Episode 114 Transcript

Banoo Behboodi: Welcome to the Professional Services Pursuit, a podcast featuring expert advice and insights on the professional services industry. I'm Banoo, your host today. I'm extremely energized. In honor of Women's History Month, we have three guests on, three incredible leaders.

We are going to be covering their journey throughout their career—what has brought them to this point in their leadership. It's been an incredible journey in each one of these situations. It basically highlights that there is much more to your career aspiration, where you end up, and how you succeed than just your degrees, expertise, and skill sets.

It's all the softer elements: understanding, perceiving, and being clear on opportunities as they present themselves, then grabbing them and running with them. I am very excited to have Melissa Korzun, VP of Industry Solutions at Kantata; Jennifer Schutz, Chief Business Officer at Kantata; and Lauren Langston, President and COO of Tekmetric. Did I say that correctly, Lauren?

Lauren Langston: Yes, you did.

Banoo Behboodi: Perfect. Well, thank you ladies. I'm so excited and happy to have you here. But let's start with Jennifer. If you can introduce yourself, and then we'll go to the next guest.

Jennifer Schutz: Thanks, Banoo. Jennifer Schutz, I'm Chief Business Officer at Kantata. I have been with Kantata for, gosh, about eight years now and am responsible for running our internal operations functions.

Banoo Behboodi: Fantastic. Lauren, can you go next, please?

Lauren Langston: Yes, absolutely. I'm Lauren Langston. I'm currently President and COO at Tekmetric. Tekmetric is a software company for the auto repair industry. Prior to being at Tekmetric, I was fortunate to work with the three of you at Kantata, where I was COO of that business. Prior to working at technology companies, my background is in finance and investing.

Banoo Behboodi: Thanks, Lauren. And Melissa.

Melissa Korzun: Yes. I'm Melissa Korzun, Vice President of Industry Solutions at Kantata, where I've been for about two years now. Prior to being at Kantata, I was leading strategy and operations for professional services at TeleTracking as a customer of Kantata. I've been here for two years, but I'll say I've been a member of the Kantata family for almost ten.

Banoo Behboodi: I love it. We're talking about the journey today. That's what's so interesting about all three of you. The best place to start with the journey is understanding where you started out. With that, Melissa, can you start us off and let us know how you started your career?

Melissa Korzun: Yeah, I think when I started my college journey, I was very gung ho that I was going to be in marketing. That's what I had my heart set on. I took one class, an intro to advertising class, and decided that was not for me, that I wanted something very different. My parents were always just like, as long as you're pursuing an education, whatever you think is a good idea. I became a philosophy major on a whim. I actually didn't know what I was going to do with that, but that's where I started in my career—marketing, pivoting over to philosophy with no idea what I was going to do with it, but just knew it was something I was really interested in.

Banoo Behboodi: That's so interesting to know about you. In your day-to-day interactions, that element of analytical, philosophical component actually totally shines through. Good to know that about you.

Jennifer, can you tell us a little bit more about where you started and where your career aspirations started at?

Jennifer Schutz: Yeah. Similar to Melissa, I pivoted from what I initially thought I would invest my time in with my career. I actually went to school expecting to become a criminal defense attorney. I doubled down on political science, sociology, and criminology courses. For those of you that know me, I am a huge nerd. I love to learn. I took too many graduate-level classes while I was an undergrad.

By the time I graduated, I decided that rather than jumping straight into law school, I should get a job, save some money, and pay off my bills. I ended up in the marketing space as a marketing coordinator, focused on anything that needed to be done to support the marketing team. It took me about six months to realize I'm legitimately terrible at marketing, but I am really good at organizing and project management. From there, my pivot ultimately led me to project management and Kantata, where I am today.

Banoo Behboodi: Excellent. And Lauren, if you can do the same. Tell us a little bit about the starting point.

