E25: Why You Must Question Your Career...Now!

<LYRICS>A circle that floats around me, keeping me safe and sound. And when I fall, you tied a rope to me. You're blessing me every day. I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings. But now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet.

That you showed up</LYRICS> Hi everyone, welcome to Inclusion Unscripted. Thank you for joining me today. Inclusion Unscripted is livestreamed every Friday at 2 PM on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. I want to thank you all for joining this program. For all of you who've never joined me before, my name is Margaret Spence. And I am the founder of the Inclusion Learning Lab and the host of Inclusion Unscripted. We come to you every week on this live show and on our podcast because all of the live shows are transitioned over to our podcast and we are on all the podcast apps. So if you want to listen to one of the prior events, please go ahead and download Inclusion Unscripted from your, your podcast app. Like us on YouTube, like us here on LinkedIn. Follow the work that I am doing around diversity and inclusion. So what is Inclusion Unscripted?

Basically, we are unscripted.

We speak every week about diversity and inclusion, women's leadership development, career management, how we navigate the faces as diverse people. Inclusion Unscripted is simply this: we're not just talking about diversity and inclusion, we're living it. We're living it every day. I'm living it every day. I bring to this my real-world experience, my real-world, um, navigation points with clients and customers and in life itself.

So, um, what I want to talk about today, today's hot topic is about career navigation and career management.

This entire month we are focused here at Inclusion Unscripted, we are uniquely focused around talent acquisition. That is the theme of this month. So let me tell you about a couple things we have coming up next Wednesday. Um, We have a, what we call Third Wednesday, which is a DE&I, an opportunity for DE&I leaders to join in an open discussion around the hot topic. And this week's topic is hiring diverse talent. What do we need to do and how do we do that better? So join us at 1:00 PM on Wednesday for Third Wednesday. So that's one. The other thing is, for all of you who are doing the work of diversity and inclusion, we want to encourage you to join the Inclusion Learning Lab community. I launched the community about 2 months ago. We've been working on a wheel for the last several months to get the Inclusion Learning Lab community up and running. Inside of the community, we are here to support DE&I leaders. Here's the reason why I did the Learning Lab community? Here's the main reason: 95% of you work in unsupported silos. As the diversity and inclusion manager for your organization, you are often working in an unsupported silo. What we wanna do is help you become a strategic business partner, help you to think at a higher level when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

Giving you tools and skills and resources, but also giving you a community where other people who are doing the same work as you can support you, who can uplift you, who can be there as your sounding board, who could share best practices with you, who could give you the tools and skills that you may not have even thought of.

So I encourage you to come to one of our, um, demos, which we're going to start doing next week, where we're going to demo the community and you can get to see the inner workings and the inside of the community and what I've created to support the D&I community. So having said all of that, today's Inclusion Unscripted is all about helping you manage your career.

Last week we spoke at length.

I had Kirsten Gregg on with me last week and we talked about how we fail diverse candidates, how we fail you in the process of getting hired. This week I'm talking directly to you about your career. I'm talking directly to you about how you navigate your career successfully. And, and here is the topic for this week: why you must question your career now. You must question your career now. Here's why you must question your career. There's so much talk out there about a recession. There's so much talk out there about us falling into a recession. Many of you may not remember 2007 and 2008 and 2009, and you may not remember 2002, 3, and 4 that led up to 2005, 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Because it's so far back in our thought process that we don't remember it.

If you were a part of the crisis, then you understand, um, what you went through as a person during that last depression. We called it a recession, but I call it a depression. Fast forward, quietly under the surface There are organizations that are desperate to find employees. There are organizations out there who are seeking out and trying to find diverse candidates and any candidate to work for them, but there's quietly a lot of layoffs going on in certain industries.

And so this is exactly what happened in 2007 and 2006 and 2005. There was this zeal for talent. There was this need to have talent. There was this zeal to look for talent.

There were lots of open positions and people saying it's the war on talent.

And that is what HR said, war on talent.

But quietly, different subset of organizations were laying off people quietly.

And nobody watched that layoff process occur.

