How to Empower... Authenticity in the Workplace

Transcript

Katy Bennett: Hello and welcome to a special episode of the How to Empower podcast. In celebration of International Women's Day, we are diving into the stories and insights of two extraordinary women, who have not only climbed the ranks of business but have done so while staying true to themselves. Welcome Deanna Oppenheimer who amongst other roles is the Chair of IHG Hotel Group and the founder of BoardReady.

Deanna Oppenheimer: Thank you Katy. It is wonderful to be here with you.

Katy: And Hemione Hudson, Management Board member and Head of Audit for PwC UK.

Hemione Hudson: Thanks Katy. Thank you for inviting me.

Katy: Welcome both. Today our focus is on navigating the business landscape authentically as a woman. Before we dive in, let's start with what's hopefully an easy question. Who are you and what brought you to where you are in your career today?

Deanna: Well Katy thanks so much. It's interesting because I would never have anticipated that I'd be sitting here with you and Hemione today because I grew up in a very small farm town in the Northwest part of the United States of America. And ended up through a lot of great opportunities, some really fine mentors, going into banking as a banking executive. And that's actually where I met Hemione. So she was my auditor at the time and it was tremendous. I was a banker in the US, and then I came over and joined Barclays Bank. And then from there, after my executive career, I decided to look at a combination of advising and board positions. And ultimately if you're in the game long enough, as I have been, here I am with the real privilege of getting to Chair IHG.

Katy: Brilliant, thank you. And Hemione.

Hemione: Well I also wouldn't have expected to be where I am today with both of you. I'm a lifer with PwC. I joined the firm after university and really had the expectation of becoming a qualified accountant and then seeing what I wanted to do in the world. And perhaps actually, at some point I thought I would probably end up being a full time mother as my mother had been. But when I qualified I had the first of my three children straight after qualification and decided that I wasn't ready to do that and that I really enjoyed working. And I came back to work and worked some form of part time for the next more than ten years and really enjoyed having a career and being a family person. I met Deanna at Barclays when I was her auditor and she was the first female CEO that I worked with, and just at the time when I was also becoming a Partner. I became a Partner in the firm in 2007, and have really enjoyed taking on a balance of client work and also leadership roles, and I now lead the audit practice.

Katy: Thank you.

Deanna: I knew she had talent back then, Katy.

Katy: You could see it.

Deanna: I could definitely see it.

Katy: Wonderful. And so Deanna, the first female CEO that Hemione worked with. You’re in banking, she's in professional services. This is a pretty male dominated environment. I'm interested to know, what is it about the traditional business environment that you think can make it, hopefully not always, make it challenging for women to bring their authentic selves to work?

Deanna: Well I think that, you know, when I started my career - this was way back in the dark ages - and at that time we all tried to be little mini men. So we had little mini suits and we had little mini ties. They were nice and silk and bright coloured. But at any rate, we tried to emulate men. And it came upon me pretty early that that just doesn't work, that you can't out man a man. And why try? And so, whether it was starting with attire, I think women softened up and became more in their own spirit of dressing and certainly in our own spirit of communication and of looking at various things. I think the problem that often happens is when you go in where you're the only one, you think you have to conform instead of actually getting to be the example of the person that stands out. And you are what you are for yourself. But it takes self confidence to do that. And it takes some time as you go through your career to be able to get the confidence to be able to be really who you are I think.

Katy: I'm sure that will resonate to many people listening, whether that's about being the only woman in the room, being from a different culture, a different background and that kind of constant challenge of, do I try and be like everybody else or do I kind of shine as myself? And it's great to have you both here showing that shining as yourself can be incredibly successful, so go for it.

Katy: Hermione I know you did an interview with Girls in Charge Initiative. Which sounds like a very cool initiative, I'm gonna have to read up on that afterwards. You mentioned that initially in your career you felt as though you weren't fully comfortable to bring your whole self to work. What made you feel more comfortable? What helped that change, so that you could start to be more open about this? And how did that impact you at work?

