Toni:

If I wanted someone who could commute, I’d have hired a man from New York. That was what one of my guests, the lady you’re gonna meet today, was told out loud by a private equity partner as she was being offered her first CEO role. What do you do with that? What actually happened is she took the role anyway, she delivered results that couldn’t be argued with.

And that partner became one of her closest professional relationships. Now, don’t get me wrong, that should never have been said. But it’s an interesting case, isn’t it? Today you are going to meet Kimberly Williams. She is chairperson and CEO of Absorb Software, and she talks about her journey to being CEO, what she’s learned along the way, and why you can learn from her career moves. All of this comes with a ton of career advice.

Some of the most direct I’ve heard on the podcast. Don’t always agree with everything, by the way. But there is so much here that you could take. And if you want to be a CEO or just in the C suite, I want you to recognise some of the things she’s talking about. The fact that you need a role where you carry the numbers, that targets are important and you need to define yourself in such a way that you get notice for the targets you are achieving. And that you shouldn’t be afraid of asking for help. Asking for help is actually the opposite of weakness and

Kimberly explains the psychology of it. Once someone helps you, they become invested in you. So, so important. And of course, we have a very important conversation about the adoption of AI, which she is currently going through in her business, and how she is framing it to build her company better. If you’re building towards a C-suite role or a CEO yourself, leading a team through AI transformation, or you just want to hear from someone who’s navigated a version of this industry that was considerably more anti-women than one we have today, this episode is for you.

So let’s get Kimberly onto the show.

Welcome to the show, Kimberly. Thank you for joining us today.

KIMBERLY:

Thank you, Toni, for having me.

Toni:

It’s an absolute joy to have you here. But so let’s start off with telling everybody a little bit about you, in particular your route to being a CEO. And when did you realise the CEO title was what you’re after in particular?

KIMBERLY:

Well, at first I guess I wanted to be a sheriff.

I was about three years old, and I told my mother, Hey, when I grow up, I want to be a nurse. And she said to me, Well, you know, girls can be doctors too. So if you wanted to go into medicine, you could be a doctor. And the story goes that my eyes got really big because she had told me a girl can have any job, and I said, Then I know what I want to be. I want to be a sheriff. and we still joke about that, but honestly, I think it’s those types.

Of comments by people in your life that allow you to start dreaming about what you could be. And so I think that dream for me started about that time and thinking about, I can be anything. You know, I learned I couldn’t be the Queen of England, but that is a birthright. But in general, there’s a lot that can be available to you. And that was something that my parents both really instilled and supported in me.

Early. I think when I started my career, I remember my brother said to me something about, can you imagine how horrible it would be to be the president of a company? And I looked at him, I’m like, I don’t think that would be a horrible thing at all. And so I think, you know, pretty early, I feel like I had always dreamed that someday I might be.

To run a business, lead a group of people. But at the time that I started work, it was really, really uncommon for women to have that opportunity. And I think there is a lot of pressure to stay in support roles as opposed to line positions, one that delivers results and accountability for PL ownership. And it was always a fight to try to get into and stay in those.

Roles, despite delivering numbers, it was just I think counterintuitive to how most of society at the time saw women and what their roles were. And so, but I think I recognized pretty early, I think I got some pretty good coaching that those were the kinds of roles that are going to enable you to advance into running a company. So a little kind of history on that dimension, but

You know, I kind of go back to the role that your family plays in what you accomplish, right? Or not just family, it can be friends and other neighbors and so forth. And I don’t think people should underestimate the impact that one little comment can have on another human being, positively or negatively. You know, but I grew up in a pretty middle class area. My parents, my grandparents came from Poland, they didn’t have any formal education. But they had this unshakable belief that education would change everything for the generations that came after them. And even my mother, they sent her to college, which was really pretty unheard of in a middle class, I said lower middle class probably, family. And she went on and got an advanced degree. And I think that you

You know, that focus on education and hard work and work ethic was something that they really, really pushed on their children who then pushed it on their children. And I look at you know my cousins, I think all of us, all of their grandchildren have advanced degrees and have been really successful in whatever career they’ve chosen. So I think it’s just a testament again to the legacy that you have the opportunity to create. So that was sort of my early years. I got out of college and had basically not a lot of money and knew I wanted to go to graduate school and so I was really trying to pinch every penny I could. I learned about every bar in the Chicago area that had free food at happy hour.

