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