Taking the Lead

BPI group U.S.

BPI group U.S., a leadership & talent consulting firm, talks with C-suite and other senior leaders about solving various organizational problems and moving businesses forward. Learn about business leadership from some of the best industry leaders around.

Episodes

  1. 26/10/2022

    Taking the Lead Episode 5: Culture & Connection with Michelle Hay & Joshua Smith at Sedgwick

    with Michelle Hay, Global Chief People Officer, and Joshua Smith, Global Head of Talent, Sedgwick Attracting and retaining top talent is a key driver in organizational success, but how do you integrate this into the core of your employer brand? At Sedgwick, the focus is on connection.   Bravanti’s Managing Director, Global Executive Coaching Mary Herrmann recently spoke with Sedgwick’s Michelle Hay, Global Chief People Officer, and Joshua Smith, Global Head of Talent, to discuss connection and the role it plays in optimizing the Sedgwick employee experience.  The post Culture and Connection appeared first on Bravanti.

    20 min

  2. 03/06/2021

    Career Transition in a Post-Covid World

    As the world was subsumed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, furloughs and layoffs became the trend, especially in industries hardest hit by the shutdowns. Fast forward to today and vaccines hold the promise of a reinvigorated economy. In this shortcast, Emily Reynolds is joined by two BPI group senior career transition coaches, Lyn Edwards and Diane Frisch, to discuss what the landscape looks like for transitioning professionals as the market begins to open up.  Transcript: Career Transition in a Post-Covid World Emily Reynolds: Welcome to taking the lead, a podcast where we talk with top business leaders about the challenges and opportunities they face in today’s marketplace. I’m your host, Emily Reynolds, managing director of career transition services at BPI group. We’re here today to talk about career transition in a post-COVID world. It goes without saying that today’s job market and career choices look vastly different today than they did a year ago. As the world was consumed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, right- sizings and layoffs became the trend, especially in industries hardest hit by the shutdowns, such as hospitality, aviation, commercial real estate, to name a few. Millions of employees at all levels endured job losses. In addition to involuntary separations, many people used this moment in time to proactively reflect on and reevaluate the next chapter in career and life. And we’ve noticed a significant uptick in those seeking a next act or a divergent or unexpected path. Fast forward to our spring of 2021. Vaccines hold the promise of a re-invigorated economy. In today’s short cast, we’re joined by two of our senior career transition coaches, Lyn Edwards, and Diane Frisch, to discuss what the landscape looks like for transitioning professionals as the market begins to open up. Lynton Edwards, prior to being a coach with BPI group, enjoyed time as a CEO and president in the business world, a managing partner, then that led to entrepreneurial work. Similarly, Diane Frisch was a senior executive of human resources with several very major corporations in the U.S. and globally. So, I welcome Lyn and Diane today and look forward to a conversation with them. So, hi to both of you. Diane Frisch and Lyn Edwards: Hello. Emily Reynolds: Diane, I’ll start with you and just kind of explore a question. In your view, what do you think has changed in terms of the job market in the past year? Diane Frisch: Emily, working with clients over the past year, the pandemic as difficult as it’s been for people in terms of jobs and loss of jobs, I think it’s been a tremendous opportunity for people to look at their careers and see what’s really important to them. So, a lot of my clients, we start off thinking, okay, let’s secure full-time employment, but there’s a lot of pause and evaluation of what’s really important to them going forward. And you mentioned the next act – I think a lot of the people I’m working with are really asking themselves some fundamental questions, which is, do I want to go back into a large corporate environment and work very tough, long hours? Or is this a period of opportunity for me to think about something else? Emily Reynolds: Lyn, what are you seeing in terms of changes in the job market or developments in the past year? Lyn Edwards: Well, there’s always been a difference in the industries in terms of the dynamics of the job market, but with this virus, that has just gotten extremely intense, where there were some industries that are booming. I mean, hyper-growth industries. Some industries that are just sort of holding their own. And as you mentioned, there are some that just were decimated. And, so I think that this has just put intensity or increased pressure on the difference in industries, which is affected some people obviously more than others. And I think has had people thinking as they go forth, whether it’s time for a change in terms of their industries that they’re in, rather than staying in the industry that they have been in and have been hurt by that, you know, sort of broadening their perspective to say there are other industries that I should be looking at in terms of where my skills may be transferable. Emily Reynolds: Diane, what advice do you give to people in transition who may have been networking virtually and now need to transition to in-person networking? Diane Frisch: I think flexibility on all sides is going to be important. I mean, I think the companies that people are interviewing with, I think they have to clarify and articulate expectations. And I think companies are struggling with that. You know, you hear about companies are saying, everybody must be back in the office. A lot of the financial organizations are saying it’s time to get back. Other companies are saying, well, I think we can work remotely. I think to the individual that is in transition, I think they have to ask themselves what’s really important to them in their job search. And are they willing to make a move to a city, for example, or is there a way to work with the new employer to do something remote where almost a hybrid type of approach. Emily Reynolds: Yes. And we were hearing during the pandemic that this geographic determiner had fallen by the wayside and it actually increased the pool of candidates for hiring companies because the geographic piece had sort of vanished temporarily, at least. Lyn, do you have anything to add? And are you finding that people are maybe having a bit of a struggle or how do you coach them and, and counsel them as they’re now going back to in-person networking and that sort of thing? Lyn Edwards: Well, on a lighter side, telling them they need to get their business casual clothes back out because you’re going to of be wearing them more. Interviewing in person certainly is sitting there looking somebody in the eyes, answering their directly, but it’s also a thing about body language, which is what I watch when I’m interviewing somebody, besides watching other things. But I am noticing their body language and with Zoom that is almost impossible to tell. And, so I think they’ve got to get back into the routine of whatever image they want to present. They’ve got to do it a whole-body way to show interest, to show enthusiasm, to make their points in, to make sure you’re looking somebody in the eyes. I think in some cases in Zoom, somebody people would have two screens. They’re looking at one screen and they’re not looking at the person, the interviewer in the eyes. And I just think that’s a real issue. At least when I’m interviewing, I wanted to connect with somebody eye-to-eye and the remote processes have made that more difficult.  think they need to get back to that and remind themselves that that is important if they’re going to differentiate themselves in an interview, how they come across in that emotional, intelligent way, I think could, could be a real type of report. Emily Reynolds: Well, this has been a great conversation with both of you and so appreciate your insights, your experience, and what you are observing out there as we’re all in this very unusual time of post-pandemic. Thank you, Diane. Thank you, Lynton. Such a pleasure. Diane Frisch and Lyn Edwards: Thank you.     The post Career Transition in a Post-Covid World appeared first on Bravanti.

