WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.240 You know, there's a specific lie that I think 00:00:02.240 --> 00:00:04.299 most of us were told, maybe around age five. 00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:06.700 Oh, yeah. It's a really comforting lie, usually 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:09.199 from a teacher or a parent. And it goes something 00:00:09.199 --> 00:00:12.580 like this. If you just keep your head down, you 00:00:12.580 --> 00:00:15.580 follow the rules and you get straight A's, then 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:18.239 success is basically a mathematical guarantee. 00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:21.640 Ah, the old myth of the meritocracy. Exactly. 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:24.280 The idea that a career is like a vending machine. 00:00:24.539 --> 00:00:26.620 You put in the hard work coin, you press the 00:00:26.620 --> 00:00:28.820 button. And out comes the promotion. Out comes 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:31.440 the promotion snack. And honestly, it is just 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:33.820 exhausting to keep believing that, because then 00:00:33.820 --> 00:00:36.259 you hit the actual workforce, especially the 00:00:36.259 --> 00:00:38.799 corporate world, and you realize, oh, the vending 00:00:38.799 --> 00:00:41.520 machine is broken. You see these brilliant engineers 00:00:41.520 --> 00:00:44.020 or analysts, and they're stalling out in middle 00:00:44.020 --> 00:00:47.020 management, while other people who maybe aren't 00:00:47.020 --> 00:00:49.320 as technically gifted, they just seem to glide 00:00:49.320 --> 00:00:51.240 up the org chart. It's incredibly frustrating. 00:00:51.560 --> 00:00:54.039 I mean, it feels unfair, or at the very least 00:00:54.039 --> 00:00:58.119 illogical. But today's deep dive is really about 00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:01.259 debugging that exact error. We're looking at 00:01:01.259 --> 00:01:03.799 a fascinating talk and the career path of Judy 00:01:03.799 --> 00:01:05.819 Dinn. And for anyone who doesn't know the name, 00:01:06.219 --> 00:01:09.909 Dinn is a huge figure in fintech. She is currently 00:01:09.909 --> 00:01:12.969 the Chief Information Officer at TD Bank, America's 00:01:12.969 --> 00:01:15.930 most convenient bank. But what I love about her 00:01:15.930 --> 00:01:18.269 profile is that she's not a career administrator. 00:01:18.409 --> 00:01:21.230 She is a hardcore technologist. That's such a 00:01:21.230 --> 00:01:23.810 crucial distinction. She's a University of Waterloo 00:01:23.810 --> 00:01:26.829 grad that's math and computer science. For context, 00:01:27.329 --> 00:01:29.689 Waterloo is basically the MIT of the North for 00:01:29.689 --> 00:01:32.090 engineering. Oh, absolutely. She speaks the language 00:01:32.090 --> 00:01:35.909 of cloud computing, of APIs, microservices. She's 00:01:35.909 --> 00:01:39.129 built systems at JPMorgan Chase. multiple top 00:01:39.129 --> 00:01:41.390 -tier Canadian banks. Which is why her advice 00:01:41.390 --> 00:01:44.109 just, you know, hits differently for me. She's 00:01:44.109 --> 00:01:46.769 not an HR consultant telling engineers to be 00:01:46.769 --> 00:01:49.150 nicer. She's an engineer telling other engineers 00:01:49.150 --> 00:01:51.790 why their code by itself is not going to get 00:01:51.790 --> 00:01:54.329 them promoted. Precisely. We're going to unpack 00:01:54.329 --> 00:01:56.370 what she calls her three pillars of success. 00:01:57.049 --> 00:02:00.640 Diversity, empathy, and balance. And I know hearing 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:03.019 those words might make you think of like a generic 00:02:03.019 --> 00:02:04.980 corporate poster in a break room. The hang in 00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:08.939 there kitty poster. Right. But the way she operationalizes 00:02:08.939 --> 00:02:12.379 them is genuinely surprising. This isn't fluff. 