Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Diane Hamilton. Welcome to Leaders Playbook, a show about how to drive transformational impact in your organization. We talked with innovative leaders across multiple industries to hear about the best tools, resources, practices, and strategies to help you reach the top of your game. I can't wait to share our leaders' insights with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:35 Hello everyone. I am your host, Dr. Diane Hamilton, and I am the CEO of tanera. I also serve on the board of advisors for the Global Mentor Network. Thank you for joining us. Our guest today is Tracy Ting of Encore Capital Group, a publicly traded international specialty finance company headquartered in the US that buys debt and offers debt recovery solutions and other related services across a broad range of financial assets. Tracy is their SVP and Chief Human Resource Officer. Earlier this year, Tracy was also appointed to the board of directors at Athena, which is headquartered in San Diego. And Athena is a premier women's advocacy and leadership development organization whose mission is to widen the bridge to advance 1 million women in STEM by 2030. Join me as we hear from Tracy regarding combining people with strategy. Welcome Tracy.
Speaker 2 00:01:26 Thank you Diane. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1 00:01:28 Well, I'm happy that you're here. You have quite a background and it's a mouthful to say cuz you're in so many different amazing areas and I, I wanted to just have you share a little bit of your backstory cuz to reach this level of success you must have had quite a path.
Speaker 2 00:01:43 Yeah, I'm happy to. So I've been a, a Chief HR officer, C H R O at global, mostly public companies over the past eight years. Currently I'm the C H R O at Encore Capital Group. Diane, you mentioned our global headquarters is in, is in the us So we're in San Diego, California with employee footprint across nine countries in north and Central America, in Europe and in India. So I actually started my career in finance and moved into HR over 20 years ago. And from an industry standpoint, I've worked in medical device pharmaceuticals and life science tools and three years ago made the leap to financial services where I am today. I've always been drawn to companies with a mission that centers on helping people and that's exactly what Encore does. I took on my first C H R O role in 2014 and I'm on my third C H R O role now at Encore.
Speaker 2 00:02:33 The last two were in life sciences and pharmaceutical space at Encore. Besides being responsible for people, culture, talent, I also oversee E S G or environmental social governance and corporate communications, which covers external and internal communications with the exception of investor relations, communications and E S G actually compliment each other really, really well. On a personal front, I'll just say, so I'm a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong. English was not my first language. Chinese was, and my husband is black and we have two biracial teenage daughters. So you can imagine that anything around topics like advancing women in leadership, career growth, diversity, inclusion are not just topics that resonate with me at work. They all say strongly with me at home. So I'm so thrilled to be here.
Speaker 1 00:03:20 Well thank you for that background cuz I think a lot of people, especially if they're listening to this, you know, they, they like to know, you know, how you became interested in some of the things you're interested in and your path. And I'm curious, you know, I was in pharmaceuticals and banking, so you and I would have plenty to talk about cuz the different industries. I'd love just the different aspects of both of those. And I, I, I think it's interesting to look at the culture. It was so different in both of those industries from at least my two companies. I worked for AstraZeneca and then I also worked for a small subprime bank and I, I've worked in different areas and culture's a huge part of your work. And you talk about co-creating culture and values and the importance of it. I'm curious, what impact does the co-creation process have on traditionally underrepresented groups like women and minorities?
Speaker 2 00:04:08 So Diane, I've always been a strong believer in the voices of the people. So for me, I think when I think of a culture, I think a culture can only be meaningful if it's sticky and it resonates with the people. And so one inclusive technique to make sure that all voices are captured and represented for me has been to invite colleagues to join in the co-creation process. I love that word, co-creation as a verb noun, you know, however I, however we get to use it. But if you think about leadership in a post pandemic next normal, I think listening to our people, reflecting their needs and wants from their company is really step number one table stakes. But the most important one to start. And I was reading an Egon Zender piece last week that spoke to the importance of CEOs and leaders being humble, empowering, and inclusive, especially nowadays.