    8 min

  3. 11/05/2021

    Building a Listening-Based Culture

    Creating a listening-based culture is a foundational step toward fostering inclusivity and equity in your organization. Bravanti’s Brenda Wensil and Kathryn Heath discuss just how to do this with cultural assessments in our latest Taking the Lead Shortcast. Transcript: Building a Listening-Based Culture, with Dr. Kathryn Heath Brenda Wensil: Welcome to Taking the Lead. This is Brenda Wensil, your host today. I am a managing director at BPI group and leader of our Acceleration Practice for Leadership. Taking the Lead is a podcast where we talk with top business leaders about the challenges and opportunities facing them in today’s business environment. Today we’re especially excited to be talking with Kathryn Heath, who is the founding partner of a firm called Flynn Heath Leadership, which is now a part of Bravanti. She is also a best-selling author of a book called Break Your Own Rules and The Influence Effect. And we’re excited to have Dr. Kathryn Heath here with us today to talk about this idea of culture and what it means. Welcome, Kathryn.  Kathryn Heath: Thank you, Brenda. I’m excited to be here. It’s one of my favorite topics. Brenda Wensil: Let me start by asking you a broad question here around this, and we hear it all the time, the culture here is this or the culture here is that. What do people mean when they talk about the culture of a company or an organization? Kathryn Heath: Yes. It is the values, it’s the norms, it’s the way people behave, the mores, what are the rules, what are the rituals, what are the customs? How do you welcome people? Are there customs around birthdays? Are there customs around retirement? Companies have customs; it’s how you live in community, it’s the language you have and you need to be really intentional about it. Is it the culture you want? I meet with so many CEOs, and I remember one time meeting with one and he said, “I’ve worked really hard on developing my team. We’ve done team development. We have worked on our strategy, and I feel like I’m driving this big ocean liner and I can’t  turn, why is that?” And, so we had a conversation about his culture, and he wanted his culture to be more innovative. But if you dug into it, there were all sorts of customs and rules and norms that were preventing that. So as a leader, you have got to be really clear about how do you want to live in community. Peter Drucker said culture eats strategy for breakfast. So you can have a strategy, but if you don’t have the culture to support it, you’re not going to go where you need to go. Brenda Wensil: With large organizations, such as the ones that you speak with all the time and that we speak with all the time, how does it work? I mean, it’s almost as though every individual line of business within a large organization can have its own culture. So how do you figure out what your culture is and what is your subculture if that makes sense? Especially with so much, not necessarily turnover, but the infusion of new leadership progressively as a business grows, how do you get your arms around it? Kathryn Heath: You have to figure that out. You can also do a cultural assessment, which is something our firm does, which is you go in and you do interviews. For example, one CEO said, “I want a more entrepreneurial culture,” but when we went in and did interviews, you ask questions about, well, how decisions get made, what happens when people make mistakes? How does information flow? What gets rewarded, what gets punished? And we found people weren’t going to be entrepreneurial because the consequences weren’t good. And there wasn’t tolerance for mistakes and information was being blocked. It was not the culture he wanted. And he had to go work on that and create a new culture – create those norms and mores and values and customs that support that. Brenda Wensil: There’s another topic that keeps coming up these days and it’s used in the same sentence with culture. And it is the idea of inclusion, creating inclusive cultures, inclusive leaders, and these two topics, culture and inclusion are starting to merge on the same track. And so many of the conversations that we’re having with leaders out there is, how do I create an inclusive culture? What do I have to do? And what is their role in that and how do you see some of these two things crossing paths and coming together? Kathryn Heath: Well, I do think it’s the leader’s role to figure out how to have an inclusive culture. And we’ve done a lot of work around what are the behaviors of an inclusive culture? So the leader can really look at that. What is the behavior in a meeting? Is every voice heard? Who gets interrupted, who gets amplified, is every voice in the room, are diverse people heard? Or are they always are the ones that get cut off and get interrupted? What happens in a town hall meeting? What happens when in performance coaching? Is it inclusive? Is there deep, respectful listening?  We’ve really got to figure out what are the behaviors of an inclusive culture and you as a leader, drive those and reward and create heroes and stories around the people who do that. Brenda Wensil: You talked about deep, respectful listening as it relates to a behavior of creating inclusive leadership behavior. What does that mean? Kathryn Heath: A few years ago, we were doing some research on inclusive behaviors. And we called many people and said, what does inclusion look like to you? And these were people who were diverse. This one woman said to me, she says, it’s what I call the grandparent rule. “I was taught to respect my grandparents. not interrupt them. And to hear whatever they were trying to tell me and deeply listening in a respectful way to what they had to say.” And she said, “When I’m coaching somebody who is different from me or working with somebody that’s different from me, I always am guided by the grandparent rule, which is how can I respectfully, deeply listen?” And I got the picture, I was taught the same thing, and I got the picture and it really helps because so many times when we’re trying to think of what we’re going to say next and not deeply listening to people, which is a very inclusive thing to do Brenda Wensil: That’s powerful. And it’s something you can, with a little focus, get into the habit of doing. Dr. Kathryn Heath, who is with us today, author of The Influence Effect and Break Your Own Rules and founder of the Leadership Acceleration Practice that we have. Thank you so much for joining us. Kathryn Heath: Thank you, Brenda, I enjoyed it. Outro: Taking the Lead is a production of Bravanti and the views expressed are those of the host and guests. For more information, please visit bravanti.com. Music for this podcast is courtesy of Jazzhar.   The post Building a Listening-Based Culture appeared first on Bravanti.

