Editor’s note: Grace Ueng is CEO of Savvy Growth, a leadership coaching and management consultancy founded in 2003. Her great passion to help leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential combined with her empathy and ability to help leaders figure out their “why” is what clients value most. Grace will be writing a regular column for WRAL TechWire. Watch for future columns.
+++
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – I would like to express gratitude to everyone who has reached out regarding my sharing of my mental health struggles last year. It brings me joy to hear that my “coming out” is helpful to you as you or a loved one may have also struggled with depression. While we may all come into this dark place for different reasons, our struggles are similarly felt.
I dedicate my columns to the study of Happiness and Leadership in hopes that this sharing will make you happier and a better leader. I have been interested in leadership ever since high school. Those who have experienced my Happiness post Harvard workshops know that while at MIT, I often felt like I was drowning as the workload was like “drinking from a firehose”. I went to MIT to please my dear father who wanted me to be an engineer. I soon realized that this field didn’t leverage my strengths, so I applied to Harvard to major in English to become a writer, what I thought was my true heart’s desire.
Hedging my bets since I was rejected by Harvard when I applied as a high school senior, I tried to find a corner at MIT where I could succeed, since it was obvious I would not be a top student. So, at the end of freshman year, I ran for Class President and much to my surprise, I was elected. And then much to my bigger surprise, I received a letter from Harvard admitting me as a transfer student. But I decided to live up to my elected commitment and stay at MIT, where I learned to contribute as a student leader outside of the classroom.
Do you have a best friend at work? Workplaces are changing – and bosses must adopt
Fast forward three decades, I began my happiness journey and dove into studying positive psychology, in anticipation of being an empty nester and being thrown into despondency, given my genetic predisposition. Now, I start my second chapter of Happiness studying, combining with my love of Leadership, as part of my practice of self-care, as helping others brings me joy.
Coaching CAAN and Fireside Chat
One of my joys this past year, even in the midst of my depression, has been serving as a coach to Cisco’s Connected Asian Network (CAAN). Last month, I had the joy of leading a fireside chat for CAAN with Sherry Lee Hersey, who rose up to serve as an executive at two Fortune 100 companies, when the odds were stacked against her.
After graduating from MIT, Sherry started in a management training program at Travelers, first on the technical side and then moved into business management roles. When Travelers merged with Citigroup, she was responsible for eight countries in Europe. She then left Travelers to go to Ace, now Chubb insurance, where she moved in as CMO and ultimately moving back to Travelers to manage its B2B insurance strategy.
‘From Strength to Strength,’ lessons in leadership, happiness
Outlined below are some of the key takeaways from my interview with Sherry. While the experiences come from the challenges of being an Asian woman in a white, male dominated business environment, I believe the underlying lessons are broadly applicable.
Failures, Mentors, and Football Pads
While Asians don’t often talk about failures, Sherry shared that she was fortunate to experience failure early on. In her training program, she expected to be promoted to manager within 3-5 years. Very quickly, she saw her non-Asian peers get promoted over her despite her technical strength.
With the help of mentors in the program, she learned how to change and build her executive presence. She also worked on changing her communication style, a very Asian respectful approach to a more American direct and forceful presentation style. Her presentations were videotaped so that she could see how she looked to hone her skills. Something I’ve found invaluable in coaching clients and something you can do using your smart phone!
Asians and women often carry a humble body position. Sherry passes on to her mentees the advice to think about yourself with football or hockey pads on to take up more space. This will help project and improve your presence. Always pay attention to your posture, even when you are not speaking, to project a larger executive presence in the room.
When Yao Ming was recruited to play basketball for the Houston Rockets, he faced the cultural conflict between his Chinese self and the way he played basketball in China and the more aggressive American style. He faced a cultural struggle in the NBA, to adapt to the American style, which he was hired to do, while maintaining his Chinese core.
Happiness & leadership: Why happiness is the key to successful leadership
This is similar to those working in the western world, whether we were born overseas or born in the US. You have that Asian cultural heritage, and how can you be true to that?