Speaker 2 00:05:00 And it was talking about behaviors like leader behaviors, like willing to lean into their own humility and growth, needing to get out of their tried and true ways of the past and inviting other people's opinions and voices. So what that mean, as I kind of was thinking through it, reading it, was that it required leaders to be genuinely open to listen, to engage, to make collective decisions. The type of decisions I think that will foster key outcomes like ownership, accountability, buy-in that piece was wonderful. And this also why I love the concept of co-creation because I think the spirit and the itself levels the playing field and it provides equity to all people, especially when you think about underrepresented groups like my women and minorities who don't often get the equal share at the table in as far as their voices go. And so Diane, you were, you know, as far as this p this whole concept goes, I firmly believe that you have to be intentioned around inclusion and inequity.
Speaker 2 00:06:03 And anytime I've done that in my career leveraging this co-creation concept, I've, I've always been in awe of how many of our dive diverse employees and colleagues around the world want their voices heard and then, and they join in on the effort and, and even more, more so I think what ended up being what we co-create together are end up not only being long lasting but really meaningful and inspirational because we did it together. And so one example I was thinking what that I'm really proud of was around, uh, of co-creation was around company values. And so if you think about values, it's, it's, it's really kind of core, core to us, core to human being stuff, right? Values speak to who we are, how we act, it centers and anchors how we live and work, right? When we rely, we rely on our values to help guide us in our personal and professional paths and the type of decisions that we would make.
Speaker 2 00:06:54 And so Encore, a couple of years ago we embarked on a journey to have our company unite under one set of values. Because when I joined the company and the company grew a lot inorganically, organically and inorganically over the past decade. And so when I joined we had 10 different sets of values from different, really from different acquisitions companies that we acquired over the years. And for, for very intentional reasons, some we integrated, some we didn't. The bottom line is I walked into 10 different sets of values and the company actually does, yes, we're in nine different countries around the world, but we pretty much do similar things across all the different countries. So for me it was an, it was an opportunity to take this co-creation idea and invite our employees around the world to co-create our company values with us. One set of values.
Speaker 2 00:07:46 And I thought it was an, you know, inclusive way to make sure that we hear from everyone and the result was amazing. So we invited all of our employees around the world to co-create our values. 83% of our global colleagues around the world, across multiple countries, different cultural backgrounds, leaned in to co-create our three values that we have today. And I'll just share them with you and cuz they're so simple. One is we care. The second one is we find a better way. And the third one is we are inclusive and collaborative. And the best part was Diane, the executives didn't write them, our employees did. And it was just so powerful for me as I kind of sat there as a, as an executive sponsor of this global initiative. And then this was what came out. This was, this represented the voices of our people. So it was, it was actually a, a a beautiful exercise and, and I'm so proud of, of the work that our colleagues have done.
Speaker 1 00:08:44 Well, you know, it's really interesting that you had so many different sets of values. You know, this doesn't come up very often on the show and I, I kind of wanna touch on that a little bit because I'm curious of what kinds of things did you have to let go of, uh, or were not working for you or, or just were just too different from what you had now. Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:09:05 Yeah, great question. So, you know, it's interesting when I kind of laid all the 10 different sets of, of values on the table to look at them. So I would say they're all different, different words, but they weren't necessarily that far off from each other or though I would say a lot of the words while they are good words. And, and for me, I think about what hits your head versus what hits your heart. And, and I will say a lot of those words were intellectually hitting heads, hitting my head. I'll just use myself, but it wasn't hitting my heart. And and when you think about something like values, and this is interesting and I learned this as I was from a, a service provider that I was working with several years ago and this balance of head and heart. And so I'll, I'll even ask you, you know, how much, when you think about the balance, just think about in percentages summing to a hundred percent, what is the balance of what should hit your head versus your heart?
Speaker 1 00:10:04 Well, you know, that's so interesting cuz you're really talking empathy versus perspective sometimes, you know, and hopefully it would have more like 80% empathy more, i, I don't know, what is it?
