Chapter 13
Cathy Benko
Vice Chairman and Managing Principal, Deloitte Consulting, LLP
If you want others to be happy be courteous, compassionate, and altruistic; if you want to be happy, be courteous, compassionate, and altruistic.
—John Mattone
CATHLEEN BENKO IS ONE OF five girls brought up by a mother who did the best she could on her own. Growing up in New Jersey, she was raised with no sense of expectation or urgency to go to college and succeed in the world of business. Luckily, young Cathy didn't adhere to lack of expectations. When the randomness of life presented opportunities, Cathy embraced them utterly and entirely.
An honor roll but not stellar student, Cathy was extremely active in her high school, engaged in myriad activities. She might not have been on the path to university, but she was highly engaged in school and community. So much so that, toward the end of her senior year, a letter arrived one day from the local Lion's Club. Opening it up, Cathy read the line: Congratulations and in recognition of your civic contributions we would like to award you with a scholarship contributing to the first year of the college of your choice.
There was just one problem: Cathy had no plans to go to college. So while it was flattering, she simply left it on the kitchen counter and forgot about it. Forgot, that is, until her mother picked it up and said, “you need to put this award toward some good use!”
So Cathy registered for a one-year, advanced secretarial school program, and soon, soaring through classes, landed a job as an executive secretary in Manhattan immediately upon graduation. She was one of the secretaries, just like in the movies, whose desk was perched outside the mahogany-lined executive offices. Both stylish in her three-piece gabardine suits and undoubtedly appreciated for her sharpness and intellect, at the age of 19 Cathy felt like she had “made it.” But within months she began to have a gnawing feeling: Maybe I aimed a bit too low. Cathy determined she wanted more and enrolled in evening and weekend classes at Ramapo College of New Jersey.
The part-time, matriculating bachelors program at Ramapo did not attract your average student body. Many of its students, as well as instructors, were atypical, including men and women like Cathy who had never planned to go to college at all, single moms trying to better their lot, and older, displaced workers. Lecturers, for the most part, were local community leaders and business role models who wanted to give back to the community in which they flourished. Continuing to commute to New York City full-time while squeezing in classes evenings and on weekends three semesters each year, Cathy graduated with a bachelor's degree in five years.
It was all related. The company Cathy worked for offered tuition reimbursement—once again, Cathy saw an opportunity and acted on it, changing the course of her destiny. During these years she was promoted out of the secretarial ranks and into the personnel department (what HR was called at the time). Not long after, she moved into the unchartered waters of computer software when her company placed her in a program to learn coding and information systems management.
In time, Cathy felt that pull of wanting something more so she leveraged her personnel and computer skills and moved to a HR and Payroll software company. Here, too, she flourished quickly working her way up to both a product manager and senior project manager. She then parlayed these experiences and relationships by starting her own company, and was soon helping major businesses implement their corporate systems.
By the age of 26, her business was flourishing. But she couldn't ignore the urge to experience university-life, as Cathy puts it, “like normal people do” and started to dream about getting an MBA. About this time a Fortune 100 brokerage company client of hers offered Cathy a vice president's position. It sounded attractive but she was concerned that it might derail her MBA aspirations. So she made a deal: She would accept the offer of employment and, after a year or two, would apply to Harvard. If she got in, she would leave. If not, the company would sponsor her through Columbia's or Wharton's executive MBA program while continuing to work full-time.
How she keyed in on Harvard Business School (HBS) is somewhat a testament to her moxie but also to her pragmatism. Without the experience of ever sitting through an SAT exam, she thought, how would she ever excel in taking the GMAT. At the time, HBS had everything Cathy was looking for: world-class learning at a name-brand academic institution, that was away from home and had no GMAT requirement. Three years later, Cathy graduated from Harvard Business School.
Most students on campus interviewed for jobs with the biggest names in business and Cathy was no exception. So what was it about Touche Ross (who merged with Deloitte, Haskins and Sells the following year), at the time ranked near the bottom of the Big 8, that swayed Cathy to say yes? It was not only their aggressive search for great talent, but Cathy's nature to trust her instinct and take a leap of faith.
