From around the globe, it's theCUBE. With digital coverage of women transforming technology, brought to you by VMWare >> Hi, this is Lisa Martin covering the 5th annual women transforming technology event. But the first time this event has been completely digital. Coming to you from my home in San Jose, and I'm very pleased to welcome one of the event's speakers, the CEO of Be Leaderly, Jo Miller. Jo, welcome to theCUBE. >> Hi Lisa, a pleasure speaking with you today. >> Likewise. So I was looking up some information on you Jo you are quite impressive and I wanted to share that with our viewers. You have dedicated two decades to really helping women advance in their careers, into positions of influence. You've spoken with 100,000 plus women in that time and you've developed a roadmap that you published in 2019, a book. Tell us about that book and some of the really interesting things you've learned along the way. >> Thanks for asking! Well look the book was really born out of a conversation I had about 15 years ago with a woman, a software engineer, who told me that she felt like she was the best kept secret in her organization and of course, you know, being indispensable in your current role won't move your career forward and she had become indispensable for doing the type of work that was downplaying her potential and it started me on this journey of understanding how is it that we as women can end up being the best kept secrets in the organization, that invisible employee, so to speak. But also, speaking to hundreds of very successful, very seasoned women leaders to understand how did they advance in to the positions of influence that they're in today and so, uh, you've got the opportunity through a publisher to formalize those more than ten years of you know, speaking, and workshops, and all of the interviews that I've accumulated over time, all of that, expertise that I have learned from and put it together into my book with the nine steps that women can take to really thrive in advancing their careers and leave a leadership legacy. >> And what are, give me the first like three steps in the book is women of influence: nine steps to build your brand, establish your legacy, and thrive. Give me like the first three steps that we need to be able to do. >> Well, I think one of the most important ones is to realize that we are all already leaders whether we're in that high level executive leadership position or not, and so, a first step is just to understand all of the ways in which you're already a leader and to identify your own leadership strengths which you can do at any career phase quite frankly. From there, it's about understanding what do you bring to the table that could be a unique value proposition to your organization and matching your strengths to work that you are passionate about or care deeply about, in delivering something that your company or industry or customer base really needs and values and I call that your leadership superpower. So, from your strengths, identifying that niche or superpower and then up leveling that, so taking your personal brand and everything you have learned about your strengths and your value and turning that personal brand into a leadership brand so that people around you start to sit up and pay attention and notice the leader in you, but even more so I think so that you can see the leader in yourself. >> That's great advice, especially now with the COVID-19 crisis that is, regardless of what industry you are in, if you were someone that has worked from home before, it's completely different now, the uncertainty in everything whether it's job security or can I get Clorox wipes? It's a huge challenge. Do you find that those nine steps are still the same if not even more important in today's climate? >> I'll leverage what you said and say they're the same but possibly even more important, you know, if you think about how you were perceived say two months ago, and the value that people around you see in you, well that may have shifted dramatically now that our world has changed and frankly there's never been a time where there has been a greater need for people to step up and bring leadership to the table. And so I really encourage people right now, if you have the time in that busy work life and home life, that have become so mushed together, see if you can take a moment or two to step back and think about how has my world changed and what other really big problems that are emerging or what are the leadership gaps that I could be uniquely built to fill and start to just kind of reinvent and reimagine how you want to be perceived as a leader, like what's that you value proposition that you have to offer in this changed world that's going to continue changing. >> I like that. Reimagine and rethink because even though there is a lot of crisis and challenge going on right now, there are opportunities. So I like your advice of encouraging women and men to really reevaluate what it is that you can bring uniquely positioned, to help however your company is pivoting in this time because there is going to be a lot of change that is probably permanent as a result of this. So how, one of things that I love is talking about the difference between a mentor and a sponsor and you did a session at WT2 the other day, 90 minute interactive session digitally that's a challenge. So I am very impressed and excited to hear about that but you were talking to women about attracting the advocacy of influential sponsors. So, first off describe for our audience the difference between a mentor and a sponsor because I'll be honest with you, I didn't even really know there was a difference until a couple of years ago. >> I love this topic too Lisa and an article that really piqued my passion and interest in sponsorship is one that appeared in Harvard business review, again about a decade ago, and by the way the article was titled 'Why men still get more promotions than women.' and so that truly piqued my interest because I'm so fascinated by anything that can help women advance in their careers. But the article was some authors of a study saying that they'd found that high potential women were over mentored and under sponsored relative to their male peers and that that was one of the reasons that they weren't advancing as much in their organizations. And so I think that the key distinction between mentors and sponsors can be understood first by knowing that a sponsor is, like a mentor, someone that believes in you but they might see that potential that's unformed or untapped potential you might not even see in yourself and they're willing to place a bet on your talent and put their reputation on the line to advocate for you and put your name forward and publicly support you. And so, they're really putting themselves and their own political and social capital on the line. So compared to a mentor they do go beyond giving the feedback and the advice in order to bring their accumulated political and social and career capital to move your career forward within an organization. And so, look you know, whereas a mentor might help you skill up, a sponsor will help you move up and mentors will certainly talk to you but a sponsor is someone who will talk about you so if you can imagine, you know a mentor gives you advice on climbing the ropes, on uh on um, sorry a mentor will give you advice um, on uh, sorry just lost my train of thought there! >> Your advice on what, climbing the ladder. >> Yeah, yeah, that's right, yeah, I meant what shows you the ropes, there found it! A mentor shows you the ropes, whereas a sponsor is the one who helps you climb those ropes and so really what I meant, or what a sponsor is like is that rocket fuel for your career but in a good way. They can really alter your career trajectory and move you forward with new momentum. >> Can a sponsor be someone that you're currently working for? >> Yeah, absolutely. And of course not every manager or leader in your management chain