Speaker 2 00:10:15 Yeah, yeah. So it actually is 80 20. Oh yeah. So 80 hard 20 heads. Good job, Diane. And so, so that was great because that for me was helpful to say, all right, I think we can take on a journey that focuses more on empathy, focuses more on who we are. And so the way we did this exercise, you know, when you invite thousands of employees around the world to, in a co-creation exercise, you also have to think about how do you scale this thing? And so we actually found a company actually headquartered in the uk. We are a US headquartered company and we found this wonderful company that has a culture survey centered on in values. Their use cases are various. So think of it as companies who acquire other companies may want to compare their culture versus the company they acquire to see how far off they are or how similar they are.
Speaker 2 00:11:09 That's kind of a, was a primary use case who we decided to use it for a different use case. We said, okay, well since your tool is values anchored, let's, let's use it to figure out what our values should be. And by, by having our employees tell us. So we went through this exercise was very e e easily scalable. And then what we learned was, so when you think about survey, you get all kinds of data cuts, right? And slices of the data. What we learned was our employees around the world were way more similar than they were different. So that was great because that allowed us to, to think, okay, we can come up with one set of values, we don't need multiple steps to be meaningful. And so that was kind of the evidence that allowed us to keep going on this journey to come up with the values that we have. Those three that I read to you, it was a very interesting exercise. We learned a lot about our culture, we learned a lot about what's important and the similarities across all of our employee base, no matter which site or country they're from. Was was the, I think that was the most surprising piece. We weren't necessarily expecting them to be so aligned, but that was certainly a very positive slide.
Speaker 1 00:12:19 It's really an interesting look if just a lot of the research I do is in perception, curiosity and emotional intelligence. And you touched on all three of those aspects in that. And I, I think what I hear a lot is a lot of employees don't feel comfortable with, with what they're doing sometimes because they don't know how their job ties in to the overall mission and vision or values of the organization. So what I'm hearing you, you say is they can't help it now <laugh> because they created them, right? Yeah, yeah. And that gives you, you know, you've got skin in the game, you care. How did that impact your engagement? Did you have any kind of way to tell how much this impacted things?
Speaker 2 00:12:58 Yeah, so we're, so engagement is something we continue to measure and I think it's one of those where even within, from a measurement standpoint, we looked at whether these new values are sticky and meaningful. Like do you actually see your colleagues living our values of we care or we find a better way, or we are inclusive and collaborative and actually the data comes, the initial set of data we got was very positive that, that from a stickiness standpoint, we measure if it's measurable, we probably measure it, which is a good thing. And, and so the first set of data came back I think in the eighties and the nineties percent of, of positive yes, we, we agree or we strongly agree. So that was really positive to know that people feel that the other folks, the, you know, the colleagues they work with are living that.
Speaker 2 00:13:48 And I think from an engagement standpoint, I would say it's a wonderful way to, to anchor and center people toward a common set of values. Cuz I'm, I think for, for, for any company, it's, it's at the end of the day, you, you join a company because you wanna feel like you belong there, you connect to it and, and the connect work, the work around connection and belonging and purpose and, and it values is a good way to really anchor purpose are are all the stuff that we invested in working on and we'll continue to invest in working on because it's really important, especially if you think about post pandemic new world of, you know, it's not just a job for money, it's a job that people feel like they believe in, that they, they provide, they add value to, and it's a place that they can connect and belong to. And if they feel all that they will be more engaged, they will go that extra mile. That's kind of the approach we're taking.
Speaker 1 00:14:44 I I think that that's great that you quantify things and I, you had said that, what was it, your second value, you care, we, we find
Speaker 2 00:14:52 A better way,
Speaker 1 00:14:52 A better way. My handwriting's terrible <laugh>, if you finding a better way to me is about the curiosity thing, getting outta status quo and looking for things that maybe work differently than in the past. How, how are you measuring the success of that value?
Speaker 2 00:15:07 You know, that's an interesting one. So we find a better way. So I think you can, you can describe it in, in, in what the words that you just chose. And I would add to that also, I think just always challenging ourselves and finding incremental improvements, right? And I think we are, we already have that type of culture within us to, to always kind of look, look back at what we've done and say how can we do it better and and better doesn't mean you have to completely turn the thing upside down and transform it. Sometimes it might mean that, but sometimes it might just mean, hey let let us make incremental improvement to a process or to a program or to, to, to something to a way of doing. And then, so for us, the, that we find a better way as far as making incremental process, we have a competency.
