Are you an entrepreneur, corporate professional, or someone at a career crossroads seeking inspiration on corporate resiliency, and practical advice to help you navigate the ups and downs of your journey? If the answer is yes, then tune into my interview Suzanne Magee, a workplace strategist and career coach who is passionate about shaping the future of work.
INTRO
Welcome back to another episode of our Rising Resilient series! Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a corporate professional, or navigating a career pivot, today’s conversation around corporate resiliency is packed with inspiration and actionable advice.
First, for those just jumping into the series now, let me quickly recap how this all came about. As we approach now the fourth year of the Leveraged Business Podcast, that kicked off late October 2020, as we wrapped up year 3, I felt it was time for a celebration! Not just of the show, because many podcasts don’t make it past a few months, let alone several years, but also a celebration of my clients and all that they bring to the world.
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Many of the Q&A with Dr Jay episodes were sparked from the work I was doing with them, the strategies we were putting in place, the challenges, the successes. I realised resilience was a theme that kept coming up in my client work – especially after the challenges and changes brought on by the post-COVID world. People are facing big changes, challenges, and re-evaluating their paths, and resilience seemed like the perfect focus. So, I decided to dedicate all of 2024 to resilience and launched this Rising Resilient series based on interviews with my clients who have a lot to offer to this theme.
We’ve had some incredible conversations – 18 so far, and counting – exploring how to navigate tough times with confidence, compassion, and courage.
And today, I’m thrilled to continue that journey with Suzanne Magee, a career strategist and leadership coach. I invited Suzanne because her work, in the context of corporate resiliency, is in helping professionals overcome setbacks and align their personal values with their professional goals perfectly embodies the spirit of this series.
Suzanne is passionate about shaping the future of work. With over 25 years of corporate experience, she has navigated complex workplace dynamics and come out the other side with practical strategies, tools, and solutions. Her insights into resilience, leadership, and team dynamics in the corporate world are invaluable.
As the founder of ‘Spireworxs’ and ‘The Career Growth Academy’, Suzanne is in the business of helping people reach their goals, both professionally and personally. A mom of three, including twins, she is on a mission to transform the workplace for the next generation.
In this episode, Suzanne will be sharing her experiences of corporate resiliency, and her work of guiding professionals through career challenges and helping people develop leadership skills that empower both yourself and your teams. Whether you’re striving for a promotion, building a business, or considering a career change, Suzanne has the tools and strategies to keep you focused, confident, and resilient.
We’ll dive into everything from the importance of self-awareness and mentorship to finding purpose in your work, so you can navigate those inevitable career hurdles and rise stronger on the other side.
Let’s get started.
INTERVIEW
JAY:
So today I’m really excited for my guest that will be joining us. And that is Suzanne Magee. Welcome to the Leveraged Business Podcast. Suzanne, it’s really nice to have you here.
SUZANNE:
Thank you, Jay. I’m excited to be here. It’s a great topic we’re talking about.
JAY:
It certainly is. And everyone’s really leaned into it brilliantly, bringing lots of different perspectives and insights. I’ve done 15 or more interviews now and there’s a lot more than just those C’s that will come out of it. So don’t be constrained by those in the title. But it’s really about how you cultivate strength to survive and thrive in all the work and all the challenges, all the, career pivots, etc. And I know obviously that in the corporate resiliency context, that’s a subject close to your heart.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, I went through quite a few of the episodes, which are great.
JAY:
Yeah, looking at what’s unique about what each person has brought to the table, it’s capturing an awful lot of wisdom and insight, and approaches and strategies. So it’s really great to have your wisdom in here into the mix, because I know that you come at things from an angle that we haven’t really talked about before, and you talk about the corporate environment and corporate careers.
So yeah, I’m really excited for this conversation.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, great. I think when it comes to careers, it’s just really important to think about what you need to be able to stay in a long career, whether it’s in corporate or whether it’s even beyond corporate, and what it takes to be resilient in corporate careers. So that’s where I’m going to focus, which is a little different than some of your other guests. So it brings something different and new. And I’ll talk about some of the challenges that you face and then some of the ways around that.
JAY:
Absolutely, brilliant. So yeah, I’m really excited for this conversation.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, great. I think when it comes to careers, it’s just really important to think about what you need to be able to stay in a long career, whether it’s in corporate or whether it’s even beyond corporate.
JAY:
So I’d like to kick off then, how do you define resilience in terms of what part of the theme spoke to you the most when we talked about this interview?
SUZANNE:
Well, I think it’s interesting because resilience often people think it’s how people bounce back from setbacks. But really with resilience, it’s about the strength that people need all the way through to be able to overcome uncertainty, deal with challenges, stay strong. And so I think it’s really important as people embark on a long career that they’re resilient through it because there are going to be ups and downs for sure .
JAY:
Plot twists, I think that’s what they called it. You have your whole career and your life mapped out, and then something happens and you have what you call a plot twist.
SUZANNE:
Absolutely. And it’s funny because people go to school and they start thinking about their career so young, you know, as young as 16, 17, they’re making choices in schools on what kind of career they’re going to have. And never do they really think that they’re going to come out from their school and go into a career and face as many setbacks and as many challenges and uncertainty. They just don’t imagine that, I think, as they’re going through school.
JAY:
Yeah, yeah, they’re being forced to have done a particular path based on what subjects they choose, etc. when they don’t really know what’s gonna, like, thrill them in the real world when they get out there.
SUZANNE:
Well, and things have changed so much. I mean, the days of picking one career and staying with it until you retire just doesn’t really exist anymore, and I think that that’s really new for people. Even when they look back to their parents or their grandparents, they see these longer careers and then wonder why is that not what I’m facing. How come I’m facing so much change? And how come the working world is evolving so quickly around me? And that causes a lot of uncertainty for people.
JAY:
Yeah, so I can go in two different directions here. We can talk about how your own life experiences and choices have made you resilient and start there but maybe for context and then work backwards to that, tell us a bit about the work that you do, what got you into it, you know, how you help people, who you help and how you help people.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, so I really focus on career coaching, and workplace strategy is one of my two areas. And I work with both corporations and I work with individuals. And within that, I’m working with teams as well. And what we find, especially in the last few years is that the workforce has changed a lot. And there’s a lot of challenges people are having with how to fit work into their life and how to keep going with their career and, and keep focused on their career while having more work life balance.
When it comes to working with companies, I work with culture as well. Culture is a really important part of giving people a sense of belonging and teamwork is really important as well. So there’s a lot of areas that I work with in helping people really make the most of their career and making sure that the strategy of the company ties to their personal goals.
JAY:
I would imagine the challenge as well is doing what’s right for the company and doing what’s right for the individual and aligning those somehow so that everybody feels like they’re not being pushed into a corner.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, I think personal aspirations are really important. I mean, there’s a lot of research that shows that if you love the work that you’re doing, that’s so core at whether you’ve got that overall fulfillment in your life. And oftentimes people fall into jobs and they forget why they’re there, and they forget what’s driving them to be on the paycheck.
I think that when there’s that greater purpose to work, it’s really important. And sometimes that purpose comes from the company. Sometimes companies are really good at cascading their strategy and their purpose down to all the employees. And sometimes employees have find that themselves. They have to find the meaning behind their work. And that could be anything from the way that they deal with customers to the way that they find efficiencies in the job. There’s a lot of different ways that people can find fulfillment that are not necessarily written in their job description.
JAY:
Well, that’s a really good point. Yeah. Thanks for raising that. What drew you to this? I mean, how did you get into all of this? Where did you find this niche of working with career resiliency, so to speak.
SUZANNE:
Well, I think, you know, I’ve had a long career. I was in corporate for 25 years, but even before corporate, I was in customer service, hospitality. I’ve been in a lot of different industries. I was in financial services for a long time. And I know how big and important, I mean, we think about work and we spend at least a third of our time at work, and many times it’s more than that. Or you’re thinking about work all the time, or you’re not able to turn it off.
