Her Career Ladder

I hope you're having a fantastic weekend, just like I am. Today, I want to come on my account and talk about how to prioritize in your life in your business. And really some things that you need to consider. If you have not shared this out, go ahead and press those three dots. Um, share this out to you, your Twitter followers, your Facebook community, your Periscope community, I would love to engage them. Hey, no else garden. Thanks for joining me. Okay, so when you're looking at what to prioritize in your life, in your business in your career, these are three things you need to think about. Number one, does this thing person people activity? Cause you on necessary stress? Yes. So when you're looking at prioritizing something, does it cause you unnecessary stress and unnecessary meaning is a better way to do it? You could do it from a different perspective. Hey, Garmin appraisers. What is it? And why is it that you are going through this stress? Michelle, it's a job it pays my bills go get a different job. Most of us can, whether it's finding a job online, a different employer. But for many of us change is hard. But if the stress is unnecessary. You need to make the necessary changes to move away from that stress. That is how you need to prioritize the Hey, I hope you're having a great weekend. Number two, does this person do these people? Does this activity this this thing add value to your life? Yes. Does it add value? Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for joining. Does it add value? Hey, Realty goddess. When I say add value, meaning, oh my god, let's say Hmm. I don't mind being in the newspaper, being connected to this thing. I don't mind telling other people about it. it uplifts me, it makes me feel good. I smile with it, I laugh with it, I can hug it. I appreciate what it brings to me as a person to me mentally, physically, emotionally, does it add some type of value to your life, I go over three things to consider when you're prioritizing things, right. And sometimes it's gonna be directly to you as a person. So, so one thing that adds value that many of us don't like to do, or don't look like we like to do is work out. But it does add value to us. It helps us fight off illness, it helps us stronger, helps us live longer. Working out has many benefits. We may not like it, but it does add value to us. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Meats, for many of us are some way of taking a protein may not be meat. So let's say protein adds value to us. It helps nourish our bodies what? We may not like eating a lot of green leafy vegetables, right? But it does add value to you. So what are those things that that person those people who add value and who are those that you're connected to? Who dot who do not add value through banks consider when setting priorities. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. Thanks Noel's guard, I love having a scribe in here. She's been so helpful today. Number three, and a lot of us this is the easiest one to do, especially if you're in business. Does it add money to your pockets. And now remember, I started out with number one, meaning it causes you stress, right? And a job may cause you stress and it adds money to your pocket. But it's the stress you have to find that balance between the money and the stress. If you're in business, not all money is good money. So you need to understand the differences of when you're willing to take money for what you're offering. And when you're not willing to take money because it's causing you undue stress, right? Because you can be getting great money from a client that is causing you undue stress and you need to figure out in the next 90 days, 180 days how to get clients you can you prefer to work with Get into your business and get rid of that one client that is causing you undue stress. And I've had so many people, but they're paying me like 5000 10,020 $5,000 a month, I can't get rid of them. I said, Well, you, you want a heart attack, you want to be hospitalized, you're always there. That money that client is really causing you undue stress, is it truly worth it? And you really have to figure out how to get them out of your life. And guess what your priority then becomes how to get rid of them, and replace what they're putting into your business, what that they're putting in your household income, how to replace it. So really, really prioritize what is important to you. So three things to consider when you're looking at how to prioritize? Does it cause you undue stress? Does it bring value to your life, and doesn't add money to you? So the different perspective different ways you can look at it. I just wanted to come on because I was talking to somebody, and I was like, Well, now you have your priorities clear. You've got everything you need to do. You got what you need. Your Diet done, move on. Right, move on. Alright, everybody, I'm Michele Heyward. Have a great weekend. And I will see you tomorrow here tomorrow night around 10pm 11pm. Eastern Time, and we will be talking about goals. Yes, I talk about goals all the time, not just at the beginning of the year because it is a systematic process. It is something you work on every single week, not just the month of January, or the first five days of January of every year, the first five weeks of a new year. It is something you work on every single day, doing small action action items every single day, and it builds up so that you are winning and you are achieving your goals. Alright everybody, have a great weekend and I will talk to you later. Bye

Welcome, everybody to our session on conflict, managing conflict as a rising executive. Today I have one of my favorite people. Again, I like Michelle, everybody's your favorite piece. Let me tell you about Lynn. Here. I just finished up last night before women of color in STEM virtual summit. Lynn was one of the original speakers from that back November 2017. So when I say she's one of my favorite speakers, like she has something come up, she was literally on zoom in the car, making sure she was delivering content like she was she didn't cancel. She like I got you. I'm still going to deliver, I'm still going to help your people. And that is her level of commitment. Since then. We've done she's been in psychology today. She's what you've done TED Talks at least twice. So she is about that life. So Lynn hurdle is from the Bronx. Yeah. To get to New Yorkers in one day anyway. You get new yorkers, it's the New Yorker day. That's all I say. And she literally has been doing conflict resolution for 40 years. Now. She's not new to this. She's true to this. And she's really about you being able to not only manage the conflict and de escalate the conflict between yourself and someone else. But as a leader, how do you manage conflict? When it's other people that you're with? It's your team? Or you're on the phone and ensure client and another stakeholder? How do you manage that kind of I've been there, I don't know if I did it, right. But I didn't get fired. And the client was happy with the result. But it's really important to understand how to best manage it, especially when you're a woman, you are under represented a woman of color. How does that come about? And what does that look like? So Lynn is here today to share her expertise, do not be afraid to ask questions, do not be afraid to really dig in, we have her for three and a half hours. So I'm gonna hand it over to Lynn, this is her zone of genius. We're gonna learn so much. And I'm really excited about having her here. Welcome, Lynn,

thank you so much I love when Michelle introduced me because it just comes from no more personal space, right? You know, like, you know, as executives or rising executives, sometimes it's gotta be in this order, and look like this and all that kind of stuff. And I just love to teach in a way that's more familiar, right? Because I feel like it's applicable, more to what you are going through day to day. So when warming hurdle from the Boogie Down, but my soul is also California in Southern California to be exact, and I lived by Coastal life last year. And I will be living it again, once we're through the whole COVID. And, you know, definitely live in it again. But I'm thrilled to be here, just to let you know, first of all, that this is a real working session. So when Michelle says if you have questions, that's fine, but also because I like to not only teach the work, but practice the work so that when you have to use it, right that you feel like Oh, right, I did this with Lynn. And this is the feedback I got. So let me apply that now rather than freezing in the moment saying it seems so easy when lencho does the slide, right. But I don't know how to do this. In the moment, I want you to feel like that when you leave here today. So the first thing that I do, and I never do anything accidentally, it's all part of the work. And the first thing that I do is I start with breathing. And I always tell people that the most powerful skill that we have when it comes to resolving conflict is the breath. And people seldom if ever use it or even know about it. Because with the breath, we are able to manage the body. And we're able to put ourselves in a place where we are ready to participate and engage in conflict in a productive way. I've used it myself to lower my own blood pressure when the doctor wanted to give me put me on medication. And she literally gave me 15 minutes and said you figure out something to do because it's too high and you need to bring it down and I use my breath. And so we're going to start with a breath. So all I ask from you is that you just follow along and I'll be instructing you and guiding you so much Let's just get comfortable first or whatever that means for you to get comfortable. And I'm going to get ready. Now, if you are comfortable enough to close your
eyes feel free. If not, you can focus on a point in front of you. And then what we're doing is we are going in. And so we're going to notice, first, any feelings that are coming up for us right now.

And then notice any thoughts that might be racing, and none of this is what needs to be fixed, it simply needs to be noticed.
And then let's move to the body. And we're just going to do a scan of the body to see where there might be tension starting at the top of their head, and going to the forehead area on the ground, every notice, sometimes we have, we can feel a headache coming up, it's already just strong notice thing going down to the eyes. And now it is the jaw and down to the neck. place where we often keep tension and if you need to move it a little bit free to take care of yourself in that way. And then shoulder area, another really big tension place for some of us. Again, if you need to do something there, to down to the back. Again, a place often filled with tension and then shift around to the abdomen. Because when we have unsettled conflict, a lot of times it sits there. So just noticing that the legs or the ankles and toes, want to wiggle your toes moving around. And then turn your attention to the breath. just noticing how your breathing, chest rising loads your belly rising. Just notice
we're going to do a series of breaths. So how it goes is we're going to breathe into the bore count through the nose. And we're going to hold it to the fourth count. And then we're going to release through the mouth again to the fourth count and we will do that four times. So breathing into the nose 234 and hold 234 many ways to the mouth.
Breathing 234 hold on to three, four. Breathing in 234 Hold it, hold it, hold it. Release 1234 Hold on, hold on, and let it go. And then to stay there, stay focused, and really noticing them. And then open our eyes and come back together. Yeah. Beautiful. So I'm going to see what people noticed. And then we're going to move from there.
 So,

Michelle, did
you notice anything?

I noticed I had, well already knew, but that I had a lot of tension in my shoulders. But it gave me the opportunity to really stretch out my body because I've been on the gogogo all this week. And while I have sciatica that's been bothering me, that's what mainly focused on. But then I can feel other places, you know, from the top of my head, maybe a sinus headache coming on. The other things, I was really part by part, understanding where my tissue was, and maybe popping because I'm getting a little bit older, you know, as I was stretching out, yeah. Back crackling pop sounds that aren't serious.

Yeah. Thank you. What am I used to make? Did you notice anything?
I did, I am feeling really anxious. So it's great that we started with this, because I have a lot of anxious feelings. I have big interviews coming up on Monday. And, yeah, I have a lot of preparation to do. To make sure that I'm fully ready. And I've got a full day today of just, you know, things that I've committed to and yeah, that the thought process of all of those things is like.
Yeah, yeah. And where is that said? Right. It's in your body?

Yes, yes. When you said and bring it back around to Gormley. Yep. Right there.
It's right there.
Right there.

Yeah. And we ignore our body so much. Sometimes we use them simply as a place for, you know, to travel our heads, right to keep our heads going from one place to the other and we forget about what's happening with the body. Absolutely. Thank you to Mika Simone. What was the joke? What happened? What happened?
Is that I took it down.

Uh huh. So what does that tell you?
I got kids, you know, I get it.

Right, right. And Simone, let me tell you something. I can't tell you how many times when someone else was conducting the breathing or meditation that I took a nap? Are you kidding? Like, the body's like, really?
We're closing our eyes. And it's not bedtime. Okay.

Let's do this. Absolutely. But I am actually wonderful first sessions. A couple of days ago, we had done a similar exercise. And when closed our eyes and went through Sasha, he went right back there. And I realized I was I quickly went back to that place, and I didn't know. I was like, Oh, I know what this was like, let's let's do this. I so which is which is a, a departure for me. I'm usually tension here, you know, like, anxiety about different things. Um, so it was it was, it was kind of interesting to like, almost like full circle to go back to that. That very quiet space very, very quickly. I went there, apparently. Yeah.

Yeah, that's when we allow our bodies to take over. They do what they need. Right body does what they need. Yes. Beautiful. Josie.
Yes. So I really noticed that, like, I've been having a couple like difficult conversations and conflict at work recently. I always feel it like right here in my chest. And I did talking about oh, we're gonna practice this a little bit. Like I started feeling it a little bit. And then I started thinking about some of the conflicts I've recently had, and then just like going through the breathing exercise, like all of that went away.
Yes, yeah. It's such a great skill. It just is, the better you get at it, the more you can Make it make it work for you, particularly in conflict situations. Yeah. Thank you and Mary, would you notice if anything, good morning, so I feel like I have a lot of stress on my mind related to work and an upcoming trip that I'm making. But one of the biggest things I feel, like I've noticed is that there's a conflict that I need to raise. And I'm nervous about raising it, because I feel like the outcome is going to result in me having to be responsible for the solution. I'm at all for the quit to be responsible for the solution. But I just kind of had an awareness that okay, I just need to identify what I need in order to be successful. So, um, I don't know, I kind of felt like I was still a little bit stressed.

But I gave him clarity and just like being steel for a moment. Yeah, thank you. And, and, and hope Anyway, hopefully, the, you'll get some also additional support here through the work that we're doing today. So thank you think you, was someone going to say something? Okay. All right. So I am going to, to start us off a little bit right here, just know that I am not going through PowerPoint, for the entire presentation, right? Because I really want to be able to have that kind of back and forth conversation with all of you. So I'm Maureen hurdle, I'm known as the conflict closer. And what's the interesting thing about that is I think people have a sense of what conflict closer means in terms of that you are really there to close conflict, right to make sure that it gets resolved. But the other play on that word is closer. And the way that I work is I bring conflict closer to you. So that you can really understand the relationship that you have with it and have an even better one, because most of us do not have good relationships with conflict and conflicts not going anywhere, it's always going to be a part of our lives. So we might as well be in better relationship with it. So I'm a strategist on conflict resolution, best selling author, facilitators, speaker, writer, TEDx speaker, and I make conflict less scary for you. Because what I do is just to get you to know how to be in relationship with it. Because that's the only way you can use it to help you, for you to transform your team to transform if you have one, and yet 40 years in the work. And really what I am interested in doing, and 40 years in the work is to really mix different methods of how I teach conflict resolution, and all that goes along with it. So I'm a theatre background. So I bring some of that in where we do our role plays. And really, the role plays are around practicing the skills that we're learning together and bringing in real life situation. So a couple of you a couple of you sound like you might be sitting with some actual conflicts that you're experiencing. And we may be able to bring those into the practice of the work today.

And then one last night, okay, now, I'm gonna leave us there.

Right. And so, I want to do a go around. And I want to find out from each of you an observation of yourself in conflict, an observation of yourself in conflict, and I never asked you to do anything I'm not willing to do so I will start off and then we'll go from there. So an observation of myself in conflict is that if I do not get in front of the emotions that come up within me, they will take over. And I have to be aware in the moment, you know, this is fear, or this is anxiety, whatever it is, and so how do I manage that oftentimes, I manage it through the breathing, but sometimes it's just enough to know that it's there. And that is creating, whether it's creating heat, or it's just creating this kind of anxious anxiety that shows up and just wanting to kind of pounce on the moment, but whatever it is, I know if I don't get ahead of it, and even expect it, you know that that's what's going to come up for Me, then the conflicts going to go in the wrong direction for me. So that's an observation that I have of self, someone else when if someone want to share their observation of themselves in conflict,
I can go. I'm similar like I just, and when I start getting into conflict that I get, I get very worried I'm going to either get very angry or break down in tears. Mm hmm. And so that in and of itself then makes conflict even scarier, because I don't want to get there. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely. Thanks, john. Someone else to make peace?

I'm most find myself in the midst of conflict when I'm tired. Hmm. As I'm at a lesser degree of thought, is that Yeah, I'm just kind of worn out. So my fuse is short. And who knows what can happen? But yeah, when I'm tired, and, or even just feeling overwhelmed, like I said, I'm, you know, I'm feeling pretty anxious about Monday. So yeah, everything, you know, leading up to Monday until I get through Monday, we'll have some kind of I don't know the word, but there's gonna be some some, you know, like, I can't give it
at all. I don't think I want to. But it is still like, it's, it's, it's, it's within me. Right. So. Yeah. Nice. Thank you certain skills, you're gonna practice those skills? 

