Women in Corporate Leadership | Jenna Fisher - 490

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 today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. So today my guest is Jenna Fisher. She just wrote a book called To the Top. Is that the right title, Jenna?

Yeah, it's To the Top: How Women in Corporate Leadership Are Rewriting the Rules for Success.

Yes, thank you. And that book just came out. She co-leads at Russell Reynolds the Global Financial Officers Practice. She's committed to finding transformational leaders who can guide companies forward in a changing world. So before we spend more time on her bio, let's just spend time hanging out with, with, with Jenna. So welcome today, Jenna. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Peter. It's so great to be here with you.

So let me ask you this. You're, you know, you're a co-practice lead at a major, major firm. You've got 2 kids. Obviously, the poodles are time-consuming and all that. So you must have been sitting around saying, you know what, I don't have enough to do. I have way too much time on my hand and not enough obligations and responsibilities. I think I'll just write a book. Is that how this happened?

Yeah, you know, sleep is so overrated, honestly. No, you know, honestly, what happened was I had this idea to write this book about 8 years ago. And then to your point, life really intervened. I was co-leading this practice group. I was running an office. Young kids, etc., etc. And it kind of got put on the shelf. And then in 2020, when COVID hit, I found myself with a couple of free hours— free in quotes— every day because I wasn't commuting anymore. And so I thought, you know what, maybe I could write this book. And so I kind of got all my ducks in a row and lined up amazing women that all from all around the globe who I interviewed. I started the interviews in February of 2022 and finished the manuscript in October of 2022. So it was kind of fast and furious, but it's been a dream of mine to write a book. So it's, it's been, um, really great that I finally made it.

That's awesome. So before we dive into the, the essence of the book, what expectations did you have upfront about either what the process would be or whatever versus the reality of actually writing a book and now doing the hard part? Not that writing's not hard, but actually getting it out and get eyeballs on the book and get get it in the right hands of the right folk. What were the things that played out differently than you might have expected?

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, one of my friends who has been a bestselling author said to me, you know, while writing the book is hard, it's much like having a baby. And once the book has been birthed and come into the world, that's really when the hard work begins. And I didn't really believe him, but now that it's 2 weeks from publication date and I'm spending a lot of time talking to people about the book, which is so wonderful. Just get the message out into the world. But I think there might be some truth to that. So that's a little bit of a surprise. All right.

Well, we'll hope the book leaves the nest before it's 30 and becomes independent and all that.

I need to launch it.

Yeah, right, right, right. Exactly. Exactly. So the model that you use, you interviewed a bunch of women, right? So give it, give us the high-level overview of the gist of the book and then how you went about writing it?

Yeah, well, I guess I would just say by way of background, I've always had a passion for keeping women on a path to professional success. Starting when I was in college, I wrote my honors thesis on the differential in performance between boys and girls in math and science. And what I learned in that endeavor was that the only statistically significant discrepancy between boys and girls was around their levels of self-confidence, not achievement. And then fast forward a decade to a very different sort of milieu when I first started working at Russell Reynolds as an executive recruiter and leadership advisor. And I would hear from the women I interviewed, I'm the only one, only one, only one, all the time. And so I started convening groups of women board members and CFOs, the two groups of folks that I recruit here, and that followership grew. And then simultaneously, I had the experience countless times where I'd be introduced to an incredibly talented woman who had had stellar academic credentials and had worked in a super hot company, led an IPO, blah blah blah, but then she dropped out of the workforce after she'd had her, you know, second or third child. Then fast forward a decade, she wanted to get back in, and, and I was pretty much useless. And it was almost impossible for these women to rejoin the ranks of the working in a financially meaningful way. And this led me to I think there has to be a better way, a way to keeping women with a toe, if not entire foot or more, in the world of work so that women can ultimately be financially on par with men.

Mm-hmm.

And from there I set out writing this book, interviewing dozens of incredible women, a very heterogeneous group. So different races, ethnicities, locations, functional expertise, industries, ages. And their stories were both incredibly inspirational but also really pragmatic. That others, I think, can benefit from, and most importantly, that companies can benefit and learn from.

