Honoree Panel: The Path to Leadership – Career Pivots, Potholes & Priorities

Join a captivating panel discussion that showcases esteemed 2023 honorees as they share their personal journeys towards leadership and unveil the crucial elements of effective leadership within their organizations.

Transcription:

Mary Ellen Egan (00:06):

So I want to first welcome everyone. Thank you for coming. I'd like to introduce my panel, Nandita Bakhshi, who is a Special Advisor and Board Member, BMO, former CEO of Bank of the West, Kate Danella, SEVP, excuse me, Head of Consumer Banking Group at Regions. And Sandy Pierce was the longest title, so I have to look at it. Private Banking and Regional Banking Director and Chairman, Huntington Michigan and Huntington Bank. So thank you for, we're going to talk a little bit today about the career to their path to leadership. And we had a lovely lively, and I was thinking back when I was young, probably around the time when they discovered fire, that I used to think that your career went like this and then you retired and it went like this, and then whatever happened after that. And of course it doesn't go that way. It goes this, this. Sometimes it goes up and then it drops all of a sudden and it's a journey. So we talked a little bit, and I'm always interested in people's origin story because I love to hear how people started. I started as a waitress and a bartender, and now here I am with you distinguished ladies. Never could have predicted this. So Sandy, why don't you start us off and talk a little bit about how you came to the industry and your journey so far.

Sandy Pierce (01:23):

Sure, sure. Thank you. I appreciate it. Some of my story, my colleagues from Huntington certainly do, but those of you that don't, I grew up in the city of Detroit and my parents owned a bar and we lived on top of the bar and I was the youngest of 10 children. I was the first one that was able to go to college because we were poor and I had good grades and I lived in a very diverse neighborhood. And so when I graduated from Wayne State University before I graduated, I became a teller at National Bank of Detroit, which is now JP Morgan Chase. And I was really excited when I graduated to move on at that bank and join the branch manager training program. Janet Hilson, the recruiter called me and said, you're not getting the job. And I said, why? She said, you'll never make it in management. You're too nice. Now think about this, 21 years old, really good grades at Wayne State and someone is trying to tell me that I'm not going to make it. That was one of the barriers. So as I went to a different department and started in the marketing area, I've done, okay, I don't know where Janet Hilson is today, but I've done okay in management.

(02:55)

But here's what I want everyone to know because I did not tell anyone. I never lied, but I never told anyone at work as I was moving up in my commercial loan career. I never told them where I grew up, never told them my story. I never lied, but I never talked about it because I thought if people knew that others would get ahead of me because they went to more elite schools, they grew up in a more privileged background than I did. I was the only one that started in the commercial loan training program with my bachelor's degree. Everybody else had their master's. I got mine later. And so until the age of 37 when I was the second Senior Vice President at that bank that was a female. And at that moment I realized it was because of how I grew up, not despite it. And so I always encourage everyone. So thank you for asking to tell your story because what I just told you isn't on my resume. It's not on my CV, but it says a lot about who I am and why I'm so committed to community and so committed to my colleagues and my customers and my family. And if you don't tell your story, if you're not proud of your story, you're missing a big piece of your life.

Kate Danella (04:21):

Absolutely.

Sandy Pierce (04:22):

Kate, do you want to take it?

Kate Danella (04:23):

Yeah, that was beautiful. So I grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I was raised by my father was a small business owner on the local bank board, and my mother was a college professor. So my experience growing up was kind of a mix of both of their careers. My mom would pick me up after school and take me to Japanese language lessons and other riveting experiences at the campus. And then my dad on the days he would pick me up, would put me on the call center line and I would cold call. This is pre do not call lists. I would cold call laundry lists of people trying to get them to renew their subscriptions and Overdrive Trucking News or Pumps and Systems Magazine.