It was very uncomfortable at first for Sherry. She did not want to sacrifice her values in order to put on this persona that’s viewed as part of “executive presence.”
You have to sell yourself in the workplace, and Sherry learned early on that you don’t have to sacrifice your values or who you are. Instead, she advised thinking of it as tweaking your style or softening your edges, making light changes around the edges but not the core of who you are.
Don’t lose that humbleness, humility, and respect for others, but think about how others around you are perceiving you. You need to promote yourself; you can’t depend on your boss to do this for you, being heads down working hard all the time is not enough, or even wise for corporate progression.
Helicopter Ride
Find the opportunities and possibilities and be prepared to take risks. Sherry saw an opportunity to leverage her technical, cultural and language skills when Travelers was expanding into Asia. With their children being only 5 and 7, Sherry and her husband agreed that was a good time to live overseas.
At that time, she was commuting from New York to Hartford on the corporate helicopter. One day the CEO was in the helicopter with her. Throughout the 45-minute chopper ride, she was wondering when she would have the chance to speak to him to make her pitch. He had put his headset on during the flight, to avoid the noisy chopper and make good use of the time. After landing, when shuttling in the van to headquarters, Sherry thought “this is my chance!” She also thought, “what do I have to lose?”
Marshall Brain, creator of ‘How Stuff Works,’ joins TechWire’s growing list of contributors
So she opened her mouth and used her voice. She told the CEO that she had heard of the company’s aspiration to expand into Asia, and that she had strong interest, technical and business knowledge along with language skills. It was scary for her. She had only met the CEO before in large groups. In this 10-minute van ride, Sherry bravely made her pitch.
That afternoon, she was set up for an interview with the head of international insurance and the rest is history. Sherry said that her family was very fortunate to have had this opportunity. They thoroughly enjoyed their 3 years in Asia, and she learned so much during that time.
If she didn’t take the chance to make her pitch, her move would have taken a lot of networking and reaching out up the chain to express interest and waiting for responses to help. She was willing to go right to the top and make her interests known.
Mentoring and Me
It was a challenging time for a woman, particularly an Asian woman, to move up in a Fortune 100 setting. There weren’t many Asians in technology management, so few examples of breaking the bamboo ceiling. Fortunately for Sherry, her direct manager was a female officer focused on mentoring young women. Her challenge was how to be viewed as somebody they would want as their peer around the executive table and add to the conversation.
So Sherry learned to play golf. She learned to talk football. She tried to find things in common with the leaders so they could see her as a peer.
My coaching clients speak about wanting to have a bidirectional relationship with their boss – that this is ideal so both can grow and benefit from having a thinking partner. How about in a mentoring relationship? How best to make it flourish? Think of it like a board of directors. You can have more than one mentor. What do you want to learn or gain? It could be leveraging their connections for a next step in your career. Or gaining a new skill you want to learn – let’s say you don’t know much about international operations. You find a mentor that can expose you to international business. There are many reasons for mentors, and you can have many different mentors for different purposes. So when you’re seeking a mentor, think about what it is that you want to learn and gain from the relationship.
And then once you identify potential mentors, as you enter that relationship, think about what you can bring to the table for the mentor as well. If you develop a strong relationship and they see value, that they gain something out of the relationship as well, that only strengthens your bond.
If you need their help in the future, they’re more willing to help you because of the strength of your relationship. So not only think about what you get out of the relationship, but how you can help your mentor.
There is also the idea of reverse mentoring. At Travelers, many of the executives had set up reverse mentoring relationships, where they taught the executives, for instance, about social media, how to be more inclusive or how to relate to racial differences. So think about what you can bring to your mentor.
Sherry’s advice on how to approach your mentor meeting: arrive very prepared. It’s not just a casual conversation. Have objectives for the meeting. Even send out an agenda beforehand and solicit what they might want to ask of you. Pose questions to figure out what areas they are most interested in discussing. Review what advice they’ve given in the past and what actions you have taken. Show them you are listening, absorbing and putting into practice advice they’ve given you. The best mentees are those who have expressed gratitude and shared how they applied my mentorship. This makes me happy and energized to keep giving advice!
