you need to model the behaviors you want to see. So from that perspective, yes, there needs to be a leader. Sometimes it can be a trio, but usually there needs to be a leader. But if your employees are so dependent upon you, then if you have to be hospitalized for a while or if you have to be away, what happens to your organization? The best leaders are those who get to do truly the leadership, the ideation, the vision, the future think. When you get your company to the point, or your club, or whatever it is you're leading, to the point where you don't have to be at every meeting, you've done your job. Your company, speaking from a business perspective, is worth way more if you can step away for two or three months. Most peace most people don't get that. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Which is intellectually true, but emotionally how do you deal with your you have a group of CEOs that are probably pretty invested in ⁓ them CEO of wherever they are, and the idea that you can be like, ⁓ you to lead yourself kind of out of a job, ⁓ that Krista Crawford: Not out of a role, not out of a role, but out of a particular position, yes. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah, like I I got a little shiver of worry just hearing hearing that idea. So like how do and I guess ⁓ partly it's how do you take an intellectual learning and translate it into an emotional learning that actually allows you to execute it. Krista Crawford: So not every CEO I work with wants to sell their company. They may want to hold on to it forever. It may be a legacy company. They may want to pass it on to someone. But for most people, after three, five, ten, fifteen years, you might want to look for something else, or you might you might just be finding the air apparent within the company, and the company is going to go on without you. It's that idea that if you if you're that If people are so dependent on you, then you're really harming the company overall unless you can position the company so it can operate without you. Doesn't mean you have to leave, doesn't mean you have to take three months off, but it needs to be in position to do that. And people so you have to empower people. People have to be able to make decisions. They have to delegate. They have to know that self-awareness, they have to know what their weaknesses are. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah yeah. Mm. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: All those things that we talk about when we're mentoring, you know, people in the chain as they're moving through organizations, all those key basic things still hold true for CEOs. But they ultimately get to the point where they don't have to be sitting in the seat every day. But if they want to sell, lots of people start another company. They love nurturing and growing another company. So it's not an end, it's not over. It just makes your company more valuable. Rebecca Snyder: And it strikes me, you know, at Executive Alliance, and you know this ⁓ just as well as I do, like we really emphasize that idea of spiral learning, that there is no and I think that's a really feminine way to look at at at sort of progression, that it is cyclical, that you're not that you're doing the same things over and over because we hope it's an upward spiral, but there's there's a process and and I think sometimes ⁓ in a in a male dominated space you're thinking of like, well here's my story arc. I begin, I have the story, and then I end. And then, you know, what do you do after the end? And so I think with that idea of spirals, you continue on and you choose different aspects of of what you want to do to come to the forefront. So I'm I'm curious about that idea of spiral versus beginning and end, I in leadership. Krista Crawford: Yeah, I phrase it a different way. This is the fifth iteration of Krista in terms of my professional work. It's almost like squirrel, except on a little longer term, like, ooh, I'm really interested in that. Now I want to try. So you take your basic skills, but you try something else. For example, when I went back and did my doctoral work, I thought I was gonna hang a shingle. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: And I didn't. I ended up teaching for a while and I loved it until Vistage found me or I found Vistage, so Vistage is one of the most successful, best kept secrets because confidentiality is key. So a very successful company. We just don't talk about the individuals in our company because some people may not want their business known. So but so once I found out about it and started exploring it, I mean we're in we have 48,000 employees, I mean, not employees, 48,000 members around the world. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Right. That's huge. Krista Crawford: It's huge, yeah. About half of those in the US. Rebecca Snyder: Hm. So In your your leadership journey earlier you had said you were one of the only women in the C suite and you have done you've worked in a lot of male dominated industries, you know, certainly ⁓ sheet metal fabrication is not known for its woman spirit, definitely. So as you were d do you feel like you had always been how did you evolve as a leader, I guess is is the best way to to ask that. And then I also want to know foreshadowing I want to know who you admire as a leader. Like did you have a template that you kind of worked towards or tell me about the journey. Krista Crawford: Yeah. So yeah, pretty much every industry I've worked is male dominated. only across the country, only about thirty percent of CEOs are women, and therefore insisted we have an equal representation of chairs, but it's only thirty percent, so not too much math there, seventy percent are men. My first job as an HR director, I was the only woman, you know, on the C suite. And then when I went to work for a l right Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Which is usually the case, you know, if if you have women's representation in the C suite, HR and marketing are gonna be your main your main paths. Krista Crawford: Yes, yes. That's our entry point. So I've always been in a male dominated how I think I was very fortunate that I had a grandmother who from the very early days I can remember said to me when you go to college, not if you go to college. Rebecca Snyder: ⁓ Krista Crawford: So I never thought there would be a chance of doing anything else. I didn't know that there was an option. And it put this seed in my head from when I was a tiny little girl that I was going to be successful, whatever your definition of successful is. And I just didn't let any hurdles stop me. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: I also was blessed that I had a family of mixed education levels, very middle to lower economic, socio background. And I was my family always gave me a voice. I had no matter my age, I had a voice in the room. I think that's really important for women as they're going through, is to find that voice and use it. And I had a dad who was really funny, and a mom who was pretty serious. So I Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: I can be in most rooms, that cultural intelligence piece, how you adapt. I can adapt, but the older I've gotten, or the more seasoned is how I prefer to say it, the more seasoned I become, the less I adapt, the more I'm just me. And if that doesn't fit a situation, then that's not the situation for me. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. ⁓ Now do you think that's related to ha and because I I find the I we just had our mentee graduation and so I've been thinking a lot about the feedback that we get from the program and and many of the mentees in this past cohort really credited the program to helping them develop their professional voice. And so I'm I'm in you were really lucky to have ⁓ a family environment that valued your voice and it sounds like maybe encouraged encouraged it and sort of came from that attitude of like, well, of course Krista's gonna be a force in the world. And yet you still like it sounds like in your evolution, just as a person, like getting more confident in that voice and it and it's not as fungible, you're not as chameleon like for the room that you're in, you're more centered on who you are. And I would love to hear kind of like what helped you shape that that centering of your voice. Krista Crawford: Feedback. I was fortunate to have some early leaders that gave me really good candid feedback on my presentation skills, on executing and completing projects, because I do have a tendency to get distracted. And I've learned focus. Yeah, well, ⁓ that sounds great. Let's do that. And then for me, I as as you mentioned, I am a lifelong learner. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Yeah. Krista Crawford: And just if I wasn't feeling confident in the area, I would find a way to assess it. I would find a class to take. I would read a book. That's my bookcase is filled with leadership books. and doing kind of what we do with with the mentoring program. Having place putting them through an arc of Figuring out your why, your purpose, and moving all the way through to ending it with being able to speak your story very briefly. Learning, you know, examining, taking assessments on, you know, assessments aren't a pure mirror of who you are, but they generally have pretty good data for you. And if you take several of them, you can kind of triangulate that. I like to take the pieces that I like and then no. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's why I like our strength finders so much. I'm like, I don't need to know all the the things that I'm not good at. Like let's let's go from a position of strength. Krista Crawford: Yeah. And I think self-awareness is huge. If people are looking at one thing that they can work on to begin with, it's that self-awareness piece. How do other people perceive you? And when you become aware of how you're being perceived, then you can course correct or choose not to. But that getting in tune with how you're perceived. We think we know how we're perceived, but you really need to get that feedback on those pieces. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. So I you know, I was just thinking about blind spots and that idea of self awareness and cultural competency or cultural intelligence that you were talking about. And so I I was ⁓ learning more about this concept of Johari's window. and I feel like a lot of what you're talking about really rel helps you in that cultural intelligence piece. And I'm not sure that people really, like, out in the wild know that much about cultural intelligence. So could you talk to us a little bit, not that you have to explain Jahari's window, but it's about, you know, the four quadrants, ⁓ and and assessing what's known, what's unknown, what's a what's something that, you know, others know about you but you don't see. So it it it's really about that blind spot piece and it's being used often in in cultural competency. So that's a really like random, wild, messy