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:15.000 It is a strategic playbook. We're going to look 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.580 at the safety cycle in meetings, why work -life 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:19.960 balance is a dangerous math problem, and the 00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:22.439 missing sentence in the whole equation for success. 00:02:22.620 --> 00:02:24.979 That missing sentence, I think, is the key to 00:02:24.979 --> 00:02:27.759 the entire thing. But let's start with her first 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:31.550 pillar. Diversity. Now usually when executives 00:02:31.550 --> 00:02:33.590 talk about diversity they go straight to hiring 00:02:33.590 --> 00:02:36.710 stats or quotas. Din comes at this from a psychological 00:02:36.710 --> 00:02:40.490 angle first and specifically she focuses on insecurity. 00:02:41.030 --> 00:02:42.550 She drops a truth bomb right at the start of 00:02:42.550 --> 00:02:45.909 her talk she says, everyone is insecure. Everyone. 00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:48.509 Everyone. And she doesn't just mean the interns 00:02:48.509 --> 00:02:51.830 or the new hires. She means the CIO, the VP, 00:02:52.150 --> 00:02:53.909 the loudest, most confident person in the room. 00:02:54.009 --> 00:02:55.810 That is really hard to believe when you're sitting 00:02:55.810 --> 00:02:57.669 across from someone who seems to have all the 00:02:57.669 --> 00:03:00.569 answers. It is. But Dinn argues that even the 00:03:00.569 --> 00:03:03.150 most assertive leaders are often battling some 00:03:03.150 --> 00:03:05.849 form of imposter syndrome, that nagging fear 00:03:05.849 --> 00:03:07.990 that they're about to be found out. And she brings 00:03:07.990 --> 00:03:10.569 this up to just level the playing field. So the 00:03:10.569 --> 00:03:13.229 idea is, if you're sitting in a meeting feeling 00:03:13.229 --> 00:03:15.939 like you don't belong, Statistically, the person 00:03:15.939 --> 00:03:18.240 running the meeting feels a version of that too. 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:22.039 So if everyone is scared, how does anything get 00:03:22.039 --> 00:03:24.080 done? It feels like that would just lead to paralysis. 00:03:24.419 --> 00:03:26.379 This is where she introduces the concept of the 00:03:26.379 --> 00:03:29.400 safety cycle. It's a feedback loop. Her premise 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:32.340 is that feeling included actually reduces your 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:35.620 anxiety. When your anxiety drops, you feel safe 00:03:35.620 --> 00:03:37.919 enough to participate. And then the participation 00:03:37.919 --> 00:03:40.139 itself creates even more safety. Correct. It 00:03:40.139 --> 00:03:42.740 reinforces itself. But the inverse is where it 00:03:42.740 --> 00:03:45.139 gets really dangerous for a company. If you don't 00:03:45.139 --> 00:03:47.900 feel included, you stay silent. And in Din's 00:03:47.900 --> 00:03:51.000 view, silence isn't just neutral, it's value 00:03:51.000 --> 00:03:54.259 destruction. Wow, that's a heavy statement. Value 00:03:54.259 --> 00:03:56.219 destruction. Well, think about it. It's the reality 00:03:56.219 --> 00:03:58.860 of a technical organization, right? If you're 00:03:58.860 --> 00:04:01.580 an engineer and you have a specific insight on 00:04:01.580 --> 00:04:04.699 a piece of code or you've spotted a risk in a 00:04:04.699 --> 00:04:06.840 project plan and you don't speak up because you're 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:08.639 insecure. Then you might as well not be there. 00:04:08.939 --> 00:04:11.259 Your value to the organization in that moment 00:04:11.259 --> 00:04:14.530 is effectively zero. You become invisible. And 00:04:14.530 --> 00:04:17.790 invisibility leads to career stagnation. So inclusion 00:04:17.790 --> 00:04:20.329 isn't just some nice -to -have moral victory. 