I’d go and have a soda and eat a couple plates of appetizer and call it dinner to save money. And we used to have a policy at work that if you worked more than 12 hours that you could charge dinner in or get a stipend for dinner, so I tried to do that. And I think in general it was like the beginning of the operator instinct. Like what kind of investment do you have to make today? What sacrifices and where do you work hard so you can accomplish something in the future?

and I think that delayed gratification is really important when you’re running a business and in life in general, and I think a lot of that really told me, taught me some of that as well. so I think af you know after that I had

A number of positions. I went to University of Chicago for graduate school and went to work for the Boston Consulting Group and Strategy, which was an amazing experience. It was probably the first time I had been in an environment that was truly a meritocracy. They really didn’t care what your background was, how beautiful you were. They really just wanted to be really smart.

Strategic thinking people, and for me, I think that was just a phenomenal experience that all of a sudden I wasn’t being evaluated, you know, how pretty I was, or you know, things that many times you know, people of my age when I was younger, that’s how women were really thought about, and who was appreciated was tended to be who had that grace and and beauty rather than Intellect and drive, and and so I I think it was a life-changing experience to be around these amazingly smart people and and be able to thrive there. And and so I had a great career there, and then moved over to one of my clients, and it was actually in more of a marketing strategy role. But one of the things at the time was the internet was really starting to come into being a consumer-facing product versus something you know we might have used when we were in college to share files and so forth. And the CEO I think looked around and said, Well, you’re young, go figure this out for us. And it was a combination of how this was going to impact our business, but also turned into here’s ideas of how we leverage the assets of this company into leveraging this new technology develop these business cases and the CEO left at the time and went to go be CEO of ATT actually. and we had a new CEO come in and you know being kind of the impatient person that I am, I got on his calendar within a few days and said, hey this is the project I was doing for this other CEO and

The long story short is he looked at the business case and I remember it was like four point three million dollars. I’ll never forget that number. and he says, Okay, you have the money. And I was like, my gosh, now I’m running a business. And so it was kind of this fluke from, my gosh, I’m doing strategy to running a business. And from there I think I just never looked back. I really loved the leadership challenges and learning how to be a good leader. I was not a good leader, I would say, at the beginning of my time, but learning to embrace that and love that.

And did that for companies like running businesses within a larger company, but never being a CEO. And I was offered my first CEO job. This was now a while ago, but I was living in Chicago at the time, but the job was not based there. And they made me the offer and I suggested that I commute Monday through Friday. And the partner at this private equity firm said: if I wanted someone who would commute, I could have hired a man from. New York. And there was just silence on the phone. And I think both of us were coming to terms with what he had just said. I did take the job and ended up you know, that partner and I became extremely close and I think I won over. That the results I delivered couldn’t be argued with that. And I think it changed how he saw women and leadership and I know it changed how I saw myself. So you know, kind of my first entry into running a job was almost an accident and then I laughed because my first CEO job was ’cause no one else wanted to go to Des Moines, Iowa. So that was sort of my first CEO job. and, you know, along the way I met my husband Bob and married him and I’d say that he’s been part of every hard decision that I’ve been a part of. You know, a really great partner over dinner to talk about problems and issues and how to address things and I think about it often. He doesn’t get named in the board materials, but he’s really been part of all of it and a a great

Toni:

definitely there’s so many things that I want to pull out on there’s a clear thread of support in your ecosystem from your parents through to your husband later, but it’s presumably along the way. And I think you made a comment there about how one comment can impact you so profoundly, positively or negatively. And I think most of us have a story of a negative comment. that’s impacted us. I can certainly trace my imposter syndrome back to one comment I was in when I was in middle school. That’s when it started. It was one comment from a teacher that was made to another kid, not to me. And that’s when my imposter syndrome started. We all have that. What you’ve pulled on there is the positive comments though. And so many of us have those but d I think we don’t put enough weight on them. And I think the what the thread I would pull on in your career is you’ve leaned on

the support on the positive comments. They’re always there around you. And it culminates in a husband who’s supportive. And I see almost every woman I know is either single and doing great or she’s got a supportive husband. The supportive husband might also be doing great. But like you cannot have a partner, a spouse who isn’t behind you. You either have to be on your own and surround yourself with other women quite often.