(05:19)

So it was my mission in college to find out what my passion was. And I decided in college I was going to make the world a better place. I wanted to go into public service and became fascinated with emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. Ironically, places like the Ukraine, Lithuania, lat via countries that had emerged in post-Soviet era. I moved overseas to Europe to get my PhD. In fact, in modern Lithuanian history, and if anyone has nodded off already, you are not alone. Most people do when I share that. But in the middle of that career trajectory, I got a phone call that my father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And so I flew home. And for those of you who have experienced someone's journey with that particular cancer, it is unfortunately a quick one. And when I was sitting with my father upon our first engagement with this, he said, Kate, I have a few words of wisdom.

(06:27)

And my father always had words of wisdom, so I was ready to put my feet up. But it was a short list this time and it was, if you ever get married, marry for character, work as hard as you can and when you think you've worked too hard, keep working harder. And then the last one was, promise me you'll go and work in finance or banking for two years. And I thought, well, that's an odd one. And I said, but dad, I'm going to make the world a better place. He said, just promise me you'll go and work in finance and learn how to balance your checkbook, learn. He wanted to make sure I could take care of myself. So sure enough, my father unfortunately passed away. Seven months later, I wrapped up my dissertation. I figured if I'm going to pay my penance in banking, I might as well go out to California.

(07:16)

So I moved to California, worked in asset management. It was ready for my two years to be up so I could go back to making the world a better place. But two years passed and two more years passed and 10 years passed, and now 21, 22 years has passed. And what I realized is that my father knew at the time I could make the world a better place by staying in banking, by helping finance entrepreneur's dream, by putting first time homeowners in their first home, by helping families save for their kids' education. And so what started off as two years of penance and fulfilling my promise to my father became a lifetime of truly making the world a better place through banking.

Mary Ellen Egan (08:12):

That's a great story. That's great. Nandita.

Nandita Bakhshi (08:13):

 Well, my story is a bit of what Sandy said and what Kate said together. I started in this country, what, 38 years ago. I came as an immigrant. I have a master's degree in international relations and history honors, never worked in India. Came over with my husband who was getting his PhD here. So came along as a supportive wife. I don't think I've ever been that because the moment I came in and I was like, I'm not going to sit around and do nothing. I don't have zero work experience, I have degrees, but that's about it. So I took a bus from where we lived outside of Albany, New York and went to a mall location and the first building I saw there was a branch, it was called Northeast Savings. It's now Bank of America. Walked in, talked to the manager and I said, I'm looking for a job.

(09:10)

And he said, okay, tell me about yourself. Tell me the education you have. And I said, I have a master's degree in international relations. And he said, I think you're overqualified. I have a teller job available and I don't think you're qualified. I mean you're overqualified for that. And I said, that's okay. I'm not asking for more money. I'll take the job. So he sent me for an interview to Schenectady, New York. I took a bus and went there and the HR lady, smart girl, rejected me outright and said, you just got here to this country not even a week ago. You don't even know what a dollar looks like. You're going to have $40,000 in your teller drawer and you're going to be able to balance at night. I said, I guess so I will. I'll try. And she said, have you ever sold? I said, no.

(10:01)

She said, we have something, a concept called upselling. Those were the days of you had to sell 4.6 accounts per customer. Not anymore. We know that no cross sell. So I said, oh, I guess I'm not ready for that. So I came back home and the lady they hired instead of me couldn't complete her tele training. So the branch manager went against the wishes of the HR person and said, we'd like to have you join the bank from Monday. So I went through my tailor training, joined, stayed in the branch environment, branch manager, assistant manager, regional manager. I grew up in bank one, I would say, because my husband moved to Columbus to get his PhD and I did that. Then I moved to product payments, technology innovation, and I just announced my retirement yesterday. I'm retiring as the former CEO of Bank of the West.

(10:58)

Thank you. Thank you. It's an amazing run. And when I became the CEO in 2016 of Bank of the West, which is a B and P party bar company, I joined less than 2% female CEOs worldwide. And that has been a quest for me because I have not seen in my journey enough females taking on P and l positions. Yes, it's great to be in functional areas, nothing wrong with that. Marketing, finance, HR, all of that. Legal is great, but we need more female individuals, females coming into P and l position. And I would say one thing that has helped me throughout is believing in myself. It took me a while to bring my authentic self to work because as you can imagine an Indian girl, I spoke English, but I didn't speak American English. I had never worked on a computer. And honestly for the first six months, every male Caucasian male female looked the same to me. They all had permed hair. I couldn't tell the difference.