Yeah. So there are a lot of drivers and motivators and goals and such as to behind the scenes why people write books. Some of it's intrinsic, right? It forces you to get your thinking tight. It was sort of always in you to get out. Sort of speak a little bit about the bridging between the intrinsic, like this was just fun to do, because I can see as we're talking, you're lighting up, you probably learned a lot, right? There's something somewhat selfish in a good way, like, wow, I get to talk to a bunch of smart people and learn some— learn more about a subject that I'm passionate about, but also bridge that to the benefit to the business. Because even though you had this free time with COVID you could have said, I'm going to double down and find more talent, find more clients, find more whatever, right? So how does it benefit both you personally, professionally, et cetera? And then where do you see it as a a tool on the business side of the house.

Yeah, well, it was funny because in 2021 I did that as well. It was such a busy time in recruiting, so it wasn't necessarily either-or. And I thought it could be pretty synergistic actually, because so many of these women were either clients or had been clients or candidates. And so there was a— there was some overlap, not 100% certainly. But, you know, I certainly have always been very reflective about what do I think it takes to be successful professionally. And I, of course, I went into this book writing process with my own hypotheses based on my experience. Sure. But I did learn a lot. And one of the things I've always loved about my job in executive search is that no two days are the same, and I'm always meeting amazing people and talking to incredible people and learning. And this was really just an extension of that. And there were a few surprises that came out of it. Like, for example, one of the things I didn't have as sort of a working hypothesis personally, but that I learned by interviewing these women is the importance of entrepreneurship and how critical that is as sort of a long-term wealth-creating, multi-generational wealth-creating mechanism. And I learned that only 2% of VC deals fund women-backed companies. And I've definitely seen this play out as a recruiter where women, when I call them about potential job opportunities, they say, "Well, I haven't checked this box or that box, so you know, you shouldn't consider me for that role." And it's the same thing with entrepreneurship. Some of the women I interviewed, like, One of the ones that comes to mind is Jennifer Goldfarb, who is the CEO and founder of Ipsy, which is an online beauty company, very successful business. She said, you know, like, I could have always said like, oh yeah, there's another box to check, but at some point you just gotta jump in and do it. And, and, and so yeah, I, I learned a lot and there certainly were lots of surprises along the way.

Well, and, and stay there in terms of the differences between men and women, right? So, so, and the research backs this, this is not my, view chauvinistic or not, right? Like, it's, you know, men will sort of not exaggerate, but maybe stretch the truth, you know, maybe apply for a job that they're like, um, like, yeah, I kind of know I'm not qualified, but what the heck, throw my hat in the ring. But to women, that concept of, well, there's always another box to check, um, and again, we're painting with a broad brush here, I think it plays out more where many guys will look and say, well, I'm missing 3 checkboxes, but, you know, I'm so strong in this other one, or so dynamic, or who would— they'd be crazy not to want me. How does that— you know, it becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

Yeah, no, you make such a good point. And I, I've seen lots of women over the years in my position who've not applied for a job I've called them about because they don't check all the boxes. Uh, one example that comes to mind on a no-name basis is, is a woman— I was working on a CFO search for a technology company, this is probably 7 years ago now, and I kept getting referred in the market to this one particular woman who I didn't know Um, sure, but I called her and she seemed great, but she said, no, you know, I haven't led investor relations before, so you shouldn't talk to me about this role. And I said, well, you know, that's actually not that important to my client. The CEO is really okay if you haven't led investor relations. And she declined to participate. And I kept hearing her name. So what I did was I figured out who one of her mentors was, who I happen to be close with. I called her and I said, you've got to get this woman to apply for this job. Long story short, she ended up calling, she ended up getting her in the mix. She got the job. She was hugely successful. She's now at an even bigger and more prestigious company on several public company boards. And I go back and I'm like—

That's amazing.

If she was the kind of person, as talented as she is, who was loath to participate because she thought, I can't possibly— it made me think one woman I interviewed, Amy Bunzel, who's the head of technology at Autodesk, When I interviewed her for my book, she said, "Position specifications are wishlists. No one is a perfect unicorn." And I mean, I gotta tell you, like, I've been recruiting executives and board members for 20 years now, and she's right. Nobody is perfect.