And yes, we will take break. Yeah, absolutely. We will not be working for three hours straight, or there'll be some additional conflict that I'll have to deal with, I'm sure. Right. But that's where we're going to be today. So I want to, and I'm glad that piece came up about recording, right, I want us to work on the next skill. Because the first skill was breathing. The next is going into conflict with agreements on how we're going to work and handle that is really important people take for granted something like community agreement, something we're going to make together here to talk about how we want to work together, in order to feel safe enough to be able to bring our whole selves in to the work that we're doing together today. So if you were to use agreements for conflict, if you were to say, listen, we're going to talk about this conflict, let's talk about how we are going to do that so that it isn't just this free for all, and we get to just really vomit on each other. Right? But that we actually are working at this in a productive way. So let's talk about how we want to do this. So having said that, I'm interested in knowing what agreements do we want to make together today in the work and the time that we're working together? What's going to make you feel comfortable and safe enough to bring your whole self to this discussion? And Michelle, if you don't mind? Can you jot them in the chat for us? Great. Okay, so anyone can tell us what, what's something you'd like us to agree to as a community and doing our work together here today. 

And this is Mary, I'm not really sure about how the session is
gonna flow today.  So really, you know, know what type of agreements I need to consider.

Mm hmm. Okay, great, Mary. So the way it's going to flow is that we're going to delve into ourselves around complex. So that will mean that there'll be discussion around something like what I call the conflict stories, which is conflict really starts for us our opinion of it, our view of it our mindset around it starts from the time we were raised, and it's set by the people who raised us whoever that may be, and then reinforced by more and more people as we continue to grow up, right, and we continue to grow in general. So that will be a discussion and you will say as much as you feel comfortable to say around it or not, and then we will work into some skills around listening and around, responding versus reacting and really, I'll be teaching The skills and then you get to ask some questions if you have them. And then what I'll do is, I will give you the opportunity to practice it, because we're on zoom. And because we're a small group, and I don't want to break you up into the breakout rooms for a small group, then I'll give people a chance to actually practice using this skills on a situation where I'll roleplay with you. And that would be to the benefit of everybody in the group to learn from that experience. And I give feedback on that experience. And then we'll have a time when you can do questions and answers. But primarily, that's how we're going to work through it, we're going to talk about barriers as a as a woman, right, rising, executive, rising executive of color, we'll talk about that as well. And that's really how the session is going to flow. So is that helpful to you, Mary? Yes, no. Great. And then and I think that one of the things that I would say is, if we could agree that it is alright, it is okay to say, I'm really not understanding right now. I'm really, it's really not clear for me, right, that we really look out for ourselves in our own understanding, by feeling comfortable enough to ask for clarity, and understanding.

So thank you, Mary, for bringing that up. Yep.
So someone else just one more thing. So I just hope that today's wash day, so this is why I'm not sharing my video, but I just Okay, everyone, since everyone else is on video as well. So thank you.

Thank you for doing that. Yeah. Beautiful. Understood wash day, whatever day, right? Absolutely. All right, someone else let's add to our agreements together.
 
Um, I would say maybe, like being being open to like asking questions. And and not ascribing like any assumptions, or whatever, like, is just a question for clarification. And I don't know, I mean, the sessions, we can ask each other for clarification on their stories, or is it just you know, directly to you, but we're open to asking questions.

All right. Beautiful. Thank you, Simone. And thank you for asking, too. Like, can I ask a question about someone's story? When we get to conflict stories? I actually don't tend to let us ask questions, because I want people to be able to put it out. However they want to put it out. And, and although questions often come from curiosity, sometimes they inhibit us, because we, in our minds feel like it might come from a place of judgment. And so we try to clean it up right or omit things. And then that really stops the learning. Right. But what tends to happen, though, someone I will say that as we continue to work, things kind of circle back around. And often the person in doing the work will relate what we're learning to their conflict story. And so we often get answers to our questions sometimes in that way, as well. But yes, let's be open to asking questions. Yeah. You can ask me anything. For certain. Yeah. Something else we want to put, let's let's do the piece around confidentiality, meaning recording. So what are people's thoughts around that?

Okay, I mean, to be honest, I, um, if you want to get into that level of detail, I would rather than none of this like dark subject.
Because we don't tend to like it much. But we can have some fun in here. And even with ourselves in how we handle conflict, because people I think, tend to come into these workshops trying to impress me. And so they may not say when they blown it and listen, 40 years in, I still blow it. Right. I'm a mother of two sons, and I still blow it. So that's not anything that is going to change. It's just that you, you tend to engage better and better as you gain the skills And then use the skills because you can gain a whole bunch of skills, but if you never use them and if I'm blank, you're never going to get better at it. Alright, so, Michelle, do you mind reading off our agreements?

I surely can. First agreement, it's okay to say I don't understand and request clarity. Second agreement be open to asking questions of each other to get clarification and not make assumptions. Okay. Third one is, and I know I didn't have it on here is to request stopping of the recording, so that you can participate and really get the most out of this opportunity to understand how to close conflict or get closer to conflict. 

I'm like, Yeah, you're right. All right. Thank you. All right. So is everybody feel like they can agree to those? Give me some kind of reaction or hand raiser, thumbs up or whatever, however, you want to let us know. You're good with that.
Okay.

Mary, are you there with me? Yes, I'm good. Okay. Haha, sir. Okay. All right. So let's start with what's your definition of conflict? Right. And we are going to work on it. But what how do you define it? How would we define conflict?
This is Mary, I define, I guess, I define conflict is not being in alignment or
not being.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, an angry type situation, right? As it relates to when you're going to schedule the meeting, or who needs to be involved in the meeting or how something's going to be delivered. 

So there's just not alignment or agreement. There is a complicated alignment
and agreement. Mm hmm.
Okay, thank you.

Someone else have anything they go ahead, please to make?

Sure. So like Mary just mentioned, I thought of not being in alignment, I also feel like conflict is a lot of indifference. So there's, you know, just this indifference and you're, you want to be aligned. But you're says that a difference and to work through it?

Mm hmm. Okay, thank you love adding to our definition, what else? Anybody else have anything they want to add to it before I weigh in on it? Okay, so I want us to think about what what I call conflict, which is the different when different ideas, perspectives, views, come together, but then they stop the progress of moving forward together. Because we can have different I don't know, if anybody's ever experienced just getting along really well with someone who just thinks very differently from you sees these very differently, but somehow you still get along, it doesn't manage to cause conflicts where you're not moving forward together. But the conflict really lies in when those different ideas perspectives come together. They're not aligned. Right. But they're so unaligned that, we're not able to get it done, whether it's a project, right, whether it's that this relationship moves forward, that there's a conversation that we can't seem to have, we can't move forward because of the difference in the room, right? It's not aligning, and we have to find a way to work toward resolving the conflict that's there. And it's also an opportunity for you to get to know yourself better in relationship to conflict, as well as others in relationship to conflict. And a lot of times people really don't view it as that opportunity. But I am asking you to view it as an opportunity and to really be able to when you have a conflict afterwards to do the work of checking in with yourself on what came up for you and how you did in that conflict situation. Not just what has whether it's Oh, thank God we resolved that Okay, moving on, right or, oh my god, we're never going to resolve this and moving on. It's really doing the afterwork as well to say so Lynne, what did you think what was happening for you when you said so and so like, Oh my god, yes. I was willing Getting angry with them. But what was underneath the anger? Like why? What? What is it? Right? So it's really interesting for us to look at conflict as this awesome opportunity. Okay, it just really is. So I want you to see both the difference of opinion not aligning and the opportunity for me to really get to know me in a conflict situation. And I don't know if folks know that in. In the Chinese language, the symbol for a conflict is both crisis and opportunity. And it truly is both. It depends on our mindset. All right, so let's talk about mindset. Where do we even begin to develop a mindset around conflict? Because I'm going to tell you that the opportunity for the mindset to be different, was always there. It's just most people didn't take that opportunity, because they too, were taught that it's negative. Right? And so let's start to think about the people that raised you. How did they do conflict? Because that's what you learned first, right? So the people that raised you, how did they do conflict? I'm going to tell you, so you may get an idea, a better idea of what I'm asking you for. I grew up with both of my parents and my older sisters, she was only a year older than me. And the way that conflict was done in our home. My mother yelled, she yelled at absolutely every opportunity there was that conflict presented or with that was her skill, yelling, and my dad stayed quiet. And on the side, he would come to us and try to work it out a little bit, but never was it that strong model that we had of my mother yelling, right. So I learned.

I learned that number one, I hated conflict, because I hated yelling, right? I hated the yelling. And number two, I learned that it was bad. Right? Something to absolutely avoid. My dad was clearly avoiding it. Right. So I learned that from him. And that it was something that if you did dare talk about it, it was like behind closed doors kind of to the side to the person does. I learned that as well. And so for me, the view around conflict was not a positive view. Okay, so that's really what I'm asking you to be willing to share whatever you're willing to share about how people do did conflict in your when you were growing up. So who would be willing to share with us? This is Maryann reading be inquisitive child, right makes you the troublemaker, and how that extends itself. Even maybe in your mindset today. Right? Being that inquisitive adult, that woman that, you know, whatever, however you identify, ethnically, right being that, wow, that's the troublemaker, as opposed to that's the person that's really curious about what is this about is about, right? Just one comment on that
I can say I was fortunate early in my career, you know, being the only female only black person in the fold of engineers who have children older than me. At the time. Someone said, You're asking good questions, but sometimes people can take your inquiry as
judgment.

So I, I've just learned some things along the way to try to, you know, try to manage judgment being something people can take from my
inquiry. So that was good. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here judging people, you know, people would feel judged. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you, Mary. All right, someone else want to share their conflict story, had the people raised you do conflict. So how is this applying today for me as an adult, and so again, so the work of really resolving conflicts, masterfully involves you're going back to where the mindset was created. And then being able to make the connections to where you are now and recognizing too that it is going to come up even if even with all the skills that I had. Even when you get skills and you start to address your gaps, right in resolving conflict, recognize that because it started so early in you, right? That it's still there. And so the potential for you to want to yell, right, for instance, can come up the potential for you to hide and want to hide from conflict or to even do it can come up, which is why after you're involved in a conflict, to be able to look at what came up and how you did and how you feel about how you did is so important, because you get to catch that Oh, my goodness, right, I still have this gap. So I may want to work on getting some skills in this area, or Wow, that came up with that come from? Well, that comes really back to my conflict story. And that's still coming up for me in some ways, right? Maybe it's not as overt. But it is coming up for me. And I've got to be able to address that. So thank you all for taking that trip. And I see. Yvonne has joined us. Hi, Yvonne. Pay attention to yourself, why throughout this entire workshop, and in relationship to us doing this work around complex. So I want us to start off with what I think is something that people do not enough and need much more practice on. And that is we're going to work on some listening skills, because my experience around conflict is once we decide to engage, we want to get our point across. And we listen up into the point at which we wish to interrupt. And that usually comes pretty early in the conflict conversation, right? Because especially if they hit something that triggers us, right? If the F is like, oh, what Wait a minute, I let me say that. Right, which really interrupts the moment of listening. And then also, what it does is that it takes away from the opportunity to really find out what the conflict is about from their perspective, because now we've switched it to us. And if we're honest with ourselves, let's face it, we already know what the conflicts about from our point of view. So why do we have to jump in there so quickly? To get our point of view expressed, what we really don't understand yet fully, is how they're viewing the conflict we think we do because we assume more than we listen, we assume we know what they meant by what they said, We assume we know how they're going to approach this conflict, we assume we know all about who they are in conflict. And so we're going to work on getting some listening skills under our belt that'll help us to really start to understand the conflict and the person or people that we're in conflict with. So let me introduce to you.

Okay, so I want us to work on some two deep listening skills. The first one is listening for feelings and values, I want to say to you that for the most part, we listen for content, but we aren't listening to the feelings of this person and what they vow you. We I can't even tell you how many times I've been coaching someone who feels like either the person has no values, or that they don't think the only value they care about is that they don't seem to value my opinion in this conflict. But what do they value? What is what they're saying coming from? So in order to find that out, we have to listen to what's not being named. And here's what I mean by that. How many times have you ever heard someone who's in conflict, and they're having a conversation with you? And they say, and I value this, and I value that? And I bet like that's not usually how it goes, we might on occasion, hear them say, like, I value you when your service. But as they're talking about what the conflict is about, they don't tend to use that word. They don't talk in those words. So you have to listen for what's not being named as a value in the words that they are using. So I'll give you a for instance, if I say, you know, coming late is just not negotiable. I feel like you've just missed A lot of things, and it is just really, I think offensive. It tells the person or tells me that you really don't care about how I view things or what I have to say. And so I'm really I'm really getting on you about this lateness thing. So what is it? They've named lateness? 
But what's the value? If you were to respond to them and say, so it sounds like you value what?

Respect? Okay, respect. So isn't that interesting that in in the words that I've said, you hear respect? Yes. Did I say I value respect? No, but you could hear from the words that I'm saying about what lateness says to me that I feel disrespected. Right, and when you come in late, so the value for me is respect. What else because there's other values there. What other value Did you hear?

punctuality, punctuality. Yes. Right. I value punctuality. Anything else? Any other value? Yes. Can you say where you heard that? Do you remember the words? Over Give me a minute, I think. Hold on. What did she say? I didn't quite hear that. communication, communication. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So do you remember why why you picked up communication? No, I
just feel like that came to me.

Yeah. Right. Like you don't want to hear what I have to say or you miss what I have to say. Right. When you're not there for it right when there's lateness so clearly, right. All right. So really listening for that, because you want to be able to speak to that, when it is your turn to speak. All right. So listen to what's not being named. Listen for feeling words. Sometimes we do a mountain sometimes we don't. But one of the things about feeling words, what we tend to do is throw out the safer ones for us. And believe it or not, anger is one of those safer ones because anger sits on top of the ones that are much harder to express. But the ones that often do not get fed. And so then it builds to an angry so listening for feeling words. So I'm going to ask you what do you think anger sits on top of what kinds of feelings build to anger when they don't get addressed?

resentment,
resentment? Yeah. What else before I resent you What might you have done
disrespected me

Okay, just respect what I owe. does not say Oh, dismissal. Yeah. What else? Okay, so what's the so unsupported is the feeling what else?
not heard. ignored,
ignored. Yes. There you go. Hurt disappointment. All of those things lead to anger when they are not addressed, expressed and addressed. Right. So listen for feeling words. And you're listening again to what said and on set. Yeah. Okay. You didn't have my back in that meeting. And I'm, I'm really angry with you about that. Because here we are the only two black women in the company. And when I express an idea, I'm looking for you to have my back. And you did not say a word you sat in that meeting and acted as if what I said was so unimportant. And I never do that when you have an idea. Okay, what feeling words Did you hear that? What what what one feeling did I express? Did I say it in words? important? Okay, that's not a feeling. What's the one feeling I said? In the actual word.
upset.

