Leveraging Thought Leadership Live featuring Sabina Nawaz

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. And this is one of our special LinkedIn Live editions. So I want to welcome my guest today, Sabine Nawaz. She is the author of You're the Boss. She is an author, she's a speaker, she's an advisor, and she's had an amazing corporate career prior, prior to that on the HR side of the house. So welcome aboard today, Sabina. How are you?

Thank you, Peter. Doing great.

Awesome. So tell me a little bit how, how we got here, how you got here, because usually— not that there's a usual— but someone having the sort of level and the stellar career that you did on the HR side doesn't just wake up one day and say, ah, you know, I'm gonna go do my own thing. How did that come to pass?

Well, it starts well before the HR side of my career, Peter, because I started my first job as an engineer with degrees in computer science and electronics and computer systems engineering. It was a wake-up moment for both big transitions in my career. The first one, I was on sabbatical that Microsoft offers when you meet certain conditions.

Sure.

Sleeping a lot because I was burned out, tired, sitting on the couch eating bonbons. And I had this moment, this one moment of crystal clarity sitting on this white leather couch in my living room. And that moment was realizing that it was no longer a matter of if, but when that I would become a corporate vice president, which was sort of the be-all, end-all of my career dreams.

That's the brass ring, right?

Absolutely. I was, I was really gunning for it and hoping to get there someday. And now I think Oh, it's right in front of my nose. Well, right in front of my nose somewhere in the next 1 to 5 years.

Sure.

Boom. Suddenly it's like the most anticlimactic moment of my life because I'm like, well, if I know the formula, if I know how to get there, why am I going to spend the next 5 years of my life trying to get there? I realized that I just needed to prove that to myself that I could make it, not anybody else. And then I go shoot. What do I do with my life? Because a lot of my life I had spent chasing this sort of title and becoming as opposed to being.

Sure.

And as soon as I sat down to be, to do nothing, to have some quiet space, I'm thinking, hmm, okay, so what do I do well? I get feedback that I'm a good manager. Let's work on the people side. And that's how I transitioned and ran Microsoft's executive development and management development and Worked with Bill and Steve for 6 years, nearly doing succession planning and running the executive retreats and so on. I thought I was the luckiest person alive. Couldn't believe I got paid to do that work. And as you say, Peter, so why did I then suddenly decide to leave this wonderful job? I was 7 months pregnant with my second boy. My first boy was 2 years old. Now, my husband stayed home, so I had the immense privilege.

Sure.

of having a stay-at-home spouse. But the question was, what would I regret 10, 15 years down the road more? That I didn't have even more time working with Bill and Steve, or that I didn't spend enough time with my kids?

Right.

And so I decided to take the leap. I had never been outside the corporate world. It was scary. But you know what? The moment I did leave, I have never looked back.

So stay there a minute because that's an incredibly— you know, even though you have the realization and, and the, the sort of epiphany, it's still a courageous thing to leave the comfort of a job at that level and the financial security and, and, and all the things that, you know, stock and all the things that, that, that come with that.

Yeah.

Then you go to the other side, and I think what happens a lot when high-level corporate folks go out on their own, there's a lot of things they don't know they don't know, right? So they know how to do the stuff, right? So the development, the coaching, the things that you do, that wasn't, I would imagine, the challenge. But how do you find clients? How do you set price? How do you manage accounts receivable? What were the challenges you had from the business side of the house when you first started out?

Well, great question. For the most part, It was great. The biggest challenge, business development, finding clients, was not a challenge for me. I had a great network at Microsoft and outside. And then whenever somebody would leave Microsoft, I would reach out to the executive and say, hey, remember me? I'm still open for business. And then they would hire me in their new companies because my goal was to expand beyond the world that I knew. So finding clients was was not an issue and very, very fortunate. The biggest hurdle I faced was understanding pricing and how to value my time, my worth, to figure out what is the value, what is the net value to the client, and how do I, how do I, how do I price accordingly? I discovered fairly early on that I was asking for too little money. I also don't—

Not unusual, right? So if you stay there a minute, When you look at— let's take coaching as an example. There are coaches and there are coaches, right? There are coaches that can charge, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to work with clients. And then there are coaches that can, you know, charge very, very, very small percentages of that. And the justification, right, of the value that you create, usually it's more of a function of the impact that the client could have, right? And their span of control. And, you know, you have a small improvement on an EVP has more value than an improvement on a newly minted frontline manager, as an example.

For sure. For sure. Exactly right. Exactly right, Peter. And so just learning what is that impact? What is the value of this? The fact that we have 6 months of coaching and then this person is able to tap into that for the next 6 years, not just in that job, But in the next 2 jobs that they've gotten promoted to is a, is a different equation. So that was, that was the challenge to understand.