Who will lift you up or be no, Kimberly, go for it. Go girl, you can do this. Is that what you’re seeing? Because I know now you’re so passionate about leadership. You must see this in people all around you. What is the consistent theme that the sub what I’m getting at is what is the consistent support network behind them that allows them to show up and grow through that skill development that I know you do absorb, but like, do you see that consistently the way I see it?

KIMBERLY:

Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, it’s not just women either, right? I think there’s an old saying behind every successful man is a woman. And I think that that’s just really true. That whether it’s somebody you’re married to or just a strong friend or a colleague that you’ve become very close with, I think everyone needs that confidant, somebody who, when you’re having a bad day, can kind of cheer you on and get you through it. If you know, work is really hard and there are days that you’re like, is it worth it? And if you have a spouse that says, Yeah, quit. They’re taking advantage of you, they’re whatever, it’s it it can put you down into taking you down a different path, right? And so I think having and I say that, like who you marry or choose to spend your life with, whether you’re married or not, is probably the biggest decision you can make in your life.

You know, I mean you’re stuck with your parents, you’re stuck with your family, you don’t get to make that choice. Many times you’re stuck with school, like I  needed to go to a public school because it was cheaper. So luckily I was in Michigan, I went to the University of Michigan, it was a great school. but who you choose as your partner, life partner is a choice you make, and it is the most important choice, I think, of your life, because if you don’t parent the same way, if you don’t have the same values that you look for in life, if if they’re not if your goal, and it you don’t this doesn’t have to be your goal, but if your goal is to be CEO of a company, you have to have a spouse that’s supportive of that. and so I th I do think that

You know, I just celebrated a huge anniversary, it was thirty five years with my husband and I told him it was like the best decision ever made. It obviously dictates a lot of your happiness in life. So yes, I believe that.

Toni:

absolutely. I just wish more of us realized the power of having a supportive network. It doesn’t have to be your spouse, I think it often is. But I do see very very successful women who don’t have a partner at all. What I do also see, and and sometimes this comes out in my coaching, it always breaks my heart when this happens, but sometimes people come to work with me and the next thing that happens is they end up getting divorced because the coaching helps them come to the realisation that they’re marriage is not supporting them. I never that’s not what I coach him by the way. I am not a life coach. But I think it’s but I think it’s heartbreaking to me that it’s actually more common than we might realize. We have this ambition, this drive to do great things, but if you don’t have the support network there, and that can come in many forms for listeners, it really can come. I mean I’m a big believer. I have a great husband but I also have an amazing set of entrepreneurs around me because I’m an entrepreneur. That is what lifts me up a lot of the time. My other friends don’t know what it’s like to be an entrepreneur. So I need to surround myself with that, with people who are operating at my level and higher. Which brings me back to your route to being a CEO. More generally the CEO is a woman. you hinted there along the way there were some things that perhaps being a woman did was at least flagged. And I think anybody who’s been around for a while has experienced the snide comment of I I got a comment which was, Well we took a risk on you, you’re of childbearing age. I was like, I cannot believe you just said that. like it was said to me a couple of months into one of my roles, We took a risk on you, you’re childbearing age. And I’m like, that is in the UK, that’s a fireable offence. didn’t report it because you never do. But most of us who What with all the lessons you’ve learned on your route to being CEO, is there anything you would do differently and is there anything you wish that women coming along behind you would know and navigate maybe differently than you did?