Hemione: That's a very interesting question, actually, and I think I would agree with Deanna. When I started in the workplace, particularly in the very male dominated environment of banking, I did feel like fitting in was the most important thing. And I had a whole range of black and navy and grey suits, which I don't wear anymore. And it's quite interesting today, people can't see us, but we're definitely not, you know, wearing those kinds of outfits. Some of it was about just wanting to conform, and I think in the early years I was focused on wanting to fit in and wanting people to not notice the difference that I brought, particularly being somebody who was a young mother working part time but wanting to progress. And that wasn't normal, either in the banking environment or even within the firm. But what made it change for me was I realised that actually that wasn't inspiring to some of the people looking up at me, particularly the women. And I actually had one situation where a peer of mine, somebody that I had grown up with through the firm with, was looking at wanting to be promoted. And I had been promoted. And she said to me well, but if the only way to do it is to work as hard as you do then I'm not sure it's for me. And I realised that I probably hadn't shared enough about actually who I was and how I managed things, that I was really being careful to show how invested in the firm I was and how committed I was. But not the fact that actually I was always making time for the family, always getting home on a Friday night for dinner, being around for them. And not being open about all of that stuff was not inspiring, frankly, to all of the younger women looking up thinking could they make it So that was the thing that changed for me. As I got more senior I realised that being myself actually was a positive and it was inspiring to other people, and it was something that I wanted to be able to do more.

Katy: Thank you for sharing that. I think it really speaks to me because even when you talk about kind of looking different and owning that, you can still feel a need to put polish in front of it to appear kind of together, that I'm on top of all of this, and you want to project something that feels really confident. But actually, as you say, it's the whole person and the whole story. And as somebody who removed Weetabix from my hair just before we started speaking, it's good to know that everyone has those experiences.

Hemione: Well it's interesting that actually meeting Deanna was a big part of that for me. Because I had worked with many male CEOs and many male boardrooms but I hadn't, therefore, had somebody that I could look at and think how do you do it in an authentically female way? And then I was in the Barclays Retail Banking Board environment and suddenly Deanna was being very much herself but owning the space. And I thought, wow that's really cool. And there were some quite simple things that I learned from that - where you choose to sit in the meeting room, you know, own the space, sit in the middle seat; who you choose to speak to and go up to confidently and introduce yourself. You know, why wouldn't I be as important as everybody else in this room? So why wouldn't I walk up to the most important person and say hello and introduce myself? You have to watch other people do those things to be able to learn to do them and to do them with confidence. And it's also really good to see people that you can identify doing those things. Because sometimes when we look up and see people who are so different from ourselves you think, well they can do it but I'm not sure I could.

Deanna: Yeah. You know, Hemione is being really kind because what I remember is the first time that she came in and we were meeting. I remember that it was in my office at Barclays and Hemione walks in, and she just had this air of just self confidence but not in an arrogant way at all, very personable. And then she sat down and she went through our audit results and it was really, really impressive. Because we had some challenges, but she presented it in such a confident and constructive way that I thought, who is this woman? And about, boy I think it was about three weeks later, I got a call from Hemione's boss at the time saying, we're putting her up for a promotion, for Partner. Now, I changed this story quite a bit and say that you were the youngest Partner at PwC. I don't know if that's the case, but she certainly was one of the most high potential people that I'd met that early in her career.

Hemione: Thank you Deanna. And I don't think I was the youngest Partner, just to be clear.

Katy: I've got another question but I'm going to have to kind of pause to reflect. I mean this is the How to Empower podcast. And I think the other bit that's really kind of shining through is, how much you can empower each other. And it's incredible to kind of hear this story of your success but also the credit you give to each other and the way that you open that up to everybody. That's such a nice part of this and I think it's something it's important to recognise.

Deanna: Oh that's great.