    7 min

  4. 18/03/2021

    Creating A Culture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

    It’s hard to find a company without some sort of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives these days but it’s not enough to outline some initiatives and write it into the company values. True diversity, equity, and inclusion comes from creating a culture that reflects those values at every level—an achievement that requires an executive-level commitment of time, budget, and resources.  Jill Flynn, Managing Director, Leadership Acceleration, for Bravanti, sits down with Tanya S. Blackmon, EVP & Chief Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Officer at Novant Health to discuss how Tanya has led the charge to create a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Novant Health.   Transcript: Creating A Culture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  Jill Flynn: Good afternoon and welcome to the Taking the Lead Shortcast. A podcast where we talk with top business leaders about the challenges and opportunities that they are facing in today’s business world. I’m your host, Jill Flynn. I’m a managing director of the Leadership Acceleration Practice at Bravanti. Today, I’ll be speaking with Tanya S. Blackmon. Tanya is one of my favorite clients and is the Executive Vice President of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity at Novant Health. The reason that I wanted to introduce you to Tanya is because what she has done as the diversity, equity, and inclusion officer is truly outstanding, really viewed as best in class. Greetings, Tanya. So glad you’re here. Tanya S. Blackmon: Thank you so much for having me this afternoon. I love to talk about diversity, inclusion, and equity, and I love talking to you, so this is a perfect match today. Jill Flynn: It is. Well, I want to start going back a few years. You and I have known each other a pretty long time. A few years ago, you were president at one of the Novant hospitals and doing great. You called me up and told me that the CEO, Carl Armato, had tapped you to become Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity for Novant. Why do you think the CEO wanted you in that role? Why did he put that role on his executive leadership team? Tanya S. Blackmon: Yeah, you’re right, Jill. I remember that conversation, and I was surprised. That’s why I called to talk to you about it. I wasn’t really sure about this role. When Carl said that to me, I had to really think about it. It’s an interesting position to be in; that the CEO taps you for something, and then you aren’t really sure if this is what you want to do or what it really means. I was a Senior VP at that time when he tapped me on the shoulders. He said, “I really want you to do this, Tanya. I really want you to operationalize our core value of diversity and inclusion.” It was really important for me, Jill, to understand why. Why did he want me to do this role? In my head, I was thinking if I take this position, people are going to say, “Oh, she got the position because she’s an African-American female.” Well, I am an African-American female. That wasn’t why. He and I talked for a long time about the why. There were three real reasons why he wanted me to do this role. One is that he knew my background of being a social worker and that I had a real understanding of the people side of healthcare. Then, he knew that I had run, successfully, two hospitals for Novant Health. He said, “You have a real understanding of the business and the operation side of healthcare, and we need to have those things together.” The other thing that we talked about was my ability to adapt to change. I’m the daughter of a Marine. I had learned over my life and career how to accept change, adapt to it, and roll with the punches in healthcare. Then, he said, “I really want you to do what you’ve done for the people where you worked in your hospitals and operationalize our core value of diversity and inclusion.” He said that I want this to be a strategic lever for Novant Health, and I believe you’re the person to do it. After talking to him, I thought, “Well, I love a challenge.” It sounds like a good challenge. About a year after being in the role, I was promoted to executive vice president. He promoted me because he believed that the position needed to be reporting to him and at the table. He said that if you’re at the table, then we can really leverage your voice and leverage your influence in this organization to push us to make the changes that we need to make in Novant Health. Jill Flynn: When you started, I remember talking to you, and you said, “Oh, I’m doing a listening tour.” That was the first thing that you