00:04:20.750 --> 00:04:23.569 It's an efficiency mechanism. It is an optimization 00:04:23.569 --> 00:04:26.209 of human capital. If you aren't hearing from 00:04:26.209 --> 00:04:28.410 everyone in the room, you are not getting the 00:04:28.410 --> 00:04:30.790 full brain power that you are paying for. OK, 00:04:30.889 --> 00:04:33.970 but just telling someone who is anxious to speak 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:36.870 up is terrible advice. It is. It's like telling 00:04:36.870 --> 00:04:40.120 someone with insomnia to just sleep. But Din 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:42.379 actually gets cactical here, which I really appreciated. 00:04:42.500 --> 00:04:45.040 She has a playbook for the actual mechanics of 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:47.779 a meeting. She does. And she targets two groups, 00:04:48.540 --> 00:04:50.819 the leaders and the participants. Yeah. For leaders, 00:04:50.899 --> 00:04:53.680 her advice is pretty blunt. Stop talking. Ah, 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:56.019 the smartest person in the room syndrome. Exactly. 00:04:56.339 --> 00:04:58.680 If you're leading, your job isn't to prove you 00:04:58.680 --> 00:05:01.800 know the answer. Your job is to facilitate, to 00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:05.480 draw out the quiet voices. But for the participants... 00:05:05.500 --> 00:05:07.839 especially those from underrepresented groups, 00:05:08.379 --> 00:05:10.899 she suggests what she calls the buddy system. 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:13.319 This is basically the wingman concept applied 00:05:13.319 --> 00:05:16.839 to corporate strategy. It really is. So before 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:19.879 a high stakes meeting, you find a confidant, 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:22.819 someone you trust. You agree to debrief afterwards. 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:25.199 You can ask, hey, did I sound crazy when I said 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:27.720 that? Or did you notice that Mike cut me off 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.779 three times? It validates your reality. It stops 00:05:30.779 --> 00:05:33.060 the gaslighting. It keeps you from spiraling 00:05:33.060 --> 00:05:35.379 into that maybe I don't belong here mindset. 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:38.100 But then she goes a step further with something 00:05:38.100 --> 00:05:41.620 called attribution. I love this one. I love this 00:05:41.620 --> 00:05:43.519 one because I've seen the problem a thousand 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:46.740 times. The idea heist. We all have. A junior 00:05:46.740 --> 00:05:49.060 employee, often a woman or a person of color, 00:05:49.379 --> 00:05:52.480 suggests a solution. Crickets. Silence. Nothing. 00:05:53.060 --> 00:05:55.939 Five minutes later, Bob suggests the exact same 00:05:55.939 --> 00:05:58.279 thing, and the room just explodes with applause. 00:05:58.439 --> 00:06:00.879 Great job, Bob. You really cracked the code. 00:06:01.180 --> 00:06:03.480 Din's advice is, be the person who corrects the 00:06:03.480 --> 00:06:04.860 record. You don't have to be aggressive about 00:06:04.860 --> 00:06:06.160 it. You don't have to start a fight. You just 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:08.740 say, actually, Brenda made that point five minutes 00:06:08.740 --> 00:06:11.420 ago, and I agree. It's the right move. That is 00:06:11.420 --> 00:06:14.660 a power move. It's allyship, sure, but it's also 00:06:14.660 --> 00:06:17.439 leadership. You are policing the integrity of 00:06:17.439 --> 00:06:20.839 the conversation. And that's why Din says inclusion. 00:06:20.910 --> 00:06:24.709 is a more critical metric than diversity. Diversity 00:06:24.709 --> 00:06:27.750 is just the stats. It's who's in the room. Inclusion 00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:30.610 is the mechanic. It's the attribution, the buddy 00:06:30.610 --> 00:06:33.389 system, the facilitation that actually makes 00:06:33.389 --> 00:06:35.509 the diversity work. Right. Without the mechanics, 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:37.410 you just have a diverse group of people sitting 00:06:37.410 --> 00:06:40.069 there in silence. Exactly. But you can't have 00:06:40.069 --> 00:06:42.050 a diverse room if the people don't exist in the 00:06:42.050 --> 00:06:44.889 industry to begin with. And DIN addresses the 00:06:44.889 --> 00:06:49.079 pipeline problem in tech. Frankly, a lot of executives 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:51.240 use this as an excuse. They say, we'd love to 00:06:51.240 --> 00:06:53.660 hire more women coders, but, you know, there 00:06:53.660 --> 00:06:56.459 aren't any graduating. Dinn acknowledges the 00:06:56.459 --> 00:07:00.019 reality. The numbers are low. But she rejects 00:07:00.019 --> 00:07:02.300 the passivity of that statement. She treats it 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:04.360 like a supply chain problem. If you don't have 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:06.540 the materials you need, you have to go upstream 00:07:06.540 --> 00:07:08.620 and manufacture them yourself. Which is what 00:07:08.620 --> 00:07:11.100 led her to co -founding Think About Math with 00:07:11.100 --> 00:07:13.740 the University of Waterloo. Right. She identified 00:07:13.740 --> 00:07:16.170 the bottleneck. It wasn't at university hiring. 00:07:16.310 --> 00:07:18.990 It was in high school. Specifically, high school 00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:21.689 girls who are on the verge of graduation. That's 00:07:21.689 --> 00:07:24.089 where the drop -off happens. They opt out of 00:07:24.089 --> 00:07:26.850 advanced math because they just don't see themselves 00:07:26.850 --> 00:07:28.870 in that world. So she didn't just start a scholarship. 00:07:28.970 --> 00:07:31.930 She built a community. That's the key word, community. 00:07:32.430 --> 00:07:34.509 The program isn't just tutoring. It brings these 00:07:34.509 --> 00:07:36.629 girls together to show them, look, there are 00:07:36.629 --> 00:07:38.730 hundreds of other girls just like you who love 00:07:38.730 --> 00:07:42.029 calculus. It normalizes their passion. It goes 00:07:42.029 --> 00:07:44.339 right back to that safety cycle again. If you 00:07:44.339 --> 00:07:46.980 see your tribe, you feel safe enough to pursue 00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:49.459 the career. And it works. This program has been 00:07:49.459 --> 00:07:52.000 running for over a decade now, and the enrollment 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:56.240 of women in STEM at Waterloo has measurably increased. 00:07:56.740 --> 00:07:58.819 She proved that you can build your own pipeline 00:07:58.819 --> 00:08:00.959 if you start early enough. And just to put a 00:08:00.959 --> 00:08:02.660 cap on this diversity pillar, she's very clear 00:08:02.660 --> 00:08:05.980 this is not charity work. No. She cites research 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:08.860 from catalysts. Diverse teams just perform better 00:08:08.860 --> 00:08:11.740 financially. They innovate faster. Din's a CIO. 00:08:12.160 --> 00:08:15.060 She cares about output. She sees diversity as 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:17.740 a competitive advantage, not a PR requirement. 00:08:18.019 --> 00:08:21.600 Which brings us to pillar two, empathy. And this 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:23.199 is where we get back to that missing sentence 00:08:23.199 --> 00:08:25.980 we teased at the top. Right. So going back to 00:08:25.980 --> 00:08:29.259 that kindergarten line, the standard advice is 00:08:29.259 --> 00:08:33.019 work hard, be smart, get the credentials. Din 00:08:33.019 --> 00:08:35.879 says that sentence is incomplete. The full sentence 00:08:35.879 --> 00:08:39.559 should be work hard, be smart, and build relationships. 00:08:39.850 --> 00:08:43.450 That sounds a little soft. Build relationships. 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:45.470 It sounds like something you say at a mixer while 00:08:45.470 --> 00:08:47.830 holding a lukewarm sparkling water. It does, 00:08:48.029 --> 00:08:50.049 until you look at her promotion reality check. 