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Setting the Stage for Success

Digging your heels in works best if you begin with a clear vision and intention in mind. You must first imagine the possibilities you see for yourself in order to visualize what your company will look like when this transformation occurs. There is substantial scientific evidence to support the use of visualization in improving performance and attaining goals. Many successful people, from athletes such as US soccer player Mia Hamm, who retired with a world-record 158 international goals, to twenty-five-time Emmy Award winner Oprah Winfrey, have found that brain imagery informs their real-life actions and inspires personal follow-through.

Amanda Apodaca, business transformation advisor for Lilly USA, admitted to me that getting clear on what she wants has been the most challenging and the most rewarding factor in her career.

Every single pivotal point in my career is when I got extremely clear on what I wanted and when I mustered up the courage to ask for it.

She recalled her first job out of college at a TV station, when she was having lunch with her peers and they began talking about the promotions they were being considered for. She was taken aback because the promotion conversation had never come up for her. When she finally asked her boss why they hadn’t discussed promotions, he told her, “I never knew it was something you wanted.”

Interestingly enough, I got the promotion, but what if I would’ve had more clarity on what my next step was sooner, and I had asked for it sooner? There’s this theme for me, as I look back over my career, of sitting in the box, not ruffling everybody’s feathers, trying to work hard. And I just wish I would’ve known the level of ownership that I could take over my career.

Take a cue from Mia and Amanda and begin to visualize where you want to go in your career. It may be helpful to think about people inside and outside your company who inspire you.

Who has a career that you find appealing?

Which aspects of their success do you want to replicate in your own life and career?

What has been their impact on their company, their industry, or the world at large?

As you contemplate these questions, I will share the stories of two women who were able to achieve their visions.

Building Your Dream Title

Theresa Batiller has worked for a global healthcare company for fifteen years. She was hired straight from receiving her undergraduate degree at Rutgers School of Engineering. Theresa always aspired to work for her company and saw herself employed there for her entire career. But there was a moment when she considered looking outside the big corporation.

Ever since I was in college, I thought I wanted to be a lifer at this company. I applied only here. I wanted to retire here. So, for me to think about leaving, that was a big deal.

Early in Theresa’s career in the supply chain division of of this global healthcare company, she was told that in order to advance in her field, she must spend significant time working at a manufacturing site, learning the day-to-day operations of manufacturing facilities and navigating issues as a plant manager. However, all of the manufacturing sites were in locations that posed a challenge for Theresa: Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Europe.

Why were they a challenge? First, Theresa has a very successful working spouse, who would have to give up his job if they relocated. Second, she has a young daughter with special needs who is confined to a wheelchair and requires specific medical monitoring and therapy. Theresa couldn’t pick up and move just anywhere, because her family needs communities and resources that are handicap accessible. In New Jersey, where they have lived for the duration of her career thus far, they have immediate family nearby who help with her daughter and younger son.

My limitations were that I had to be near a major airport because my husband travels a lot. I wanted to be in the United States because I am most comfortable with the handicap resources and rules here. Even though I was open to relocating, those two criteria alone precluded me from relocating to a manufacturing site. I was getting really discouraged, as I am very career ambitious.

Because Theresa felt she couldn’t move into a direct manufacturing role, she took on positions and responsibilities in functions such as planning, project management, and quality engineering where she could get indirect exposure to the process. She also took on leadership roles outside her day-job responsibilities to increase her exposure and visibility, such as leading the employee resource group for young professionals. She even led the first-ever internal hackathon at her company. That variety of experiences helped her gain an “end-to-end” view.

Finally, Theresa was given advice that struck gold. A female senior leader and mentor stated something that transformed how Theresa thought about her career.

She asked me, “Well what do you want to do?” That was part of my problem. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. I know I wanted to move up, to make a big impact somewhere in supply chain. I didn’t know exactly what specific function it would be.

The thing that changed my mind was this advice. It was, “You don’t need to change for this company.”

Theresa felt empowered, and stopped seeing her needs as limitations. She began considering what her company needed to be for her to continue advancing to her potential. She visualized the actions she needed to take to secure a role that would give her more manufacturing oversight—on her terms. And she approached her bosses with the conviction to make it happen.

Theresa’s first step was to seek out people who had gained exposure in manufacturing without taking on-site roles. She was pleasantly surprised by the diversity in their experiences. In about four months, Teresa was presented a role with requirements that she typically would have been hesitant to pursue. The job qualifications and previous incumbent leaders followed a very traditional profile; these leaders had “grown up” on manufacturing sites and were certified Six Sigma Black Belts (a highly prized process improvement certification). Theresa neither fit the traditional profile nor had any of those experiences. But she had a pretty compelling vision for the department and how she could lead a transformation.

The title of the role was director of process excellence. Process excellence is all about improving the manufacturing sites—for example, by looking for areas of waste and ways to increase efficiency. Theresa had been exposed to various initiatives focused on culture change, and she had unique skills and a passion for this work. As she looked at her company, an enormous global organization, she knew it faced the traditional hierarchical challenges that slow down change initiatives—and she knew she could make a difference.

This job was perfect for what I needed. I could be remote. It would get me closer to manufacturing. All my teams are in manufacturing facilities. I still get that option of flying to the manufacturing sites, but I don’t have to be full-time in one.

As the new director, Theresa was given the opportunity to transform the group. Using her creative vision of her department’s role in helping her company become more agile, one of the first things she did was rebrand from process excellence to business excellence. The group is now focused on how they impact on the business overall—on finding inefficiencies not just in the manufacturing processes but across all business processes.

Takeaways from Theresa’s Story

Be bold and speak up. Theresa expressed her needs and articulated them clearly to senior leadership. She needed her company to provide more flexibility within key roles in order for her to deliver results while maintaining her family priorities.

Think values, not limitations. Theresa shifted from viewing herself as having limitations to having clear values, which sharpened her previously blurry vision for her future. Like Theresa, strive for a vision of how high you want to advance your career, a vision that works in harmony with your values. Then you can chart the skills you want to hone, the relationships you want to build, and the changes that need to be made in your organization for you to get there.

Be clear on your unique career vision. Theresa had a clear vision for moving up the corporate ladder, and she knew that it required her to obtain manufacturing experience. She also knew she couldn’t relocate to a manufacturing site. So she found a way to gain that experience without relocating. Clarity around her vision for what she desired and what she deserved was what ultimately helped Theresa secure the role she needed in order to dig her heels in at her company.

Theresa has been approached multiple times by less tenured women who confide in her about their perceived limitations. She empowers them to think beyond the traditional career road map.

I used to overmanage my career. I’d be thinking to myself that I’m going to go for this job, then here, then over there! It never turned out like I wanted it to. It would be so frustrating because I never got the job I wanted in my order and timeline.

It’s actually interesting, because now the advice I’m giving other people is completely opposite to what I was being given early in my career. I no longer view my situation, or other women in similar situations, as a limitation. It has been a huge awakening for me.

Identifying the Gaps and Filling Them

Stephanie Epstein is the chief operating officer (COO) for the global marketing organization at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm. She has spent almost sixteen years at the firm and transitioned into her current role in 2017.

Stephanie is one of the most influential and accomplished millennial women in the financial services industry. She is someone who seizes opportunities even when there is no clear pathway or guarantee of success. The pathway to securing her former role as chief of staff for BlackRock’s president Rob Kapito was a catalyst for her leadership, as it gave her a global platform to test her ideas and build her reputation for evolving the culture at BlackRock. She credits the opportunity to become a chief of staff and design the impact of the role as being afforded the freedom to craft her vision.

In 2010, Charlie Hallac, copresident of BlackRock and the architect of its industry-leading investment operating system, Aladdin, gave Stephanie a blank piece of paper. Literally. As a vice president in the acquisitions group, Stephanie had worked with Charlie over a five-year period during the company’s efforts to integrate several acquisitions, including State Street Research, Merrill Lynch, and Barclays, with the goal of ensuring that the client experience remained a consistent priority and focus. Charlie and Rob needed someone with client experience to help them with their day-to-day responsibilities in running and operating the firm, and they let Stephanie be the one to build out the role. The vision she wrote out on that piece of paper was the basic framework for a strategy of how a chief of staff function would increase efficiency and effectiveness across the entire organization.

This experience represented a consistent theme across Stephanie’s career: identifying a gap she was confident she could fill while cultivating sponsor relationships to further enable and empower her along the way. Her story brings clarity to the idea of sponsorship, which is an elusive concept for many women looking to access relationships with influential leaders. As sponsors, Charlie and Rob provided the air cover and a launch pad for Stephanie’s talents, but it was without a doubt her talents and creativity that catapulted her career.

Finding ways to provide value without being asked to be is my first piece of advice. Because if I was just going to sit back and wait to be told to do X, Y, and A, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. These leaders (Rob and Charlie) are very busy, and they’ve got a lot of things to do. So I was trying to find ways or find those gaps within their office that I could fill and make their jobs easier.

I was constantly trying to figure out throughout the organization who were going to be my partners to help develop and deliver our vision. I was listening to Rob, listening to Charlie, and going on a massive tour to figure out who my allies and partners would be to help me build the infrastructure. And then I started to build an actual operation and design resources like briefing templates and talking-point frameworks for key client meetings, which are now standard aspects of running the business today. At the time, we didn’t have anything like that. Once you see your ideas actually working and coming to life with a positive correlated impact, then it gives you the confidence to take on more.

Stephanie’s vision also required rolling out a number of key culture-related initiatives. First, she developed a program called the VP Village in the Americas. With a runway to experiment and design, she hosted a series of dinners to explore what employees needed.

It was the summer of 2011, and I had BBQs every single Monday night. I would host VPs in a conference room, and just listen hard to what they wanted more of from BlackRock’s culture.

Through these conversations, a vision emerged to help VPs build their own network, a village to strengthen their connections to one another. Stephanie got VP Village up and running, and scaled it globally; it still exists today as one of the strongest employee networks at BlackRock. Next, she led the design of an onboarding program for managing directors (MDs). Once again, there was a gap she saw in transitioning MDs and finding an optimal approach of experiences and trainings to set them up for success. This onboarding program, created in 2012, still exists today helping MDs build their network beyond the silo of their sole function. Finally, Stephanie led the creation of a rewards and recognition program that is currently in its fifth year. It celebrates employees who exhibit the BlackRock principles, including a special award called the Heart of BlackRock; winners are given the opportunity to hold personal mentoring sessions with Rob Kapito.

The long-term viability of her ideas is a marker of Stephanie’s career. And the programs she has created have a consistent theme linked to her own journey, which is to help people make stronger and broader connections. Stephanie herself is a connector, and her energy is fueled by pioneering new ideas that result from bringing together diverse perspectives. Her efforts have encouraged the creation of diverse close-knit teams, which are a cornerstone of BlackRock’s culture.

No one told Stephanie that these efforts were part of her job description or even that any of them were in her scope, but she had that blank sheet of paper that boosted her confidence and gave her the courage to pursue the programs that she felt were aligned with the firm’s values and goals. The opportunity to explore from the expansive viewpoint of the office of the president was a privilege she did not take for granted.

Takeaways from Stephanie’s Story

Find the gaps only you can fill. Stephanie learned to match her unique strengths to the gaps she identified in her company’s business model. You may not always find leaders who will give you that blank piece of paper, so do it for yourself up front. Map out your strengths. Think about your company and if there are any clear gaps such as those that limit efficiency, innovation, or collaboration. Initiate a dialogue with your boss and senior leaders to show them the results that only you can drive with your strengths to fill those gaps.

Take initiative in the process. Stephanie observed, “I’ve never been in a job here where it’s been like, ‘Here are the five things you’re supposed to do.’ Like never! To some people, this would freak them out. But it’s never been the case. And even in my current job, no one gave me my task list of ten things that define what a COO does. I have to add my own flavor to anything I pursue. And you always have to. Here at BlackRock, the culture really supports this.”

Seek feedback along the way. Proactively asking for feedback then navigating what you receive are critical actions for women looking to advance. Stephanie sought out feedback every ninety days, asking, “Is this working? What isn’t working?” Tweaking was necessary, and others’ giving feedback also heightened their investment in the process as she in turn used that input to make improvements. (For more on feedback as an opportunity to grow, read chapter 6.)

Creating Your Future in Seven Steps

Now that you have a clearer vision of your career goals at your company, let’s begin exploring how to realize that vision. The following steps are the foundation you need to dig your heels in. You must first know where you are, where you want to go, the resources you have to get there, and the resources you need to obtain.

Step 1: Take a Personal Inventory

Define the three attributes you value in yourself that translate into strengths at work. Pick qualities that allow you to stay true to your most authentic self. Then describe how those attributes make you feel and what they look like in action. Here are mine:

1. Credibility and experience. These help me at work to suggest best practices based on the case studies where I saw successes or failures. I can use data points from my client and work experiences to help others understand my perspective and to back up the ideas I present to help them in similar situations.

2. Being an encouraging and positive but direct mentor. I know how important it is to have people in your corner who give you energy and who may see more for you than you imagined was possible for yourself. I’m energized by empowering others and helping them dream bigger by telling them what I see for their potential and future. My unique style can be quite direct. This stems from my own preference for direct feedback; I don’t do well with those who are vague or who beat around the bush. If I want you to succeed, I want to help you be aware of your blind spots, and I’m committed to being an honest coach in developing the skills you need to break through.

3. Being super-focused. This may be akin to my Virgo type A personality, but I am someone who follows through. I don’t drop the ball, I multitask, and I shoot for the stars. It’s hard to find my off switch at times (except when it comes to being present for my kids), but this sets me up to be a reliable partner and strong ally at work on urgent deadlines and large-scale projects.

Step 2: Map Your Goals

Someone recently interviewed me and asked me to think about my best days at work, then share the consistent factors in those memories that I could replicate when working to meet future goals. It became clear to me that I am energized by

New experiences that expose me to new places and groups of people I am unfamiliar with (new industry, new job pathway, new culture, and so on)

Opportunities to share my ideas at scale with the potential to reach diverse audiences

A high level of interaction with people who are open to inspiration and experiences that give them the courage to make bolder moves and find their voice

People around me who laugh a lot and share honest advice about how they juggle the demands of work and life

Seeing a clear connection between my work and its impact on girls and younger women

Taking time to imagine feeling and experiencing these important elements more often and picturing how I could pursue them made it crystal clear to me that they are critical to my success and happiness. This meant that I had to continue to ensure they were present in the work I pursued and how I spent my time.

Now it’s your turn. Visualize a good but challenging day in your current role. What is energizing for you in this scenario that you can replicate in your efforts to meet future goals?

Step 3: Reimagine Your Company

Imagine your company operating in a way that allows you to thrive. Visualize the transformation within your company, your department, your boss, and your colleagues. Picture the collective state of your company post-transformation as being more inclusive, inspiring, and equitable. Describe it in four different ways that create an emotional connection:

How it aligns with your personal mission

What makes it the company you deserve

How it is leading change across your industry

How it makes a broader impact in the communities it serves

Eva Tansky Blum is someone I have admired and been lucky to call a mentor for almost twenty-five years. She was president of the University of Pittsburgh Alumni Association during my time as a student. Eva held numerous executive-level leadership positions during her thirty-seven-year career at PNC Bank and last served as the executive vice president and director of community affairs before retiring. In 2015, Eva was elected chair of the University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustees and is the first woman in the university’s history to hold this position. With all of those professional accomplishments, you can see why she was someone who inspired my career, but it was her ability to connect her company to the community that drove her most significant accomplishment that is most dear to my heart.

Eva served as the president of the PNC Foundation and championed the vision for PNC’s Grow Up Great, a $350 million, fourteen-plus-year program that supports quality childhood education. Working with Sesame Street Workshop and The Fred Rogers Company, Grow Up Great created “Learning is Everywhere,” a free, comprehensive, bilingual program designed to help prepare children—particularly underserved children—for success in school and life. The Grow Up Great journey has been extraordinary for PNC as it helped to shape the corporate culture and provided a platform to engage PNC leadership and employees locally. Most important, over four million disadvantaged children are learning more and being exposed to exciting, new things such as ballet, opera, art, performing arts, and science. In their partnership with The Fred Rogers Company Eva and the PNC team helped with training employee volunteers. Since Grow Up Great’s 2004 inception, more than 61,000 PNC employees have volunteered, and approximately 747,000 volunteer hours have been logged at early childhood education centers. This can be credited to the progressive policy at PNC that permits up to forty hours of paid time off for volunteerism. Research¹ shows that in children’s early years, opportunities to interact with caring, responsive adults are of utmost importance. Eva’s mission to help the PNC Foundation have an enduring impact in a very focused area cultivated PNC’s imperative that all children have the opportunity to enter kindergarten ready to learn and enhanced the urgency to provide access to quality early education. She believed that an investment in the workforce of tomorrow makes economic sense today.

Step 4: Identify Resources

What internal, company, and industry resources can you leverage to help create change and move your organization forward? Here are some examples:

Company women’s network or employee resource groups

Local professional women’s organizations

Collaborative and inclusive colleagues

Company culture initiatives, change management programs, or training efforts to evolve your company’s culture or increase awareness around diversity and inclusion

If you have not spent any time looking into these resources, attending their events, or pursuing a leadership role, then give yourself a deadline of thirty days to make the move to learn more and get involved.

Step 5: Invest in Content and Connections

Empower your efforts and support your goals by strengthening your knowledge and relationships around organizational change. (See “Events and Organizations to Explore” for a list of conferences targeted at professional working women.)

Events and Organizations to Explore

Every year, I pick two conferences that I have not attended before, and, if they’re affordable, I try to attend in person or virtually (many conferences offer a cheaper digital ticket) or reach out to someone on a panel to learn more afterward. It’s really not that hard to look up the names of the people speaking at an event and find their contact information and get in touch. The hard part is mustering up the nerve to make a move to speak to people we don’t know. Use LinkedIn. Find their profiles and send a link to connect, but be sure to include a personal message. And if you’re nervous about making the first move, what’s the worst that could happen? They don’t respond? Not a big deal in the long run.

Step 6: Seek Out Other Women to Learn about Their Vision

Find your tribe. Connect with other women and learn how their visions for their careers may align with yours. This step is absolutely critical. You need groups of women (and men) in all roles at your company to care about the case for change.

Have you ever noticed when you attend conferences that most key business meetings have a theme—“Go Beyond,” “Excel Together,” and the like—that they use across the entire event and in all their marketing materials? They brand it like crazy leading up to the meeting and throughout the entire experience to align everyone to a common goal. Doing so creates a language for the success they want to achieve. Try this as a motivation technique for yourself and use it to connect with others. Identify a mantra or a quote that resonates with your own journey. I’m not suggesting you wear it like a sign on meeting new connections but use it more as a personal reminder of what really matters to you. It may come up organically in a coffee conversation or when you are meeting with a group of women for a project. I’ve often been inspired by a leader or a colleague who drove home her point with a memorable quote.

Step 7: Make the Case for Your Company

Think through what your company currently looks like, what it needs to look like to support your vision, and what it will take for the company to transform.

What are the gender stats in your company?

How do they compare to those of other companies?

What are the benefits of increasing the number of women in senior leadership roles across every department?

Keeping Space for You in the Process

On your path to creating your future, be vulnerable with your vision and compassionate toward yourself. I wasn’t, and it held me back from appreciating my hard-fought journey.

If you looked at my resume, you would see a solid story of success. I was selected into international leadership programs and won national writing competitions in high school. I was elected student government president at a huge university. I had multiple job offers before graduation, where I was the student speaker in front of all my friends and their families. And, as I shared earlier, I even earned my pilot’s license at eighteen years old! Through hard work and perseverance, I was promoted six times in my thirteen-year corporate career.

But during that career climb, I never saw those successes clearly. There was no playbook to prep me for the real challenges I would face in the workplace and in figuring out how to juggle them with my personal life. I let every setback overshadow every success in my mind. With each milestone, I was flooded shortly after with a feeling of disappointment that this next thing didn’t fully satisfy me. I kept second-guessing my decisions, my goals, and my path. When I was in sales, I wanted to be in marketing. When I was in marketing, I wanted to be in training. And when I was in training, I wanted to spend more time designing programs. This pattern of “never enough” was suffocating and distracting at times.

I remember many moments in my twenties and early thirties when I would be discouraged or hard on myself, feeling as though I would never achieve my ultimate goals. Deeply disappointed in the rocky road to progressing toward the next career level, I felt as if I had to change who I was just to advance. This made me fearful of sharing my biggest dreams with other people, particularly when I decided to step out on my own with Why Millennials Matter. I succumbed both to the fear of being vulnerable about what I really wanted out of life and to the super-sized pressure I put on myself to be perfect.

Look in the mirror and decide if you are in that place right now. If so, please remember that big bold moves and authenticity matter, as you will see in the next chapter, but even small steps forward in full alignment to your values and true motivators will help you get to the place you deserve.