(12:12)

So it took a lot to get used to the culture, the work, the work environment, the work ethics. And I stayed in banking because I truly believe it's a noble profession. We propel the society. Look at what we were able to do during Covid. That's where I started in banking. I say as an accidental banker, but I stayed in banking because it's a great place and I'm walking away from banking extremely proud of what the team under me at Bank of the West, at TD, at WAMU, including WAMU at Bank of America at First Data we have achieved.

Sandy Pierce (12:54):

That's great.

Mary Ellen Egan (13:02):

Really great interesting stories. I love hearing how people get to where they get to, and as we know it's not always a planned path, but one of the things, and I think you've started to hit on some of this nandita, is some of the obstacles you meet along the way early on and mid-career or maybe later. So is besides some of the things you talked about, is there a big obstacle that you remember? Was it maybe a confidence problem or even not even a problem that you ran up against about a structure of an institution or what was one of those big obstacles for you?

Nandita Bakhshi (13:33):

I would say the personal obstacle was to be comfortable and confident in my skin. It took me a while to find myself and say, it's okay to bring my real self to work. I felt I couldn't be an Asian girl at work. I didn't know who I could be at work, honestly. And as a result, one of those things I've taken on is really asking my colleagues to bring the authentic self to work because I truly believe that you can get most out of individuals if you make them feel comfortable. If you build an inclusive culture. I would say that was my biggest obstacle to come to overcome. I would say the biggest challenge I've had is when WAMU went down, I was on the retail side. We had an amazing retail franchise. It was the mortgage side that brought the problem, which the retail bank didn't have much to do with.

(14:33)

In fact, we were funding the mortgage team, but it impacted 56,000 employees on the 26th of September, 2008. And I walked away from banking at that point. I went to India to be close to my parents, and I worked pro bono for a microfinance organization, helping women start their own businesses that I believe was an amazing colleague. And I'm calling for me, and I'm so glad I did that. I took over time away and I said, you know what? When you fall down, you can count up to 10 to walk up again and take another job. So nothing needs to, and I think that's important as you expand your horizon. I've worked two years in Europe in Stuttgart and Germany managing ad PhDs that we were building a mobile wallet. And I think most people feel that you have to go completely linearly, and I am a big believer you don't, you have to take chances, you have to take risk. So I would say one personal and one that was thrust upon me.

Mary Ellen Egan (15:38):

How about you, Kate?

Kate Danella (15:41):

In terms of obstacles, I similarly always try to think about what were the big rocks, the big boulders in my career path that forced me to go right or left. And those actually aren't as significant as the kind of small pebbles that seemingly insignificant annoying ones that you trip on that prevent you from showing up in a meeting, being your best self, getting something done on time in a confident and capable way. As I analyze what those pebbles are that I trip on, they're often a hundred percent self-doubt rooted in self-doubt. What I've often seen is that it's moments when someone has taken a chance on me where I feel like I'm undeserving and I doubt myself. The most vivid moment was very early in my career when a manager, I had been working on something and he invited me to go to the board room with him and said, I want you to sit next to me at the table.

(16:58)

It's that moment that you get invited to sit at the table. And it was a literal moment for me. And I remember sheepishly going into the room and sort of seeing executives sitting at the table and people of my stature sitting in the peanut gallery, and instead of taking the seat, I thought, well, gosh, how presumptuous of me to do that? I'm going to sit in the peanut gallery. And almost felt a sense of pride that I had found my place, assumed my place, and sat there. And I distinctly remember him coming over to me and he said, I invited you to sit at the table and I expect you to sit there. And that was a moment where each time from that point on when there was a seat available, I'd sit there, I'd sit there confidently, not always a hundred percent confidently to own that seat. And as I've matured in my career and more people have either invited me to the table or expected me to sit there, my opportunity, I think all of our opportunities is to earn the right to invite someone else to the table that's right and to clear those kind of pebbles of self-doubt for other women. And so that's been, as I trip and have moments of self-doubt, I really try to focus on that notion of seat at the table, not just owning my own seat, but earning the right to invite others to the table.