Speaker 2 00:15:56 So if you think about our performance, if you think about how peop you know, comp, a lot of companies measure performance and I'll simplify it and I'm not saying all companies do this, but we, we think of like someone's performance as a combination of the what and the how, right? The what is your goals, like the work goals that you have each year, each quarter that, that sits on you, you have to accomplish the how is how you go about doing it. And so that those would be competencies. So one of our competencies is around agility and innovation. And so agility is a good way for us to, to say, well are you agile enough to find, to adapt? Are you agile enough to find continuous improvements and continue to adapt to change? That's one of the ways that we, we look at how we measure, we find a better way.
Speaker 1 00:16:43 Well that's really so important to quantify some of these things. I have a lot of people wanna ask me about that because I define curiosity is getting outta status quo and I, it connects to engagement, innovation, all of the things you're trying to do. And a lot of the companies aren't really measuring a lot of this to see if what they're doing is leading to these outputs. So I think it's great to see a company that really does that and it's, there's so many challenges that you guys face as HR executive, especially since post, you know, this post pandemic, all the craziness going on. I'm just curious, what's the biggest issue that you're facing now that you're addressing at Encore?
Speaker 2 00:17:19 There are so many things that we're looking at and many companies are too. And I certainly, you know, would say we're in, we're in the pack with everybody else. I think we're thinking through the future of work, we're thinking through, you know, this hybrid new world and way of working for, for employees from, you know, what makes the most sense for us. You know, it's interesting, I'll just pick on that one as an example. You know, I think the pendulum swung from one end. If you, you, if you use pre pandemic, if you were a hundred percent work from office type of company and then during the pandemic, if you move to a hundred percent remote just for the safety of employees, I think right now a lot of companies are starting to figure out, okay, the pendulum swung the other way completely and then we're gonna swing back somewhere in this middle space, where will that swing land?
Speaker 2 00:18:13 And I think all, all companies are probably in the same space to figure that out. And I think the importance, the important thing there I would say is as long as the companies can be open to evolving and adapting and listening to their people's voices to kind of figure this out and figure it out means just being very transparent about, look, we don't have all the answers but today we believe this is the right thing to do and we'll continue to listen to employees' voices to help inform us of what might we want to explore next. I think that's the piece that's important for, that's probably a lot of what the companies are facing into today. Another area, big broad brush area is E S G. I think that's another area that I think companies are all facing into today. N no matter what industries you're in, no matter where you are in your E S G maturity, I think a lot of companies are are facing into that to kind of figure out, well what should I do about E S G?
Speaker 2 00:19:11 What are my, I'll call 'em stakeholders telling me stakeholders like investors or employees or community are all saying that's, that helps a company decide, well how, how will I be a sustainable company? What are the important things I must do? What's my role to society short term and long term? And I think E S G is really helping frame that up in for a lot of companies. And I think a lot of companies, especially US-based companies are, are working through that at different stages right now. A lot of European companies are, are a bit more familiar with ESGs than US-based companies just cuz they've been in it a little bit longer. But, but that's another area I think a lot of HR leaders are facing into, or HR and business leaders, excuse me, are facing into,
Speaker 1 00:19:56 Oh there's, it's definitely a top hot topic when we go into different areas, we always kind of end up at DE and I E S G goals and, and the, you know, how are you measuring these things? I, I'd be curious to know the metrics that you use to track progress against your goals and how can we keep management accountable for those goals? I mean, what are you doing there?
Speaker 2 00:20:18 Accountability for me around E S G and d e i, so far what we've done, and again, you know, this is an, this is an evolving, growing journey for us. So what we've done is we, we have them show up in a few ways in goals, in incentives and in our values. So one example of accountability in incentives is in our bonus plans, and I'll, I'll speak to the bonus plan that our executives belong to and, and how E S G is incorporated there and d e I as well. And so that bonus plan is set up like a balance scorecard. Today we have metrics that are financial and strategic, but for, for a company like Encore, which is in specialty financial services, you know, if you think about what we do, we are people helping people. So the s in ESG is an important component there.