question, but take of it what you will, 'cause I'm I'm interested in your cultural intelligence piece. Krista Crawford: I think you summed up Johari's window really well, you know, the known knowns and the unknown knowns. In identifying, you plot that out and you figure out what you think. But when we're looking at self-awareness or the cultural intelligence piece, it's Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: that adaptation, not that you have to be fake or false. And I don't want people to, you know, be someone else over here and something. But simple ways that you can blend in with others. Try to use some of the language that they use. That mirroring technique. ⁓ Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: If someone's raising their voice, then you can lower yours or you can raise your voice and they'll become aware of it and they'll lower it. And if you cease if you're talking and someone starts raising their voice, that's a sign you need to lower your voice because they're giving you those signs. With cultural intelligence, you're doing simple things. Just maybe you want to get to know someone really well, cook something with them. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Krista Crawford: If you're adapting to a completely different culture, take a cooking class with locals. If you're traveling, walk with them, talk with them, even if you only know a few words. That shows that you're willing to show your vulnerability, and people like that. They like people that are vulnerable. And it also grows you. In a workforce, it's a little different, but you can adapt those behaviors and words and language and actions that others do. And you will find you will get closer to them. And then you'll find them adapting what you do. Again, we're not trying to make everybody the same, but you do want to have that connection to just let people know without having to say, Will you be my friend? But in a workforce that doesn't usually work. So those are cultural intelligence is really this ability to adapt to other people and you can grow it. It's like almost everything we have within us, we can grow more of it once we're aware of it. But awareness is the key. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Mm. Well, and and as we're talking about leadership, like I think ⁓ and you've you've had you've done a lot of leadership, you've developed a lot of leaders, and in our conversation it strikes me that so much of this work feels very interior, and you have to have a degree of self control and comfort within yourself to be able to have the capacity to lead others. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on, you know, like I think sometimes we think, ⁓ to be a CEO I need to have these tactical skills but it seems like they're more internal skills. And and is that off base? What do you think about something like that? Krista Crawford: So, for centuries, leader, lead thyself. The standard is you cannot lead others well unless you can lead yourself. So if you're always late, if if your work is not, you know, at the par, if you offend people, that's going to translate into your leadership. So you have to begin the work internally. You have to get yourself ready to lead other people. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: As you go through an organization, ideally the CEO doesn't need to have any tactical skills by the time they get to the top. You hire the best to do that so that you can be that visionary. But in order to usually in order to get there, you have to go through the chain and you have to go up through the system unless you start your own company. If you start your own company, then you've got to be everything and then ultimately the visionary. So it's that again. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: And self-awareness, you've got to work on you. People will not respect a leader that has incompetencies. They might do things if you yell at them, but they're not gonna want to stay at your company. They're not going to talk well about your company after they're gone. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Now a lot of a lot of what we've talked about has been ⁓ sort of general leadership, but I'm interested you've because you were in male dominated industries, and because you're a woman of course, like Is it different for women leaders and how do you advocate for for women leaders? I mean obviously you're a part of Executive Alliance, but you know, sort of out in the field, is are there gender differences in so much as, you know, gender's a construct, but you know, like are there differences in in leadership and how do you advocate for women in leadership positions? Krista Crawford: Studies have consistently shown that women actually make better leaders because women in general have more empathy and have better relational skills. Now it's not like it's a huge difference between men and women. But on the other side of the coin, the perception of women as leaders is different. And I think it's because ⁓ we're compared to the Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: Often compared to the traditional items that used to be leaders. Leaders were tall and strong and they spoke really loudly and it's changed, thank goodness, so much in the last five decades, I would say, that I've been able to witness some of this. But women actually have been shown through statistical analysis to be better leaders. Rebecca Snyder: No! Krista Crawford: One of my favorite sayings is kindness matters. It's not that being kind is a feminine trait. It's just that we're differently on how to do that. ⁓ are across across the board, we tend to stay longer and we tend to stick, we're stickier with our employees. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Mm. Krista Crawford: But not but the the differences are b that window's becoming smaller and smaller. So in answer to that, I was lucky that I had a an early female leader, ⁓ not my first but my s third leader that I reported to was a woman. And she'd been through it all. And she gave me some good tips. ⁓ just you know, be a better listener. Yeah, I knew you're gonna ask for that. To be a better listener. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Okay. ⁓ 'cause you know I'm gonna ask for the tips. Krista Crawford: And she gave me travel tips that were much more needed earlier back in the day. Take a book when you go eat by yourself, things like that. They're good tips, because you know, you've got something to do, it sends a signal, leave me alone. and I always tried to work next to the most successful people. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Those are good tips, yes. Yep. Hmm. Krista Crawford: in an organization. That was a tip she s gave. She said, I don't Krista, I don't care where they're from or what they look like or who they are. The successful people you want to try to what is it they're doing that makes it, you know, different. And so often I would be modeling or emulating after male leaders until there were more women leaders that I could model. So that's all previous century stuff. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Well a and so ⁓ we talked a little bit about the perception of women leaders and like the actual the women maybe have a an edge i in in relationships and and sort of empathetic skills, but that gap is is closing. But yet women still lag far behind. You said earlier thirty percent of of CEOs in the country are women. So what How do we break through being perceived in a different way? When in general, you know, the the women that I come across, we don't want to remake ourselves in the image of some tired standard that doesn't that's really not effective, but we also want that full value. We want to be the leaders that we can be. So how do we do it? Krista Crawford: Y Yeah. So you're in a meeting and you're the only woman at the table and someone says someone needs to take notes, do not volunteer to do that. Rebecca Snyder: Even if you're really good at taking notes. ⁓ Krista Crawford: Even if you're really good at taking notes. Because as you're taking notes, you can't participate in the conversation very well. They're not hearing your thoughts. You're just taking notes. And it's always been a more traditional role. So that that's an easy one. now obvious unless you want to, unless you know a good cake. Rebecca Snyder: Don't get the cake for the party, does that fall in that category too? Krista Crawford: you know, a baker and you want to do it, but don't volunteer to do roles that other people can do just as well. Now you may get assigned to do it and then I if depending on the relationship of your leader afterward, I'd say, well, you know, thank you. I took notes. I'd I'd really appreciate it if next time someone else could do that so I could participate in the conversation. Just stand up for yourself. But ⁓ so there's little things it we we as a in general Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: Like to be helpful and accommodating. And so, but in the process of doing that, sometimes we're not being helpful to ourselves. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Yes, that that makes a lot of sense and and ⁓ also I think being clear about what you want. So I think sometimes that clarity can get lost like, ⁓ well I want to be helpful so I'll take the notes, but I don't really want to take the notes. I love the idea of of coming in with the solution, like I did this because we needed to do it. I'm the team player, I've checked that box. How about we rotate who scribes during the meetings or whatever whatever a equitable solution feels like. And I think all I I'm also interested, I wanna talk a little bit about the idea of belonging and inclusion in leadership circles because when we talk about thirty percent of women ⁓ being CEOs and, you know, I'm sure there's stats we can pull up about the C suite in general, those those stats are always a blend of all women. But when we really and we know this from some of the ⁓ analysis that we do in Executive Alliance, when we look at who those women are, it's a lot of white women and so we're not always bringing all women forward. And so br weaving in your ideas of of cultural intelligence, how do we create workplaces where everyone really does belong and we're bringing everyone, even those that don't you know, that that have different experiences ⁓ along to the table. Do you have strategies on that? Krista Crawford: Well, I have to be intentional. It's not going to happen accidentally because, you know, there are certain populations that there are greater numbers that are prepared to do something. So you have to be intentional. My HR background kind of kicks in here. I mean you can look statistically and make sure you're represented, you know, statistically significant in terms of ⁓ different ethnicities, different gender identifications. However, I I hope as a society we've moved where we don't necessarily have to rely on ⁓ checking the boxes. And we recognize that adding all those