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>> Hi, this is Lisa Martin
covering the 5th annual women transforming technology event.
But the first time this event has been completely digital.
Coming to you from my home in San Jose,
and I'm very pleased to welcome one of the event's speakers,
the CEO of Be Leaderly, Jo Miller.
Jo, welcome to theCUBE.
>> Hi Lisa, a pleasure speaking with you today.
>> Likewise.
So I was looking up some information on you Jo
you are quite impressive and I wanted
to share that with our viewers.
You have dedicated two decades to really helping women
advance in their careers, into positions of influence.
You've spoken with 100,000 plus women in that time
and you've developed a roadmap that you published
in 2019, a book.
Tell us about that book
and some of the really interesting things
you've learned along the way.
>> Thanks for asking!
Well look the book was really born
out of a conversation I had about 15 years ago
with a woman, a software engineer,
who told me that she felt like
she was the best kept secret in her organization
and of course, you know,
being indispensable in your current role
won't move your career forward
and she had become indispensable for doing the type of work
that was downplaying her potential
and it started me on this journey
of understanding how is it that
we as women can end up being
the best kept secrets in the organization,
that invisible employee, so to speak.
But also, speaking to hundreds of very successful,
very seasoned women leaders to understand
how did they advance in to the positions
of influence that they're in today and so,
uh, you've got the opportunity
through a publisher to formalize those
more than ten years of you know,
speaking, and workshops, and all of the interviews
that I've accumulated over time, all of that,
expertise that I have learned from
and put it together into my book
with the nine steps that women can take
to really thrive in advancing their careers
and leave a leadership legacy.
>> And what are, give me the first
like three steps in the book is women of influence:
nine steps to build your brand, establish your legacy,
and thrive.
Give me like the first three steps
that we need to be able to do.
>> Well, I think one of the most important ones
is to realize that we are all already leaders
whether we're in that high level executive leadership
position or not, and so, a first step
is just to understand all of the ways
in which you're already a leader
and to identify your own leadership strengths
which you can do at any career phase quite frankly.
From there, it's about understanding
what do you bring to the table that could be
a unique value proposition to your organization
and matching your strengths to work
that you are passionate about or care deeply about,
in delivering something that your company or industry
or customer base really needs and values
and I call that your leadership superpower.
So, from your strengths,
identifying that niche or superpower
and then up leveling that,
so taking your personal brand
and everything you have learned
about your strengths and your value
and turning that personal brand
into a leadership brand so that people around you
start to sit up and pay attention
and notice the leader in you,
but even more so I think so that
you can see the leader in yourself.
>> That's great advice, especially now
with the COVID-19 crisis that is,
regardless of what industry you are in,
if you were someone that has worked from home before,
it's completely different now,
the uncertainty in everything whether it's
job security or can I get Clorox wipes?
It's a huge challenge.
Do you find that those nine steps
are still the same if not even more important
in today's climate?
>> I'll leverage what you said
and say they're the same
but possibly even more important,
you know, if you think about how you were perceived
say two months ago, and the value that
people around you see in you,
well that may have shifted dramatically
now that our world has changed
and frankly there's never been a time
where there has been a greater need
for people to step up and bring leadership to the table.
And so I really encourage people right now,
if you have the time in that busy work life and home life,
that have become so mushed together,
see if you can take a moment or two to step back
and think about how has my world changed
and what other really big problems
that are emerging or what are the leadership gaps
that I could be uniquely built to fill
and start to just kind of reinvent
and reimagine how you want to be perceived
as a leader, like what's that you value proposition
that you have to offer in this changed world
that's going to continue changing.
>> I like that.
Reimagine and rethink because
even though there is a lot of crisis
and challenge going on right now,
there are opportunities.
So I like your advice of encouraging women and men
to really reevaluate what it is that you can bring
uniquely positioned, to help however
your company is pivoting in this time
because there is going to be a lot of change
that is probably permanent as a result of this.
So how, one of things that I love
is talking about the difference
between a mentor and a sponsor
and you did a session at WT2 the other day,
90 minute interactive session digitally
that's a challenge.
So I am very impressed and excited to hear about that
but you were talking to women
about attracting the advocacy of influential sponsors.
So, first off describe for our audience the difference
between a mentor and a sponsor
because I'll be honest with you,
I didn't even really know there was a difference
until a couple of years ago.
>> I love this topic too Lisa and an article
that really peaked my passion and interest
in sponsorship is one that appeared
in Harvard business review, again about a decade ago,
and by the way the article was titled
'Why men still get more promotions than women'
and so that truly picked my interest
because I'm so fascinated by anything
that can help women advance in their careers,
but the article was some authors of a study
saying that they'd found that hypertensial women
were over mentored and under sponsored
relative to their male peers and that
that was one of the reasons that they weren't advancing
as much in their organization
and so I think that the key distinction
between mentors and sponsors can be understood
first by knowing that a sponsor is,
like a mentor, someone that believes in you
but they might see that potential
that's unformed or untapped potential
you might not even see in yourself
and they're willing to place a bet on your talent
and put their reputation on the line
to advocate for you and put your name forward
and publicly support you, and so,
they're really putting themselves
and their own political and social capital
on the line, so compared to a mentor
they do go beyond giving the feedback and the advice
in order to bring their accumulated political
and social and career capital to move your career forward
within an organization.
And so, look you know, whereas a mentor might
help you skill up, a sponsor will help you move up
and mentors will certainly talk to you
but a sponsor is someone who will talk about you
so if you can imagine, you know a mentor
gives you advice on climbing the ropes,
on uh on um, sorry a mentor will give you advice
um, on uh, sorry just lost my train of thought there!
>> Your advice on what, climbing the ladder.
>> Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah,
I meant what shows you the ropes,
there found it!
A mentor shows you the ropes, whereas a sponsor
is the one who helps you climb those ropes
and so really what I meant, or what a sponsor is like
is that rocket fuel for your career but in a good way.
They can really alter your career trajectory
and move you forward with new momentum.
>> Can a sponsor be someone that you're currently
working for?
>> Yeah, absolutely.
And of course not every manager or leader
in your management chain will be a sponsor
if you're lucky you'll have one
but it might be a leader in a completely different area
of the organization but I think one of the
practical suggestions that I gave
to the participants in my session was
start to notice who the sponsors are
in the organization around you
like learn to spot the leaders who have the qualities
that make a good sponsor.
>> So if I'm out there doing that
and I'm maybe going to write down,
all right, who have been my mentors over the last few years,
who do I think maybe from that category
could become a sponsor, looking for sponsors
what do we need to know about what a sponsor
is going to expect of us.
>> Well you know one of the really important distinctions
to know about is that when you can go and ask someone
to be your mentor, you really can't ask someone
to be a sponsor in fact that might backfire,
it might have the opposite effect
and so sponsorships not something
that you would you probably go and directly request,
it's something that you earn instead.
So, some of the things that sponsors
will look to in you would be
are you able to be committed and loyal to their goals
and the goals of the organization
and are you delivering outstanding performance
that goes beyond what's being asked of you
in your job description and role.
But they're also looking for you to bring
something truly unique and special to the table
and that goes back to our earlier comments,
our conversation about understanding
what your strengths are, your technical
and your leadership strengths and how you can apply them
to bring something truly unique
to the organization that differentiates you.
So that's one of the things that we can do
to start to attract sponsors which is
to do that self-inventory of what can I bring to the table,
what problems can I solve, what leadership gaps can I fill.
>> So Jo let's talk about your 90 minute interactive session
that you digitally for WT2 the other day.
Given the gravity of the situation
that COVID-19 is delivering
tell me about some of the comments
and the questions that you had,
a woman going 'All right, in today's climate
when we're not sure about even job certainty
how do I up my chances of finding a sponsor?'
>> Mhm, you know and I think it speaks
to the timeliness of the topic.
I think we had more than 300 people join the session
and so one of the things that I love to do
is to make it as interactive as I can
by having some panelists join
who spoke about examples of the sponsorship
that they've gained in their career.
But we also heard a lot from participants
who are sending their comments in via the chat
giving examples of the times when
they had been sponsored, how it began,
what the sponsors were able to do to help them
move forward in their careers
and then as we went further along in the session
we spoke about the concept of micro sponsorship
and how one of the most important ways to understand
how sponsorship works is to sponsor someone else
and so we saw just a wealth of examples
and comments coming from participants
about all the ways that they were declaring
they were going to take action by sponsoring
someone else in their organization.
>> So a micro sponsorship that is an interesting concept,
tell me a little bit more about that
is that say, I'm a sponsor and I'm going
to sponsor someone else or is it I have a sponsor
and I'm going to get another sponsorship from that?
>> Hmm, good question, so there's
a couple of myths around sponsorship.
One is that you do need to be a high level executive
who's able to promote someone
or create the perfect role for them
or give them that high exposure assignment.
And that's certainly one way that sponsorship
can take place, the big gestures.
But one of the executives I interviewed,
(inaudible)
said look you don't necessarily
need to be an executive to be a sponsor
but you do need to have influence
and I think we all have influence,
we just might not completely leverage it
to the greatest extent we can.
So we're leaving our influence on the table
so if you can't sponsor someone in big ways
think about looking for micro sponsorship moments
in which you notice a colleague perhaps
who's talent is going unseen or under leveraged
and recommend that person, put them forward
for an ideal opportunity
or it might be something as simple as
when you see someone share a great idea
and no one notices, amplify that idea,
attach the person's name to it,
or when someone is being spoken over the top of,
say 'let her finish' and so we can sponsor
in large and in small ways.
That's what I mean by micro sponsorship
so notice the scope of your influence
and use whatever influence you have
to be speaking up and advocating for others.
>> I love that. Thank you for that clarification.
Were there concerns right now
with all of the uncertainty, the volumes
of people that have applied for unemployment.
Were there any concerns from the audience
in your session about if somebody else has a great idea
will it just highlight that I don't?
And will I be in you know a bright light
a is she really delivering value
if were having to cost cut, were there
any concerns that the women brought up?
>> Um, not that I noticed but by the way
there were 300 people in the session
so the chat log was going through so fast
and if I was lucky I was able
to pluck a few comments to read back to the audience.
But I think you're right on target
with that concern, I can only assume
that a number of people have had that concern for themselves
so one of the things that I talked about
is the importance of making your value visible
and how you don't want to speak up
and amplify and promote every single thing that you do
but be really strategic about amplifying the accomplishments
that align with your aspirations.
So, you know speak up and showcase and reveal
and make known those high profile results
that you are delivering that align
with where you want to go in your career
and of course that frees you up
to be amplifying and promoting and making visible
the achievements of others in the organization.
In fact, I think if we care
about having diverse and equitable workspaces
we really need to be lifting others up.
>> I love that.
Focus on the visible.
Last question, in the last few seconds
that we have here, how does a company
go about building a culture of sponsorship
and how do you see that?
>> Mhm, that's interesting because you know
a lot of companies have a really fully-formed
culture of mentorship and they have formalized
mentorship programs.
On the other hand there tends not to be
so many companies that are having sponsorship initiatives
but those that do typically will attach them
to an existing talent or high potential
or diversity initiative and so if you're in
a position of influence and leadership
and one thing of course to do is be
open and transparent about what it would take
for you to sponsor someone.
But if you're already doing that take it a step further
and champion having an open and diverse
and equitable culture of sponsorship
in the organization, talk to other leaders
about what that looks like
and get involved in those existing talent
and diversity and high potential initiatives
and champion the idea of adding a sponsorship
component where participants are matched to leaders
and the leaders have accountability to help produce results
in that participant's career advancement.
>> I love that, accountability.
This is definitely a topic Jo that I love talking about
mentors vs sponsors and it sounds like
it's one that just needs more and more and more
air cover so people really understand
that there is tremendous value there.
I wish we had more time,
but it has been such a pleasure
talking with you Jo I really appreciate that.
We thank you for joining us on theCUBE
and we appreciate the fact
that you have been able to do this,
remotely from Iowa, I am in San Jose,
so for Jo, I am Lisa Martin
and you are watching theCUBE's coverage of women
transforming technology, the digital version, 2020.
Thanks for watching.
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