As I had my own children, and trying to fit a career into raising children, it was really important to have that Sustainability to keep the career going. I mean, there are many times you just wanted to say, this is enough, right? I just want to give up on this. But there was always something that would anchor you down, you know, anchor you down to why are you working and why are you choosing the career that you’re in?
And my corporate career really led me then into coaching. I always coach within my career, but I think it really led me into then branching out on my own and coaching and consulting in this area.
JAY:
Interesting because when I spoke with Chris Johnson before, she does a lot of work with conflict resolution and you’re talking about like find a career that you’re fulfilled in, and she was talking about getting out of a career that where there’s conflict and tension and it’s just kind of not serving you.
I probably completely butchered that explanation, but it feels like you’re trying to do both really. In any workplace, there’s some tensions that are going to arise. It’s not always going to be the job you love, you know, it’s the challenges that are there that make us have to go about things in a different way, change our behaviors, etc.
And I’m sure that’s a big part of resilience as well, is how you handle not just the nice parts of the job and what you enjoy, but also the difficult parts, right?
SUZANNE:
You used a great word before alignment. I mean, I think when your work is aligned with who you are and what your values are, that’s really, really important. And when it’s misaligned, that’s when the stress really comes in. I mean, there’s been times in my work career where I worked hours.
I was involved in projects that took up a lot of my time. They were not necessarily the most stressful times of my career. In fact, in many ways, they were the most invigorating times. If you were really excited about a project and you’re working well with the team and you dig into it, those were actually not necessarily the most stressful times.
The more stressful times is when you’re misaligned or you’re asked to do something at work that you don’t really know why you’re being asked to do it. Or you’re working with people that you don’t work well with. I mean, those are the things that actually cause a lot of the conflict and stress in the workplace. And that doesn’t necessarily mean you pick up and leave. You actually face those challenges. And resiliency is actually sticking it out and staying through it and being able to really deal with those challenges.
JAY:
Yeah, to navigate the stormy seas, yes.
So when it comes to teamwork, often you might have a rocky start to a team and then from there you can really learn to gel and work with each other’s strengths. And then all of a sudden, that’s no longer a challenge that actually becomes a benefit. The teamwork becomes really beneficial.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, totally.
JAY:
So obviously you’re working with individuals and with teams and then in a higher level across the organisation. How do you start working with and coaching someone who says they’re feeling, unhappy, shall we say – for whatever the reasons might be – with that misalignment, as you called it, how do you start working with someone? Or maybe they feel a little bit lost in terms of their purpose, what would be the first sort of steps that you would go through with someone?
SUZANNE:
Well, a lot of it is you kind of start with discovery, really kind of take a little bit of a step back and work with someone on what matters to them. You know, why did they get into this career in the first place? What is the work that they love doing? What are the skills that they bring to the table? Where do they feel that there are gaps? And if I’m working with an individual, you really work with any individual to figure that out.
And then from there, you put together a plan on how things can change. If you’re doing the same thing with a team, it’s very similar. You do that discovery work with a team and you realize what’s working well, what’s not working well. A lot of times it’s communication, relationships. I mean, the things that are really getting in the way are sometimes the small things that add up. And so it’s seeing what the gaps are and trying to fix them through.
JAY:
Awesome. So if you’ve got somebody that comes to you, they’ve got anxiety, they’ve got stress, they’re feeling overwhelmed, is that the same process then? Or do you start somewhere else to unpack some of that quickly for them?
SUZANNE:
Yeah, it still really fits in that discovery phase for somebody. A lot of times when people are dealing with that stress and anxiety, they don’t have the support that they need. So often it’s looking at that support around them. I mean, you look at some of the things that people really need to be able to get through those harder times at work.
Having a mentor, incredibly important – a mentor who really cares about their career. A lot of times people feel like they’re just a number. They feel like the organisation’s forgotten about them, that they don’t have someone who really cares where their career is going.
And often it’s helping that individual find who that person is; figure out how they can have a better working relationship with their managers. I mean, managers play such a crucial part in someone’s satisfaction within job, you know, it’s so important that they have a good working relationship with their manager.
So sometimes it’s breaking that down and seeing where there’s cracks and seeing how we can fix that.