Lauren Langston: Yes, absolutely. When I was in college, I was part of a business program where I felt like every student I was in class with wanted to pursue a career on Wall Street. Because everybody else wanted to do it, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career on Wall Street as well.

I started my career in investment banking. While I am very appreciative for having started my career there and for what I learned, the opportunity to study different businesses, I landed in that first job more out of luck than true intention. I did not end up there by being curious or reflective about what I was interested in. It came from social pressure.

Once I started to be more curious and reflective about what I wanted to do with my career, that ultimately led to some unlocks later on that I was able to embrace. I am not on Wall Street today, but it was a great place for me to start my career.

Banoo Behboodi: You know, we have our intentions when we start out our career with our schooling, and life happens. Melissa, your story is interesting regarding what happens next. What nudged you to end up where you are now?

Melissa Korzun: I think I've always focused on going back to what something Jennifer said—not what domain I was in, but what skills I had that I was really passionate about, liked, and wanted to lean into. If I found an opportunity that used those skills, it didn't matter where it was; I would try to apply them. If I would find people willing to say yes, I would go on the ride. I realized early on that the reason I was attracted to marketing and advertising was I really like thinking about human behavior and how to influence people to change for the better. How do we change process or lead people through a transformation?

I got involved in learning how to use early technology in training and development. That put me in a spot where I was creating fixed asset training for the financial organization at my university, which then got me a job building courses for chemical warfare for the U.S. Navy, and detailed courses on what happens to your kidneys when you're exposed to biological warfare agents. I have no interest in fixed assets or in biological warfare per se, but the skills of how to translate complex concepts, how to articulate and communicate things, how to make something that's not that interesting sticky and interesting to drive people along the way—those were opportunities where I continually asked: How can I take the skills that I have and apply them in this space and learn something from it?

I think those were some of those early opportunities where it was like, I don't care where I do this at as long as I get to exercise the skill, which then landed me in a job at a Fortune 500 pharma company leading training for health and safety. I didn't have a health and safety background, but I was able to bring my skills to that role.

A key pivotal moment was I came from graphic design, so I was in Photoshop, Illustrator, and all of that. Naturally, everyone thought she knows how to do PowerPoint. I had never used PowerPoint before. The head of our department came in, who I was several layers under at the time. He was preparing for a massive company presentation in Vegas in front of the entire company and said, "Hey, I need you to help me make this PowerPoint." I replied, "Of course, I'll just jump right in and do that." I wasn't going to tell him that I didn't know how to work PowerPoint.

I spent a lot of time on this and helped him, but I used those skills of storytelling. To this day, I run into people who remember when I helped with that presentation for so-and-so way back when and how amazing that was. That small moment then got me invited into many other things. I'll never forget, helping with that PowerPoint translated into preparing a board deck, which translated into, "Are you sure that's how you want to say that?" or, "Should we really be doing this?" Suddenly, I was in conversations I probably had no business being in, but I flexed the skill and it was useful. That led me to follow a whole bunch of different things, which landed me where I am today.

Banoo Behboodi: That is an amazing story. Lauren, I know you have a similar eye open to opportunities that present themselves and you have taken different paths down your journey. If you can tell us as well, what triggered it and what nudged you in that direction?

Lauren Langston: Absolutely. After I was working in investment banking, the next step that most people were taking was going into a role in private equity, going into investing in some shape. I kind of followed the herd where I went into an investing role. I got fairly lucky in finding the investing role that I did. It was a role based in San Francisco, focused on technology, specifically focused on B2B software, and was more venture capital focused. I was meeting with companies where they already had a product, they already had product market fit, as we call it, but they were trying to figure out their go-to-market. For some of the go-to-market experiments they were running, they were looking to raise capital to put fuel on the fire there.

When I started doing that role, I started to realize that I was finding something I was really interested in. I spent a lot of time getting to know many founders who were out in the market, raising capital, and thinking about the next strategic decision they needed to make and how they needed to put it together operationally.