But you know, it was interesting. One of the things that was interesting about the story that you just told us that multiple other people in the market threw her hat in the ring. So they thought highly of her. They thought once you described to them what the position entails, like, Oh, this person, so-and-so, clearly qualified, clearly whatever, but they didn't think it themselves. Like, that's really interesting too. And I wonder if there's something we could do with that in terms of saying, wait, how many— ask your friends first, or ask people that know you, or ask your mentors or people that admire you and say, listen, I have my doubts, but you tell me honestly, because, you know, I wouldn't go asking strangers at Starbucks, but people that you know well, what do you think? And they might say, hell yeah, of course you are, or Hmm, yeah, I could see why you'd think that, right? Like, really, really interesting.

Go ahead, Rosie. I think that touches upon a really important point, which is for a lot of— and I'm going to say women, I think this is more true of women than men— when they have children and a career, in a very pragmatic, sensible way, they say, okay, those are the two things I'm going to operationalize around. I'm going to kick butt at my day job, I'm going to come home, I'm going to be the best mom I can be, and everything else gets pushed to the sidelines. And what comes out of that is you don't keep up with your networks externally, and that's very pernicious. And when you get to a point where you're maybe not in a job you like, you're underpaid, sure, go for it, you're just busy. And, and so one of the things that I, I write about in my book is the once a month rule. Once a month, take yourself on a professional date. What I mean by that is like Go to lunch with a mentor, go to a networking event, go to an industry conference. Do one thing a month that keeps your toe outside of your world of immediate work so that you have that perspective. Because I think it could be really hard.

I mean, well, I'll add one to that. So yeah, because I just do this a lot. It's been a habit and it's, it's actually worked really well, but it was never— I never did it to say, oh, what's my ROI on this? Lunch is great, but you can only eat lunch once a day. And then, you know, now you're like, oh my God, I actually have to go meet somebody, whatever, whatever. Like, and we want do that, right? I find it's incredibly impactful and powerful for me to go out of my way 2, 3 times a week to say, who are 2 people I need to introduce to each other that could benefit somehow from it? I don't need to be there. I can just say, hey, Jenna, meet Fred. Fred, meet Jenna. Here's why I think you 2 should grab a cup of coffee or a call or a Zoom or whatever. And then usually, at least it's a nice conversation and it's turned into jobs and gate— I mean, the gamut. And a lot of it is like, you know, I get a little bit of the halo from that, like, hey, we, you know, well, we wouldn't have met if it wasn't for Peter, you know, connecting us. So that's one. I want to go back to the recruiter.

I do that all day long.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. If you're enjoying this episode of Thought Leadership Leverage, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So I wanna go back to some of the business benefits again. And one of the things that you touched on that I wanted to push on and then go a little bit further is most people think in a linear manner. That's just how we are. We're logical and we're rational and, you know, wake up, brush your teeth, have breakfast. It's not wake up, have dinner, brush your teeth. I mean, we, we all might have had days we've done that, but, but that's not the typical, right? And what I mean by that when it comes to a book is I'm gonna do the research, I'm gonna do an outline, I'm gonna write the book, then I'm gonna publish the book, then rainbows and unicorns, you know, good stuff will happen. And I think one of the things based on the model that you use, and we encourage it for others, is when you talk to all these people, one is there's probably a list of greater than the number that you spoke to that you considered, maybe even greater than the number that you interviewed. That's a relationship development opportunity. So there's two calls you can make. Hey, it's Jenna. And they might say, I'm not in the market, Jenna. Thanks. Whatever. But when you say, hey, it's Jenna, I'm doing research on a book. Great. Let's talk next Tuesday. That's a different game. And it's a, it's a deep touchpoint. So touch on that and then let's go back to some of the other benefits to the business.

