Women in Leadership: Lessons from Deloitte Executive Chair

Janet Foutty: From a scale perspective, about 120,000 people, $22 billion in revenue. We do continue to operate as a private partnership. We're the largest private partnership in the world.

About Janet Foutty, Executive Chair of Deloitte

Michael Krigsman: We're speaking with Janet Foutty. She is the executive chair of Deloitte. Janet, you wrote this book. It's called Arrive and Thrive. Do you have a copy of it? Would you hold it up so we can take a look?

Janet Foutty: Here it is.

Michael Krigsman: What's the focus of the book, and why did you write that book?

Janet Foutty: Women leaders, for far too long, have focused on survival. We really wanted surviving as a leader to be the floor, not the ceiling. There's a lot that's been written on how do you get there and how do you survive when you get there. We wanted to focus on thriving.

Over half of the women graduating from university in this country transition into a career in business. Less than a quarter of mid-level managers are women. That number shrinks even further with each rung of the corporate ladder.

Women get there, but then they turn over. So, we wanted to create the space for women to have honest conversations and practical advice on how not just to get there but, once they're there, how to be successful.

Let me talk about the collaboration a little bit if I could. The book stems from a long collaboration between Deloitte and Simmons University, focused on inclusion and women's advancement.

Susan MacKenty Brady (who is the CEO of Simmons Inclusive Leadership Institute), Dr. Lynn Perry Wooten (who is the president of the University), and I came together. We were a little bit of a blind date, an arranged marriage. We did not know each other beforehand.

We came from really different backgrounds. Susan is a leadership coach, Lynn is a very accomplished academic, and I'm the business executive.

The three of us came together and thought about how would we help women think about thriving when we get there, and that is the genesis of the book.

We really quickly coalesced around the seven practices that make up the book, despite us coming from very different backgrounds. The book is really all about not trying to prescribe one path to success or one way to get there, but lots of advice from a really diverse group of leaders all of whom have put their strategies to the test and learned what works well and what maybe works less well.

That's the heart of how the book came to be and a little bit about what it's about.

What are key skills for female business executives?

Michael Krigsman: What are the kinds of skills that you found to be necessary? Maybe you can weave in the book themes as well, as you describe that.

Janet Foutty: It's funny. When I think about talking about what are the most important attributes to leading a large organization, it's going to sound really like common sense, and things that I would guess that all listeners today will really resonate with them. They're really fundamental:

• The ability to listen well
• To connect the dots
• To build a strong, diverse leadership team
• And to communicate clearly in a wide variety of settings.

Those four things really are, in my perspective, the heart of the matter when you think about the impactful practices that we talk about in the book:

• Creating a healthy team environment
• Inspiring a bold vision (which I hope we get to spend more time on that one today)
• Embracing authenticity
• Committing to the work of an inclusive leader

Those all fit in this heart of listening: connecting the dots; building a strong, broad team; and, I think, often one of the greatest challenges, is how you communicate clearly in a wide variety of settings.

Michael Krigsman: What you've just described, as you said, on some level, we all know this, at least in theory. Yet, it's so difficult. Why is it so hard to put these lessons into practice?

Janet Foutty: I think, a couple of things. One is that the rate of change that comes at us, as individuals and as organizations, it's sometimes easy to lose focus on the fundaments. You get so caught up in the swirl or the drama or the topic of the moment that focusing on those fundaments is critical.

We talked so much in the last few years about lifelong learning, a student for life, and learning being the most important thing. Those things that I talked about, which you could view as really straightforward, I think really require investment.

I'll just pick on the communication theme for a moment. When I continue as a leader with now 30 years of experience under my belt, I absolutely know that I have to keep working on my writing skills, my communication skills in a wide variety of settings. It's not anything that I take for granted when I think about how to lead inclusively.

I have learned so much over the last sets of years in and around the things you have to do well to be an inclusive leader. I think some of it is that we get caught up in the drama of the moment, Michael, and some of it is that you really have to keep focusing on the basics and the fundamentals to do them really well.

Michael Krigsman: There's this notion of execution. Would it be correct to say then that what you're describing in the book is kind of a set of not theories so much as practical lessons that you've learned? But then the question is, how does one execute against that in a very practical way because that's where the results will happen?