Mary Ellen Egan (18:26):

Sandy, how about you? What do you think of you when you look back? Is it the biggest obstacles are yet to come or were they early on or, I mean, they're always there throughout.

Sandy Pierce (18:36):

I've had so many pebbles in so many boulders, but I'll go back to when for Chicago, MBD, which I was a part of, was joining Bank one. And I was having my third child, Tommy, who is now 25. So we're going back 25 years. I was 40 years old, and I got a call from a bank, one boss that, and when I was in recovery, I had just had Tommy and he said, we're going to announce your new job tomorrow, and I just wanted you to know we're really excited about it, and you're going to be in charge of 17 states, all of small business, you're going to have 8,000 employees. And I said, well, can I call you back? I mean, this is a true story. So the next morning, I mean he called me in recovery, so I thought it was only right to call him at 5:00 AM

Mary Ellen Egan (19:44):

Totally right.

Sandy Pierce (19:44):

I called him at 5:00 AM and I gave him three names and he said, what is this? And I said, well, every single one of these colleagues would be tremendous in that job because I'm not taking up. And I said, and by the way, I really need to hang up because breastfeeding, and here's my point, I was really scared because I had just had a baby. My girls were 11 and 14 years old, by the way, same husband, just one great night. Here comes Tommy.

Mary Ellen Egan (20:25):

That's how it goes, doesn't it?

Sandy Pierce (20:28):

But these banks were merging and I knew that I could be out of a job. There goes my career when I just had this brand new baby and still had so much of my career ahead of me, and I was nervous. But at that moment, I had to make a decision and have enough confidence in myself that I would land, even though I didn't know where I would land. Turned out I landed at that same bank in an even better job, but I didn't know it at the time.

Mary Ellen Egan (21:02):

I think that's, and you bring up a really good point too, because we see women hit the VP level and then they stop drop, they start dropping out partially because they want to have a family and they want to raise a family and have a demanding job. How do you balance all that? And I think now it's compounded because parents are living longer. So now you might not only have children take care of, but you have your elderly parents to take care of. Is there something that the industry can do to be more cognizant of how to help women in these positions to encourage them to stay in? I mean, one of the things, I've talked to some other women and they've been discouraged because they've said, well, we get maternity leave. And if they have a book of business, they spread out the book of business until they return and they come back and their book of business is not theirs anymore or they have pieces left and that's a big problem. So what are the things you think the industry can do to help keep women in there so that we can get more women up to those higher levels? The C-suite levels?

Nandita Bakhshi (22:02):

I can talk about a program which is not when the person has just delivered the baby or coming out of the maternity leave they have, but if somebody's been out of the workforce for seven, eight years because they wanted to take care of the child, make sure the child went to elementary school before they joined the workforce again, that becomes extremely hard. And we working with my team, working with a nonprofit organization in San Francisco, came up with a program called Returnship where we chose about 14 or 16 individual women that were at one point coders and programmers and project managers and program managers. And we put them through a 16 week immersion program because these individuals are probably very intimidated because they feel they've now completely lost touch. So after the program, we put them with buddies in back in the job, and these are engineering jobs and they can work from home. I mean, now they can work from home or they could come to the nearest location that we had. And it's been a very, very successful program and we've done it multiple times and seen tremendous success. So I think that's one of the ways, apart from being flexible and making sure you hold onto the jobs and all of that, but again, the reality sets in, you really need a person to run that job while the person's away. So while you may want to do the right thing at times, business challenges and business priorities come up too.

