Shivani Berry, Founder of Arise Leadership, on Mastering Strategic Influence, Tackling Imposter Syndrome, and Getting Buy-In from Dominant Personalities

Transcript

Shivani, welcome to the show.

Shivani Berry 00:02:41

Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:02:43

Yeah, really excited to do this. I’ve been following some of your work, your publishing on a lot of well known publications, Wall Street Journal, Forbes. You post a lot of stuff on LinkedIn. I was actually just before we hit record checking out your recent LinkedIn Post and you’ve been talking about meetings more recently, which is something that we talk a lot about at fellow and something that we care about. But I just wanted to maybe start just to give the audience a really good sense for your background because you’ve had a very interesting and unique background in and how you’ve come into leadership coaching and leadership thought leadership. And so would love for you to just talk to that. Maybe just give us the highlight reel of how you got here to where you are.

Shivani Berry 00:03:28

Yeah, definitely. So I really started Arise Leadership, a leadership program for women out of my own experience and realizing that so many other people struggle with the same thing, where I realized there is no good way to learn the critical skills you need to move into leadership to move into management other than trial and error. So I started my career in investment banking, then went into tech, worked at companies like PayPal and Intercom, and I learned how to get buy in. How do you advocate for yourself, for your team? All by making a ton of mistakes. And then I even went to Harvard for business school to get my MBA. And Harvard’s the place where you’re supposed to go to learn how to be a great leader. But I didn’t learn any of these critical skills in the classroom. I learned it all in the job.

Shivani Berry 00:04:09

And that’s what made me realize, like, wow, I really want to develop a leadership program that I wish I had access to when I was making that transition. So I quit my job in tech management and started Arise Leadership to help elevate. Our mission is to help elevate a million women into leadership to create that much needed change and really focus on step by step playbooks and those topics that we deal with on a day to day basis. But we never ever talk about, like, how do you win over dominant personalities? How do you actually get someone’s support when they’re not being responsive to your email? How do you rally people when there’s so much uncertainty in the environment? And it’s been amazing to see that now we have participants from companies like Salesforce and Google and Uber, how they are having what’s at the table, they’re able to increase productivity. And now companies have come back to us and said that their participants are getting promoted almost four times faster than anybody else in the company and they’re retaining them 98% one year after graduating. So it’s truly been a dream working on this.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:05:05

That’s awesome. So a million women. So how does it work? So what does the program actually look like?

Shivani Berry 00:05:10

Yeah, so it’s a cohort based online leadership program. So companies will nominate their high potential women across functions, across regions. And it’s only six weeks. So it’s really a way for like a quick win for companies to really invest and retain their talent to help them develop these critical skills while you get to learn with the community of other women. I love to describe it as high caliber, but low ego. And that in itself is so empowering to realize, like, oh, wow, I’m not alone. A bunch of other smart, qualified people face the same challenges that I do. And now I have set by SF playbooks that I can use to apply directly to challenges at work.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:05:44

Yeah, yeah, super interesting. So it’s a one year program. And how many people are. It’s six weeks. Okay. And so how many people are in each cohort?

Shivani Berry 00:05:52

It’s about a couple hundred people in every cohort. And it’s really a mix of, you get the energy from having this broader group, but then every time you’re in session, you’re in small group discussions. And so you really get to bring in your own specific challenges, whether that is maybe having trust issues with a colleague at work or maybe you’re trying to, you’re getting ready to present at a meeting and you want to have some space to practice on that, or you need to give someone feedback or you got pulled into a last minute meeting. You’re like, how do I prep for this? And so you get to apply all those tools directly to your own challenges to create this personalized learning journey.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:06:25

Yeah, I love it. And so one of the things you just mentioned in passing is how do you communicate with dominant personalities? So I’m curious, how do you communicate with dominant personalities?

Shivani Berry 00:06:35

Yeah.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:06:36

And is that a bad thing, having a dominant personality? Is that not good?

Shivani Berry 00:06:40

Well, so I was going to say a dominant personality is not necessarily a bad person. I think some people will work with colleagues and will perceive them as dominant personalities while someone else will be like, oh, they’re so easy to work with. So I would really describe it in this context. Someone who you feel like doesn’t respect your expertise, who really doesn’t give you the time of day as you are sharing your ideas automatically shuts you down. And so I’m sure as I’m saying this, we all have someone that’s coming to mind. And so I find like most of us are either a dominant personality or where I have been on the receiving end, I have been on both. I have been on dominant personality and I’ve been like, have to work with them. And I think really here and really, like, the most important skill I’ve realized you need to nail at work is strategic influence, like knowing how to get buy in.