JAY:
I think the word manage in manager is also a little bit of a hostage to fortune here because, you know, they feel sometimes it’s all about managing as opposed to really creating that supportive environment. So tell us a little bit about a bit more about that in the sense of how would you coach a manager to see those things for their employees.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, that’s exactly right. The term managed in itself is a challenge, right? And people don’t really want to be managed. They want to be empowered. And yet managers have KPIs that they have to adhere to. Mid-level managers are under a lot of stress, in the sense that they’re in the middle. Many of them are new in that people management role. They’ve only maybe done it for two or three years and so they’re responsible for people underneath them, but they’re responsible for the people that they’re reporting to. So they feel stuck in the middle.
And so really in working with mid-level managers, it’s about helping them be resilient in that Being caught between two priorities, right? And helping them build stronger relationships with their people, knowing that actually the management side is not the full picture. It might be 30 percent of what they need to help that person with, but they also can be that person’s mentor. Or they can also help the team work better together.
So it’s a lot of things that managers can do to be stronger in their role, but also take some of the stress off their own team. They’re all great.
JAY:
Absolutely. And in fact, everything you’ve just said applies also to business owners, whether they’re mid managers in a business or whether they’re actually the CEO, the main manager. I think everything you’ve just said applies equally to how they get the most out of their team, rather than micromanaging. It’s partly leadership. It’s partly mentoring. It’s creating that team and culture. So yeah, I love that you just shared that, but I see it being applicable to entrepreneurs equally.
SUZANNE:
Well, one of the things that we work on, so there’s a few assessments that I work with my clients and one of them is around the resiliency assets that people actually already bring to the table. Everyone has certain characteristics about themselves that make them more resilient naturally. And then there’s other ones that they can build and develop. And so understanding yourself, it’s always a great part of the discovery process. What am I actually bringing to the table that I’m strong about? And then what are some of the other areas that I can develop and grow over time?
Because you’re going to face different challenges. I mean, you look at people when they first go into the workforce in their 20s, you know, that’s actually a really tough time for people. They’re bringing their skills from school, but they haven’t necessarily had the work experience, and they’re up working with – I think we talked about having three different generations now in the workforce together at the same time. You’re working with different age groups, different people.
And so, you already step into a career having to have some resiliency to start with, because the beginning is actually not necessarily easy. And then as you go through bumps along the road, how do you bring your strengths to the table so that you can help others as well? And then how can you leverage the strengths of the people around you?
JAY:
I love that film with Robert De Niro called The Intern. Have you seen it? He comes in as one of the older generations to be managed by one of the younger generations. It’s hilarious. So yeah, I take the point.
There was something else that was coming up when you were speaking, which was that ability for a leader or a manager, business owner, to rally the troops and to have that inspiration and have that empowerment was the word you used a while ago. Is that part of career coaching? Is it something you can coach someone? I mean, the first thing as you said is discovery. It’s kind of ‘know thyself’ but you often get people who are quite authoritarian, they’re kind of heavily managed, that’s their go to style. So how do you help them be aware of that is not the only style, and then transition them from that ‘This is how I was managed’ type of experience to ‘this is how we do it now’.
SUZANNE:
Well, I think we underestimate the importance of goal setting in our careers. You know, we goal set a lot in our overall lives. I gave that example of when you first go to school and you’re choosing what career you want to go into, you’re very goal orientated. People are very goal orientated on what they want to learn, what they want to accomplish, what kind of career they want to go into.
And then once you go into that career, the goals actually switch and they’re given to you by the company that you work for. And that can be sometimes counterproductive. I mean, I’m a big believer in setting goals, but if you give people the wrong goals or you don’t actually involve them in the goal setting process, then you’re actually forcing someone to sign up for something they may not have signed up for.
And so I think one of the biggest opportunities that I find is if the goal setting process is more of a collaborative process – between a person and their manager, director, whatever, they’re the person that they’re reporting to – the more that that can be collaborative, the more that the employee feels, wow, I like these goals. I own these goals. I want to accomplish these goals. And then the really important thing is to make sure that those goals get re-evaluated almost on a monthly basis.