00:08:50.950 --> 00:08:52.549 This part actually scared me a little when I 00:08:52.549 --> 00:08:54.830 read it. OK, walk us through it. So picture a 00:08:54.830 --> 00:08:57.169 promotion meeting. You aren't in the room. Your 00:08:57.169 --> 00:09:00.419 boss is there. along with, say, five other department 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:03.480 heads or VPs. Your boss puts your name forward 00:09:03.480 --> 00:09:05.759 for a step up. OK, I've done the work. My code 00:09:05.759 --> 00:09:08.539 is clean. I hit my deadlines. I'm ready. Doesn't 00:09:08.539 --> 00:09:11.259 matter yet. Your boss asks the other five leaders, 00:09:11.519 --> 00:09:13.700 so what do you all think of them? And if the 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:16.600 room goes silent, or if they say, I don't really 00:09:16.600 --> 00:09:20.559 know them, you are dead in the water. So my merit 00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:23.919 isn't enough. Merit gets you on the list. Relationships 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:26.759 get you the vote. Promotions are a consensus 00:09:26.759 --> 00:09:29.720 game. If you are invisible to everyone except 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:32.240 your direct manager, you're a risky bet. You 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:34.059 need a room full of people nodding their heads, 00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:36.779 not just one person. So how do you get them nodding? 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:39.500 This is where empathy comes in as a tactic. Din 00:09:39.500 --> 00:09:42.379 doesn't define empathy as, you know, crying with 00:09:42.379 --> 00:09:45.440 your co -workers or being a therapist. No. She 00:09:45.440 --> 00:09:47.840 defines it as the mechanism for being known. 00:09:48.559 --> 00:09:51.759 And she suggests a tactic that I honestly struggled 00:09:51.759 --> 00:09:54.240 with at first, the check -in. This is the idea 00:09:54.240 --> 00:09:56.500 of starting every meeting with personal conversation. 00:09:56.779 --> 00:09:59.419 Every single one. Even the crisis meetings. Even 00:09:59.419 --> 00:10:01.240 the budget reviews. How are the kids? Did you 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.220 run that 5K? How's the renovation going? I have 00:10:04.220 --> 00:10:06.320 to play devil's advocate here. If I have a 30 00:10:06.320 --> 00:10:08.539 -minute standup and we spend 20 minutes talking 00:10:08.539 --> 00:10:11.659 about kitchen renovations, isn't that inefficient? 00:10:11.779 --> 00:10:14.419 We're burning payroll. That sounds like bad management. 00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:16.639 That was my first reaction, too. Yeah. But Din 00:10:16.639 --> 00:10:18.940 argues that you are looking at the ROI of the 00:10:18.940 --> 00:10:21.519 meeting, not the ROI of the relationship. Explain 00:10:21.519 --> 00:10:23.799 that difference. If I spend those 20 minutes 00:10:23.799 --> 00:10:26.059 connecting with you as a human, I'm building 00:10:26.059 --> 00:10:29.539 social capital. Later, when I need you to approve 00:10:29.539 --> 00:10:32.039 a risky budget or when I need your team to work 00:10:32.039 --> 00:10:34.980 late or, look, when I screw up and I need forgiveness, 00:10:35.419 --> 00:10:38.399 you're going to say yes because you know me. 00:10:38.419 --> 00:10:41.340 You trust my intent. It removes friction from 00:10:41.340 --> 00:10:44.460 the actual work. Exactly. If you skip the empathy, 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:47.480 every single transaction is cold. If I don't 00:10:47.480 --> 00:10:50.139 know you and you bring me a problem, I might 00:10:50.139 --> 00:10:52.450 assume you're annoying or incompetent. If I know 00:10:52.450 --> 00:10:55.289 you, I assume you have positive intent. Empathy 00:10:55.289 --> 00:10:57.970 buys you the benefit of the doubt. And in a massive 00:10:57.970 --> 00:11:00.230 organization like a bank, the benefit of doubt 00:11:00.230 --> 00:11:02.350 is the most valuable currency there is. So the 00:11:02.350 --> 00:11:04.529 20 minutes isn't wasted time. It's an investment 00:11:04.529 --> 00:11:07.350 in future speed. It's grease for the gears. Without 00:11:07.350 --> 00:11:09.809 it, the machine just grinds to a halt. That's 00:11:09.809 --> 00:11:12.009 a really compelling reframing. It turns small 00:11:12.009 --> 00:11:14.490 talk into strategy. OK, let's move to the third 00:11:14.490 --> 00:11:16.809 pillar, balance. This is the one everyone claims 00:11:16.809 --> 00:11:18.649 to want, but nobody seems to know how to get. 00:11:19.200 --> 00:11:21.700 And Din explicitly states that she hates the 00:11:21.700 --> 00:11:24.559 question, how do you achieve work -life balance? 