For Sherry, a white man and former boss helped her make the jump out of Travelers and take on the global CMO role at Chubb. He continued to coach her when they were not working together. He was a tremendous help for Sherry to make a very big jump in her career.
Mentoring is more formal than just keeping in touch or a check-in. When I am officially asked if I will serve as a mentor, it makes the relationship clearer and holds me more accountable. I, like most other leaders, enjoy mentoring and helping others. So applying that title makes the relationship more formal and therefore, more impactful. Of course, you keep up with people you’ve worked with in the past, but a mentor relationship is a more formal way to keep in touch. Sherry would have monthly meetings of half an hour to an hour. If they both got busy, they canceled, but at least it was something on the calendar for them to be in touch regularly.
So many mentoring relationships go nowhere. It must be worked and committed on both sides. When mentees show appreciation, it is the best gift. I am happy to be able to help someone – helping others is a clear path to happiness.
We’ve all been helped along the way, so mentors have the attitude they want to pay it forward and mentor someone who wants to be mentored and also invests as a mentee in the mentoring relationship. You never know when you need a strong team around you, so by keeping in touch with high potential mentees, you can bring in people to round out a future team you are hired to build.
Hard Work and Perfectionism
I always thought hard work is what got me through – what I said in high school and college – I may not be the smartest, so I have to work extra hard. I asked Sherry how she transitioned in her attitude toward hard work and perfectionism. Sherry said that hard work is not something we should give up on. Asian cultures focus on the utmost importance of hard work. Sherry was shocked when she first learned that was not enough to be promoted. Technical acumen was not enough – she needed soft skills and what they deemed as executive presence. At a certain point, Sherry learned how to tone down the focus on hard work and amp up the people and soft skills, especially communication skills.
She thought to herself, “how do I do that in a way that is true to myself where I don’t give up my values?” She advises not to change your values of hard work, rather think about how to package it up and then strengthen your soft skills.
Regarding perfectionism, Sherry learned that she needed to jump from one job to the next, taking on different roles to advance. Perfectionism would hold her back, when she would hear in her mind her parents telling her “A is not good enough, you need that A+, so you need to work harder, you’re not perfect yet.”
That translated as Sherry was looking at new opportunities, she thought, “I don’t have PhD level knowledge of this subject, rather high school or college level.” She had to learn that it’s ok to have an informal conversation even if she didn’t have all the prerequisites. If they don’t have other candidates, you just might be the most qualified, even if you don’t have 100% of the qualifications.
First Impressions Count – put on football pads!
With first impressions – there are challenges being an Asian woman, both positive and negative. People come with their own world view and preconceived notions from their past. You must dispel them quickly and part of that is sitting at the table with your football pads on! How you sit in a meeting makes a difference – have a strong seat at the table – like you own your seat at the table. So if you carry yourself in that way, that makes a statement. Also, in meetings. the networking and the positioning happens before the meeting. Whether it is 1 on 1 outside the meeting room, chit chat, you start positioning yourself and building allies and making connections.
It may not be technical talk. It might be remembering that somebody likes to ski and asking them if they’ve been on a ski trip is what builds relationships. Remember that doesn’t just happen around the table, the important work should take place before you even walk into the room.
About Grace Ueng
Grace is CEO of Savvy Growth, a leadership coaching and management consultancy founded in 2003. Her great passion to help leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential combined with her empathy and ability to help leaders figure out their “why” are what clients value most.
Grace’s core offerings are one on one coaching for CEOs and their leadership teams, leading workshops on Personal Branding, Happiness and Speaking Success, and conducting strategic reviews for companies at a critical juncture.
A marketing strategist, Grace held leadership roles at five high growth technology ventures that successfully exited through acquisition or IPO. She started her career at Bain & Company and then worked in brand management at Clorox and General Mills. She is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School and holds a positive coaching certification from the Whole Being Institute.
Grace and her partner, Rich Chleboski, a cleantech veteran, develop and implement strategies to support the growth of impact focused companies and then coach their leaders in carrying out their strategic plans. Their expertise spans all phases of the business from evaluation through growth and liquidity.