A lot of organizations, they do a one time a year or maybe twice a year goal setting, but with the fast change of the corporate world right now, you almost have to be evaluating your goals and making shifts in real time.
And I think that when you do that, then employees really know what they’re there to accomplish and then they can be empowered. But if they’re given goals that they’re not comfortable with, or they don’t think they can achieve, or they feel like, you know, that it’s been forced upon them, you take that autonomy away from them and that empowerment, and that’s where they start to get really frustrated.
JAY:
You hit the nail on the head because where I was going to go is about goal setting. But you can’t just say, right, that’s done and then like start imposing like things that don’t align. And it’s back to that alignment word that you talked about before. So values and goals.
There’s probably a third thing that I’m missing here as part of the success factors. What might that be? And that’s just speculative.
SUZANNE:
I think it’s really, it is really relationships. People go into an organisation and they form relationships. It actually doesn’t matter how big or small the company is. I mean, personally, I worked for companies as small as less than five to one of the biggest banks in Canada. And so I’ve worked for some really different size organisations.
And we underestimate the importance of the relationships that people form at work. You know, these are people that they work with every single day. And that’s particularly been challenged since the pandemic because people are now working remotely a lot more; they’re working away. The office environment is different.
So what used to form those relationships, you know, we talk about the water cooler talk – I don’t think anyone’s had a water cooler for a long, long time – but for those conversations that you have face to face that we’re losing a little bit over working in different places, how do you make sure we still cultivate that? Because relationships are what can cause, both encouragement at work, but also stress at work.
If you feel someone is upset at you, or you haven’t done a good job, or you know, you’re in a team meeting and there’s conflict, those are actually the things you bring home. Those are the things that you think about over the weekend. Those are the things that make, might make you dread Monday mornings, right? So those relationships are really important. Sometimes conflict is something small that you just didn’t get resolved, that there’s an easier way to resolve it.
JAY:
You’ve added three more Cs: connectivity, collaboration and conflict. They’re very important. I mean, under the heading of relationships, that’s the process, isn’t it? It’s all very well having all the alignment, but then how do you enact it? How do you make it happen through the day-to-day interactions? So, yeah, I think that’s a really important part.
Going back to coaching, how do you help people rise above the kind of tensions and emotions that come up in that enactment?
SUZANNE:
Yeah, well, I’ll talk a little bit about team coaching. Team coaching is really underestimated because oftentimes teams are thrown together. And you got to remember the people in the team, they report to different people, and those people they report to are all busy doing different things and they may have thrown together a group of five people, 10 people, 20, it doesn’t matter how big the team is. And that team isn’t aligned yet. That team they often don’t share the same goals. They come in with different perceptions.
And so what coaching can really do with the team is get everyone on the same page, break down some of those conflicts right at the beginning. Meet often and be able to bring things up that maybe they’re not as comfortable doing without having that facilitator. A lot of the coaching that you do with teams is more facilitation.
Facilitation amongst that, let’s say it’s a group of ten, where you really get to help people bring out what’s bothering them, resolve conflict quickly, make sure people are moving in the right direction. Those are things that a coach or facilitator can really, really help a team to be more effective.
And when a team works well, it’s actually a beautiful thing. Like when you work as part of a great team, there is such a sense of accomplishment – when 5 or 10 or 15 people together accomplish something great – there’s amazing satisfaction if you can get rid of all the little things that get in the way of that.
That’s where I talk a little bit about the resiliency profile. Everybody comes with their own characteristics when it comes to resiliency where they’re strong at. So imagine if you can leverage the strengths of all 10 of those people, really, it makes the group stronger as a group than anyone is individually. But oftentimes people don’t see the strengths in others or they don’t realise that, Hey, maybe I can really leverage so and so to do this that they’re good at, and I’ll do something else that I’m really good at.