Katy: Right, now back to my questions. You talked a little bit about your career journeys and how important it is to be authentic. But I was just interested, are there aspects of yourself or kind of moments in your career where you did feel compelled to change something or to adapt?

Deanna: That's a really interesting question because I don't know that I'd say, change something dramatic. I don't recall changing a value set or something that was really core. But I think approach is something that I have really studied a lot, because I believe that, particularly when you're in various roles and now really as so much is online and virtual, rapport building initially is very important. And so I often said this, you have to very quickly assess the audience that you're walking into, whether you are the client or you are serving clients, either way you want mindshare of that early engagement to work well. I had mentioned earlier, Hemione was a high talent. I wanted her on our business, I wanted her to spend a lot of time with us, so that rapport building was important. So when you look at what that means for adaptation, you don't walk in and own the space in a way that you are belittling others that are there. I often said that, you know, if you're the CEO, you don't have to walk in and tell everybody you're the CEO. They know it when you walk in. So if you actually invert that, and my approach came to really engage very quickly about the other person. Who are you? What are you here for? What's your name? What's driving you? I often walk around a board table and shake hands with everybody before I go in. That whole idea is to get rapport built quickly so you get to the point where you can have a really productive engaging time. And I would say that's something that I observed and adapted throughout my career.

Katy: Thank you.

Hemione: And if I go back to my much earlier years, there were a few things that I needed to adapt as well. And I don't think it was just about needing to adapt because I was female, I think they were just new skills that I needed to learn. Sometimes that did feel quite awkward. When I was a senior manager, I definitely had to move away from being task-orientated. You know, I had done well in my job up until that point, very much from being on top of all of the detail, on top of all of the tasks, having a really good project plan, and being able to demonstrate that. And I suddenly needed to step away from the detail a bit more, let the team be doing more of that, but to do exactly what Deanna is talking about in terms of building rapport, understanding the broader business, making sure I was engaging with more senior clients in a different way. And actually that felt quite outside of my comfort zone at first. It's funny because now it feels so natural, but it felt outside of my comfort zone. And I did feel quite challenged and I had really good mentors who pushed me to do that. And I did pushback on it in the early stages and feel that perhaps the firm was wanting me to do things that didn't come naturally and perhaps were not authentic. But I had to accept that it wasn't about that at all it was about actually needing new skill sets and being able to operate a way that just fell outside of my comfort zone. Particularly because so many of my clients were men and much older than me, and so some of that rapport building and finding a way to, how do we connect, felt a little unnatural.

Katy: Thank you both for sharing that. I think it's something that I felt I've seen and heard. It is a real balance isn't it? Are you asking me to fundamentally change myself? Which is not okay. Or are you saying you need different skills? Exactly as you said Hemione, there are different ways of doing this. How can you adapt, build those skills, reframe this ask so it's still authentic and I think that's a real challenge. So thank you for kind of reflecting on your own journeys on that. Now Deanna, I wanted to ask you how do you think your ability to be authentic has changed as you’ve become more senior?

Deanna: It's a really interesting question. As Hemione was speaking I was just reflecting on how you adapt as you go into different roles and different responsibilities in your career. One of the key things is moving from an executive to a non-executive in a boardroom. The best analogy I use, and I use a lot of family analogies but this one is my favourite, is it's like going from a parent to a grandparent. Because as an executive you are making every decision, you are accountable, you need to be actually engaging the team, working throughout the organisation and knowing everything that you're doing. When you're in a board position as a non-executive, you are the grandparent.You don't walk into your kid's house and tell them that you don't think their child should be eating that particular food at that particular time for example. But you're there that if something goes really wrong or some real insight is needed or you need to put your mark on that business culturally, that's what the role of the board is. So it's very much these analogies of going from being the player on the pitch to being the manager, or being the parent to the grandparent. And that probably was the trickiest role change that I had to make in my career, because many people knew me as an operator. And you know I, like Hemione, liked getting in the detail, liked meeting the people, liked seeing everything, and liked making the decisions. And that change was something that I had to learn and relearn. And that's the other thing I'll say. You need to surround yourself with people who are willing to tell you, when you make a mistake or willing to point out something else. You never want to be surrounded only with people who are going to say yes because you will really get off course in that regard.