will be a sponsor if you're lucky you'll have one but it might be a leader in a completely different area of the organization but I think one of the practical suggestions that I gave to the participants in my session was start to notice who the sponsors are in the organization around you like learn to spot the leaders who have the qualities that make a good sponsor. >> So if I'm out there doing that and I'm maybe going to write down, all right, who have been my mentors over the last few years, who do I think maybe from that category could become a sponsor, looking for sponsors what do we need to know about what a sponsor is going to expect of us. >> Well you know one of the really important distinctions to know about is that when you can go and ask someone to be your mentor, you really can't ask someone to be a sponsor in fact that might backfire, it might have the opposite effect and so sponsorships not something that you would you probably go and directly request, it's something that you earn instead. So, some of the things that sponsors will look to in you would be are you able to be committed and loyal to their goals and the goals of the organization and are you delivering outstanding performance that goes beyond what's being asked of you in your job description and role. But they're also looking for you to bring something truly unique and special to the table and that goes back to our earlier comments, our conversation about understanding what your strengths are, your technical and your leadership strengths and how you can apply them to bring something truly unique to the organization that differentiates you. So that's one of the things that we can do to start to attract sponsors which is to do that self-inventory of what can I bring to the table, what problems can I solve, what leadership gaps can I fill. >> So Jo let's talk about your 90 minute interactive session that you digitally for WT2 the other day. Given the gravity of the situation that COVID-19 is delivering tell me about some of the comments and the questions that you had, a woman going 'All right, in today's climate when we're not sure about even job certainty how do I up my chances of finding a sponsor?' >> Mhm, you know and I think it speaks to the timeliness of the topic. I think we had more than 300 people join the session and so one of the things that I love to do is to make it as interactive as I can by having some panelists join who spoke about examples of the sponsorship that they've gained in their career. But we also heard a lot from participants who are sending their comments in via the chat giving examples of the times when they had been sponsored, how it began, what the sponsors were able to do to help them move forward in their careers and then as we went further along in the session we spoke about the concept of micro sponsorship and how one of the most important ways to understand how sponsorship works is to sponsor someone else and so we saw just a wealth of examples and comments coming from participants about all the ways that they were declaring they were going to take action by sponsoring someone else in their organization. >> So a micro sponsorship that is an interesting concept, tell me a little bit more about that is that say, I'm a sponsor and I'm going to sponsor someone else or is it I have a sponsor and I'm going to get another sponsorship from that? >> Hmm, good question, so there's a couple of myths around sponsorship. One is that you do need to be a high level executive who's able to promote someone or create the perfect role for them or give them that high exposure assignment. And that's certainly one way that sponsorship can take place, the big gestures. But one of the executives I interviewed, Millette Granville said look you don't necessarily need to be an executive to be a sponsor but you do need to have influence and I think we all have influence, we just might not completely leverage it to the greatest extent we can. So we're leaving our influence on the table so if you can't sponsor someone in big ways think about looking for micro sponsorship moments in which you notice a colleague perhaps who's talent is going unseen or under leveraged and recommend that person, put them forward for an ideal opportunity or it might be something as simple as when you see someone share a great idea and no one notices, amplify that idea, attach the person's name to it, or when someone is being spoken over the top of, say 'let her finish' and so we can sponsor in large and in small ways. That's what I mean by micro sponsorship so notice the scope of your influence and use whatever influence you have to be speaking up and advocating for others. >> I love that. Thank you for that clarification. Were there concerns right now with all of the uncertainty, the volumes of people that have applied for unemployment. Were there any concerns from the audience in your session about if somebody else has a great idea will it just highlight that I don't? And will I be in you know a bright light a is she really delivering value if were having to cost cut, were there any concerns that the women brought up? >> Um, not that I noticed but by the way there were 300 people in the session so the chat log was going through so fast and if I was lucky I was able to pluck a few comments to read back to the audience. But I think you're right on target with that concern, I can only assume that a number of people have had that concern for themselves so one of the things that I talked about is the importance of making your value visible and how you don't want to speak up and amplify and promote every single thing that you do but be really strategic about amplifying the accomplishments that align with your aspirations. So, you know speak up and showcase and reveal and make known those high profile results that you are delivering that align with where you want to go in your career and of course that frees you up to be amplifying and promoting and making visible the achievements of others in the organization. In fact, I think if we care about having diverse and equitable workspaces we really need to be lifting others up. >> I love that. Focus on the visible. Last question, in the last few seconds that we have here, how does a company go about building a culture of sponsorship and how do you see that? >> Mhm, that's interesting because you know a lot of companies have a really fully-formed culture of mentorship and they have formalized mentorship programs. On the other hand there tends not to be so many companies that are having sponsorship initiatives but those that do typically will attach them to an existing talent or high potential or diversity initiative and so if you're in a position of influence and leadership and one thing of course to do is be open and transparent about what it would take for you to sponsor someone. But if you're already doing that take it a step further and champion having an open and diverse and equitable culture of sponsorship in the organization, talk to other leaders about what that looks like and get involved in those existing talent and diversity and high potential initiatives and champion the idea of adding a sponsorship component where participants are matched to leaders and the leaders have accountability to help produce results in that participant's career advancement. >> I love that, accountability. This is definitely a topic Jo that I love talking about mentors vs sponsors and it sounds like it's one that just needs more and more and more air cover so people really understand that there is tremendous value there. I wish we had more time, but it has been such a pleasure talking with you Jo I really appreciate that. We thank you for joining us on theCUBE and we appreciate the fact that you have been able to do this, remotely from Iowa, I am in San Jose, so for Jo, I am Lisa Martin and you are watching theCUBE's coverage of women transforming technology, the digital version, 2020. Thanks for watching. (outro music)