Yeah, no, I mean, it was really fun to put together a list and, and you're right, there were lots of people I considered, but I really, I tried to be as far-reaching as possible and I leveraged my partners here at the firm, you know, partners of mine in Asia and Europe to say, this is kind of an archetype I'm looking for. Can you help me? Do you have somebody in your network? Because yes. You know, let's face it, we all are pretty much surrounded by people who are more similar to us, especially geographically, right? That's just true. And so, um, it was a fun process to kind of go through and winnow to really make sure I was getting a diverse— as array of folks as possible.

Yeah. And even when people reckon, say, oh, I can't help you, but you should talk to, you know, so-and-so, they would be perfect based on the criteria that you laid out, you know, they start cheering for you. Like, the other thing is, I think that the more people that are aware before a book is launched, that you're in the process of wanting to learn writing one, that you're writing one, people want their friends and colleagues and people they know and love to succeed. So then you get a lot of, "Wow, how can I help you?" And I think the issue there is to say, "Oh, thanks. I'm really flattered." That's one answer. It's kind of not a good answer. The better answer is, "So glad you asked. Here's—" Not to overwhelm them, but I'm doing webinars in companies. We could do a bulk book. Like, here's 4 or 5 things that you can do. You can write a review. So glad you wanna support and you give them different things at different levels of support. Writing a review only takes 3 minutes. It's an incredibly powerful thing that someone can do for you that, that is really not a big ask, right? Yeah.

And one of the things I did too, I started, when I started to have this idea at the beginning of COVID of going back to my book, before I even started putting pen to paper around who, who I was gonna interview, I started to have putting postings on LinkedIn, just sort of with my thoughts. I had a broad outline, and now I have a followership of over 10,000 people, and they've been really great in sharing my book to other people in their networks, which I'm really grateful for. So, and it's been a fun way to get ideas and feedback too. So it's a great way to iterate.

Well, I think that, that concept of sharing that, you know, there was an old school mentality of, ooh, maybe we show the movie trailer but we don't show the film. The reality is LinkedIn and other platforms are great places to do real-time R&D because once the book's out, you can't say, oh geez, chapter 3, wow, that feedback was really good. I really should have done it differently. It's done, right? You press send. But if when you're testing ideas and testing concepts, that's a great way to put content out on LinkedIn, engage with folks, get the feedback. Because oftentimes what I find, both not just myself but clients, we're really, really bad at accurately guessing what will resonate most with people. So we, you know, we come up with something and say, oh, This is my Mona Lisa. And we put it out there, crickets. Then we come up with something else and saying, I'm almost embarrassed to put my name on this. I have brain fog. I don't know. It's a little too whatever. And then, and that's the thing that sort of catches on. Any thoughts on that?

Well, it's funny. I'm smiling because one of the things that I found just, you know, in sort of putting things out there and then going back and looking to see what had the most receptivity, where did I get the most comments and feedback? To my surprise, a lot of the things where I put a picture of me and my daughter together, People love that, you know, and that's something like for me on LinkedIn, I felt like, oh, is that really— that's not very professional, is it? You know, like this is my work life, but it's one of those things where I learned, you know, actually being vulnerable and being open, people respond to that.

And really, I think, I think there's something interesting about that because LinkedIn, in my view, from what I see, has sort of won the race for where do you need to be if you had limited time to spend on social? You have to be on LinkedIn. Now, it used to be there was a hardcore separation between church and state. Facebook, I'm hanging out on the couch with the kids, right? We are in Hawaii. Hey, look, I just ate a vegan burrito, like all that stuff, whatever, to your quote friends. And then on LinkedIn, it was more the buttoned up. And I think largely as a result of COVID where every line got blurred, you have more freedom and leeway. So it doesn't mean that you confuse the sort of norms of LinkedIn for Insta, right? But whereas 5 years ago, you probably wouldn't have done the pics with your kids on like, whoa, that's just— not that you're hiding your kids, but it's, yeah, it's kind of not how we do it here. And what I'm finding now on LinkedIn is people are showing things they're doing with their families, going to church, a little bit of travel, not a lot. I mean, it's just a little dose and people go, oh, they're kind of human like me. Yeah, exactly.

No, I think it's great. I think it's great. You have to pay—

you have to get the kids to sign release forms and then pay them royalties or they will potentially sue you.