Shivani Berry 00:07:24

And it becomes especially critical with dominant personalities. You know, you have to be able to win their respect. And one, obviously you got to know what you’re talking about, but two, really, you know, through trial and error, I’ve developed this playbook called the Ascend get buy in framework, and there’s six components that you have to be able to nail. Whether you’re trying to win over this dominant personality or be able to, able to get support from your ideas, from your team, or be able to push back on someone under on, they’re asking to do more work, or they’re asking to prioritize this initiative. And so that framework they send get buy in framework has six components. The first is building allies. Then s is for storytelling, c is for co creation, e is for empathetic listening, n is for numbers and data, and d is for demeanor. You can also think about as presence.

Shivani Berry 00:08:12

And so incorporating all of these things, because often when we’re trying to get buy in, we incorrectly assume that the right answer is obviously that, like, what we’re thinking is obvious, but we forgot to think about the context that our stakeholders have. So, for example, we had one of our Arise participants, she was a product manager, and she was having trouble working with her CTO, the chief technology officer. Now, in her position, that is a really important stakeholder. He wasn’t including her in meetings. Every time she came to him with a product initiative to get, like, to really prioritize the roadmap, he was just, like, ignoring it. It was not only hurting her career growth, but also was hurting her team’s ability to have the impact and their product performance. And so she was able to use our program tools, especially the ascend get buy in framework, to deliver this feedback to him around how his interactions were making her feel attacked and the impact of the behavior. Now, that’s a really scary conversation to have with anyone, especially someone in the senior stakeholder level.

Shivani Berry 00:09:15

But being able to think about, you know, for her, she was able to think about, like, okay, what does he care about? What are his concerns going to be? How is he going to react to my message and really be able to add credibility. So every time, you know, one informing him, like, hey, when we interact and how you respond, like, this is how I feel. And in that moment, he was like, I had no idea because that was never his intention. And that’s the thing. A lot of people where you might perceive them as dominant personalities aren’t actually trying to be rude, aren’t actually trying to be jerks. It’s just like in that moment, they might not be self aware of how they’re coming across and so informing them. And because she was using the program tools, they were able to have a breakthrough where he actually ended up apologizing to her and started coming to her for input. But it doesn’t just stop there.

Shivani Berry 00:09:57

And even if, let’s say that feedback conversation doesn’t go well, like, how it went with this participant is a dream. Let’s say, like, you had that conversation, it doesn’t go anywhere. You really have to focus on how do I win their respect? And so a couple of ways that I found that works pretty effectively is one, anytime you’re presenting your ideas or coming to them, coming to a meeting with them, be really well prepared with your idea. Or maybe you’re making comments or asking questions, have data to back it up. You’re not proposing an idea or pushing back just because you think so. What is the data to support it? It can be qualitative or quantitative data. And the second thing is leveraging allies. So, for example, you’re going to a meeting and the project lead is someone who you found to be really difficult.

Shivani Berry 00:10:43

Now, maybe you tag another colleague on that who’s going to be in the meeting with you and be like, hey, we’re going to this meeting. I have an idea I’d like to share. If I don’t get space, do you mind just creating that space for me? Like, just being like, Sarah, do you have something to add? Now people want to be helpful. It’s just that we’re so focused on ourselves, we’re not thinking about that. And so your colleague’s probably going to be happy to do that. So now, in that meeting, when you’re not getting that space, your colleague creates space for you. You’re able to share your idea and other people can recognize it because it is a good idea. You’ve done the prep, and that in itself adds social credibility to yourself, and it can also be your manager advocating for you.

Shivani Berry 00:11:19

So it can be like, Ben is a point person on this project. Please go to him with any questions because sometimes what happens is that dominant personality usually will skip over Ben and go to their senior person. And so that manager can use this opportunity as a way to reinforce, like, this person knows what they’re doing, they’re the point person. You should go to them for input.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:11:40

Yeah, I love that and a lot to unpack there. So just going back to the story that you mentioned, so what was the root of the issue? Because I guess one of the things that you mentioned is the sometimes it’s about communicating in a way where you have data to back things up or that you are explaining things in the language that that person would understand and for the things that they would care about. Was this specifically an instance of just like actually straight up ignoring ideas or what happened there? Could you unpack?

Shivani Berry 00:12:12

Like, I think it’s the complexity. I think there’s multiple issues that happen in these situations. One is often lack of trust with the people. And so often when you’re working with difficult stakeholder, again, people aren’t usually trying to be jerks, but maybe they are so results oriented. So in my situation, when I’ve been really difficult to work with, I’m just so focused on getting, achieving the goal for the quarter that I’m like, nothing can get in my way. Let’s just like, get this done. And I’m like, I know I’m right, let’s just make this happen. And that personality can rub people the wrong way, even though that’s not my intent and that doesn’t justify it.

