Latest / Authentic Living / Systemic Barriers and the ROR: Return On Relationships with Carolyn Treviño Jenkins

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Systemic Barriers and the ROR: Return On Relationships with Carolyn Treviño Jenkins · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
• 0:08
  things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:11
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
• 0:36
  Hi, everyone.
• 0:36
  It's Roxanne Durgesh.
• 0:37
  Thanks for tuning in again to authentic living with Roxanne.
• 0:41
  Today, I have a colleague Carolyn Travin Trevino Jenkins.
• 0:45
  I said I wouldn't, trip up on the Trevino there.
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  And she is someone that, is a Forbes business council, a tech technology business council
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  member, and we were we were fortunate enough I I popped into this wrong room and actually met
• 1:02
  Carolyn at that point, at Forbes because I'm a part of the general, business council and we
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  got to know each other and she's got a fascinating story as a CEO and I invited her
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  today to kind of share some of the things that she's been through a longer path.
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  That might help some of us that are female entrepreneurs, but also CEOs.
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  So, Caroline, thanks so much for coming on today.
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  Oh, thank you for inviting me.
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  I'm really excited to be here.
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  So, Carolyn, now you and I started off because
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  we I think we were talking about diversity and, you know, I was fascinated by your background
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  because visibly I did not know, about your background and you were sharing a couple of
• 1:47
  stories, I believe, that got me intrigued.
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  Obviously, I'm from Turbago, so I would say visibly, I'm I look for and and and that
• 1:55
  changes that kind of sometimes the trajectory in a room.
• 1:58
  But with you, tell us a little bit about your background and kinda your path.
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  I know you live in Texas at present with your family.
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  Kids and your dogs and your lovely husband, but tell us a little bit about your path into kind
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  of, you know, business.
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  Well, that's a, a big question there.
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  So but, yeah, I think you were kinda sharing with some of the, the back and stories you and
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  I talked about about the way I look.
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  I am 1st generation American.
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  My my dad's family is from Mexico.
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  My dad was 10.
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  When they moved here.
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  What I look like my mom, who's Italian, I don't look like my dad, and I sort of grew up even in
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  my childhood where I never quite fit in.
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  There were people often the Hispanic community thought I wasn't Hispanic enough.
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  And then sometimes the the, you know, white community would say harsh things if they found
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  out I was Hispanic, like, literally in 5th grade, I had a teacher tell me I was the
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  dumbest Mexican she'd ever met, to my face.
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  So I you know, also life's an adventure, and I, and I really learned But early in life, I think
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  that it's about how I can how I respond to life.
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  You know, I can't control it, but I can control how I respond to things.
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  And that was really important to me.
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  And that's really been important in my business career because as I, you know, I finished my
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  MBA many, many years ago, and and immediately wanted to go to work and then chose to go to
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  work full time because I had a special needs son that was born in between my 1st and second
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  year, and he needed a lot from me.
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  And we had some disc discrimination in the race and in the medical system back then, as well
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  before my last name was Jenkins, on the end of that.
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  And just sort of that lived experience, took that into the workplace.
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  Again, when I finally went to work full time, I worked part time, And I sort of fell into the
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  startup world, and I loved it.
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  Like, I had to I was working in corporate America.
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  I was doing really well.
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  And one of my customers recruited me away to a startup in 1997 when there were not enough
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  positions there was the y 2 k scare and the internet bubble, and there were way more
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  technology positions than technologists, and that's when I first jumped in the startup
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  world.
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  And never in a 1000000 years in 1997 could I have told you I would one day be a CEO.
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  Film.
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  So it wasn't one of those dreams that you said, hey, one day when I grow up, I'm gonna be a a
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  female CEO you just never thought about it.
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  You just kinda followed the pebbles in the road that landed you into, you know, I I know lots
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  of different projects, in with startups.
• 5:00
  Yeah.
