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Welcome to Mercer's podcast series on the new shape of work. I'm Kate Bravery, Mercer's Advisory and Insight Leader. And today, I'm joined by Wanda Wallace, Managing Partner of Leadership Forum. Wanda, welcome. It's great to have you on the podcast today.

It's a delight to be here. Thanks for having me, Kate.

Well, I was really excited to get you on this podcast really because of International Women's month and given some of the headlines that we're hearing with regard to women in leadership and the real opportunity and the challenge ahead of us.

I thought taking some time out to talk about your career and how you've navigated some of those transitions would be really interesting. But more so, last time we caught up, you talked about the importance of making work more fulfilling and less stressful. And let's be honest, isn't that what we all aspire to?

We certainly need more of that for sure.

Absolutely. So any advice we can get on that is always good. So on that note, why don't we dive in? Wanda, you've had a phenomenal career that spanned many different fields from psychology to education and now to business. Do you want to share a little bit about how you crafted that career path and maybe how you navigated some of those transitions?

OK. The first step is I didn't craft it. And I think most senior leaders around the world have been doing this for more than 20 years. I get the same answer from them. You know what you are done with. You know you're open for something new. And then something comes along, and you just grab it. And my career looks very similar.

I mean, there is a thread that connects it. And yes if you just looked at the line items from the moves that I make, they might not have made a whole lot of sense. But each time, it wasn't like I had a grand plan.

I knew I was ready for a new challenge. I didn't stop to say, oh, no, what if I can't. I really focused on what I was moving towards. It was why I was moving towards it. And that became the impetus to say, well, if anybody else can do it, then I can do it as well and jump in.

And then, of course, you have to ask for help along the way because if you don't, you're not going to get very far with all these moves. But it's really been chasing opportunities. So for example, Kate, I never in my wildest imaginations expected to set up my own business.

That was not what I was going to do. Even though I know I fit the profile of entrepreneurs in the days when we were looking at that, that wasn't the plan. And then suddenly, a series of events. And OK, here we are.

Another point that you said there, you know when you're done with something. And I do think-- and I don't have empirical research for this. But as women, sometimes we know we're done. And then we take a really long time to actually step out of that.

And when I interview male leaders compared to female leaders, you get that confidence from male leaders around, I feel that I've got the skills to do something I haven't done. You don't hear what you just said, if anyone can do it, I can do it.

And actually, our research does bear that out. Our research does show a difference that women don't always think that their skills could be applied to a role they've never done before. So how come you are profiling maybe a little like some of these men on that factor?

Some would say sheer determination. Maybe some would say-- I don't know. It's the pull towards as opposed to the fear of what might happen. I think at each point I knew that if I stayed where I was, it was just going to get worse. My performance was going to get worse because I was bored. I wasn't being challenged. And so it's the looking towards what I want to do that gave me the impetus to move forward.

I think that's so important to look up and out. And I love that connection you've made with performance. This year, certainly in our Global Talent Trends, we're talking a lot about productivity because everyone thinks that we're going to be a lot more productive because of AI.

But productivity and performance is intimately linked to what you're passionate with. And what you've got energy for. And so I think you're right. When you know you're past your sell-by date in a row, that productivity and performance is going to drop.

Drop. And you want to catch up before that drop happens, not afterwards because then the rebuild is much more difficult. I'm going to come back though to the issue of women. If I could just get women-- as we're speaking about International Women's month, I could just get women to say, OK, I'm doing well in this job right now.

Maybe I've got another 12, 18 months of bandwidth here. So let me start looking now because it takes nine months to land that next job. And you can't wait until you're done, done to start looking. Then you got a whole year waiting. So it's a little ahead of the curve. And men get most-- many men get this right, not all. Many get it right.

So what I'm hearing for you is when you get that little spider tingle that maybe I'm done in the role, that's when we should start looking before we start to see what that next new adventure could be? And then we get the pull.

And I would add to your comment about, yes, we should start early in the looking, nurturing a network. But one of the things that I think sometimes we're not as good at doing as men is building that successor because if we want that next opportunity, particularly if it's within our current environment, if we haven't built the successor who's going to step into our role, that also can slow it down.

True, can slow it down. But at the same time, Kate, how many times have you seen in client organizations where we have a great succession planning, the leader was on a brilliant job of coaching the next person to step in, leader leaves, and what do we do? Reorganize and bring somebody else out. So--

Yeah, absolutely.

--I can also say, don't buy that you have to sit there until you found the perfect successor.

Yeah, I think a part of any great leader is thinking about, what next? And also who might step up? But I agree, don't be beholden to it because that's another obstacle we might inadvertently put in our pathway to growth.

You mentioned earlier about fairness and equity. And I know that's a topic that you talk a lot about in your own podcast. And yet in 2023, we saw more resignations from women CEOs, more firing of female CEOs than we did of men.

And it's pretty shocking those figures. And I'm just curious, what's your thoughts around, why do you think that disparity is happening? And what can we do to make sure that we keep a sense of equity front of mind when we're making talent decisions?

Right. So all these talent decisions are fraught with bias. Every human decision about a person and whether I have confidence in a person is fraught by just the way I framed it, by bias, by what I'm comfortable with and not comfortable with.

And I can tell you, among the female CEOs that I'm speaking to, they're very aware of just how tentative they are hold can be. Someone said to me recently, it is now crystal clear to me that it doesn't matter how good of a job I do. If they, quote unquote, "they", whoever that is, wants me gone they can orchestrate to have me gone. And that is an unsettling place to be.

That is unsettling.

But I think it comes-- I mean, in my view of all of this, there are many, many twists and turns. And I won't get into all the twists and turns of people's opinions and decisions and politics and all of that. But when you have strong ally base who are people in positions of power who are backing you and want to see you continue, you make it rather hard to have you removed, assuming you haven't done something unethical or illegal.

But when you don't have that strong base of power, then you make it much easier for people to remove you because you don't have the advocates for you in the background. The one thing women and minorities don't do as well is really build that strong advocacy base. They settle for what is lighthearted advocacy, not heavy devoted loyalty.

Really interesting. It reminds me of that phrase, don't be an island on your own. And if we keep our head down and do the busy work as opposed to building that network and your point before about, if people want you out, they'll get you out.

And so it's going to come to how much do people trust in your integrity? How much do people think that you are trustworthy? And if you've invested everything in the one person, like your one line manager, I think we expose ourselves. And you're right, I think that's something we don't naturally do maybe as well.

That's right. Well, and think about it this way. If I've invested all of my energy in that one line manager and suddenly that line manager takes an action, intentionally even, that his or her boss objects to, it's a matter of time before that line manager starts to fall from grace.

And the line manager is vulnerable. I've seen lots of them. I've seen male managers and female managers who say, fine, I am willing to lose on this particular issue because it matters to me. And pretty soon they're out of the organization. But if I'm attached to them, then I'm suspect. The next leader coming in is going to be fundamentally asking, can we trust Wanda? Will she get on board with us or not? It's hard.

Well, I think the relationship with managers full stop has changed so much over the last few years. We've just come off our global talent trends study. And one of the findings that really surprised me, we asked people why do you stay with your current organization? And we got 30 items. I think it's 20 items, sorry. What drops to the very bottom is the manager. And the manager has been steadily dropping over the years.

So the impact of that one relationship is diminishing, while the relationship with the organization and pride in the brand and organization that is equitable and that focuses on having enough female leaders is rising. And it's just been interesting to see how leaders around the world are not just investing in their one leader but are actually placing more weight on the brand itself and that relationship with the organization.

I don't want to let managers off the hook though. I think if you're a bad-- you're an ineffective manager or a poor manager, you can push people out the door. But it isn't the great manager that keeps people solely in the building anymore. It's much, much more about the culture and the climate and the type of work and fairness and a bunch of other factors, I think.

Which is why some of the DE&I and belonging topics that we're discussing today just becoming really critical to get that attraction and retention right. You just reminded me of something that we were talking about last time we were together.

And I might have got this wrong. But I think you said no one is a pure manager these days. You've got to be a technical manager and a people manager. And actually sometimes they can be in tension. Do you mind just saying a few more words about that? Because it really stuck in my memory.

Right. I talk about the technical manager as the expert, the one who knows how to get everything done, where all the bodies are buried, if you will, which screw to twist by how much in order to solve the problem. So technical, bring me a problem. I know what to do, how to fix it. I'll solve it.

That's what I call expertise leadership. And it's not an individual contributor. They are leaders who answer questions. They are a bit of the heroes of the organization in many ways, heroes and heroines. The other side of the spectrum is something I call spanning, which is not general management classic. It is the ability to look across domains of knowledge and get things done.

And because it's across domains of knowledge, it means you can't have much depth in any single one of them. You've got to span. Some depth. I didn't say zero knowledge, not a lot of great depth for you in that knowledge.

And the modern management role, especially middle management and above, is a combination of those two where I'm expected to technically know how to get things done, guide my team, train my team, make sure my team doesn't make mistakes in that technical area.

