“The Female Leader”
Caroline is one of the co-founders of Have Her Back Consulting. They describe themselves as a culture consultancy, and they work with brands and companies to advance gender equity for women while driving business outcomes.
Have Her Back was formed in the slipstream of Times’s Up and MeToo. For many, the realization that systemic harassment has been going on every day for years has hit like a tidal wave.
In that tsunami, I’ve found it easy to understand the issues intellectually. But, I’ve sometimes found it difficult to fully feel what it is like to be someone who has experienced them first-hand. My conversation with Caroline changed that.
This episode is called, “The Female Leader”.
“You can't believe it happened, except it happened. I think they thought they were being complimentary at the time. I have been told that I am fuckable by people that I work with. I could go on and on and on. I think what startles people is at least two of those examples happened within the last two years.”
Takeaway
Be clear about what you’re trying to achieve.
Determination in the face of opposition.
Recognition that everyone has self doubts and the courage to ask others for support.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 106: "The Female Leader" - Caroline Dettman
Hi. I’m Charles Day.
I work globally with some of the most creative and innovative companies, helping their leaders maximize their impact and accelerate growth.
It's become clear to me, that the most valuable companies in the world are led by people who have something in common. They've learned how to unlock the most powerful business forces in the world - creativity and innovation.
On this podcast, I explore how they do it and I'll help you use their insights to not only become a better leader but become that leader faster.
Today’s guest is Caroline Dettman.
Caroline is one of the co-founders of Have Her Back Consulting. They describe themselves as a culture consultancy, and they work with brands and companies to advance gender equity for women while driving business outcomes.
Have Her Back was formed in the slipstream of Times’s Up and MeToo. For many, the realization that systemic harassment has been going on every day for years has hit like a tidal wave.
In that tsunami, I’ve found it easy to understand the issues intellectually. But, I’ve sometimes found it difficult to fully feel what it is like to be someone who has experienced them first-hand. My conversation with Caroline changed that.
This episode is called, “The Female Leader”.
“You can't believe it happened, except it happened. I think they thought they were being complimentary at the time. I have been told that I am fuckable by people that I work with. I could go on and on and on. I think what startles people is at least two of those examples happened within the last two years.”
It’s both insane and tragically predictable that in the year 2020, we’re still discovering the insults, and obstacles, and worse, that many women are still subjected to in the business world. Still having debates about creating a more inclusive environment for women. Still talking about why there aren’t more women in senior roles.
As Have Her Back’s website points out, women make 85% of consumer purchase decisions and spend $40 trillion dollars every year, and yet women hold very few positions of power.
I work with some very senior women leaders. I wanted to interview Caroline because I think we need more candid debates about how to support women in leadership positions so they can maximize their impact. And about how to get more women into leadership positions, faster.
In this episode we talk about the issues surrounding that. And we also talk candidly about Caroline’s journey from CCO to entrepreneur and about what’s it like to be the founder of your own business.
I hope that our conversation helps more women to become leaders sooner.
And I also hope that it also helps women who are already leaders to become better leaders, faster.
Here’s Caroline Dettman.
Charles:
Caroline, welcome to Fearless. Thanks for joining me today.
Caroline Dettman:
Thrilled to be here.
Charles:
When did creativity first show up in your life?
Caroline Dettman:
I think creativity was always a thing. My parents love to say that I was born, not saying words, but telling stories. I think I wrote my first book when I was in first grade, and I loved poetry writing, all of those things.
My father was an attorney. I grew up watching him giving these presentations and rehearsing and that art of storytelling, I just always fell in love with. So when I went to college and needed to declare a major, all the pre-law students were political science majors. My father and I sat down and we said, "Yeah, no, that's not right. You need a more creative major." So he was like, "Major in acting."
Charles:
Did you like being on stage?
Caroline Dettman:
Always. Always. Not enough to be an actor.
Charles:
Did you take risks as a kid?
Caroline Dettman:
I think as a kid, probably not so much. I mean, I had a really, really lucky and privileged upbringing, so I don't know that I felt like I had to take a lot of risks growing up. But I feel like because of that, I have spent a lot of time finding things that are uncomfortable and I have almost like a gravitational pull toward that. So one of the reasons why I ended up at Indiana University is because I wanted a non-New York, which is where I grew up, experience. I wanted to meet people who were entirely different than me. I knew no one going there. In fact, my parents didn't come with me, they just flew in on a plane and showed up in a bus, I think. But I was like that, and I think that helped me for the career that I ended up in, because again, it wasn't the typical career.
And then two years ago, I had the opportunity to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Charles, you don't know me, but if you did, you would know how ridiculous that is and how scared I should have been, and in fact, was, because I'm not a hiker, I've never camped a day in my life, but I felt that if I could do that…. When the opportunity presented itself, I'd never wanted to do it, I thought, "Well, why not? Well, let's see if I can go do this." So that happened two years ago.
Charles:
When you say the opportunity presented itself, in what form did that show up?