Close enough angry. I said I was angry at you. What are the feelings that sit under? neath that that if you were really hearing my words you could get what am I feeling you think?
Give it a try. What do you think? What's the feeling underneath feelings? It's lots of feelings in anything anger that I feel like I expressed in more rejected. Okay, reject it. What else? I am always there for you when you have an idea. But you weren't there for me. What's that feeling?
appreciated
and appreciated a stronger one than that
starts with the be
great
saying again, betrayed betrayed. Don't you feel like I've been done you can you hear betrayal in that? we the only two black ones up in here. And anytime you got an idea, I'm right there. But turn around and it's my turn. And you're quiet. betrayal. I feel betrayed. What else might I feel? I'm hoping expecting that you will have my back. And when you don't I feel
let down lack of support.
Yeah, let down disappointed. Right. Maybe I'm even hurt. Yeah, so. So do you understand that listening for feelings is so important. If you're really going to be able to start to address what this conflict is about for this person. Listen for what's important to them what they value, name it, and then do a check in. Did I get that right? Any questions about this before we practice?
So I just have a comment. So I have a bias.
You don't really have
nothing in the way. So being able to bring them out on the table can be an important way to at least get them acknowledged for that person and then begin to work on. So how do we resolve this situation? I can't resolve your feelings for you. But we may be able to resolve the situation between us. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm was it Yvonne that that brought this up?
Um, no, I think it was.

Who was it? Who? I'm sorry? Who? Who? Who said that? Mary. Okay. Sorry, Mary. Okay. So Mary, does that make sense to you? Or? Yes. You have? Yeah. Yeah. Because people are not, trust me. And age has nothing to do with this. Right? If people have not
been taught how to manage their feelings, then they are the feelings are what's going to actually fuel the conflict, and keep it going. So yeah, naming them is going to be important. All right. Thank you for bringing that up to anybody else. question or comment before we actually do a practice. All right. Okay. So it's going to be listened to what's not being named. Listen for feeling words, and I'll guide you through it to name them and do a check in Did I get that right? So I'm gonna stop sharing so I can see each of you to be listening for whatever feelings you might be hearing or, and whatever you feel like, what you're hearing that I might value. And then I'm going to ask afterwards for folks to try to see if you can name it, and then do a check in so doing that, here's what that would look like. So when I heard this particular value, and it sounds like you feel like this, right, these this feeling I've heard this feeling from you. Did I get that right? That's really what I'm looking for from you. Okay. All right. Are we ready to listen to me? And And listen, while you're listening, I want you to observe and notice what might be coming up for you whether it's a trigger or bias, right? It could be Mary, what could come up for you is like, Oh my god, you know, this is not therapy. She needs to just go someplace with all that because that's what comes up a lot of times when we're doing the work like this, but the truth is, it's really valuable to do the work in this way. So you have that at least those skills to be able to guide them. You have to Mika says, I love there. But I know I love therapy too. But sometimes it feels like crossing the line when you do the work in this way. But I know that it's valuable, because if people don't know how to manage their feelings, I have to manage it, I have to manage mine, and then manage there's getting on the table so that we can really work past that and get through to resolving this conflict. Right. Okay, so I'm going to, I'm going to, like I said, I'm going to do a little monologue, and then I'm going to ask for volunteers to see if you can name value and feelings. Okay? All right. So, you know, I'm really, I'm really unhappy right now. Because one of the things that I notice that happens is, you do not share anything about you know, something that is a big project, whenever there's a big project, you're like, really like keeping it to yourself, I don't know whether it's because you want to be the big shot here. And you want to make sure everybody knows how important you are and how smart you are. But it's a team effort, right? We're supposed to be working together. And yet, and still, I cannot seem to get information from you about what in the world we're actually doing. It's like, you have this little private conversation with yourself, that never happens with me. So then I get to look stupid, or I get to look unprepared. And that's not who I am. I'm very professional in the way that I work. I really am someone who's very accomplished, and I want people to understand that. And yet, us working together doesn't seem to get back there. I mean, I'm really, I'm new, you know, I'm new here, you already know that. So I really do want people to understand who I am and how valuable I am to the company. And yet, I feel like you're standing in my way. And I'm almost gonna say that I feel like it's personal sometimes, like you have something against me. And my thing is, if someone has something against me, then be upfront, say what you got to say, you know, we're adults here. And it really does bother me that you have all people you know, come on, you know what I'm saying about that you have all people are standing in my way, it seems like and you're just I think it's just totally unprofessional, the way that you're working. And you need to just get it together, I'm really unhappy here, I'm just like, really unhappy here, getting ready to take some other actions, if you don't get it together, and include me as a team member, because I'm not looking like this, I'm not going up like this.

I said, so you have that authority, right? You can do it that way. Or you can really try to use some skills to problem solve this out. So the person feels heard, so that some solutions get on the table, and then you work toward getting this done, it's resolved in two different ways to listen, those are two different ways to listen. You can choose to leave out all that information, and just going authority, or you can choose to use the information, right extracted and then use it to have a good problem solving conversation.
Does that make sense to folks?

All right, so then, with that said, I want to do one more, one more practice of that, okay, because I really want you to be able to pull it. What was that most typically love to solve problems most of the time, right? Yeah, build on the fact that all these are tech people, right? And so absolutely, there's a problem solving mindset anyway. But feelings and feelings can get in the way, right? feelings can get in the way. And so that's why being able to pull them even if you feel like you know what, I'm not going to put them all on the table. Let me see what's the most valuable one to put here. Right. So maybe you feel like you really felt excluded from getting the all of the information necessary for this particular project. Right? Is that what I'm hearing and then see where that can get you? Because you may not want to go to the more deeper ones that you probably know is happening here. But the exclude it might be a safer one to put out on the table, please Simo? Well, I actually think you did great on this. So I'm gonna move to the next to the next scale because I think you all were able to pull them out. So let me move to the next listening skill, and then we'll take a break. Okay, so listening beyond our comfort zone, feel into the point at which you are not comfortable. Take three breaths and pay attention to your non verbals. Right. So first one feeling to the point in which you are not comfortable. Like I said, that tends to come up pretty early for us. In the conversation, I'm asking you to listen past that point, even if it is really uncomfortable, but it's a point that you want to come back to addressing, but you are letting them give as much information as possible before you address that point. And to get past it, you may have to take those two, three deep breaths, but still listening. And then pay attention to your nonverbals. What am I talking about there?

Body language, I would say like I'm crossing my arms, leaving your head to the side, maybe your eyes are going in a certain circular motion. you're exhaling I get the stance, maybe you chant, you're you're moving back and forth. Like you have all this energy, you're trying to figure out what to do with it. So you move in your, you know, shifting your body from left to right, or back and forth. Mm hmm. I pay attention to those two.

Yeah. And what about Yes? Anybody raise eyebrows you ever been told? Or? I know my mother used to say you can't play poker because it shows all over your face. Right? Like, haha, that was that is not a lie. I know that my face is very expression. But my answer would be well, I can't see my face. So how do I? How do I know what's going on with my face. But know your nonverbals is very important. Because if you don't and you're doing them, then people may have reaction to it, like the crossing of their arms and the legs. I do that as a way of being comfortable. But I have learned that that can tell people if I'm in conflict, it conversation that I'm I'm closing off to what they're saying, right? I'm close. So I don't do it. When I'm in a conflict conversation, because I know that that could happen. You know, I check out their nonverbals you know, like, it's like, Okay, wait a minute, did I do something with my face? Because I noticed you kind of changed and how you're looking at me, like yeah, you raised your eyebrows are? Right. Okay, that's feedback. For me, these are things that I know, in conflict conversations that I have to watch out for these things. Because if I really want to pursue this, this conversation to the end where we really are problem solving, then some of the things that I'm doing, I'm not really helpful to that. All right, so So all of that makes sense to folks. Yep. Okay, beautiful. So, I do want to give I do want to give a break. Michelle, How long had the breaks been?

You have a three and a half hour session. So you have 30 minutes for break so if you want to do 310 to 15
I would like to do 215 if people do not mind doing 215 I think 15 minutes can give you something you know something a little bit of grace time Okay. All right. So we are we're going to come back to we're gonna come back to the to East Coast time if you I'm sorry to east coast on here I am thinking only of me. Yes to East Coast.

So if you're on West Coast, then it's what 11am Lynch should know because she's been by Coastal.

Yes, it is 11 it's somewhere
in between there. So just 15 minutes, just look at whatever time it is instead of 45 in the hour and be back at the top of the next hour.
Yes.

Opportunity aspect of it as well as the divergent ideas perspectives that keep us from moving forward. I want you to please name for me. Something in nature. Anyone? A butterfly, a butterfly. Okay, and one more thing in nature.
Birds,
birds, okay. All right and then give me a household appliance.
Microwave.

Microwave. Okay, one more.
Another washing machine and oven.
Can we know when with a washing machine since oven and microwave? Okay, so here we go folks. Conflict is like a butterfly because you're gonna complete it not me conflict is like a butterfly because
it goes through several stages tonight to it.

Yeah, yeah, nice. Conflict is like birds because
it goes south this like the
I can go south.
Alright.
I love that.
I love that. Okay, great conflict is like a microwave because
you can heat things up in a matter of seconds.

Yeah. As it can eat up in a matter of seconds. Yep. All right. And then complic is like a washing machine? Because
someone who has an answer, Yeah, come on, give it a try. Stretch that stretch that mindset about conflict conflict is like a washing machine because
conflicts like a washing machine, because you can get very, very wet and then confused as part of the conflict situation. But it can also make things cleaner.

Yes, yes. Absolutely. And it goes through cycles to get to that cleanliness. Right. You see, it agitates. Yeah. So this is about this is called the synaptic complex connected and it's about, it's another way to stretch your mind to how you view conflict. Because if every time conflict comes up, all we're thinking about is Oh, God, I hate conflict, or this is going to be bad, or whatever a negative view is, I don't want to deal with this or I don't, I'm an imposter. I don't have the skills to deal with it. If that is always our view, then we're really never going to get to that place where we see the opportunities that it can present. Right. So stretching, stretching the view is a great way to help you to do that. Yes, I do, too. I do, too. This is actually the first time what was the first time anyone said birds, and it's the first summer it goes out. It is so true. Yes. Beautiful. Okay. So let's keep moving. And all right. So we are going to go back to our PowerPoint, and we're going to look at Oh, I'm sorry. Let me take us one further right on, let me finish up listening beyond our comfort zone like listen, one point further past your discomfort. Right. So that's part of the listening and then reflect back to them what you heard. Right? It sounds like what I heard is, which is the paraphrasing, which we did in the first step, when we were reflecting back the feelings and the values, right? It's the same thing and reflecting back on the content of what you've heard someone say. So let me give an opportunity for that before I move forward. And that is that. What I want to do is to go back to the scenario, and I want to ask if you will reflect back on some of the content now, not, not the feelings and the values, but the content of what you're hearing. So, to going back to that scenario, I'm going to say. So the problem that I'm having right is with you as the project manager, not sharing anything with me, or at least keeping things secret about what you're doing and what I'm supposed to be doing in this situation. I don't understand why You can't simply tell me all of the things that I need to do and the things that you're doing. If we're a team, this isn't how the team functions. For me, it doesn't make me look good. And I'm certainly not happy about the fact that you being who you are. And being the one who's the manager is conducting yourself in this way, I need to be treated very differently, I need to be treated as someone who's important on this team. And that means I need better information from you. So I'm going to ask you to reflect back content like and when I say content, like what is this about in terms of content? Because it's about feelings and values to? But in terms of content, what are you hearing?
In terms of content?

You know, moving on.
Oh, there,
get there. Get there. Yeah. All right.

All right. So

we're at the place of respond rather than react. It is really important to understand that most of us react in conflict rather than respond. And the way that you get to respond is that you do have to manage your emotions, in order to get to the place where you're now thinking about what it is that you want to say, and then saying it as a pod as a, as opposed to the emotions start to lead you there. Why so give yourself time to think a lot of us feel like it makes us look bad if we're not able, with the ready answer to get there. I mean, think about even as we we talk about culture, right? And we think about cultural norms, think about even growing up, what was what was a cultural norm around if someone says something to you, about you that you don't like? What's the cultural norm in terms of how you engage? I know, for me, it was, you know, people around like, don't let us say that about you, you gotta say something back. Right? It was that kind of like, you got to come quick. And even in today's society, with social media, it's that quick response. And making sure that you have the perfect clap back. And so nobody gets the best of you. But responding is going to require that you actually take a step back, and give yourself time to think in the moment and understand what you are feeling and why. But there are trigger words that make some feelings come up in me. And if I don't take a moment to think about what I genuinely want to say, as opposed to what my feelings want to say, you understand what I mean, between the two? My feelings have a lot. But that's not what we're trying to come from. We're trying to come from the place of what's going to make the most sense to say if we're trying to move towards resolving this conflict, by engaging in the conversation. So understanding what I'm feeling and why Oh, right. That's what my mother used to say, or do or that's what so and so said, or did, and that's triggering me, right? Here yourself. So when I say hear yourself, if you've reacted already, because believe me, you can go to response, even if you've already reacted, you can circle back. But if you've reacted already hear yourself in that reaction? And is that really what you want to say? Or is that even the best thing to say, in the moment, you can practice a pause and breathe. So if you're going to pause it, give yourself time to think, take some really good, deep belly breaths in that moment. And I've seen people like I need a moment, or give me a moment. Right? Let me get back to you in a moment. Why own a bad start? I can't even tell you how many times the feelings just ran away with me. And it was just bad. And then I came back to say, hey, that is just not what I really want to say or that is that was not helpful to the situation. I own that I apologize for that. And then do a rewind, can we start again? Here's what I really meant to say. Do a rewind. Like let's let's have this conversation again. And then we Mind yourself through out of your desire to have a meaningful conversation when it starts getting tough to say to yourself, Well, what is the goal? What's my goal here? My goal is to have a meaningful conversation about this, and then to problem solve it. If that's my goal, how do I stick to that? While I'm going to have to remind myself several times throughout a very difficult conversation, that that's my goal, if my goal is to win feelings will lead you to reaction, if my goal is to make them look small feelings will lead to reaction if my goal is to remind them that I'm in charge. And what I say goes, then feelings will relieve will lead to reaction, if your goal is to have a meaningful conversation about this, and then resolve it, then your work to go to respond, rather than react or your work to circle your way back to respond.

Rather than react.

Yeah. Does that make sense? Okay, so I want to go I want to go back to you, Simone. Because the reason why I put this he put us back to I said, I would like to address what you were talking about in this slide. And this situation, is because in order to address it don't know, when for a better word, for lack of a better word, do something else other than this, and here we are. back to square one. You hear me reacting? I'm not saying that you don't feel like that? I'm saying that it doesn't feel good even to say that. But I'm saying if we're having meaningful conversation and engaging in resolving conflicts, where's that going to lead us in relationship to this? If that person can respond in in the way that you're reacting, then fine, then that's the kind of conversation you're going to have. But if you really especially rising execs, you got to be the one that really has the skills and puts them out there. So respond rather than react. So this person is still doing the same thing, right, Simone? Yes. Okay. So what do you want to say? This is all of us, we can use this approach.

Yeah. I just want to say yeah, if I'm having a similar conflict situation when somebody and I got to a point where I just I got really angry. Oh, my nose. Okay. Yep. Cool. All right.