And I'm supposed to be enterprise-wide. I'm supposed to look across the picture. I'm supposed to see the big picture and the purpose and the connection and the talk to the customer and all of those broader spanning things.

And what happens is you're stuck between both. Some organizations call it player-coach. That part of my job is being the technical expert leader. Part of my job is being the spanning leader. And I can shift hats on the drop of a dime.

So I think what I said to you when we spoke last, it's every leader has some degree of expertise. The question is, when do you have to dive deeply? And then when do you not? As well as how fast can you pop back up to the surface again rather than stay down in the weeds? And those are the two fundamental questions we have to be grappling with.

And it just means that you've got to be really intentional how you show up, which hat you're playing at that time and probably being very clear about that with those around you as well so you don't get conflict.

One of the things I've also observed from some of the women that we've had on this podcast is the challenge of too much busy work. And this year, we heard that the number one productivity gain is not enough thinking time, which, of course, are related.

And I definitely hear that more from the women than the men. And I don't know if it's because we self-assess more. But given you've interviewed many experts, what are your learnings about? How can we work a little more sustainably and a little less stressfully and a little bit more intentionally as you were just describing?

I think the number one criteria is to understand what's the most important thing for you to do to add greatest value to the organization and to your team because if you're not crystal clear about where your greatest value add is, then your time can get usurped by everybody who comes along and says, Please, will you help? particularly if you like to please or like to serve or enjoy just being helpful.

And so when you're clear where I really need to put my value in, it gets a whole lot easier to say no. You're clear what you're taking time away from. You're clear who else could do something because it's not your greatest value add.

And you're clear that you're still going to be important because where your value add is. I'd have to do everything to prove to you that I'm important. That value piece is the part we don't spend nearly enough time, clarifying for ourselves, and verifying with our managers.

I like that, yeah, because if you're the only person who knows that you're value add, that's probably not going to help you in the organization.

No. And it doesn't give you any guidance on where I should be putting my time. I'll give me an example about this, a really simple trivial example. One of my podcast guests said that in his consulting career early on that he used to recognize that he did the same kind of analysis over and over and over again.

So he decided that he would spend some marginal time automating the spreadsheet. Basically, this was in the days when we didn't have AI. And everybody laughed and said, why are you doing that? Why were you wasting your time, blah, blah, blah?

And he still did it because he believed that was going to be the greatest value add he could do for his work. And then when he gets his automation finished, the formulas finished, sure enough, he can throughput an analysis at one eighth the speed of everybody else. Now that's value, significant value. And of course, his career follows suit accordingly.

But if he didn't understand what he was doing and why he was doing it, then he would have let everybody's complaints derail him. And he didn't because he knew why it was going to add value and why he wasn't bad, even if there were naysayers.

I totally agree with you. And it's a really good case in point. We just had a Martin Schmidt from Takeda. He runs their total reward function on the podcast recently. And he said-- God, I think it must have been back in January.

So January 2023, he was asking all his team to spend four hours playing with generative AI. And at the time, everyone is saying, this is a fad. Why are you doing that? And you can imagine how that's played out now. So yeah, I love that. I love that. So find your value add let that guide your decisions about where you spend your time.

Well, look, you mentioned it is international women's month. So why don't we cut to the chase? As we start to think about AI, one of the research points that just surprised me this year-- and I don't know if it should have. But women are significantly more concerned about the impact of AI on their jobs than men.

Do you believe that that's warranted? Do you think women should be more concerned? Is that related to the types of role they have? Is it related to the fact that they're opting out of some of the in-person activity because they're doing more flexible remote options? Yeah, I'm just curious on your thoughts as to why we find that finding. We've just got it. And we're just beginning to explore it.

Yeah, I think there's multiple pieces to this. One, I think when you're part of the majority, you assume you will continue to be part of a majority in one way or another. And it's kind of, OK. So I think being part of that majority gives you some confidence that you're kind of like everybody else.

The second one is something you said earlier that women tend to do more busy work. And I think they tend to do more busy work because they tend to pick up the things that nobody wants to do. Somebody needs to do it, so, OK, I'll be a good citizen. But that means that they're not spending their time on the real value add stuff.

And then number three, if you're spending more time on busy work, then you should be a little more worried about what AI is going to do to your role. And I would encourage you to go the opposite of what I just have said or use the example I gave about the consultant and take it to your advantage. If I'm doing all this busy work, what's the automated route I can take that's going to minimize my time? And is it worth my time?

Yeah, I think that opportunity for process optimization that AI can do. I also-- I mean, personally, I'm really enjoying that cognitive sparring when we're coming up with new things to have that other partner.

