Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 2: Stenebek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: Well, she's a woman in the world, got you knows it?
Speaker 2: Okay, So how's this for a little career advice, Carol,
Speaker 2: think of yourself as a growth stock. Okay, flicking video,
Speaker 2: that's a growth stock. Embrace steering through skids, so kind
Speaker 2: of embrace the moments where you're feel like you're kind
Speaker 2: of getting off your path and steering out of control.
Speaker 2: Beware of managers who keep you from growing. So if
Speaker 2: you're good at your job, your manager might keep you
Speaker 2: in that place and then you're not going to grow
Speaker 2: and do other stuff, which I think is a really
Speaker 2: important trap to watch.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And oh, how about not faking it until you make it?
Speaker 1: This is what I want to dig into. That one
Speaker 1: kind of blows my mind because we talk about the
Speaker 1: difference between men and women and faking it till you
Speaker 1: make it. Those are just some of the tips from
Speaker 1: the new book written by our next guest, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, no a thing or two about climbing the
Speaker 1: corporate ladder. Between them, they have got decades of experience
Speaker 1: in senior positions at United Airlines, Craft Foods, Toilette, Motorola, McKinsey,
Speaker 1: and Moore.
Speaker 2: Grace Puma is the former Chief Operations Officer at PEPSI COO.
Speaker 2: And Christina Christiana Smith, she is the former president of
Speaker 2: the Consumer Direct Division at Nike. The new book it's
Speaker 2: called Career Forward Strategies from Women Who've Made It. Grace
Speaker 2: joins us from Tampa, Florida, and we got Christina from Portland, Oregon.
Speaker 2: Good to have you both with us this afternoon. So Grace,
Speaker 2: I just want to start with you and we're going
Speaker 2: to get to the book in just a second, but
Speaker 2: we got to talk about the consumer space because the
Speaker 2: two of you have just so much experience when it
Speaker 2: comes to working for companies that go directly to consumer,
Speaker 2: companies that have relationships with consumer, and we talked about
Speaker 2: the consumer all the time powering this economy. Grace, what
Speaker 2: out there is interesting to you about the consumer space
Speaker 2: or in the consumer space right now?
Speaker 4: Well, I think the consumer is going through, you know,
Speaker 4: some challenging times right now. For one thing, they're certainly
Speaker 4: dealing with this economic uncertainty and so the shifts and
Speaker 4: what they're buying and how they're spending their money is
Speaker 4: certainly a factor. But you're also really seeing people start
Speaker 4: to get a little more nervous about their job security,
Speaker 4: and I think that factors as well into how consumers
Speaker 4: are thinking about their purchases.
Speaker 1: Christiana, come on in on that as well, and your
Speaker 1: take on the consumer. You guys really do have some
Speaker 1: an incredible vantage point in terms of what you've seen
Speaker 1: and how you think about the space and where it's going.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, obviously everyone's got their own opinions. I
Speaker 3: would say from what I see on a day to
Speaker 3: day basis, the consumer is still voting with their dollars
Speaker 3: for brands they love. So if there was ever a
Speaker 3: time to make sure that you know, from a brand
Speaker 3: point of view, you were connecting with your consumers and
Speaker 3: you were projecting that the image that you at that
Speaker 3: time is now.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think about you know, when it comes
Speaker 1: to brands too, Grace, let me go back to you,
Speaker 1: if we may ingest the importance of women and thinking
Speaker 1: about women purchasing and their purchasing power or they're purchasing
Speaker 1: power for their families, and I do wonder how you
Speaker 1: both Okay, So that's kind of just in terms of
Speaker 1: the brand approach, but how you guys have thought about
Speaker 1: your own specific experiences and whether or not there were
Speaker 1: commonalities that you found between each other in terms of
Speaker 1: what worked. So Grace start there as you guys were
Speaker 1: starting to put this book together, the commonalities you found,
Speaker 1: the differences you found in kind of your way forward.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, this book kind of got birked on
Speaker 4: the fact that we had Matt when we were both
Speaker 4: on a corporate board and one day we went out
Speaker 4: after the meeting and really connected, and it connected around
Speaker 4: identifying that although we took very different paths to achieve
Speaker 4: what we achieved some of the top levels and in
Speaker 4: different corporations, we had some of the same learnings and
Speaker 4: some of the same truths. And then you add to
Speaker 4: that that we both have it's hard to call them
Speaker 4: millennial children, but children that are now in their thirties
Speaker 4: and having their own career paths, and we really wanted
Speaker 4: to transfer the knowledge and the learning that we felt
Speaker 4: really could be helpful as they set their own path.
Speaker 2: I should note that you guys are still on some
Speaker 2: pretty pretty interesting boards. Grace is on the board of Target,
Speaker 2: among others. Christiana on Columbia Sports, where Ups West Marine,
Speaker 2: to name a couple others. So yeah, I mean definitely
Speaker 2: still in the consumer space right now, no question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, Christiana, So come on in too. Like, as
Speaker 1: you guys were putting together the book, what did you
Speaker 1: want to make sure was kind of in the messaging
Speaker 1: here from your own experience?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we had a really strong goal to
Speaker 3: address this moment in time as well as just share,
Speaker 3: you know, decades of career experience learning that Grace and
Speaker 3: I had. And as Grace said, even though her path
Speaker 3: was very much through some of the top CORP corporate
Speaker 3: brands and companies, mine was consulting for over twenty years
Speaker 3: and then a C three job at Nike, we had
Speaker 3: similar takeaways about how to build a career that you
Speaker 3: love and how to make it worth it. And when
Speaker 3: we first started writing the book, we were still in
Speaker 3: the pandemic, and there was of course all this talk
Speaker 3: about women falling out of the workforce because they couldn't
Speaker 3: make the childcare life work balance work. And then there
Speaker 3: was quiet quitting, and there was just act your wage.
Speaker 3: There's so many things right now that show in this
Speaker 3: moment a need to talk about how you can still
Speaker 3: invest in yourself and still have a great career while
Speaker 3: meeting this moment and balancing all the other forces that
Speaker 3: are at work in your life.
Speaker 4: Well, we wanted to.
Speaker 1: Do some of the specifics, but I wondered, Grace, if
Speaker 1: I said, luck, skill, timing, what was the most important
Speaker 1: thing in your career path?
Speaker 4: That's a great question. I would probably say to me
Speaker 4: all of it too.
Speaker 1: Skill.
Speaker 4: Well, no, I think it's skill, and I think it's
Speaker 4: about not just you're not boring with the skill, Okay,
Speaker 4: it's cultivating skill reevaluating what the next skill or capability
Speaker 4: is needed or will be needed. So it's an ongoing
Speaker 4: commitment to learning. And we talk a lot about that
Speaker 4: in our book, and to read the tea leaves on
Speaker 4: what is necessary and valuable in those skill sets.
Speaker 3: Same thing to you, Christian, And if I could, yeah,
Speaker 3: please do you mind? If yeah, it's going to say,
Speaker 3: do you mind if I jump in on that? Going
Speaker 3: even a step further with Grace, and I believe is
Speaker 3: you can do a lot more than you think to
Speaker 3: create your own luck. What do you mean when we
Speaker 3: talk about when we talk about people we see at
Speaker 3: work and we say, oh, she's so lucky she got
Speaker 3: that project. He's so lucky that story hit right at
Speaker 3: the right time, whatever it is. But you roll the
Speaker 3: tape back, you realize they invested in building their network
Speaker 3: inside and outside the company. They invested in knowing things
Speaker 3: that are important, and at that moment in time, they
Speaker 3: demonstrated performance. That's when opportunities tend to come to you.
Speaker 3: And then we say the key is do you hear
Speaker 3: the knock on the door when opportunity is knocking, and
Speaker 3: do you answer it right? That's timing. So there's clearly
Speaker 3: serendipity in your career, there's no question. But you can
Speaker 3: do an awful lot to be in the right place
Speaker 3: at the right time through the steps that you take
Speaker 3: to invest in yourself well.
Speaker 1: And some would say, I'm trying to think whether I
Speaker 1: want to think our leader or book or other books
Speaker 1: that about this whole idea of being the first one
Speaker 1: at the office, being the last one to leave. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you can't do that, but it's certainly early on
Speaker 1: your career things will People will move around and be like,
Speaker 1: who's here, who can do this? You're here because you're
Speaker 1: here early and you're here late. And it's as simple
Speaker 1: sometimes as something like that.
Speaker 2: It is, but I'm wondering and I want to go
Speaker 2: to you grace first on this one. If in an
Speaker 2: era of hybrid and remote work, that that is more
Speaker 2: of an issue because you're not going to run into
Speaker 2: the boss on the zoom. You're only going to run
Speaker 2: into the boss, you know, at the water cooler, if
Speaker 2: you're physically around the boss. And there's an entire generation
Speaker 2: really brought you know, who graduated in the last four
Speaker 2: years that that don't have the same idea of going
Speaker 2: to the office that I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: grew up with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean no doubt, and certainly, you know, during
Speaker 4: the time that we had been in a lot of
Speaker 4: our career, it was an opportunity, you know, your first
Speaker 4: and first out. But today is very different and you know,
Speaker 4: I definitely think, you know, addressing the virtual world, there
Speaker 4: is still a need to ensure connection, and connection through
Speaker 4: work is really the best connection. But making sure that
Speaker 4: you're where you need to be and that you're contributing
Speaker 4: in those moments and that you're establishing relationships. You hear
Speaker 4: a lot of people in the hybrid work right now
Speaker 4: going out and even meeting with colleagues outside of work,
Speaker 4: just to make sure they have a connection. But I
Speaker 4: think what you said earlier, you know, we talk about
Speaker 4: this concept of growth stock that's more important, I think
Speaker 4: than the FaceTime and we talk about it. Yeah, I do,
Speaker 4: because we talk about it in the book about And
Speaker 4: let me just take a minute on it. If you
Speaker 4: think about a growth stock, a growth stock, you can
Speaker 4: think of any company that comes to mind. Let's take
Speaker 4: Apple for example. They tend to grow at a much
Speaker 4: faster pace in their competitors, and they do that by
Speaker 4: reinventing themselves, by looking around the corner, and by investing
Speaker 4: in the right things. So when you apply that to yourself,
Speaker 4: whether you're working virtually or in the office, you're going
Speaker 4: to adopt a mentality that says, you know, I want
Speaker 4: to no matter where I am, no matter how well
Speaker 4: I'm doing in my current job, I'm going to be
Speaker 4: thinking future forward, and I'm going to be cultivating and
Speaker 4: growing and investing in the type of things that I
Speaker 4: need to be able to learn and contribute at a
Speaker 4: higher rate. And those often lead to opportunities and career
Speaker 4: progression along your journey.
Speaker 1: So Christian and it's kind of like, you know, don't
Speaker 1: wait for someone to tell you what you need to do.
Speaker 1: Look around you and figure out what you need to
Speaker 1: do to either get to the next level, or the
Speaker 1: next position, or the next opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we would definitely agree with that notion of staying curious,
Speaker 3: of thinking ahead of planning a bit in terms of saying, Hey,
Speaker 3: this year, what are my goals in terms of skills
Speaker 3: I'm going to need to build, what are my goals
Speaker 3: in terms of people I want to get to know,
Speaker 3: And in the spirit of meet the moment, we would
Speaker 3: also say make the most of the opportunities that you
Speaker 3: do have. So specifically in this hybrid and remote work environment,
Speaker 3: you may not, as Grace noted, have as many chances
Speaker 3: to just hang around the water cooler, but you're on
Speaker 3: zoom all the time. There's one way you can approach
Speaker 3: those meetings like, oh, I got another zoom, I'm going
Speaker 3: to turn off my camera. I'm going to be doing
Speaker 3: my email while the meeting's going until they hear them
Speaker 3: call my name, all that kind of thing. We've all
Speaker 3: been there. Those are really important opportunities. There are other
Speaker 3: people on that call, and there are other chances that
Speaker 3: you've got to show up. So we would just also say,
Speaker 3: make the most of the chances that you get. If
Speaker 3: you're in the room, you're there for a reason, speak up, participate.
Speaker 3: That room nowadays may be virtual, but it's really important
Speaker 3: that if you're there, you're noted.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point do.
Speaker 2: I just think talking to colleagues at other companies, people
Speaker 2: who work in other industries, like, there's definitely a culture
Speaker 2: at some places where the camera's on or the camera's off.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting.
Speaker 2: It's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I've always kind of had it on and like.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, this is the camera culture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a camera on culture. Do you want
Speaker 1: to get back to the authors of a new book
Speaker 1: it's called Career Forward Strategies from Women who have made It.
Speaker 1: The authors are Grace Puma, former chief operations officer at PepsiCo,
Speaker 1: and Christiana Smith, she former president of the Consumer Direct
Speaker 1: division at Nike. One thing we wanted to get into
Speaker 1: is this idea of don't fake it till you make it.
