307: Leadership Decision Making and the Non-Linear Path to the C-Suite with Michelle Darcy-Clarke

Speaker 1  0:00  

What if the most direct route to the top isn’t the ladder, it’s the sideways step you keep being talked out of taking. Michelle Darcy Clark joins me today. She’s been in market research industry for 27 years. She never planned to be there. She never had a five year plan, and I love she took a job by accident after a car accident with her boss, stumbled into customer success at exactly the right moment, made deliberate lateral moves over and over again when everyone around her expected her to go upwards, step back to be an individual contributor when her personal life needed it, and eventually, without really aiming for it, today she is a chief experience officer sitting on a global executive team, and here’s the thing that stopped me in this conversation, and completely derailed us. Actually, she got there because she wanted to do good work, not because she was competing with her peers, not because she’d mapped out a path, because she has spent 27 years being genuinely excellent at what she does, advocating for herself, absolute must, by the way, through her team rather than over them and making decisions by working out the best and worst case scenarios with enough honesty to act on them. In today’s episode, we talk about what it actually means to feel safe at the VP level and why that safety is both completely understandable and one of the most common career traps women fall into. We talk about the moment Michelle realized that she was already doing the C suite job without the title, and what it took to have that conversation with her CEO, and we talk about ambition, a lot of ambition talk today. How her version of it, which she describes as ambition for doing good rather than better than her peer, is actually one of the most powerful and underrated forms of career momentum that there is, and she says what she calls the single most important mindset shift for women who want to keep growing? The move from thinking about what’s best for your team to thinking about what’s best for the company sounds so simple. Most people never make that leap, though. The ones who do are the ones who end up in the room, or where those decisions really get made, and from there you can do so much good. If you’re assisting at the VP level, wondering whether the next step is for you, or if you’re anywhere in your career questioning whether you need to be in a different kind of role, different person to get all the way, this episode is for you. So, let’s dive on in. Welcome to the Leading Women in Tech Podcast, the show that celebrates women in technology leadership. I’m your host, Tony Collis, and this podcast is the result of my passion for building better tech by diversifying the leadership of the technology sector. Join me on this journey as I discuss all things leadership, what it takes to be innovative, breaking through the glass ceiling, be a great leader, and how to navigate the unique experiences we face as women in tech, so sit back, grab your headphones, and get ready to be inspired to become a better leader. Welcome to the show, Michelle. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Tony. I’m so glad to be here today. Well, when you and I first met, I learned you’ve had quite an interesting career, so I’d like it if you could talk through your career to get us going. How you’ve moved through client services, sales, customer success, and all the way to the executive level, and particularly the deliberate sideways steps you told me about that have got you to where you wanted it, because I think it really highlights how there’s no one linear path. Can you walk us through that, and the ups and the downs as well? Actually, I love those.

Speaker 2  3:24  

Yeah, sure, I’d love to. I love to. So, I’d say my career has taken a bit of a non-traditional path. Actually, my life has taken a non-traditional path, but that’s probably for another podcast, and not for today. But if I kind of start back to college, and I’m not going to do step by step from college, but it does kind of factor into the kind of the start of the non-traditional. There, so I had looking to be a dancer, and then fashion designer, right? Everybody coming out of high school wants to do that, so I ended up going to the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, thinking I want to be a fashion designer, but quickly realized it probably wasn’t in the cards for me, and so I ended up shifting gears into marketing communications, right, looking at the business side of it. Post college, I went through a few different administrative marketing type of roles, and then I literally fell into a market research job. The company I was at, actually, I was a sales coordinator, marketing sales coordinator, and I was in a car accident with my boss, long story short, a car accident with my boss, and we went a legal thing, and I was like, oh, it was probably not the best. We were great, but it was probably not the best place for me to stay. So I started looking for another job, and I just like hopped into another job that looked good, just because I felt like I had to get out there, and that was the start of my market research career. And with that, I had started as the executive assistant, which, within six months, I was like, well, that’s this is not the job for my, for me either. And so I stepped into account management, project management, and really kind of learned the ropes of market research. And over the next decade, decade and a half, I kind of shifted throughout different agencies, learning different skill sets, right when it came to market research, and really honed my skills as a researcher, shifting into more. Leadership roles, account management, sales, learning how to navigate through customers, and all of that, but about 15 years into my career, I was at a company that was more of research technology than it was market research, and I stumbled, or was enticed by customer success, and this was right at the kind of infancy of customer success, and when I first kind of rolled onto the scenes, and I realized how much I loved the technical side of it, and the ability to empower customers and console customers versus do it for them, and since then everything I’ve done in my career has really shifted towards the tech technical side, and kind of have grown through with the customer success, you know, over the years, and I think you know, you mentioned during our earlier conversation, a lot of my, my roles have have navigated kind of lateral, I’ve wanted to explore different research methodologies, so rather than looking towards going up, I would move to a different company and kind of focus in on a different type of skill set or a different type of research methodology, and learn all about that, and then kind of, you know, I climbed a letter for sure when I was younger, right, when I was in my earlier, my earlier levels, and then once I hit VP, I think there I felt comfortable, and I felt like I could move around a bit, and kind of, that’s where I started to explore, and I felt safe in that role as well, and I, to be honest, I really wasn’t interested in looking to get into the C suite at all, or even like executive leadership at that time. I was more interested in kind of exploring, right, and looking at different, different types of the sector and different types of our industry.