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  That first startup really kind of in my career became very much sort of see a need for a need
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  and it's really sort of about this attitude that later, you know, if I had been smarter or
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  if I'd been more marketing oriented, I would have coined it better because it was more like,
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  well, it's sort of like mom leadership.
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  Right?
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  It's like and really good leadership skills, but to me, it's like being a good mom is like,
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  I my kids are different.
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  I want I expect I have the same expectation of the behavior, but how I motivate them is
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  different.
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  Employees are the same way.
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  You have the same expectation, but you can't talk to them the same.
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  They have different personalities.
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  You don't reward them the same.
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  They have different likes and, you know, so you have to really treat people individually.
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  That doesn't mean you have different expectations of moments.
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  So I used to tell people, well, my leadership skill, I said, like, mom, and that same thing
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  as a mom.
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  You see a need.
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  You just do it.
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  Right?
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  And so in my first executive role, it's like, well, I was over HR.
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  But people would start, and their laptops wouldn't be ready.
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  They wouldn't be imaged.
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  Their email wouldn't be set up, and I'd be like, I can solve this.
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  Oh, like, I keep fussing at IT.
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  But I can solve it.
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  See, you need, fill a need.
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  I'm technical enough.
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  I had programming classes, in my past.
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  And so I just started imaging laptops and setting up emails on the exchange server, which
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  eventually led to me being over our IT department, in addition to HR, It was just I
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  didn't set out to be over it, and then I ended up being over facilities because I was like,
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  well, this is frustrating, and we someone just needs to fix it.
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  So I just that well, someone needs to do it.
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  Why not me?
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  Someone needs to clean the conference room, same thing.
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  Why not me?
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  Like, I can pick up a dish and wipe a table and Like, that's just sort of always been my style.
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  And so I I didn't really say, I wanna be a CEO one day, but I did say I see problems that I
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  want to fix, and eventually that became, well, like today, I lived the problems when I was in
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  cancer that my company now solves.
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  And so it's CND filling.
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  So you had said, in in our last, interview with Forbes.
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  You had shared a little bit about your your your mindset that you kind of your father
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  taught you some really valuable lessons, and I remember you telling a story about, how he told
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  you to deal with problem And I'm just wondering if you can share that that story that you had
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  said that he how he told you to think about problems.
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  Well, I'm not even sure if I remember which story because I have so many stories.
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  Yeah.
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  But it but
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  the basic thing was that he was saying to you that, you know, basically any anything is
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  solvable, but I remember you sharing that whole that you adopted that quite early.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, my my dad's, you know, taught me so, so so many lessons.
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  My dad was such an amazing life force and such a positive man, and my dad's was really very
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  big in my life about, you know, solving the little bits of the problem, but also not to get
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  all wrapped up in what everyone else thought about me, but what did I think of myself?
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  And that was so important in my dad, I mean, you would say things to me, like, you're too
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  smart to get, like, don't get emotional.
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  And he wasn't trying to tell me not be a caring person, Right?
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  He was just trying to make me tough.
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  And he would say, you know, you're, you're you're 2 something.
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  Like, you're you're too attractive when I was young and little and all those things.
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  And he's like, but so the world's not gonna think you're as smart as you are.
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  So don't let people rattle you.
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  And when when someone says not nice things about Hispanics, how you respond to that is way
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  more important than what they said.
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  Like, there were a lot of times I would sit in a room and and people would not under realize,
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  my background, and they would say very nasty things about Hispanics.
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  And I I had to handle that.
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  And my dad was always wanting to say how you respond.
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  You can elevate what they think.
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  Or you could respond in a way that to them is validating what they think.
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  And that lesson stayed with me always and not just about my race.
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  But about any, any conflict, I am in control of how I respond to that situation.
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  I can't change the other person so much as I can change and handle myself.
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  So I would think that, you know, from that first comment with that teacher all the way up
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  potentially.
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  And like you said, visibly, people aren't aware.
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  And, you know, they maybe make derogatory comments.
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  So you at that point, I would think had to make a decision.
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  Like, okay, am I going to, go where they're going or I'm just gonna have them have a
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  different interface.