00:11:24.919 --> 00:11:26.820 Why? Is it because she doesn't believe in it? 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:29.899 No, not at all. It's because the question implies 00:11:29.899 --> 00:11:31.879 there's a formula. Right. It implies there's 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:34.879 a white answer, where you can solve for X. You 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:39.840 know, 33 % work, 33 % family, 33 % sleep. And 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:41.960 she says that's just nonsense. Total nonsense. 00:11:42.740 --> 00:11:45.320 She argues that balance is dynamic. It changes 00:11:45.320 --> 00:11:48.340 based on your life stage. When she was fresh 00:11:48.340 --> 00:11:51.139 out of Waterloo, maybe balance was 90 % work 00:11:51.139 --> 00:11:53.340 because she was building her foundation. When 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:56.240 she had kids, the whole equation broke. She shared 00:11:56.240 --> 00:11:58.580 a pretty vulnerable story about burning out during 00:11:58.580 --> 00:12:01.019 that time. She did. She completely hit a wall. 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:04.399 And what she did next is so fascinating. She 00:12:04.399 --> 00:12:07.200 didn't just take a nap or a week off. She trained 00:12:07.200 --> 00:12:09.379 to become a nutritionist and a yoga teacher. 00:12:09.539 --> 00:12:11.620 While working in banking. While working in high 00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:13.379 finance, yes. That seems counterintuitive. I'm 00:12:13.379 --> 00:12:15.139 tired, so I'm going to take on more work. But 00:12:15.139 --> 00:12:16.799 it was different work. It was using a totally 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:19.059 different part of her brain. And this leads to 00:12:19.059 --> 00:12:21.860 her disconnect rule. She realized that when you're 00:12:21.860 --> 00:12:24.879 grinding on a single problem to 147, you lose 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:27.700 all objectivity. You get intense, but you stop 00:12:27.700 --> 00:12:29.940 being smart. You lose the forest for the trees. 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:33.019 Exactly. Stepping away, whether to teach yoga 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:36.059 or just go on a real vacation, it resets your 00:12:36.059 --> 00:12:38.419 strategic vision. She actually forces her team 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:42.240 to disconnect. No emails on vacation. Period. 00:12:42.379 --> 00:12:44.779 That requires a lot of trust in your team to 00:12:44.779 --> 00:12:47.549 handle things while you're gone. It does. But 00:12:47.549 --> 00:12:49.970 she says if you don't disconnect, you get lost 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:52.629 in the conversation. You become reactive instead 00:12:52.629 --> 00:12:55.070 of proactive. You're just swatting away emails 00:12:55.070 --> 00:12:56.830 instead of actually thinking about architecture. 00:12:57.110 --> 00:12:59.850 But here's the hard part. Judy Dinn is the CIO. 00:13:00.149 --> 00:13:02.889 She gets to set the rules. What if you're a mid 00:13:02.889 --> 00:13:05.330 -level manager and your boss is not Judy Dinn? 00:13:05.490 --> 00:13:08.110 What if your boss demands you be online at 10 00:13:08.110 --> 00:13:10.669 p .m.? Din addresses this with what she calls 00:13:10.669 --> 00:13:13.409 managing up, but it comes with a dose of tough 00:13:13.409 --> 00:13:15.690 love. Okay. You have to be transparent. You have 00:13:15.690 --> 00:13:17.889 to say, look, I am in a life stage where I have 00:13:17.889 --> 00:13:20.909 a toddler. I cannot be online at 6 p .m. And 00:13:20.909 --> 00:13:23.289 if the boss says too bad, then you have to have 00:13:23.289 --> 00:13:27.750 the courage to leave. Well, walk away. She frames 00:13:27.750 --> 00:13:31.830 it as a detour, not a dead end. If a role cannot 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:33.990 accommodate your current life stage, it is the 00:13:33.990 --> 00:13:36.250 wrong role for right now. It doesn't mean you're 00:13:36.250 --> 00:13:38.659 not ambitious. It means you're playing the long 00:13:38.659 --> 00:13:41.600 game. That's scary advice. It is. But staying 00:13:41.600 --> 00:13:44.159 in a role that destroys your home life is scarier. 