Speaker 2  6:37  

I also ended up going through maybe I was probably about six different companies, but probably about four different acquisitions during that time, and that was a whole new opportunity, right, presented to me in different skill sets I was learning, so I was really trying to embrace all of that, and then, you know, in fact, when I joined my current company, since, which was, which was listed at the time, about seven years ago, it was probably one of my biggest career shifts. So, I had, I had moved to others, I was a New Yorker, if you can’t tell from my accent, born and bred New Yorker, and I was really, I was moving, relocating to Michigan, where my fiance was at the time, and I just wanted to change, I just needed to shift and reshift my life balance, right? And look into something else. And so, when I moved here, I said, well, I’m not going to run a team, I’m going to take a break. I don’t want to run a team, I don’t want to run a business, I don’t want to have all those responsibilities. I just want to be an individual contributor. And so I had reached out to a former colleague who was a CEO of this company, listen, they said, you know what it got for me, and he’s like, well, we have this new methodology that we really need to help selling, you’d be great as an SME, you know. Do you want to do that? And he’s like, great, right. So I kind of stepped into that role, and it was really fun. I really enjoyed it for a while, and then I realized I’m getting kind of bored with this, and and I wanted to go back to playing on my strengths. And luckily, at that time, our CRO at the time was looking for a leader to step in on the customer success side. We were in the midst of a transition, we’re really trying to focus on more SAS based versus services based, and he had asked me to step in and lead CS, and it was great timing, perfect opportunity, I was kind of done with what I was doing at that time, and but again I stepped in at the VP level, which I was comfortable with, right, and I was fine with and then three years fast forward another acquisition our competitor actually acquired, acquired us, and overnight I inherited seven teams, and they went from a team of 30 to 300 global. It was insane. It was, and it was my CRO at the time had asked me if I would be willing to do that, and I was like, oh, but you know what, it was, it was a really great opportunity, and I didn’t obviously want to turn it down, and so I, so I went with it, and then you know from there it’s obviously rolled, continued to roll forward, and you know, I was promoted to EVP, and then we had a new CEO that had come in, and you know, I had quite a few conversations with him, and he actually asked me to step into the global leadership team, our exec team, to help to help run the business. At that time, I didn’t get a C-level title with it, which I was fine with at the time, but then I was doing the role for a few years, and I was like, well, I’m doing the role, so now I should have the title, exactly,

Speaker 1  9:22  

exactly. I mean, that’s the thing. When you said at the beginning there, that you know a VP role felt safe, like a lot of the women I work with, like they do the VP or an SVP role for sufficiently long, and that they are actually doing the C level role at some point. And that’s the mistake we make. We think I can’t be the C level, but you are, but let’s get back to that feeling safe. What was going on there? Why did you feel safe at the VP level? And I guess if you’re saying to yourself and feel I feel safe here, why wouldn’t, why, why were you telling yourself maybe that was why you should be like, what was the fear about not like what. Lack of safety, where you’re anticipating us all right. And why do you think it was at the VP level? Why not direct or senior director? What was it about the VP level that was safe?

Speaker 2  10:07  

And to be honest, Tony, I probably didn’t realize that, like retrospectively, I realized that I probably didn’t realize that at the time.

Speaker 1  10:13  

Yeah, and I think it was,

Speaker 2  10:15  

it was that level that was, you were autonomous, right, and you could, you had room to grow, and I like that, and I think it was salary wise it was probably it was decent enough and sufficient enough to for me to live my life and support my son, and it also, I think, had a lot more flexibility, and there was, I felt safe in the sense that obviously the higher you get, the fewer roles there are right, and there’s the, there’s probably two that it’s probably safety, like a mental safety than this, but then there’s an actual job security safety nest, where there’s probably more cuts that you know, you’re just more out, more visible, right, and yours can happen. Exactly,