Shivani Berry 00:12:45

So then if you’re on the receiving end on that, some people can just like, shut down from and shy away. And you have to be able to know how to navigate that kind of stronger personality. And then often it’s that level of trust where it’s like this difficult stakeholder is making assumptions around like, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Now, often that there’s bias related to that. And so you have to be able to identify and navigate that. And that’s obviously a lot of work is also on that stakeholder to manage that. And there’s also part of it where you might not have done the legwork that’s required for you to help build that credibility. Now, often when we come into a role, we’re like, yeah, I have this title, so people should just trust me on this.

Shivani Berry 00:13:28

And instead you actually have to be able to one share. Like, here’s what my past experience is. As you’re bringing ideas into the meeting, you have to be prepared with, like, what is supporting proof of this and be able to position it in a way that shows people, like, how does this help them? How does this help the project move forward and proactively address concerns? And I think a lot of people don’t think about it that way. Three big reasons why we fail to get buy in is one, what I was sharing. People think the right answer is obvious. They forget that other people have a lot of context. Two, we think we run out of time, and so we’re like, we’re up against the deadline. I don’t have time to go get this person involved in this.

Shivani Berry 00:14:03

Let me just get this done. And then three, we think someone’s going to say no, so we just try to sneak things right in. And all of these three things might work in short term, but they break trust. And so you really have to do a lot of work on building that foundational trust and maintaining it. And the second big thing is around when someone is pushing back on your ideas instead of just being like, okay, you got to get creative about how am I going to get this visibility? Maybe I can’t win this stakeholder over right now, but who are other people who have influence in the organization that I can go to, that can build allies with to actually move things forward?

Aydin Mirzaee 00:14:37

Yeah, it’s very interesting. Just on the credibility bit. It is true that when you do join an organization, obviously previous experience does matter, but the more wins you have under your belt in an organization, I mean, it does give you credibility. It’s just this, okay, you’ve won once, you’ve won twice, this person is usually right. And then there’s almost like less justification that you have to do over the course of time because you’ve just kind of proven that. And it does make sense. Some people are just more skeptical by nature. Some people are the more believing type.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:15:12

I feel like I’m the type, generally speaking of that wants to see why an idea would work, whereas I have a co founder, for example, who will see why ideas won’t work and we’re just different personalities. Right. And so, yeah, there’s an element of, like, understanding what language the other person speaks, what things they care about. What about for the person that, say in a feedback review or 360 review gets told that you’re a dominant personality, you don’t listen to ideas, you do all of these bad things.

Shivani Berry 00:15:44

Yeah, I mean, I think they’re often the knee jerk reaction right there is to get defensive in the moment and be like, no, what are you saying? Because, I mean, again, like, 99% of the world does not want to be a dominant personality. Like, you want to be someone who people view is very collaborative and very respectful. And everything I’m sharing here can just be any kind of difficult stakeholder in general. And even anytime you’re receiving difficult feedback, you’re able to like, you can use any of these strategies here. And so what I really like to lean on is asking a lot of questions to help create that space for better understanding. And then you don’t have to agree with that feedback in the moment. Your job is not convince the feedback giver whether they’re right or wrong. Your job in that moment is to understand the feedback.

Shivani Berry 00:16:27

And then later on, you can decide what you want to do with it. Whether you want to go back and have a conversation with them, whether you want to accept the feedback, you want to ignore it. That’s up to you. And obviously, there’s, like, implications based on what path you choose on that. And so when I’m in these feedback conversations, I have to, like now remember two things, and I’ve, and it’s really just taken a lot of practice around it. One, I have to keep reminding myself, the person giving me feedback is really nervous right now and is really uncomfortable right now. Giving hard feedback is uncomfortable. So a lot of times, and I’m sure we all have feedback that we’re holding on to and we tell ourselves, like, oh, I’m not giving that feedback because, like, I want to be really nice to that person.

Shivani Berry 00:17:04

That person is so nice, or they should already know it, or, you know, like, I don’t know if I’m the right person. In reality, we’re not giving that feedback because we feel uncomfortable. We don’t want to put in the time to prepare for that conversation because actually giving honest feedback is nice. It actually helps that person improve and especially hard to receive feedback. If you’re someone that a colleague considers difficult to work with, think about that barrier they just have to come across, give you that hard feedback. And so it’s really important in that moment just to be receptive and just hear what they’re saying and to help me do that in the moment, I ask a lot of questions. So, for example, being able to be like, let me just replay what I just heard. This is what you’re saying.

Shivani Berry 00:17:43

What would an example of behavior look like that would make you feel more supported in the moment. And so when you do that one, it’s just like you’re able to manage your knee jerk reaction in that moment, but you’re also signaling to that person, like, I’m taking your feedback seriously and I really want to be able to grow and improve on this area. And so they’re going to feel more comfortable, more openly sharing this feedback with you and sharing more feedback in the future. And it can also be, you can even ask questions like how does this affect my overall performance on this project or our ability to work on this project together? I really like this question because often when we hear a critique, like, you’re being really difficult to work with, our mind assumes the worst, especially if that was not our intent. Like, oh no. Like I’m such a bad leader or I’m really bad at my job. But asking questions like this can help calibrate the significance of the feedback and then you can figure out what you want to do from there. But when I’ve been in those feedback conversations and something that we coach our participants on is like really first taking a pause and just asking a lot of questions.

Shivani Berry 00:18:46

And I even write have post its on my computer with like these questions just to help me slow down and be able to have this conversation in a way that person, the feedback ever feels really comfortable.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:18:57

Yeah, lots of really good tips there. I know the you wrote an article for first round review, super popular article which was around being a feedback magnet. I mean, I love that term. I’m curious, I’m assuming some of the stuff you just mentioned obviously will help you become a feedback magnet. Not to have that knee jerk reaction. Some really great questions to ask, but I love this concept. So what else can leaders do in the process to become a feedback magnet? Like you say, definitely.

Shivani Berry 00:19:28

So the feedback magnet is really about how do you get really, really good at receiving high quality feedback? And I realized the importance of this so one through my own career experience. But I started this women and leadership interview series where I was interviewing top leaders like Kim Scott of Radical Candor, the COO of Salesforce, like high level, like really CEO’s at the best companies. And they all would message me afterwards asking me for feedback. And I was like, why are you asking me for feedback? Like, you’re at the top of your game. And it really shows that the people at the top have this muscle, this growth mindset they’re constantly looking to improve. And so to be able to really become a feedback magnet, you got to embrace the feedback. It’s a mindset shift where I think so often we assume the burden of giving feedback lies with the feedback giver. I actually would refute that and I’d say the burden of getting feedback lies with the recipient.

Shivani Berry 00:20:23

Now, obviously the giver also has a responsibility, but as a recipient, we need to set up the right environment to make sure people give us that feedback. Like I shared, like, it is really uncomfortable giving feedback. So the easier paths for people to do is to not give you that feedback at all. But that doesn’t mean that feedback goes away. People are going to put in your performance reviews. If you don’t know it, you’re going to keep making the same mistakes over and over again. So it’s going to hurt which growth opportunities you get. It’s going to hurt your overall performance.

Shivani Berry 00:20:51

And so it’s really be mindful, like, how do you do that? You know, one of the things I was saying, ask questions in the meeting when you’re being giving that feedback to really understand it. And then the second thing that I really love is when you’re asking questions, having really high quality questions you’re asking. So for example, narrowing a question to be really specific and that’s really around, you know, for example, you can ask, like, did you feel comfortable sharing your opinion our last meeting, even if you disagree with the group, that’s a great question. If you just got feedback that you’re not very easy to collaborate with, maybe you have a more diverse team. And so if your goal is to make sure that everyone feels heard, that’s a great question because then you’re specifically asking that question. Or even better, make it more open ended. What can I do to help you share opinion more comfortably in the next group meeting? And so it’s not just a yes or no question. You’ve set it up that they can just give you a more specific answer on how to improve.

Shivani Berry 00:21:44

One of our Arise Leadership program participants, an engineering manager at Pinterest, asked, what’s one thing I can do to support you? Again, very specific and open ended, that someone, can you really create that opening for someone to give you that feedback?

Aydin Mirzaee 00:21:58

Yeah, yeah, it’s super cool. So I was going to ask you, how do you come up with the questions to ask? So a narrower question is definitely better. It’s much better than. Do you have any feedback for me? Definitely a lot better than that. I assume you can use performance reviews or performance feedback or surveys or something like that, but say that you don’t have something like that. Where might you start? If you’re thinking, I want to become a feedback magnet and I understand I have to narrow down the questions I ask, like where do you start? What area?