Kate Danella (23:44):

Yeah, I'd share a few things. First, I think being a champion of just foundational benefits, family benefits, if your firm doesn't have them, change that and be the champion. So our firm when I joined did not have a formal maternity leave, did not have, I met both a biological and adopted parent, didn't have an adoption policy, paternity or fertility. And that's something that I just championed and said, we're going to change that. And I have a CEO who's incredibly supportive of it and a leadership team, but it needed someone to light the fire under. So being a champion of just foundational family benefits, I think is number one. Number two, and something, we've got a great plan at regions now, but we're enhancing this. She is wellness and mental health benefits. And so I think creating a benefit program that can catch women and men at different stages of life to support them.

(24:53)

And I think mental health and wellness and having really, really robust plans in those areas. And there's some innovative things that benefits companies are doing now that I'm happy to talk to anyone who's interested in it. And then the third thing is I think talking about the model you use very openly, and I'll share a little bit about what I mean, I remember when I started working, I am a model person, so I look for models not to replicate, but to sort of understand and then create my own mental model for myself. So walking in first day of work and seeing the young women professionals wearing their sneakers with their heels and their bag and they're Walkman, yes, Walkman walking in and I'm like, I got it. I can do this. I've got that mental model. Then you get married and you sort of understand what the new schedule's going to look like.

(25:47)

You're going to cook at night and Thursday nights, girls nights, and okay, I got that model. Well, when children come along, there is no model. You can't look at your male colleagues and say, alright, I get it. I understand it. You can't look at your working female colleagues and get it and understand it. You have to make the model work for you and your employer. You got to create shared value and that's going to look different and you're going to have to adjust the inputs. For me, it feels like every six months as your children evolve and continue to make it work and be flexible with yourself and be flexible with those who report to you. But as leaders and female leaders, you have to talk about it, I think so folks understand it's okay that folks understand that you're adjusting your work life model and therefore they can too, that it's not set and done. Covid taught us, it doesn't have to be eight to five every day, five days a week. We can adjust and we can work. So I think the benefits and evolving and emerging benefits, but then also creating working models that evolve with your life stage and being really open about how you're adjusting so that it invites people to do that, invites your team to do that for themselves.

Sandy Pierce (27:16):

I think that Nandita and Kate gave really good examples. What I would say to all of us in this room is we need to be the change we want. We have the authority and the power to make change. There is lots of different models out there. There's lots of flexibility. Now we have to really bring our whole selves and be honest and stop trying. I hate the word balance. I never use it. I've never had it in my life. And I like to use the room, the word integrate, integrate all parts of your life. So I'm going to give you one example if I may. And the example that I use is when my girls were growing up, I overpromised and I told them I would be at their swim meet on Thursday night knowing I had a client dinner. Now those of you that are smarter than me would say, well, that was stupid.

(28:15)

And it was. It was. But I felt so guilty. I had so much guilt and I was going to try to do it all. So they were always disappointed. I always had breakdowns. They would tell you that if they were sitting here, here comes Tommy. Now I've learned from my friends and colleagues that I can't balance it. And so what I started doing when Tommy came along was he was a big athlete. You know what? I can't go to your basketball game Wednesday. I'm not going to be there. I know what my week looks like on Sunday and however I'm going to get you from school on Friday at noon. You plan the whole day. We'll do whatever you want. He wasn't looking for me in the stands. He was waiting for Friday. He had the whole day planned out. I mean, after he was about 10 years old, he was like, no, mom, thanks.

(29:07)

Really? That's good. I'm fine. But go away. Go away. Yeah, go away. Don't come near the school. Exactly. You're embarrassing me, mom. But the point is you need to figure out, we all need to figure out, we have friends, we have family, we have spouses, we have kids and just integrate them and don't over promise that on deliver because you will have breakdowns. I had so many, and Tommy would tell you, he doesn't remember me ever screaming. The girls would say, oh, I got stories. But I mean that's the difference for me. So I just don't like that word balance. And I think that we need to ask for and insist on things to keep us in the workforce while we're doing all of the other things that are important in our life. It's possible.