Speaker 1  10:58  

interestingly, I see way more VPs getting let go than C suites. I think C suites tend to protect themselves, except in an acquisition where the C suites just exited on day one. The VPs tend to be let go when there’s a squeeze and soon direct us. But I think there’s plenty. I think the difference is that, you know, every layer of a pyramid you go up, there’s just for your roles, right? And I do think typically you’re out of work for longer between roles at the C suite than VP, but not by much more. But let’s just talk about that autonomy piece, because again, there’s something I have a lot of conversations about, you know. A lot of the women that come to work with me, they are maybe frustrated, they’re driven in some way, but they’re often there’s often a negative emotion, that’s why they seek an executive coach, I wish more people just had an executive coach, so that we don’t get into the mess we get into sometimes, but a lot of the time, there’s a catalyst for getting an executive coach like myself, and a lot of the time, if they are below the VP level, a lot of the frustration – now this is a self-selecting group, right, they don’t hire an executive coach for any odd reason, but a lot of them are coming to me ultimately when we dig into it, because of a lack of autonomy, and you, it was really interesting. You said at the VP level I had that autonomy, I had the room to grow. Do you think that’s true? I see this a lot, but do you think it’s true in your experience across all roles and sectors? Is there the responsibility at the VP level means that they have to just trust you more, right.

Speaker 2  12:24  

It’s a really good question. I don’t see it across all sectors, I think, and roles. I think it’s.. it happened to be part of my industry that felt like the tipping point, right, because there were a lot fewer SVPs, and SVPs were more about running the business, where VPs were more about running the business as a whole, the company where VPs were more about running the customers right, and kind of driving, driving things there. I believe that, yeah, and you’re absolutely right in terms of the VP. I actually was caught up, I got cut, cut when I was a VP once, right, in my first res tech company, because we had too many of them, and so that was kind of like that tipping point, but up until then, like in the market research world, to BPs tend to be a little bit more productive, I think, in tech they’re less, right, because it’s more about doing more with less, where in the research industry in general is more about having more seniority to do more with customers, if that, if that makes sense. So, so, yeah, since I think there was, there was that difference between the two, but I think part of the, the autonomy to that, they, that they, they seek was I stepped into roles as experienced VP, so, and that’s something that I see, actually, with a lot of my own, my own leaders, right, as try, I’m trying to grow them, some of them just expect to be a VP and then do the job, I took the approaches, do the job,

Speaker 1  13:51  

yeah,

Speaker 2  13:52  

become experienced in it, and then step into the role, because it creates a different type of VP that becomes more autonomous than somebody that leans on leans on their manager, right, to do things all the time.

Speaker 1  14:06  

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I mean, I had a conversation just this morning with a lady where we’ve been working together for a while, she’s been doing that next level, actually, for an SVP role, and she’s not being given the promotion, and there comes a point when you have to say, why are you doing the job without the title? I think where you were at, like, well, give me the title, then, but I do think, especially in this day and age, you have to demonstrate you can do the work, and then kind of like negotiate, like, hey, I’m not going to continue doing this for free, folks, which is a delicate, a delicate dance to do and do it well, but you do have to demonstrate you’ve got the capability, because the sad thing is I think I think a lot more people have the capability than we recognize, in that I think a lot of people have capability, and they can be coached in it, but I think there’s a lot of people who think they can do a job, and you and I, as women in the space, are hels. We’ve all seen the men promoted because that man should be promoted. I think it’s getting less common. I hope it’s getting less common, but we’ve all seen the people being promoted just because rather than for skill set, and I think it’s becoming more and more important that we demonstrate we can do it before we’re going to be gifted it, and for women that’s always been harder for us. Always, what has been your experience of that? Like, it sounds like actually you did that to yourself a little bit. If I’m completely cheekily honest,

Speaker 2  15:28  

yeah, 100% 100% did it to myself, and I, and I didn’t realize I was doing it to myself until I was there, and I was like, um, no, now I deserve to be, to be rewarded, rewarded for it. So I know it was, it was, it’s been an interesting, interesting management of this, this role, this current, this current role, because I also had to deal with multiple CEOs, and so as CEOs, we’re, we had over a few years, we had some CEOs coming in, and what happened ended up happening was our old CEO came back, and so with that, I was like, well, right, this is something that we were talking about, and he, and he recognized it, and he’s like, “You’re getting the title, so it’s like, “Great, thank you, but I had to do, to do that, I had to step up and had to ask for it, and I had to, I had to say, and prove, prove I was doing that job already, but kind of going back to full circle, when we were first talking, it’s, it’s, you know, I wasn’t necessarily wanting this, this role, and it didn’t fall. I wouldn’t say it fell in my lap. It certainly didn’t. I did certainly work my way through it, but I think where I got to the point that I recognized it’s either I’m going to do the role and I’m going to be paid for it, and I’m going to get what I deserve for it, or I’m going to not do the wrong leave, right? And so I had to make that decision before I had that conversation with my, with my CEO, to say,

Speaker 1  16:46  

do you, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1  16:49  

yeah,

Speaker 2  16:49  

yeah, I think you need to understand what the consequences are going to be, not the consequence, well, the consequences of when they, if they say no, it’s not happening, and then you really need to decide for yourself, well, all right, am I going to stick with it, and and see if I can, can do it, and be still be happy here, or am I better off just leaving and going someplace else?