I also have found, as a woman, I also don't want to ask other women on my team to do busy work. And actually I'm finding that AI might pick up some of the more laborious embarrassing things that I wouldn't ask someone to do because it's a lot of data sifting. So maybe for the future generations, that might actually help.

AP.

I actually think AI has great opportunities for actually challenge us about how we work. And it can be really useful in telling us what skills we have and what jobs we could do. So I'm actually holding a lot of hope that AI will close some of those gaps. But where are you seeing some watch-outs? What are some of the biases we need to be cognizant of in the workplace today? And how can we be more inclusive leaders ourselves?

I think the biggest bias and the one we all have to watch for is fundamentally if I like you, connect with you, find things in common with you, I'm going to trust you more than somebody whom I don't like as much or don't connect well as much with.

That kind of straight basis for trust comes from common ground. And that common ground is fraught with bias. So we connect earlier, Kate. We have a great rapport. We share some very similar philosophies.

OK. Excellent. There's a lovely level of trust. And from that, you just build on that level of trust. It's easier than if we didn't quite connect. I think that is just part of the human phenomena. I don't think we're going to stop it. But I do think we have to stop and say, I connected well with this person, why?

Does that mean I should trust them, by the way? And I didn't connect so well with this other person, why? And what could I do to change that? And having that analysis as opposed to saying, oh, they're a fit, the person's a good fit, or I have a good gut instinct, or that's a kind of higher we need, all of those euphemisms that we've always used, if you'll stop and say, what's that about? And how can I improve it? I think you give everybody a fairer shot.

I couldn't agree with you more. And I do think the wonderful world that we live in today can give us feedback on both our blind spots and where we do overlean to always giving that special project to the person that you can trust to deliver rather than maybe opening up different development opportunities.

And I think we as leaders need to be more cognizant of that, particularly if we want to change the trajectory of other women maybe coming through. Well, one of the things I love about your podcast is you always close out with a conversation about getting out of your comfort zone.

And I know that's the name of your podcast. But you've had this opportunity over many years now to talk to lots of women. And so what is your advice to women listening in today to encourage them to step out of their comfort zone?

OK, so my first statement is you have to. If you want your career to continue to grow, you have to get out of your comfort zone, period. And do something that isn't yet natural to you. It will become natural. But it isn't going to be 100% natural yet. We can't let you be CEO or C-suite and have you never having tested being out of your comfort zone.

I mean, it's just like you can't have it. You've got to have done this by small degrees in order to be ready for it at the big stakes. So that's where careers are built. And women have a lovely way of talking themselves out of these out of the comfort zone moves.

One is, I don't want to feel like an imposter. Well, if you're getting out of your comfort zone, you are going to feel like you're an imposter because you don't yet know enough about the role. You will but you don't yet, so don't try to fake it. Just say, who's going to help me? And how are they going to help me? And let that be OK because you're giving other people opportunities.

The second thing is you have to be perfect at day one. You just got to know what the big issues are. So OK, ask people. They have an incredible way of telling you. It's amazing that-- and then we think we have to do that job the way the last person doing the job did it.

No, you have to do the job the way you want to do the job, the way that suits you. So we have all of these barriers that we put up about why I can't take that step or why I might fail in that. Nobody set you up to fail. If they set you up to fail, they just set themselves up to fail because they're the ones who are the hiring manager. So no one's doing that. So--

I would agree. Everybody has that vested interest in making most moves a success. And sometimes we are the worst critic in our minds. And you've called so many of those phrases out today on the call that really just don't serve us well.

And I love your point there around manage yourself but also talk to people. Manage a team, interact, learn because growing is about being out of your steps, out of your comfort zone. And I like your point that if you haven't proved yourself in a few different spaces, you're never going to get the top job. And that makes total sense to me.

Wanda, thank you so much for sharing some of your insights and learnings today. Really inspirational. The ones that are really just lodged in my mind today is be honest. Know when you're done with something.

Two, build that range of advocates around you. And build that early. Know when to be an expert and when to span. But more importantly, know your greatest value add. And let that guide you as to what you pick up, or when you're a good citizen, or when you just hang back.

And finally, you got to get out of your comfort zone. If you don't try something new, you're never going to grow. I mean, what a great note to end today. Listeners, thank you for tuning in today. If you're interested to hear more on gender equity or indeed some insights from our Global Talent Trends results this year, please do tune in to our other interviews on the new shape of work workforce series.

And, Wanda, thank you so much for having a great conversation today. I appreciate you coming off mute and sharing your wisdom. Listeners, wishing you a great rest of day.

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