00:13:44.740 --> 00:13:47.679 She emphasizes that careers are 30 or 40 years 00:13:47.679 --> 00:13:50.740 long. You can take a lateral move or a slower 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:52.940 pace role for three years and then ramp back 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:55.139 up when the kids are in school. That isn't failure. 00:13:55.220 --> 00:13:58.240 It's just pacing. So to recap the playbook here, 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:01.179 we have three pillars that are actually strategies. 00:14:01.259 --> 00:14:04.139 Pillar one, diversity via participation, the 00:14:04.139 --> 00:14:06.250 safety cycle. You have to speak up to be safe, 00:14:06.570 --> 00:14:08.669 and you have to create safety for others. Use 00:14:08.669 --> 00:14:11.610 the buddy system. Use attribution. Pillar two. 00:14:12.070 --> 00:14:14.710 Empathy as currency. It's not about being nice. 00:14:14.730 --> 00:14:16.950 It's about making sure you are known by the jury 00:14:16.950 --> 00:14:19.570 that decides your promotion. That 20 -minute 00:14:19.570 --> 00:14:22.529 chat is a strategic investment. And pillar three. 00:14:23.029 --> 00:14:25.450 Balance is a dynamic state. Define it for yourself. 00:14:25.690 --> 00:14:28.110 Don't apologize for it. And realize that stepping 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:29.970 away actually makes you a better strategist when 00:14:29.970 --> 00:14:32.610 you return. It's a powerful reframing of what 00:14:32.610 --> 00:14:35.149 it means to be a heavy hitter. It's less about 00:14:35.149 --> 00:14:37.210 the brute force of your own intellect and more 00:14:37.210 --> 00:14:39.509 about the ecosystem you build around yourself. 00:14:40.049 --> 00:14:41.990 Absolutely. The Keep Your Head Down and Work 00:14:41.990 --> 00:14:45.669 Hard strategy is basically a solitary confinement 00:14:45.669 --> 00:14:48.830 cell. DIN's strategy is all about leveraging 00:14:48.830 --> 00:14:52.509 your team, your relationships, and your own mental 00:14:52.509 --> 00:14:55.730 energy. We want to leave you with a final thought, 00:14:55.889 --> 00:14:58.769 something to test DIN's missing sentence in your 00:14:58.769 --> 00:15:01.850 own life. Right. Think about that promotion meeting 00:15:01.850 --> 00:15:05.190 we described. If your name came up today, right 00:15:05.190 --> 00:15:08.129 now, and your manager asked your peers about 00:15:08.129 --> 00:15:11.370 you, would they have a story to tell? Would they 00:15:11.370 --> 00:15:13.129 say, oh, I was just talking to them about their 00:15:13.129 --> 00:15:15.149 marathon training, or, you know, they really 00:15:15.149 --> 00:15:16.769 helped me out with that project last week? Or 00:15:16.769 --> 00:15:18.210 would they just say, I don't know, they seem 00:15:18.210 --> 00:15:20.750 to work hard? If it's the latter, you are in 00:15:20.750 --> 00:15:23.490 the danger zone. You are. So here's your homework. 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:26.120 In your next meeting, just try the check -in. 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:28.419 Spend the first five minutes just being a human 00:15:28.419 --> 00:15:31.299 being. It might feel awkward, it might feel inefficient, 00:15:31.980 --> 00:15:33.940 but see if it changes the energy in the room. 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.500 You might be surprised at how much faster the 00:15:36.500 --> 00:15:39.620 actual work gets done after that. That's it for 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:41.960 this deep dive. Thanks for listening. Take care.