Speaker 1  17:07  

That leads nicely into a completely different topic, and what I didn’t know we were going to go to, but like, actually, what it means to be this kind of executive, you talked there about you had to make the decision, you had to know the consequences, and okay, that was a personal one, like the consequence of me making this. Am I prepared to leave? Yes, I am. Okay, I will make the case, but I think a lot of the time when we’re going back to your fear again, when we’re afraid of that executive position, I’m not necessarily saying you were, because you’ve talked about your fear, but I think a lot of the time it’s the responsibility that comes with it, and obviously in my work as an executive coach, I’m often the thought partner, and a lot of the conversations I have are along the lines of I need to make this decision, I don’t have all the data, and a lot of the time I’m like, are we going to get the data? Probably not. Where can you actually get more data from? And it’s making a decision and it’s rolling it out, and it’s, I would say to people, what’s the worst thing that can happen. You’ve got to understand what’s the worst thing can happen. Is there a mitigation to put in place, and what would you do with it? Is that, have you experienced that? That is some of what you do. How would you describe that decision making responsibility at the level you’re at now, which I think is fundamentally different from lower down in an organization,

Speaker 2  18:21  

absolutely. I think I, when I look towards what my role is and where I want to previously, before stepping into it, and even now, when I want to, what are the things I want to do, and what do I want to do, and move forward with, I try to look at best and worst case scenarios to make sure that all right, best case, it’s going to do everything I wanted it to do, and I’m going to learn all this stuff, and I’m going to be a kick-ass, kick-ass rock star, right, in this company, and I’m going to help move the company forward to where it needs to go. Worst case scenario, I will get shut down, I’m not going to get what I wanted, I’m not going to get along with my CEO, I’m going to be unhappy. And then, what do I do then, and I think I feel, I mean, nowadays I am lucky enough to be in from a, from a personal situation, just thinking, because there’s also financial situations, right, that you have to, you have to consider as well, and mental status, and all that stuff. I think I’m in a, I’m in a supportive environment, where if I needed to make that decision, I would, but years ago I wasn’t right, I was, I was a single mom trying to, trying to make sure I was happy at work, and also being able to support my support my child, and so those that’s going to make a difference in the decisions that that you look at, and in your best and worst case scenarios, but I think what I’ve learned is I prefer not to stick in a role that I’m just going to be inherently unhappy in, and even if I’m going to grow with it, I mean, even if there is growth with it, then go on to something that that I would prefer to do, and I’ve been lucky enough to recognize that and have support. Sort of mentors and exec coaching, to be honest with you, I have it makes a difference, many, it makes a huge, huge difference, huge difference. So am I. It’s professional therapy, honestly. It’s like it’s so, it’s such 100%

Speaker 1  20:16  

you know. We talk about being lonely at the top, and it is, it’s doubly lonely as a woman, I think, in a male-dominated world, and almost irrespective of the company, unless it’s a female founder company, most companies, even outside of tech, are the executive team is male dominated. We still live in that world, sadly. But that willingness to move on, I want to, I want to talk about that for a moment, because you know, you talked early on the non-traditional path, it sounded like you took that, that job, the accidental job, after the car accident, just to either get a job, and it was half decent, and it seems like you’ve had a combination of no concrete plan, but at the same time being driven, and what do I mean by driven? I don’t mean like you’re not driven to like ambition, you are not willing to just rest on your laurels, that’s what I’m hearing. And you, I remember when we first met, you described yourself as having a red personality, and they’re like, “What did she mean by that? Talk to me a little bit about that, like there’s something about you that has got you to where you are. It’s not normal to like not have a plan but get to that top level with as much clarity as you have done, is what I would say.

Speaker 2  21:26  

Yes, I.. it’s funny, I people think of me as being.. I’m always kind of almost like two-sided, right? I’m always.. I am ambitious, but I’m not ambitious in the traditional sense, right? I want to advocate for myself, but I advocate through my team, right? I love that.