One of the things I started to find was I would invest in these companies, and I actually had more interest in working with these founders to help them bring this vision they had for the world into reality. I was more focused on that than being hands off and going to find the next deal. As part of that, I realized I was interested in actually working in technology, being on the business-building side as we like to call it.

I eventually left the investing world, left the world of private equity and venture capital, and ultimately joined Mavenlink at the time in an operating role when it was less than ten million dollars in revenue. At the time, that was a pretty scary decision. Most people are trying to go the other way, building a career in operating companies and then going into investing in businesses. I was going against the grain and really listening to what I felt I was most curious about, leaving that investing world and trying to partner up with founders to help build something remarkable.

I still go back to my first week working at Mavenlink. The company was pretty small at the time. I remember thinking, "Wow, what have I gotten myself into?" It was very much the Wild West as it relates to strategies that had yet to be figured out, processes that had yet to be defined. Mavenlink, now Kantata, built itself into a high-impact business for the professional services industry. That willingness to listen to myself and follow that nudge, Banoo, as you called it, really paid off. Now I'm in a career doing something I really love.

Banoo Behboodi: Needless to say, you were instrumental in where Kantata is today. All of that obviously appreciates the fact that you took that decision and ended up where you did. Melissa, it was fascinating because as you were talking through the journey, you were mentioning how every step of the way an opportunity presented itself. You said yes. You relied on your confidence and the softer skills that you knew you had and did not necessarily focus on the harder skills required, but what presented itself to you and just kind of dove in and did it. As others think about that, what do you believe is required to be able to succeed at opportunities as they present themselves? They may not be an exact match, but just taking that attitude and using what you have to make it work.

Melissa Korzun: Yes, absolutely. Oftentimes we hear about people talking about learning to say “no” more. I have defined my career on saying yes when other people will say no. When somebody says no, something can't be done or you're not the right fit, I tend to lean in and say, "Yeah, we can figure this out." It is my nature to try to lean into a problem and always figure out what the solution is. The more it seems like there isn't a solution, the more I'm interested in that. There have been times in my career where I've been tapped on the shoulder to do different things, to apply that skill set that have been scary or have been complete pivots, or chances where I think, "Hey, this is a risky role." Several times I've been tapped to take a role that is brand new. There's no incumbent. We're making this role just for you because we want you to have an impact in this particular thing. It's not defined; you have to figure it out.

There can be a tendency to step back and say, "That's a lot of risk and I don't know that I'm willing to take it." I have tended to lean into those as, "I'm going to believe in myself here." Sometimes that means I'm going to fake it till I make it, because I don't feel completely confident about it. It can be scary, but I will lean into that risk and have enough confidence and faith in myself that I'm going to figure out how to make it work, or go on another pivot and end up somewhere else. Every single opportunity I've had where I've said yes, and there have been very few where I've said no, has led me to a point where I've grown in unexpected ways. I've learned things that I never thought I would be learning, or I've tapped into a capability that I didn't quite know I had that others have seen in me and said, "We want to pull that out of you." It can be hard to take that leap of faith or have the confidence to say, "I don't know exactly what this looks like. I've never tried this before, and I don't know if I'm going to be any good at it." It has led to some really amazing opportunities for me. I encourage people to find a way to say yes when you can and to turn down that voice that says, "What if? What if it doesn't work out? What if I'm not good at it? What if I don't have the skills that I need?" Believe that you do, and you'll figure it out and rise to the occasion.

Banoo Behboodi: I love that. This next question I'm going to target Jennifer with both yourself and Lauren. I'll start with you, Lauren, on this question in terms of Melissa just talked about skills and lack thereof that supports you in succeeding in the position. What are the more technical skill sets or interpersonal soft skill sets you think have supported you in getting you to where you are today?