did in the role. I thought, what in the world is she doing? Tell us about what is a listening tour and why did you start that way? Tanya S. Blackmon: A listening tour was pivotal to the work that we have done in Novant Health, but it comes from my social work roots where you actually start where the client is. Even though I’ve been with Novant Health for over 20 years, I really didn’t know where everyone was in the organization as it related to our core value of diversity inclusion. We’ve added equity, but diversity and inclusion. The goal of the listening tour was to really glean insights from many voices in the organization about Novant Health’s core value of diversity and inclusion and the culture that we had around that core value. The feedback really helped us to understand what people were thinking. It helped us to develop a strategic plan, which has been foundational for embedding diversity inclusion in our company. We want it to be really an inclusive organization and have an inclusive culture. We wanted to be a leader, an industry leader, in being able to do that, where we truly leverage the talents, perspective skills of everyone. Because Carl knew that if we could leverage everyone’s talents, we could truly take our mission and vision to another level. Jill Flynn: You’ve done so many things that I would call differentiators. Just mention a couple of those. What would you say you’ve done that’s really different? Tanya S. Blackmon: One was the listening tour. A lot of people don’t do that. But the other is that we approached embedding diversity, inclusion, and equity as a culture change strategy. We have interwoven diversity inclusion to lots of things across our organization: key business components, for example, and patient satisfaction, team member engagement, risk management, our quality institutes. Everything that we touch, we put a diversity, inclusion, and health equity lens on that. We have an ROI in terms of diversity, inclusion, and equity. I hear about a lot of organizations using diversity metrics to look at their workforce. We are looking at something related to our workforce. We have an aspirational goal, but we really started with inclusion. The other thing that I think is a differentiator is that the effectiveness of our work is actually monitored by the board of trustees. It is on every agenda for our boards. That has been, I think, a differentiator and has helped us to truly advance the work. Jill Flynn: You all have gotten some recognition nationally. You want to mention any of that? Tanya S. Blackmon: As we started embarking on this journey, our goal was not to get awards. Our goal was to truly live out our core value and our mission in the organization. If we got recognized for that, that was great, but that was not the goal. But, our board of trustees has been recognized by the National Association of Corporate Directors for being number one innovators in advancing diversity and inclusion. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid gave us the inaugural award for closing the gaps in healthcare disparities. Forbes magazine, Diversity MBA, all have given us awards. Through the human rights campaign, the health equality index, we’ve been recognized four times as leaders in LGBTQ healthcare equality. We’ve been recognized for our work in disability inclusion for our veterans as well. For us, it’s been so important that we are recognized in all dimensions of diversity and inclusion. Jill Flynn: Well, listen, congratulations to you and your team members and to Carl and the executive team. You all remain an outstanding, really a beacon for other companies to emulate. Again, Tanya, thank you so much for joining us today. Tanya S. Blackmon: Thank you, Jill, for having me. I’ve enjoyed it. Outro: Taking the Lead is a production of BPI group and the views expressed are those of the host and guests. For more information, please visit BPI-group.us. Music for this podcast is courtesy of Jazzhar. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Services at Bravanti For information on how our Leadership Acceleration Practices helps organizations to build cultures of diversity, equity, and inclusion, visit our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion services page.  Related Content on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion  The Impact of Diverse, Equitable, & Inclusive Leadership  Increasing Retention, Engagement & Advancement of Leaders Within Underrepresented Groups  Personal Power and the Confidence Gap: Women, Stop Hijacking Your Credibility and Impact  Ready, Set, Lead  The post Creating A Culture of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion appeared first on Bravanti.