Speaker 1  21:48  

I love that so

Speaker 2  21:50  

much. Yeah, and sometimes that actually bodes me well, and sometimes I’ll get the recognition for it, and sometimes it won’t. And then I’m left feeling like then it impacts my confidence, and maybe there’s a little imposter syndrome, kind of kind of sneaking in, but the it’s very funny, because I’m like a just juxtaposition of myself, right, because it’s like I love change, I argue change, I’ll challenge change, but then I’ll come around and love it and be full in, and and I think when I, when I look at myself, I am one of those types of people that, that I will challenge something until I’m comfortable in it. I will argue something, I will question something. I’m like, it’s maybe it’s the researcher in me, I don’t know, because it’s like I have that curiosity that I’m constantly questioning and challenging, but then once I come around to something, I’m all in. I’m all in, and I am like, I have, you know, the one thing I think gets confused a bit is people think when I, when they hear, I’m like, I’m not necessarily a corporate ladder type of climber, ambitious from that perspective, but I have a very, very high work ethic, and I will, and I will bust my butt right to make sure that they get it done, and I get committed, and I won’t stop until it’s there, and so I’ll get locked in to do it, and so that’s kind of where I look at a little bit of the look I’m doing, like the sixth, seven, they kill myself and kill me, but that’s where I get a little bit of the different sides of things that I think manifest itself in a, in what tends to be, I think, probably appealing to some to leadership, because I’m flexible in that I am constantly willing to try new things, as long as I’m comfortable with it. So, I’m like, it takes me a minute to get comfortable with it, but then once I get comfortable with it, I’m like, all right, I’m in, let’s go, let’s do this. I

Speaker 1  23:38  

love that so much. I would say, in my experience, I mean, I’m a believer of a five year plan, mainly so that we have an idea of why we’re doing the next thing we’re doing, even if that then pivots you, because you’re like, actually, I don’t want that, whereas if you just kind of all over the place, I think it’s harder to get to your destination, that’s my general role, but what I would say, a lot of what you said resonated with me is I review that I’m not ambitious in the sense of like competitiveness. The only person I’m competitive with is myself and my husband. Unfortunately, that’s a whole other therapy conversation that brings out the worst in me. But I am ambitious in the sense of the change I want to make in the world. I’m ambitious in the sense of the role that I’m in, which right now, running my own business as a coach, I want to make a difference, and that was true for every role I ever had, and that’s what I hear from you. It’s not ambition, in the sense of I’ve got to beat my peer, which we’ve all seen damage as a business. I am hearing ambition of do good, is that is that what you’re saying here, like, you will leave heaven and earth, 100% to

Speaker 2  24:43  

do, 100% that’s completely spot on. Yeah,

Speaker 1  24:45  

so here’s the thing, I don’t think I’ve ever had this conversation before with somebody, even though I know women I coach are like this, but I don’t think this is talked about enough that you can get all the way in your experience, you’re not. That old, you get all the way by just wanting to do good, and I think right now that’s sadly really unusual. We are looking at all these – I hate to say it – but tech bros, where it’s all about being better than their peer. We’re seeing this in AI right now, there’s a lot of debate about if they are just being driven by various egos wanting to get there faster than their peer, even to the detriment of humanity. That’s just a very visible debate of debates I hear happening behind the scenes as the executive coach every single day. What’s wrong with us? This is a very existential podcast. Now, what’s wrong? Like you and I are proof of the pudding that you can get all the way by doing good. So, what’s going on?

Speaker 2  25:46  

That is it. That is a great question, probably one, one that requires it’s a big question. If I’m thinking about it from, from an equity, like kind of focus zoning, putting it on the on the equity perspective, I think I have not been immune to the equity conversation. Right, I have. I have the perspective, especially of rising female leaders, that you should, similar to myself, right, you should own your thing, you should be good at your thing, and you should let your results speak for themselves. However, that’s not always going to work. You’re always going to come up against whether it’s another female, another male, whether it’s pay, whatever it’s going to be. And my, I always try to think of, and granted, sometimes don’t take my own advice, but I would, but I would like, yeah, I should like know your own worth, right? And make sure that you’re fighting the right fight. What I, what I don’t like was when people are fighting for the equity before they even get to that, get to that point, and that’s where I get probably a little bit frustrated with, with, with us. It’s more about let’s make sure we get there and we’re deserving of it. Yeah, and then get that, because on the flip side, you get males doing exactly the same thing, right, that they’re that they’re deserving of this, when they haven’t done their work yet.

