Strong Roots, Strong Values

Note from blogger Cathy Benko: Back by popular demand--Sharon Allen, Chairman of the Board, Deloitte LLP, returns to share a few more words of wisdom. I, on the other hand, would like to wish you all a very relaxing long holiday weekend filled with family, friends, and plenty of sunshine!

Writing recently in the WIN Blog illustrated just how worthwhile it is to venture outside our comfort zone. The responses told me something that WIN Chair Dr. Sally Ride would be pleased to hear. From what was shared, it’s clear that all of you have the right stuff — namely, the courage to tackle new challenges (if not shoot for the moon). Thanks for taking the time to write!

Today, I’d like to share with you the profound influence my early years have had on my life.

I grew up on a farm in Idaho, the youngest of four girls in a tight-knit family. My grandparents lived next door. We raised potatoes, of course, and other crops including beans and barley. There was plenty of time for chores and plenty of opportunities to learn important life lessons. 

I often speak about my grandmother. She took great pride in the beauty of her prized flower garden. Each fall, she insisted that we dig up the gladiola bulbs and carefully clean and store them before replanting them in the spring. It wasn’t easy. There were literally hundreds of bulbs and tending to them took a long time. I didn't understand why we couldn't just leave the bulbs in the ground and let them come up on their own like everyone else did. 

But to my grandmother, that was not good enough. For the gladiolas to bloom to their fullest size and most radiant color, we had to do our part. It was not about doing something extraordinary. It was about taking something ordinary and doing it extraordinarily well. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, that was a clear example of striving for excellence.

I also learned the importance of balancing work with life. On the farm, there is always work to be done. But church and family, schools and community also deserved our time. Achieving balance means taking care of business — while recognizing that the needs of family, friends, neighbors, and the community also were our business.

Some time ago, I concluded that such work/life balance is important to forging strong ethical character. In a recent external survey conducted for Deloitte, 91 percent of the more than 1,000 adults polled agreed. Think about it. If people invest everything in their jobs, they can become dependent on their jobs for everything — including their self-identity. This can make it even harder to make the right decision if they face an ethical dilemma whose outcome may affect their professional success.   

When I went to the University of Idaho, the school’s motto was “From here, you can go anywhere.” And I have been fortunate to go much further beyond my comfort zone than I could have ever imagined. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Looking back, so many people created a strong support system for me by teaching me strong values. 

While my responsibilities as Chairman take me across the country and around the world, my roots are firmly planted in small town Idaho. They ground me to this day and support the values that will always define my life.

So, how about you? What grounds you in your values?

By Guest Blogger Sharon Allen,
Chairman of the Board, Deloitte LLP

Honors English

There are lots of everyday work processes and methods that prove very helpful on the home front, particularly operational improvement tools (i.e. workplans). Other examples range from using team management techniques on family members to time management to mail merge for holiday cards.

This week, though, the ‘helpful’ went the other way—a learning on the home front that informed the work front. Setting: Late summer air, a forlorn sense of loss, anxiety and just a touch of excitement from my kids about going back to school. (As you likely know, getting everyone ready to go back to school is a work task worthy of an implementation plan in and of itself!)

However, this year, my son and I also had a discussion on a new back-to-school topic—Honors English. Going into the eighth grade, this is the first year that there is an honors track at his school. The question on the table: Should he shoot for the higher hurdle of the honors class or more comfortably continue on the non-honors track. The swiftness of his analysis took me back a bit. (Remember, there’s no such thing as a long conversation with this newly thirteen-year-old boy.) The upside: An A in honors English would look better on his high school application; the downside is that it’s harder to get an A.

Seems pretty straightforward, right? Yep. It worked for me. But then I realized how his simple thinking could make a profound difference on the work front. One of the things we were grappling with was what it really means to “dial up careers.” Greater responsibilities and ‘stretch’ assignments are criteria for dialed up careers—a hallmark of mass career customization. 

However, what if someone dialed up but then didn’t deliver at that level? Would his or her performance rating be impacted or would she still get a rating of someone at the same level who had not stepped forward requesting to accelerate her growth? Was it equitable to have a different hurdle level for folks who were really ‘hungry’ for taking on more? On the other hand, was it justified not to have a higher hurdle? We had been going back and forth on this—until the Honors English discussion. And then it became clearer; it’s just another example of the risk-reward profile. 

In this instance, bringing life into work helped solidify a work decision. Hmmmm. My guess is that this is a much more common occurrence than I’ve ever thought about before. What do you think? Do you have any examples where life informed your work?

Cathy

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP

Moving Outside of Our Comfort Zone

Note from blogger Cathy Benko:  While on our annual vacation pilgrimage, I was able to snag Sharon Allen, Chairman of the Board, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, to write this week’s entry. Just like all of us, she’s learned more than a few lessons over the years and has one to share with us today. 

While I’ve held many titles during my Deloitte career, “Guest Blogger ” isn’t one of them! In fact, this is my first time blogging anywhere. Obviously, it’s a fresh and interesting experience whose outcome is unknown. But that’s what happens whenever we attempt something new.

In the spirit of attempting something new, today I’d like to share my thoughts on moving outside of our comfort zone. Doing so is vitally important. We can talk about it all we want. Yet the ability to stretch and grow can only begin when we actually move in a new direction. Once we do, however, a funny thing happens. Before you know it, wherever we’ve landed begins to feel comfortable. When that happens, you know it’s time to raise the bar again and look for the next challenge.

That’s why I believe in knowing our boundaries—and stepping beyond them. Sure, it’s safe and familiar within the lines, sometimes too much so. Yet through the Women’s Initiative and our own efforts to build personal networks, we can always reach out to someone for guidance or a helping hand when we choose to move outside of our comfort zone.

And choose we must. If we don’t, we may unintentionally commit ourselves to running in place before grinding to a halt. The road to atrophy isn’t the title of a summer paperback. It’s a real drop off point in our lives and careers where excelling tomorrow at the same thing we did today can lull us into a false sense of well-being.

I know that from personal experience. Back in 1994, I was chosen as the first woman to serve on the Deloitte board of directors. I was happy as can be as the managing partner in the Boise office, lead partner on one of the firm’s largest audit clients, and chairman of the local Chamber of Commerce. I was doing it all . . . and I could have chosen to stay there and stay comfortable.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that standing pat could limit my growth, at least in a professional sense! And so in 1997, as difficult as it was, I decided to move to Portland and later to Los Angeles, each time taking on greater responsibilities. Looking back now, the worst outcome wouldn’t have been to accept a challenging assignment and fail. It would have been to stay on in a comfortable assignment, master it, and eventually stop growing.

Please understand that we don’t have to change our physical location to expand our horizons. Whether it’s adding new responsibilities, teaming with new people, or just doing something fun and different with our free time (what free time some of you may be asking), I’m convinced that venturing beyond our boundaries is a crucial step toward developing the confidence to lead—our growth as individuals depends on it.

What steps are you taking into the unfamiliar?

By Guest Blogger Sharon Allen, Chairman of the Board, Deloitte LLP

Slapped Silly

Summer is in full swing, and we’re on a pilgrimage to the Jersey shore. (Yes, we do live in the majestic bay area, and yes, we do eagerly schlep the 3,000 miles for an annual dose of the “shore.”) ‘Schlep,’ of course, is the operative word. Along with the schlep comes a phrase my kids use over and over again along the 12-hour, door-to-door journey: “How much longer will it take?” It’s their own version of “are we there yet?” which of course they know that we’re not. I suspect this is why they don’t express their anxiousness with so common a phrase.

I was recently asked the same question, “How much longer will it take?” by a colleague, except the depth of meaning in his words and facial expression caught me way off guard. (Off guard isn’t exactly right. It was more like frozen in place, and I continue to play it over and over in my mind.) His question connects with last week’s Conflicted entry.

We were in a session discussing the mass career customization (mcc) rollout, and I mentioned that I was mentally working to resolve my ‘conflict.’ He turned to me and uttered that familiar question in a quiet pitch with eye contact and meaning that spoke a thousand subtle, impactful words.

His message was clear and undeniable: there are a lot of people within our firm and beyond that are watching us with eager intent; that people are looking for some organization (and by extension, someone) to come up with a better way; that so many are counting on mcc to structurally resolve the workplace-workforce misalignment dilemma; that, in short, it matters.

And, well, that your (my) hang up is trivial in scale. So just get over it—and get on with it. Ok, I get it. Slapped silly by a few nominal words and one power-packed stare. I’m all-in. Now, how about you?

Cathy

By blogger Cathy Benko, Deloitte LLP