JAY:
Well, you picked up on my word for the decade, if you like, leverage. I mean, it’s all very well to know thyself and have that discovery, have that clarity, work towards alignment, et cetera, but leveraging other people’s and your own strengths, and working on the areas of improvement is really where the growth happens.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, and I think we underestimate the importance of leveraging each other even in the corporate world, whether you put together as a team or you’re working with other colleagues, I mean, how do you really make sure that you’re not trying to be a lone wolf? That’s a hard thing to do when you’re working in corporate.
JAY:
And be more than the sum of the individual components is an expression that springs to mind, yes. Yeah.
What about yourself, like, changing tack slightly on the personal side, what have you personally found when you notice a bit of disquiet? We’ve worked together for a while now and I know there’s been some key pivot points where, you know, you say this doesn’t feel right. What have you found works best for yourself. I know you’re someone for springing into action, but you know when you just feel that kind of creeping feeling, you don’t quite know what to put your finger on. How do you work through that personally?
SUZANNE:
Yeah, it’s interesting because you’re touching on intuition, which is a big, which is actually something that we sometimes don’t listen to, right? We don’t listen to our own intuition. And, When things feel off, they’re usually are off for a reason, right? Either you’re heading in the wrong direction, or you’re not looking at the problem from the right perspective. Your intuition is trying to tell you that and you can either turn off that intuition, or you can lean into that intuition. And I think when you lean into that intuition you can get to the root of the problem.
And I’ll go back to setting goals. We set a goal for ourselves and we head in that direction and then something feels off because that wasn’t the right goal or it’s a pivot you need to make or you’re in the middle of trying to solve it and you’re not bringing the right people in to help you.
So I think it’s really understanding that careers are not linear. Like a lot of people think careers are linear. You go in, you start at your entry level job and you’re going to work yourself up until retirement. You’re going to get your golden pin at the end. There’s nothing linear about careers anymore. I mean, people can have peaks and valleys, they can have roles that they absolutely love, and they might be in that for three or four years, and then something shifts in the company, they work for someone different, and now they’ve got to start again.
So, probably some of the things that I’ve looked at, I mentioned mentorship, always make sure that you’ve got some mentors around you that care about your career that you can talk to as you’re working through challenges.
And I think another thing is always be skill building. You know, you’ve got to realise that the skills are really important. I’ve been in jobs before where I’ve sort of thought, I’m not so sure why I’m here and what I’m doing. But if I was building new skills, I would say to myself, you know what, this is worth it because I’m contributing, but I’m also building skills. So this is worth it.
It’s just really feeling like I’m growing, you know, I’m growing as a person as I’m building new skills, or I’m bringing on new challenges. And I think the other thing is just always having some sort of purpose in the work that you’re doing. Sometimes that purpose is as simple as I’m feeding my family. You know, sometimes you can go back to the core root of, I need to work to provide, and that can sometimes anchor you when things are tough, but you can always also find purpose in other things that you’re doing at work, little and small.
I think everyone’s always looking for big P purpose, but there’s also just the little things, you know, how do you make someone’s day better because you’ve gone into work and you’ve done something different. And I think if you can actually appreciate those little moments too, it keeps you going when times are tough.
JAY:
I have a mug which says, it’s the little things on it. And I drink my tea out of that every morning
The other thing that comes up for me as you were talking there is everything you’re saying really, again, applies to entrepreneurship because I’ve known people who have, Like I said, I hate my job, you know, or I don’t want to do this anymore. And I want to start my own business. So they go start their own business and then they hit challenges and they hit a roadblock and they think, Oh, I’m going to have to go back and get a job. That comes up a lot with client work because the revenue doesn’t come as fast as you want it.
And there’s nothing wrong I think, with, as you said, taking on a part time job or a role, or even a contract that isn’t quite aligned with everything perfect, just so that you can get that financial runway going again, so that you can carry on going towards your goals as a business owner.
So everything you’ve said, I think applies in that context as well. And it’s the word you used earlier, re-evaluate, is that we’re constantly looking, is it in alignment? Are we on track? What’s the trajectory like? So I don’t know if you see it in that way too, in terms of the work that you do with your clients.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, certainly, there are times when I’m working with individuals that are very anchored in the place that they want to work and they want to stay there. So they want to stay in that company, but they might want a slightly different role, or they might want to do slightly different work, or they might be vying for a promotion and feeling like they’re being overlooked for a promotion. So what can they do to really go for that?