Janet Foutty: What we've tried to assemble is a set of stories – because I like to tell stories and I like to hear other people's stories – so stories that might resonate. But then lots of tools, methods, lists – I'm a list person and I like lists – so very practical things that people can use to help them get better at each of these practices.

You gave me a really good bridge to something I think is really important and that my coauthor Lynn says a lot is that you don't just arrive once and thrive (in your moment of arrival) over the course of your career.

I can think about dozens of moments where I felt that I'd arrived. I had to really invest in how I thrived. Then I got the opportunity to move on and do something else, which was yet another opportunity and movement to have arrived again and to continue working on how I would thrive in the environment that I found myself in.

Michael Krigsman: You make this very clear distinction between the arriving, which is all the activities, everything that's required (your education and practical experience) to get into a position. You make that distinct from what we have to do to succeed over a longer period of time. In other words, to thrive. You've used that term several times, and it's in the title of your book.

Janet Foutty: I think I probably glossed over this, but I do feel like there's so much talked about and written about, about how to get there. Some of the things that we talk about in thriving are also relevant to getting there, but this idea that you take a step back and think, "Okay, what do I need to do to be successful once I'm there?" is sort of the heart of the matter of what we feel that women were really craving conversation in and around in a very practical, very grounded, lived experience manner.

How can business leaders balance conflicting priorities?

Michael Krigsman: One of the things that I think challenges many people is the balancing of resource allocations, of conflicting priorities, of different pulls and agendas. How do you manage that in such a complex organization as Deloitte?

Janet Foutty: I grew up as a consultant and I would help my clients lead very large, very complex transformations, so I had experience in helping my clients think about how they made tradeoff decisions, both at the macro level and then also in the moment. I was able to take that learned experience to my role as leading Deloitte Consulting as the CEO of that business for a number of years.

I want to bring us to where I am in the here and now in serving as the chair of Deloitte. When the CEO and I took our roles, we took them contemporaneously. We thought that what our organization really needed was a grounding set of priorities that would help us architect the decisions that we were making (at the macro more strategic level every day) and leaders throughout the organization. As a partnership, there are decisions that are made each and every day, all throughout the organization, that they could use as a framework.

We came up with the concept of shared agenda. Those words seem really simple and intuitive, but it was really powerful for our organization. The idea was a set of shared agenda topics that were co-owned by the partners, by our leaders in the business, by the management team, and board.

That has given us an incredible frame for when we're in the moment. Obviously, a lot has come at all of us over the last set of years that certainly wasn't planned or expected for. The level of unknowns is unprecedented. This shared agenda, and this concept of us all owning the shared agenda, really helped in the millions of tradeoff decisions that we have to make every day in the details, as well as the big, large, strategic decisions.

It's withstood the test of time. We stepped into our roles in June of 2019, and certainly have had plenty of things come at us. I would say we refined the language a little bit, but the construct has really stayed strong and critical.

Michael Krigsman: That shared agenda then helps everyone through the organization make decisions based on the values, the priorities, the strategic business goals of Deloitte.

Janet Foutty: Exactly. It gives a common language and a common understanding that's certainly below what you would think of as the credo, mission, or vision that you'd see printed on the door of an organization or on a website. But took it down a level to make it a bit more actionable in the moment, to exactly your point on how you'd make the tough decisions in and around everything from investments to priorities to management focus and attention.

How to inspire a bold vision?

Michael Krigsman: One of the concepts that you describe in your book is called "Inspiring a Bold Vision." It seems like this is very much related to this shared agenda idea that you were just describing.

Janet Foutty: To be the type of leader that inspires a bold vision means that you need to be the person that wakes up in the morning with the brilliant new idea that no one has ever thought of before that came to you in the middle of the night. That's what it took to be a visionary leader. That was really intimidating to me personally, and I think held me back.

What I've come to appreciate and really understand is that though there are certainly people that wake up with the brilliant idea in the morning, or in the middle of the night, and that is one way to create a bold vision, that vision can also come from listening really carefully to others and helping connect the dots. We talked about connecting the dots earlier, and it begins with noticing what others overlook and then being able to formulate a narrative of that overlooked topic or underappreciated topic, driving a plan and a set of language that inspires others to be excited about it, that drives to a great outcome for the organization.

