Friday Foundations: How to Get a Seat at the Table w/ Carina Clingman, CEO, Recruitomics Consulting

Welcome everyone. It is Friday foundations. We are going to go over how to get a seat at the table today, which is a topic that I think is really important for everyone, no matter what level they are, whether they're a new employee at a company, whether they manage a team, or maybe they're an entrepreneur and they have their own company. So this sort of is widely applicable. This is our roadmap for today. We're going to go step by step through this and at the end, hopefully you will have a clear idea of how you can work toward getting a seat at the table, whichever table that is. So imposter syndrome, this is a term that is thrown around pretty widely. It's one that I'm using here because it's known. I want to reframe it a little bit. For us, this is a widely accepted view. Everybody has imposter syndrome or something like it. It's just that people view it differently. So if you think about it very clearly, imposter syndrome is really simply just the doubting of yourself, your abilities, feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affects high achieving people. And that is where we're going to dive in. Additionally, I think it's important to note that just feeling unsure, and this is where I wanna reframe the discussion a little bit. Just feeling unsure doesn't make you an imposter. You are allowed to feel unsure. And so we're going to go through how you can acknowledge that, sit with it, and then move through those feelings so that you can become really productive. What we don't want to do is become overconfident or arrogant. This is not the goal. All right, so there are some important steps to battling self doubt. And so this is where I'm reframing it. Let's call it self doubt and not imposter syndrome, because you are not an imposter. This is what has been touted in the media since the 70s. But the thing is, everybody battles with it and the thing that the media has done that I think is a disservice, is that the media has made it more of a women's issue. And it is not a women's issue. It isn't everybody issue, it is a people issue. If you are trying to do something new, if you are trying to lead something, if you are trying to inspire change, you're going to feel some of these feelings. And so it's just a matter of learning the strategies for how to move through them. And I think one of the easiest strategies is just to talk about it. It's so enlightening when you start to open up about your feelings of insecurity, how many people around you actually have those same feelings. So once you hear that, it almost debunks those insecurities. Because if you're looking at high performing people, especially if it's a mentor or someone you really trust, and you know that they're killing it at their job and they're saying, yep, I feel that way too. It brings your own self worth up a little bit to realize that you're not the only one struggling with these feelings. And everybody does. Start to eliminate self diminishing language from your vocabulary, both your internal vocabulary and your external vocabulary. There is a lot of reframing to be done and simply the way we talk about ourselves and our accomplishments, and that takes practice. So this is not an overnight thing, but just start to make steps toward reframing your language. This one's fun. Teaching Others White I always think that that teaching is the best way to solidify your own knowledge about something. So as soon as I've learned something, I love to turn around and teach it to someone who's just a few steps behind me. I'm not trying to be the world expert at anything, but by teaching it, I feel that I internalize the information more and I feel more confident about my own skills in an area. So try that. If you're feeling like you're struggling with something, try getting solid enough to teach somebody else and that may just help you overcome those feelings of self doubt. This one is really key. Getting Curious so I remember clearly a time in graduate school I was about to give a talk and I am not a nervous public speaker. Everyone has a certain level of nerves about public speaking that is both useful and productive. You don't want to be basically asleep during your talk. But I was irrationally nervous about this one talk I had to give. And it was. It was simple. It was like a departmental talk. It really should not have been a big deal. And I didn't know this trick back then. I didn't get curious. I just bumbled my way through. I gave a frankly subpar presentation. And afterward when I was really debriefing with my colleagues. So that's where I came back and I talked about it with some trusted colleagues. What became apparent was if I had gotten curious about it, I would've realized it was due to one particular person coming to that talk who honestly scared the crap out of me. And this is Wright Feliso, a Nobel laureate who was coming to the talk, but in really thinking about that, getting curious, understanding the root cause of the insecurity, that scared feeling, that self doubt and those nerves, what I could have perhaps done was reframe it in my mind and maybe gotten a perspective check, which is our next thing from some of my colleagues who were supportive because that individual was taking time to come to my talk because he wanted to learn what I had to say about it. I was the world expert on this one RNA binding protein that doing this one particular thing, he wanted to know what my insights were. And I think that's both scary but empowering. And so to get curious, to understand it is to debunk the fear. So start to get curious and then have that perspective check from your friends. Get a few good friends together, get curious with them and sometimes you'll solve the problem. One thing that's really nice to do too, and I know this is a long list of things, but there are a lot of tactics to overcome these feelings and I, I personally use all of them at different points. If you can list your own accomplishments to yourself and start to own them, it's going to make you feel better. It is amazing what you have accomplished. You are amazing. If you don't take time to think about all of the things that you've done in the past week, month, 10 years, whatever, you're not going to realize how amazing you are. So sit down and do a little bit of thinking on that and maybe again pull in some great friends that are supportive of you. Practice accepting compliments. This one I still struggle with. It is hard to accept compliments for some people. If you can, you're going to start to internalize those accomplishments a little bit more deeply. So practice it. Practice makes perfect. And then once again, I think this network, this peer group, this community that you can build for yourself is so important. Because if you are talking to your colleagues and you're saying, I have this particular hill to climb, I don't know how to do it, it's likely that someone else has and you're going to get two things out of that. Two things will happen. First of all, you may get a boost in your knowledge, you may get a leg up because they've already done something and they're going to get a boost in their self confidence because they're going to teach you what they did. So building this community and mentoring and being mentored, it is a two way street and that boosts everyone's self confidence. And so we highly recommend the mentorship component and this goes hand in hand with that. If you empower others, you're going to feel empowered. This is a whole positivity loop. So close the loop and feel better about yourself, your skills and just own that you are awesome. All right, so we have battled our insecurities. This is a lifelong battle. So it's super fun. Have fun with that. We're gonna move on to one of the things that you can start doing to take steps towards sitting at the table, whatever table that is you wanna sit at. We need to understand what our own strengths are. So it is worth your time to sit down and make a list of things that you are very good at. And separately a list of things you love doing. They may not be the same things and that's okay, but if you can marry a few of those things so something that you are both good at and you enjoy doing, if you can put those together in service to something you're trying to accomplish, you are going to be very good at that thing. You are going to bring your team forward. So think very deeply about that and then think about how you can apply those things in your work and your life. So not everything is about work, right? Leveraging your skills to drive things home, forward at home, to drive forward projects that you're doing in your life, personal development projects, for instance, these are things that you can leverage your own skills at as well. So think about what those are, how can you put them into play productively and then start to share those qualities with your team because they need them and that you coming to share is going to encourage other people to share. Sit down with them, brainstorm with them and figure out what for all the qualities that your team possesses, the strengths, their passion, and see where you all can unite in service of a common goal or mission. If you're able to leverage your team, it will elevate everybody and you're going to start to become a bit of a leader if you are driving that force. So I'm going to give you a few examples that you can use in real life. If you are an employee with no direct reports, perhaps you're an entry level person. This is something you can still do. So by looking at your own skill set and knowing what you're good at and what you'd like to be doing, helping your team to understand what those things are, you can start to drive projects forward and your boss is going to notice. They will notice. So start to harness the team power and be the one driving forward that innovation. Say, I am great at this, and you are great at that. Together we can accomplish xyz. If you are an employee with direct reports, so you are a team lead or you have some several teams under you, you can ask your teams to do the same exercise and start to evaluate the strengths of the various members across the organization. This is going to let you understand if there are holes in the expertise and passions of your team, because as you grow your team, you can strategically fill those holes. And that is going to make you a very valuable team leader. Your boss will notice that. And finally, if you are an entrepreneur and you are driving the company's vision forward, you have to rely pretty heavily on all of the people under you who are managing their teams, who are doing the projects. And so you're going to start to notice those people who are absorbing and using the skill sets and the strengths of their team. And if you are going out and working with clients, let's say you're even a solopreneur, you don't have teams yet, but you're working directly with clients, you can start to leverage your own strengths and maybe the strengths of contractors you work with or other service providers that are related to you tangentially. And you can start to really elevate your service to your clients so that they start to see you as the expert, as the strategy lead, not just somebody doing something for them. With Recruitomics, which is a talent strategy company, we work with startup biotechs and they often don't have a lot of strategy around talent acquisition. So one thing that we do is we encourage them, for instance, to bring in an HR consultant if they don't have one yet, to leverage other contractors to hire efficiently and effectively and to really think about the headcount and why they need people to think about leveling and titling and compensation and equitable hiring practices and retention and all of the things that go into making a company successful. So we are now at that table. We're not just hiring, we're not just a recruiting firm trying to find some people for them. We are driving their entire company and business forward. All right, this one is something I wish I had started to do way earlier. So if you are just starting out, you have a leg up on me. Develop your personal brand. There are four components to your personal brand and it actually can be really fun to develop. So you've got your image, you've got your mission, you've got your values and your vision. If you can get really clear on what those things are, you are going to become the expert People start to go to. So this can look very simple when you're first starting out. Get your own website, get a blog. You can do that for free. There are certain places you can go to to have your own free web presence and blog. But start to write about what you love, what you're passionate about, what your vision and your values are and start to establish that's the foundation. And then as you move through your career, you can build on that, you can iterate on that. It doesn't mean you need to be a social media influencer or anything like that. It is simply what are you good at? What do you want to be doing and how do you bring that to the world? That's your brand. This one I cannot emphasize enough. You can build a personal brand and you can start to move toward bringing your team onto the same page and building out a team in a well rounded way where the strengths are all complimentary and that's all great. That is a long term strategy and I encourage you to do it. This you can do today. Creating a sense of urgency around what you are doing is the thing that will get you noticed by your colleagues, by your bosses, by your clients. It is so important. So anytime I see a sense of urgency in a person, I take them more seriously. That's just human nature. If you have someone who comes to you and they're like, yeah, I'm doing, I'm doing XYZ this week, you're like, okay, that's great, thanks for letting me know. But if someone says, hey, I identified a problem, this is a solution that's possible, what do you think about that? Can I implement that? I'd like to do it quite quickly so that we can overcome this problem that is way more impressive to me as a leader. So the sort of do it now, not by the end of the week mentality, that is impressive. That is what we want to see in people who we're bringing to the table. In a Gallup poll, it turns out that people fall into roughly three categories of employees. The first are engaged employees. These people are working with passion. They know their values, they understand the mission, they are driving the innovation of the company and that just motivates people around them. They are urgent people doing an urgent thing, which is to follow the mission. So these are the employees that we invite to the table. They're moving the needle. There are employees that are not engaged and this is fine. There are employees like this in every organization. They are doing the job, they are doing it well. They are doing it on time. They are just not moving the organization forward, but they're also not hurting the organization. So they're contributing to the workload and that is a tremendous help. But they're not necessarily getting a seat at the table. I assume if you're watching this, you would like a seat at the table. So try b one of the engaged employees. That's my advice. And then the third type is actively disengaged employees. And there are employees like this at every company. They are not particularly happy at work. They don't really align with the mission or care about the mission of the company or the vision. Working with people like this sort of brings the culture down and they're noticed in a bad way and they're definitely not invited to the table as well. So there are some things we can do to cultivate a sense of urgency, both in our colleagues and also our clients. Sometimes that's important too. And it's almost like when you bring the urgency, they the clients will often respond with urgency, which is the right thing. So if there is an issue at their company that you are trying to solve and you come with the plan of action, you come with the energy, the urgency, a lot of times they'll respond in kind. And so sometimes it's just showing up with that urgency that makes the difference. But let's go through these steps here that can help you to develop. First of all, we're going to secure buy in to our strategies as early as possible. When you identify a problem, work with your team or the client or whomever to understand the strategy. So you should, as the thought leader you are becoming, not come up with a problem and not bring solutions. That is not helpful. So identify a problem, bring two to three solutions if you can think of them, and develop a strategy that incorporates one or more of these solutions and present it to get buy in. I can't overstate how impressed I am when somebody says, I've identified a problem. Here are the solutions. I see. This is how we can implement it. I'm usually pretty eager to say okay, and that person has caught my attention also. So I think that's a really big one. As you are rolling out this strategy, try and be very confident without exhibiting a sense of panic or stress. Try not to give your team whiplash in their instructions. Make sure that you have managers in place. They're also operating from the same place of calm, forward momentum so that if we do identify a problem, we can all get on the same page and move calmly forward to addressing it next. One is make decisions confidently and then act quickly. One of the main things that separates leaders from the crowd within a company, within life, is that decisive action. So being able to identify a problem, look at all of the data, come up with solutions and move forward, even if it's the wrong thing. There are different types of decisions and very few of them are irreparable, meaning you can never go back or you can never reset from a decision with the data. If it's good data, with the team in place, with the buy in, just move forward. Don't worry overly about whether it is the perfect thing to have done. Analysis paralysis is going to be the cause of most loss of momentum in your team. And then this one's really interesting, but exhibiting a little bit of urgency in your body language, and that is hard these days with zoom and our asynchronous communication that we are all doing. But when you're on zoom, trying to make eye contact with the camera, I know it's not a person and it's weird, but it does come across as more assertive and more engaged when you are working with people and try not to be taking notes of things. I know it's essential to take notes sometimes, but that does look like you're distracted if you're off typing and doing something else. In this really cool technological shift that we are undergoing right now, there are a lot of tools that plug into your existing meeting, tools that will take notes for you using AI. So look at those, There are some great ones out there. I'm not going to list any because by the time I do, there'll be 15 more on the market and this will be dated. But make sure that you're using technology to eliminate the need to take handwritten notes or to be typing notes, because then you could be fully engaged, fully present and ready to jump in and present solutions as needed. I know this list is long, but there are a lot of ways to create urgency and these are very important. So encouraging others and stepping in. If somebody's not living up to your expectations, if you have a member of your team dragging down the sense of urgency, it is appropriate to call that out using the correct channels. So if you are in a team and they are your colleague, it is appropriate to go to the leader of the team and say, we are not making momentum in X space. Can we work on that? This is not tattling on somebody. It is simply looking at the overall goal of the organization, of the group, of the project, of the client, and insisting that everyone is Living up to their end of the bargain. Celebrating successes. This is difficult, especially again in our asynchronous environment that we're living in. There are some tools to help with this. There are some slack tools, some bots that will give kudos and praise. But celebrating successes and trying to communicate when you are really happy with the performance of your team or when a client has a success, things like that do create a sense of urgency and just camaraderie in your team. All right, these ones are. These last three are really key and they are things that you can do and you're not relying on anybody else to do. Keeping meetings short and agenda driven or just eliminated altogether. This is a big one because companies suffer from too many meetings. There's a lot of data around this and if we can eliminate some of these meetings, we can do more productive work. If you do need to have a meeting, have an agenda, keep it short. If you can agree on deadlines that are reasonable and actionable and you meet them, you are going to appear to have a sense of urgency. If you have missed deadlines or you have agreed to unreasonable deadlines and therefore miss them, it is not going to look like you have a sense of urgency. So simply make it easier on yourself. Agree to reasonable deadlines and then meet them. That will be something that people will notice, they'll appreciate, and it will give you that sense of urgency. And they might reciprocate too if there is a back and forth. If a client has a thing to do and you have a thing to do and you come with yours done, they they will feel that they need to also have met their obligations and finally set your own personal goals. You are here, I assume, listening to this talk because you have some personal goals that you want to work on. So think about what those are and make sure that you are just putting one foot in front of the other every single day with your own personal goals for improving your speed, implementing new technologies in your workflow, improving the quality of work, improving your strategic thinking, improving your sense of mission, value, urgency. Whatever your goals are, every single day, show up for yourself and work on them. All right, that was a long one. But that urgency, I cannot overstate how important it is. Next, let's talk about finding a mentor. Mentors are amazing and they will take you so much farther than you even know. I have had so many mentors in my life and I have paid for professional coaching. I have paid for groups that have offered mentorship coaching or a certain type of a lesson that I've needed at that point in my career. Mentors provide so many amazing benefits. They are motivating. You can look at their successes, they can help you set goals, they can just talk about their experiences. And it goes both ways. Like I mentioned earlier, a mentor mentee relationship means that they get to teach and that also gives them a feeling of satisfaction and it boosts their own self confidence. So it's really a nice symbiotic relationship. Find a mentor. Find a community where there are mentors. Make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people who are elevating you always. I should also say a mentor does not need to be somebody way above you. They could be one step beyond you. They could have graduated school and now they're in the workforce and you're about to graduate. It really doesn't need to be some lofty person. It is great when you do have a mentor that is so far along in their career that they can give you tons of pearls of wisdom. But sometimes a mentor can be a peer that just has done something else first or a little bit differently than you. So surround yourself with a great peer group, all right? And this comes into how you build relationships. And this is so important for getting a seat at the table because the people that I invite to my table are people I trust. And so they have built authentic relationships with me. And I feel that's the same with our clients. With anybody that I interact with, if they want my opinion, it's usually because they trust me. So being focused on how you communicate, how you show up, are you positive? Are you sharing knowledge openly? All of these things build these relationships. This one here is interesting because being open and letting him in on your life a little bit, this does not mean that you need to go through your whole childhood and all of your traumas. This simply means make human connections. So it can be as simple as. I was on a call the other day with a potential client and she had just traveled back from London and our COO who was on the call is going to London next week. And I had been to London last month. And so we all just, you know, sat around giggling about how coincidental it was that we were all in London within two months of each other and sharing some cool stuff to do in London. That's the type of human relationship that that kind of builds that trust. They look at you as, oh, they're also a human like me because they went to London. It's very powerful to find common ground with people. And you can be totally different. But at the End of the day, you are all people. And the human experience has elements that are shared. And then I think this one's great. Exceed expectations. Just try in everything you do to exceed expectations and you will build trust so quickly. It's not always possible, but where you can over deliver, under promise, over deliver and you will have made yourself into a very trustworthy partner. All right, so last, we're just going to talk a little bit about communication style. This one is a tough one and this is another lifelong thing to work on. If you have not read Radical Candor by Kim Scott. I think that's a must read for everybody, regardless of who they are in a company, whether they're an entry level, a student, they manage a large team, or they own the company. This book develops an understanding of the types of communication styles that people have, and it really helps to understand how you can come to a problem from a place of kindness. Now, nice and kind are actually very different things. If you are overly nice, you might not tell somebody that their presentation really sucks, right, because you don't want to hurt their feeling. But that doesn't make them better as an employee, that doesn't make them better as a person. That doesn't get them their next job. So giving somebody really constructive feedback in a kind way, this is a diplomatic but kind way, is actually a lot better than just being nice and not saying anything. So there are four different types of communication styles. And just in a nutshell, if you are seeing somebody in your workplace, and there are some of these, that is a passive communicator. They are letting other people take up more space than them. They are giving ground, they are giving space, and other people are asserting their own rights over theirs. That is not a healthy way to live. And it's not going to get them a seat at any tables. The next style is passive aggressive. And this is a really detrimental thing to have in a workplace. Definitely don't be this person. This is somebody who thinks that their rights and needs are more important than others. And the way they go about making that known is in a really underhanded, kind of sneaky way. This is really hurtful to the culture of any group, any community, and definitely should be avoided. The next is also to be avoided. This is an aggressive person. So this is somebody who boldly insist that their rights, their needs, their person is more important than others of the organization. And that is a harmful thing for the culture as well, because especially in the case of some people who may be passive, they're really dominating the conversation and they're not going to make the best decisions because they're not hearing other people around them and they're not going to hear the criticisms and internalize it into making themselves better. So I'm sure you can think of a few aggressive people in your life and in the news, but let's avoid that one. This is where we want to land and it is hard to be here all the time. I would say every person, just because they are a person, is a mix of all four of these. We are trying to get ourselves more toward the assertive side. If you are in a company and you are an assertive personality, that is not a bad thing. It means that you are speaking up the right level. You are making your needs heard, you are making your ideas heard, but you are also making space for other people's needs and ideas. So it is an empathetic and kind way to operate. So you can come from this assertive place, give constructive feedback in a kind way, and you can help your employees, you can help your colleagues, you can help your client to be better. And this is where you start to become an expert. If you are able to bring your expertise to the table calmly, clearly, with urgency, and in an assertive, kind way, you are going to have a seat at the table. You've done it. All right. Finally we've got this awesome guy here. It is more than just showing up, but showing up is half the battle. Come every single day with your whole self, with your values, with your mission, and you will work toward getting a seat at the table. So keep all of these things in mind and know that one day at a time, you're going to get there. If this has resonated with you, please reach out. We are building a community collaboratory that is aimed at providing all of this sort of support and mentorship and career development that helps you to advance your career. So we would love to have you join us to supercharge your career. I hope that you will consider becoming a member. Some of the things we do are these live events which are at least weekly, if not more. We have recruiters that if you are in a job seeking stage, which is just a season, but it is a stressful season, if you are in that season and you are looking for a new job. We have the team from Recruitomics Consulting. They are expert recruiters and they are there to help make your job search a little bit easier with some really targeted help. We also have a great team of coaches coming in. Everything from DEI coaches to leadership coaches, professional development, coaches, you name it. So we are about the whole person making sure that the community is supportive in all of the ways that matter to you. So consider it. We'd love to have you.