And then there’s other people that are at a different career transition. They’re questioning whether or not they’re even in the right industry, some people, or doing the right things. And so yes, that re-evaluation is really important. And sometimes it does take doing something just to get by while you’re building your skills in another area to pivot somewhere else.
And so, it’s having that sort of career plan. I do work with certain individuals that have a career plan and they want to do something different and they’ve got to work towards that. And that doesn’t always happen overnight. Sometimes it’s going to take them two or three years to pivot in a different direction.
And so how do you make sure they’re not getting frustrated through that process? How are they at least having little milestones along the way to make them feel like they’re moving where they want to move?
JAY:
Yeah, I was going to say, working with a coach is going to help them to get clarity, first of all, to see that they’re moving in the right direction and that this is the path. They can go as fast or as slow as they want to. I mean, sometimes it dictates itself, what opportunities come up.
I talked with Stephanie Slocum in a previous interview, and she works with women in STEM, which is a very male dominated: science, technology, engineering and math. A lot of women really struggle and their resilience is very much tested and often they leave. And so how do you help people stay in the industry that they love just because the work environment is challenging. And how do you help them grow that mindset to deal with those tensions and emotions at work.
SUZANNE:
I often talk about the hidden stress factors of work, right? And that STEM example is a great example. Also, there’s a peak time when your children are young and you’re trying to balance work and young children. It can be very stressful, but some of those hidden stress factors are things like guilt. The guilt that you feel or people pleasing, feeling like you always need to please your boss – things that really are mindsets that you can shift to take away some of the stress so that you can keep going and not have to leave.
It’s not just in STEM, a lot of women end up leaving their careers simply because trying to balance young children is hard. I had three under three. I had a son and twins and when they were young, it was challenging to work in a corporate career.
It’s also getting help at home. I think that trying to do it all is a recipe for burnout for sure. When my children were young, I made sure that I had help around me. There’s no possible way I could do a corporate career without having support for my kids and having them in programs.
And, you know, children can really look up to their parents for their careers. If those parents are not bringing home the stress. Children are very resilient, actually, and they can handle working parents. But the working parents that bring their work home and let it bother them. Kids can pick up signs of burnout. So it’s really important as a parent to try to not bring that home.
JAY:
It’s such an important point, Suzanne, so thanks for sharing that.
What I wanted to ask you also was, do you see different things showing up between executive level people and middle managers as the term you used earlier?
SUZANNE:
Yeah, you know, executives have an advantage of they’re part of all the conversations, right? So they know a lot more; they’re involved – and I’ve been at different levels in the organisation: I’ve been mid-level, I’ve been on the leadership team. And there’s a privilege that you get – and I use the word privilege in the sense of knowing exactly what’s going on in a company and what the strategy is and what the objectives are – there’s a benefit to that at the executive level that, sometimes mid-level managers are, they know part of it, but they don’t know all of it.
And so, to answer that question, I think the stresses are different. Sometimes the stress for a mid-level manager is, they’re giving direction to their team without really knowing why they have to do it. An executive may know why they have to do it, but the people that they need to help them execute a plan are disconnected. There ARE more layers in between them.
So I think, you know, it’s interesting, we all talk about the hierarchy of work. There’s still this pyramid structure at work that I’m not so sure is the best way. I mean, it’s been that way for so long. You’ve got someone at the top and then you’ve got different layers as you go down the organisation. And there’s been certainly a lot of debate about is that the best way for a company to manage people, especially when people want empowerment and autonomy, and they don’t necessarily want to feel like they’re at the bottom of the food chain.
A lot of it is about communication, right, making sure that that communication is cascaded down, so I think that the biggest difference really for those different levels is where you’re sitting in that food chain. And are you left out of important bits of communication that you feel you need to get?
Communication, that’s actually one of the roles that I played in corporate and people underestimate the importance of strong communication. And usually when there’s breakdowns in corporate, it’s almost always tied to communication at some level.