Shivani Berry 00:22:30

Yeah, definitely. I would think about what are my goals? What are, let’s say if you do have, even if you haven’t had a formal performance review, you probably have some improvement areas that you’re looking to. Or if you’re trying to get to the next level, you probably have some skill sets that you’re like, I need to master this and so being able to ask questions around that. Let’s say that you need to get better at storytelling in a meeting, or really being able to convey your ideas in a clear and concise manner. So I would bring up in our last meeting, how clearly did you understand my idea? What is one piece of advice you have for me to improve how I communicate my ideas? By the way, I really like the word advice versus feedback because feedback is a very loaded term. Advice is very welcoming. And so again, that’s another way that you can lower the bar for a feedback giver to give you some helpful inputs. The other thing I really like, if you have a deliverable, an easy thing is to go back to the people that you worked with and say, hey, what would make you love working with me? Instead of like, what would make you love how I gave you this piece versus just liking it, or what would make it 10% better.

Shivani Berry 00:23:39

So you just break it down for them. Because as you said, most of us just ask like, hey, do you have any feedback for me? But we’re busy and again, it’s uncomfortable giving feedback. So you really just like think about like what are the areas that I do want to improve on within? Like what’s my scope of the project? And let me just go get feedback on that. Or maybe you want to be someone who people really love collaborating with and so you can ask feedback around that. Does this sound familiar? You wake up, take a look at your calendar and see it’s filled with meetings, project meetings, stand ups, weekly check ins, one on ones, town halls, and those are just the internal ones. Some are productive, but some are a total waste of time. How often have you thought about the time your organization is wasting in unnecessary meetings? I bet a bunch. Now consider that in the US, there are 55 million meetings happening each day and 85% to 90% have no agenda.

Shivani Berry 00:24:34

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Aydin Mirzaee 00:25:03

I think those questions around, you know, how can I make this 10% better? Or how do you go from like to loving the way that I do this? Those are really good because personality types are very different, right? So some people have to work harder at coming up with feedback. So unless prompted in a very specific way, it’s going to be difficult for them to do it. I also like this notion of aspirational feedback, which is effectively what you’re saying. If I were to be world class at this, what would I need to do? But it’s just really giving people the, I guess the framework to be able to answer that question. Whereas they might think, oh, you’re doing just fine, but if you wanted to be world class at it, well, clearly there might be more things that you could do. So, yeah, I think that’s super relevant. One question that I wanted to ask you, and again, just going back to the beginning of our conversation, you recently posted a few things on meetings in general, and it kind of ties into the strategic influence bit of things. I sometimes wonder to myself that a lot of times when trying to get buy in, when trying to convince groups of a particular topic, it almost feels like writing is the best way to do it.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:26:14

And the reason I say that is it feels like writing travels better. It doesn’t require different people to explain what you’re saying. It can be collaborated. Like an idea can be taken and collaborated on, the holes of the idea can be found. And it feels like you just avoid a lot of these traps of dominant personalities or people who are looking for certain things. What are your thoughts around that? And just in the area of getting buy in or getting an initiative across the board, do you think about that at all? Or maybe that’s what you also advocate.

Shivani Berry 00:26:47

So I think it really depends on who your stakeholders are and what you’re trying to accomplish. And so I think writing can be really powerful. I’ve found writing to be really effective. And I’ve also been in situations where it hasn’t been that great. So, for example, as a product manager in one of my previous companies, we would write product briefs on anything that we were going to do, and we recirculated. And it was like the best way to collaborate. People can come in async and ask questions, comment, get feedback. It was great.

Shivani Berry 00:27:13

Now, when I went to my next company, I copied that same method, especially because this is a standard way that Amazon works. And I was like, well, if Amazon uses this, of course it must be the best in class. And I remember in a team meeting I had beforehand shared a brief on like, okay, here’s my product recommendation. Here’s why I think we should do it. Here’s the rationale. Here’s the risk of mitigants. It was very well built out. And so when I went to the team meeting, I was like, did everyone have a chance to review it? Everyone nodded their head.

Shivani Berry 00:27:41

I was like, any questions or concerns? And everyone was like, everyone was good. I was like, great. Wow, this is smooth. We’re all aligned. The writing method really worked. But then as we started working on the project, I started getting a lot of questions from people, like, oh, like, wait, why are we doing this? And how about this piece? In my mind, I’m like, wait, that wasn’t the document that we all read. And so I realized this particular group I was working with, this is not how they operated. I couldn’t just rely on a written document to align.

Shivani Berry 00:28:07

And so then I had to go back and do one on ones with everyone, really rethink on, like, here’s what our goals are, here’s what the proposal is, here’s what the concerns are, understand their concerns, and then only were we able to get that alignment. So I think you have to really figure out how does your team work and then be able to understand, like, when do I use written documentation versus having a conversation? And I think that’s one thing I will say. Like, especially people can tend to have conversations a lot in slack, and sometimes you can have these really meaty conversations. And the best, most strategic influencers know when to take those conversations offline and actually have a conversation. I am a huge proponent, I believe so much in pre meeting one on ones. In one of my roles, I was tasked with revamping our overall pricing strategy, our monetization strategy, and before getting approval, it was senior stakeholders. Our head of finance, head of growth, our head of sales had to all approve this. And so they’re busy and they all have their own reasons for why they would want a certain proposal.