Lauren Langston: Yeah, absolutely. I do want to pick up on where you left off, though—this idea of you may not have done something before, but you have to have belief in how you approach decision making, problem solving, harnessing opportunities. It's really easy for us, especially early in career, to think there's an answer in a textbook to every problem we solve in executive level roles. That was certainly something I thought. If I haven't solved this problem before, I shouldn't be the one ultimately solving it. It was a mindset I held early in my career. Now when I look back, I am the type of leader who knows this is how I approach decision making, this is how I approach problem solving in different aspects. I know when those types of mindsets and those types of approaches can be helpful for problems that I can't even foresee today. Melissa, I love that you bring that up. It's such good advice.

Banoo, specifically as it relates to skill sets, one thing that served me well earlier in my career was understanding the system, the machine, the business I was a part of and my customer's business in the same way. Early in my career, I did not understand the system I was a part of. It was easy for me not to have vision for how my role ultimately impacted this broader system. Once I started to understand this is the company I'm a part of, these are the levers that matter most in this business, it helped me connect the work I was doing to my overall impact. That accelerated my career. I was able to take it to the next level when I started to apply that same way of thinking to the customer's business as well. Understanding what are the results they ultimately care about most, whether it's a professional services business or an auto repair business. At the end of the day, our customers do not buy our software to use it. They buy our software in order to get results. I find that the more I can understand the system I'm a part of, the more impactful I can be.

On the soft skills side, I went through a long journey figuring out what was my authentic leadership style or presence. Early in my career, most of the leaders I worked for were men who were older than me. They were fantastic leaders, but their style is different from mine—it should be. It took me a long time to realize I didn't have to emulate what they were doing. It's awkward to watch Lauren try to pretend to be a fifty-five-year-old male, for what it's worth. Once I started to figure out how I could show up authentically, I was able to make a breakthrough as a leader. At the end of the day, the people we are leading, we owe it to them to be authentic, transparent, and to treat people like adults as leaders. When you're trying to be somebody you're not, or you're trying on somebody else's leadership persona, it's hard to have that breakthrough.

Banoo Behboodi: I love that. I have experienced it firsthand. We miss you, Lauren.

Lauren Langston: Thank you, Banoo. I miss you.

Banoo Behboodi: Jennifer, do you want to pick up from that? I know you've got your own perspective on this.

Jennifer Schutz: I would say similar to Lauren, early in my career, it was very much about understanding the technical skills. What are the processes I'm working in? What are the systems and tools I'm using, as well as core business tools like Microsoft Office or Google Suite? How do I collaborate and communicate using business tools in a way that I really hadn't experienced at the same level through college?

As I have evolved and grown in my career, that focus and that requirement has shifted from being the technical expert to now being more focused on the interpersonal side and communication. Looking at communication not just as a vehicle for communicating information, but conveying how my message is received, how it's understood, and whether it is understood the way I intend to convey it. That means I now need to adapt my communication based on my audience, whether it's speaking with a different function, a different type of leader, or an external partner. Being clear, relevant, and intentional about what I am trying to say while avoiding unnecessary complexity is essential.

As I have continued to evolve in my career, it has become clear to me that, at its core, effective communication is really about meeting people where they are, not necessarily where I am. Explaining a business problem to your boss is not the same way that you would explain it to a child. If you acknowledge that you would explain complex problems differently to different audiences, it helps you step back and understand how to tailor your message so that it resonates with the individuals you are communicating with and drives the right outcome and behavior. To Lauren's point, it is really about who I am trying to be as a leader, what I am trying to emulate, and how I communicate that to those around me.

Banoo Behboodi: Yeah, a lot of what we've discussed has been leadership journey, irrespective of the fact that you are all successful women in leadership. I just want to focus because I know you've discussed with me situations where being a woman in positions of leadership, you've had to navigate situations because of the fact that you were a woman. If you can share some of that, that would be very helpful.