different voices makes us much more powerful as an organization. Rebecca Snyder: Right. Krista Crawford: But I know what you meant by ⁓ making sure that we have representation. Rebecca Snyder: So it sounds like building the room ⁓ is appropriate for the situation or for the outcome ⁓ being really expansive about ⁓ you need in the room. ⁓ ⁓ know, I I think of it ⁓ we're ⁓ we look at Executive Alliance, which is a obviously a membership organization, I'm always thinking like, to achieve our mission, which is really for women to take their rightful place at the highest levels of leadership in Maryland. Who do we need on our team to make that happen? And sometimes it's a ver you know, very specific individuals, sometimes it's groups of individuals, sometimes it's partners. And so I think thinking in a really expansive way sounds sort of like what you were what you were getting at. Am I interpreting that correctly? Krista Crawford: Yeah, we have an exercise that we do where we have a picture of a board table and it has outlines of different people around it. And we actually sit down and say, who am I missing? Who am I missing at this table? What voice? What what industry? What am I missing at this table? And when you actually do that, things just sort of pop out like, we've missed this whole vertical that needs to be there. Rebecca Snyder: ⁓ Krista Crawford: I also think that things such as this the mentoring program with Executive Alliance, I mean, that's how you grow the next leaders. You get them in front of seasoned, either by experience or age or both, women who can serve as mentors. And you get and we mentees can be of any age, people making career changes, different change. You get people that are Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: in their career track a little younger, whatever that new career is, and you get them exposed to clarifying their purpose and owning their strengths and looking at strategic growth and how to advocate for themselves and how to advocate for others and that idea of executive presence. How do you appear? How do you show up? Ask people. Rebecca Snyder: Thank you. Krista Crawford: You know, you look at the mirror and go, I I think it looked great. Ask someone, like, does this does this send the message that I wanna send? And if if they give you some feedback, then you can go with it or not. You can decide. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Right. So how do you handle tough feedback? And I'm just thinking, you know, in your in your progression, it's it's sometimes it's very difficult to to hear f like that kind of feedback and not, you know, immediately kind of say, ⁓ no, that's that's not for me. But what do you have strategies on on when somebody really tells you something that blindsides you or like that horror of honesty that you're like, ⁓ my gosh, I never realized that. How do you how do you bounce back from that? Krista Crawford: Yeah, it all depends on how it was delivered. You know. ⁓ if someone's giving if someone's giving you constructive criticism, and it can be very critical Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Krista Crawford: You know, there there are good ways and bad ways to do that. So if they do it around behaviors and results and not about your appearance or how you sounded, that's a behavior. But the here's you know, here's some examples. One instance doesn't go over well. You need, you know, you want to you want to correct behavior that needs to be corrected quickly. But if you don't want to just if there's several things going wrong Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: You don't want to bring the home in you at one time because people can't correct all that at one time. So if pe if someone offers me some constructive criticism and I disagree with it, then I'm just gonna say, tell me more. I'm not aware of that. Tell me more. I want to know more of what happened. Because that's really helpful. Then I can correct when I have more data. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: If people gave each other feedback on a more regular basis, it wouldn't get to that critical point. So that's why I love weekly, monthly check-ins, ⁓ check-ins weekly, monthly one-to-ones with your key reports. Really quick. What can I do to help you? What resources do you need need? How do you think it's going? That's it. Rebecca Snyder: Mm, mm. Krista Crawford: And if you do that on a regular basis, you catch things before they become a problem for that employee or a problem for you. But if you wait for the annual review to get them it doesn't help. Fortunately we're many companies are going away from the annual review or have gone away from it. But they still exist. They still exist. Rebecca Snyder: They're like, let me roll out my scroll of problems. Well and also think that's important to like when you're managing up. You know, you may not I you may not in the luck of the draw get the the manager or the leader that you feel like you need in that moment. And so asking for what you need, like, hey, can we have a check in? I I think goes it does go both ways. Krista Crawford: Yeah. It does and taking you know, taking responsibility and just set you know, it's been a long time. I'd really like to have a check in. I'd really, you know, can we sit down? Fifteen minutes, just fifteen minutes of your time. Don't expect it to be an hour, 'cause most depending on where you are in the organization, most CEOs don't have a spare hour that week. It has to be scheduled. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Right. ⁓ for sure. For sure. Well, and I wanted to ask you, you know, we've talked a lot about, you know, sort of ⁓ feeding the the younger generation. What would you have told younger professional Krista, ⁓ based on your knowledge and experience now? Krista Crawford: You're gonna be okay. It's all gonna work out. I think that's the first thing, you know, it's all gonna be well. ⁓ trust myself more and voice more at the table. For example, the note taking that came from, you know, true experience. Too too often. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Mm-hmm. Course, yeah. And like so so voice and trusting yourself and like realizing it is all gonna be okay, how does that play out in your professional life now? ⁓ I'm sorry, didn't mean to cut you off. Krista Crawford: Yeah. The other thing I was gonna add and then yeah, the other thing I was gonna add is mentor. If you're not offered a mentor, find a mentor. Find a person, a woman, if you're a woman, that or a man or what however they identify that you admire and that you really like the way they get things done and the way they present themselves and get feedback from them and grow. So yeah. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: So what was that question? I'm sorry. Rebecca Snyder: Well, I wanna know how how those sort of lessons for younger Krista how they're playing out in your life now. Krista Crawford: I do ask a lot of questions now and I do ask for feedback. and I encourage others. I also try to end most conversations that I have. Anything else, anything else you want to ask me, because sometimes there's that thing hanging there. You know there's something and they're not asking. And make sure you leave time for that. Rebecca Snyder: Mm. that. Okay. And then w ⁓ as as we're coming up on time, I want to know what's stirring for you in the future. You've talked about how you've had different iterative generations of Krista through through the time and you've been doing vestige ⁓ for a long time and you just got back from an amazing trip ⁓ to Scotland and and so what's stirring for you? I feel like you you have such an active life. So what's next? Krista Crawford: Well, I've got a two new talks that ⁓ I've developed that I'm going to be doing in the vistage system. So I'll go to other groups and give these ⁓ three hour presentations. They're they're each of them have to deal with how you can bring more fun into an organization and execute with it. So it's not we're gonna do improv or we're gonna dress up like clowns. It's just how yeah, no no no, there's none of that. Rebecca Snyder: Thank goodness. No clouds. Krista Crawford: Yeah, it's all about execution and and little short things you can do that bring out ideas. So just a little teaser for that. I'm excited about that. Because I miss that aspect of teaching that so I am I'm gonna be doing that. ⁓ but I'm really happy where I am right now. ⁓ I'm really Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. Krista Crawford: Vista is a really good fit. I love the work I'm doing with the Executive Alliance. I work with a volunteer with a couple of other organizations. And that keeps me productive. But it's not so much that I can't go to Scotland or go to New Zealand. I want to make sure I'm at that season in my life when I want to make sure that I'm working that bucket list. The ever-growing bucket list. I do one and then I add one to it. Rebecca Snyder: Yeah. Well, and I feel like you have, ⁓ like a a highly developed conception of like your ideal day. Like you feel so intentional about how you want to spend your time. And I wonder, you know, do you what does constitute an ideal day for you? Krista Crawford: Yeah, so ideal day, get my coffee, go out on the deck if the weather allows, and have that first cup of coffee just with Mother Nature. and then I will have a little breakfast, and then I will check off what my to-do list is from the day before that I make and see what it's gonna look like and plot what I'm going to do, the biggest one first. And once I have that planned, then I get to my email. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. ⁓ okay. Good strategies. Krista Crawford: I turn the phone off or on silent or do not disturb from ten to six, ten p.m. till six a.m. And then when it comes back on, I just sort of ignore it. I'm just not that important. Nobody needs me at seven o'clock in the morning. They just don't need me. And then I work on those things and I'll take a a walk, do some kind of exercise. I also I like to have a a little rest. in the afternoon. It really helps me. So half hour, just take a break, disconnect, if I can. Not every day I can do that. ⁓ most days I can't, but that's the ideal day. Yeah. And then no more after 5 p.m. And make a nice dinner, go out to dinner, have a beverage, watch something. I am. I'm living my best life. Rebecca Snyder: Mm-hmm. We're talking ideal, exactly. I feel like you're living your best life. Krista Crawford: And that's kind of what it is. And then, you know, on on other days it's when I'm travelling, it's kind of the same thing except no work. I don't do any work when I'm on vacation. So Rebecca Snyder: Mm. ⁓ I love that. Well, Krista, thank you so much for sharing more of your leadership journey. It's been a delight to talk to you. I hope you continue to live your best life. and I know you will. And it was really great to ⁓ to get to know you a little bit more. Krista Crawford: Great. Thank you, Rebecca. I enjoyed it. Appreciate you.