So I want to share this piece, because I think that, okay, how to take the parts of conflict that everyone dreads, and turn them into learning experiences. Because when we start talking about why people avoid conflict, so these are some of the reasons right emotional outbursts, that's the last thing that people want, either from the other person or for yourself, like, I'm afraid, I'm just going to lose it. Right long silence. There's a real fear of silence when we're talking about conflict, or fear takes over, like, you're really just petrified to have this conversation or maybe fearful of the person and the way that they conduct themselves. Now, I had a manager who was just out of control in the way that she engaged in conflicts and, and very me, it's very, very mean. And it's interesting, you know, just by accident, I learned that she was using cocaine very heavily. And so I was like, oh, okay, like, this is where that is coming from. But it definitely the fear would take over anytime I felt like there was going to be conflict between us, or the part you dread is that you've just made it what like, something you're going to do is going to make it worse. Right? And so you don't want to deal with that. So emotional outbursts. Here's the deal. I know most of us don't like it, right, whether it's from ourselves or from others, but emotional outbursts give us information. There is something happening here for this person, either you've hit on something that is really important to them, but somehow they do not have the skills to articulate it in a way that you could be helpful to helping them with this particular thing. Or an emotional outburst can tell you just as You set them on, they do not have, they weren't prepared for this, right? There's something else that's getting in the way that most likely has nothing to do with this conflict. And so this is not something that I'm going to take personally at all, this emotional outburst is not about me, it's about something else. So being able to look at that when I was doing, I used to mediate civil complaint cases. And in particular, in the black and brown communities, emotional outbursts were part of that all the time. And I started to really just recognize that sometimes people just really need to get it out in that way. Or sometimes it's most of the time is just really not about me. It's really about whatever they're feeling that they're not able to articulate. So it comes out in that way. And when I was able to clear the air with myself around that, I was able to literally sit back and try to see, is there something in this outbursts? That's going to be helpful to me? Right? And what I mean by that is, I can say, Ah, you know, Michelle, I'm gonna tell you, I really don't like that you do this. And I mean, like, this is ridiculous. This is so silly. It's just ridiculous. Now, you don't get a lot out of that, because there's more name calling than there is information. But if I'm saying, Michelle, oh, my God, this report was so out of line, like, we didn't do anything right in this report. And the report was late, and I thought you were going to be doing this part and you didn't do that part. And so when you didn't deliver the charts to me, I'm standing up there looking stupid. Now, that's an emotional outburst. But did you get information from that outburst?
What information did you get?

They are feeling pretty hurt. And, um, you know, you you're upset, and you're part of is you just feel like you need to be heard.
Yeah, but what else did I say? I gave you content in there. What was the content?

Um, you were upset about just Josie,
I'm gonna stop you for a minute. Why don't you think that content is not the clearest part for you? What stopped you from hearing the content?

I was spending a lot of time trying to pay attention to the field. Okay.

Right, because it's an emotional outburst. So you're trying to pay attention to the feelings? Yeah. Yeah. But okay. And this is new, right? Trying to listen in so many different ways. It definitely takes practice, right. But also whatever comes up for us when someone gets emotional, and this was a roleplay. But think about when people are having emotional outbursts. There's barriers for you because you get triggered by that outburst. So you have to really hear them, all kinds of things are working for you. Like for me, it could be You got to be kidding me. You're behaving in this way. And you're in charge of me, you're the manager like that. Whereas I really need to focus in and listen, can I can I get something else from this, as you said, you listen for the feelings. The content is also there to anybody get any of the content?

I think what I heard was the represent drove the ball and giving you the charts and the spreadsheets or whatever for the presentation on so you were supposed to present something without the required information. Right? You're very upset about that.

That's right. Absolutely. So the combination of things What do you got Josie and what you got some All right, that combination says that there's no reason to be intimidated by this emotional outbursts, because you were able to get something from it where you can hopefully try to use that as a way to have the conversation. One way to de escalate someone is to let them know that they've been heard and to start really giving back their words and working towards Can you really try to resolve this particular thing, Simone? Why you laughing?Michelle?

Oh, Michelle had to come in. What is it really to me? The other people, but when you do have it, you absolutely stand out. So as you said, Simone, like you can really appreciate when you see somebody One that has that you can really appreciate that. And I'm the same way when I see parents who have that, I really appreciate that it's a switch, it's a switch that I made in parenting, my sons, and was that I much prefer to be the parent that would really go the distance and trying to have the conversation and trying to understand rather than using my power to shut it down, and I say that to parents, and I say that to managers, no one can take that card from you, you know how you play cards, if you got to play cards, and Oh, God, I have to say the word you have the trump card, right? And you know, you can play that. And it's gone, shut it down, right, but you don't have to play it, you can decide to hold on to it. And that's the piece when you know, you're in the power position. If you put up that power as long as you can, and try to use the skills to actually engage in the conversation, it becomes much more powerful. Because the conversation actually helps to build the relationship, which is what is the thing that you're going to be able to draw on, right and getting things done again, and again and again. So really working on looking at right using this what I'm talking about now. So when you have an emote, when somebody has an emotional outburst to look at that when you are the one having it, look at why. What came up for me what got in the way, right? What took over? And why did that take over, so that you can use that as information for yourself going forward? Not to get carried away like that again, right to use the skills to stay in? long silence. How many of you hate silence? Like that is really you really hate it? Yeah. Okay, so you've got to figure out why Simone. Why Why do you? Why don't you like it? Just Just talk to me.

I don't care if you're shouting, just silence kills me
that okay. Silence really triggers you. Okay, Josie. Why don't you like it? Oh,

I mean, I think specifically, because my leg has been will just go into silence for like, 20 or 30 minutes. And like, when we're having an argument, and I'm just like, say something to me. I'm like, I can't I can't deal. response.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a personal, it's a personal trigger for you. Right? Yes. And it is for a lot of people. But one of the things around conflict, and I'll make a connection with culture to their cultures, in particular, Asian cultures, weird silence is actually not so much that you're you're doing it intentionally, it comes from two places I find one is that culturally, you do not want to say something that's going to embarrass or shame that the other person. And so conflict is often looked at in that way, if you really speak out that you are making yourself look bad, and that person, the other is that silence can be an active way to do the work. For instance, I want you to notice something that I did earlier. And that is when I asked a question of everyone. And I sat in silence, until someone responded, I could have used that silence to make myself uncomfortable and say, Okay, well, I'll I'll say something, you know, or I'll give an answer. But what I did was I use the silence to allow you time to work on a response, right? rather than be uncomfortable with it. And I've learned to stretch that silence longer and longer. It's something that I use with my sons bringing them up is because I believe that the answer is somewhere within there, there may be discomfort in sharing it. But if I give you the space to reach for it, you might just take that space, and then you might just say what it is. But if I if I allow myself to be intimidated by the sidelines, then I'll answer it for you. Or I will assume that I know what this is about, or I'll avoid again, okay, well, you know, they don't want to talk about it. So let me we're not going to talk about it that right. So really recognizing that long silence doesn't have to be intimidating or deadly or mean that they They're actually trying to get back at you. And that there are, there are different meanings to silence and the way that you counter it is to get comfortable with silence
and let it work for you.

And then fear takes over, right. So if fear is taking over in a conflict situation, it's really important for you to know what you're afraid of.
Because a lot of times what we're afraid of is really up
to our imagination of how bad this is going to be, or what this is going to lead to, as opposed to the reality of the situation. So to tap into, what's my fear? If I'm afraid if I say, X, Y, and Z, then they're going to think, ABC of me, right? Is that really what's gonna happen? Is that really true? What's it based in? What's it based on? Where's that coming from, for me? To really be able to take a look at that, and then made it worse. So what happens if you make it worse?
What's the fear of making it worse?
Like there's no coming back. There's
no recovery. Yeah,
good. That's a common one.

But a lot of times there is. We just convinced ourselves that there isn't, like I said to you, and respond versus rather than react on a bad start. And then we whine. Lots of times, that is really possible. But we've convinced ourselves that it's not that there's no that there's there's no coming back from this, I really messed it up. And there's no way that this is going to be resolved. And the truth is, that first way is owning, owning it. That was really bad. Right? Even as I will say, even not even even as, especially as parents, we really are taught that that there's no need to own them. Elena bad start, we are the authority figure. So we just said we sat and we might say to ourselves, yeah, well, I messed up, but I'm not gonna tell him that because I'm the mom. They're just the kids. So I don't have to tell them that I did the wrong thing. Right. But owning a bad start is is such a high level conflict resolution skill, that when you can do that, it is a it is often very appreciated and often received in the spirit in which you're giving it and then responded to by, okay, let's start over or let's continue the conversation. All right, but you got to be able to be willing to, to do that. And I find that a lot of managers are not, they're not good at that particular piece of saying this, this came out wrong.

So you want to be that manager that can do that.

Alright, so I want to talk, I want to talk to flip to this, because this is absolutely what I'm teaching. But the flip to this is barriers to doing this work in this way. What are some of the barriers, and I want you to think about cultural norms when you think about barriers as well. So you could think about tech culture, you could think about your, you know, ethnic culture, or religious culture or whatever. But think about the barriers to doing this.

Someone want to name one.
I would always share that I'm gender wise, sometimes I'm not too sure feedback,
but it just makes you feel terrible. How do you manage your emotions around that to get benefit from that feedback? Right, and to not go into the place of really making yourself feel badly because you need work? Like everybody needs work? Everybody needs work. Everybody needs work. You You could be at the highest level and you still need work right? Everybody needs work. So. So I'm looking at the time, wow. So fast, I just want to see if there is anything that anyone wants to really ask at this point. Because I would like to get a quick closing in, but I want to make that the behavior. If we're if we go for the person, then 

First of all, they're most likely going to react in some way, and that behavior is not going to be addressed. So think about what's the behavior, and what's the effect that it is having when you are on others, and formulate your sentence, or, or two or three, wherever many sentences it takes to put that on the table, but shot out with what I call a door opener. A door opener is really the invitation to have the conversation. So it could be there's something that happened at the meeting that I would love for us to talk about, or I'd really love to have a conversation with you. About. Right. So that that's the door opener, the invitation to the conversation, and then it is so so Simone, what I really wanted to share with you is that in this last meeting, when you called me out on the mistake that I made, here's what didn't work for me. Right? You raised your voice. And, and you you chose me in particular. Right? If that's, you know, that's the sentence that I've decided to formulate, right, and you chose me in particular, as opposed to some mom? What a terrible way to manage that you would call someone out. You know, you call me out, and you single me out in front of the entire team. I don't, I'm really stunned that you would do that. That is just such a poor way to manage people. Now, I've said what you did. But I've also made it personal. Right. And while it is the person doing it, so in that sense, it's personal. If you really want to raise conflict, you don't want to go for the personal, you want to go for the behavior and see if you can get them to talk about that. So that would be my response to that, Mary. Hi. All right. So I want to say thank you to everyone. I've really enjoyed spending the time with you. And I'd love to add just no take away anything that you're taking away from this time together.

So Josie, do you have a takeaway? Anything the rest of your day is wonderful. Thank you for this opportunity. Michelle. You're very welcome.

Thank you, Lynn for coming through, as usual for being a plug. This has been really great. So y'all have seen the last I don't know this is week four. The speakers are the fourth day Have you want to look at it. So hopefully they are helping weave together for you. strategies and tactics and techniques you can use as you're advancing your career as you're encountering different barriers. Now you know how to deal you have some tactics right to use when dealing with conflict. So Lynn, thank you so much for joining.
My pleasure. See everyone

Hello, everybody, I am back again. Tonight, we are going to talk about some very important areas of your career, we're really gonna focus on your area where you're an expert, you're subject matter expert, and oftentimes, especially for analytical people who may not even have PhDs, right? When you have a PhD, like, Oh, I know exactly what I study. I'm this narrow, right. But for others of us, who are scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians, you still have a place a lane, I like to say where you're a subject matter expert. 

And oftentimes, especially when you're in the work, you forget, you don't realize that you've developed a certain set of skills, and you have certain experiences, which have led you to become a subject matter expert. And too often, we don't realize that and I work with a lot of Latina black and indigenous women who don't realize it, because they're always tasked with doing so much work. And they're really good at it. 

They're actually excellent at it. And they don't understand this. So what I want to do tonight, is really spend some time talking about where your subject matter expert. And what is that skill set that you've developed to become a subject matter expert. And so some of you are going like, Michelle, I'm not a subject matter expert, I've only been working in this field five years, 10 years, 12 years 15. Trust me, when I say this, you're putting in time. So oftentimes they do a number like oh, it takes 10,000 hours before you're an expert in something. 

Maybe it's an average. I'm just saying, y'all know, numbers and people. So if you think about the average job, right, the average job that you're working, you're going to see, let's say 40 hours a week, there are 52 weeks in a year. That's 2000 hours. You haven't a year. So in five or six years, when you take some vacation has holidays, you're an expert in something. What is that something? 

So now you can't tell me? Oh, I'm only done 1015? Year? I'm giving you six? Okay, so what is it that you are? You're an expert in? So you're like, Michelle, I don't know what you mean by this expert, this subject matter expert. So let's just talk about a formal definition. A subject matter expert is someone who is an authority in a particular area or topic, what is that area of topic? Is an instrument and controls? Is it some type of Java, right coding that you're really good in, but you do it in a very specific niche, let's say in Health Tech products, right. 

So you coat products that are used in hospitals, let's say, in cardiology, like that, that like we're getting that specific. And it could be a bit broader as well. But you have this particular and you're able to create this code to, to find anomalies right in hearts. Right? Maybe that's something you're really good at?

 I don't know, is that a thing? This term is used when you're developing materials about a topic expertise on the topic is needed by the personal personnel developing the material. So let's say if you had to give a speech today, at a professional conference here on a live stream, to your family, specific to your industry or anything in life, what is that thing that you could talk about? 

And literally do it without putting together a presentation off the top of your head, you could talk for 15 to 30 minutes to an hour even to to break down and explain to other people what this thing is. That is your area of expertise. Right? Some of you is going to be manufacturing.

Right. Others of you is going to be how to project manage something, but they're in there you have your you're an expert in this. So if we take you out of let's say this, Mitch, you're in. Let's look at that skill set that you've developed. What skill set Have you developed in your career that now has led you to become the subject matter expert. Now, when we talk about skill set, we're talking About your competencies, your knowledge and your abilities to do certain types of work that's also wrapped into your experiences, right. So certain things you will learn, you will learn in a classroom, you will learn by doing. And you will learn by using it in particular instances. So those experiences. 

Now, oftentimes, when we think about skill sets, we think about communication or computer skills, right? Time management, but we also be talking about Leadership, Research and Planning, and of course, engineering, development, developing something as well. So what is that those core was that core skill set you have, that you've developed, that you possess, that you still now roll over into your area of expertise, where you are subject matter expert, write those down, and you're like, Michelle, I'm not sure what it is. Okay, so let's take a step back. Go through your emails, text messages, voicemails, and even recall conversations or meeting notes, where people have asked you to do certain things, what is what is the recurring things they're asking you to do. And sometimes it is at a higher level, and you have to dig deeper to understand, understand what their skill set is, what type of problem you're solving, what are you truly bringing, but it'll start you to get to, to really think about what is your skill set? And what were your subject matter expert. And it's really important to hone in on that because it helps you to understand how you can take that skill set and go to different industries and attack different problems. And also where you're a subject matter expert that you want to own in your technical space, and to drive you to different places in your career. All right. So that is the message for today. So go and find out where you are a subject matter expert, yes. Because you truly are. Remember, we did the calculations?