Jennifer Schutz: Earlier in my career, I spent a number of years leading corporate events. In one situation, I was working through a large production. We're talking a $200,000 production budget for a 500-person conference. I was really struggling to work with the production team. My emails were going unanswered. Meetings were inefficient. The work that needed to be done wasn't getting done. I started engaging with my peers and colleagues on the project to ask for feedback as to how I could be more effective working with the production lead. Each of them, all men at the time, openly told me that the reason I was not effective in working with this production lead is because he openly stated that he did not believe women should be in business and that he had no intention of working with me. Rather than reacting strongly to that, I decided to take the productive route. I met with him privately. I let him know that we needed to have a productive working relationship, and that if we couldn't have a productive working relationship, I would find another production lead that I could work with. He did not take me seriously. He continued to engage the same way. He was non-responsive. A few weeks later, I fired him. I hired somebody else that I had a great working relationship with, and was able to execute a number of conferences over the preceding years.

Banoo Behboodi: That's a great story. Lauren, I go back to something you said a bit earlier because I've had to experience that as well. When I was coming out through my career, I had a lot of men who were leaders, my leaders. I love the fact that you shared you had to develop your own authentic way, not because you had mentors or coaches necessarily that matched that authentic way, but you had to go on self-discovery and get comfortable with what that was. That being said, how has your definition of what success or work-life balance evolved for you as you've moved through your career?

Lauren Langston: Yeah, absolutely. The most transformational thing that has happened in my life that's defined or redefined that is becoming a mom. The most meaningful and wonderful thing, certainly high impact, as it relates to how my relationship with work has changed. Prior to being a parent, I had this mindset that I could always outwork a problem. I didn't really have constraints on my time. I always thought whether it's an opportunity, a problem, or a decision that had to be made, I can simply put more hours against it. I was focused on working the right way, working the smart way, as we say, but I very much defaulted to applying hours to solving this problem.

My approach is different now. I definitely have more constraints on my time. One of the things I am very aware of is I feel like I give the companies that I am a part of, the teams I am a part of, my best energy. I also want to make sure that I am giving my husband and my son my best energy too. I am simply more thoughtful about where I am ultimately spending my time. Because I have more constraints on my time now, I have a stronger personal operating rhythm. I am better as it relates to how I think about managing the big rocks and small rocks, the proactive stuff, and the reactive items that ultimately come up. I am also better about thinking about where my effort is going. If I am making a decision in the business that is highly consequential and irreversible, that is a place where I slow down and spend a lot of time. If I am working on something that is not nearly as high stake, I take a much more rapid experimental approach to it. I do not think that you need to be a parent in order to have a great personal operating rhythm, a great decision making framework, or know how to experiment well. For me, being a parent has helped me do those things much better. In doing so, I am able to teach other division leaders, other leaders across the companies I have been a part of, how to apply that to make them more effective leaders as well.

Banoo Behboodi: That's great. Thank you, Lauren. This last question, I'm going to go around, but I'm going to start with you, Melissa, because I'm truly interested. It doesn't sound like you've had doubts or setbacks, but I have to ask you: Where in your career have you had doubts and setbacks along the way, and in what manner did you deal with it? How did that help you get to where you are today?

Melissa Korzun: I have had doubts. I have had my share of doubts and setbacks along the way. My uniqueness is, I guess, one of my personal philosophies is you cry, you scream, you have your fit for ten minutes, then you put it behind you and you move forward. I'm not someone who's going to dwell on something for too long.

I just started a new role in the last six months. I was working for Jen Schutz at the time and was tapped on the shoulder and told, "Hey, we think this is a good opportunity. Let's lean into this." I had doubts. I’ve talked to Jennifer about this. I'm taking on a role that I haven't done before. Going back to trusting in the skills that you have and solving a problem that you've never solved before—I’ve never done this role before. Am I going to be able to do what's needed to lead the team? Do I have what it takes? Everybody has those moments where they think, "Do I have what it takes?" Sometimes it means just putting one foot in front of the other.

It also means changing your definition of success sometimes. If your definition of success is being the smartest person in the room and you're put into an unfamiliar situation, that's really going to knock you way off balance because it's hard to recover from that. If your definition becomes building a successful team, setting a strategy, driving transformation—those are transferable skills that you can apply anywhere. When I have those doubts, it's about coming back to the core of what are my superpowers, how can I apply them in this situation, and also having a really strong network of people that you can go to and say, "Here's where I'm at. This is how I'm feeling. What of that is real and what of that is just an emotional reaction to the current state? You've been through this before, tell me what you learned." Having that network of people can help you work through that.

Aligning on what success looks like and framing it in a way that's going to help you get through that, not dwelling on it for too long, and having a network of people around you who are not just cheerleaders but help you ground in where you are and figure out how to go into the future.

Banoo Behboodi: I want to highlight something that Lauren said that ties to what you just brought up, which is her focus on results. Understanding customer results, but understanding what are the results I'm after, whether it's within the context of the existing company or the customers we're serving, and then focusing on that. I love the fact that you came back to what is success. What is the result ultimately that this role is after, and with my capabilities, can I get to that result irrespective of whether I'm the smartest, the most experienced or not? Will other skills help me get there? I love that; it all circles around. Jennifer, to you now on that—just generally, any doubts, setbacks, and how did they formulate where you are today?

Jennifer Schutz: Yes, I've definitely had doubts and setbacks. I would say I've failed as much as I've succeeded. Hopefully people don't see as much of the failure as they do the success, but those are the moments that really shape you and build you into the person and the leader you are.

I've made a lot of mistakes that I've had to own up to, where I had to call somebody and say, I screwed something up. I dropped the ball. I need help fixing it. Those are the items that have impacted the business and impacted my perception of the value I bring and how I can drive results over time.

I have had leaders who have had my back, advocated for me when I wasn't in the room, pushed me to be better, and called me out when I'm not living up to my potential. I'm looking at Lauren right now as somebody who has said, "You can do better, I believe in you." That means a lot—just having somebody call you out, having somebody advocate for you.

Similarly with Melissa, when she was on the Biz Ops team, seeing her potential, what she brought to the business, and how much she has grown in her function forced me to be better. It gives me moments of doubt about how much I am contributing and how I can live up to what other people on my team are doing and leverage that to grow myself.

All of these things have shaped the type of leader that I want to be. I look at leadership not as each of us competing for a single seat at the table. We are building a table that's big enough for all of us. The success of my team, my peers, and my company is all shared success. It's something I truly believe we can and should advocate for.

Banoo Behboodi: That's great. Thank you, Jennifer. Lauren, last but not least, would you like to share some doubts or setbacks you've had throughout your career and how it's made you who you are today?

Lauren Langston: Yeah, absolutely. I would say plenty of doubts and setbacks along the way. I almost reframe those as experimentation. We're always thinking about small experiments, sometimes big experiments, that we're running. Sometimes those experiments work out; we decide to double down and go all in on a decision we're making for our career. Other times, those experiments don't work out, and we ultimately take the learning from that and apply it to how we craft our career moving forward.

One of the things I would say in particular, Jennifer and Melissa, I really admire the relationship that both of you have with failure and how it's a necessary part in building a successful career and building a successful business. One thing that I love to go back to is short-term memory can really serve us well. We can be good at perseverating either on the details or the larger things that haven't gone well. To Melissa's point, we can have our ten-minute reaction to what that is, then we're often better off moving on. Jennifer, throughout the time that we've worked together, you've talked about rumination and how rumination generally doesn't serve us. It goes back to this idea that we need to be forging forward, and short-term memory can really serve us.