KIMBERLY

Yeah. I think it’s a good question. I mean, Toni I am older than you and so when I first came into the workplace, things were really very different than they are now. And

I actually went back because I remember thinking how my first few years were so different from when I graduated from graduate school. Things had already changed. It was like not a long time, five years maybe, but things had changed pretty significantly. And so I actually went back and did some research. Like, was there something that happened? Like that I kind of went over my head at the time. And sure enough, it was really interesting to read about. So what I didn’t realize when I first started work, employers could be held liable if somebody said to you, like a quid pro quo, like if you have sex with me, I will not fire you, or if you have sex with me, I will promote you. Like that, employers could be held accountable for that. But general sexual harassment in the workplace, getting groped, your your butt slapped, those kinds of things were not something legally that an employer could be held accountable for. And so you could sue the person who assaulted you potentially, but the employer couldn’t be held accountable for the environment that they created that allowed for that. And so what was interesting is in the United States, the Thomas Clarence, yeah, that’s his name, right? Thomas Clarence, yeah, whatever. He’s the Supreme Court justice. During his confirmation hearings, Anita Hill testified about things.

That had happened to her that he had done to her in the workplace. And there was enough kind of uprising by both parties that in late 1991, so that his hearings were early in 91 and then in The Civil Rights Act was passed and I’m like, okay, well what does that have to do with women? And so one of the things that was interesting in there is that now women could hold companies accountable, they could sue companies for creating a culture of sexual harassment and and that sort of thing in the workplace. And up to this point that was not the case. So now employers were really trying to develop a culture where women could safely come to work and not have bad things happen to them. And and so I recognized, you know, in hindsight, now I’m like, what happened? That it was so drastically different. And so it was kind of interesting to me. I’m not a huge like, let’s have law solve everything, Congress solve everything. But in this particular case it really did make lasting differences. I think generally most of the really overt stuff stopped. Like i i it used to be could just be walking down the hall and some guy would slap you or whatever. that sort of behavior changed. There were still issues, obviously, but not to the extent that they were. But that doesn’t mean that people’s view about women changed and so they still held this belief that there’s certain types of jobs that women belong in. They belong as a secretary, they belong you know, potentially as an HR person, like it was just very there are certain roles that women should do. And so I think, you know, I told my daughter when she was starting, I tell every woman this, that if you want to be a CEO, you have to fight to be in a position that delivers numbers. And if you haven’t been given numbers to hit targets, that’s the first thing you need to do. You need to define success with your boss so whether you’re a recruiter a company recruiter and you’re laying out okay what’s the average time to fill how many fills what is the one year retention rate of the fills like you need to define the metrics if they’re not already defined for you and report back so that you are always linking your performance to outcomes and and not just like are you a great nice person to work with.

So that’s a piece of advice that I always give women. I think the other is you know, you talk about I have a lot of support, and I do have a lot of support. and that in my personal life too, like I think about my girlfriends who helped me raise my child, right? Like it they were always there if I couldn’t get there to pick them up if they were sick from school, that kind of thing. That I always had this great support. But one of the things that I was taught was I needed to be really independent. And it taught me it took me a while to realize that I can’t do it all at work. I need that same support at work and I need to ask for help and ask for advice. And I think so. I always try to tell women that they don’t have to know everything and to seek out help when they need it. You know not in a helpless way but in a you know people love to give advice. So you know, like schedule a meeting with somebody who runs another business and say, hey, I’m facing this issue. Here’s the way I’ve thought about it. Here’s some options. I’m leaning towards this. Have you faced it before? What advice do you have? It does two things. One, you do get great advice, but second is you’re in a situation that allows somebody else to see how you think. And it also can make a good impression on them if you’ve thought it through. Now, if you kind of go in helplessly like woe is me, I don’t know what to do, you’re not helping yourself, right? So you kinda have to think about that. But I I do think asking for help,

There’s a lot of psychology about it too. Once somebody helps you, they are bought into you. It’s like cognitive dissidence. It’s kind of a weird thing. But so the more people you can get to help you, actually the more supporters you have. It seems counterintuitive, but that’s just the way it is.

