Why You Dont Have to Compromise For Your Career

[Music]

uh

so a few years ago i was co-chairing our

women’s leadership group at our company

and i remember this one meeting we had

we’re all kind of sitting around the

table

debating the topics of our next big

conference

and one woman says sponsorship

we have to be sure we talk about

sponsorship

and another one says executive presence

we also have to be sure we talk about

executive presence

and i was like wine

can we just be sure we have enough wine

no but here’s what i was also thinking

why are we still talking about the same

things

that we’ve essentially been talking

about for the last 30 years

executive presence and networking and

sponsorship

and lean in yes we absolutely have a

gender inequality issue in the workplace

when you have more ceos named dave

than female ceos yeah that’s kind of a

problem

but that’s not the truth i’m here to

expose

i’m here to tell you a harsher cringier

kind of truth

we are trying to resolve it the wrong

way

now a few years ago

also on a friday i was working from home

i was in sort of that

glide into the weekend mode when my boss

texts me

can we talk

he calls me up and he says hey this is

kind of heavy for a friday but

i’ve decided to leave the company and i

want to know if it’s okay if

i recommend you as our next coo i paused

i replied um

no thank you why

why in the hell would i turn down such a

prestigious opportunity like this

because i quickly ran the compromise

calculation in my head

x equals career y equals everything else

eh i’m good where i’m at i want you to

be honest

raise your hand if you’ve ever run a

compromise calculation in your head

do you say things to yourself like if i

go for a bigger job

i might have to compromise things like

my family or my health

or even who i am we’re lowering our

hands

at least halfway but half way is too far

we’re creating a problem we’re never

going to solve

the truth is the biggest reason we have

a gender inequality issue in the

workplace

isn’t because women are being held down

it’s because we’re opting down and i

know not really making a lot of friends

right now

but bear with me because it’s not really

our fault

and i do have a solution but first i

want to assure you

it’s not just you or i that’s held

ourselves back

a team at harvard verified this too they

set out to understand

why are women being promoted less often

than men

and what they found was that women

actually believe

they can attain the high level positions

just as much as the men do but the big

difference

was that women were far more likely to

expect

negative trade-offs as a result and of

course gender inequality it

it doesn’t just impact women in a

mckinsey study

they estimated that if we were to

achieve gender parity in the workplace

by the year

2025 we could add 12

trillion dollars to the global economy

12 trillion dollars

do you know that’s like 600 billion

bottles of cabernet we could add to all

those women’s conferences

you see here’s what we do we often feel

like we have to solve big problems with

big solutions

we throw these lavish super women of the

year conferences

and companies spend eight billion

dollars a year in diversity training

and we have entire industries devoted to

diversity

and gender and that’s not necessarily

what we need

so what do we need

we need a new modern career playbook

one that doesn’t necessarily ask you to

lean

in but one that gives you permission

to lean in a totally different way

what is it authenticity

you just hear a little riff kumbaya

you’re over here like

meditating well snap out of it

that’s actually not what i’m talking

about no authenticity actually doesn’t

just mean

being yourself it’s a much more

nuanced and powerful concept

the origin the word is greek it’s

authenticos

which means to be genuine

original authoritative

authenticity is like this beautiful

intersection of

being yourself being badass

it’s like if joe exotic had a baby with

kamala harris

i’m going to help you see the power that

authenticity has

to change everything

so remember how i told you i said no

thank you to that co position

well i thought about it over the weekend

and i decided to say yes

i realized that the reason i had said no

was that i was

i was worried i was going to have to fit

into this mold this

this sort of club i was going to have to

enter into

in in this club i feared my ego would

grow and my calendar would overflow

and my home life would become a [ __ ]