Speaker 1  27:03  

Yeah, I mean, I would definitely say, I mean, my job as an executive coach is sometimes to pull the women up in front of me and say, you need to talk about what you’re doing better, you need to advocate for yourself, it is time, but they are ambitious, almost to the detriment of their careers, to do good, and the thing is, what you’re demonstrating is that is actually going to get you there, if they can then also speak about it, if you can then also advocate for yourself, which I do think is important as a skill, and I, I hope listeners are hearing this, and they’re not just watching this big media landscape and thinking, oh my god, the only way to get to the top is to be somebody I don’t want to be, because I don’t, I don’t believe that’s true, and I think that’s what the conversation I’m really trying to have with you, without even knowing I was going there, is you have just shown me another example of somebody who has got all the way, and I know we haven’t even talked about your imposter syndrome, we haven’t even talked about if it’s lonely at the top, all the things I commonly talk about, but you’ve got there because you believe that doing the right thing is the right thing to do, and then you’ve advocated, and I love that. So, let’s rewind. If you could go back and talk to your younger self and give her a piece of advice, it doesn’t have to be based on what we’ve just been talking about, but that’s kind of where my head’s at. Why do you wish you had known about your route, your travels, where you are today? You know, would have helped you in that moment.

Speaker 2  28:34  

I think if I was to go back to my younger self, I would advise myself to trust in my decisions, right, and not there’s going to be some that are right, there’s going to be some that are wrong, but for the ones that are wrong, just not to let them manifest into the negativity, right, and create that kind of let the confidence issues and imposter symptoms, and all of that, like I think many people touch on all of that all the time, right. And it’s, it’s, and if you’re not, then you are incredible, and but I think every, especially women, right, you’re constantly facing that, and I think it’s not learning about whether you have it, it’s learning about how to deal with it, when you recognize it, and I’m still a true, I’m still a work in progress, right? I think we’re all work in progress, and it’s continuing to, like, I love feedback, I love getting feedback, I love getting praise, right? I thrive on praise, but it’s kind of how I operate, though, but I want the praise without asking for it, right? Same thing at home, like, I want my husband to go do a surprise for me when I don’t have to ask for the surprise, right? So I just have that type of personality, like I like to be, maybe it’s from my childhood, who knows, but I like to be rewarded for stuff, and that’s part of the reason I think why I’m such a hard worker, because I always want to get, I have a very strong sense of right and wrong as well, I. Um, to your point, to your point before, and I think that that drives me a lot, and also drives my challenges, and it drives, it drives a lot of things, but I think it, you know, not to let, not to let the negativity manifest, and everything’s works out, everything it works out, it may not work out the way that you intended it to work out, you may have done the complete 180 but everything works out, and there are going to be points in your life where it’s going to be completely okay, and you’re going to recognize that I’m actually at a good point in my life, and then there are the times when, when it’s not, but that, but that’s okay, right, that’s life, it’s part of it’s part of living,

Speaker 1  30:34  

I think that that’s a really interesting juxtaposition, you have this strong sense of right and wrong, and I, when they, you know, the little coach in me, the little coach, the coach in me was like, “Oh, there’s something there we need to coach on, because you know that that fairness fallacy is that coaches call it, it can be damaging, but I then you immediately pair that with everything works out, and that is a, that is a really powerful place to exist in, because yes, life throws us curveballs. Life can be crap at times. Excuse my language, it really can be. But then ultimately, I think it’s what we do with that, and I think sometimes things work out because of how we respond to the situation we’re in. And I think, I think what you’ve just said, I think you might be in a self-fulfilling, like everything works out because you make sure it works out because you’re in control. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2  31:24  

Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a big part. It’s a big part of it. I almost want to say I’ve never done anything that’s that they haven’t wanted to do, which probably isn’t fully true. I think there’s probably plenty of stuff I’ve done. I think it’s to the extent I let it go on, right? If, if I’m, if I was thinking about it as I was prepping for this for this call. I said to myself, I’m like, well, I was thinking, well, I’ve been lucky enough to get really good managers and leaders and mentors. And then I’m like, well, I wasn’t lucky, I created exactly, yeah, exactly. I didn’t stay with them, I was lucky enough, maybe to get them initially, but then the ones that didn’t work out I didn’t stay because I couldn’t, I couldn’t deal with it, I didn’t, I didn’t want to deal with it, and so I, so I made a pivot, and sometimes that was, sometimes that did result in my pivoting on a lateral move, because I just wanted to get out of the situation I was in, and sometimes that was, that was just, you know, pivoting into a different company, or whatnot, but yeah, I think I, I probably be, I’m an exec coaching stream, I think, because there’s probably so many things you can pull,

Speaker 1  32:30  

there’s so many things that I know, I actually just want to applaud you there for a little bit of self-coaching in that moment, of for anybody listening, like this is this is what we want to teach, when I teach people that I’m coaching, which is not the same thing as coaching. One thing I want to teach is a bit of self-coaching, so you can do this on demand when you need it. And the fact, Michelle, that you were able to go from like, well, actually, I can, I can make my own way here. You, you, you’re catching yourself in those, you know, moments of like, it was luck. No, it wasn’t luck, and you caught yourself and said, no, I’m going to own that, and that’s the way we progress, so I just want to highlight that to any, anybody listening. Um, I could talk about this all day. This is, this has just turned into a conversation I didn’t think we were going to have, but it’s brilliant, and I’m hoping really enlightening for the audience. So, let me ask you this before we move on to the quick fire round. What is the biggest challenge you’re facing right now that you think it’s going to be the thing that’s gonna take your need for ambition in the next few months, six months, 12 months. I have a big question, but is there something that you can see, like that’s a challenge, that’s where I’m gonna like use this superpower of my ambition to drive forward. The