Toni:

And I think it’s exactly the thing. I think one of the things I think a good CEO has, and one of the things that’s changing, is a recognition that more humility is better. You don’t have all the answers. That’s not the job of a CEO. The CEO’s job is to get the people in the room that do have the answers and make sense of all the different interpretations of the data. So I love that I love that you also said to focus on the metrics. Which brings me to another thread I want to pull on with you.I know as a CEO, you are right there with every other CEO on the planet right now, which is AI transformation. Like, what do we do? What is your experience of AI transformation in your business? What do you think about it? What do you think CEOs and CEO leads should be talking about when it comes to AI transformation?

KIMBERLY:

Well, I think we’re an interesting company because we’re both using AI to improve our business and how we operate, but we also have a lot of AI in our product. And so I think I’m in a unique position because our entire business is how do we enable learners to perform better, like if you think about it. And so how do you then apply AI? to that world and I think for you know for us from a product perspective you know, a lot of people will think about, I’m gonna develop these skills in the company because that’s going to deliver outcomes. So like you know, you’re a salesperson, I’m gonna train all my salespeople on how to overcome price objections. Or I’m gonna teach them how to do multi-threading for stakeholders, those types of things. And they’re all great, you know, things to train on. But each person has a unique idea of what’s gonna move the needle most for them. So you could have somebody who’s really great at overcoming price objections and they’re really great at multi-threading, but what they’re not good at is exp you know when it’s say the CIO’s involved in decision making, explaining the technical aspects of the product. So In terms of where we’ve taken artificial intelligence is detecting what is the root cause or what could help this person the most from a performance perspective for delivering outcomes and then linking that to the right training that they need to do it. So we’ve just done a lot with AI on our product and it’s been a ton of fun. I think having an operator mentality helps with that. I generally am like okay our job is to help people deliver outcomes, right?

And so, how do we have our software do that? Internally, I think one of the things that I’ve recognized is that while you need people to understand the tools, it’s important, you know. When the internet came out you had to learn HTML and other things, so it’s not like you don’t need to know the technology. But what I find is that the important aspects are you picking a problem we’re solving? So, you know, the same way you might prioritize things anyway, regardless of the technology, like what are your biggest problems you’re trying to solve or opportunities that you have to improve in the business. Are you willing and able to redesign a workflow to make that happen? Because just buying a tool doesn’t

typically help you and honestly any company can buy a tool. So you have to really, I think, come into you have to pick your projects, make sure that you’ve got people who are system thinkers on those projects. and make sure you’re willing to invest in the transformational aspect of it in terms of changing workflow, chaining training people on that new workflow, etc. Otherwise

I think you’re not gonna get great results, right? You’re gonna use AI to rewrite emails and that sort of thing, maybe do some research for you. But if you really wanna make a substantive difference in your business, I think you’re gonna need to really think more holistically and it’s really not that different than any other technology you might have, you know, done before, right? so I think about it.

That way, I remember I used to say that about the internet. The internet is not necessarily a new business for people, it’s the companies that are going to be successful are the ones that figure out how to leverage it to improve their business. and and I you know, I think about like United Airlines, they’re known for having one of the more advanced kind of applications and and website allowing their travelers to do things there and and they sort of led the pack there and and so I think it’s they used it to improve their business and the experience of their customers, but they’re still an airline, right? Like they’re not, you know, Airbnb where it’s a completely different product, right?

Toni:

This is something I think a lot of companies are missing, which is AI is there to help you deliver your existing strategy. It is not a strategy in its own right. And so many companies are making the mistake of AI is now our strategy. That is not our strategy. but as you say, United Airlines is still an airline, first and foremost. You are still a learning and management company, first and foremost. You’re just bringing AI in to make the workflows better for your customers.

I don’t think so many of us are missing that. Let me ask you one more question before we move on to a quick flight round. What do you see is your biggest challenge as a CEO, as an individual maybe moving forward? Like what is the biggest challenge you see on the horizon here?

KIMBERLY:

I think in general I think you need to think about as a CEO what are the things that are gonna be done differently in the future. So if you go back, I’m gonna kinda go back to the internet because I lived through that. My husband laughs. He’s like, my gosh, feels like you’re always on the frontier of all these new technology things. But the internet really changed marketing.