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  And at some point, I would say it's delivering the fact that somewhere along the line, they're
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  they're gonna trip into the fact that your heritage, part of your heritage is Hispanic.
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  So they would just learn it along the way somewhere.
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  Well, I will tell you that I usually try to find a very polite nonchalant way to almost
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  immediately bring it to their attention.
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  Even I mean, not just in business, but, one of my daughters, when she was in high school, had
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  a boyfriend who was at my house and said, very nice things about Mexicans.
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  And I looked at him, I called him by name, and I said, you realize you're standing in my
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  house.
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  Do you not know that I am Mexican?
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  And he sort of looked at me for a minute, and he said, but aren't you well, you're the
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  exception.
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  I'm like, no.
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  No.
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  Would you like to hear hear about my family my family in Mexico.
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  They're, you know, and how successful they are.
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  Would you like to hear about my grandfather?
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  Because he volunteered to fight for this country to be a US citizen.
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  Like, he volunteered.
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  He wanted to be here so badly.
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  He risked his life, and he was at Normandy, and most of his troop died.
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  But he made it.
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  Like, you wanna know how proud of an American I am, but I didn't wanna yell at him.
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  And, like, some of my friends were like, and and your daughter still gets to date him.
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  You didn't, like, kick him out of your house.
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  And I was like, well, here's the thing.
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  If I kick him out of my house, which don't get me wrong.
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  It crossed my mind.
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  But if I had, he was gonna go home to the very same parents who had taught him this.
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  But if I could show him something better, something different, maybe it gives him food
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  for thought so that he can be different.
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  So, no, I did not forbid my daughter, from dating him.
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  I did not forbid him from coming into my house, and he came they dated for many, many more
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  months, and I think he had a very different perspective.
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  Do I think I turn him around 180?
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  No.
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  But I bet I got him at least 90 degrees.
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  It reflected some kind of change.
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  You know, you know, how can you quantify that other than to your point, you have them him
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  interface with somebody that's really, addressing the concern or or what they're
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  saying out there to give them the possibility of having a different perception potentially
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  instead of bowling them over where maybe then they're gonna go.
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  Here we go again kind of thing, validating maybe a stereotype that has maybe never been
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  challenged.
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  Now, as a young female executive, I'm sure there were roadblocks along the way.
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  Maybe 1, maybe 2.
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  I'm not sure, but, how did you deal with those?
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  Like, I understand the mindset.
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  Have that were there times where you kinda just really knew you were hitting up against the
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  glass ceiling and, you know, were there times things that you maybe you look back and go, oh,
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  geez.
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  I did this not so well.
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  And this is how I what I learned from it.
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  For maybe, you know, young female executives or people in the c suite that are listening, to
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  the podcast today.
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  Oh, gosh.
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  I'm sure there are so many mistakes that I've made.
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  But one of the things I learned early was to practice.
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  You know how, like, we all are taught to practice for sales.
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  Right?
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  You all hear about, oh, if you're gonna sell something and in my first one of my first
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  professional, jobs.
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  They would put us on these phone banks.
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  That was a sales job, and you would do, practice sales calls, and they would reach
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  record them all, and then you would have to listen to yourself, and then they would do a
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  video recording, and you would have to watch yourself.
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  And it was so you could learn it.
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  So but you were practicing to sell something.
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  But I learned to think about if things were to go wrong.
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  What might I say?
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  How might I behave important because sometimes I'm not caught unaware.
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  And I didn't like that feeling.
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  I didn't like coming up with an answer on the fly, and I don't think I've ever had the exact
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  scenario I practiced for in my head.
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  But that practice prepares you.
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  It's like any other emergency you might prepare for.
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  Right?
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  You you get all ready for the hurricane, You get already what if there's a flood, you know,
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  what if?
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  Well, discrimination, if it's because of your race, or your looks, or because of your gender,
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  like, it's still it feels like an emergency when it happens, And so being prepared and
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  having thought about those scenarios and practiced how you will respond for those
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  scenarios, was some of the most valuable things I think I ever did to be ready for those
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  scenarios.