And in the 25 years since, Cathy Benko remains at Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. She has helped transform the company from its lagging position to top of the heap. Currently a vice chairman and managing principal of Deloitte Consulting LLP, her previous roles include chief talent officer; global e-business leader; high-technology industry sector leader; managing principal of brand, communications and digital; lead client service partner; and national managing director of Deloitte's award-winning Women's Initiative.
Cathy is also a U.S. patent holder and best-selling author of three books each published by Harvard Press: The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work; Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today's Nontraditional Workforce; and Connecting the Dots: Aligning Projects and Objectives in Unpredictable Times.
Cathy has received numerous distinctions including Consulting Magazine's “25 Most Influential Consultants” and its inaugural “Leadership Achievement Award” for women leaders in consulting. She has been honored by the Harvard Business School Alumni Association, Women in Technology International (WITI), and the San Francisco Business Times, which inducted her into its Forever Influential Honor Roll for exceptional women leaders. And perhaps most notably, she was inducted to her hometown's Hall of Fame.
At each step of the way, Cathy has not only recognized but seized opportunity in her path. For someone who didn't have much of a path to begin with, Cathy has forged an inspiring leadership legacy. I talked to Cathy Benko about her uncommon drive, her resilience, and why leadership is a not a destination but a journey.
JM:
Your story is amazing, Cathy. Congratulations. So how long have you been with Deloitte, after joining them straight out of your Harvard MBA program?
CB:
We just celebrated our 25th MBA reunion, so it's been that long.
JM:
That is truly remarkable.
CB:
But when you boil it down, I have been fortunate to have had many different roles—just with the same company.
JM:
That's actually a good thing. I want to ask you about your growth within Deloitte because I know that you've embodied many different roles. Can you give me a sense of the trajectory from when you joined Deloitte and through the various roles you've been through, eventually landing in your present role.
CB:
It took me between five or six years (depending how you count maternity leave) to be admitted into the partnership, which is relatively quickly. Subsequently, I was appointed Deloitte Consulting LLP's first global e-business leader—in fact, I was on maternity leave with my daughter (our second child) at the time and received a phone call from our CEO who said (paraphrasing), “Hey, you know there's this whole movement around e-business? We need to get on it—we need to be relevant in it, and we'd like to appoint you as our global e-business leader.”
JM:
Fantastic.
CB:
I believe at the time I was a second-year principal and on maternity leave! My response was “okay, that sounds like a good idea to take on when I get back from leave” and then didn't think that much about it. But when I actually looked at it, I realized the enormity of the task. I live in Silicon Valley and all of a sudden, it seemed, e-business was evident everywhere. There
was not a billboard in sight, for example, that didn't advertise
pets.com or
cfo.com or you fill-in-the-
blank.com.
JM:
Absolutely. It was a new era.
CB:
I recall, after studying the space for a while, going back to our CEO and saying, “Look, I had a hormonal imbalance when I thought this was a good idea, but this is bigger than I ever anticipated.” I told him, “The world will never be the same. We'll never interact the same way. We'll never transact the same way. Commerce will never be the same. Nothing will ever be the same.” His response, to his credit, was “maybe you didn't know what you were doing, but I did. Get back to work.”
JM:
The fact that you grasped the enormity of the transition was likely confirmation he had the right person for the job.
CB:
It was very much a case of “get to work.” That was my first major leadership role. It was a big effort in and around e-business globally with seats on both the global operating and executive committees. Somewhere toward the end of the internet bubble is where my first book (with co-author F. Warren McFarlan) came from: Connecting the Dots: Aligning Projects and Objectives in Unpredictable Times.
JM:
Wonderful.
CB:
The book was not my idea. I actually didn't want to take on a project like that. It was my boss who kept insisting. And I kept saying, “I'm not going to write a book. I hate to write, have a day job and brilliant concepts for a book are hard-earned.
JM:
And so what happened?
CB:
I teamed up with one of my HBS professors, Warren McFarlan, a brilliant mind and wonderfully gracious man who was a trailblazer in the area of using technology for competitive advantage. Connecting the Dots was published a year later.
JM:
Sounds like the perfect co-author.
CB:
From there the firm asked me to become our high tech industry leader.
JM:
Wow!
CB:
Not long after that appointment, I was asked to also take on the role of managing principal of Initiative for the Retention and Advancement of Women (WIN). This was a very visible extracurricular role which also gave me a seat on the firm's executive committee.