If I could just share a quick personal story, I grew up at the intersection of Wall Street and technology, and I was as back-office a person as you could be. That was my world. That was my universe. I had the privilege to lead Deloitte's technology organization, which had a much broader footprint than the business that I had been a part of.

A couple of my partners – I can remember exactly where I was sitting – came in and started talking to me. This was over a decade ago. They started talking about iPhones and how they believed that our personal technology could be used to transform enterprises, could be used in government, could be used in business to create a very different (everything from) customer experience to much more effective and engaged processes.

I'll tell you. As someone who was a Wall Street back-office person, that was so far away from my understanding of the universe. Long story short, I listened and I listened and I listened. I started really trying to shift my own frame of reference because, in the first conversation, I was like, "Really? This in the business environment?" I just couldn't see it.

I live in Chicago. I flew to Seattle to have some conversations with an organization that we were talking about acquiring. That was the foundation of Deloitte Digital, which is such a marquee business for us and has become really an enormous part of our impact in the market, which came from me not being the person with the idea for Deloitte Digital. Couldn't be further from the truth. But I was able to process and understand and listen and connect the dots in and around it.

Thank you for indulging my little sort of personal story and some of the journey I'd been on around how you take someone who is a good listener, a good dot connector, a good communicator, and use that to help drive a really powerful vision forward for an organization.

Michael Krigsman: What you've just described is very inspiring because, of course, you're right. We tend to think of vision as this kind of flash of lightning in the middle of the night. But you have just described something that is much more scalable, we can make systematic, we can be more inclusive and get more people involved, and it's accessible to us mere mortals who are not the geniuses that get the flash of inspiration.

Janet Foutty: One thing I didn't mention that I think is important is formulating the narrative of the vision. I think it's something that also trips people up quite a bit. If you are listening really well and you figure out what the white space and the idea is, how do you create the narrative that will resonate with the myriad of stakeholders that you have to convince that you want to go do something like buy a company that is developing enterprise applications for an iPhone? Those people might look, walk, and talk differently than your traditional Deloitte consultant.

The first time I walked in, in my full Wall Street garb, was a big shift. This idea of how you formulate the narrative and really spending time to formulate the narrative around strategy, I wouldn't underemphasize that in the conversation either.

Importance of positive attitude

Michael Krigsman: We have some questions from LinkedIn. Maybe we should jump there. We'll take a few questions from LinkedIn.

This is from Malu Septien Milan. She says, "Can you please talk about the impact of positive emotions to help us lead into a thriving state rather than survival?" The impact of positive emotions.

Janet Foutty: When I started my business career, authenticity was not a topic that was in the conversation at all. There was sort of an expectation of how one showed up in the workplace environment. That certainly could be in a very positive way.

I believe, to be the most positive you can be, you need to be your "authentic self," which is a term that's maybe slightly overused right now, but I think is so important to this conversation. It's this idea that I can show, within my own skin, a consistent set of values and a consistent energy level.

If you are not trying to be someone that you are not, and that you are not comfortable and confident in, I believe that radiates positivity. I can't tell you how thrilled I am that the business environment is shifting so that authenticity is something that we're talking about because I think it gets to the absolute root of the question, which is, being able to bring your entire self into the conversation. It generates positive energy, which then it's infectious.

A lot of what we talk about, when we talk about thriving, is infectious energy. I am definitely a believer that the more people thrive – women in particular, and maybe I have a bias there – the more positive energy that creates and the more thriving that creates. It has this flywheel effect to that end.

I love the idea. I have to think about how to tie that into how I'm talking about the book, so I very much appreciate the question. But being authentic allows us to be positive, which generates such incredible energy that just drives better results and better outcomes for yourself, your teams, and your organizations.

Michael Krigsman: That positive, infectious energy seems to be a byproduct. It's one byproduct of really being authentic. Is that another way; is that an accurate way of saying it?

Janet Foutty: Absolutely, it is. But I want to bridge to talk about one other dimension of positivity, if I could, Michael, because I think it's important to this conversation.

I was not a studier of leadership early in my career. I sort of absorbed as I went and running a million miles an hour. But I have spent some time, over the last few years, really trying to think about and articulate crystally leadership.