And then when you have the courage again to say, you know what, I'm going to charge what I'm worth, because a lot of folks when they come out, whether they're on the keynote side or coaching side or the advisory side, I hear things like, I had no problem getting business. And then I say, well, that's actually kind of a problem, right? Because It's one thing to get the demand, but then to engage in conversations. And if you're not having any pushback or challenges or questions around price, 95% of the time you're probably not charging enough. And it's okay to push back and, and all that. So once you started to realize your value and charge accordingly, did you get more pushback? Was it harder? Was it easier? How did that play?

There were times I got pushback and that's fine. And that fell into a couple of different categories. One, it was so far off that they were not looking for somebody like me. And I was very happy to connect them with other folks in my network who would meet them where they are and able to deliver great value for what they were looking for at a price point that they could. And I was very happy and completely fine walking away from that work. The other category was where we sat down and had a conversation. And, and in your classic scope and, and cost, we made some decisions. Okay, you have this much money, I'm asking for this much money, but we can, we can negotiate around the scope, what you get for less money. And so thinking about—

Just stay there a minute because, because although that seems totally rational and logical and almost intuitive and simple. Too many people respond when they get pushback on price, they say, my price is here and the client says it's there. Well, we'll meet them in the middle. But I love the idea, and this is what I advocate as well, to say to the client, well, what, what are you willing to give up? Right? So I can't give you this, but for that budget I can accommodate that. And let me, let me explain what the trade-offs are, not just financially, but relative to the expectations on the outcomes.

Absolutely.

And then, and then if they're okay with that, That's great. But the first reaction shouldn't just be, oh geez, I'll drop my price. Interesting. And how— what are the things that you look for in a client relationship to be able to justify the value that you're creating? Because they might not even know, like if they haven't hired a coach before at a senior level, they need to justify to internal folks, you know, on the finance side, whatever, while they're making— why they're making such a significant investment. How do you help them tell that story of the impact, the ROI, and, and, and the, and, and those things.

I rarely run into that problem. I work with people at the C-suite level or at the CEO level, and they're used to investing heavily in professional development. They know that there are very few people who can work at that level, and, and therefore what the value of that is. So, so I don't usually run into a lot of justifications.

Excellent. So I want to Segue into the book. So your, your book came out a couple of months ago. You're the Boss. Tell me the story of why you chose to write that, what you thought the experience would be like, and what it has been. Good, bad, or ugly.

Well, the why starts with a very— for a very personal reason. And then it's backed up by 12,000 pages of data where I interviewed 1,000 people on what they experienced working for their managers and created the themes that formed the skeleton of the book, the backbone of the book.

So good.

But the personal story is that I was a lousy manager at Microsoft. That wasn't always the case. At first, I managed teams that built software. People told me I was the best manager they'd ever had. I coached them. I cared about them. Those were great teams. But then everything changed. I was running Microsoft's management development. When I— the first day back from parental leave, as I'm getting ready, my assistant calls me frantic. Where are you? Steve expects you in 30 minutes. That would be Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft. She's reading the memo I'm supposed to discuss with him as I'm hitting warp speed on the freeway. And that's the pace and tone for work. So I, I'm rushing to meet deadlines. I don't have time to explain things in detail, let alone repeat them. I'm micromanaging. I'm turning all hands on the keyboard, looking sideways. People are coming in. And the worst part is I'm thinking, I'm killing this. I'm being so efficient. Now, of course, with no sleep, no peace, and no patience with an infant at home, I am not doing any of that.

Sure.

My colleague stops by and tells me Zach is crying in his office because of something you said.

Ugh.

And that's when my gut falls to my floor and I just— my whole body washes over with shame. And I think, how did I morph from being caring and compassionate to this? Somebody people apparently fear and really don't like. And of course, after apologizing to Zach and watching his eyes brim with tears, I think this is what I want. I want to treat people with humanity. And that's why, Peter, I've written the book. Because I have walked in those shoes. There are no good or bad managers. They're all within us. It's not power that corrupts us. It's pressure. And that pressure didn't just squeeze out my time. It squeezed out my humanity. And it squeezes out the humanity of every manager who's under pressure and who here today is not under tremendous amounts of pressure.

Got it.

So I have that compassion and empathy. And I want to show them a different way to harness that pressure when they're in positions of power.

Right, because the pressure is not going to go away, right? You couldn't have told your assistant, say, call Steve and tell him I'll be an hour late to go grab a cup of coffee and wait in the office. That's probably— or can we do this tomorrow? I'm a little frenetic today, right? It's— that's just not the way it's done, right, at a certain level. So then you choose to write the book. What was the process by which you chose to publish with a traditional publisher versus some of the other options and alternatives that are available today?