And then from there it was on to lead talent as the firm's first chief talent officer across all of our businesses. That is where the next two books came from: Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today's Nontraditional Workforce (with Anne Weisberg), and The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work (with Molly Anderson).
JM:
Excellent titles, excellent books. Your books continue to do very well, correct?
CB:
Yes. Several wound up being best sellers and all seem to have staying power, which is nice to see. But more importantly, we accomplished what we set out to, which was to position Deloitte's talent agenda for the future. Along the way I had the benefit of great sponsorship including my boss, our CEO, and the chairman of our board.
Because if you really want to make big change happen, you need to give people time to go on that journey, to internalize the change and impetus behind it; you need to give them permission—mental permission. And that's really what Lattice did. Because when you're unconsciously stuck in the mental model of a one-size-fits-all corporate ladder, it's difficult to see other possibilities. One point I communicated regularly was that our research showed how many assumed that everyone else's careers were zooming straight up the ladder, while theirs took more of a meandering approach. So while many think their careers are aberrations, but the fact that we could show how fewer and fewer careers today climb straight up was comforting to many.
I was appointed to the role of chief talent officer (akin to chief strategy officer or chief financial officer. My role was to cultivate a market for talent. While the transactional side of HR was important, the charge—to create a world-class value proposition for talent—was significantly greater than that.
JM:
Absolutely. Tell me about your roles since then.
CB:
Our succeeding CEO (when my boss became our global CEO) had asked me to take over brand, reputation, communications, digital, and our citizenship efforts. It was a way to parlay some of what we were able to achieve in the talent marketplace and scale that across our brand in a broader way. I spent nearly four years doing that and now am bringing all this back into the marketplace from talent and product branding perspectives. I'm also leading elements of the emerging tech side of our practice.
JM:
That is excellent. And how are you making that a reality?
CB:
While there are a few public companies of great scale that are natively digital, the majority need to go through a process of translation from traditional to digital business models and work practices. This taps well into my experiences—the common thread across the various roles I've traversed across over the course of my careers is transformative change.
JM:
Absolutely.
CB:
If you think about e-business, there is no way to go back, right? And there's an old adage: You're only done with change when you can't go back.
JM:
That's a great saying. In fact, there are few companies that want to actively change. That's not the mentality. The mentality is that it's not about wanting to change, it's about having to change. And companies that are not transforming every single day may not be around long. We have to drive greatness differently today and many or most market leaders today are not transforming themselves from a position of leadership or strength.
Very, very few are. I love to cite the Jim Collins book, Good to Great. Some of those companies don't even exist anymore. So that's what you're talking about right? Really, you can't go back. That's not an option anymore.
CB:
There are two things. One, you can't go back. And two, if you want to continue to be relevant, you don't really have a choice.
JM:
True. These are very powerful insights. What you've achieved is phenomenal, and I imagine you look at yourself in the mirror and probably pinch yourself every now and then say, “this is incredible. I kind of grew up in kind of humble beginnings. And I have achieved really incredible success.” I sense a lot of gratitude in you. I sense in your language a tremendous sense of humility, tempered with a great sense of belief in yourself, clearly. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. But there's a huge humility aspect to you, which is a character element that is just beautiful. What are the three things that you would say have led to your success?
CB:
I don't view myself as successful, but rather a continual work in process who's been very fortunate with the opportunities that have come her way.
JM:
We all are, aren't we?
CB:
When people say to me “you're so successful,” I think that it's a transient declaration and not really what it's all about. One thing I've learned is simply not to overthink things. I wasn't smart enough to know that it's unusual at times to venture into the waters I've jumped into, and fortunately, those times have worked out. Applying to HBS was one example.
JM:
And how's that?
CB:
The application can easily take more than 100 hours. It was due in early January as I recall, so I was late getting to Christmas dinner because I was working on it—not “missed dinner” late but later than expected. When I walked in, my mother was in the kitchen stirring the gravy. She looked at me—you know how mothers give u that disapproving look—still stirring the gravy and said: “You're late.” And I say, “Yeah, I know, but I'm applying to business school and was working on my Harvard Business School application.” I'll never forget the look in her eye. She put the spoon down, looked straight at me and said, “What are you thinking? That's not for people like us. That's not for our kind.”
JM:
Really? Why do you think that was her reaction?
CB:
She went on to express that I was just setting myself up to fall. Her belief was that people with roots like ours don't belong nor would be welcomed in places like that. Until that moment that actually had never occurred to me. And honestly if I hadn't pretty much already completed the application, I wouldn't have forged ahead.
JM:
Is that so? That's fascinating. So you would have stopped.
CB:
For sure. I was like, “oh, I didn't think of that.” I refer to it as “too stupid.” Sometimes the trick is not thinking things through so much that you talk yourself out of it.
JM:
Absolutely, that is so true.
JM:
Yeah, absolutely. There's an impulse to you.
CB:
Perhaps an impulse, but I'm not impulsive.
JM:
And a persistence.
CB:
I am more in the “planned spontaneity” camp.
JM:
I see what you mean. You set your sights on going to Harvard and you didn't follow the impulse to buy into the thought that “people like us don't attend schools like that.”
CB:
Yes. I think “why not?” before I think “why,” which has turned out to be a benefit.
JM:
That is a great example of an imperative question leaders should ask. Instead of why me or why us they should ask why not me or why not us? It opens up significantly more opportunity. What is interesting is that if you had never advanced that far in that application through your persistence and your why not attitude, you would have never gone to Harvard.
CB:
Likely not. I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do that. I've certainly been very well served by the school and give back as well. Since graduation I've held holding various leadership and board level positions for the school's local and global alumni associations, support its research agenda, and lecture and present on campus when invited on campus to do so. I support the School's mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world just as I believe it credentialed me in a way that helped me help others.
JM:
That is wonderful. It's all interconnected.
CB:
Certainly—interconnected across family, extended family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and acquaintances of acquaintances. It might be something as simple as a request to lend a hand or open a door. And that is meaningful, because where I come from, there aren't a lot of people that can answer that request by saying, “Sure, let me see what I can do.”
JM:
Talk to me about leadership, Cathy. I know you've done so much work in leadership both through teaching and mentoring others. Looking at your style of leadership, what are the two or three aspects of your leadership style that you believe are powerful, strong traits that you are most proud of? Obviously you are smart and strong, have a sense of purpose and a commitment to creativity, your values are geared toward trust and loyalty, and you seem particularly inclined toward innovation.
CB:
I'm a little uncomfortable to hear those observations or get that feedback. I don't really think about it that way. At the end of the day I'd say there's a hint of moxie, and an inspirational leadership style. It's like, “we are going to take that hill, we are going to own it.”
JM:
That resonates with me—there is massive gap in that whole area of inspirational leadership and we need more of that. We also need to embrace humility as leaders, and in my work I find the best leaders are never satisfied to rest on their laurels. Are there things that you're working on and if so, what are they?
CB:
Oh my yes! I feel I'm a continual working in progress, and never actually get there—wherever there might be. I really have a lot of time for people who are open and willing to grow. I find time for people who want to engage, who want to improve, who are curious and lean in. I go way out of my way to enable lots of different things, I'm really good at that, I'm committed to that. I tell my kids that all the time—I'll enable you but not entitle you.
JM:
Yeah, yes, that is imperative.
CB:
It's a fine line sometimes.
JM:
It is, indeed. What would you say is your greatest professional accomplishment?
CB:
That's easy, although you may argue what category it belongs in, but I have two kids. I have a son who just turned 21 and a daughter who is 16. My son is in college and when he came home last Christmas, he made a comment that stopped me in my tracks. In that moment, I turned to look at him (technically looked up at him—he's got more than a foot of height over me). What he said showed so much maturity, was so caring, and had such insight I was simply amazed. My thought was, “this kid is fully baked and what a terrific person he's turned out to be.” My daughter is great as well, but nearly five years younger, is still a work in process. She is my spitfire. High energy, willful and spirited, along with bright, articulate, and highly engaging. I can see advocacy of some sort in her future.
So, when I think about what I've accomplished professionally— best-selling author, patent holder, things I've done in the firm, titles I've held and the like—it's interesting, but I will look at these two kids and see my best accomplishment. For the past decade, my husband has been disabled with a progressive disease so child-rearing wasn't the tag team would envisioned it would be. I would argue, though, that his daily challenges are among what has influenced them most. Their learning is that you either run from adversity or you meet it head on, and handle it with distinction. I believe it certainly made me a stronger professional—and person.
JM:
Absolutely. That's a very heartwarming story and I think it tells me so much about you. And I'm very sorry about your husband—that's very, very tough.
CB:
You could wallow in it or you could handle it. That's what we've done. We might be a little rickety wherever we roam, but our motto is no man left behind!
JM:
Wonderful, and good for you Cathy, definitely a role model, very powerful stuff and I'm very moved by all of this. I can see the essence of who you are.
CB:
We all just do what we can do.
JM:
That's what building a legacy is all about. And that's also the true essence of leadership. Talk to me a little bit about the challenges of growth and transformation as Deloitte has transformed, and continues to transform itself in the professional services industry. You're a senior leader in the organization. What are some of the challenges around transformation and making sure that Deloitte continues to be the incredible strong brand name that it is, that your consultants continue to do the great work that they do?
CB:
First, with great success comes great responsibility. I think we've done a really good job on that front. But also with success, it gets harder and harder to scale because the proportions keep getting larger. So you have to continually have in your crosshairs how to you keep the essence of who you are, your purpose, and your culture as you continue to grow, to ensure that you're as relevant tomorrow as you were today.
JM:
Absolutely. What aspects of the Deloitte culture are you most proud of?
CB:
It's in the people—it always sorts to that. And there is something about being a private partnership. While it presents its challenges, a partnership capital structure also has many benefits. There's a sibling-like component to it, and family, well, is family. There is an expression our former CEO used to say, “if we want to go fast, go it alone, if we want to go far, go as a team.”
JM:
Interesting.
CB:
For example, when we decided to build Deloitte University, we had to determine how do you make a $300 million decision in a partnership with no retained earnings to invest in something that will, for the most part, be accretive to the people who come after us?
It took a few years to do, but we went on the journey together. We had town halls, discussed it for more than a year with the board, held a great D-bate on the topic, garnered all kinds of owners input along with the input of our professionals and staff across generations. We took a long-term view now chronicled in an HBS case study. Once its doors opened, all 109 acres of Deloitte University quickly became a crown jewel and source of great pride.
JM:
Absolutely. Are there any other elements of leadership you'd like to bring up?
CB: Yes. Resilience. A famous boxer once said something to the effect of: Everybody has a plan until you're punched in the face. There's a lot of truth to that. I believe resilience is a key, though underplayed, leadership dimension whether applied to organizational, professional, or personal life.
JM:
That's so true. You must have courage and a lot of people mess up and confuse fearlessness and courage. But courage is really the guts to be tough, to make tough decisions and be resilient. I agree that resilience is underplayed, as well as undernoticed.
CB:
Yes, I was talking to the editor of a business periodical about innovation and the observation that innovation is so often narrowly focused on startups and young disruptors.
JM:
That's a very good point.
CB:
The fact is, there are a lot of long-standing companies that I would argue are innovative—and I can prove it.
JM:
How?
CB:
Because they're still here, still relevant, still well-serving their stakeholders.
JM:
People define leadership in a myriad of ways.
CB:
They certainly do. For example, someone mentioned leadership the other day through the lens of team dynamics. I thought to myself, really? I can get behind that but leadership is so much more. For example, think of the interconnection between leadership and engagement. At its highest level, you can consider leadership a currency—a medium for exchange of value.
JM:
I think you're absolutely correct. I love the term currency. And there is a currency of change. Talk to me about how companies transform themselves. What are the key things that have to be in place?
CB:
In short-hand, there are two key components to a transformation: left brain and right brain. In neuroscience, left-brain refers to logical thinking and processing of information in a tangible, measureable fashion while right brain pertains to intangibles such as feelings, intuition, and creativity. We use left brain to refer to the capabilities and work practices a company aspires to develop, and right brain as a reference to the mindset and behavioral change requirements. As lyrics in a song Frank Sinatra popularized, “you can't have one without the other.”
JM:
Yes, so true.
CB:
Too often, though, right brain efforts are insufficiently tended to.
JM:
Absolutely.
CB:
So many things a company does—from management commuications to operational activities to project-based efforts—can be vehicles to help enable the transformation. If you're clear and can well-articulate the cultural norms, behaviors, and traits that you are trying to evolve to, you have a much greater chance of achieving those aims.
Those who don't create the future, live in a world not of their making.
—Cathy Benko