Hemione: Yeah, and I think you do become more comfortable in bringing your whole self into that. And again I think, you know, to your theme of empowerment, that's actually how you begin to empower others. I think when people see that you are leading naturally in the way that just comes to you, they feel that they can be themselves and that's when we get the most out of everybody. For me, I think that there were some parts of bringing myself to work that came more naturally to me. I mean, I am quite obviously a woman and so talking about that came more naturally to me. I would say that in the very early years of being a parent, because I was a parent very early in my career, I didn't talk about it that much because I didn't want people to feel that I was too different and I didn't want them to feel, particularly more senior people, to feel that I wasn't committed. But as I became more senior actually, I found that it was more empowering to everybody, and certainly it felt better to me, to be able to talk about my family life, to be able to bring all of that to work and actually share who I am. And a huge part of me is my family and what I do with them. But interestingly, I felt much more cautious about talking about my ethnic background. I'm half Indian and half English. Somehow that felt more awkward to talk about at work in the earlier years, and it's probably only recently that I felt more comfortable talking about that, and that actually being of mixed ethnic origin is also something that I can share and people are interested in. Because I think bringing your whole self to work, it's also about, are people really interested in that? That's what you worry about yourself. Why would I talk about that? Who's interested in that? Really, they just want me there for my business perspective. I think what we all are beginning to recognise more and more is that people actually do want to know who you are. That's actually very interesting to them, and it empowers them to tell you who they are. Very much back to Deanna's ‘let's get to know each other’.

Katy: Thank you for that. And I think that, hopefully it goes without saying, I think people really are interested. And thank you for sharing these stories with all of our listeners who I'm sure are enjoying it and kind of learning and being inspired by it. Now, given our episode day as a special one for International Women's Day, I'm interested, Hemione, what's the significance of the day for you personally and professionally?

Hemione: Well actually a lot of significance for me, because the first time that I remember coming together with a lot of the female Partners in PwC was on International Women's Day. And it was great to meet a network of female Partners across the practice. And I have therefore always enjoyed celebrating it, enjoyed celebrating it in lots of different ways. I think from a professional perspective, it also helps me reflect on what fantastic journey we've been on and how much things have changed in my working career. They really have changed fundamentally. So that it's still important that we talk about International Women's Day, it's still important that we talk about gender, but I do feel like we have made huge progress and that's something to hang onto. We should be positive about what we can achieve by coming together. I think we can make a lot of difference on the inclusion agenda.

Katy: And Deanna the theme of this year's International Women's Day is Inspire Inclusion. How do you try to inspire other women, particularly around being their authentic selves at the workplace?

Deanna: Well you know, I'm reflecting on some of the real opportunities that I've had of working with global businesses. And one of the things was from my days at Barclays, I got the opportunity to go around the world, literally, and meet our different network of women leaders, women colleagues, and in various forms with non-profits, women in general. The inspiring thing to me is how different a lot of us can be but fundamentally there are some real opportunities that wherever you are in the world, women care about. They care about each other. They care about their families. They care about providing the best that they can for their families, their communities and others. I've just been so inspired as I'm sitting here reflecting. There was a woman, for example, when I was in banking in the US. She was having just horrendous cancer treatment. She was employed at one of our branches. And every day she stood up and she led every colleague, no matter how she felt, in what she called - it was actually in the Crenshaw branch in Los Angeles - The Crenshaw cheer. And they got up, and literally customers would queue up to get into this branch, just to see that inspiring start of the day. And I was so inspired by her because I thought, you know, here is somebody who has so much adversity in her life but is choosing to actually focus on that side of it. So talk about how authentic she was coming. You know, here she was authentically leading a cheer in a bank branch. But it was really inspiring. So what I love about International Women's Day is it's the time that we have the opportunity to get out of our own networks, our own lives. And even if we're in those lives, to read, and listen, and reflect on people all around the world and women all around the world that we've had the great opportunity to read about or meet, if we're really lucky.