Speaker 1: And the reason we bring it up. We had a
Speaker 1: conversation with the head of one of the divisions at
Speaker 1: one of the major cruise companies just on Friday, and
Speaker 1: this idea of when she got a big promotion that
Speaker 1: people were like, yeah, but you didn't have all the
Speaker 1: necessary experience, and she's like, yeah, you're kind of right,
Speaker 1: you know, but I think about the difference and forgive me.
Speaker 1: I don't like to make generalizations, but there has been
Speaker 1: a lot written about where men will be like, I
Speaker 1: got it, I'll figure it out. Women are like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I don't have all the qualifications. Again, generalizations,
Speaker 1: but people have written about a lot of this grace.
Speaker 1: Let me go to you first. Why do you guys
Speaker 1: say don't fake it till you make it? What exactly
Speaker 1: do you mean, because sometimes you don't have all the
Speaker 1: qualifications but you can figure it out.
Speaker 4: Yeah. When we think about, you know, fake it till
Speaker 4: you make it, we don't think that's a bad thing.
Speaker 4: We think it's a good thing. The reason is because
Speaker 4: you do whatever you need to do to gain the
Speaker 4: confidence as you go into a new business or a
Speaker 4: new environment, or a new position. No one goes into
Speaker 4: a position when they know everything, okay, especially if you
Speaker 4: progress your career. So we think it's okay to stand up,
Speaker 4: whether you have to talk to yourself in the mirror,
Speaker 4: pump yourself off, but you're there for a reason. Believe
Speaker 4: you're there for a reason, and have the confidence to
Speaker 4: know you're going to figure it out, You're going to
Speaker 4: learn things, and you're going to be able to apply
Speaker 4: the talents you do have to be successful. That's very
Speaker 4: different than what you hear about imposter syndrome, where people say, hey,
Speaker 4: they got the job and they're not qualified. We think
Speaker 4: that's unhealthy. But fake it till you make it means,
Speaker 4: you know, have the confidence that you're in that position
Speaker 4: or you've been given that opportunity for a reason, and
Speaker 4: have the faith that your past history will tell you
Speaker 4: that you'll learn and you'll achieve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Christina, jump on in here and sort of share
Speaker 2: your experience with this in the way that you thought
Speaker 2: about it when you were writing about this in the book.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The reason we you might think we're saying don't
Speaker 3: fake it till you make it is because what we're
Speaker 3: saying is get past that thinking. Right. You were put
Speaker 3: there for a reason, and your bosses aren't crazy. The
Speaker 3: people who hired you knew what they were doing right.
Speaker 3: Learning what you need to learn to fill in your
Speaker 3: gaps in a new role is not faking it right,
Speaker 3: that's being programmatic, that's being strategic, that's leaning into it,
Speaker 3: that's being forward thinking. So all we would say is
Speaker 3: don't fake it till you make it. A plan together
Speaker 3: to get the rest of what you need in terms
Speaker 3: of the experience, the skills, the confidence to do the
Speaker 3: new role that you were put in, but recognize that
Speaker 3: you are there for a reason in the meantime, and
Speaker 3: saying that I've got to learn and get down this
Speaker 3: learning curve in this new role is not the same
Speaker 3: as saying I'm an impostor and I don't belong here.
Speaker 3: We really really dislike the phrase imposter syndrome because that
Speaker 3: leaves you no place to go, that doesn't give you
Speaker 3: a path forward, and that's not a very confidence building mindset.
Speaker 2: You explore this idea in the book about making sure
Speaker 2: you're growing within a role, and you argue that you
Speaker 2: don't want to be too comfortable in a job, and
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people that can be
Speaker 2: kind of tough because, Okay, well, you know, they've worked
Speaker 2: so hard to get to a certain place and they're
Speaker 2: finally in that place, Why do they want to be
Speaker 2: necessarily longing for something more grace?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, it starts with what we're trying
Speaker 4: to encourage people to do is to have and set
Speaker 4: a strategic path for your career and a cardinal direction.
Speaker 4: And a cardinal direction gets determined on what are your
Speaker 4: aspirations and they can evolve over time. So to your point,
Speaker 4: you know, we think it's important that if you're in
Speaker 4: a job and you feel like you know, I'm doing great.