Speaker 2  33:38  

biggest thing I’m facing right now that I’m trying to think about what I’m facing in my job versus what I’m facing in my career, and the kind of one thing that I think kind of goes across both is AI, yeah, is the rise of a crisis, right? And

Speaker 1  33:51  

yeah,

Speaker 2  33:52  

exactly, and what that means for me as personally as an individual, right, and how I want to think about it, what it means for us as a company, and how we want to, and we want to go all in on it, and what it means for our customers, what it means for my staff, what it means, and you know, it’s funny you mentioned before about all the tech bros and whatnot driving, you know, AI and doing those things in our company. Luckily, we’re about half and half in leadership team, feel female to male, and myself and our CHRO are actually driving it, the AI transformation within, with our, with our global leadership team, of course, but like within our business. In fact, we actually have a Women in Research webinar tomorrow talking about AI anxiety and what that means, and so, yeah, but, but it does, but it’s this, it’s so powerful, and there’s so many things to do with AI that it’s almost like you don’t even know where to start, and so that sounds, I feel like it’s just encompassing everything that we do, and at the same time, we have to make sure that we deliver on our day jobs, we have to continue to run the company. Company, and we have to continue running business as it’s going now, and still trying to think about AI, the future of AI, and what that means for us as an individual, and as personally, I think what’s it going to mean for I’m trying to look at AI as like, how is it going to improve our lives and our business, and to protect ourselves from AI taking over humanity, right, and that, and that, that whole, whole side of things, and so it’s been, it’s been, it’s been an interesting six 612 months, right, in this space, and it’s only going to get even more interesting, and I feel like all the things that we’ve, like, really worked so hard towards, right, in our careers over the past few decades, and it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a big moment.

Speaker 1  35:43  

It’s actually fascinating that you said that you and your female peer are driving this, because I’ve just actually been drafting. I don’t know what’s going to go out relative to this podcast, but just be drafting an article on why, as the women leaders reading my blog, you need to be the ones driving AI adoption, simply because you are a different voice that is not being heard right now, and that is so important. I truly, there’s so much pessimism out there about what AI might do, but I truly am optimistic that if we can lean into this ambition for doing the right thing, doing good things, that we can steady the ship and do amazing things in the next decade, and it’s going to be at least a decade of upheaval, I can’t see being anything less, and do truly amazing things that we all come out better as a result, but it’s very easy to see the alternative, so we’ve got to keep, we’ve got to keep the ambition towards positive, so I’m pleased, very proud teas that you are driving it, let’s move to quick fire on. Otherwise, I will just carry on asking you questions and interrogating your brain, because it’s fascinating. Let’s start with what is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given.

Speaker 2  36:53  

So, out of college, I actually worked for Plan Hollywood, and I worked for the owner of Planet. I was that was my first executive assistant role, which, which made me truly feel like I was never going to be an executive. I’m not a great executive assistant, but anyway, one of the advice he gave me that I did not take, luckily, was to fix my accent, that I was never going to get anywhere in business without fixing my Queens, New York Queens accent, and he offered to pay for voice lessons for me, which I politely declined, and they said, “No, thank you, this is who I am. And so I’m really glad I took that advice.

Speaker 1  37:37  

Wow, that is, that is, that is one of the worst ones. No, I’m gonna say there were some really bad ones on this podcast. That’s why I asked the question one day I’ll write a book about it, because it’s just like eye opening. Wow, wow. Okay, let’s flip that around. What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Speaker 2  37:57  

I’ve got a lot of good advice over the years, I think you know, like I said, I have a lot of, I’ve had a lot of good mentors, and I’ve both female, male, I’ve had many of them still in touch with today, but I think the one piece of advice in kind of more of my later, my later years that I keep going back to, and that I actually pass on to my, my leaders and my aspiring managers, and all of that is to shift the mindset and your perspective from your team, right, you’re kind of just thinking about your team, and everybody wants to protect their team and be loyal to their team and do the right things for their team to the company, because until you do that, you cannot, you cannot move up, you cannot move, because all of your decision making, you have to think about what’s the best thing for the company, then what’s the best thing for the team, and then what’s the best thing for myself, and then until you kind of shift that mindset, it’s really, really hard to continue to continue to grow up, so it’s something that I think everybody struggles with, right, because everybody’s always wanting to make sure that their team is the best and doing the best, and all of that, but you can have both, right? You can absolutely have both.