Katy: Thank you. And Hemione, we just talked about the network and thinking more broadly. And I was just interested in your view on what role do you see men playing as active allies in this space.

Hemione: Yes we should bring men into it.

Katy: We should, let’s finish off with some men.

Hemione: And I would start by saying look I think men have a huge role to play in this. And also I would say that most of the mentors and sponsors that I have had through my career have been men. They have been fantastic men and they have been really supportive. I think there are lots of men who are supporting the inclusion agenda very fully. So I think the role of men in supporting women is fantastic, and just actually being open to the inclusion. I definitely feel that men have a big role to play.

Deanna: The interesting thing, and it picks up on your previous questions too Katy, on inclusion. I want to talk a minute about inclusion because when we started off, diversity was very binary. Are you man, are you woman. Then as we look at ethnicity and then we look at all various different areas. In the world now, of technology and mass personalisation, literally everybody is diverse in some way. That's why this authentic question is so important. When you look at inclusion, I think that is the absolutely crucial part of it. Because that means what you're doing is, you are trying to bring the best of you into a situation. If you are mentoring or having the opportunity to influence others, then you are bringing the best of them into an organisation. Men are crucial in my life. If it weren't for my father and my brothers and now my husband all on that personal front, I would be nowhere close to where I am today. Everybody that gave me a real one up in life, everybody that said, out of this field of nobody that looks like her, we will pick her. We'll pick the little farm girl from Parma, Idaho. Those were men. So, men are vital, and inclusion is vital. And I just kind of wanted to bring those all together because it's not about, are you male or are you female or are you this or are you that. It's about are we bringing the best of ourselves together to solve a lot of tough problems that need to be solved these days?

Hemione: Yeah I think that's exactly what we're aiming for is really, how do you create an environment where everyone can thrive and really reach their full potential? That's what we're looking for.

Katy: Thank you both. I think that's a great final message. That emphasis on inclusion and the role all of us can play in creating the environment. We always end with the same question, I'm hoping you've been warned, but as we draw to a close of what has been an amazing episode, I just wanted to ask both of you what makes you feel empowered?

Deanna: Well I take a lot of energy from other people. So I have to tell you Katy, this has been a very empowering experience for me and thank you very much.

Katy: Brilliant, I'm so glad.

Deanna: And it's always empowering to be with Hemione. But I think that it is seeing that impact that the collective people together can have on a challenge or something going forward. Now, where I am in my stage of life now I am really focusing my time on others. That next generation in work, business leaders that are coming up. I started a non-profit several years ago about trying to empower diverse candidates on governing boards, and to have them be seen and get in, because diverse groups make better decisions. But also on a very personal note, it's really thrilling to have grandchildren. All those times where you didn't have the time to focus on each and everything on a child, I'm making up for it as a grandmother. So that's a pretty empowering thing to end on for me.

Hemione: Well I think that's a fantastic reflection, Deanna. And I'm not quite at the grandparenting stage yet, definitely still in the parenting stage, but it's hugely empowering for me personally as well. But I think you've summed it up really well. I think having opportunities is hugely empowering. That's when you feel that you can be your best self. As you see the opportunities for whatever it is you want to achieve in life, that is hugely empowering. And then the ability to help other people get the opportunities that they want is also hugely empowering for me.

Katy: Well thank you both. I'm not sure what I did to get the opportunity to host this but I always find it so empowering to hear these stories. Thank you both for coming along today. That brings us to the end of this very special episode. It's been a hugely insightful conversation. I'd like to thank you both for your time and for sharing your stories. To you, our listeners, as ever, thank you for tuning in and don't forget to share your thoughts and stories on social media using the hashtag #HowToEmpower.