JAY:
Yeah, communication is what was coming up when you were speaking: another C that I was going to highlight. So yeah, we’ve added more Cs to this series theme now, so thank you for that.
We’ve covered a lot of ground here. We’ve gone like in and out of different rabbit holes. Finally, what would you say is your absolute positive superpower in helping people to rise resilient that you yourself apply but you help your clients with as well?
SUZANNE:
Yeah it’s always hard to always put it down to just one thing but I think self-awareness is a big part of it. I think it’s being aware self-aware of yourself, what you bring to the table, but also being self-aware of what your potential is. I think that, people forget their potential sometimes. They get themselves in a situation in their career where they forget that they have the power and the potential to get themselves out of a bad situation. Whether that’s changing jobs or talking to somebody or moving in a different direction.
So, I think that self-awareness and belief in yourself is something that everybody has an opportunity to keep building that up so that they don’t feel stuck. I mean, a lot of people, a lot of my clients that I work with, they talk about feeling stuck, being on a hamster wheel, riding a treadmill, feeling like they’re going nowhere. And they’ve lost sight a little bit of what their potential is. And a lot of it is just helping people see that potential in themselves again, then showing them the different paths they can take. There are often many paths they can take once they remember and see the potential behind them. So being really self-aware is I think a superpower for sure.
JAY:
And that’s a nice thread as well for what you’ve talked about is to go from discovery and clarity, so that awareness to link it to potential at the other side, and then plot the journey from the one to the other. I think self-belief feels like the vehicle. You’re empowering someone with that belief that they can do it.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, and I think that people, they’re looking for empowerment in their career, but they often give away their power. And they get discouraged. So how do you get them to reclaim that back? It’s through believing in themselves again. And that’s why skill building is important to continue to feel like you’re building the skills that you need in your career.
Having a mentor who believes in you, who will continue to show you that potential that you’ve got in you. Sometimes you forget and you need a reminder from someone else. And then really remembering the purpose behind your work. Like, why are you there? What are you doing it for? And, and how does that keep you going?
JAY:
Yeah, always start with why we say.
Hey, this has been an absolute delight. You say already things that I’m going to pull out. You’re very clear about how everything kind of relates to everything else. And I think the people that work with you are very lucky to have someone that can give them that clarity and that empowerment, as you said. So thanks very much for sharing all of this wisdom.
SUZANNE:
Well, thank you. It was a great discussion and I love just, you know, dissecting this topic. I mean, it’s resiliency is such a big part of career building. It’s been an honour to sit and talk about it, and how people can continue to really leverage it. So, thank you so much for the discussion.
JAY:
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
SUZANNE:
I love the way the conversation kind of went where I wasn’t expecting it, which was great.
SUZANNE:
Is there any parting wisdom that you’d like to share, anything that we didn’t cover?
When you asked about superpower and we talk about that self-awareness, that is why I created the resiliency profile, was really so that people could better understand where they’re resilient and where they can still develop their resiliency.
I think it’s important for people to really recognise the strengths they already bring to the table, but then see that resiliency is something that you can build. I think that’s the interesting part is that it can always grow. It can always get stronger. And it comes with experience; it comes with different challenges; and really kind of recognising that if you go through a tough time, whether it’s at work or in life, you’re actually building your resiliency skills. And that’s a good thing.
JAY:
Yeah. It’s almost something that you can track over time. So you’ve got a resiliency quiz and I’ll put the link on the show notes page for people to go play around with that. Holding a mirror up almost and then seeing how it changes over time is a kind of fun way to think about it.
SUZANNE:
Yeah, isn’t it?!. And to know that you’re not set, it’s just something you continue to build over time. It’s not something that’s predetermined. It’s not that you’re destined to be a certain way. You have an opportunity to, to continue to build it, which is great.
JAY:
That’s very reassuring. Thanks, Suzanne.
So what’s the best way for people to find you?
SUZANNE:
I think the best way is on LinkedIn. Suzanne Magee would be great.
JAY:
That’s M A G E E. That’s right. Very good.
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