When I think about one of the doubts I had at a pivotal point in my career, I was making a decision about whether I wanted to go down the CFO path or the COO path. I had many mentors and folks I was working with who said, "Your background is in finance. This is something you'd be strong at. You should go down the CFO path." The CFO role is a really exciting role for many reasons. For me, I wanted to build my career in a different direction. There were mentors and people in my network who felt like that wasn't the right decision. It took one board member I was working with at the time to help me craft what my vision looked like to ultimately step into a COO role, define what it would look like, and find the impact. He helped me overcome the original doubt I had about taking my career in that direction as opposed to what others were saying based on my background.

Banoo Behboodi: Well, ladies, it's been incredible. It's been so much fun. I can't finish the podcast until I ask you about a reading that has influenced where you are today that you want to suggest. I know when we were preparing for this podcast, we talked about this and you had many that you wanted to recommend. We will provide a list in the show notes that the listeners can reference. Maybe one that you want to call out today, that would be great. Lauren, I'll start with you.

Lauren Langston: Hard to pick just one, but one book in particular that's had a profound impact both on my career and how I coach others is the book “Designing Your Life.” It's by two Stanford professors of the design school, and the book effectively takes product and design principles and applies them to making decisions for your career, making decisions for leading a meaningful life. One of the exercises that I really enjoy in that book is an exercise called the Odyssey Plan, where you come up with a few different versions of how your career could ultimately play out at some point in the future. You start to backwards plan your way to there. Oftentimes, what I've found in coaching folks is the right next step is often the same. It becomes much easier to get started on working towards what your career could ultimately be. This exercise was created by these two professors in the “Designing Your Life book”, and it served me well.

Banoo Behboodi: Thank you, I love that. Jennifer, I'll go to you next.

Jennifer Schutz: If I just pick one, I’m going to go with “Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office” by Lois P. Frankel. It’s a great book for early in your career to understand different traits and behaviors that are typically exhibited by females that can hold you back and make your impact less meaningful in an organization. I would say just as importantly, it showed me traits and behaviors that I wanted to continue to hold on to, despite the impact it may have in an organization. What I really like about it is it is a choose-your-own-adventure book. It made me realize that I don’t have to do everything in order to be better. I can pick one thing or two things that I’m going to try, see the impact, and decide if I want to continue down that path or not. I really credit this book with giving me a shift in my early career in transitioning from an individual contributor into a manager and ultimately into a leader.

Banoo Behboodi: Thank you, Jennifer. Melissa, last but not least, your turn.

Melissa Korzun: Yes. I'm going to pick one that people have probably heard of before. If you've read it, read it again if you feel like it. I'm going to go with “Crucial Conversations.” I pick that one because I think the single trait that I admire in every leader—that I would say is a top-notch leader—is their ability to have the hard conversation without flinching, without hesitation, without sweat. Have the hard conversation. That didn't come naturally for me in my career. I was a person who would lean into difficult conversations timidly, avoid them, talk to other people about them, but not address them head on. It was a skill I really had to develop in my career. I wouldn't be where I am today if I didn't figure that out and learn that skill. Being able to dive in and say the hard thing, or have the really difficult, challenging dialogue with someone that you might not want to do will be a difference maker in your career. People who are successful can do it and can do it with integrity. They succeed with integrity and authenticity, and they go to sleep at night and feel really good about themselves. Without being able to do that, you're going to have a lot of challenges in your career. To me, that's one. It's a good read as well. The authors are fantastic. I think you should read it, break it down, dog-ear it, practice it, and use it as a tool. Don't just throw it on while you're cleaning the bathroom and listen to it; really put it to work to make a difference.

Banoo Behboodi: I can say firsthand that you've mastered this skill set. No doubt.

Melissa Korzun: Thank you.

Banoo Behboodi: Thank you again, ladies. I know you're all extremely busy. I’ve loved this recording and the conversation with you all. As always, thanks for listening. If you have any follow-up questions for myself or any of these amazing ladies, we would love to hear them. Send us an email at podcast@kantata.com, and we would be happy to get back to you. Remember, the notes will contain even more book recommendations if you want to reference them. Thanks, everyone.