Until we woke up one morning and people were en masse laying people off. So here's what I want you to do as a professional, as a Black professional, as a brown professional, as a Latinx Hispanic, as an Asian professional, as a Native American professional, an LGBTQ++ community member, We have got to manage our careers, but for Black professionals, it's even more imperative because we are often the ones that go out the door when there is a recession and a downturn in our career.

For, for those of you coming into your career for the first time, you are often the one that didn't have a lot of career guidance from your parents and your peer group, and even from the schools that you went to. So we are coming into the, the career ladder at a deficit because we often don't have the Rolodex, we don't have the level of, um, guidance, we don't have someone saying to us, hey, this is how you navigate your career.

So today for the time we have, for our 40-some minutes of this, um, podcast episode, this livecast, I want to really address for all of you early career, mid-career, late career.

I want to go through this, and I— and if I don't have enough time, we'll do a part 2 next week. We'll actually come to the table again next week and talk through on the Inclusion Unscripted ways to navigate your career at the door.

I was having a great conversation with one of my good friends and ardent supporter, and she was describing for me an individual who's applied for a job multiple times, um, and has not gotten the job. She was describing for me a person who's within an organization who's looking for advancement, and this individual continues to apply for job over and over and they didn't get the job. I was also talking to another friend who was telling me about, um, her son who was a recent graduate and how he's navigating trying to get from point A to point B and to get his first job. So the question I said to both of them is this: when you approach a job process.

How do you think about your role in the job process? See, here is the first tip that I'm going to drop on you. Are you the only option for the job, or are you the option on the hiring menu?

That is the first nugget that I want to drop for all of you today.

Are you the only option for the job, Or are you the option on the hiring menu?

So they get to say, well, Margaret doesn't have enough of this, and Margaret doesn't have enough of that, and maybe she needs a little bit more of this, or maybe she needs a little bit more of that, right?

So are you the only option? That's a really key question because oftentimes the way that we have positioned ourselves, even if we have no experience, the way that we've positioned ourselves leads us to be the option on the menu. They get to decide, should I eliminate her rather than should I include her in our next step of the hiring process? So oftentimes When we are job hunting or when we are looking for a promotion, we don't make ourselves the only option for the job.

We make ourselves a choice on the menu, and that is critical.

It's critical that we understand this first part, because if we are an item on the menu We haven't really explained our skills. We haven't developed the skill of explaining or seeing or helping others see us in the role. For those of you who are mid-career and you're applying for a promotion and you continue to get rejected during the process of the promotion, I'd say to you, You haven't networked your skill enough so that you are the only option for the job. See, oftentimes when people are telling you about your career, they don't tell you or show you how to network your skills. They tell you to put your head down and work really hard, and if you work really hard, you will be the option for the job. That's not true. Don't listen to that lie. Parents of Black kids, Hispanic kids, Asian kids, we do this. We do this in our core. We say to our kids, you just need an opportunity, take the opportunity. That ship sailed. It's not about the opportunity, because if I take the opportunity and I'm stagnant by taking the opportunity, then my first job will become my last job. My first job will derail everything else I do in the future because I will be typecasted. So this is what happens.

Let me, let me take this a little bit further.

If we don't learn how to question our career and question our decisions about our career, then we are actually a menu item for our entire career.

That is the fact, and that is the truth.

We have to question our career steps. We have to say to ourselves very clearly, am I the salad on the career menu, or am I the steak, the main course? Or am I not the steak, but am I the lobster? Am I the most expensive part of the career process, or am I the salad, french fries, mashed potatoes? This is the easiest way to explain this. There's no other way to explain it. You are either mashed potatoes in the hiring process, mashed potatoes in the promotion process, mashed potatoes in the up-level development process, mashed potatoes in the leadership development program that they'll put you in, or you are the lobster and the steak. And if we don't know which category we're sitting in, we will never be successful in our career growth. We will always sit as a menu option when it comes to our careers. And so all of you need to understand today, question your career. Question it. Ask yourself, what do I want next? What do I want, period? What do I want next? Why don't I have it now?

Is the question. And here's the thing for all of you listening to this, whether you're listening live or listening to the recording, and listening to us on the podcast.

This is the critical question. It is not 3 questions, it is 1 question. What do I want?

And what do I want now? And why don't I have it? It's 1 continuous line.

And if your answer to the question is, well, the reason I don't have it is because my boss or my company hasn't empowered me then we could stop the discussion right now.

Tune out, because that is never the answer. Your boss or your organization is not there to develop you.

Let me say that out loud, because oftentimes we think our company is there to develop us. No, our company is there to refine our skills so that our skills can be used to support the company. That's why we're there. It's up to us to determine our development. It's up to us to take development by the, by the horn. It's up to us to ride the horse that is called our own development. See, here is something that I've said a lot. If you've listened to me talk about career development. I've said this a lot. Here's the thing: when you're the own— when you're the item on the menu, you get to be laid off. When you're the item on the menu, you get to be denied a promotion.

When you're the item on the menu, you get to be stagnant in your career growth.

Here's what I would say to all of you is this, simply We have to understand how to empower our own development. The question is, what are the skills that I'm lacking, and what are the skills that I need so that I am the only option for this job, for this career, for this process? If you are a college student, I'm talking to everybody today. If you are a college student, the day you arrive in college, start your internship process. Do not wait until your senior year to start exploring job opportunities. Your white counterparts are doing the internship experience now. They are coming with— a lot of them are coming with their country club Rolodex. They can call up a friend and a friend can get them a job or an internship somewhere. I was talking with the CEO of a company that I worked with about 2 years ago, and he said to me, when I, when I was a junior in college, I called up one of my father's friends who was working at this company I'm working at now, and he said, come work here for the summer. And now I'm a division president. So there's a level of privilege that a diverse person doesn't have. But here's the deal for all of you diverse executives, for all of you diverse professionals, for all of you who are diverse in positions where you are a supervisor, a manager, a leader, an executive. It's up to you to reach into our communities and empower an early career person and tell them that it is important that they get the experience now. Do not go work at the local supermarket as a cashier. Do not go to work at McDonald's or Burger King unless you want to be in the restaurant industry. If you are doing a degree in economics, find a networking opportunity, find an internship, find an opportunity in your desired profession so that when you come to the table and a recruiter is talking to you, they clearly understand that you are serious and committed to the role that you're applying for.

We gotta tell our students different things, but I'm gonna do a program at the end of the month on college for college students.

But right now I'm talking about the rest of you.

You're applying for a new job, but we haven't made ourselves the option, the right option for the new job.

We're internal and we haven't accessed development opportunities. If your current supervisor won't develop you, ask his boss. Because right now, here's the thing, a lot of you are scared to empower yourself. You're scared to empower yourself. You're terrified to empower yourself. You found your voice, but you haven't really demonstrated that you found your voice. We cannot be a menu item in the hiring process anymore. We have to be the only option, not the diversity option, but the only option. I am the most qualified. I have demonstrated my skills and experience. I have decided that this is the role I want. And here's the thing for women, For women, for all of you women out there— Black women, Asian women, Hispanic women, Native women, anyone identifying as a woman— here's what I know. We tend to be overqualified, underdeveloped, underexperienced, and underacknowledged. That's where we sit.

As women.

Doesn't matter whether you're a white woman, Black woman, Hispanic woman, Asian woman, Native woman, identified as a woman. We are underdeveloped, period. So if we don't take our careers in our own hands, if we don't do that, then the organization gets to put a lid on our growth. They can put us through leadership development programs, but if we don't feel confident enough in ourselves, it's going to do us no good. If we aren't empowering ourselves, it won't do us any good.

Here's another thing that I know for sure.

As women, as women, let me talk to you women right now. As women, we do not support each other enough. We don't support each other enough. We still think that we are competing against each other. We still think that. The most demonstrative bosses that I had when I worked were white women. The most demonstrative, the ones who made me feel inadequate, were white women. For diverse women, we suffer under the hands of women who don't understand that if we don't stand together as women, we miss an opportunity for all women. We miss an opportunity for all women. We have to stand for women, period. We have to stand for women, right? We have to understand that if one of us succeeds, we all succeed. If one of us gets to the top, we all get to the top.

But here's an interesting thing, why this is so important about questioning your career and why I brought this to the table today.

We don't do enough to help diverse candidates understand how to get hired. We don't do enough. Recruiters don't have time to polish you up to make you ready to be hired. Your internal development team doesn't have enough time to empower you to get hired. A lot of you don't wanna invest in yourself. You just don't want to do it. I, I'll tell you, uh, an interesting story. I was asked to talk with a senior-level, um, leader in the education sector. Her boss asked me to talk to her, and the reason she asked me to talk to her was to empower her to invest in coaching her career.

To question the path she was on, to identify ways to adjust her lens along the path.

And when I talked to her and I said, hey, here's what it costs for an hour of coaching, she said to me, nah, that's a lot. And what I said to her in the process, because I got a little defensive, which I shouldn't have, but I got a little defensive at the fact that you want to be a high-level executive but you're not willing to invest in your own development. So I said to her, tell me, what kind of shoes do you go out and buy? And she told me she had several red bottoms. I said, what kind of purses do you buy? And she told me, I buy this and I buy that and I buy that. And I said, great, great brands.

I said, but one of those pocketbooks doesn't even cost enough doesn't even come up to the value of coaching and development. You're not going to get that in your organization. They're going to give you programs and drop you into it, but you've got to develop yourself.

And she says, I'm not willing to do that.

That's just a little bit too much right now. I don't think I can afford it.

So here's fast forward. Now she's looking at jobs.

And not able to navigate them successfully.

See, this is how it shows up later on.

We gotta invest and question our careers.

We've got to ask ourselves a simple question besides what do I want, or am I on the own—

am I an option on the menu? Besides those two original ones that I started with, we have to ask ourselves what label defines you.

What label defines you? What label in your organization— what is the label that defines you?

What is it?

If, if people were talking behind your back, what would be the label they would say about you?

Because that label that defines you is the one that's stopping you from moving from point A to point B.

It is stopping you from moving from point A to point B.

It is.

The next question I would ask you is, what's your vision today?

And is your vision dictating your reality? Because if you can't see or paint a vision for your own career, your manager, your leader, your organization, the hiring manager cannot paint it for you.

You've got to be able to paint a vision for your own career. You've got to be able to take a brush and clearly paint all the places and all the things that you want from your career. And you need to be able to paint that vision not at the back end but at the front end. During the interview, you need to say I've done my research on this organization. I've looked at where people are. I see myself coming into this role.

Here's some skills that I think I wanna learn, and here's where I think I wanna go while I'm here.

Um, hiring manager, how will I achieve that working for you?

Ah, that's a question.

It is a question. Because oftentimes we go in and people ask us questions and we answer them, but we don't ask enough powerful questions back to the people who are hiring us. We don't ask enough powerful questions to the people who are leading us. We don't ask enough powerful questions to the people who are putting a upward level cap on top of us. We gotta question our career starting now. Because we will be the first laid off if they start to lay people off. We will be the first ones out the door because they'll look around and say, well, I can't figure out— well, well, what does Margaret really do around here? Do we need her? Yeah, she, she fills out a lot of papers, but can we find a clerk to fill out the papers? She gotta go. And when you end up leaving, because you haven't networked your capabilities and networked your experience, you cannot fill out an adequate job application. You know, I'm speaking on Monday evening for HR in Transition. It's a group that Mike Powers started, um, in 2007 because the first set of people who got laid off in most organizations was HR. And the people who had the hardest time getting hired were HR leaders. And so we started this volunteer group, and over the last 10-plus, almost 10 years, we've kept it going, right? And here's the interesting thing about this, is that the same questions come up for people who are in transition. And, and the one question that I ask them is Where are you going? So if you're questioning your career, one of the questions that you have to ask yourself is, where are you going? Where are you going? If you're a diverse candidate, if you're a diverse employee, we need to sit in the desk and say to ourselves, what is this role preparing me for? And then we need to breathe into that. What is this role preparing me for? And breathe, because you're gonna figure out that the role you're in is a dead-end cul-de-sac, going nowhere, preparing you for nothing role. And then you need to breathe into that. You need to hold it and say, damn, I made a mistake. And this is my podcast, so I get to say whatever I want to say. You get to say to yourself, oh my God, I've sat in this role for 10 years and it hasn't prepared me for nothing.

We're gonna do a part 2 of this next week. I feel the need to do a part 2, you know.

I feel the need to do a part 2 when we dig deeper and we go deeper under the surface We ask ourselves, in this current role, in this role I'm applying for, in this role I'm in, what do I care about that's greater than myself? In this role, what do I care about that's greater than myself? What do I care about? Because here's the thing, if you don't care about something that's greater than you then you can't be the person you need to become. You have to care about yourself greater than the job title, greater than the labels. And if you care about yourself greater than the labels, then you ask yourself powerful questions and you question your career. So here's the thing, for me right now The goal that takes my breath away is helping to retain diversity and inclusion leaders in their role.

70% of diversity leaders are gone within 18 months because they're frustrated with the role they're in. That is what took my breath away.

So the question is, what goal do you have that takes your breath away every time you think about it? What career goal do you have that makes you stop in your breath and say, if I could achieve that, if I could achieve that, that would be monumental for me?

Many of you have never asked that question.

You've never asked that question. What goal takes your breath away? The goal that takes your breath away is the one that keeps you working. It keeps you engaged in your own development. You don't wait for your leader to drop you into the executive leadership development. You carve out and you say, I need to be developed.

I'm going to find a mentor in this organization.

I'm going to get somebody who's going to give me honest feedback.

I'm gonna figure out who can sponsor me to the next level, and I'm gonna align with them.

Here's the thing, and here's the message for all of you organizations, and for all of you leading teams, I want you to hear this: organizations want your skill and expertise. They want your skill and expertise, but not Every organization wants your ambition. Let me say that again. Organizations want your skills and expertise. They want to know that you can do the job. They want to know that you can deliver to the bottom line. They want to know that you're going to show up every day. They want to know that you're going to be a contributing member of the team. They want to know that you are going to be the person who is a member of their advancement.

But not every organization wants your ambition.

And for all of you who don't understand that, then we become— we get caught up in the job title in the leadership role, in the manager title. We get caught up in that and then we forget that we're not being developed by the organization. We forget that they're not developing us. They gave us a title because the DE&I process required them to give us a title. They wanted to have diversity in their leadership and they made it so that you are the diverse person in the leadership. But they don't intend to develop you because they're not asking you, Margaret, what is your ambition and where do you want to go from here? And so if we don't ask ourselves, what do I want next, we miss an opportunity. Here's something else: what are you afraid of?

And I pause and let that one drop in the air. What are you afraid of? Many of you are afraid of success. Let me drop that one out there. Many of you are afraid of success.

You're afraid to lose. You're afraid of failure. You're afraid of rejection. You're afraid of hearing no. But here's the deal, and many of you are conditioned for the no. Let me take that one step further.

Let me expand on how you're conditioned for the no.

When you are conditioned for the no, you apply for the job You get no.

You apply again, you get no.

You apply a third time, you get no.

And nothing in your mind clicks that the organization wants your skill and not your ambition.

Nothing clicks for you. Nothing clicks for you.

That they want your skills but not your ambition.

So you think if you repurpose yourself and apply again, something different will happen. No, you're afraid of stepping out on possibilities. You're afraid. I tell my own story. I tell my own story. I had a leader who said to me, Margaret, you have no potential. You have no potential. This woman actually said it to me. You have no potential. Like she determined my potential. She determined my God-given track to live and exist in the world. When I applied for the job She said I had no potential.

See, she didn't get to decide my potential. See, my mother decided my potential. My father decided my potential.

My parents decided my potential. And here's how they decided my potential. My mother came to the United States one year after I was born in the middle of the civil rights unrest in America. To be a housekeeper for a white family in New York to take care of their babies so that I could have possibility. So there ain't a boss in this planet that's gonna tell me whether I have possibility or not. We have all come into this world with a purpose and a possibility and a process that we need to follow, but many of you are afraid to follow it. You're afraid to follow it. You keep saying, my I am, my I am. I told a client earlier today, I said, here's the thing, oftentimes when we look at immigrants coming to the United States, we think that the immigrant comes here for themselves. My mother didn't immigrate from Jamaica for herself. She immigrated for my future, and then my future created my son's future. That's generational. If we don't question our careers, then we don't create the generational wealth, the generational opportunities the generational process for our children, for our nieces, for our nephews. Because all of you who are diverse, you know one thing: you got a lot of people on your payroll. The people who put the money together to help you get to college, we still owe them. We're still helping our nieces and nephews. We're still stretching our hands back in our community. So it's imperative that you question your career. We need to question our careers. We need to question our growth. We need to recognize when we are on a path to movement and when we are not on a path to movement. We need to understand that. We need to question that. You know, um, in 2018 I wrote this book. It's called Leadership Self-Transformation: 52 Career-Defining Questions Every High-Achieving Woman Must Ask and Answer. I pulled a couple questions from this book. It is imperative that we ask the questions now. Because if the recession happens, if they start laying us off and we haven't defined our achievement, defined the skills we've gained, defined the opportunity that we've been given, define what we've given to the bottom line, then we miss an opportunity to not only grow ourselves but position ourselves to be hired elsewhere. This podcast episode, this live episode, is a necessity. I want to thank all of you that joined me live. Thank you for saying preach. Thank you, uh, Lachelle, for saying speak on it. Yes, Leslie, thank you for being here. And you are right, in addition to internships, younger students need to volunteer and gain work experience and build a network. Leslie does amazing work with early college students in her mission, and I thank you for joining. You know, great questions. Yes, we got to ask the questions. And if you are not signed up for the Monday program, sign up for the Monday program because I'm going to be talking to HR. About diversity, about empowerment, talent acquisition, talent development, and how we need to do things differently. We've got to do things differently. We must. You've got to question your career. What do you want? Why don't you have it now? What do you want next? What is the label that defines you? What is your ambition, and is your organization supporting that ambition? What is the vision that you have for your career, and who have you told it to? You cannot sit in the desk and think they're gonna see you, because guess what? They don't see you. For those of you who are over age 50, it's essential that you ask yourself What is my next chapter? We have the pen, the paper, we have the book. We need to write our chapters. What is the chapter that you want to write next? What is that chapter? If you're early in your career and you've just gotten a job, you need to ask yourself, what skills do I need to gain? To become a valued person in this organization. Don't just put your head down and work. Our job, our single job, is managing our career. Our job is not to work. Work is an extension of who we are. Our job is to manage our career. Our job is to manage our life possibilities. Our job is to find our purpose within our journey. It's our job to do that. We have to say, what do I need to be more courageous in my career path?

What are the actions that I should be taking right now to build a proactive career?

What do I need to let go of? What am I saying subconsciously that's making me not so valuable? What is that? We have to say that. We have to ask ourselves that. So I'm gonna pick this up next week. In next week's episode, I'm gonna really hone in on what it is that it's going to take for us to be the only option when we are in the hiring process. How do you package your skills to become the only option is what I'm gonna talk about next week. So I thank all of you for joining. If you love this episode, please share it. Share it on LinkedIn, share it on Twitter, share it on Facebook, watch it on YouTube, tell your friends. They may not be able to listen live, but they can go to iTunes or any of the other podcast apps, Spotify, and download the episode. And show up next week. And if you miss it, listen to the recording.

It's always available.

So thank you again for joining me. I appreciate all of you.

And Leslie, thanks. We have to advocate for ourselves, and we are all continuously learning how to do that. And thank you, all of you, for joining me today, and I appreciate you so much. Inclusion Unscripted, live Friday at 2 PM. As long as I don't have a conflict, I'm here, um, but you can always listen to the replay. Take care, have a wonderful week, see you next Friday. Thanks, guys.

You're like a circle that floats around me. Keeping me safe and sound. And when I fall, you tied a rope to me. You're blessing me every day. I was down with an illusion, like a sparrow with broken wings, but now I shine with your reflection on me. I'm getting back up on my feet.

Take care, everyone. Thanks.