Speaker 2 00:21:03 And so we have metrics that are in that bonus plan that I was referring to. We have metrics that are focused on people and customers and in our case consumers are customers. And so on the people side over the years we've had metrics around things like inclusion measuring, inclusion measuring employee net promoter score, measuring employee engagement score or something somewhere in the, some measurement around diversity. And more recently we've also introduced employee turnover into, into our incentive plan because it's, you know, this past year's talent has been a big topic in, in talent turnover, talent supply and that incentive plan on the customer side, we've used customer satisfaction and call quality. Call quality just speaks to the quality of the calls that our call agents, call center agents make with the, with their customers, with the consumers. And so together the people metrics and the customer metrics, they are all E s G metrics and they make up about 30% weight in our executive bonus plan.
Speaker 2 00:22:05 So not, not shabby there, it's actually a sizable amount of weight. Another example of accountability this year we also put specific d and i goals with all of our executive team members to further I think highlight that the importance of de and I, so this sits in our personal goal set, not just in our incentive plan, but in our personal goal set. And then the other thing is if you, if you know, I'll say, if you take a step with E S G, and again I put D E I on within that broad umbrella of E S G. So not only are investors asking for more metrics and disclosures, the s e C is also leaning in that direction as well with some proposed regulations. And then, um, depending on the company, some clients and regulators might be asking for more and more of that as well. And don't forget, the other audience or stakeholder I'll say here is employees and prospective employees. They also wanna know from an ESG lens, right? They also wanna know if the company they work for or potentially looking to work at is a strong corporate steward. So I think E S G plays out in a number of ways, like I said in our goals, in our incentives, in our values, in, in even our value proposition.
Speaker 1 00:23:13 You obviously do a lot in that area. I, I think it's, it's really interesting to look at what other companies do and you're gonna be publishing your first global E s G report later this year and I'm curious about the takeaways you wanna share with our audience, uh, as you underwent that journey.
Speaker 2 00:23:28 Yeah, yeah. To answer this question, I think I'm gonna just share a quick story of oh good. It's a multi-year e s g journey that we've been on, which started in 2020. And so if you think about maturity curves of any kind, they tend to have, you know, each stage is a little bit more adding on or building from the prior stage. So, so ours is kind of set up that way too as a multi-year journey. So in 2020 where when we started we focus on these, the core foundational elements. So we started with the materiality assessment, including interviewing stakeholders and different subject matter experts around the company. Materiality SU assessment is supposed to land us on, well what's the most material important critical topics in the E S G realm that are important to our stakeholders. That's what that assessment's supposed to, to help us uncover.
Speaker 2 00:24:16 We also spend time understanding the broader external E S G reporting landscape. So that included different rating firms out there and there, there is a lot, there's a lot out there and the different disclosure frameworks, there also are a lot of those out there too. And so we found that. So in addition to all of that, I think we also not, I think we actually also research and benchmark our against our company peers, our comp competitors, to help us decide on, on kind of that broader landscape what what will work for our industry, what will work for our company. I think understanding our peer competitor set is also important. And so from all this research in 2020, we came up with five pillars that guide our E S G focus and they are consumers. So think of them, you know, in other companies be customers in our world, consumers as that key component of customers.
Speaker 2 00:25:06 So, so consumers, people, environmental, community and operating responsibly. Those are the five pillars that anchors our focus areas within E S G. So then in 2021 we developed an operating model for E S G to manage E S G within the company we expanded our, we have an E S G steering committee, which is chaired by me, made up of cross-functional leaders, cross geography leaders, cross business unit leaders across the globe. And that group really help not just with decision making around E S G, we do it in a very collaborative way, but also act as a conduit for when we need someone in a certain geography in a certain area. That might be a, that might be tracking something or an expert at something. Well let's go to the e ESG steering committee member to help to help facilitate that, that dialogue, right. A few other things we also did is we formalized our c e o and board governance oversight structure.