Shivani Berry 00:29:11

Like, everyone has their own goals or compensate against their own things. They have their own view of how the company should work. And so before we had that big group meeting where everyone would come in and discuss and sign off, I did pre one on ones with each one of them. And so I was able to tailor the conversation to, example, the salesperson talk about how would this hit her, hurt or impact their revenue numbers or change how maybe their sales teams operate? And for the growth product person, like, how does this impact how they would incorporate pricing into the product? And so in those one on ones, not only did I address concerns, but I was able to get sign off from each one of them on the proposal. So when we got onto the meeting, like, the meeting finished within ten minutes because everybody got in, they’re like, yeah, we’re on board. And we just talked about a couple next steps and we ended and being able to do that. People were one appreciative of getting time back, but they recognized how I had strategically driven that alignment and made sure everybody was on board and thought about in a way outside the box and not just using the standard group meeting. And so I say that to share, like, anytime you’re trying to get buy in, and that could be on your idea, that could even be saying no to initiative or reprioritizing or even just raising concerns or a project update, you also think about, like, who’s my audience, how likely, like, what is, like, the stakes of this, and how are they going to process information, and then what is the right method for me to go about this? And likely you’re going to probably use a mix of written and also verbal communication.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:30:36

Yeah, it’s super interesting. I’m really getting from the story that you shared that every company is different, and you can’t just solve problems in the same way at every company. And it really needs to be tailored. And it gets more complicated because even in the same company, as you mentioned, you might have different personalities. And so a lot of it is, yeah. Spending the time understanding how you need to tailor the conversation. And when done well, it can be magical. So, yeah, that’s very, very cool to hear.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:31:04

One thing that I also wanted to ask is on this idea of being a feedback magnet you shared Kim Scott. She’s been on the show twice, actually, I think, now. And some other people who are very good at just constantly asking for feedback. What if you’re, like, a senior leader within the company? What if you’re the CEO? Like, how might you go about getting feedback? Because it gets harder and harder the more senior you are within a company.

Shivani Berry 00:31:31

Definitely. I think it’s really important to recognize that when you’re asking that person for feedback. So let’s say you’re the CEO, another senior executive, and you’re asking a more junior person for feedback. One, asking really specific questions is helpful. Like, hey, how can I support you better? Or in this project? Or when I sent out this memo or the last all hands and I shared this, like, how did it make you feel? So really specific questions. And two, acknowledging up front, like, I know it can be intimidating to give feedback to a more senior person and really reinforcing. I truly want to hear what you have to say around it. And so starting with that vulnerability, you know, a big thing we talk about in our leadership program is how do you get feedback? And so I’ve had the honor of interviewing Kim’s gun as we talk a lot about like, how do you set up the right environment? And I think her radical candor framework is amazing.

Shivani Berry 00:32:18

And then it’s thinking about, like, how do you actually deliver that feedback? What are the eight steps you follow and around that, as that senior person asking for feedback, you have to level the playing field. So starting with, like, this is an area where I’m really trying to improve. Or in my last performance review, this is what happened. So show a level of vulnerability that really indicates, like, hey, I’m really trying to improve and you can help me then come into that conversation, asking really specific questions and acknowledge in that moment, like, hey, I know this is probably feels uncomfortable. I know this can be intimidating. Stating our feelings out loud or recognizing how the other person might be feeling really removes the friction from the conversation. And then the third thing I would say in that moment is follow up afterwards and thank them for the feedback. So thank them in the moment and thank them afterwards.

Shivani Berry 00:33:03

And ideally, if you can also show them how you’re implementing their feedback can be really powerful. Like, thank you so much for sharing that. Like, actually in our next all hands, like, here’s how I’m incorporating it. Or I’d love to check back in in six months or three months and see how I’m doing because this is really important to me.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:33:18

Yeah, those are some really good tactical tips in order to increase the feedback. I love the follow up bit because that’s the part that ensures that it will happen again and that really, really goes a long way. Shivani, I also wanted to ask you about this idea of imposter syndrome. This is something that everybody has, right? At all levels of leadership. It’s kind of a common thing. And I would say to some extent, it might never really go away. You’ll have it in different forms and everybody kind of experiences it a little bit differently. But I am curious, like, this is something that you focus on at Arise Leadership.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:33:55

What are some common things that you see and some common approaches that can help tackling imposter syndrome?