 What are your subject matter expert? And let us know, let me know in the comments. Also assess what skills and experience you have. What are your top three skills? I won't have you do your entire entire skill set? But what are your top three skills? Is are you able to negotiate well, are you able to figure out Re and I and I've run into a couple of developers who are very good at taking apart current processes within their organization that are very intricate, and figuring out a way to write code that truly transform decision making within their organizations. And they have literally done it alone and their teams have been like, Oh, you're going to screw this up. That's not going to work. And they literally did what I call the Henny Penny, if you don't know what a Henny Penny story is, my mother had a daycare for over 30 years. So let me tell you the story. So Henny Penny is on a farm. Henny Penny is a chicken, a man hen, I'm sorry, hitting is a hand. 

So hynny buys a piece of wheat. And she goes tell the other farmers Hey, I got this piece of wheat, who will help me grind it to flour, and then go like that's too much work who has time for that. So she goes and she grinds that wheat to flour. So she comes back to the farm animals again and say hey, I have the flour, who wants to help me make this into DOH? Doh, who has time for that that's too much work. I'm not going to do that. She then goes and makes the dough bakes the bread. And now everybody wants a slice. 

So understand you are putting in great work. You have this level of expertise. Others are not don't have it, they don't have the drive for it. And you don't even see the talent that you really possess. So I want you to think about what what areas are you a subject matter expert and then go assess what your skills and experiences you've had to make you a subject matter expert and what are your top three skills? Yes, do that let me know because I'm truly truly interested in finding out. Alright everybody have a great day and I will be back later.

Hello, everybody, I am back. All this week, I will be talking about your career trajectory, what direction you want to go in your career? And how do you really find that? How you find out where you want to go is where we're going to focus tonight. And then later in the week is some things you can do, we'll discuss things to do in the workplace, specifically, having conversations with your manager, about your career trajectory in your current place of employment, or wherever your next move may be. So first of all, the first thing I want you to think about is which career opportunities excite you and why. 

Oftentimes, we take a role, or we get into an industry and you're like, Oh, my God, this is so boring. I have so been there. How about you? I remember doing getting a technical sales role as inside sales. So it's inbound calls. And so what do you do in between calls? Right. And as an engineer, and being young and early in the career, I was bored, right? It didn't excite me, there was there were challenges once I got on the phone. But what was going to challenge me when I wasn't on the phone, and that was, that was a big, big issue for me. And a lot of my team actually turned over a lot of us were just bored. So if you're in a role, or you have previous roles, which didn't excite you, what were those things? What was it about that role that did excite you? Or do excite you? And what didn't so you know, what to stay away from? And you know, what you gravitate towards? Now that you know, what excites you? Why does it excite you, I can literally remember thinking I would never ever do construction? 

And I actually did. And so when you think about it, what what is it that really makes you or get you excited about your career? Right? What is it I know one client, she wants to plan the power grid. And as the excitement is coming, by planning the future, right, about impacting lives by planning the power grid, and she has done some fantastic things from substation design, transmission design, some smaller things in between there, right, you know, working for a utility company. But what really excites me right now, 15 plus years into our career, is planning the power grid, and being able to look into the future, and help drive and cultivate the future as it relates to the power here in the US. So when you think about that, think about your role, and the things that excite you, and that you've had exposure to what are they, maybe you aren't sure, maybe you're just interested in something, write it down and write down why you're interested in it. And maybe you'll find some similarities in other roles that really excites you, or that you find interesting. 

The next thing you want to do is look at your current career path. Do you want to be on that career path in two to five years? Or even tomorrow? Do you want to be on that career path? And really reflect on? Hmm, I don't want to do that into into more years. Like, it's okay for now. And so now you have, you're trying to figure out what your next step is. I had a great conversation recently with some lady in tech, and she had been a software engineer for years moved over the product, and really is enjoying the challenges of being in being in product after being a software engineer for 15 years, and just wanted something new and different to do. Same things. Another woman in tech 30 plus years has done anything from programming and data architectures now machine learning. And so you can really, really think about what excites you. And sometimes it's just growing and learning new things. And and that can be what excites you about that, especially if you know where you currently are is not where you want to be two to five years from now. And you want to think two to five years so you can kind of plan out, see if you need to get a new skill set, identify if you need a new employer to really go and find those roles or explore new roles that you are excited about. Now, when you doing all of that also look at what do you want to master?

What do you want to be a master of and oftentimes, especially when it comes to technologists and engineers, we usually focus on technical aspects as well as scientists something technical, but sometimes we find or you may have found that you have a difficulty in explaining to others why something works a certain way, and why the company should be spending money to build it out to make it more efficient. And you don't know how to to, to explain it. So you may want to master negotiations and communications, right? Other times you do want to master something. 

And it could be maybe it's something in DevOps, maybe it's something in structural design, and you want to be a PE, but you want to specifically design and become a master abutment or something. So what is that thing that you skill you want to master as well? And so when you think about your career trajectory, you want to think about opportunities that excite you and why and even the ones that don't, so you notice you're away from them? Do you like the current career path you're on? Where do you want to be in the next two to five years? Take a look at that. And lastly, what do you want to master? Because looking at all of those will really really help you figure out where you want to be and what direction you want to take your career. So that's what I have for today. I will be back more this week, talking about your career trajectory, everybody. Have a great day and bye

What is going on everybody, thank you so much for joining me again, we are going to be talking about getting your manager on board or better yet even finding out if your manager is on board for your career trajectory, the things you can the actions, you can take the things you should be asking questions, you should be asking to your manager. So it's really important that you at least find out if your manager is on board. And we're going to take the path veteran manager is on board. So just so you know, because if your managers not, it's a whole other segment, whole other steps you would have to undertake, in order to get the support you need internal to your organization to grow your career, if you're looking to stay there. And as these are the same things you would do if you go to another organization as well. And, and most importantly, that you want to ask when you're in the interviewing process. Okay, so first of all, you want to set times to actually meet with your manager about your career progression, your career advancement trajectory within an organization. And you want to do that a minimum of two times a year because you already do your annual review. But you need to do it really, once a quarter. What happens is, I don't know if any of you do this, you set these great goals, right? That you want to achieve in the year. And then stuff happens like your job and you don't get to that, those extra things. And you forget about it up until like six to eight weeks when your review is due. And you're like, I can't get these all of this done, maybe two out of the five or one out of the six, whatever it is. And so by meeting with your manager on a quarterly basis, you are then more accountable to making progress in what you agreed to in the previous year, whenever you do your performance reviews, and you set your annual goals. So that's one reason. But on top of that, when if you're meeting with your manager prior to your performance review, you are already laying the path to what is going to be your goals for the next year, your manager already knows where you want to go. And that way you can build it into your performance plan for the next year. Or you can tweak and change your current performance plan that you've already created. Some places let you do it, others don't. So managers like look, this is what we know happened. So those things are gonna fall off. And they work with you to get it submitted and put into your, your own online system. So don't get stuck on Oh, I have to wait for the next review cycle No, start now because it makes it a whole lot easier. Because you'll know what to write in there as opposed to trying to do it and have do your review and then set your new goals all in the same time. So a minimum of two times a year, but really, once a quarter is what you want to aim for. When you're meet with your manager found find out where he or she sees your career going. And you're simply going to ask this question based on my skills and strengths. What direction do you see my career going in the company? Right? And they may ask you some questions, and they may ask you some more in depth questions about where do you want to go? Be sure you get their idea. And this is why because I'm talking to those of you who are in engineering, you're in tech, you're in science, right? You're in very technical fields. And a lot of times I've talked to women and their managers are the one that's pushing them to do less technical work. What does that really look like when that happens? So you want to pay attention to what your manager is where they he or she is seeing you go and ask them why. And you can use the by wide method and really like just ask them. Okay, so XYZ but why this division? Why this role, why those duties and to figure out what really, sometimes are their biases for pushing you out of a technical space and making them aware of it as well. So you definitely, definitely want to ask them where they see you going in the organization. Now also in that discussion.


Ask them if they're on board, and you're able to think you're telling them where you want to go. And they're agreeable, like Yeah, I can definitely see you doing that. You have XY and Z skills. Ask them what specific actions you need to take to be qualified for x row, like, what gaps do you need to fill in? And even how long do they think it'll take you to fill in those gaps. And so now you know what your gaps are, and they know where you want to go, right? So you literally can take your performance plan now and cultivate it around filling those gaps. Yes, it can be that simple. And that easy, just to at least document and having that discussion. Oftentimes, we're waiting to perform, it's time to do this, I highly encourage you to literally make an appointment with your manager, if you're remote. And they aren't doing regular weekly check ins with you anyway, they should be doing weekly check ins with their team on an individual basis to see how they're doing. during a pandemic, if you are going in the office, you're probably not going to meet face to face anyway. But it is still a great thing for you to do and engage with them in. So those are the things you want to do you want to set to meet with your manager two to four times a year for being out small, which is once a quarter, you want to go in and ask your manager, where does he or she see you going in the organization and really make that a lengthy conversation and under and asking them why they see you going in a direction, especially if it's in a non technical role, and you want to go into technical space? And then lastly, what actions do you need to take in order to qualify for X role? And some of you may find that you're already qualified. And they're gonna say, Well, you don't have anything open. And then now you're trying to figure out how can you turn determine when a next opportunity is going to be available? How can you just slide on in and just wait for that to open up? And so you could just tell your manager, hey, well, why don't we call Jessica who's the departmental manager and director over that group, and talk to her now. Because if you if we know when a role is going to open up in that team and that department for me, I can go ahead now and we can start training somebody to replace me when that positions open. So you're not trying then to be trained on a new position, as well as training somebody to Bill you're currently so make it a win win to when you're talking to your manager and you talking about your career trajectory and advancement, that you're going to help them out. But it's better if you're planning together and really leveraged, just planning period to help both of you out. Okay. That is all I have for this segment. I will catch y'all again later and we will still be talking about career trajectory, more things you need to be having discussions and questions you need to be having with your manager to make sure he or she is on board. I will talk to you later. Bye

Now that you're meeting with your manager, what are the questions you should ask?

Do you want to test the waters? Or do you want to start growing new skills?

We are back again, talking about getting your manager engage with your career advancement. But I want to talk about what happens after the meeting you have with your manager, and it doesn't go in the direction you want to go, meaning you don't have a supportive manager, and the things you you can do to still advance your career at your current place of employment. And it happens, haven't had this recent conversation about it. And so I really want to dig in and talk about it. So after you had your meeting with your manager, whether it went positive or negative, you want to send a summary email, and have three to five bullets in there, but keep it high level. And just just really summarize what was discussed, what was agreed upon any action steps that she or he and you are to take needs to be included in that in that summary email, and you want to send it immediately the same day that you do the meeting, unless you just do it at the end of the day, then when you get home, you know, definitely try to sit down and write it out. Or if you're, if you're home right now, right, you can definitely work remotely, you can definitely just go through and write it down later in the evening, or do a voice recording of it. So it transcribes for you whether using your phone, you can use Google Docs, or even something like otter.ai, we should do voice transcription for you just to write it down very quickly for you. So now you've had this discussion with your manager, and he or she is not on board is not supportive of your career advancement discussion in the direction you want to go. Oftentimes, I hear like I talked about manner, they want me to go a completely different way. And I often find that the managers want the women to go in a less technical role than they want to go in. So this is what I advise you to do. Make a list of key decision makers in your organization, right, make a list of influencers, whether they are you currently have relationships with them, or you can build relationships with them. And also determine who your allies are within an organization, if you're newer to the organization. And it's during a pandemic, that can be more challenging to find out. If you're in a larger org, or you have an intranet, you have messenger, you have er G's, employee resource groups, affinity groups, things like that, tap into those to start building out your network and finding out who's who, what's what's what in your organization. And you want to make a list of you know, the direct list of people who can either do introductions to you, in a business unit department division that you want to go to grow your career, that's your career in, or you can reach out to people directly and start building that relationship. So do research on the person or persons using, I don't know, a platform like LinkedIn, and just send a short personalized message. So three to five sentences, and just asking them about themselves, right. So that is what that's the first thing you want to do. Now, during that discussion you had with your manager, you probably discuss gaps between your current skills, and the skills you need for the job you want to you want to have. And they your manager may have said, well, you don't have X, Y, and Z, you're not ready and you want to do the five why's, or why am I not ready. And they'll tell you and eventually they'll tell you some tools, tactics, it's a personal stuff you need to work on. Now you want to take all of that the gaps that were discussed in that meeting, and really assess whether or not they're valid. And so you can ask other people. And and if you find that you you know, those gaps are valid, then go through and find out resources internal to your org that you can tap into, to then grow, to get get that experience to get that exposure. All right. It's a lot of times they have professional, different budgets for different trainings, is that training programs and so forth that you can join, sometimes it's just membership to maybe your Toastmasters and they have one within your organization probably meeting remotely right now during the pandemic. But either way, you want to tap into that and utilize those tools. Who's especially as free, and also using the budget training budget within your organization to help fill those gaps. All right. I know that was a lot. So number one, you want to do a summary with your manager to discuss the highlights of everything you discussed in a meeting. There, he or she is not supportive of where you want to advance your career in the organization. So you need to find out who are the key people for you to know influencers and as as well as allies within your organization. And, third, go ahead and look at the gaps that you need to fill to go to the next role. And so you're going to work on those, even though it hasn't been supported by your manager and figure out ways to get some of those gaps fill some of those trainings done, whether it's on your internal educational portal memberships that you may have, whether it's I Tripoli, ASC e ASME, whatever that is. And I'm really using those memberships now, to help those fill those gaps. So don't give up. There are definitely workarounds when your manager is not supporting you. So I will be back and we'll be talking more about things you can do to advance your career and you literally driving the direction you want to go
and making it more strategic as you grow your career. All right. I will talk to you later. Have a great day.