Speaker 1  39:12  

Yeah. Oh gosh, 100% that is, that is a biggie that I think most people don’t understand. So I’m really glad you’ve highlighted it, because yes, it is one of the biggest blockers from the director level upwards is like you’ve got to think about the company first, not about your team first. This has been one of those conversations where I really, really wish we had more time. So people are similarly of mind. Where can we find you online? Where can we connect with you? Find out more about what you do, what Synt does? Where can we find you?

Speaker 2  39:40  

Absolutely, just so you can find me on my LinkedIn profile, so Michelle Darcy Clark, which don’t know what the link is, but we could throw it out there, perfect. And then you can find [email protected] and find us as a company. What we do is really, really interesting, and for those that know me. Market research, actually, for those, anybody that knows surveys and generating insights, you know, we are, we are a programmatic marketplace where we connect our buyers who are trying to deliver insights to their brands with our suppliers who are looking for respondents, and we provide that marketplace model to them, and so it’s, we also do measurements and advertising effectiveness as well, and it’s a really interesting space that has evolved a lot over the years. Yeah, and so I’ve been lucky enough to be part of multiple – I’m showing my age right now – but through multiple evolutions, right, of technology, and the AI thing is just the next phase of that, that I’m really excited to jump in on, but yeah,

Speaker 1  40:43  

I’ve actually been working with quite a few people that work in, like, basically improving the way we use advertising, the technology platforms, like I’ve worked with a number of people in the last couple of years on who have worked for a company on creating technology to help advertising work better, basically, not advertising itself, but the data behind it. It is such a rapidly growing space. It’s why I’m an executive coach, because I get to hear about all the technology without doing the job. It’s great. I love my job so much of a studio technologist these days. I haven’t touched a line of code in a decade, and it’s just fabulous.

Speaker 2  41:20  

I’ve never touched a line of code, and I’ve been working in technology companies for 15 years, so just goes

Speaker 1  41:27  

to show it is a really exciting space to be in. So that’s even more exciting. Anyway, as I said, we could talk all day, but let’s leave the audience with one final thought. What final thought do you want to leave with us with today?

Speaker 2  41:39  

Such a great conversation. I’m like, one, I’m very appreciative for you having me on your, on your show. So, thank you, Tony. I think I’m actually gonna, I’m gonna lean into the executive coaching. You know, we didn’t really talk, we talked a little bit about that, but I think don’t be afraid to ask for help, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. I think I’ve learned it’s done me well right over over the decades, and I think having an executive coach has kind of really helped to put you on the right, and I’ve done it at multiple different levels in my career, so it’s not like it’s just an exact thing or it’s just a senior, senior leader type of thing. I think having that kind of really can can put some focus on what you want to do, and where you want to go, and even when you don’t like me, when you maybe don’t have a 10 year plan that you’re sticking to, but it’s really just to kind of fine tune how you’re, you know, how you have you navigate through your professional life.

Speaker 1  42:34  

Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2  42:36  

so I really applaud, you know, anybody that kind of steps into that role, like yourself, Tony, because it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s a, it’s a challenging job at it, but I can also see how rewarding it could be, and so it’s, it’s, but it’s really great for the recipient, so

Speaker 1  42:49  

I would say it’s the best job I’ve ever had by a very long way, but I, you know, audience, I didn’t pay Michelle to say that I love that you said that, I really do. What a beautiful final thought, Michelle. This has been one of those really truly empowering, extraordinary conversations, and I really hope the audience can take something from this and think differently about how you’re going to operate moving forward, whether that is looking at the I’d love for your best piece of advice, looking at your mindset and shifting it from team to company, big, big one that I talk about all the time. It’s not done enough, but even just learning from Michelle’s story here, of she hasn’t had a five year plan, and yet she’s got all the way to C suite. She was comfortable at VP level, and yet she’s got to the C suite anyway. Whatever story you’re telling yourself about how you have to go a particular route, it’s almost certainly not true. I can always find a counter example as one of the benefits of doing the role I have. I have 1000s of women I’ve spoken to at this point, and there’s always an alternative viewpoint. And if you can realize that you have all the power you need right now to go all the way, if that’s what you want to do, you don’t have to be something that you think you missed out on 1015 2030 years ago. You do not have to do that. What you have to do right now today is trust yourself, have the ambition for doing the right thing, and believing that you will make sure things turn out right, because you have the ability to do that. It’s not luck, you are going to make sure it turns out okay. If you do anything else this week, lean into that. But until next time, remember, keep on leading, and go and change the world one little bit this week. Bye for now.

Unknown Speaker  44:35  

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai