Episode 41 : Moving UP from the Middle

Her Career Ladder

Welcome, welcome everybody to day two of the women of color in STEM virtual Summit. I'm Michele Heyward, the founder of positive hire. And tonight, we have Courtney Stoner, executive of a fortune 50 company, who's our guest tonight. But first, I want to have a few announcements. Um, we had a great time yesterday. We had Tamra Macklemore on y'all went bananas. And then we had an even better session, right after that at the roundtable, really empowering each other, supporting one another, giving strategies, tactics, tips and making connections, because oftentimes, we are the only one in our workplaces. And when we have questions, and we need support, we don't have anybody to turn to, which is why I added the round table to the summit. We did it by accident, last set last summit, because the speaker didn't show up. So I knew it was definitely needed. For every summit moving on, and I'm actually going to add it as a monthly activity to the community for women of color, where you can come on, we can hang out, we can ask questions, we can talk about Empire, but it's your opportunity really to get to know one another. Now, for those of you who actually went to the website, and share it with us, your career wins. I'm going to be sharing. I'm not going to say your name. But I am going to share every night starting tonight. Some career wins. So first one up, she received promotion to director from being a manager in one year. Yeah, yeah. Good to hear for you. I think to your follow up these ladies. She helped design an API to snooze alerts, doing maintenance, and release windows. Yay. She made it to Senior Software Engineer within three years. What's up? That's what I'm talking about. Yay. All right. She has a successful turnaround of failing projects, not just projects. Failing projects. That's sort of the best skill right there. I loving it. Um, how are you liking these wins? How are you liking these with, the more detail you share about your wins? Bid, I'm more than likely I'm going to share it. Now. This one I really love to negotiate a $7,000 Raise. What can you do with $7,000? It might go towards your student loans, your car note or your mortgage. So you had to get a little bit earlier. That's what I'm talking about. So everybody, if this is your first night, welcome, welcome. If this is your first summit, welcome, welcome. I am Michele Heyward. I'm actually going to now turn it over to Courtney Stoner. Courtney has a civil engineer civil engineering degree from Clemson University. She was actually one of my mentees many years ago, at Clemson and she was one of the best mentees. I like Courtney needed to think she said nope, and I still got paid. Those are my types of bets. So I'm gonna turn it over to her so she can share with you her experience. And be sure to add in your questions. And we're going to do q&a At the very end.
All right. Thanks, Michelle. Thanks for everyone for attending this event tonight. Sean, thank Michelle for opportunity to share my journey thus far and to congratulate you Michelle on the one for for doing with the positive hire. So I'm going to share my screen here. And I thought I'd start out by sharing a little bit about myself. And then taking you through a couple of highlights of my career with lessons learned. You know, I graduated from Clemson with a degree in civil engineering and I joined General Electric. Right after that I joined one of their leadership programs. And I stayed, I joined our initial program in the GE transportation business, and spent that time learning supply chain operations and how those operations impacted financials. Then I spent a couple years in audit and advisory and so at General Electric traveling or across various businesses, looking at their financial health as well as revenue recognition. And then I came back to the business unit in a specific functional role. Working in risk management for GE power and Atlanta, Georgia, stayed in that role for a couple of years, went to a commercial still with GE power and service operations, then I had the unique opportunity to join an acquisition. GE purchased Austin a couple of years ago, and I joined that integration team doing the due diligence work for for merging those two businesses together. And then most recently moved to Zurich, Switzerland and Howard piano for General Electric. So I thought, what I would do today is kind of walk you through those key roles that I had, and talk through the tests that I had to overcome on my road to for mobility, the relationships along the way, and some of the sacrifices that I had to make, or I had to decide if I wanted to make, so I'm calling is the road less traveled. And the way that I've laid this slide out, you know, visually, is for is to display that as I took each role, I was deliberate in ensuring that my scope of influence and my scope of responsibility was increasing over time. And when I say scope of influence, I'm talking about things like horizontal moving from vertical management to horizontal management, responsibility, in that I gained extra responsibilities and financial metrics, organizational size, or complexity of scope. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, I started building my foundation in a leadership program. And, you know, my first opportunity to move from an individual contributor to an actual people leader was when I was doing audit and advisory. And at this point in time, you know, I had communicated that I wanted to be a people leader. And I had had advocated for myself to be a people leader. And what I learned was that, you know, it was a very competitive field that year. But one of the things that differentiated me from others was my ability to help in training new team members. And the company felt that there was potential that I could execute through other people, because I displayed in my own work, a willingness to share information, to help my teammates, and to communicate the effects of my work to other other people in my group. So then, you know, as I'm moved into that leadership role for for the, for the company, but one of the first tests that I had was more of an internal test. And it was me trying to determine, you know, what type of leader I want it to be, and how I wanted my teams to walk away from the interactions with me. And during this time, is when I started to realize that, you know, my teams would function more effectively when I recognize them as individuals. And so I had made a conscious decision during this time that I would learn the individuals that worked with me, I would defend them. And I would instill a level of accountability with fairness. And I would help them reach their personal goals, in addition to us reaching the corporate goals. And then lastly, you know, always having fun. As I was preparing for this presentation, I kind of self reflected on, you know, that moment in time, and I realized that, that was probably smarter than I realized for me to do that. Because as I loved audit and advisory, and I transitioned to my next role, which was a little bit bigger, and it was a high, high, visible functional role in the business unit. I didn't necessarily have the business expertise, but I had the functional expertise. And I was being tested on if I could lead in an area that I had to learn. And this was probably the first time the first memory vivid memory that I have where I experience, I don't know you, I don't trust you, you know, I was an outsider being hired into a business unit. And I traveled a different path to be a lead in this functional area. And during this time, is when I realized the importance of having a personal strategy that was separate from the organizational strategy. And, you know, I think when I say personal strategy, I'm talking about things like you know, what's my personal learning plan? To understand the business to understand the key processes so that I can be effective. So I can overcome, you know, skepticism about my ability to leave this area. You know, seeking out one on one connection so that I can understand, you know, who are the key players, who are the cross functional allies that I need. And who also had a diverse journey to, you know, leadership, that I could, you know, discuss some of the challenges that I was going through with the, with the environment in the office. You know, in this moment, it, we're in moments like this, where you're late and transitioning to an area that you have to also gain expertise, you still have to meet, you know, the business objectives. And so this is where, you know, the skills that I've learned as a leader kind of kicked in, and I was able to demonstrate with operating rhythms and, you know, team building events that aren't my team could still execute per the expectation, and nothing was lost, if you will, while I was transitioning into into a new area to new expertise. With any leadership transition, you always deal with people moving in and out the door, especially if you're in a situation where someone who was there was hoping to get promoted up. And, you know, I just really took that as an opportunity to demonstrate, you know, my ability to career plan, and really put my mark, if you will, on the function, and use it to shape use that opportunity of open roles to shape how I wanted to recruit, hire and plan for diverse talent and doing things such as finding new sources to recruit. You know, I always had a diverse interview panel. And I was very much an advocate of having different thinkers, different functions, different backgrounds, in play, so that the team operated as a team of experts. Another thing that I did during this time that I found really useful was I use my sponsors that I had to learn the office politics, and to help me be ready for public settings or public report out so that I could start to demonstrate that I was learning and picking up things as well as I was adding value. You know, another thing that I learned during this time was, you know, as my expertise was recognized, you know, I started to get invited to meetings that necessarily were in my area of next or needed for my area, but they might have overlapped or there might have been some interdependency. And while I valued that, I mistook what that meant for me as a as a leader. And so I would attend these meetings, and I would listen to learn. But I failed to realize that this was an error, this was an evaluation, and the evaluation was on if I could contribute in a larger setting in a larger area. And so I had to deal with the fact that my ignorance at that time of the moment resulted in me being you know, tagged as reserved, quiet, and, you know, potentially lacking self confidence and larger settings where their leaders were, or have bigger scope than I did. And if I really could interact with other executive leaders in the business.
And so, you know, this is all this is, was a moment where I also realized that, you know, everyone was always watching. And it was really important that I understood how to change certain behaviors, when I was invited to meetings on strategy or cross functional relationships, such that I appeared, and I demonstrated that I could operate fluidly through any function at any functional meeting, and up and down the leadership chain. You know, I worked on this for several years. And I got to the point where I felt I kind of accomplished, you know, what was being asked to be in this functional role. And I had, you know, decided it was time for me to move on, and I want it to move on to something with broader scope, something with more responsibility. And I communicated that to, you know, leaders that I felt were sponsors to me, had an interest in my career. And around this time, I was also pretty vocal that I wanted to move up into the executive ranks, and I'd say, you know, this is where I started to learn about executive toolkits and being evaluated on my diversity of skills, cross functionally versus my, my skill sets functionally. And, you know, I received another test you You know, I was challenged on if I could use my expertise and grow commercially, and help the business receive top line growth, then that kind of led to my next role where I was being tasked, if you will, when you're coming up with new commercial offerings so that we could achieve more growth, find more customers, and he and a gas turbine service operations. And as I look back on this opportunity, and this, this role in the progression up into the right, it really was a question of how diverse was on AI? How fluidly could I move to another function, and was I deep to have the depth to use my skill set and grow broadly and solve customer facing problems? You know, this is actually the first time I thought I could actually fail, you know, I had yet to sit in front of a customer, I had yet to close a deal. But I also thought the feedback was somewhat valid. And I did have a desire to be diverse. And I also had a desire to have, you know, staying power and be able to have opportunities inside my function outside my function. And so I, I took this opportunity, and I said, you know, let's, let's see what's possible. And a wonderful thing happened to be here, where I just so happened to help a sales leader, close a deal, he needed someone to review the terms and conditions of the deal. And when I moved into this commercial, where I told him, I said, you know, I'm in this role, the company's asking me to help them come up with new offerings so that we can grow. I don't have any customer on my speed dial, I don't have any, I'm not interacting with any of the sales, operational planning. And I say, can you introduce me to your network? And can you help me with the commercial language? And then can you get me in front of a customer? And this turned into just a wonderful partnership, where, you know, we did some customer roadshows, we learned what their problem statement was, we presented that to engineering with data, we came up with an offering, and we generated, you know, millions of dollars of sales. Because we were able to solve a market need with with, with the product. And I actually gained more confidence as time went on, because I realized that even though this role was outside of my comfort zone, I was collecting information along the way that helped me be successful in an area that I had some level of expertise. I learned a lot about plays in this role, I learned a lot about presence. I learned a lot about managing other Ed peers, and learning how to communicate that my problem was their problem. And collectively, you know, how can we solve it also, truly learn the value of relationships and building relationships, not only with inside my function, but also across functions, to solve complex and cross functional problems. So we were, you know, enjoying the ride, in generating a lot of business because of this. And as great as I felt during this time, you know, I still had to deal with that self self confidence problem. Again, I continue to get feedback that I appeared reserved, I appeared quiet, and I wasn't engaging in the meetings that they felt that I should be engaging in. And, you know, I had to really spend some time and kind of dig deep into that. And what I learned was, you know, my approach to q&a was to, you know, listen to the question and, you know, respond in a manner that was appropriate. And I learned that my hesitation in answering questions was perceived as, you know, someone that didn't know what was going on, or, you know, a lack of a lack lack of confidence in the answer that they were going to provide. And I experienced a little bit of frustration as well, you know, during this period, but I also learned the value of pregame prep. And I changed the way I prepared for presentations. I started to look at who was attending, what role they played in organization, what was their level of authority? And what questions would they be asking based on their function and their level of authority? And my preparation turned into anticipation. You know, if I present this perspective, you know, how is I'm the engineering leader going to respond, or how is the global supply chain, we're going to respond. And that was probably the most powerful lesson I've learned in that role, because that's something that Trent tries to transfer with me everywhere the role after that. You know, so as I continue to work on number one, my commercial expertise, and then number two, my presence as an executive and my interactions, in meetings with senior executives, and sometimes even the CEO of the company, I started to feel pretty good. And I started to feel that I was solving the, the perceived deficiency I had, and being a diverse leader who could lead at the executive level. And so I started to go down the path of, you know, getting this saint you honored, you know, you know, I was told, if you saw, if I saw for this, then I would be positioned for brought more opportunities and position for larger roles. And, you know, at this part of my career is when I learned who the real decision makers were, when it came to, you know, executive level promotions, I learned about, you know, having supporters and having true sponsors. And I learned about who's really in the room when decisions are being made for executive level positions, and who's who, who's advocating for you. And so this was kind of like a, obviously a turning point for me personally, because, you know, I was trying to deal with the fact that I was putting in work to evolve as a person, but I still was challenged with not knowing about all of the office politics. But you know, what, thankfully, I had, you know, resources and, you know, leaders in the business that, you know, were supportive of me, and they were helping me navigate a pretty complex hiring process, if you will. And so one of the, the best advice I can give people is, you know, truly understand the office politics, but also truly understand the promotion process. And, you know, if your manager is advocating for you do they truly have the authority to promote you to the next band, or next level of leadership, if that's what your aspirations are, you know, this was my, actually, the year that I did get, when I had this commercial was a year I did get promoted into executive leadership. And, you know, GE had decided, as I said, in my bio, to acquire another company. And so, another role popped up, it was to do m&a For this deal, it was one of the largest industrial acquisitions to date. And you as I was turning along in the commercial role, you know, I was asked to, you know, take this m&a role. And, you know, at first I was not really interested in taking the role, because in my mind, I had the thought process of, I need to address my commercial skill set. And I was so focused on that, that I didn't stop and think on if I truly wanted to be a long term commercial leader, or if I really just needed to take this opportunity to build an expertise and move back to my first love, which was operations.
And so as I kind of went through that thought process, I realized that, you know, my first love really was operations. And while I do appreciate, and I gained a lot of insight and Intel, from the commercial role, like I really wanted to get back to where my heart was, and where I operated seamlessly, which was operations. So I moved into this, this role, it was a due diligence acquisition role to evaluate services business of Austin, because General Electric was interested in purchasing Austin. And, you know, this role was ambiguous. The scope was very much increased, and it covered every function in the business. And, you know, the test at this point in time was, could I truly handle scale? You know, one of the reasons why I was hesitant with taking the role was because it kind of mirrored the regional functional risk role that I had and stuff, it was global. But then I had to kind of think through long term and realize in the, you know, everything's building on the prior role. And so, you know, in this particular situation, I was being asked, you know, can you use your experience and can you scale what you know, and essentially merge two businesses together, merged? Two organizations together while meeting financial obligations. And at this point, in my career, I was completely removed from execution. I was still in Excel, but I wasn't really in Excel. And what I learned in this career job was the power of questioning. And being able to use questions to understand the teams on track, to understand that the team has depth to arrive at meaningful meeting outcomes, and then to make sure that we're going to hit our deadlines. No, this is also where I learned about dealing with age, and dealing with questions on why I was where I was at the age and I was managing people who are leading people who, you know, potentially how yours on me, and learning how to do that materially. You know, this is also where I learned about valuing the mission of the company, and really being able to connect to it so that you could empower the teams and motivate the teams. And the last thing I learned here that, you know, really helped me out was just learning how to decide not learning how to decipher between bad decisions, good decisions, and the right decision. And sifting through complex information to figure out, you know, what's right for right now, for the corporation. You know, this chart also shows that as I moved up into the right, you know, I was able to go from regional to go roles. And then, you know, my last role, as I mentioned, you know, with international one leading out of Zurich, you know, being responsible for a business unit financials. And, you know, at this point in my career, I really evaluated risk differently, you know, what I thought about international moves and leading business units are really evaluated from the perspective of personal time, and, you know, making sure that I was making smart decisions that helped my career, but also that I felt were meaningful based on the time I was willing to invest in the initiatives. And during this time, you know, some some lessons that I learned or, you know, connected with my EB peers, and learning how to foster those relationships, learning about dealing with conflict, in dealing with often office politics, when you're managing, you know, large budgets, I also had to deal with, you know, being quite frankly, the only female and, you know, navigating an environment where there really is just all men in here, they're alone. And dealing with that, and using that to my advantage. And so, you know, I invested early on, you know, a lot of time performance and expertise. But one of the things that I tried to do along the way was take each test, as it came, learned from it and use that to build upon those experiences, ultimately, to to navigate bands and to navigate broader roles. So I thought what I do after this is kind of walk you through a couple of reflections that I've had, and then keep moving through resources. I listed a couple here that were reporting to me as that self reflected, but if I could just pick a couple that truly stand out to me, is really sacrifice, you know, understanding what your level is, and when to say no, I always find that when people are invested in the job that they have, or they feel like they're working on meaningful things, a sacrifice makes sense. So just understanding what that boundary is for you. I think it's really important to stay relevant and to reinvent yourself. I think, media, we work for companies that we want to see them reinvent. And I think it's important for the talent to do that as well. I think it's really important to be balance. I could always tell, you know, when I was enjoying work when I had invested time, both in social and fitness activities. And I also think it's important to understand office politics, which is completely different than office gossip. But I think it can, it can really aid in your navigation if you listen and observe to what's going on around you. And then lastly, for those of you who are already leading teams, just remember to hire Well, you know, it really matters to have a strong team around you and As you you know, navigate your career journey. I'm also want to list a few resources that have been helpful to me throughout my journey. On the left hand side, I have books and on the right hand side, I have professional services. I've read a lot of books, but the ones that I keep going back to are listed on the right, you know, the first one here, the One Minute Manager, you know, this book really helped me deal with people who dump on you, or working with people who dump on you, they stopped you, they dump your problem, and they delegate the solution to you. And so I really use this book to kind of remind myself on you know, leading is empowering other people to execute in their area. And while I do believe in crowdsourcing ideas and workouts, you know, they're also the everyone has a role to play in this, this book really helped me understand the role that I played versus the role of those that were in execution. I do think it's easy for engineers who are finance, in the lemonade stand book is a great book for anyone that's trying to whip up on their financial skills, it just really breaks down the balance sheet. And the income statement. Well, in hopes you can enjoy it too, that the first time I had conflict with a manager, I was trying to figure out why we weren't getting along, I read this book, because this was got to the world of work. And it just really breaks down how to navigate challenging relationships, and challenging organizations and how to fine tune your communication. So people always listen, I just got to the bottom here, activate the brain. As I moved up in the organization, I asked more questions and did less work. And activate your brain is a great book on how to stay fresh mentally, when you still have hours to go. And so I really recommend that. And then on the right, I have professional services, you know, I am a product of all the people who support me in the past. I definitely like if she specific groups, whether it's, you know, engineering, affiliation, energy affiliations, or journalism, or the tech group affiliations that are out there. I do like structure mentoring and coaching for business leaders. I think if you see someone who has a profile that you like, or they have a skill set that you're trying to master, I think those are great ways to meet people potentially meet sponsors, as well as growing your skill sets. I'm also a big advocate for shadowing, I think sometimes when we're thrust into a new opportunity, especially if it's bigger in scope, we may not know the mechanics, if you will, those meetings. And so I do think shadowing can be helpful so that you can get your bearings before it's time for you to actively engage. And then lastly, you know, I, this year, I've decided to take apart professional coaching. And I'm using a wonderful expert in gala Jackson. And I just want to highlight that because sometimes in my experience, corporate coaching may be different than personal coaching. And I was really, you know, kind of hungry to do something that tapped into my personal values.
And so with that, you know, thanks for the time. It just a quick snapshot into my career and some lessons that I learned. And I think we're ready for q&a now. Michelle?
Okay, great. So we have four questions so far. So if you have any more, be sure to go to q&a. And I have like eight of my own. Couple of you already answered. But we'll go ahead and get started. The first question and just so you know, I'm not saying names and obviously zoom knows that so many of you are coming in with the name in a in a so welcome all of you that are in a in a in those transitions of leadership roles. Did you have a different sponsor for each stage? And if so, how did you initiate or determine who that would be?
Yes, I did have different sponsors for each stage, because at each stage, my sponsor had a different level of authority. And so when I was aiming to move from individual contributor to first time people leader, my manager who became my sponsor had that authority. But when it was time for me to leave, you know the audit advisory and go into a business unit If I had a different sponsor, who was a senior executive because he had the ability to place, and he had the ability to attend multiple sessions for career planning, and he could get my name out there and open doors for me to have the conversation. And so when I moved from the functional risk role to the commercial role, I actually had, that didn't have clarity on who my sponsor was more, because remember, I said, I wanted that role to be my executive role. And so that's where I learned. Maybe I have advocates for the work. But I don't know if I have sponsors for executive. And so my current my manager at the time, had the authority to sponsor me to executive because he was in the, the inner crowd where that conversation took place. And he could ask for executives, and I mean, a little bit of its timing and luck, but as I deliver it for him, you know, he was able to deliver for me.
Great. The next question is, Hi, Courtney, thanks so much for this. What are thought? What are thoughts on how to maintain the mental toughness of navigating the corporate space? As a person of color? That's the first question. The second question to this is what ways did you find to replenish to stay mentally sharp? Are the intangible hoops to navigate to navigate? And, or hurdle?
Yeah. You know, I remember going into meetings and watching people present, and watching them talk about their career journey. And I was curious as to how they got there. And then I was brave enough to go try. And I definitely got tired, because I felt like the company was trying to change me. And because there was a lot of diverse people, I didn't have a lot of examples of what a good response that feedback I was getting, looked like. So a lot of my mental stress was my psyche. On, you know, am I doing? Is this the Is this what it looks like? And how is it supposed to look like? And I think I ended up, you know, tapping into some of the affinity work that GE had, you know, they had affinity groups where they would foster an environment for people of color tattoos and for conversations. And I would ask for examples of how to navigate situations and environments where it appeared, I was doing what everybody else was doing. So if, you know, if my response looks like the room, then why does my feedback cool, so personal? And that, that was in again, my psyche? You know, no one was telling me that that was my psyche, but being able to offload that kind of freed me up mentally to kind of focus on the task at hand, which was how do I keep navigating? You know, the, the office environment office politics? You know, I, I will say that I did get tired. And I have been tired on multiple occasions. And I definitely, you know, thought thought about over those roles, like maybe I should go someplace else. But then I always came back to, you know, what, why couldn't it be me? Right? You know, why? Why couldn't I do it? If I'm already executing at that level? I will say that when I kept when I managed my calendar appropriately, I was able to manage the mental fatigue of it. But when I let loose on boundaries, was when I became more exhausted. And I mean, my Work calendar, you know, I went through a period of time where I was available to anybody, even on Saturday, and being too loose on boundaries made me want to give up. Because I felt like I was giving too much to the company when no one really asked me to be available for it. On a Saturday, I was having a call and I picked up. And so once I became more confident in setting boundaries and sticking to them, and live in them and tell people hey, look, I can't do that I'm out of the office. That's when I became a bit more at ease with my time and I had the mental clarity to kind of navigate things throughout the week because I was recharging if do on the weekend or on holidays and things like that. And the last thing I'll say is, I really think it's important to find someone that you trust that you can just really meant to, not necessarily on people, the environment, but sometimes you're gonna have a bad day, sometimes you might not get the job. And I do think networks outside the company are truly helpful, because it helped me remember that it's just a bad day, or it's just that one event and remind you that there is more, whether it's at a company or whether it's, you know, another project that have come up, but just really giving you that perspective on a well balanced living.
Thank you. Can you provide an example of some of your meaningful questions expecially to decipher if a team will make the deadline?
I think a great question is Can I see your project plan? Because if you don't have a project plan, I just don't understand how you know what the finish line is? And I think having? So that's number one. Question number two is, you could have projects that are cross functional, you could have projects that are vertical. But if you have a cross functional project, and the only person presenting is the person your function, I think a great question is where are the other key players that are responsible for delivering this project? And when can I get an update from them? I think the third great question is when you ask, Are we on track to also ask, can I see how you spent your budget? And can you reconcile that with me so that I know we have enough money to complete the project? And you'd be surprised? I mean, it's I'm not saying that people can't do that. But I think people get so attached to get to the finish line that they might forget some of the fundamentals of project management. I think another great question to ask is for, especially for something that you have to implement globally, is one of the pilot. And who's the pilot audience? Who are the regional reps? Did their bosses agree that their regional reps, when are we all meeting?
Okay, great. Yeah, people do forget, and I love milestones and projects, like you're not hitting, but your budgets way, way out of control,
or you're not spending so how are you going to finish?
I've had that contract anywhere to make an engineering design. Okay, I'm at leadership levels, delegation can be an interesting concept. Can you walk us through your relationship with delegating extra leadership responsibilities for?
So I think there's two pass with delegation. I think, in my experience, I had people hungry for it, because they also have personal aspirations to grow their career. So they were wanting to demonstrate that they could do portions of my role. And so they wouldn't, they would ask for the delegation. And then there's a delegation that comes with, you know, we have a task coming up, and I need to make sure that we have all hands on deck. So we get to the finish line. And one of the one thing that I really like to do is just really asked everybody, do we all know what the problem is? And what do we what do we all take away from the meeting? Because delegation without a common understanding is can potentially be fruitless? And so I'm an advocate of those post mortems. And then I would say, Okay, what's the problem that we need to solve? And then what's the potential solution? And then from there, in my experience, delegation makes sense. And it's not personal. Because if that's your functional area, or if that's your responsible area, then naturally that work goes to you. I think I've had more personality problems when I needed to delegate something that didn't fit nicely, I needed someone to do something extra. And, you know, in those scenarios, I would just try to say, or try to share, hey, look, this is the business need, and this is what we need to accomplish. And you have the best skill set to do that, you know, I need you to take this on. And you know, sometimes responses will be well, some people will just say yes, but sometimes you may get responses to say hey, look already, I'm already Lee and five high intense areas. If I take this one more, I'm going to fail. And that's where I have to go in and just talk through okay, what are you working on? And let's reprioritize because you know, this particular thing may be on the priority list, and I have found and I've done it that way, but in the beginning of being a people leader, I wasn't that mature, but what I just described, I found to mostly result in the outcome that you want. When I was earlier in my career, I would just kind of give, give it out. And that that didn't work well, at all. People felt like objects. And so I think my prior example, make people feel like they're a part of the team and part of the problem. And then when the work was done, I let the team pitch their work. So they have the credit.
Ready, ready, thank you made that switch from explaining to people you know, treating people on your team, like an object to saying, Hey, you have too much on your plate, let's sit down and figure out how to work this out. Was that through understanding how to communicate? Was that understanding personalities? Like where did you pick up that skill set to know how to how to delegate better?
I probably picked that up. In the functional risk management role, we said, do these evaluations on managers, and it would be a word report, they would tell you if you were Sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, or thunderstorms. And I got a thunderstorm report. And the I was floored. And the team shared with me that they felt I was too transactional. And they didn't understand why they were doing things. And I didn't know them. And I wasn't invested, they felt that I wasn't invested because I didn't spend time talking through problems, solutions and how they're adding value. And I continued to get that thunderstorm report for most of that year. And then I was able to kind of really work at that communication. But I did a lot of role playing as well with my manager on how to overcome that.
Okay, thank you. How hard was it transitioning from engineering to executive leadership? are the goals rewards, more or less tangible?
Ask me that again.
How hard was it transitioning from engineering to executive leadership? Are their goals slash rewards, more or less tangible?
Well, yes, and no. You know, there, I was saying, number one, that transition was challenging because you have to execute throughout our people. And it the executive level, you're, you're not necessarily over small projects, you're over functions. And that means you're over processes. And so therefore, it was really challenging for me to to communicate effectively across my EB peers and what we needed to do so that my function could be successful. But the rewards I thought were greater because it wasn't just my work that was being recognized. It was like organizing my organization, and seeing people complete these projects or seeing people hit their financial numbers and being rewarded for that, you know, seeing people who work for me get promoted and hit some of their personal goals. You know, I found it to be more rewarding. I think what I wasn't prepared for was the amount of time that I needed to spend on relationship building and overcoming that. Like my peers
if you were giving advice to high school girls who are just entering college, what skills or activities would you advise them to engage in so they would begin so that they can begin their leadership career?
So freshmen in college? Yes. Um, I think they should join Toastmasters. You know, I think we ended up effective communicator, whether you decide to be an executive or not, is a fantastic skill.
You know, I, I enjoyed sports. And I played sports for several years in college, not for college, but intramural, but I think, you know, competitive scores, whether it's chess or basketball or some activity is helpful, because workplace is competitive. Being able to learn how to win and build self confidence in activities, I think helps self confidence. And the last thing I would suggest them to do is have fun.
Yeah, like the fun part. Yeah. And I love Toastmasters. How do you think race influence your leadership experience?
I mean, I've definitely had to play with several styles, you know, I am, I'm well aware of, you know, the angry black woman stigma. And then I'm well aware of being quiet and being reserved. And I used to have this saying all the time, or I would say you want to be a diva or doormat, you know, it's like, there's no one between here. And so I definitely struggled with that. And then I struggled with, you know, being too nice. So I think what I decided to do was not necessarily look at black women, or black men, and how they led, I just look for people who I thought were effective. And, you know, looked how people responded to them in meetings and looked how their information was, you know, being absorbed, looked at how they were promoted, and tried to see what attributes that they have that were being, what actions that they had to make them successful. And then did I have those attributes? And I think once I kind of settled on that, it helped me get out of my own psyche of, you know, if I do this behavior trade, am I going to be considered an angry black woman or reserve timid woman? I just said, Okay, this attribute is what's desirable. Let me work on having that.
Okay. How have you navigated situations where leaders challenge your management style, though, you are accomplishing the goals.
I mean, this has happened to me a lot. And it's going to happen again. And one of the unwritten rules of office politics that I was not prepared for was the challenge, and being challenged by my peers, especially in big meetings in front of the CEO, so they could exert power. And I just come back to being prepared. I mean, it. Maybe it might happen more, because I'm a female, I don't know. But I do know that being prepared, transcends genders, and being able to punch back with data, with sound strategy, being able to articulate why you're doing what you're doing, and showing the wins and then coming back and showing that you have hypothesis and you deliver. Nobody sees gender when you when you do that.
I love that punch bag with data. I don't know why. But that's, that's my favorite quote, for tonight. Okay. Um, hi, Courtney, great to see you. How do you maximize the value of informal leadership roles in an effort to secure a formal leadership role? I'm tied up here. And I have no formal leadership experience. But I have a plethora of in formal experience internally and externally.
That is frustrated. Does the are the people who are giving you this feedback able to hire you into a formal role? If not, maybe that's a path you can go down is that, you know, if your vows if your skill sets are valued enough to give you these informal and I'm hoping meaningful projects, then what's the path to a formal role? And you know, just letting to know, well, maybe, maybe I can do maybe I need to stop doing some of these informal things. I'm available to do formal roles. I think it's completely okay to have transparent conversations, challenging feedback like that in a respectful way. You know, so for example, thanks for the feedback. I heard so and so maybe moving out of their role. I'd love to be positioned for that. Since I'm lacking formal experience, will you help me do that? And just kind of put put, now there's a put people on the spot that give me feedback, but give them homework, if they're giving you feedback to help you get what you need, and the company can potentially benefit as well. Oh, that helps. I've been there. And it is extremely frustrating. So the more I think you can force formal opportunities that you can compete for putting the individuals to work to help you get there because it sounds like you're getting feedback, which means in my opinion, they value you So how can they help you get to that formal opportunity?
Yeah, buddy put in a circular path, right? Okay, in the beginning of your leadership path, would you consider yourself more reserved or introverted?
I'm probably a little bit of both. I prefer small meet small team meetings, I prefer small groups. I like small functional teams. And you know, I work in a company that large cross functional highly matrix. So meetings would be 4050 people, and there's a lot of energy in a room. And so I had to get used to that. And so I wasn't necessarily reserved, because I was introverted. I was reserved, because I was trying to get the lay of the land. And I failed to realize how I could use those meetings to make connections. I was managing my introvert nature by learning how to channel my energy in these high energy sessions. And just staying focused and not getting a drain suck because there's like 50 people in the room. At some point, everyone would be talking at the same time. And how do I stay on on top of my game and silly environment that I kind of, I don't mind but don't necessarily love.
Gotcha. Code Switching for executives of color is an is an open secret. How has this affected you as you navigate your career called seeking code switching?
What does that mean?
So you know how you hang out with your family and friends. Hey, y'all, how you doing? Hello, good morning. How are you today? Yes, this is Courtney Stoner.
Oh, I see. Look.
I think number one, though, this allows us to answer this number one, you know, is it the same personality, I think I think is like your personality in various settings. And so whether I'm at home, or I'm at work, it's the same personality, it's the same humor, it's the same interaction. But the topics could be different. But I will say, as I increased my level of influence, and moved up the chain, my personal and professional did mix. And so for example, when I went to Tesco, Switzerland, I had to talk to my boss about where I was gonna get my hair done. And he was just like, you know, we want you to move to Switzerland, like why I can't move there, there's no one that can do my hair. And then, you know, go go work. And then he, he's bald. And so he's like, I don't have hair. And so I had to walk him through my Saturday process of getting ready for Monday. So I look like I, you know, have some sense. And I'm more put together, and trying to figure out what that looked like for me if I moved to Switzerland, and how I was going to manage that. And so I'd have another example of where personal merged with professional when I started traveling with these other EB peers, mostly male on road trips, and they want to go out and party, then what am I gonna do? Am I going to stay home? Or am I gonna go out, you know, to the club with them if we're chatting over the weekend. And so, so one weekend, we went to a hip hop club, and I was like, you know, I'm tired of going to country western bars, you know, we're gonna go to a club club since you guys you know, say you love rap. And so I definitely opened myself up a little bit in terms of interjecting my personality and my, my personal interest into my work life, when my work life overlap with my personal time, like my weekends, or, you know, moves and things like that. I don't I know, there's a lot of talk about this and being being real or being or not, I just think it's about do you know, where you are, you know, if you're at work, is that really a work? Conversation? Is that really a work inappropriate term or appropriate demeanor at work? And I think once you if you're, if you know, it's appropriate, and you're interacting in an appropriate manner, I feel like that's what Metro leaders do.
All right. Now I have my own set of questions, so I can't type them in. So y'all can y'all can continue to add questions. But these questions actually came from when I posted that you were coming to talk. So you had four women on that post who had these questions. I would ask a female executive what she feels her role is in regarding to helping other women advance. I found that we garlis of industry, many women, women have told me that they feel they don't get as much help from senior level women. This could be because there are a few. So how have you helped other women rise or advance in their careers?
Yeah, that's a good question. You know, one of the, one of the things that I really like to do is have a diverse slate for interviewing. And so if, you know, my process was, you know, I would always try to ask, you know, who was performing well, in the company, who was up for promotion, who was receiving positive feedback, and they were ready for more. And if I had an open opportunity, you know, I would ask them to, to apply, like, you know, consider joining my team. You know, this is an area that you're interested in, and you'll, let's, let's, let's say, this is a great fit for you. I've also had opportunity had situations where some people weren't performing well, they were in the wrong role, maybe working in a team that didn't gel, and I couldn't necessarily hire them, but I tried to help them network out of that situation, into an area that, you know, they could thrive in. One of the moments of self reflection I do have is, I did wonder if I was doing enough, in terms of, not necessarily hard people will play some people, you know, once you have a certain level of authority over your order, you know, you can you can place people. And so I definitely did go through a period of where I was trying to figure out, you know, was I really doing enough to help people and wasn't really doing enough to place people? And, you know, I don't I don't know, I don't know if I did, but I try, you know, I tried to keep tabs on the talent, I tried to push them to apply for roles and my door. I tried to promote them in and you know, help promote them out. And, yeah, I'm still working on it. But you know, those are things I tried to do.
Great. Thank you. Next question, What can White women do or stop doing to help make space for women of color?
You know, I just really think there's room for all of us.
I think that we can't be so competitive that you don't want your sister friend to not succeed. And we can't look at someone else and think their competition, because the reality is, there's less jobs at the top, and everyone's competition, and everyone wants your seat. And so, you know, if you're in an environment and you don't feel like you have the female komak camaraderie that you deserve, then my my best advice is to do that in your own interactions. You know, if you're not seeing the type of support that other people should be given you, just make sure you're given that to the other ladies that are on the same journey as you trying to grow their career. And maybe by seeing, you know, some positivity, you know, some of the the hurt that you're seeing from these other women, they'll it'll make them self reflect, and they'll realize they're not doing enough.
Currently has shown a lot of vertical promotions during her career, how does she feel about horizontal career moves?
I think they're great, especially if you're tired. And so if you're someone and you're moving, you need it, you don't know if you're ready to move up again. Or you don't know if you're happy where you are, but you see a job to the right or to the love, and you think it'd be great for you to pick up that skill set or it looks fun, or you're interested. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think that you know, if you're gaining skills, it's, you know, sounds fantastic. You know, my one piece of advice is, you know, as you stay on that level, make sure you continue to differentiate yourself. Because when you're ready, if you decide you're ready to make a move up, you want to show the growth and that you're you grew even though you say to the same level.
You mentioned that you have an executive coach, which answer that question. But did you go through an executive training program while you were advancing in your career? Did you spend a week? Or was it a external program that you were enrolled in, where you were coached and provided communication skills, executive presence, how to read a profit and loss statement, those things that really helped you advance in your career
did receive some corporate training I received on the job training, if you will, on how to do the financial analysis. But I, you know, earlier several years ago, you know, the company was pretty well budgeted for training. And so I did have the opportunity to go to training on communication. I would do training on leading large teams, and I did some webinar training on change management. But things like Toastmasters, you know, I paid for a lot of the mentoring that I received, it was, you know, people giving me their time. But I will say that training is also if your company offers training, it's also another avenue of office politics. So my one advice there is, you know, what's the process to get into a training class? And do you know what it is? And how can you get your name into that? Because that also can be a political process in a corporation?
I won't disagree with you on that at all, even if it's just for the budget, to get if you find your own class. Um, how did you get comfortable speaking to the CEO, or in meetings with the CEO?
Yeah, I still get nervous. Because I don't know like, where he's coming from, or what meeting he just had. And if I'm getting a good deal, if it's a good day, it's tough day. But I will say that I believe in the pregame prep. And you know, when I talked about earlier that the anticipation I was more afraid I couldn't answer questions. And I just really believe in that, you know, get it in a room for 30 minutes and just let people kind of tear apart your material to make sure that you can answer their questions. Because if you can answer the question of your peers, then you got the CEO because he really, he's not at your level, he doesn't have the time to get into your details. So if you can handle the challenges from your, from your manager, even your peer group, people on staff, then you're completely ready for the CEO.
Okay, the next question is a whole narrative. So just go with the flow. It it starts off clears through and begins to type. Okay, I'm going to bite the bullet. The number of hours worked at leadership levels can be daunting, it can sometimes leave little room for developing romantic possibilities. This flavor, Courtney, I'm not absolutely not asking you about your romantic history. Can you shed light on your thoughts on navigating the dating world at this level? What does the landscape look like? tiptoes back into the shadows in heights?
That question needs to be a social media man.
I mean, you know, there are some years where I worked a lot. And I put in a lot of time. And, you know, I give my girlfriend's a lot of credit, because they were like, you gotta, you gotta put some boundaries down, this isn't working. And then when I put those boundaries down, nothing fell apart. When they you know, you kind of chug along. And then there were a couple of years and there were Yeah, it was working a lot. And friends came in and says, This is ridiculous. You got to put some boundaries down. So that's one thing number two, you're right. It is a lot of hours. And it is a lot of time. And I don't think it's impossible. But I do think the quality of your staff and how well you manage your calendar are two things that can make or break you that make or break and get to dinner that night, make or break if you get to the gym the next morning. So if you know if you haven't invested well and you haven't had the opportunity, invest well in a team or be able to really manage your calendar aggressively, then it'd be a shallow on time on the dating case, or men and all that other stuff. What I will tell you is that it is true that there is a perception that working It results in being single. But in my opinion, the man I want to attract respects what I've done and values what I've accomplished, and they are not concerned about me having talent for them. Because if he just talks to me, I'm gonna talk to him, they become the priority, and then you manage your calendar appropriately.
Okay, it makes it tell him, Courtney, let them know. Okay. And Courtney, thank you for your honesty and sharing your story. Michelle, thank you for organizing the event. Sorry. Okay, so it says, was your executive coaching something you found and paid for on your own?
So I chose to pay for it on my own. But I will say that I do know of companies being willing to reimburse if you find a coach in an area that they agree is an opportunity for you to grow, and they see value in it as well. And so I've had people ask me, as a leader, you know, you pay for this coaching is really going to help me in this area, and I've done it. So I would consider pursuing that if you're interested in having your own coach.
Okay. One more question. How can we rise to the level of sponsorship? Whose responsibility is that, in order for us to have sponsors?
You know, I did seek out sponsors. And I've decided to seek out sponsors, when the company told me that I was good. So when they had communicated that they were pleased with the output of the work, and that they were pleased with my approach to things. Then I started to have the discussion around getting sponsored for for bigger roles. And I also believe I had sponsors and I didn't know about, you know, hallway sponsors or advocating for me. But I decided to make the topic a conversation topic. After I was told that and I was concerned about getting an equitable return on the value that I was bringing.
One more question about executive coaching. Do you have executive coaching companies you recommend?
I do. I'm using gala Johnson right now. I'm really pleased with the process. She's on LinkedIn. And she offers a suite of offerings. And she was referred to me recommended to me by a friend and yeah, it's gone. Well.
Okay, somebody says, Oh, gay, like used her. She is awesome. A couple other comments. I've been a Toastmaster for years president of my corporate club years ago, it is still very much relevant. Yes. Community. Yes. Yeah, Communication is paramount. No matter no matter what, and I wish I'd done it. Around 2,004th 2005. When I got my first job out of college, I didn't join Toastmasters until 2016. And it was tremendous change. And what I do want to know coordinates the way you present stuff. It's very serious thing is not a lot of side slides is to the point. Um, so it's okay like Jackson. Okay. Sorry, Gail, I put it
around. Oh, maybe I said John said I'm sorry, Kayla Jackson.
So, um, so and I love that it's very succinct. And to the point is not a lot of extra stuff. And I think we sometimes get stuck, or we have to have all of this information ahead of time. Okay. Any last questions? We have a few seconds left. I think I really enjoyed the session. Okay. Well, we're out of time. So it's 815. So everybody, thank you so much for joining us, Cory. I'm glad you could come through. We will continue with the summit this week. Tomorrow. Guess what we got to talk about communication in in hostile environments, or not hostile but um, what was it Was it was a word a situation, high stress environments. So this is a great lineup of how we're going to roll through this. And then on when and that's going to be tomorrow we have it with Lynne hurdle. And then on Wednesday, we will have Lisa Anderson who will go through the unspoken truth about how women of color gets into executive leadership roles. And executive presence is one of those things. So Courtney is in a very particular order for a very particular reason. And we added Tamra at the very last minute so but it's all gonna work out. It's all gonna play together. You're gonna love it. I'm sure. I'm sure. So Courtney again, thank you so much.
Thanks, Michelle. So proud of you. I can't wait for tomorrow.
I know. Right. All right, everybody. We will see you tomorrow. Have a great night and I'll see you there. Bye. Bye.