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  It was like the the first time someone came in to a boardroom and thought I was the secretary
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  there to take notes I I wasn't prepared to handle that.
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  Not not that it wasn't the end of the world, but it was just that, like, that all of a
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  sudden being made to feel small.
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  And, like, they think I don't belong, and and I let them own that.
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  And it's like, no.
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  I'm not gonna do that anymore.
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  Like, how do I how should I have responded to that?
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  So in the future, how do I respond to that?
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  And I really tried You know, when you think about your, like, business, like, where things
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  go wrong, how do I pivot?
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  But I also think about if conversations might not go well or, you know, how how am I gonna
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  respond and how am I gonna handle?
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  Yeah.
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  So, like, almost like a role playing with yourself to potentially look at different
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  interactions that you might have.
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  And obviously, if, you know, you're you're tripping along, you know, doing your thing, and
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  then things are gonna present and generally, I'm gonna assume you probably float with a lot
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  of them, but sometimes you might get into a scenario where you're like, okay, I'm dealing
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  with this situation.
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  Like you said, with the coffee, And then you're like, okay.
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  I can either be reactive, you know, or and get defensive or maybe have a conversation that
• 16:09
  allows the person to recognize.
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  Well, I'm actually not the person that gets coffee, but like you had said, you know, that
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  person's gonna probably be right in kind of thing, which, again, is that I like the fact
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  that you reframe in such a way to say, okay.
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  Well, obviously this person is limited in their perspective.
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  I'm gonna try to kind of have them see something different.
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  Yeah.
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  Like, in that instance, at that first time, I wasn't real prepared, but in the future, it
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  happened more than once.
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  You know, if someone's like, oh, you know, and you even sometimes get the honey, you know,
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  especially in the south.
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  Honey, could you go get me some coffee?
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  And I'd be like, oh, I don't drink coffee, but I'm sure when the executive assistant gets
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  here, she'd be happy to get some for you, you know, a password.
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  Or, you know, I'm I'm happy to show you where the room is kind of pins, right, is the coffee
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  like right now in the hall, then I'm happy to show you where it is.
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  You can go get your own cup, you know, so then they're like, oh, like, but not in a mean way,
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  not where it's like, Because otherwise, I've put them on the defensive, so they're gonna put
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  a wall up between us.
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  And I don't want there to be a wall.
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  That just makes it now.
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  I've got a wall and a ceiling.
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  Yeah.
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  A lot of climbing over to do.
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  I really wanted to keep in mind what your long term objective is.
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  Is my objective to alienate this person?
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  No.
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  Is my objective to demonstrate to this person that we're equals, not because of our sex, but
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  because of our intellect and our role in the business, that's my objective, which means I
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  need them to be open to receiving that information from me.
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  That's a that's a really, really so that long term view versus kinda getting into it with
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  that person based on, you know, maybe less than ideal behavior.
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  Now I'm curious, right?
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  Like you said, so you go on.
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  You're a senior executive and you're, like, you're you're, like you're saying, you're in HR
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  and then you get into IT and then you're in, you know, a facility, all that stuff just based
• 18:05
  on you just taking on new new things that needed to get done.
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  At the point, you became a CEO.
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  I'm curious about that.
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  Right?
• 18:15
  Because, obviously, I think there's different you that strategic level that you go from to
• 18:21
  get to a CEO level.
• 18:23
  Were there any kind of fears in your mind at that point.
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  And and if there were any, how did how did you deal with it?
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  Oh, so many.
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  And for me, what happened,
• 18:37
  you know, I had done multiple startups where I was one of the co founders.
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  So I I hired everybody, even once I quit wearing the HR hat and I was running a P and L,
• 18:48
  I was still always the HR expert, and I was still always involved in the hiring process as
• 18:52
  one of the co founders.
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  So I I had teams that I had chosen.
• 18:58
  And if they were good or bad, I was part of the reason that we had that team and and there to
• 19:03
  deal with it.
• 19:04
  When I was hired by a different company to become their CEO, like, wow, like, I'm the new
• 19:12
  person on the block.
• 19:13
  And so all of a sudden, it was like, I need to find the right balance of authority, but not
• 19:22
  shut down listening to other people.
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  You know, and it and so what's our intimidating.
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  Like, they all know each other.
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  They've all known each other longer than they've known me.
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  And I had from since 1997, it had always been the opposite I was like, I've been there all
• 19:37
  along.
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  And so it was very different feelings saying, how do I come in here And I'm not saying that
• 19:46
  we're trying to be, like, best friends, but definitely friendly.
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  I believe in friendship and back and and those things in the workplace, but I need that.
• 19:56
  But as a CEO and a first time CEO, I also need to not give up too much of my authority, and I
• 20:02
  needed that balance.
• 20:04
  And right out of the gate, and my my first time as a CEO, There was, an internal candidate for
• 20:11
  CEO that had been passed over to bring me into the role.
• 20:16
  And that became my biggest challenge, if you will, because I'm, I was determined to win this
• 20:25
  person over.
• 20:26
  Like, they didn't get the job.
• 20:27
  It wasn't my decision.
• 20:28
  They didn't get the job, but, obviously, I got the job instead of that person.
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  And I'm like, I'm I'm gonna get this person on board.
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  He's still here.
• 20:38
  He's my head of sales, and I'm gonna him on board.
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  I never did get him on board.
• 20:45
  You know, he, he ended up resigning, and it was probably a good thing and I think I let it drag
• 20:51
  on longer than it should have, and it was a good thing he like took himself, out of the
• 20:56
  equation.
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  I just could not win him over.
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  But when he was gone, he was causing And and I don't think, purpose.
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  I mean, he's a good guy.
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  Like, if I saw him today on the street, I would say hi to him and would shake hands and catch
• 21:15
  up and and whatnot.
• 21:17
  But I think just that that frustration for him that he didn't get the job was just too hard to
• 21:22
  overcome.
• 21:23
  And so that getting that activity, that negativity out of the office was really
• 21:28
  helpful.
• 21:29
  So we were an in person company back then.
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  So
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  Okay.
• 21:33
  So that that that bandy between, I have to create a presence as the CEO I wanna be
• 21:42
  connected, but I need to be able to show, authoritativeness.
• 21:49
  Like, Were the things that you really had to work on for that subset of skills, or did you
• 21:55
  find that it it because you've been in lots of different positions with startups that that
• 22:00
  came, easily to you.
• 22:04
  The connectivity, it was interesting.
• 22:07
  And and what I say is, like, there were certain people in the company that we instantly had can
• 22:13
  shift in connectivity.
• 22:16
  There were a couple of people managers in the company that I'll tell you.
• 22:21
  I I I think I had their respect, but never maybe connectivity from them.
• 22:27
  Now we were a strategy execution software company.
• 22:30
  So as far as, like, the accountability that was easy, everyone had their objectives.
• 22:34
  They were all used to that.
• 22:36
  Like, holding people accountable for performance was easy.
• 22:40
  Trying to have a company team building event was harder than any place I'd ever been in my
• 22:49
  life.
• 22:49
  I'm like, it was so fascinating to me, like, once a quarter, we would go volunteer at the
• 22:55
  food bank, but we had some employees who were like, I'm not doing that.
• 22:58
  Like, I they and they wouldn't do it.
• 23:01
  We had we did 1 quarter.
• 23:03
  We went to, one of those puzzle rooms, you know, where you have to get you know, when we
• 23:08
  went to eat and we went to a puzzle room, and there were employees who, like, leaned against
• 23:12
  the wall with their arms crossed, and they're like, I'm not playing this stupid game.
• 23:15
  You know, and it was like, wow.
• 23:17
  I have, like, never seen this kind of attitude at any of my other companies where someone's
• 23:22
  like, I I won't even try.
• 23:25
  Oh, and I'll tell you there were a couple of them that I never went over, but they did their
• 23:31
  job as employees.
• 23:33
  They met their objectives.
• 23:34
  You wouldn't say that they were bad performers, but from a culture, company culture standpoint,
• 23:40
  like, we just never connected.
• 23:42
  Never.
• 23:43
  And it felt like they never blended in.
• 23:45
  It wasn't just me.
• 23:46
  They never blended in to the company culture as a whole.
• 23:51
  And so it was hard for me.
• 23:52
  It was a struggle for me to say, are they the right employee then?
• 23:56
  Like, but they're doing their job.
• 23:58
  They're like, doing a good job at their job.
• 24:01
  They're hitting their objectives.
• 24:02
  They're not a bad employee, but they certainly didn't elevate the culture.
• 24:07
  They weren't maybe what you would call a culture ad.
• 24:10
  They were maybe a culture detractor.
• 24:13
  Mhmm.
• 24:14
  Mhmm.
• 24:14
  And that was hard.
• 24:15
  That was really hard because I was used to being, you know, well liked, well respected,
• 24:25
  you know, but again, there were people I hired, which is different, I guess.
• 24:29
  You know?
• 24:29
  So Right.
• 24:29
  Because you're growing you're growing the culture from the ground up if it's startup
• 24:33
  versus, like you said, when you're inheriting, the context of what with prior leadership and,
• 24:38
  you know, I often say what is the context of what's happened within the culture, the
• 24:43
  business units changes.
• 24:44
  There's so many variables.
• 24:47
  And then, you know, you know, I talk about return on relationship, but ultimately, if
• 24:51
  you're connected and you're doing all the things that are key to to get people, you know,
• 24:57
  to function optimally, not everybody's gonna want to be as cohesive.
• 25:02
  Some some people are like, you know, just leave me in my kind of my back office.
• 25:06
  I'm gonna get stuff stuff done, and I'm not the type that likes to potentially play games, you
• 25:11
  know, or do puzzles.
• 25:13
  But I'm pretty good on my own kind of thing.
• 25:15
  So it it really depends, and it's oftentimes an individual thing as well.
• 25:19
  Yeah.
• 25:19
  It was really fascinating.
• 25:22
  Prior to me, the previous CEO didn't have company events.
• 25:27
  And I came out of a culture where we always had a quarterly mean, they had company meetings,
• 25:32
  but they didn't do, like, fun team building activities.
• 25:35
  And, of course, you can imagine my HR background, and then I was vice president
• 25:39
  customer sass.
• 25:40
  I was doing team things for my customers, and, it's just kinda core to my nature.
• 25:45
  And we always had these things at our companies in the past, and they were always a huge hit.
• 25:52
  And I'm like, I even would have I was I like serving the employees.
• 25:55
  I'm like, well, what do you wanna do?
• 25:56
  And those few people were like, nothing.
• 25:58
  Like, we've never had to do this before, and we don't wanna do it.
• 26:01
  And you're sitting there going, well, when they were hired, they didn't they were not their
• 26:07
  expectations were not set that they needed to do this.
• 26:10
  And so then how do I come in and penalize them or not wanting to do it, but it always felt
• 26:16
  awkward.
• 26:18
  So and I would like to think, had I been there longer?
• 26:21
  I wanted turned it around, but I'll never know because I was, you know, I got cancer while I
• 26:27
  was at that company.
• 26:29
  And so I didn't have the tenure there as CEO that I would have expected to have.
• 26:34
  This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
• 26:38
  Be sure to tune in next week for part 2 so you don't miss out on the amazing content.
• 26:44
  Thanks for tuning to authentic living with Roxanne, creating the space for positive
• 26:50
  healthy change.
• 26:51
  Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit
• 26:57
  roxannedurhaj.com/blueprint.
• 27:01
  We'll see you next time.
• 27:03
  Unauthentic living with Roxanne.