Mary Ellen Egan (29:57):

I think one of the things through, let's talk a little bit about leadership, all in leadership roles. And I know that I've had a variety of bosses over the years, male and female. Some were very good, some were very bad. This does not include any of my current colleagues. Some were really bad. And I think I hope that the leadership style has changed because it used to be very autocratic. It's like you do what I tell you to don't question, and very paternal and I've seen it evolve over the years. And so my question is, what do you think makes authentic leadership? I think it might be an individual thing. I mean, for me, I always thought that a real leader is somebody who will roll up their sleeves and do whatever is asked of you. If I had to go mop out the men's bathroom when I was a manager, restaurant manager, I mopped out the men's bathroom. It is being willing to get in the trenches to me is what an authentic leader is. But that's obviously a very different industry. But Kate, what do you think about when you can think about an authentic leader?

Kate Danella (31:00):

Yeah, I think the probably broadest definition is building loyalty and trust by being unapologetically yourself. And for me that means bringing in a sense of humor into the workplace. It means wearing beads when I want to wear beads to work and showing up the way I show up at home. For me, authenticity also means accessibility. I want to be a leader where someone can look at me and say, I feel like I could call her if something went wrong in my day-to-day job. I feel like I could let her know that something's going great and we need to do more of it, or something's going wrong and I believe she'd listen and she'd try to fix it. To your point, I always thought leadership was with a capital L and you needed to have some grand ambition, some grand position, some grand pedigree or set of experiences to be able to be a capital L leader. So for me, authenticity and accessibility is trying to paint the picture of a leader that is accessible to all and a position that is a lowercase leader, L lowercase, leader L, so that people can understand and see how they can lead in their day to day. There were a few folks in my journey and my path that broke it down and de recapitalized leader for me, and it made me be more aspirational, but not to recapitalize it. Once I got to a position where folks would be looking at me in a comparable way,

Mary Ellen Egan (32:55):

Nandita.

Nandita Bakhshi (32:57):

One aspect of leadership that often gets understated perhaps because you can't measure it and you don't have a KPI next to it. And we all love our KPIs and KRAs is the human element. I think leaders need to prioritize people, culture, values, purpose, just as much as they prioritize efficiency, NIBT and profitability. I think if you could do that, that's what brings in the tone from the top. That's what cascades down. I remember when I took the job at Bank of the West Bank in 2016, the bank was running great. There was nothing wrong with the bank. It had a great culture, great credit culture, great risk culture. So I essentially told to my direct reports, run the bank because I'm going to be up and about. So I took the first six months and I was on the road with a black book.

(33:59)

I met 5,000 employees, one-on-one small group meetings, lunches, dinners, walks, weekends, evenings. If I met 300 people in a town hall, I didn't count them, I didn't count that. And I had two questions for them, what do you like about the bank? What keeps you here and what don't you like about the bank? And they spoke and I wrote, wrote copious notes. And I truly believe that if I had to pay a consultant to do that, that would've been $7 million at least, right? But what it did is it connected me with the people. They found out that I care. Recently, my chief of staff, j Engels was standing in the back and we visited Tempe, Arizona at 120 degrees just to talk to the people to say it's a merger, time, ambiguity, uncertainty. What can I do for you? How can I help you? And they said, nida, if you could come at 120 degrees, you really care. And I think this is where our colleagues, our employees, our teammates are looking for us to bridge that gap between intention and impact. Don't say things to it. And I think this is also, you become more of an authentic leader today if you stand up for social causes that is relevant to you, to your values of the organization and to the teams. And I think all that together makes an authentic leader. And I think if you can build a culture on authentic leadership, you have very low attrition. There is a business case.

Nandita Bakhshi (35:50):

I know, it only shows up on employee engagement scores or NPS for employees and so on and so forth. And I know Wall Street doesn't give too much credence to that, but I think we should because there's absolutely a case to be made about a leader being authentic, a leader being empathetic, a leader, being able to connect with the employees.

Sandy Pierce (36:15):

I would agree with everything both of them said. I would say that leadership is a privilege, not a right. And that great leaders come to their position not only with their head, but with their heart.