One of the things I've started thinking a lot about and talking a lot about is around intent. One of the things that I spend time with my own teams on, as well as in broader conversations like this, is talking about a core part of my philosophy around assuming and expecting positive intent.

I really try to live by this idea in every interaction that I can, both personally and professionally. Maybe not professionally when it's with the most intense competitor. Though, in today's day and age, your most intense competitor can be your partner the next day.

But this idea of positive intent, I think, is also important. We talked about positivity as it creates energy for authenticity. But I also think that positive intent and expecting and bringing to your collaborations, your teammates this idea of positive intention that you're both giving it and accepting it is also a really important part of being a strong leader.

Michael Krigsman: You know it's funny you say that because, not too long ago on this show, we had as a guest, Scott O'Neill, who is the chief executive of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers, among other teams.

Janet Foutty: Yes.

Michael Krigsman: He really talks about this assumed positive intent – exactly the same message. It's interesting to see the similarity.

Janet Foutty: I won't bore you with the backstory of how I learned the phrase, which is an entertaining story maybe over a coffee one day.

I did add "and expect" because I do think assuming positive intent is incredibly important for me, as I really try to process that. Also, that you expect those that you're interfacing with to come with positive intent creates a very different kind of dynamic and conversation. I find that when I veer from that, I always have to challenge myself and check myself to that end.

Michael Krigsman: We have a question from Lisbeth Shaw on Twitter. She says, "You were talking about bold vision before. How can someone develop the courage to lead and to build and to implement that bold vision?"

Janet Foutty: Courage is not something I thought about a lot (over many years). I had the great privilege to work for a leader who really pushed my thinking in and around courage. She and I worked on this idea of courageous conversation and generating a culture of courage.

I want to go back to this idea of courageous conversations because I think that's what sits at the heart of the matter in the business community and the business environment.

Courageous conversations absolutely need energy, planning, and intention, and encouragement for others to join. You start with that frame of courageous conversations.

We actually outline a few things in the book in and around courage, especially when it relates to strategy. Let me just tick through a couple of them.

The first – actually impressed we've gotten this far into the conversation without talking about this – is to have the courage to acknowledge when you don't know and the courage to ask for help. That has been a really big learning for me over the years and something that I think is absolutely critical when you think about being courageous because the topics that we're dealing with are way too complicated and way too sophisticated for any of us to face them alone.

If you're facing conflict, ask yourself before acting, "Is this really important? Is this really the right time?" "Choose your battles," would be the tagline that we use to that end.

Something that I continue to work on to this day is identifying your emotional triggers and what's the story behind how you're feeling. It's something that I think is a really good best practice.

Maybe I'll just close with maybe the piece of advice I think is the most important in this idea that success begets success. I would encourage everyone to thank someone for being courageous today.

Thanking someone for being courageous has two incredibly good effects. One is they feel great about it, and the second is it reminds you and gives you the courage to be courageous yourself.

Those are a few of the things that I found to be really valuable and I hope can be helpful to each of you.

Michael Krigsman: Your book also talks about meditation, which kind of surprised me. I'll just mention I've been meditating for the last 30 years, 40 years – and not well. I was very surprised to see that in your book.

Janet Foutty: In full transparency and because it is possible that people that know me well are listening and will hold me to the universal truth, I will start with the end in mind, which I will tell you that that is not a strength of mine either, Michael.

But this book is a collaboration, and Susan Brady has really pushed my thinking in a really big way in investing in your best self. It's something I deeply believe in. I tended to talk about over the years, focusing on the things that give you energy. That's how I would talk about investing in your best self.

But Susan really pushed my thinking in our collaboration here. The way she pushed my thinking the most was that giving yourself space and time is not a waste of time. Women, in particular, I think we're so wired to be one foot in front of the other and go, go, go, and a million things that this idea of giving yourself the space (in whatever it is that gives you energy, including if that is meditating) to focus on that, the positive energy that can come from that, and not viewing that as something that is not a good use of your time.

This is still on my work in progress list, Michael. My 20-something daughter, what she wanted for her 21st birthday was to be certified as a yoga instructor. That is a much more complicated endeavor than I understood, and expensive endeavor than I understood. She has been, over the last sets of years, trying to encourage me to be better at creating that space, but I'm still very much a work in progress.

How can companies attract more female leaders?

Michael Krigsman: We have some interesting questions now coming up on both Twitter and LinkedIn. There's a theme that's now developing. Let me go to Mostafa Radwan. He says the following. "Thanks for the great insights and looking forward to reading the book."

And here are his questions. "How can we do more to: 1) Attract more women into technology, 2) Provide them with equal pay for equal work?"

Janet Foutty: A big part of my agenda and what I'm focused on is how do we create more space and opportunity. We've been talking about courage, courage for women to be in the STEM fields, and in technology.

I will tell you that after spending a lot of time on this over the years, we've made some progress but not nearly enough. If you just use CIOs as the benchmark, we've made meaningful progress in women's CIOs over the last couple of years. But there's also incredible turnover in the CIO ranks.

I think there's a lot to do and we could spend a whole other hour just on this topic, Michael. Where I'm spending a lot of my energy is in our education system, in junior high school and high school girls, and we know that attention and energy spent there.

If there is a way to get involved in your community high school, there are so many fabulous programs from Girls Who Code to She Can STEM to Black Girls Code. There are fabulous programs, so if that is something that interests you in terms of how you engage in the community, I do believe it starts there and through early college – for anyone who is listening who spends time in and around technology.

One of the things that's happening is that even women who start their careers in technology often end up opting out. A lot of that is about where their first few assignments are.

What studies have found – and we've done studies in this as well – it is often that the woman on the team will end up being in the project management role or the "software sides" of technology roles. It deals directly with your compensation question as well. We need to make sure that women who have the energy and aptitude and education are given the space to be in the hardcore technology roles that evolve in each of our organizations.

Thanks for letting me do a quick commercial on another topic that I have a lot of passion around.

Michael Krigsman: We also had a guest on this show – Tarika Barrett, who is the CEO of Girls Who Code – who really emphasized the pipeline of girls who then can evolve into women leaders later on, very much as you just described.

Janet Foutty: It really is, too. It is the pipeline. When women arrive in your organization, help make sure they're getting the sponsorship, mentorship, and roles to allow them to be wildly successful in the technology domains.

Michael Krigsman: We have another question. This is from Arsalan Khan who says, "What do you think is the role of politics when considering or not considering women in leadership positions?" I think that's a very kind of provocative topic.

Janet Foutty: Maybe I would say two things to that question. The first is, I'm a deep believer – that you could probably tell from this conversation so far – that advancing women creates more opportunities, not less. And so, I think changing the narrative that there's sort of a finite number of roles collectively and that if a woman gets a role, that means that a man (to be super blunt) won't get it.

I think we have to change our mind; move ourselves to a mindset of abundance and that more diverse leadership teams creates more opportunities. That's the first thing I would say.

The second thing I want to talk about is sponsorship. We talked for decades about mentorship, and mentorship is incredibly important. But, Michael, if you're mentoring me, that means you're sharing your ideas with me, and I'm learning what I can from conversation and communication – incredibly important.

Sponsorship is about using your political capital to help somebody else. And so, I think, to fundamentally change women's ability to both arrive and thrive, we collectively have to get comfortable and confident in sponsoring people who don't look, walk, and talk like us and come from different pedigrees and different backgrounds.

I believe that the political dimension is most important around courage – back to that word – to use political capital to help others, and that applies in so many situations. It applies in men helping women. It applies across race. It applies across pedigree (when you think about the university systems in our country and the broad sets of places that people come from).

Thinking about how you sponsor people that don't come from the same exact walk of life that you do, that's where I think political capital is of such incredibly high value. I do absolutely believe that people that use that political capital for good, that it serves them well. I've seen it happen time and time and time again.

How can we recruit Latina women to boards of directors?

Michael Krigsman: We have a question from LinkedIn. This is from Malu Septien Milan. On this topic, she says the following: "How can we get more Latina women on boards when the last study showed that boards of directors believe that there is a shortage of talent, which is not the case, per the Latino Corporate Director Association? How do we break this kind of general bias?"