show

and my personality might even start to

blow

i didn’t want that but then it hit me

you shouldn’t not do something because

you hate the way it was done before

you can do it your own way

now by this point i had realized that

being

authentic was well it was kind of

fun but what i was starting to realize

was that doing authentic was extremely

powerful

so minutes after i took that new role i

had this

critical like make it or break it

contract negotiation

i had no clue what to do and i remember

sitting down with our senior executive

for purposes here we’ll just call him

dave

and i said to dave what’s important to

you in this negotiation

and after he responded and kind of

spilled his guts

turn the question back on me when out of

my mouth poured

well our financials are struggling and

if i can negotiate this deal without a

price increase

i’ll have a good shot at becoming the

next ceo

i really want to become the next ceo

i had thrown myself fully and

authentically

right at poor dave i was like when

you’re driving down the road right a

deer comes out

smashes against your windshield

several months later though i completed

that negotiation with a highly

successful outcome

why because dave is human

and he largely pushed that deal through

because he wanted to see

me to see get that ceo position as well

it was in that moment that i realized

authenticity isn’t just some passive

thing

i realized i could use authenticity as

my secret weapon

so i started to use my authenticity

everywhere

i was like a ninja in a gunfight from

high stakes negotiations to my linkedin

profile

from introductions and meetings

to well giving big prestigious talks

and time and time again it resulted in

success

now was it all roses no but

i still can tell you even as somebody

who failed

miserably as an actuary in her first

career

the odds were definitely starting to tip

in my favor

in fact i did get that ceo position

i get to lead a team of about a thousand

people and

i’m so proud to say that with my

authenticity leading the way

we went from struggling pretty big time

to tripling earnings and sending

employee engagement scores skyrocketing

in just three years and more importantly

i stayed married my kids thrived my

my health was never better and i stayed

me using authenticity as my secret

weapon

i felt like it changed the entire game

i felt like i went from this game where

i was worried about having to do the

things that might make me sell out

to a game where i was just focused on

doing the things

that would make me stand out

the compromise calculation it no longer

added up for me anymore

now i know what you’re probably thinking

right now

awesome aaron so happy for you you have

no idea the company i work for

work with a bunch of jerks they’re all

about profit

what if i were to prove to you that

authenticity isn’t just some

elusive fluffy strategy

let me throw a little data at you first

work by francis frey showed that

authenticity is one of three pillars to

creating trust

second a harvard business review paper

showed that companies with higher trust

had 76 percent higher employee

engagement

and lastly in a gallup study they showed

that companies with higher employee

engagement

were 21 more profitable

authenticity equals money

now if i just kind of put you to sleep a

little bit with that little data piece

let me also just throw a little oprah

bomb at you oprah once said

i had no idea that being your authentic

self

could have made me as rich as i’ve

become

if i had i’d have done it a lot sooner

people this is what it comes down to

companies want results and leaders in

those companies want results

and they don’t actually care what

playbook you use to get there

it’s just that for some reason we still

largely preach

this decades-old career playbook

i am giving you permission to hurl aside

that crusty old playbook

the executive presence and the politics

and the sponsorship the

tough-ass leadership and the martyrdom

instead i want you to do things

your own way i want you to create your

own

authenticity playbook and don’t worry

i’m going to help you get started in

writing that book

with your first three plays all right

play number one

stop playing business buzzword

bingo in your resume your linkedin

profile introductions and meetings

i bet i can guess what your linkedin

profile looks like

does it look something like this oh

flawless execution like proven

experience like what the heck is that

everybody says it instead

try telling a story or make fun of

yourself a little bit

if you look at my linkedin profile every

single one of my position summaries

are short stories instead of buzzwords

try it just watch people connect and

smile

and become intrigued and i promise

you’ll stand out from all the other

schmucks using the same stuffy bs

all right play number two change your

ooo message you know

your oblivious outage message

like change it to something like

or instead of saying like i will be out

of the office

i will get back to you as soon as i can

change it to something like

taking a much needed break from all the

craziness

i’ll get back to you when i’m well

rested and less cranky

just a simple change like that

what happens is it starts to give

yourself permission and others

permission to be more authentic not to

mention

take a real vacation play number

three include your children in your work

get their impu input on a project you’re

working on or

use their everyday stories as metaphors

and inspiration to those around you

if you have to travel consider taking

them with you

like the time about a year ago literally

just two days before this conference i

was speaking at i realized

my kids didn’t have school that day and

i had no coverage

now the old aaron would have freaked out

but using my new authenticity playbook

i was like well i’ll take them with me

and here’s the thing bringing them with

me

didn’t just help me solve my personal

problem

their presence at my talk was way more

inspiring than anything i actually said

that day

in fact i include my children all the

time

we actually had to do uh an application

video for this talk

and i asked them to help me direct it i

want to give you a quick

backstage look

today kind of this is a bit heavy for a

friday and that kind of implies that

it’s a friday night and you don’t have

to like

boom friday okay so how should i start

the time that they get it it they might

not see it on

friday that’s a good point too i like

that yeah that’s what i was thinking of

mine

yeah but you were yeah we gotta we gotta

squeeze this in

can you tell who’s the boss in that

video definitely not me

here’s the thing at the end of the day

authenticity

is about exposing who you are when

people least

expect it experiment

get curious just just try it

and do not give me the excuse that the

leaders around you aren’t authentic

were the leaders around me authentic

mostly

hell no but here’s the very best thing

about

authenticity it’s incredibly

contagious what happens is when you

start to do it you

unlock this power that’s dormant inside

of you

and inside of others including those

above you

malcolm gladwell studied what caused

major tipping points

in history and what he found was so

fascinating

it isn’t the big things that make things

tip

it’s the small things that cause big

transformation imagine what your

choreograph might look like if you

embraced and encouraged

authenticity you’d no longer have to opt

down

because you feared you’re going to have

to compromise to rise

using authenticity as your new playbook

you can transform your career you can

transform our gender inequality

issue you can transform

humanity look at the challenges you face

in the workplace differently

stop playing a game you don’t want to

play

tip that damn graph do things your own

way

thank you