Shivani Berry 00:34:02

Yeah. So impostor syndrome is something that we’re now more openly talking about, which I love because like you said, so many of us feel it and we’re probably always going to feel it because I think anytime you’re doing something challenging, you’re going to feel uncomfortable. But why? It’s really important to talk about it because more often than not, it can hold us back from taking on the next step. And so I describe imposter syndrome is really that belief that everyone else got to where they are because of merit, but you got to where you are because you got lucky. And so, for me, for example, it showed up when I first got promoted into people management. And so I was, like, so scared that they take away that promotion from me that I didn’t ask for salary raise to go with that additional responsibility because I didn’t want them to think like, oh, well, if we have to pay her more money, it’s not worth it. Let’s just demote her. In reality, that’s not rational, but that’s how I operated, and it was a place of fear and not really stepping into my own.

Shivani Berry 00:34:52

And so it was only after a few months later when I realized, like, oh, I can actually do my job. Like, yeah, I have a lot to learn to learn, but I realized, like, everyone is new to people management in the beginning, which sounds obvious now, but it wasn’t to me in the. In the moment. And I know a lot of people struggle with that transition. And so in these moments, when you’re struggling with that feeling of self doubt, when it’s really holding you back, I love asking three reflection questions that we practice in our leadership program. One, identifying what you feel an imposter about, often recognizing this as half the battle. So maybe for you, you are new to your role, like I was. Maybe no one else in the room looks like you.

Shivani Berry 00:35:28

So this especially shows up for underrepresented minorities when, you know, I definitely felt it when I’ve been the only woman in a room of, like, all men. And especially because I’ve worked in primarily male dominant environments, it’s been a practice to not doubt myself and, like, really continue to stand up and bring the value that I know I can bring. Maybe you come from a non traditional background, whatever that is. For you, just identifying, like, what about the situation is making me doubt myself. The second thing is understanding, who are you comparing yourself to? Often we compare ourselves to people who are much more senior than us. So, for example, when I got promoted to people management, I was comparing my abilities to my manager, who had 20 years of people management experience. Now, again, saying that out loud, like, that’s not rational. Or worse, we often don’t even know who we’re comparing ourselves to.

Shivani Berry 00:36:14

It’s just this black hole. We just feel like I’m not good enough. And so, again, identifying that helps you understand and rationalize, like, what is actually. How should you actually calibrate your abilities and how you’re performing?

Aydin Mirzaee 00:36:26

Yeah, and it’s a very dangerous game to play because everybody is better than you at something. So you’re going to play that game. It’s a great way to make yourself feel pretty bad.

Shivani Berry 00:36:37

Exactly. And it’s a lose lose situation. Also, people only share their successes. Behind every success, there’s probably ten to 20 failures that you’re just not seeing. And so you don’t have the full picture. So there’s no point in comparing. Like, you might as well just figure out, like, okay, what do I have to do to get good in this specific skill or this area to, like, improve? And the last thing around, like, what are you good at? Is I would reflect on, like, what are three reasons why my manager would say I’m qualified for the role. We can be really hard on ourselves.

Shivani Berry 00:37:05

So just taking that third party perspective around it can be really powerful in that moment. And so using these strategies, you know, for example, we had our participants use this all the time. So, for example, one of our participants at Amazon, when she joined centuries, she was, like, ready to quit the company. She doesn’t feel supported. She was done and she was able to use her program tools. Everything we talked about today, like giving feedback, being able to get buy in. And really what is really empowering for her is she was able to take those strategies and be able to turn around some really difficult relationships on the team. She was also able to better advocate for ideas and better communicate to get buy in.

Shivani Berry 00:37:42

And it was really empowering for her to recognize in the program our community, like, oh, wow, a bunch of other smart, qualified women face the same challenges as I do because she was one of the few women on her team, the only woman of color on her team. So being able to be in spaces, even if it’s outside your work and recognizing that can be really powerful. And so much so that by the end of our six week program, it renewed her commitment to Amazon and she got promoted four months later using these strategies. And part of it was not only her performance improved, but she also knew now how to present her ideas and how to be able to advocate for herself and showcase what she has been doing. Because a lot of things that a lot of us mess up on is like, we have good results, but we don’t showcase it. And you have to be able to share it in a very organic manner that in a way that people care about it and you’re helping others. And so I’d really say the imposter syndrome, it’s being able to take and define what you’re struggling with and then flip it on his head to like actually make this a strength or at least, or be like, okay, I’m feeling this, but I’m not going to let this stop me.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:38:42

Yeah. On the peer group and, you know, being surrounded with other people that are like you in similar situations, that in particular I find is so helpful. Uh, which is why, you know, for, you know, founders of companies, for example, like, we all have like, you know, different founder peer groups that we’re a part of. And it makes such a huge difference because you look around, you’re like, wow, everybody has problems. Like, even that company who I thought was doing so great has these problems. And all of a sudden my problems don’t look so bad. And it’s just, you know, it’s very interesting because like you said, most people, you typically see the best people share the best of what’s going on and not necessarily the other side. And so, yeah, it helps with a healthy dose of what reality actually is.

Shivani Berry 00:39:27

Definitely.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:39:28

So, Shivani, this has been a super interesting and wide ranging conversation. We talked about strategic influence, we’ve talked about becoming a feedback magnet. We’ve talked about imposter syndrome, and we talked about your super interesting journey in founding Arise and the sort of work that you all do. We typically like to end on a few rapid fire questions that I’d love to ask you. And the first of it would be very related to what you’re working on that Arise. But for organizations that want to do a better job of making a real effort to recognize and help women in their workplace excel, what advice would you give them?

Shivani Berry 00:40:10

So there it’s, if you really care about this, give women the growth opportunities, especially promotion into management, to help actually move them forward. So there’s this concept called the broken rung where actually data shows that more men are promoted into the first step of management than women are you. In fact, 87 women are promoted for every 100 men. And so we’re all contributing to that problem. So it’s really thinking about not just that promotion piece, but also like, how can I start developing these high potential women on my team to help them set them up for success? And how do I get them more growth opportunities and really invest in their skills development? So, for example, companies like Uber and Salesforce will leverage our leadership accelerator to help retain these high performers and develop these critical skills. And when you do this, the number one piece of feedback I hear from participants is how through the single low effort action, they feel like their company is truly investing in them. And so I think often people feel like oh, this is so complicated. Or I don’t have budget or I don’t have the time to do it.

Shivani Berry 00:41:10

But like, actually helping the high performers in your team grow and develop doesn’t have to require a lot of time. And so really thinking about like, okay, how can I develop those skills? Like what is it? Either you coach them or you use external programs to do that. And then also how do I give them growth opportunities? And it doesn’t always have, hopefully it will lead to that promotion. But it could also be like giving them a speaking role at the next meeting or putting them on a project that can help them develop a certain domain expertise that they need to help be successful in their next role.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:41:40

Yeah, I love all of these because they’re all proactive things that you can do and you have to be proactive if you want to be different than what the average is. So another question is what do you wish leaders everywhere would stop doing?

Shivani Berry 00:41:54

Yeah, so I wish they would. What I was just saying is like where they’re just like, I don’t have budget or I don’t have time to like invest in my team. Like I really want to, but like, yeah, or like, I just don’t have the authority to, you know, it’s, the decision’s made at the top because in reality anyone can help drive this change. Anyone can invest in anyone, even if you’re an individual contributor. And so for example, when I was at PayPal and my manager gave me the opportunity to go present to our CFO, huge opportunity. I was only a few years out of college. Now, not just, he didn’t just give me that opportunity, but he also prepped with me for that meeting. So the week before we sat down with the presentation, I practiced saying it out loud.

Shivani Berry 00:42:35

He coached me on that. And yes, that required more time from him, but it helped set me up for future opportunities where I was able to get that recognition from senior leadership, I was able to take on more responsibility and actually like, because he’d invested in me, I was able to help lead bigger meetings than I would like now that I had this experience. And so leaders should stop just saying like, oh, I don’t have the authority or I don’t have the budget because like there’s actually so much in your control that you can do. Another idea that’s totally free is recognizing when people do good work. We get too busy, but actually like, you know, a really good la will go to you and be like, good job, Aiden. On this project, a great ally will publicly share it. So they’ll go to your manager, they’ll post in the company Slack channel at the team meeting and be like, Aiden does such a great job on this project and that is so powerful because you’re helping someone get the recognition that they deserve that they wouldn’t have had. And by you sharing this as a person of influence, you’re helping them basically boost their visibility within the organization.

Shivani Berry 00:43:41

And so these are some ideas that actually don’t take a lot of time, but you’re able to have an outsized impact on someone’s career. And of course, when they look good, you look good. And so it’s a win win for everybody.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:43:52

I love it. That’s great advice and a great place to end it. Shivani, thank you so much for doing this.

Shivani Berry 00:43:58

Thank you so much for having me. This was fun.

Aydin Mirzaee 00:44:00

And that’s it for today. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Supermanagers podcast. You can find the show notes and transcript at www.fellow.app/Supermanagers. If you like the content, be sure to rate, review and subscribe so you can get notified when we post the next episode. And please tell your friends and fellow managers about it. It’d be awesome if you could help us spread the word about the show. See you next time.