Mary Ellen Egan (36:29):

So in the few minutes we have left, let's talk about what advice you have to the women out here that aspire to someday be take over your jobs or maybe take over a job in a different industry, but climb to the levels that you ladies have. What would you say to them that looking back you would say, oh, I wish I'd known that or because the times are different, this is what I think you should know going forward. Sandy, you want to start?

Sandy Pierce (36:59):

I think what I would tell my younger self is that you get to direct your career path. Don't let anybody tell you that you're not smart enough. You're not schooled enough. You were born on the wrong side of the track. Don't let anybody put things on you that you get to create and direct your own path and don't take that for granted. The other thing I would say is understand what your priorities are, what drives you and understand that those change as life changes. I've only had all male bosses in my 40 year career and until 10 years ago, they thought what was important to them, what drove them, drove me. So I finally had to say, you know what? That's not important to me. Let me tell you what my priorities are so that you can help me navigate my career. And there's no boss that's going to say to you, I don't care what your priorities are, but you have to be willing to put it out there because they're different almost always than who's leading you. And they change as your life changes. That's what I would say.

Mary Ellen Egan (38:22):

That's a great point.

Kate Danella (38:26):

I had say a couple things in addition to what Sandy said. The first we were actually talking about on the way up here with some of my region's colleagues, one of my colleagues said that she had recently talked to her, much younger sister who had just started in her career early days. And she said, remember three words don't freak out. And I thought, gosh, that is so good to me. They're just going to be potholes, right? And they're going to be pivots, and that's life. And in a career, you got to take that in stride and don't freak out is the only way you'll get through it. So I thought that was just great. That was a great piece of advice. The other one is focus on your strengths. Oftentimes in performance reviews, when we walk out of the boardroom, when we complete a project, we immediately go to what would I have done differently?

(39:30)

What's going to get you to the next job is not what you made a mistake on. It's what you excel at and what differentiates you, whether it be your communication style, your analytical skills, your project management skills, your sales skills, what's going to accelerate you. So nurturing your strengths just as much, if not more than fixing the elements that you got to grow and learn from, I think is really important. And the third one, just to tie back to what we spoke about, is own your seat at the table and make a place to invite someone else.

Mary Ellen Egan (40:09):

So I would add to don't freak out. Ask for a raise.

Kate Danella (40:13):

Yeah, there you go.

Mary Ellen Egan (40:14):

Because I tell you though, I was the chief of reporters at a major publication and I was like, when anybody offered me a job, I was so grateful. It's like, oh my God, pay me the least you can and I'll be so happy and work my button to the ground for you. And so the young women I would hire as reporters come in and say, that's not enough money. And I'd be like, what? You're not grateful. I'm giving you a job. And I was so proud of them because I didn't know enough to ask when I was their age. And I always went back and I said, I can't guarantee the answer's going to be yes. But good for you for asking.

Nandita Bakhshi (40:47):

Well said.

Nandita Bakhshi (40:48):

I would say believe in yourself, believe in yourself. Take risk. And as Kate said, as you make room for yourself, bring others along. I'll share with you something that has helped me. I didn't create this. I heard it from somebody, but I shamelessly took it on and made it mine. I have a rule of thirds when I take a job, and I've moved around quite a bit. So you would think, I can't hold onto a job, but as I have considered new opportunities, new initiatives, new jobs and so on and so forth, I've applied the rule of thirds, which is the job has to be a third comfortable so that I can survive. The second, third has to be stressful that I grow. I can become uncomfortable and as a result grow. And the last third should be white knuckle stress, because that is truly where you get comfortable with the uncomfortable and grow. And I've used that. And whether it's a complete one thirds that I've taken on, or if it's 20 20 and the last was 80% or felt like it has worked for me and I've used that criteria, I'm somewhat of a numbers person. So that's really worked for me.

Mary Ellen Egan (42:12):

That's great. Great advice. Nandita. Kate Sandy, thank you so much for this really engaging and frank conversation.

Kate Danella (42:19):

Thank you.