Speaker 2 00:26:09 So E S G is under the oversights of our nominating and governance committee of the board. I think it's pretty popular now with other companies and, and as when they think about board oversight as well, what else do we do in 2021? So we selected our disclosure framework that will guide how we will report specific disclosures cuz there are so many out there. It helps to anchor to one or two to guide how you disclose and what you disclose. And hopefully later on it can help us if we ever get to a point of setting future goals and commitments. These disclosure frameworks can help frame that for us as as well. The other thing we did, we also doubled down on our communications around E S G. So whether it's internal facing communication or external facing communications, so on our website in other places, we also wanna get it more out there so it becomes more of a common conversation topic rather than a special project.
Speaker 2 00:27:00 I don't want e S G to be a special project cuz it'll always be seen at that. Hopefully it will it become something that we live as you know, daily. So fast forward to this year 2022. So now that we have all, all these foundational elements in place, it was the right time for us to understand what data we have out there and within the company and where we have them. And so you can imagine if across different countries and across different years, you know, different acquisitions, there's a lot of data out there. And so we, because we have to, what we have to do is develop a scalable way to collect and measure that, that all the different types of data make sense of it. And so, so that's what we did in the earlier part of this year is figure that out. And so that's why I'm excited.
Speaker 2 00:27:43 And later this year we're gonna be publishing our first e s g report. Now Diane, I think your question was on takeaways with this process. I, I think for me the biggest takeaway is that E S G is a multi-year journey and I think what's even more is you have to set out to make intentional progress. By that I mean progress will not happen accidentally. Progress will only happen intentionally. And if you go in with that plan and the intention and the clarity and if you have the right governance structure to support that, I think you can actually make it happen. And, and for us, we've been fortunate enough to, to make incremental progress. Maybe that's, we find a better way living itself out our value. We find a better way to, to just continue to, to build on what we've done in the prior year. And so, we'll we have a lot more to go. E S G is complex, it's evolving. We'll keep evolving with it. That's the plan. Well
Speaker 1 00:28:43 I like how well you collaborated. I mean, earlier you said how many you North South America, India, all these places and you've got all these cultures going. What was the biggest challenge to collaborate on something like
Speaker 2 00:28:54 That? So, great question, Diane, on collaboration. I think for us the starting point to really invite that level collaboration that we've been building and and evolving is really just around getting the right people at the table. And again, it isn't about getting all the right people at the table to begin with. I think we always have to start somewhere. And then from there we've just been fortunate enough to, to continue to build on getting more of the right people at the table, having those conversations and then really not just having the conversations but owning the outcomes as well. So I think that's a really important part of the collaboration that we've been, we've been doing and hopefully continue to build on.
Speaker 1 00:29:32 It's really important to, to get groups to collaborate. And this comes up a lot in the courses I teach. So I really appreciate you elaborating on that. And I, you brought brought up something earlier that, about being a woman and minority and, and obviously in a C-suite role. I'm curious if, for our last question, just the wisdom you would give our audience who wants to pursue a STEM career and congratulations on that goal that you have set. But if they want to be you or be like you and get into a career like that, what advice would you give?
Speaker 2 00:30:02 Yeah, certainly I, I will just share my, share my own lessons that I've learned over the years and hopefully they will be meaningful for, for some folks. So I've been in the corporate workforce for almost 30 years. I remember in those earlier years where I found myself as the only female in the room and the only female and minority executive in the room. I would say from a wisdom tips perspective, hopefully the ones that I'm gonna share now will work with thin and outside of STEM and hopefully be inclusive of those beyond just female minorities. I think first I will say it's important for us to be open, to navigate new grounds and not be afraid of making a mistakes, right? Be open to trying new things that you've never done before. Think outside the box. So I love the statement that I used earlier.