We are now going to talk about being a leader and leadership. And there's so much information out there, when it comes to the traits of a leader, the behavior of a leader, creating becoming a leader in the workplace. And that's really great. But what I challenge you to do is when you want to, especially if you're a black woman, Latina, indigenous underrepresented in science, technology and engineering, is really take a holistic view of your organization, you work for the industry you're in, and really understand what part you play, and what part you want to play in that industry. Oops, I forgot to do one thing. Essentially love lives, okay. So what I always encourage you to do, what I encourage you to do, is really look at what role your job plays in the organization on a whole. Too often, we are very focused on our day to day activities. And and it's true, that's, that's, you know, what you want to do as an employee. But as a leader, you're looking at the organization as a whole, you're looking at not only what is going on in your location, your team, your business unit, but the organization as a whole. And oftentimes the industry, hey, I'm glad you could join to. And when you're able to look at the organization as a whole, you then can see how you play a bigger part in it. So you work for a publicly traded company, you can get their 10k report, their annual report, that where they're talking about the finances, they're talking about the overall goals for the organization for the next year, as well as long range plans. And you want to see where you can position yourself in the organization long term, and where you can go. And as always, every organization is different, you may find it in a business unit you're in is one they may be looking to sell, they are not really focused on growing it increasing revenue or employees. And so you might be like, Okay, what does that really mean? Other times, you're now looking at, okay, for the business, that business unit I work for, for the product line, or the customers I serve, we are growing. And my role and opportunity in that growth within this company has been increased, right, hopefully, now understanding how your particular skill set and your job helps the company reach that goal is truly important. So, so often you think, Okay, I'm a process engineer, and I work this product line, and I and I make sure the line doesn't go down. But what if you realize the company's goal is to generate $300 million in annual revenue from that one product line that you're the process engineer on. And that's part of a billion or $1.5 billion revenue goal they have for the organization. Now you understand that impact of what you do is much larger than what you thought it was when it comes to revenue in your organization. So it's really important you understand how your role really plays into the long range and the short term goals for the organization. And that helps you then position yourself like, Okay, I know these what this is where the company is trying to go, I need to be talking at a higher level, like how does how does the pandemic impact this product line? Right? How does the pandemic impact this customer base? And what do I need to do in order to lead the way in that change in that growth or even in that reduction that you may have in the organization and possibly a restructure? So you look at your organization and you also want to look at industry? How's the industry changing? Are they changing technology? Are they changing?
Are they moving things offshore? Are they moving things back onshore, and so it's really important to see what is also being done in your industry. Lastly, determine how you can't contribute more to the success of the business. So when I say success of the business, how can you help increase revenue and an increase in revenue could be a I'm changing, or coming up with a best practice for maintenance. It could be a way to write or document different things. It could be great. I'm creating software. There's a great software engineer I met, that I know who was in my network. And the CEO of a company, she worked for what takes so much so many days to go through all of these internal reports and make a decision. So what she did was she wrote a, she wrote code to help him, the CEO, make decisions quicker. And that one piece of code, help the company generate millions of dollars of revenue, because the CEO then was able to make decisions quicker with the information that came from all the various reports from all the different divisions, business units, and managers and directors. Right. So what how does that truly impact the overall and how can you play into into that organization? So think about that revenue? How can you improve efficiency? How can you decrease, improve safety, it decrease accidents. So you really, really want to think about those things when you decide that you want to be seen as a leader in the workplace, because or even in your industry, if you know where your industry is going when you know your organization's trying to go, you can then align where you are with those things. All right. That is all I have for today. I will be back talking more about leadership. So come join me and I will talk to you later everybody. Bye

Welcome, welcome, everybody. Thank you for coming to the last session for the women of color in STEM virtual summit, winter 2021. We have been talking about the power of you. And really what does that mean on so many levels. And tonight, I'm going to be talking about leveraging your power. And the reason I selected this particular topic was we often talk about the power and privilege of white people, specifically white men, but we still have our own power. And I want to make sure we really focus on that we really understand the power we have, and if we're leveraging it. And so it really is important that you understand you do have power, and how are you currently utilizing it? So some of the questions and comments that came up, particularly last night, and even with Lee Lee's session was, well, how do I get into the boys club? Or these things are happening to me? How do I get them to stop or I don't want backlash, you have options, you have a voice. And there are decisions you can make. And that that is leads into your power. So I have a slide deck, we're kind of going to use it, we're, we're going to use it, we are going to use it. But I completely tore apart what I was originally going to talk to you about. Because it has changed. So for some of you, you may be an early career. So you're like less than five years of experience, maybe less than three years of experience. Many of you have 10 or more years of experience. And if you have a PhD, and you have like five years of work experience, you're into 10 or more years of experience. And what I want you to think about is really think about your level of expertise. I'm gonna do it this way. All right, let's do this, your level of expertise, as it has grown, as you have gained more experience in the workplace, in your field, in various industries, right, it is grown, and it may have grown hot or deeper. It may have grown wider, but it has definitely grown. And what I want to talk about is really how do you focus back on what you've achieved? Because again, the questions were, how do I brag or say my accomplishments, but now seem as though I'm bragging, I want to be humble? From the question I can already tell, you probably aren't owning all of the great things that you've already achieved. And so what I'm going to do is actually my timeline that I pulled together to show you what I've achieved in 25 years. And I want you to do a similar approach. And I'll show you what I mean. And we're going to get started in this. And so you can see what I mean and what what is really going to go on tonight, and how you can use this same process to go through ask questions and really, really get started in owning and leveraging your power. So I'm Michele Heyward founder positive hire, we're early stage tech startup, where we connect experienced black Latina and indigenous women who are scientists, engineers, and technology professionals to management roles in corporate America, my background is actually civil engineering. I built a power grid here in the US, before that I did a short stint in technical sales, hated it. But that's all I do now as a founder. And prior to that, I did a short stint in technology transfer with NASA's North Eastern Technology Transfer Center, which then was in westborough, Massachusetts. And so part of that story is in my timeline, but many people don't know about those things, because I don't talk about them. And how many of you are doing that? So put a one in the chat if you don't tell people about all the things, half a third of the things you've accomplished? What percentage do you tell them, you accomplish, you have a degree, you have a job, you have a degree, and you have a job, those are probably the only things you're really sharing with people. Right? So that's the purpose of this session, public support, we're also gonna look at the public support or BLM blacklivesmatter internal changes that you'll see in the org, really hone in on your power and then the steps you need to take to leverage your power.

So this supposed to be tired of something else, obviously, like I told you, I already did this. So we're going to talk about your power, your employer accountability, your power again, and then your opportunity. So looking at public supportive black lives matter how many of you put it to an HIV use a different number, put it to in the chat. If your company made a statement saying we've support black lives, we support Black Lives, black lives do matter. We support our black employees. How many of you put it to have your employer sent out a message like this? How many of you don't don't respond to this?
When?

What day is this? When did y'all start? Y'all must have just started that this year. Y'all must have started, like right now, like when y'all hit send to this email? Because you hadn't seen that before? Right? So you have companies that are sending out these messages. And sometimes they're yours. And sometimes they weren't, because a lot of companies didn't. You also received messages from different brands in different industries. That said, they said the same thing. And I want you to take note of what they said and how they said, and what I mean is, did they acknowledge George Floyd was killed? Or was he murdered? Because that is a huge difference? Did they call out racism or systemic racism? Did they say black lives or they say everybody matters to us? Because these are instances of where you are seeing whether or not the culture of belonging, at least in your Communications Group, because the Communications Group generally writes the messaging, it goes through legal and then then finally, you know, they massage it with some of the CEO or their C suite people. Right? And so what what what does that messaging really say? Because there are key words you have to look at to really understand the depth or the lack thereof, of coming from your management team, when it comes to black lives really matters in your organization? All right.

Now, what was your response? When your manager, your director, executive, VP, C suite people came to you, and asked you how they could help you. And I want you to keep that in mind. If they've made a public statement. did have they come to you? Or have they come to you? Number two, what was your response? Or did you not have a response? And if and if you didn't have a response? Why didn't you have a response? These are the some of the things I want you to go through because they get to your psychological safety and your physical safety in your workplace. Because some of the things I'm going to talk about leveraging your power, you may not have it yet in your organization, and some and honestly, you may not be able to get that opportunity to leverage your power in our organization, because it is not a safe place for you. Period. Is is literally where you're getting a paycheck. Okay. And so I do realize that and I'm not going to undermine that. But yes, many were lip service. I just thought that thought of the black squares on Instagram. Exactly. Exactly. When it became popular. Yes, I do hear you. I do hear you. When it became popular for sure. I got on committees and in other organizations. Yes. Okay. What were your organization's goals? Did they announce that we're going to donate to the NAACP, we're going to support X, Y, and Z nonprofit. We're going to go out and recruit from HBCUs and Hispanic supporting institutions, so HSI what were their goals? How many of them announced any goals about retaining the talent internal to the organization? How many of them talked about creating a place of belonging within your organization? Right. How many of them talk about we have work to do and I own the responsibility and will be accountable for these changes within the organization? Yeah, I'm getting cricket. See I got crickets cool. Some of what you may have seen were er G's for a form. And who says sponsor for that er G.

And so what I really want to do is like see who are the players within your organization. For those changes that are white man, they still haven't figured out the goals when volunteers are running the show. Things are slow. Okay. Support black founder support goals on advancement. I got on commit. Okay, so, what I want you to do is really look at what those goals Are if and if they still haven't figured out the goals like, hey, it's been almost a year. You haven't figured out goals? Here's some for you. And guess what? You can give them goals. And you can give them guidelines, when you inquire about where are the goals? What's the timeline, and who is running the show, like who's the who's responsible, who's the committee, some people are always still have a committee. And the committee has met once in 2020. And they have no plans of meeting right now in 2021. So you want to go back and revisit those and really follow up and I'm really good at this. I remember when I was in corporate This is not a black lives matter. event, this was an internal call, something came out where it says hey, such and such, who was over our division or business unit was doing a call a talking about our finances or something. They decided in the office, they didn't want to pay for a system or do multiple calls, will all employees over several sessions would be able to join. Instead, what they did, they held one, they sent out an email, another email left out everybody that worked on construction sites, after email, and decided they were only host hold this call with people that work in office. So I noticed I never got an email with the link, I hit Reply All. Hey, this was scheduled for such and such I never received an email wasn't recorded. People reply directly back to me like you didn't miss anything. The call was horrible. and respond to that, for me from an executive assistant was, oh, we didn't invite everybody. And I was like, I don't understand how you do a call for employees, and then cut off your employees. So they had to host a second call. Thanks to Michele Heyward, hitting reply all. So sometimes, you just ask one question, hit reply, and ask for a date. I'm serious. And I reply, all they loved. That reply all means, guess what? We're still waiting, there are going to be people that are going to respond to you directly, they're not going to do the reply all like you did, they're going to respond to you directly. And those people, I want you to start having conversations with them and researching them. Are they your allies? Are they your accomplices? And are they your sponsors in organization? And ally will look out for you, an accomplice will commit the crime with you to make change. And that sponsor will remove barriers for you. So the power oftentimes, I would ain't never said when they were going to do Did you inquire there is power in utilizing your voice. And sometimes it's not even your voice. So in the organization, you're going to see some internal changes, some of the changes, you may have seen where the mission statement has changed the policies, so revised policies, or like some of you said, they are they created a group of volunteers who are not being compensated. So that means they're black and brown people, probably mostly women who are doing this work. Okay. They're changing practices, they're developing metrics. And info is to be shared sometime in the future. And you'd like you know what, this is the future. I'm so glad we're here. What I want you to also do for those of you that are larger corporations that have 10 k report, they have annual reports, pull out those reports, search them and see if they mentioned any of these mission changes, policy changes, practices, or metrics. So they were shared out to all the investors within an organization. Now they didn't they didn't love me.

Trust me, they didn't love me. Because this is truly truly important that you do this, because now you're tracking what they are not doing to match up with what they said back in June of 2020. Right. Oh, we didn't have it in a budget when you set the budget in October. This happened in June, June, July, August, September, October, you had three to four months, you had a sufficient amount of time to create a budget. Okay. Now, let's let's focus on your power, your performance, your position, your past. And what I mean by your performance, we are judged generally much more harshly, we have smaller rooms for error. And so our performance, we usually are higher performers, especially over on the stem side. And so I really want you to focus on your performance in the past. Don't worry about where you are right now, don't worry about 2021. Because your power is built upon what you've done in the past. And some of you like why would a new employer guess what they hired?

Based on your performance in the past? That is your power that you built upon. Your position is not necessarily your job title, right? Your position is truly about when people come to you as an authority, as a subject matter expert, as knowledgeable, as I know, sometimes is the person that's gonna hit Reply All on an email, what's your position, in an organization, in your industry sometimes, or your region that really helps you leverage your power? So what is that position you have, in your current or former employer? Did people come to you when there were issues in a system process, or a contract, or even a production line, right? That people come to you to start something in the middle of an issue, or to put a nice bow on and at the end, right. So really look at how are you positioned in your organization, when it comes to our our, they always give you all of that extra work, that doesn't help you get a promotion or a raise? We you're We are, we are stakes, we are stuck our necks out and usually get get can't get get away with exactly. And so it's really important to understand your position in organization. Because if you it helps you understand how far out you can stick your neck and be able to have a neck to retract back like your turtle. I'm just saying. So really understand what is your position. And the last part of your power is your passion. What are you passionate about. And that's not always related to your to your job, right?

 You can love what you do. get me wrong, but you're passionate about seeing X, Y, and Z happen happen in health tech, or biotech. You are passionate about the next development or evolution of 5g. Or some of you might be like to get 5g that's already done. We on six g now you're on six G and you're looking at the next level of technology. What are you passionate about Where's where your passions lie. Because where you find your passion, oftentimes, you find that extra to push forward, and then generate new ideas and create new relationships. And really to pull together everything you really need to move forward. Hey, thanks for joining. So really think about what is your passion, right. And it may not be tied to your career, it may not be tied to a job. But it still is something you're very, very focused on. And you feel it in your bones. So what I'm gonna do right now, I'm gonna take you down my career timeline, Michelle's career timeline. And we're going to talk through some of some ways of how I built my power. Right? And why I wasn't afraid to hit reply on emails. And and it's not going to be the same for you. And how did I get to that point. And so much, I was a subject matter expert for a department of 50 and a heart to replace spot. Once I realized the power, that power of my work, life change. And oftentimes, we are doing the work and we don't understand the power we have. And I will say it was not just in those 50 that apartment of 50. I guarantee you probably in that division, they knew that if they lost you, you're out sick, you're not available, how critical you were to the organization. And so if you look at that, I would say it went further than that. 50 because it's hitting the bottom line. It's about generating revenue for them for that organization, probably, or productivity, but it's definitely a driving force, a driver, a number that's driving that. So I went back 25 years I know I only look 30 and I'm still 30 this year next year I'll be 30 but I have a special man With an older nephew, he, he and I, we have to talk he I need him to age slower. I'm just gonna say that. Okay, so I started in 1995. And that's what I graduated high school. And, and so you don't have to do this? Well, you don't have to start at high school. I just started at high school. But what but I do want you to build out your career timeline. And you can do this in Canva. You can do this in what do I say on a on a foam board or a poster board with magazines and a glue gun? Right? You can do this over on? What is the other thing we always have boards. I can't remember Pinterest, you can do it on Pinterest. But I want you to pull it pull together your timeline of your career. And I started 95 because I graduated high school, but I also started college. And so we often don't talk much about an educational Oh, I'm an engineer. Not everybody can do that. You're a scientist, not everybody can do that. You have a math degree? We really can't do that. Right? So if did you want to get a master's degree and a PhD? What are those things that you're like, ah, whatever, that you really downplay, and you really need to own. And so really build out this timeline. But what you can see I really want to focus on is 2011. I said fail. I was struggling at work, absolutely, positively struggling at work. And I own that I even asked for help. I will say, Oh, no, no, you'll get it. And then I felt I was going to get help. And then in swoop what became who became my sponsor, in 2011. And once I had that sponsor, life changed, and he was working stuff on the back end for me. And so I push more for black women and brown women to have sponsors more than I do mentors, because we encounter so many barriers, and we have such small margins of error. We need somebody to be advocating for us and protecting us more in the workplace than anybody else. And so I like mentors, and cute, they're nice. But I need a sponsor.