Let me just add that, as I spoke with other women leaders on this show, this question has come up a lot, just in general, to hiring women, hiring diverse teams. There's a sense that there's not the talent. But in reality, the talent is out there.

Janet Foutty: The myth that we have to bust is the pipeline myth. That applies to Latina women, and I spend a lot of time with HACR (the amazing organization that focuses on the Latina and Latinx community), with the Black Corporate Directors Conference (focused on the Black community), with Ascend Pinnacle (focused on the Asian community). There is no doubt that there is really good momentum but not enough to change the conversation in and around the pipeline.

I get great optimism from the diversification of the expectations for the roles that board members have to have been in. Historically, if you were not a sitting CEO, a just-past CEO, or a CFO, it was really hard to land onto a board.

We talked a lot about the broad sets of issues that organizations are facing today. I do believe that's going to create a tremendous amount more of opportunity for people with marketing backgrounds and HR backgrounds and academic backgrounds to land in the boardroom.

The work that the associations are doing to debunk the myths of pipeline are incredibly important. Partnering with search organizations to really help make sure that we've got really good, talented pools for non-gov committees to draw from when they are looking for directors, there's a lot of work to do. I feel good about the foundation that's been set.

Maybe the last thing I'll say here is any time anyone who is listening to this conversation hears someone say, "There's a pipeline issue," or "That doesn't exist," I would encourage you to reach out to the various resource organizations that exist because that is a myth we need to bust.

Michael Krigsman: What advice do you have for women so that they can thrive in these positions?

Janet Foutty: You don't have to do it alone, and you're not in it alone. You don't have to do it alone. Ask for help.

There's absolutely such an incredible groundswell of wanting to help women be successful. That help is yours for the asking. All you need is the courage.

The second and even maybe more important is that you're not in it alone. This book was written to share our lived experiences that there are so many of us who, through lots of twists and turns and experiences that we've all had, that we're in it together, and we're here to help each other be wildly successful. That success creates success for everybody.

You don't have to do it alone, and you're not in it alone. Michael, those are my parting words to the women listening.

To the men listening, be a voice, be an ally, and help women know that they're not in it alone, as well.

How can companies support women and diverse teams?

Michael Krigsman: Janet, can you just share with us, as we finish up, advice for companies, for organizations to support women, and support diverse teams?

Janet Foutty: We've been on such an important journey over the last 20 years in and around – or more now, actually – diversity and diversity and inclusion. I think that we've learned, over the last couple of years, that equity is the heart of the matter. If we don't have workplaces that recognize and value equity and everything that goes into an equitable work environment, that we're not going to move the needle on diversity and inclusion. Those are big words.

The work that my organization is doing and so many of our clients and organizations are doing is taking a step back and looking at every dimension of the business (around talent, around their products, and in the marketplace) to say, "Is this equitable or are there things in our system that we might not recognize that don't create an equitable environment for everyone to bring their best selves to work and deliver great outcome and results for our organization?"

Michael Krigsman: We have one final question, under the wire here, just as we finish up. This is from Arsalan Khan, who says, "As a society, how can we move away from being so patriarchal, and how do we measure progress?" I think he's really asking about the broader social dynamic.

Janet Foutty: I think it is up to both our constructs (both in business and government) and for each of us to have a lens of equity in our interactions. That has changed my thinking significantly about my own organization, which has been a leading organization on this topic, to think about that.

I would challenge you to really think about, in your own world and in your broader communities, whether you're really using the lens of equity in how you make decisions and how you raise important and courageous conversations.

Michael Krigsman: Okay. With that, we're out of time. We've been talking with Janet Foutty. She is the executive chair of Deloitte. Janet, do you have a copy of your book you can just hold up for us briefly?

Janet Foutty: Here it is. As a lifetime consultant and executive, this is not in my normal motions, but I do have a copy, so this is the book that is coming out as we speak. Thank you so much, Michael, for giving me the opportunity to talk about the book and to share some of my thoughts and perspectives on leadership with your listeners.

Michael Krigsman: Janet, thank you so much. Everybody, thank you for watching, especially those folks who ask such great questions. Now, before you go, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button at the top of our website so we can send you our newsletter and keep you up to date on upcoming shows, check out CXOTalk.com, and we will see you again next week. Have a great day, everybody. Bye-bye.