Yeah, my son is an introvert, so he doesn't really appreciate it as much as my daughter.

Okay, there you go. Right. So it's her launchpad to fame. Pretty much. TikTok, here we go. Any, any other takeaways in terms of, uh, as we, as we start to wrap up, you know, things that you've learned or things that you wish you knew 2 years ago when you were starting this process that, that you now know and maybe, you know, fell off the bike and scraped your knee to learn?

Yeah, well, I think there are definitely— there are about 3 things I would say were kind of surprises to me in writing the book in terms of things I learned. One is, as a recruiter, if you'd said to me 2 years ago, hey, here's the resume of a 50-year-old VP in a company. Will he or she ever make it into the C-suite? I probably would have said to you, I don't know, maybe if they're not there already, maybe they're never going to be. Maybe they're just a really good number 2. But now I think, oh my goodness, that's such a misguided sentiment. Maybe there were reasons that that person wasn't running a 26.2-mile sprint every day of their careers, and maybe they're going to break it, right, to age 55 when their kids are off in college and they're more free to travel for work. I interviewed several women in my book who didn't work outside the home until their 40s, and now they're hitting their stride in their 60s or 70s. Wow, that's really amazing. I mean, you know, and so, you know, after all, we're all living longer, hopefully. And so I think we need to give people a little bit of grace to run whatever it is at their own pace. So that's one. Um, another is the importance of measuring the outputs, not the inputs. And what do I mean by that? I mean I think, you know, many years ago, if we saw somebody getting into the office at 7 in the morning and leaving at 10 at night, that Bob, he's a killer, he's crushing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. But who knows if Bob's doing anything other than surfing the internet all day? And so now we can look at somebody's—

his wife, or his miserable at home and his wife threw him out of the house. Like, just— there was, there was at least a mental connection. And in some industries, financial services, there's this machismo alpha whatever. Oh, you got in at 6? I can get in at 5:30. Well, I can get in yesterday. It looks Dude, like, like, and, but I think you're right. Like, now I think we've all realized one of the, one of the wacky dirty secrets of corporate life now that we've been through COVID is you can get a lot done in a short period of time, not in the office. Actually, you can get an 8-hour day done probably in 3 or 4 if you're actually honest. Yeah.

And I think we need to leverage technology more, and that COVID made us— it forced us to do this, right? So now we can see what somebody's contributing regardless of when or where they're working. And so I think ultimately, you know, of course there are new managerial skills that have to be learned to do that well in a company, but I think it's a game changer, particularly for women in corporate roles. But for everybody, frankly, I think it's a real benefit.

Yeah, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. Well, this has been phenomenal. Oh yeah.

Oh, we got— yeah, one other thing that, you know, was a surprise to me, Peter, that wasn't on my list when I started this was the importance of paternity leave, you know, parenting being done by both genders. It's not enough for companies to have paternity leave options. We really need to create the culture in our companies where men don't feel friction about taking time at home with their families, because otherwise you're sending the indirect message that home and hearth is really up to women to manage, and that really is deleterious to women's careers. And so I, I'm a big believer in that now, and it's something that really wasn't even so much on my radar screen when I set out to write this book.

What And I think that some of that is generational. And I think what you're alluding to is the importance of it's cultural. You might have a great policy, but there might be the unwritten culture said, yeah, but if you're a guy and you take paternity leave, goodbye to that promotion. Oh, you just went on the daddy trip. Like, what does it really mean here, right? Let's be honest because what the culture says and what the handbook says, the culture is gonna trump the handbook. That's right.

But I think that smart companies are gonna win out because they're gonna get the best talent by having the most progressive policies.

I think we've seen them, we've, we've seen them doing that with, with, with much smaller things in maternity leave, you know, like no meeting Fridays and those that really enforce it. And, and typically it also has to be a top-down, right? You can't say, oh, for you folks, but I'm obviously royalty and that doesn't apply to me, right? Like, that's right, has to be some modeling from a leadership perspective. Well, this has been phenomenal. I appreciate your time, appreciate your effort, and, uh, thank you so much for sharing with us today.

So nice to meet you, Peter. Thank you so much.

Thanks. To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.