And that is one thing with this power with organization saying, say, Black Lives Matter. Our black employees matter, we're going to do these er G's bad. So you're going to build out this plan, because some of you need to understand how great and how fantastic you are, and how much you've already accomplished in your life. And you don't have to be humble, because this is your truth. This is what is and and you haven't even looked at it in totality. So I went from 2011 and failing to to 2013 to be in the goat greatest of all time. And I own that ish. Right? I remember I went to the next job in 2014 and got this email saying your new role is this, but it won't be in a update in HR. And my boss came up to me. He's like, Hey, you see such You said you got a promotion? I said No, I didn't. I got a pay cut. Because he didn't say I said that's more work. And I literally refuse to take that job title. I literally going and Michelle's a project manager like hi Michele Heyward, I'm the construction engineer. If you're not gonna pay me, I'm not doing the work. And guess what, I didn't do the work. Unless it benefited me. I literally you, it was like, I set boundaries. I was I was wearing my micro braids. I was doing what Michelle wants to do. Because at this point, you felt I understood my power. I understood what I knew how good I was. And that I literally could take that someplace else. And so I want you to take this and you can make it way deeper than this. Right? You can make it way deeper than this. And you could have narratives for every single milestone you lay out. Like, oh my god, this is when X, Y and Z was on my team that undermined it me are this is when I got to lead the team. And I was really able to do A, B and C, write those narratives in there. Because too often, we aren't telling those stories either. And those narratives matter so much. So start with a timeline, and then go to a narrative. And the milestones aren't necessarily by year. The milestones can be by projects. It can be by accomplishments, it can be by hitting certain goals that you have for yourself, or that you hit or exceed It inside of an organization. So tell those stories and lay down those narratives. I need to do that. Yes, I want all of you to do this because some of the questions and comments over the last five days, were about not being brag, or I haven't achieved enough, or how do i do X, Y, and Z or how I get C. I became an I remember, I remember it the greatest all time, like literally how good Let me tell you how I solidify, I was good. The client rep sent an email to my VP didn't copy me on it. And the VP became my, my, my sponsor. The VP forwarded to my divisional boss copied me on the message, and I got a bonus. So So and I spent the bonus of that bonus taking a client out, because you could not undo that email that said what it said, that made me ago, I'm just gonna say it, if some people have said it to you, and you have brushed that, brushed it off, like, Oh, no, you're cute. No, they said I could you, we could not have done it without you. If you hadn't worked late, we would have missed the deadline. Without you, we would not have been able to do one, two or three, you did not claim your greatness. And because you did not claim greatness, that accomplishment, you have not understood the power that you already harnessed from your your current and previous performance, okay? And I need you to go back and lay this timeline out and write those narratives, so that you understand that you already have that power, it is showing up in your performance. And so I'm gonna go past this part. So we looked at my performance. My position was if you don't pay me, you trying to play me, that's not what I'm gonna do.

But also what my position I'm in, in the year 2011 2013. This is when I made it a point where I screwed up stuff, I took accountability, on a call. And when I said it was not me, people believe me. But I only couldn't do this, I could only do this.

Because I had a sponsor, because I had somebody advocating for me, I had somebody protecting me. And so again, your ask if you do not have a sponsor is to have to go and ask three people in your organization for sponsor, if you have a sponsor, go ask three more people. Matter of fact, matter of fact, ss for two or three people in your organization, two or three people in your industry to be your sponsors, you like industry? Yeah, who who's the issue in your industry, everybody else is asking them to mentor them. Like now I want you to be my sponsor, I want to get over to this position at this company. And they got these little raggedy rules right here that nobody else in our organization has had to meet. But that's what they telling me, I need you to move that out of the way and you will have specific ask for that sponsor. Because, again, your performance and your position and your passion are your power. And you have not owned your performance. You have not realized what your position is, and it's not a job title in the organization. And you usually know what your passion is, but you may not have focused on it yet. All right. And I see we have one question, give me one. Okay. How do you ask someone to be your sponsor? Let's see. Hi, Angela. This is Michelle. I hope you're doing well. I would love for us to have a meeting. Um, I have a short discussion on my coffee chat. How about to see at 11:30am? Okay, great. I'll talk to you then. Angela. I love how you've done X, Y and Z in the company. And I'm looking for a sponsor for what the company said. When it comes to black lives. They're looking to do one, two and three within the organization. And I love that what I'm trying to do in the organization that aligns is x, y and z. I'm having some I would like some additional support in reaching these goals. And I'm looking for somebody such issue. Who's very well known. I would say well, no, I will say who's very knowledgeable and experienced in this area to be my sponsor. And What am I looking for, for a sponsor? Number one, we meet once a quarter. Number two, we have milestones where I hit certain things that you want me to have done. And number three, you're open and honest about what I do. But more importantly, I understand that you have to authority to remove barriers that I consistently come across. For instance, when I tell X, Y, and Z, I want a promotion, they give me all of these extra things to do. And I do all of them. And they consistently come back and tell me the same thing over again, yet, I'm always training my manager, I love for you to assist me. Does that answer your question? So that's just some of the things you can do, you want to be very specific, because the person you're looking to be your sponsor is a least I would like for it to be an executive VP level. And maybe a senior director, but executive VP is really where I would like most of you to start. If you're like, Michelle, I'm at the executive VP level, I would say probably go to maybe somebody on your board of directors in our organization, you can also look at somebody in the C suite as well. But that is where I would tell you or recommend, not tell but recommend you go to literally get to get that sponsor. Let them know what you want. Let them know what you need me to bury, you encounter. And to help you overcome those. That is what I mean, and and so we want to get into a little bit of that as well. So I just wanted to I know you had the question I'm gonna give you I got the answer. Because I knew it was coming. So we look at your timeline. Y'all like Michelle. But January, December, we talk about goals. I know. And it has been a very, very difficult 2020 I liked it's been hard. It was like, oh, y'all just do it a pandemic, what are hard lives? Okay, cool, whatever. Um, but it truly has been a very difficult year for us. And for those of us that were already in the job market in the 2000s when the bubble burst in Oh, eight with the housing market crash. And now right now, it was like, what is really going on? How much more do I have to take? And so I want you to take a step forward, because you already built out this timeline. And now I really want you to really focus and look at what are your goals? And like what's the definition of a goal, pretty much just have a finite time that you want to reach a finite time by setting deadlines that you want to reach. And as analytical people we can go a little bit too hard and a little bit too deep. So but I do want you to say okay, I'm not 100% at that deadline I'm about 30% 50% 70% and just revise and just go back through it and just keep pushing forward to towards the goal and reset the deadline or just realize the hater in your head showed up showed out and it's stopping you from reaching that goal. And you're like you know I need help dealing with the hater in my head and or I need help with moving have a really have a creating a strategy to hitting this goal or goals. Okay, so just take accountability of that sometimes it's not just a barrier sometimes you need assistance to move and hit those goals and what is that assistance look like? So you want to make sure your goal shows up in a smart formats specific measurable assignable realistic time bound. assignable can be a lot of different a for in SMART goal can be a lot of different things are can be too I usually stick a realistic because

I'm going to become CEO at like two years in and you can absolutely still become CEO, you just have to start your own company. And you'll be CEO, or you have to but being CEO of Fortune 500 is highly unlikely. If the company is it's well established. I'll put it to you that way. So just what is that realistic and again, lastly, time time down. Now, I just talked about okay you have goals, you need resources and people are resources. And when I talk about allies or accomplices, an ally is not as forceful but not as pushy, but they Li will use their their privilege to get you information. And to help you along the way. an accomplice will sit down with you will really ease drop some time they will go the extra mile because they're in it for you to win more than an ally. A sponsor will remove those barriers for you to work That career goal? And I'm specifically talking about career goals. So what are those resources that you need? Your personal brand is a resource. So you're like, Michelle, what do you mean personal brand? So many of you. And it's not like the colors you wear in your signature hairstyle or the perfume? You're not that your personal brand, meaning what do people say about you, when you're not in the room?

Oh, we have this new project coming on, we need, we need X, Y, and Z to run it. Because your brand is the person that knows how to lead this. Right. So your personal brand, and you're like, Michelle, I don't know how to create that. Number one, people don't even know the work you do. Number two, they don't know where you want to go in the organization. And number three, they don't know how you've impacted the revenue of the organization. And so when you're looking at building your personal brand, you can be the mechanical engineer who does X, Y, and Z within the organization and help it grow. Right. So what is that? Brian? What do you want to be known for in an organization and or your industry? Right? So don't you know, you're at the bare minimum in your organization, not your division, not your team, not your group in your organization. If your organization is a global 250,000 people, you will have to build that brand. And start in your group on your team in your department, in your division throughout the organization to build that personal brand. But what does that look like right now? resources, you want to get special assignments and projects and make sure you're compensated for those? Don't just take an intern role? Or we want to see how you do that? Don't give it to me? If you're not if you're not sure, then don't give me this isn't there's no practice, you're gonna give me the title, you want to give me my pay? That's it. Okay. I know, we've had somebody who said, other people are getting the better project, tell them, I want this project. I want this, this is mine. Well, we're still deciding, like, I know, you still decided I already told you what it is. And you go tell your sponsor, this is what you want, right? You want to tell your sponsor, I need executive coaching, and I need the company to pay for it. Here are the three options for that executive coaching or coaching program, right. And as part of the training, industry events, you may not be invited to certain industry event, even virtually, you want in on on the I triple E presidents or C suite meeting. And you're gonna sit at the table, you want to ask two or three questions. And Matter of fact, your sponsor who's going to get you there is going to be there. And they're going to make sure when you're there, nobody speaks over you. You get what I'm saying. So you're going to go in there with very specific ask for your sponsor. It was it was funny, I was I don't know how many of you on clubhouse. But somebody was over there talking about how in the Obama administration of women group together, like, who was who was going to support the other person's ID in a meeting. And honestly, we're usually the only woman, right? There is no other woman. So the person that you may, your positioning comes into this, right? Who else will partner with you? So that you're hurting, you're seen. Sometimes it's an ally, sometimes an accomplice. And it could be it could be a white, it could be a white man. I know. One of my former co workers is a he's a gay white man. And he was he was telling me a few months ago, we were talking to Linda Graham. And he was like, Michelle, I'm so tired. He was like, we're about the same age. He's but he's been in industry, I think a little bit longer than me probably close to 30 years. Now, let me take that back. Let me because he'd be real mad, let's just say 25. And he goes, I'm always a gay guy. And there's always one black woman. He said, no matter what team I'm on, and he was like, it's 2020. He said, it still has not changed. He's I can get married now. He's like, but I said, He's like we're still and he said, and we're still not in a management roles. He's like, when does it change? And so I really want you to think about positioning and who are your accomplices in it in the workplace? Because when we say white men, they're heterosexual 99.9% of the time. So who can help you in that positioning in that room so your voice is heard? So think about that money, Bill. cardi B and ask them for money, period. That is raisins. That's promotions that said attend events that escaped certifications and go ask them? Well, you know, 2020 has been difficult. Yeah, I see Chet and Brad and chat. Oh, well, they were on a plan.

I said, I'm gonna plan to this my plan, my 2021 plan. But you know, what they say hashtag BLM. utilize that leverage that when you're presenting an idea, you should go into the room knowing you already knowing you have support? Because you already did that. Were Yes, exactly. And that's one other thing, if when you have a sponsor, and you can do this with a mentor, I would do it with a sponsor, because that sponsor is going to be the one talking about you advocating for you behind the door, I would do a dry run on that presentation with a sponsor. So they have points before you do the presentation. And they're in a pre meeting to the, to the meeting, right? To say, Oh, no, no, it's quite clear that Kelly has what it takes. She's going to definitely focus on productivity and revenue, not only here in the Americas, but actually over in Europe and Asia. How does your sponsor know this, because they already looked at your presentation already gave you feedback, told you what information to put in. And they already advocated for you. So use that sponsor, even then, use that song, say, hey, there's some brand roundtables that go on behind closed doors, I want to take that one of those opportunities to talk for 10 minutes about sustainability within the organization, when it comes to painting of such and such events, because it can grow the company within all across all divisions by $1.2 billion in an eight to 12 month period. How do you calculate that? You go to the county that does make that looks good. Definitely. Let's talk about that. And I'll get you in around. So you a mentor may not be able to do this, a mentor can give you advice and steps that sponsor can get you in that damn room, they can get you in a meeting, they can get you that money. I literally was talking to another engineer, she might be on here tonight. And she was had asked asked her manager about funding her for her PMP. And I was like, and he told her they didn't have the money for him. I said, Okay, cool. I said, you know, anybody in HR, she was like, Well, no, the person I know, left that she had a good relationship with. I said, you still have you know how to contact the person that left in HR? She says, Yes, I say, contact that person in HR, and ask them who in HR, you should go to because you need the company to pay for your certification training and the test. She comes back to me like, Yeah, I did what you said they sent me to person HR and the company gonna pay for it. There's more than one decision maker in an organization, you have to make sure you know who that person is. You have to make sure that person understands your personal brand, your position in the organization, and you're letting them know what you need. Again, fight the hater in your head. Understand is still is a boys club, but you still have power and you can leverage that power. Utilize your voice. All right. Your voice? Yes. Using your voice yes or no, in the chat. Want to do this, I'm not gonna do it. Okay, I want you to use your voice. And that can be via email, that can be in meetings that can be a one on one conversations, using your voice to discuss where you want to go in the organization, in your career in the industry. Why? Too often we're doing the job. But we're not driving where we want to go in our careers. And so once you have that sponsor or sponsors on board, you're using your voice to share with them your why why you want to go there, how you plan on getting there, and what you need to get there. And so when you're meeting with your with these people, you want to know your why, your how, and the what. And I know the question was asked, Well, how do I get a sponsor? And what do I say to a sponsor? You want to frame it in these ways? Why do you want them as a sponsor? How can they help you get to the goal or goals you have within the organization for your career. Even in the industry, because they truly could be well known in the industry, right? And what specifically you need from them? And let me tell you something, you're going to ask for small shit down. Well, I was thinking, another two days out. And he like two days I was, well, no, I would like to spend two years with my family and husband over in the UK app, post, Pat, post a pandemic, where I'll be working in our Italy plant working on the Lamborghini, I would also need you to find a job for my husband, who's also an engineer and the company to cover our relocation costs while we're there and provide two trips home for my, my, my spouse, and I and our two kids. How many of you have dreamt about doing an international assignment, and nobody even knows, but you that you have that dream, that hope and aspiration, you want to be very, very specific about what you want, know him and know Hi, and do not ask for small shit. Because you are in here to leverage your power you already have performed, they already see this, what's in it for the sponsors? Guess what, Angela? You said black lives matter? Prove it.