So marketing, you know, used to be, well, I know it works, I’m just not sure where it works or how it works. and it has really changed with digital marketing and the measurement ability and and the ability to track, you know, kind of your sales funnel in a really different way. and so you have to think about what is what where is AI potentially going to impact your business, right? And so I think about it all the way from how AI will change the go-to-market motion of companies. So I’ll give you an example. Historically, an outbound sales approach doesn’t work very well in a low or medium-sized average contract value. So it’s expensive and so you tend to use that motion when you’re selling a hundred thousand plus type deals. You don’t typically use it for a $25 to $50,000 deal. And that’s where when you look at the kind of that mid-mark or mid-average contract value, you see a lot of digital marketing that’s used to acquire customers that then feed to an inside sales group. And you know, AI has the potential to change that, you know, where you can actually use an agentic BDR approach, outbound approach to generate the opportunity, and then and so instead of digital marketing generating the opportunity you’re using kind of an agentic outbound. and so identifying for your business how AI could impact very aspects of it and then making sure you’re testing it, right? So like when we when I kind of recognized  this could really change this mid market or mid deal size approach, you know, we spun up a team that sits outside the business that’s just testing a gentic outbound. So I think it’s you know that would be an example of you know you when you’re thinking about your business as a CEO and iBusiness, I think about okay, what are the things that are really important to us? And it’s really easy to get drawn into you can use AI to automate support as an example. But saving one percent of our costs or whatever it is is not gonna make us a great company. Now, if I could think about how to use AI to hold the hand of the customer to build amazing training programs, that would be different, right? So I think every CEO is a little different in terms of what they have to think about. But again, I’d say you don’t wanna focus on You have a limited capacity to do projects. So focus on the things that really have the opportunity to make your company great, not just like a teeny bit more profitable, I guess is what I’d say. Yeah.

Toni:

That’s a really great note to finish the main conversation on because I do think this is such a massive opportunity and so many people looking at it the wrong way. But let’s move on to a quick fire round before we run out of time today. So, without further ado, what is the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

KIMBERLY:

that I should drop out of my engineering track in college. so it kind of goes to your comment about the one negative thing somebody could say to you. But I had a major in chemical engineering. And honestly, maybe that wasn’t a good thing for me to major in anyway, but when I think about why I left the track, I think that’s where it became a little bit more like I got a little pit in my stomach. But my calculus teacher in college, which just so you know, I got A’s, I was really like I’m a nerd, a math nerd. I love math, I’ve always loved math. And he convinced me that I wasn’t gonna succeed, that

Once I got into chemical engineering and physic PCM, it was just gonna be too difficult mathematically for me. And somehow I believed him. Like and I think I think about how funny that is now because

People who know me, like, I won all these math competitions. I was just like a little geek. Like I don’t I don’t know why I bought into this, right? But it’s like this again, I think people’s perception of women and what they’re good at. And so I dropped out. Yeah, it was kind of weird I didn’t drop out of college, but I moved my major. So I think that was like a bad thing that somebody said to me that was not good.

Toni:

That’s a real shame, yeah. But I mean what I was saying in that kind of situation is that that piece of advice, it put you on the path to where you were today and hopefully you grew from it. It’s just a shame that somebody thought they could say that to you. Well, let’s flip that around. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

KIMBERLY:

I think of my dad. I mean obviously I talked about my mom and she was obviously influential but I think my dad really taught me a lot about teamwork and leadership and putting your team first. As you know, the foremost important thing is what you need to do in life. That is, it isn’t all about you and it’s about the team. and it was funny, I went to my uncle’s memorial service and they were telling a story about my dad’s brother. My niece or my cousin played basketball and his her dad was the scorekeeper and she was a great basketball player. She wanted to play in college and it’s great. But she went up to her dad and said, Hey , how many points did I have?