    9 min

  5. 20/01/2021

    Episode 4: The Pandemic’s Effect on Working Women

    The full transcript is available below. Brenda Wensil: Well, welcome to Taking the Lead. This is a shortcast, podcast series where we talk with top business leaders about the challenges and opportunities that we face in today’s marketplace. I’m your host, Brenda Wensil, a managing director with the Leadership Acceleration Practice at BPI group. In this episode, we are delighted to speak with Leslie Bacque Smith, who is the Senior Manager of Global Talent and Leadership Development with SAS, which is a global and leading software development company. We are delighted to have you, Leslie. Thank you for joining us today to talk about this topic of how this pandemic world we are living in is having an unusual and disproportionate effect on women in the workforce, and the impact that it is having on them leaving the workforce in particular. So Leslie, welcome. So delighted to have you join us for this conversation. Leslie Bacque Smith: Thank you so much, Brenda. I’m really happy to be here today. Brenda Wensil: Let me get us started with this, Leslie. I know that you are working and seeing things from a global perspective as well, not just here in the U.S., but abroad. The U.S. Department of Labor had an interesting statistic recently that says that more than 865,000 women left the workforce in September, which is a staggering number. It appears that it is at least four times the rate of men in the workforce. So let’s talk about why women are leaving. What are you seeing, Leslie? And what’s your take on this dynamic that’s happening? Leslie Bacque Smith: Yeah. Thanks for asking. That’s a staggering number and it’s a question that we should all be asking and trying to find the answer to. I think there are so many women who are working from home right now. And since they’re working from home, they’re likely, if they have them, also taking care of children at the same time. Because so many kids are not yet back in school. These two activities, women working and taking care of children, those are not sustainable and compatible activities in the long run. So, I think that many women who don’t have the resources to support themselves at work at home, and to support their children in their schoolwork at home, opt to give up work because they can’t sustain those crushing demands of working and parenting simultaneously. The reality is that even if women have partners who are working from home with them, the reality is that a lot of kids go to mom first, if she’s available, or if it’s an option. Because that’s just what kids do. I think that leaves a lot of women to fulfill the caretaking responsibilities in addition to working full time. So those are the women who are working from home and maybe taking care of children at the same time. I think since those demands just aren’t sustainable in the long run, they opt to give up their jobs because we’re not going to give up our kids, right? They come first. For women who work outside of the home, who are having to go in to work right now, they may decide to leave work if they have children who need caretaking, and/or a partner whose work takes priority. Maybe their partner makes more money – is the primary breadwinner. Maybe the partner has more flexibility in their work. So the decision is made for the woman in the relationship to give up her job to take care of the family responsibilities. Brenda Wensil: Let me ask you this question for all of us involved in this work and concerned about these issues. What do you think a company like SAS, or any company, can do right now to support women and improve their likelihood to stay with the firms they’re with? And/or advance when we get to the other side of this? Leslie Bacque Smith: Yeah. I think our workplaces, companies, right now have a real opportunity to provide a level of support that they’ve not needed to provide before. I am so fortunate to be able to work for a company that prioritizes work and life balance and family as much as SAS does. So I think first off, companies have to provide some flexibility and understand that if they’re allowing their workforce to work from home, that will necessitate allowing work outside of regular business hours. Because if you’ve got families in the same home together all day, it’s very likely that moms and dads are going to get interrupted. So there’s going to be those caretaking responsibilities during the day, which is going to interrupt that regular workflow. So allowing for employees to work earlier in the day, or even later in the day, instead of insisting that people are online all the time in those traditional work hours of say, 8:00 to 5:00. I think that can be helpful. So allowing some flexibility. That same flexibility can also create an environment where parents never get a break. So that also has to be considered. I think aside from policies around flexible work, individual leaders need to really step up and exercise that empathy muscle. Communicate their support to their employees. Make sure that their employees know that they understand what sorts of challenges they’re facing right now. Be open to talking about it. I know that my boss and I regularly start our one-on-ones with just sort of a, “How you’re doing” conversation, and talking about where our minds and hearts are right now, as we’re navigating through this. As I said, at SAS our leaders have been really supportive from the start of the pandemic. They’ve prioritized employee wellbeing. They’re encouraging managers to check in with employees on engagement and offer support. Doing things like inviting and allowing children to make an appearance on calls. That’s something that we’re seeing more and more. Our recreation fitness center is doing virtual offerings for kids to help occupy them during the day, like exercise and cooking clubs. All of these types of things, I think, can help parents navigate, and women, especially, navigate those regular demands that are going to face them day to day, as they’re trying to work from home. Brenda Wensil: What do you think are some strategies that professional women can employ right now to balance all of this during a stressful time and stay engaged with their work? Leslie Bacque Smith: This is a tough one. Because these are all things I should be doing and I’m not as good at this part. But in terms of just the day to day, taking some breaks. So, I think it’s easy to sort of hunker down and sit in front of your computer and forget to eat lunch or to grab your lunch and bring it right back to your computer. Because there’s nobody knocking on the office door saying, “Hey, do you want to go get lunch with me?” There’s nobody pulling us away. So I think we have to be really disciplined and conscientious about taking breaks just as we would at the office. Getting up and stretching, walking outside, looking at the trees. I have a friend who walks every day in the morning, every day at lunch and every day in the evening. Just around the block, but a way to get up and stretch and move around a little bit, and take a mental break as well. I think another thing is to set boundaries as much as possible. Work and home for so many of us has just become completely blurred. When the dining room table or the kitchen table is your office, it’s really easy to get pulled into checking email or answering calls outside of standard working hours. So I think to the extent possible, if there’s some boundaries we can set and say, “This is something I’m not going to do,” after a certain time of day and walk away. Even shutting our computers down at the end of the day, makes it harder to sort of jump on. I think that that’s helpful to set boundaries. Then the regular things that seemed, to me at least, so easy when life was quote/unquote normal, are now a lot harder. Those are the self-care things, like eating well. I joke that many days I’m eating peanut butter crusted bread off of my kids’ plates that they’ve finished lunch. I walk by and I’m sort of grazing off of their leftover lunches. I know it’s not the best thing for me. So trying to eat well, keeping up exercise routines or starting exercise routines, taking time off. A lot of people aren’t taking time off because they feel like they’re home all the time right now. But being conscientious about taking a day off and not logging on to work. Brenda Wensil: Leslie Bacque-Smith, Senior Manager of Global Talent and Leadership Development with SAS. Leslie, can’t thank you enough for joining us and sharing your thoughts. Best wishes to you and your organization and all of the women and men inside it as we get to the other side of this pandemic, and we’ll continue great work together. Leslie Bacque-Smith: Thanks so much, Brenda. Appreciate being here. Outro: Taking the Lead is a production of BPI group and the views expressed are those of the host and guests. For more information, please visit bravanti.com. Music for this podcast is courtesy of Jazzar.     The post Episode 4: The Pandemic’s Effect on Working Women appeared first on Bravanti.

    9 min

  6. 13/11/2020

    Episode 3: Are You Thriving or Surviving? Resilience & Managing Your Energy with Ragini Basu

    The full transcript is available below. Diana Faison:  Welcome to the Taking the Lead Shortcast, which is a podcast where we talk with top business leaders about the challenges and the opportunities they face in today’s marketplace. I’m your host, Diana Faison. I’m the Managing Director of the Leadership Acceleration Practice at BPI group, and I’m especially excited. In this episode we’ll be speaking with Ragini Basu, who is a Principal at Deloitte. In fact, we call her a Deloitte Lifer because she started as an intern. It’s been 20 years now. Right Ragini?  Ragini Basu:  Yes, that’s correct Diana, and we go way back. Not 20 years back, but I can’t believe I’ve been here this long.  Diana Faison:  It is amazing isn’t it? I know you have a unique perspective to offer Ragini. That’s why I’m so excited to have you today. Particularly a perspective regarding women leaders. Women are especially affected by what’s going on with all of the issues in our country today, in the world, the pandemic, these very challenging and difficult times. And certainly managing your energy and building resilience are more critical than ever. Ragini, you wear so many hats. So the thought of you talking about energy and resilience, couldn’t be more appropriate. Why don’t you tell the audience a little bit about the many roles you wear as a Principal at Deloitte?  Ragini Basu:  Certainly. Thank you Diana. I have my day job, which is how I serve my clients. I’m a Principal in our Crisis Recovery Practice where we really spend a lot of time helping state and local governments recover from catastrophic events, whether they’re hurricanes, disasters, this pandemic. I’m also our Lead Business Principal for our Louisiana marketplace for all the work that we do in our advisory practice. Last but not least, a role that I’m really proud of is, I have been our GPS Advisory Inclusion Leader for the last two years. Those are three hats that truly stretch and enrich a lot of what I do in serving our clients, in serving our people, and having a marketplace role.  Diana Faison:  That’s great. A number of roles and hats that you wear, and I imagine that they collide at times, which when I think about today’s topic, which is about surviving and thriving, I can’t help but start with that question Ragini. What does thriving look like to you? What does surviving look like to you in these days?  Ragini Basu:  Excellent question. You’re right. This year has been such an anomaly, first with COVID, and then with all the racial injustice that we’ve witnessed across the nation. It’s been in the news. It’s been in every newsletter. It’s been a part of really almost every conversation that I’ve been a part of both professionally and personally. I think this year myself, along with probably a lot of people that I’ve spoken to, we’re just surviving. We’re doing what is necessary to take each day at a time.  There are a lot of working parents, working mothers and fathers, that have caregiving responsibilities either to their children or to their parents, and this year has really stretched that boundary. We don’t have the benefit of dropping our kids to school for a majority of the year and going to work. A lot of our lives have blended. In fact, there was a little cartoon strip that I saw that made me chuckle, and it probably sums up most of our experiences as working professionals. It’s that, I don’t know if I live at work, or I work at home. You know? That’s really how I feel every day.  Diana Faison:  Do I live at work or work at home? Yes. These blended roles for sure.   Ragini Basu:  And to me, surviving is just doing what is necessary to get through the day. Thriving is so much more. It’s not just surviving, but really flourishing. You know, charting out your life, doing the things that emphasize what continues to inspire us, help us live our best life. Help us mind, body, and purpose, do what we want to do, and really believe looking back that we are living our best life possible. Not every day is going to be a great day, but we should be able to say we’re thriving because we’re really flourishing in what we’re doing. That is I think the aspiration, that is where we all want to be, but sometimes you’re surviving the day to be thriving for the season.  Diana Faison:  Say that again. I love that.  Ragini Basu:  Surviving the day to thrive for the season. I think I’m just going to tagline that.  Diana Faison:  I think you should. I really do. I think that that encompasses a lot. It sounds like you’re identifying more with surviving right now, but that you have one eye on thriving. That you know it’s there. You know it’s important. You know it keeps you going. You know that you want that best life, you want to flourish, but that you acknowledge surviving is okay at times. Is that accurate?  Ragini Basu:  I certainly think so, and to me, thriving is also having that growth mindset and challenging yourself continuously to be the best version of yourself. Whether it’s in your career, whether it’s as a parent, as a spouse, as a child, as a friend, to your community, and really being fulfilled in your overall life. And when we look at our life as a pie chart, there’s so much we want to put into our careers, our home, our work, our hobbies, our religious activities, things that really inspire us. Right?  There’s a pie chart of where you want to be, and there’s a pie chart of where you are, and if you are where you want to be, I think you’re thriving. If you have a Delta from that, that might be survival mode for the moment. In many cases, I feel personally for me, there are aspects of my life where I’m really thriving, and there are aspects and there are days where you feel like you’re just surviving that day. I think we live in that continuum continuously.  Diana Faison:  I’m just curious. Do you have ideas, suggestions, tips, strategies, on how you can close that Delta between those two pies that you described, where you are versus where you want to be? What’s that great tip, Ragini, that you would share with the audience?  Ragini Basu:  You know, it’s interesting that you ask that question. When I look back in my career and I look at a time when … I’ll just share this, that when I came back from maternity leave a couple of years ago, I came back rested with just a blank slate. Right? Where I knew everything in my inbox I was going to move to an offline inbox, and I was just a blank slate. I spent that first month thinking about what I wanted to do, what I wanted to focus on, what were some of the priorities I wanted to set for myself, the type of leader I wanted to be in the firm, the type of mother I wanted to be for Rina as a working mom, the type of spouse I wanted to be for my husband, and for my family. And just having the luxury to reflect and be really purposeful, that personally for me, was a great example of where I felt I was thriving.  It didn’t mean I didn’t have sleepless nights from having a baby that woke up every hour. It didn’t mean that I didn’t have to work and travel, and I was a nursing mom, but having that ability to just sit and reflect, and prioritize, and to have that clean slate to think, that is a privilege and a luxury I believe we don’t often utilize because we’re so focused on what’s on our calendar, and what’s next, and we’re living through our calendars, and we’re not really focused on being introspective. To me, the Delta between surviving and thriving is spending more time being introspective on what is it that I really want to focus on, and what is it that I can clear from my calendar because when we live through our calendar, we’re just surviving the day.  Diana Faison:  Wow. You know I believe very much in that power of reflection. Is there anything in particular that you do to carve out time for that reflection? Any strategy? Is it a weekly thing that you do, you go to Starbucks and hang out for an hour, or you sit in a special chair and do a journal? Is there any practice there that allows for some discipline around this idea of reflection and introspection?  Ragini Basu:  There’s two things that I do. One is actually very simple. I use my calendar to reflect, and I do it on a Friday afternoon. I block two hours of my calendar every Friday afternoon. I don’t know if I want to say the time because that might become public knowledge.  Diana Faison:  Your teams will all start clamoring for that time, won’t they?  Ragini Basu:  Yes, that’s right. Two hours every Friday afternoon, late in the afternoon, where I spend time reflecting, and I look at my calendar for the next week, and I think about what I want to accomplish. I start either moving things up or moving things behind and reprioritizing what my schedule is going to look like. That is really important to me. It really allows me to focus on what are those things I do want to spend time working on if I’m working that weekend, which is really rare unless we’re responding to an RFP, and where do I want to spend that time during the week? The other thing that’s really helped me personally is a gratitude journal. It’s a little app that I have on my phone, and I typically type it while I’m putting my daughter to sleep.  Diana Faison:  Aww.  Ragini Basu:  And while she’s almost asleep and I’m still in her room, I start typing in my gratitude journal. I attach pictures of things that I’m really grateful for, things that made me smile, things that made me happy. Every now and then I don’t write, I just go back and I look at my timeline and my history, and I think about the things that were such a highlight, and I say, “Well, what is one of those things that I’m not doing currently, and let me make some time for it.”  Diana Faison:

    6 min

  7. 28/10/2020

    Trust & Leadership

    Episode 2: Trust & Leadership, with Angela Deputy, Vice President of Field Operations Human Resources, at Aspen Dental   The post Trust & Leadership appeared first on Bravanti.

    6 min

  8. 12/05/2020

    Culture, Vision, & Communication: What M&A Leaders Can Teach the World About Leading Through Change

    Podcast Episode 4: Culture, Vision, & Communication: What M&A Leaders Can Teach the World About Leading Through Change, with Rob Brown, CEO of Lincoln International.  We’re pleased to bring you the latest Taking the Lead podcast featuring Rob Brown, who at the time of the recording was Managing Director and CEO North America, Lincoln International. While the interview was recorded prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, there are a number of key points that leaders can take away in the context of our current environment. It should be comforting to know that some of the key aspects of leadership still hold. Not everything is new and changing in the uncertain environment we are facing. There is no such thing as over-communicating during a time of change. Now is the time to communicate – early and often – with your team and your people as changes occur rapidly Technology can be both friend and foe. Through various virtual tools, we are all available 24/7. But it’s important to take time for critical thinking and decision making. Schedule time on your calendar with no Zoom meetings so you can think. We still have a multi-generational workforce and people more than ever (and not just younger people) want a purpose-driven organization. Be clear in your mission and communicate that to your people consistently. Consider the “pause principle.” Since we are all moving so quickly it can seem as if decisions must be made on the fly. But before making an important decision, take the time to pause, consider other people’s perspectives, step away for a moment, and come back with a fresh look at the decision. The post Culture, Vision, and Communication appeared first on Bravanti.

    27 min

  9. 20/02/2020

    Challenges in Healthcare Today – From Talent to Technology

    Podcast Episode 3: “Challenges in Healthcare Today – From Talent to Technology” with Dr. Jeff Bahr, Advocate Aurora Health The post Challenges in Healthcare Today – From Talent to Technology appeared first on Bravanti.

    22 min

  10. 29/08/2019

    A People-First Organization Driven by Values

    with Kevin McCarty, CEO, and Susan Stelter, Chief People Officer, West Monroe Partners  Q&A Podcast The post A People-First Organization Driven by Values appeared first on Bravanti.

    30 min
  • 10 Episodes

About

BPI group U.S., a leadership & talent consulting firm, talks with C-suite and other senior leaders about solving various organizational problems and moving businesses forward. Learn about business leadership from some of the best industry leaders around.

Information

  • Creator
    BPI group U.S.
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2022
  • Episodes
    10
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © BPI group, 2019
  • Show Website
    Taking the Lead