Speaker 4: I might be getting great performance reviews, but you're no
Speaker 4: longer learning, then you have the obligation for yourself to
Speaker 4: meet your aspirations by continuing to look for opportunities to
Speaker 4: expand your capabilities and expand your contributions. And that can
Speaker 4: show up in a number of different ways. It might
Speaker 4: be raising your hand and saying, hey, I'd like to
Speaker 4: get involved in this particular project or this particular initiative
Speaker 4: that's outside my area, because you're going to know that
Speaker 4: you're going to grow through that experience. So that's kind
Speaker 4: of the basis of it, and it also is important
Speaker 4: if you set a cardinal direction of what you want
Speaker 4: to aspire, that you're checking in with yourself and saying,
Speaker 4: am I on track and does the job that I'm
Speaker 4: doing today continue to grow me? And progress me on
Speaker 4: that journey.
Speaker 1: Is it safe to say that, Christiana? I mean, there
Speaker 1: is a point that you get to that you might
Speaker 1: be like, I've out grown either this company or this
Speaker 1: career trajectory. I've hit the top, and it's just time
Speaker 1: to move on. And you just have to face that,
Speaker 1: even as much as you might like the company the
Speaker 1: people you work with, if you really want to advance,
Speaker 1: sometimes you've just got to leave. It's not just about
Speaker 1: making more money, but advancing.
Speaker 3: Yes, we agree with the notion that if you want
Speaker 3: to keep growing, sometimes you have to go. And we
Speaker 3: call that a fork in the road. And sometimes those
Speaker 3: forks in your career path are forced on you by
Speaker 3: a company change of ownership or a leadership change in
Speaker 3: your management team, whatever, But sometimes it's because you're proactively realizing,
Speaker 3: like you said, that you have grown to a point
Speaker 3: where you need to do something different. And what we
Speaker 3: want to encourage you to do is be self aware
Speaker 3: enough to actually recognize those moments when they come, versus
Speaker 3: get surprised by them. And the way you can get
Speaker 3: surprised by them is if you don't go when you've
Speaker 3: kind of outgrown your current role. If you don't actually
Speaker 3: push yourself to get to something next or new. You
Speaker 3: could end up on what we call benevolent stagnation. Benevolent
Speaker 3: stagnation is I'm still in the same job, I'm still performing.
Speaker 3: Everybody's kind of taken me for granted. I've noticed I'm
Speaker 3: not seeing the same increases in my comp I've noticed
Speaker 3: I'm not getting invited to some meetings. I've noticed I'm
Speaker 3: not being pulled into the cool projects. And we use
Speaker 3: the metaphor of a rocket in orbit, right, If you're
Speaker 3: in orbit around a planet, you still got to turn
Speaker 3: the gas on periodically, or gravity is going to pull
Speaker 3: you down. Love, It's the same thing at a job.
Speaker 3: You got to grow or you got to go.
Speaker 1: All right, Grace, Christiana, we only have about a minute
Speaker 1: left here, so just quickly, Grace, let me start with
Speaker 1: you thirty seconds. Some final thoughts here.
Speaker 4: I think I would just encourage you to really embrace
Speaker 4: ambition and realize that ambition is a really good thing.
Speaker 4: It means you're going to create a path for yourself
Speaker 4: to achieve the best you can achieve. And it might
Speaker 4: be different for every person, but we would encourage people
Speaker 4: to do it because it's worth it. Having a career women.
Speaker 1: Especially, It's okay to be ambitious. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: put it out there. Christiana thirty seconds here your final thoughts.
Speaker 3: Love love, owning the a word. As Grace said. The
Speaker 3: other thing we like to say to women in particular,
Speaker 3: but again applies to everybody, is if you're not in
Speaker 3: the driver's seat of your career, somebody else is and
Speaker 3: you can't get to a place you want to go
Speaker 3: to unless you're the one at the wheel. So we
Speaker 3: try to give you tools and ideas for how you
Speaker 3: could stay in the driver's seat of your career.
Speaker 1: Path well, and that plays into you Also a chapter
Speaker 1: you guys have Steer about Steer into the Skid, which
Speaker 1: I really love. I had to steer into his skid
Speaker 1: and it was such a great opportunity that I ended
Speaker 1: up creating, but it didn't feel like it as I
Speaker 1: was going through it. So some great advice Grace Puma,
Speaker 1: former Chief operations officer PepsiCo. Christianna Smith, she former president
Speaker 1: of the Consumer Direct division at Nike. Their new book,
Speaker 1: Career Forward Strategies from Women who Have made It Thanks
Speaker 1: to you both.
Speaker 3: This is Bloomberg