Speaker 2 00:30:46 You know, I don't know what I don't know. And what I found is that, um, a lot of people find that statement very endearing because it's real when they hear it and especially when they hear it from an executive. And I think that level of humility also invites help and support. And I don't think you need to be an executive to say, I don't know what I don't know. I think it's just being authentic. And when you do that more and more, you're inviting people in to really help you. It's amazing how when you invite people in, how much they're willing to help. And I, I don't think I could've gotten to where I am without surrounding myself with great people. Another tip I would say, and I have a few if you don't mind sharing cause these are just my own lessons learned. So another tip for me is to look out two roles at meaning be very strategic around your own career planning.
Speaker 2 00:31:31 So let me explain what that means is a lot of times when people are thinking about their career progression, they're always thinking about their next role. What I'm asking people to do is think about their next, next role, which is the role after that. Because if you have clarity on what your next next role is, it will provide much clearer direction on what your next role should be, right? And then next, next role or next role doesn't, is not necessarily by job title or job level hierarchy. You can grow your breadth of knowledge horizontally as well. If you think about rounding yourself out and setting yourself up for success for other broader roles later. The notion of looking out two roles, it it just forces you to think and be more strategic about the choices that you make today. It also will trigger you to think a little bit more thoughtfully about what will success look like, what must success look like in your, in that next role.
Speaker 2 00:32:24 If you have more clarity and a sense of what that next, next role might be. Also it will give you clarity around what you should learn from your next role to set yourself up to get that next, next role. So that's a big one. Another one, I have two more. Another one i I love is the notion of superpower. Figure out your superpower and market, market the heck out of it internally and externally as your differentiator. So for me, my superpower is leading cultural transformations to drive long-term business success and outcomes. And so for me it's, once you know what that superpower is, find the opportunities to showcase them, right? And you do it a few times, the next thing you know that becomes your brand, that's tied to your identity, that's tied to your brand. When you're looking for a job, when people call you to, to speak at a conference or or whatnot, that becomes your thing.
Speaker 2 00:33:17 And I think that's really important as a differentiator. We all, we all should have our own differentiator as to, you know, what, which is a core part of our brand. The final tip I think I would give is to never compromise your core values, including the type of leader you wanna be. The more you share about your own uniqueness and perspectives, the better. And don't let people define who you are if you think about the substance of who you are. So for some it may be accountability or vulnerability or empowerment, whatever that is, figure that out as and, and those should be your character leadership attributes and they can also become something you're known for or respect it for. And you can start early. You, you don't have to be an executive to, to do that. Start early, don't censor your own authenticity. And you should figure that out in fact before you get to the top because I think authenticity will carry you much further in leadership than technical acumen.
Speaker 2 00:34:12 I sometimes think about technical acumen as, as gets you in the door, but then what differentiates you from a great, from a good between a good leader and a great leader is everything else, right? And the fact that I'm a minority and a female I believe adds to the tapestry and the different experiences and perspectives around the table. I want my voice to, you know, for me I think my voice should be heard and I believe my voice will be heard. And it's been one of those that I, I kind of learned it along the way, you know, I didn't figure that out early on, but if I get to give tips and advice to others, those are the ones I would share.
Speaker 1 00:34:47 Well, they're great mentorship advice and I think that there's so much room for us to learn from people who have done what we wanna do. And I think there's no, there's too many people reinventing the wheel when there's so much you can get from people like you and people that are, have gone through certain paths, whether they're circuitous or straight up the ladder or whatever route. And I agree with you, there's so much breadth that we can get at now if they're flat earth organizations out there, they, that's, a lot of companies are doing that. And so we have to, to learn all these different areas sometimes to even go up. So I think that that's some great advice and I really appreciated you sharing all those great stories. This was wonderful. I enjoyed meeting you, Tracy, thank you so much for being on the show.
Speaker 2 00:35:34 Thank you Diane, it was lovely.
Speaker 1 00:35:42 We always love to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments, head over to gmn.net and say hello. That's where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter. Be sure to follow Global Mentor Network on Twitter and LinkedIn and don't forget to head over to wherever you get your podcast and subscribe for more tips to elevate your impact. While you're at it, leave a rating and comment. It helps us to keep improving the podcast for you. See you next time for another episode of Leader's Playbook.