But what's in it for the sponsor, really, you already have your performance, you've already proven that you are worthy of them sponsoring you. Right? They have another strong player on their team, performing well in that organization that they're willing to put their brand behind. And at the end of the day, when they need something from you, they will come sometimes is sometimes women are often the go giver, there's a book called The go giver, how you all you give, give, give give before you ask. Let them guess what he needs, that sponsor needs to be given to you. Right? So they've gotten all of this other stuff from you. They haven't compensated many of you appropriately. This is your ass because the organization has already gotten all of this out of you. And if they asked you like I've done X, Y, and Z, I'm doing director level work and I'm an engineer for right? If you want to be have something more specific, we're sending a sponsor. Right now I started with black lives matter, because that's what the organization said they were behind. And that's what they were going to do. leverage that to me right now. I wouldn't worry about what's in it for the sponsors, because the smartest person in the organization and leadership in our organization said they were about you letting them figure out that in 2022 what why what I was trying to figure out what was what was in it for me as a sponsor, Black Lives Matter. If they forget 78 minute recording, I couldn't look at it. I just, you know what's in it for you seven, eight, every time they ask you send an eight minute video. Yeah, you have given it's time to receive in abundance. Exactly. And so you really and that sponsor is again there for your protection as well. So you can fail. Because I can tell you some petty people, okay, now, a little on career strategy. I have no idea where we are on time, I'm way late. So we're gonna run through this. So you're gonna have a career strategy. And a career strategy is a behavior, activity or experience designed to help a person meet career goals. A career strategy represents a conscious choice by individual s this type of investment she or he or they are willing to make in attempting to reach career objectives. So there's going to be some give and take, there's going to be some sacrifice. There is no work life balance, there's work life sacrifice. What are you willing to give up in order to get X, Y and Z in your career? Your strategy, your career strategy? s s? These are some questions to ask yourself. This is, I think, are some more pertinent questions. Whose help do you need to reach your career goals? What kind of help do you need? When should the help be provided? Sometimes you don't need to help right now. You're building out that plan that strategy, you know in q2 of 2022, you want to be looking for housing in Italy. Because you don't when the kids finished school in June, y'all gonna be on a plane in July and have them ready for school in August, so whenever they go to school and you're in Italy, okay, um, how should the help be provided? Is it written? Is it verbal? Is it financial? Right? What does that help look like? And so these are some things to really ask, especially when it comes back to your sponsor, when it comes to your career strategy and what you really need, then you want to execute it. Your next steps, the accountability, you're going to have some levels of accountability. And so is your sponsor. Alright? your level of accountability and your organization's level of accountability, let the sponsor a little bit further down. Safety. How safe Do you feel in asking for this? Not at all, or somewhat at all. And if you have questions, go ahead and drop the questions in the chat. Where? Where do you need to focus on right now? And where do you want to go? Who do you need to help you? And how do you need them to help you be very, very specific? And we'll get into questions. Now this one ran a bit longer than I anticipated. I hope that was helpful. We got can your manager be your sponsor?
Yes,
your your manager can absolutely be your sponsor, your manager needs to be that one person who can remove those barriers for you. They have to be, but right now. I would say a lot of people are asking a lot of organizations are saying, Hey, we're in. We're doing X, Y, and Z for our black and brown employees. Call them on it. What if you feel too overwhelmed to even have time to plan out your career? That's fine. Your career plan does not have to be like 20 years out? What do you need in the next? What do you need in 2021? For the next 10 months? Literally, what do you need? How much vacation time do you need?

How much time do you need out of the office? Do you need time during the day to homeschool and you need a company to split out your day, where you're gonna start at six in the morning, oh, six to eight, get the kids in school from eight till 11, then you're back online from from like one to five, or you're not back online until five to nine, right? So if it's really overwhelming, what do you need right now from your employer and go ask them for it. So it does not have to be long and drawn out. I took that out. It was it was already long, I thought it was gonna be really short. But be very look at your immediate need of short term needs, which is 12 months, up to 12 months. everything after that is immediate up until your five year and after five year I call it long term. Okay. I hope that helped any any more questions. So really, really leverage your performance. Right? You've already proven this in your industry, even if it's a new employer, they would not have hired you if you could not do the job. And that is part of your power. You have to use your voice to let them know and start building those relationships or leveraging more relationships. How can we utilize your services, shoot me an email, I didn't share that part. Here, put my email address in the chat. You can shoot me an email at Michele Heyward, at positive hire.co if I don't think you're a good fit, meaning, you need somebody that helps you with conflict resolution. I have somebody for that. If you need somebody, you're more on the C suite. I have somebody for that. So it depends on what your needs are and where you are. And if I'm not able to help you, I have I have other black and brown women coaches, executive coaches that can definitely Stephen assists and assist. So risk management on projects. It really depends what your needs are. All right, so Michelle, one owl, died. Heyward, at positive hire.co. Any other questions? One last thing is if you want to get the replays tonight as the last night, they are $67. It goes up to $127 at midnight, so you get access to them for 12 months, and they're yours. Go through them. I wish that what if you're being recognized? How do you harness that? Oh, I love that. I love that you're being recognized. Okay. What do you want? Number one, identify what do you want and again, who can help you get what you want, and go ask them, but have a very clear and succinct ask. Don't be very verbose. Most times. As analytical people we are very straight to the point. So if you're being recognized now For one, especially in the organization, exponential organization, I will add it into your signature line. And I will hyperlink to have the link to your award or wherever the newsletter internally to the organization where you can find out more information about how you're being you've been recognized, right? And then ask a very, very clear ass and decide who was that person to help you. With that. That's that's how we do it. The other way you can do it too, is go to somebody else who, who you already have a relationship with life. I'd like for you to do an introduction to me. I'm going to send you the introduction to make right and the introduction goes, Hey, Bob, I want to introduce you to Trisha Trisha has been named black engineer of the year. You can read more here the link She is currently I'm looking for opportunity in the nanotechnology division, leading as a as a senior engineering manager or director of engineering, dealing with AI and nanotech, something like that. So you literally write up the introduction for them and put in that recognition. Have somebody else today introduce my app, you know, I'm gonna save you time, Bob, I'm gonna write the intro for you. You can add anything you want to but make it like three to five sentences. Like I hope your kids are doing well. I want to introduce you to she she does X, Y and Z and is interested in 123. I told her you were the person to come talk to you have a very very succinct ass. Any other questions? All right, we are decay. These go very fast and very slow at the same time.

So we will be back in March, we will be back with our webinar series. We take a break in June, July, somewhere in there, we take one month off, but we have some great things, how long are replays free, the replays are free until tomorrow. So usually the replays are only free for 24 hours. It's the only one that's only free for 24 hours. We made. We made like from Sunday till Saturday, Sunday till today free until Saturday, because of Texas. We are in Louisiana, all the states hit by such horrendous weather in the south because I know we'd be the same way if that was South Carolina. And so we made it there tomorrow at midnight eastern Yeah, 11:59pm eastern time, you can be in the video, but you can't be pressing the video because like it began, they are free until then. So that's like nine hours of content to watch. So you have to do nine hours in one day. So if you're looking for something very specific, they are all up except for this one, this one won't be up until about 11pm Eastern Standard Time. Okay. Who and this year we have some other things coming, we're going to release our job board and we will have a membership site coming out later. A paid membership as well. So we'll be sending that stuff out because there is so that you have consistent support with your career throughout the year. So that way. It makes sense. So we're going to make these things happen in 2021. So it was 20 2020 with some nails that's all I'm gonna say. All right. Yes, that sounds great. I know I want to tell you I'm hopefully I can sleep tonight. All right, everybody. Have a great weekend. Oh, I forgot one other thing. Do y'all want to do a meet and greet tomorrow? Hold on, don't go yet we're doing a meet and greet we want to do is zoom meetings. And you can come in and interact and engage with other women here and we'll do either in rooms, meeting rooms of two to three people it is at 7pm eastern standard time I just keep the same timezone. 7pm. Eastern, Eastern Standard Time Zone is free. We'll do a provide an hour depending on how many people show up. Then we'll do about 10 to 15 minute intervals. So if you can be there at the beginning at seven that helps a lot. If you run a little bit late. It depends if somebody else shows up, but then with that I can pair you off and try to randomly do that throughout this. I am glad it has been amazing for you. The the gist of this is not to make you feel good. The gist of this is to make you feel good and give you actionable steps and wind beneath your wings to really push you forward in in your career. So that's why We consistently do these once a year, we did it twice last year, because it was 2020. Okay. All right, everybody. I will stay on just for a few minutes. If you if you haven't clicked on the link to join us for tomorrow's meeting. Great. I know we have eight ladies signed up so far. So we can probably do like three rounds with eight if they all each show up. But it'd be great if we could have about 20 of you show up tomorrow. And this is not being emailed out. So you can tell a friend but I'm not gonna email it out. Because those of you that showed up and you were sharing in the chat, you're more likely interested in engaging and meeting other women virtually face to face. And so it's just close to those of you that showed up the last two nights. Okay. So if you got a friend and they didn't show up on Thursday and Friday, send it to your friend today show any day. It's gonna be really confused. My two devices mean I can type fast. Angela, I'm not messing with you. I'm not messing with you. I see your two names tonight. I don't always get to see them. I usually scroll. I'm usually further down. Okay. All right, ladies. That is it. I will see you tomorrow night at 7pm. Bye, everybody. You're very very welcome.

Michele:
Welcome, everybody. We are so happy to have you join us today. You didn't know where we were. But we are right here on Michele Heyward. I have Lee and with me today, I'm so excited. She is another fantastic speaker we have for the women of color in STEM virtual summit where we are talking about the power of you, not me, but you and you, and you and you, all of you today. So Leanne, can you let everybody know a bit about yourself?
Lee Ann:
Yeah, definitely. Hi, everyone. So my name is Leanne Crockett, I am a Sales Director full time for a large manufacturing organization. I'm also the founder of my company, we Crockett consulting. And what I do there is I help high achieving professional women just like you get promoted faster, so that you can overcome impostor syndrome and take control of your career.
Michele:
I absolutely love that. Yes. So you're in sales. I used to be in sales early in my career. All I can say is, I hated it. So I'm happy. Yeah, it's funny, because now as a, as a founder, all I do is sales all day every day. And so I do I need to do in my life where I go.
Lee Ann:
Yeah, you know, either you you love it or you hate it. It's not always the best experience. But I really like to think about it as just making a relationship and forming a bond with somebody else. And that's the basis
Michele:
of it is see, I looked at it more transactional, you have a problem? I have a product that can fix that problem. What do you mean, you don't want to buy it, but it's the best you should take it home with you. It's really about building relationships is not transactional. Right. And so I understand that now, when I was 25. I needed you know, I wanted my commission. Right. So how did so for you in sales? Because I know it's a lot of men in sales. What has that experience been like?
Lee Ann:
Yeah, I mean, there has been a lot of adversity. And I think so many people watching or listening can relate to that. When I first entered the workforce, I graduated college a year early. So I was 21. I was the the youngest person, I was the only woman of color. I started my career in sales leadership. So outside of the admin in HR, I was the only woman that they had seen in a leadership role in a long time. And I was managing a team of 55 year old men who could have all been my grandfather. So it definitely, it wasn't the easiest experience. And you're right, like I can laugh about it now when you put it in those terms, but it's really hard. Being the only person who looks like you in your role that people have seen in years and sometimes ever.
Michele:
Absolutely, absolutely. You think it'll be grandfathered? Like, wait, 5521 that's the grandfather like, Wouldn't it be your father? 65?
Lee Ann:   
I think, Father grandfather, it ran the gamut. Yeah, I know, I know. Employee when I first started was the youngest one was late 40s. And then there was a huge age gap. Like probably 47 to like 56 was the next youngest person. So it was definitely something to to work
through. That is definitely an age gap. I see what you need now. Okay, so you're in this organization.
Michele:
But how did you get to the point for promotion for that leadership role?
Lee Ann:
Yeah, it took a while. There were definitely some growing pains and I was passed over all the time, I really saw that getting promoted meant that I just go in and you give your best effort. And you put your head down and you work hard. And people will realize, oh, Leanne's great, we should promote her. And that's not how any of it works. So it took a few years for me to really figure out and sit back and say, there's something else going on here. Right? Like it's not just the hard working people who are getting promoted. It's the people who are connected. And that's where the light bulb really went off for me where I realize, oh, there's a game to be played. And once I figured out the rules of that game, I was able to move up pretty quickly in my career.
Michele:
Now I have this discussion with some people, which is they don't want to play the game, but they want the opportunities. What do you tell people when you hear that
Lee Ann:
that's the only way to get what you want. Playing the game. And I think a lot of people see playing the game as conforming, or changing who you are to get, you know, to the next step. And what I tell people is playing the game is really, you taking control of the situation and manipulating it in a way to get what you want. But it's always on your terms. It's not about you doing what other people want you to do.
Michele:
Absolutely. You you want, you're sitting in the bleachers, but you want to be in a court position is like, these are the things you need to do to at least get to the bench.
Lee Ann:
Yeah, you got to get in there, you got to play the game, you can't just sit on the bleachers, you have to participate in the game that's going on in front of you.
Michele:
Exactly. And you create your own place that you that's what you bring that skill set. And an often too often gets lost in translation in like you set into conforming. And it's really just showing your skills, nobody knows you're able to play the four position, because you're in the bleachers, and you're great at it, and you go to practices, but you're you're in a different, you they don't see you practicing, they don't see your layups, they don't see your shots, you don't see any of that. Absolutely. Love how you're able to carry all that hobby stuff, because it helps you do it. And so really the important part of it. So what are you talking about during the virtual Summit? Like, what's your topic? What, what's your talk?
Lee Ann:
Yeah, so my talk is secrets to break through the glass ceiling as a woman in corporate. And we are going to talk about some of those little known facts that happen in the workplace that are really game changers in terms of your career trajectory. And we're also going to talk about some of the things that you're doing now that you think are putting you on the path to promotion, that are actually doing the opposite.
Michele:
Oh, you're doing that Opposite? Opposite? Oh, yeah, we definitely need to know what you're doing that's not working and what to do so that it is working. Because number one, it saves you time. Number two, it saves you frustration, because when you're frustrated, you're like, you know what, let me go someplace else. Let me take my gifts, but it's going to be a perpetual, it could perpetuate itself in different environments. So I love the what not to do. People, people often like well, I need to know what to do. And let's talk about what you're currently doing right now. Because you can't add on sometimes you don't have enough time in the day, you don't have enough energy, like your resources already drained. Let's talk about what you are doing and switch up some of that to give you the bandwidth.
Lee Ann:
Absolutely. It's not about adding new behaviors. It's about examining what you're doing right now. And changing those behaviors so that they work for you, which and that's all playing the game is just changing what you're doing in a way that serves you and stop serving other people. Because you're the one who wants to get promoted. They don't want to promote you. You have to play the game so that they see why they should.
Michele:
I absolutely agree. And just for y'all know we did not coordinate our colors today are just brilliant and cold at the same time. It just happened. So everybody, you want to catch Leanne's talk on two on Tuesday. Right? So it is on? No, you're on on Tuesday. You're on Monday, aren't you?
Lee Ann:
I'm on the 23rd at seven o'clock. The 23rd is Tuesday.
Michele:
Okay, I keep switching you at the old. The old is on Monday. You're on Tuesday. I don't know why keep doing that. I know because I switched. We did some schedule changes, right? Tuesday at 7:37pm East Coast time. So make sure you go and register it is a free then there's a 24 hour replay. And you can come and figure out what to do and what to stop doing when it comes to getting your career. advance. I'm so excited. Me too. All right, everybody. We will see you on Tuesday. You have to join us. Leanne, thank you so much for joining me today.
Lee Ann:
Thank you so much, Michelle, and can't wait to see you on Tuesday.
Michele: 
I know. Right. All right, everybody. Have a great week and we'll talk to you later. Bye