And he said to her, it doesn’t matter. It’s a team sport. If you want individual praise, go play tennis. And I laughed because that’s a lot my dad. The story could have been about my dad. And so I think that was a great piece of advice. And I think I remember

Specifically, we were going into my senior year of high school, and we had a good basketball team, and I was a good basketball player myself, and realized like we were kind of one short, probably of having a great team. And my dad said, Okay, this person on the team, we need them to step up. Why don’t you ask them to go to camp with you in the summer? And and so it was about how do you

make other people perform better so you as a team can perform better and I think it was just a good life lesson for me. And you know, generally, I mean you know this, right? Like CEOs really don’t. I don’t wanna say we don’t do anything, but we don’t sell customers, we don’t retain service to them, we don’t write code typically. Like we’re we all we do is pick people who can do those things, give them the tools they need and an environment to succeed, right? And I think that lesson was something my dad really instilled in me early. I would

Also, say, you know, here’s a really good story. I love this one. So, my really good friend growing up was Judd Heathcote’s daughter, and Judd Heathcote was the basketball coach of Michigan State. And we were watching a press conference together after this team won.

I guess it was like before the final four. So they had made it to the final four and they were doing this pre-tournament interview with this coach. And he told the coach of that team that he asked the team after they won the Elite Eight game, Do you want to go back to campus or do you want to go on to wherever the final four was? And one of the kids raised his hand and said  I’d like to go back to campus because I’ve got this test and whatever. And the coach said, and he and this is funny because he said this in a press conference, he said, you don’t get a vote, you don’t start, you don’t play, you don’t get a vote. And Mr. Heathcote literally turned off the TV and he sat us down and he said, I really disagree with that if you are any member of a team, if that is, you know, the water person, the trainer, it doesn’t matter if you are on the floor to produce that victory. You are part of the team’s success. And you need to treat everybody as an instrumental part of that success. And I think that also like really I still think about that. And he was a great person. I think having people in your life he was a great coach and I think having people in your life even peripherally to talk about how to lead and how to build teams was super helpful to me.

Toni:

I love that story so much. This has been a wonderful episode, Kimberly. Where can we find out more about you and absorb online? Where can we find you?

KIMBERLY:

Yeah, so you can find more about absorb at absorb lms.com and you can find me on LinkedIn as Kimberly Dolan Williams because Kimberly Williams is a very common name, but Kimberly Dolan Williams is not so much, so you can find me that way.

Toni:

In fact, we have to find the uniqueness in the online world these days. This has just been one of those conversations where I wish more of us would recognize the value of what it takes to become a CEO. Not just because you get to be a CEO, but all the lessons you have along the way. That’s what I really feel like Kimberly has brought today is it isn’t just that she’s had those negative comments but she turned them into ammunition for movement. She’s recognized that part of her success is

Owning the metrics in her career. It’s something I talk about every single day with my clients. It’s like, what are you delivering for the business? What are the metrics? Do you know what the metrics are? If not, you define them, get agreement from your boss. But even today, it sounds like Kimberly gets that as CEO as well, but it got her to being a CEO. The support from Kimberly’s network has been so incredible. I know not all of you listening have that network, but you can build it. Yes, you might not have the perfect spouse. That’s okay, by the way.

I would say a huge part of my support network is the network that I have invested in by surrounding myself with, particularly women, because hey, I’m the woman that coaches women, so I surround myself with women as well. But I surround myself with women who I admire, I want to be, and I can support, and they support me back. I get to choose that network. You get to choose your network as well. And the final thing I want to leave you all with as a takeaway from Kimberly today: don’t be afraid to ask for advice.

You don’t have to do this in a silo on your own. You don’t have all the answers. Having humility doesn’t make you less successful. It makes you more successful. And that is part of what Kimley was getting at there with the teamwork piece. You can be more successful because of the team around you. That starts with being open to asking for advice. It doesn’t mean you have to take their advice. I always tell my clients, have mentors. Have me as your coach, but have mentors.

But you get to take all the different pieces of advice and then decide your own way forward. You don’t have to take advice, but advice gives you value even if you disagree with it. So thank you to Kimberly. Thank you to Absorb for making this episode happen. I really appreciate every single one of you listening. Until next time, keep being awesome. And let’s make one of you this week a CEO by taking all everything Kimberly has said, following some of her tidbits of advice, but making your own path forward. Bye for now.