Initially, I thought the book would be a calling card that I could just say I have a book, and then it gives me— opens up more lines of business or maybe a greater set of fees. Very soon into the process, when I'm sitting on this pile of 12,000 pages of data, I realize this is way more than a calling card. I am going to be pouring my life's work into this book, and I want to give this as big a platform as possible. That's where I decided to go with an agent, with a traditional publisher, the whole sort of traditional route for the book to bring it to life.

Got it. And what was— describe what you thought the experience would be like and what it was actually like, and where there's— and where there's some different— I see the chuckle. And what were some of the What were the surprises or the differences?

I'm sure you've heard this all, Peter, as you work with so many different thought leaders. Of course, I had heard that writing a book is a difficult process. No new, no new news there. What I hadn't realized was that writing and submitting the manuscript of the book is way easier than what comes afterward, which is positioning the book, marketing the book, bringing the message to wider and wider audiences. Getting on podcasts, gathering Amazon reviews, and so on, and doing those in ethical ways that I feel are right for me, that work for who I am and my set of values. It's so tempting to do things, to make shortcuts, to do things that don't sit right with me, but to do it in the right way.

Yeah, so stay there a second. I think, I think that you're You're right, and I agree with you 1,000%, right? So I think most people think that the process of writing the book, getting your ideas together, the research, etc., is the hard part. And it's not easy by any stretch. I don't want to make it seem like—

Not at all.

You know, particularly a good book, particularly with the caliber of research that you've done. You know, this wasn't just a storytelling book or something like that. But then the real work begins, right? Because getting a book out there, and it's not a matter of How many units am I going to sell? But it's really about the impact. It's really about elevating the brand. It's really about all those things. There's a lot of work, right? You know, a lot of podcasts and a lot of things. And I love what you said about not taking the shortcuts. And I think a lot of people don't realize until these things are offered to you that you get solicited by everybody from all over the world to say, I can dot dot dot make you an Amazon bestseller, sell thousands of books. So you know, and then you say, great, that's really intriguing. Of course, I'd want to do that. How does that work? And what does that cost? Then you look at some of these things and I, you know, I think you probably get the reaction, ooh, that's, that's not who I am, right? Like, that's— I don't want to do it that way. Like, I, I want to do it properly and organically and, and not buy my way onto a list or something.

Exactly, exactly. It's so, so it's— and, and that leads to my second surprise, and that surprise is the generosity of people.

Yes.

It's the absolute no ties, no expectations in return generosity. Now, I am somebody who's a huge believer in reciprocity. I like to even the playing field, so to speak. I actually am not 100% comfortable asking for help. But one of the biggest transformations I've made for myself personally, this book, this process has changed me. In becoming more comfortable and trusting that if I ask for help, it will arrive. And even if it doesn't arrive, that's okay.

Right. And that's, that's a place where a lot of people feel uncomfortable, awkward, etc. So there's a couple of mindsets that people shift to say, it's not about me. I really believe in this book and I need to do what I need to do to get the book out there because it'll help people. So it's not about, you know, you being the beneficiary per se.

Right.

When you say people were really helpful, I want to drill down on that a little bit. So one reaction I have to that is I think a lot of people are surprised how supportive and helpful sort of the community of thought leaders are to others and such advice, endorsements of the book. you know, recommendations, introductions to podcasts. It's, it's a very, you know, it's a lonely business on some level, but it's a really supportive one. And then the other reaction I had to that, and I'd like for you to comment on both, is it's one thing to put out to your network, hey, I'm writing a book. People say, great, good luck, thumbs up, like whatever. But to be specific about what you're asking of whom by when increases the probability of that happening. So saying to a friend—

Absolutely.

I know that you know so-and-so or whatever. So answer— sort of play with both of those for me, the thought leader community and being specific in the asks that you make of certain people in service of promoting the book.

Yes. So the thought leader community, I was fortunate enough to receive endorsements for the book from many, many thought leaders— Adam Grant, Kim Scott, Marshall Goldsmith. To name just a few, Amy Edmondson.

Wow.

Molly West Duffy, Liz Fosslien. I mean, I can go on and on. And some of these people I knew and some of these people were complete strangers.

Okay.

An aspiring author right now said, hey, what are the tips and tricks to getting Adam Grant to write a testimonial for your book? And I said, I don't know. I simply emailed him out of the blue and he responded right away with an FAQ. Here's the process. And if you don't hear from me by your deadline, I'm not going to write one. And I heard from him a few days before the deadline with a testimonial.

So phenomenal.

This asking not just of people you know, but complete strangers. Kim Scott, she and I met through—

She's great. Yeah.

And she set aside a dedicated session with me to brainstorm a 2x2 matrix for the book because her Radical Candor matrix is so beautiful. And she sent me a bunch of sketches with ideas and, oh, what about this? Oh, you know, I started noodling about this even more. So clearly the ideas were capturing people. But more than that, they were willing to generously give of their time. So that's on the thought leader side. And as you said, a lot of introductions. Our conversation today is happening because of an introduction.

Correct.

And a lot of those introductions, my colleague and, and Fellow author Jonathan Stutz, for example, said—

Yes.

When he is the person who connected us and he— when he found out I was writing a book, he, he, he contacted me. He sent me an entire spreadsheet of here's all the things you need to do at T-minus 1 month, T-minus 1 week. Here's the list of podcasts I've been on. Tell me which ones you want me to connect you to and so on. So incredible.

I love it.

Now it's the question of how do you ask? How do you make asks? The, the, the quality of help you receive is directly proportional to the quality of your ask.

Right.

So being really, really clear about what do you want and scoping it in, right? Not me the world, but give me this. For example, I was at dinner at a friend's place who had told me that he had read the book. And I found it incredibly helpful for his job. And I said, hey, Todd, if you can, would you be willing to put up an Amazon review?

Sure.

And it doesn't have to be 3 paragraphs long or an exhaustive book report. It could simply be 2 sentences about the single thing that most stood out. So scope it right for them. Tell them the impact of that. Having an Amazon review not just means a lot to me, it helps with the book being viewed and recommended by Amazon to broader sets of people. And I think this message needs to go out.

So some of it is, is, is just that, is having also as an author having an understanding of why you're asking for what, right? So the Amazon reviews are important. Like you said, people might not know your name as an author because you haven't published before. So they're looking for a comfort. They're looking for them to manage the risk, not of spending $20, $30 on a book, but like, am I going to waste 6 hours of my life, right? So having people like Adam Grant say great things is helpful, but then going to the Amazon page and if nobody reviewed it, that's sort of a, a signal or a red flag or whatever.

Yes.

So I love the— because I agree as well with the, the high level of specificity when you reach out to someone and just don't just say I'm writing a book, but say, hey, I know that you've written books and what I'm looking for is to learn more about how to get on the right podcast or how to get testimonials or whatever it is. And I need to know that by, you know, some date and time, 30, 45 days out, whatever, whatever that is. Would you be willing to do that? And if you can make it specific and relevant to that person, right? And, you know, reaching out to someone and say, hey, could you buy 1,000 books? That's a little annoying. That's a little obnoxious, right?

Exactly. Also, I think there's another key component to the ask, which is always giving them an out. So I'm not going to judge you for saying no. So at the— towards the end of my message, I always have something along the lines of, and if this is for any reason not the right time or the right action for you, no problem at all. Thank you for being the kind of person I felt comfortable making the ask in the first place. Always get them out because that keeps the relationship intact down the road.

Yeah, and you don't want someone to feel as if either they're obligated or if they say no, you're going to hold it against them. So I, I like that to say, no, no worries if you can't, would appreciate if you can. And I, you know, I understand either way. So cool. So as we start to wrap up, any ideas, any thoughts that you would share with someone who is where you were, let's say a year or two ago when you were starting to think about publishing and the book and what to do?

Well, I will tie that with one of the concepts of the book that it's not power but I'm sure that corrupts. Writing a book will come packed with a ton of pressure. And when you feel that pinch of pressure, it's going to want you to react. It's going to want you to, first of all, treat those around you not in ideal ways, potentially.

Mm-hmm.

But it's also going to want you to hunker down and think, oh, I've got to do more and more and more. I've got to grind things out day to day. I've got my day job. I've got this writing job. I have no space and everything is squeezed out. And when—

so when you're under that pressure, because you will feel that when you're writing and developing, and there are deadlines, and there are deadlines, there are other people you're accountable to.

Yes, deadlines and red lines, right? The author, the editors are sending you all these red lines. And so under pressure, do nothing. Do nothing. This is a practice I call a blank space that I advocate with my clients, 2 hours a week of stepping back and unplugging, because suddenly you realize a lot of those little things don't matter. And you get those bolts of insight which are incredibly helpful in formulating your thoughts and your writing.

That's fantastic. Fantastic. Well, I appreciate your time. I appreciate the candor and the transparency and wish, wish you the best in your continued success with the book and everything else that you're doing. Sabina, thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Peter.