Caroline Dettman:
It showed up as actually a work bonding opportunity if you can imagine, which I, by the way, would not recommend as a work bonding opportunity.
Charles:
More like survival of the fittest, I would think.
Caroline Dettman:
But, also being quite a klutz, it's amazing that I was able to do it and successfully. But I have three teenage boys, and I figure I have bragging rights now for the rest of time with those three.
Charles:
Were you scared doing that?
Caroline Dettman:
Absolutely. You know what I was more scared of, in all honesty? The camping. The hiking, I could do, the going down was much worse than going up, actually, which I don't think they quite prepare you for. They really prepare you for the summit, and then going down it's way worse. But the camping part was scary to me because I'd never camped before, and that is something I'm not ever really looking forward to doing again.
Charles:
My idea of camping is there's no room service.
Caroline Dettman:
Same.
Charles:
Good. So we’re on the same page about that. So I want to jump forward to your current mode of employment-
Caroline Dettman:
Sure.
Charles:
... which is self employed in fact.
Caroline Dettman:
In fact.
Charles:
Which is a big jump out of the corporate world that you've occupied for essentially your whole career. Right?
Caroline Dettman:
Correct.
Charles:
What made you decide that you wanted to become your own boss, to use the euphemism?
Caroline Dettman:
That was not something that I ever thought that I did want. But, this opportunity really organically was right in front of me, and at that point, there was no way that I couldn't do it. So, when I was at my IPG agency, post MeToo, post Time's Up, as a Chief Creative Officer, it was just a really interesting time to see what was unfolding in the world for pretty much everyone. But I was very much looking at my own industry and wondering what we were going to do about this.
So I was watching some of the most toxic... some of those folks being walked out the door, being exited, which was progress. But there were two things that were really keeping me up at night. One was, what about all the female creatives' careers who sort of lay in their wake? That was one question that I had. The second was, what about the cultures that they're leaving behind that enabled that behavior? How do we change the culture so that, in fact, females can come back and they can thrive?
So, I was on the board of my agency at the time, and I came up with this idea called Have Her Back, which was essentially a challenge to our own industry to bring females back into cultures where they could thrive. As a female creative, I had spent a career trying to find these women and recruit these women and have had the top recruiters in the world tell me, "Well, they go have children and they don't want the hours and this, that and the other." As a mother, as a female creative, I knew there was always more to it than that.
So we set out on this mission, and it also held me accountable as a chief creative officer. So from the year that we launched that at my own agency, we went from 20% female creative leaders to 45%, and then it took us about two years, but we addressed the pay equity issues both in Europe and in the US. So it can happen, but you have to be pretty diligent about it. What was really, again, a happy surprise is that during this whole thing, we had some of the biggest brands and companies in the world reaching out to us, asking for our counsel on gender equity issues writ large and not necessarily marketing, not necessarily communications.
And it became abundantly clear, pretty quickly, that there was a business opportunity here to make a much larger impact that wasn't being met. It was interesting, because these were brands and companies that we didn't necessarily have any relationship with before, who through our work with Have Her Back were coming to us proactively, and they weren't asking us to pitch their business, they were just saying, "We need you, and we want you to counsel us through this." And then I felt like if this was going to be an authentic gender equity consulting business, then this was going to be a business that was about gender equity from the very beginning, which is something that meant that we were going to be the entrepreneurs, we were going to be the owners of this.
I have two partners, Pamela Culpepper and Erin Gallagher. Erin and I come more from the marketing communications background, Pamela has been on the inside of culture at the biggest companies in the world for her whole career. So she was at PepsiCo as their Head of Talent, HR for 15 plus years. So it's an interesting balance that we bring to the table. We were very lucky. We wanted to make sure that we also had the proper investment that a business like this would take, and we went to IPG with this and asked them to be a minority investor in us. In their third time in their history, Michael Roth said yes.
Charles:
When you say these brands were coming to you, do you mean to you personally? What was it that they had identified? How did they know that you thought this, believed this?
Caroline Dettman:
Public relations actually works. So, we had spent about a year doing events in different cities, and we were inviting some of the biggest brands in the world to come and speak at those events. So it was through the events that we were having, not only the people that we had speaking at them, but the folks that were showing up. And then of course, referrals. So all of these folks that the brands and companies, they're struggling with this, so they're talking to each other.
Charles:
There's a couple of reasons why I think this topic is particularly important. The podcast, as you know, is about unlocking creativity and original thinking within the business environment. Creative thinking, original thinking, in its own way, is a minority group, right? Within most organizations.
Caroline Dettman:
Sure.
Charles:
Most companies compartmentalize and stick them off into the corner. Finding environments that welcome everybody and anybody regardless of gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, or indeed your ability to demonstrate original thought under pressure, I think those are the best businesses. So I'm interested more and more, I think, in the conversation about, how do you bring greater equality regardless of whatever the group is that is being underrepresented or under identified? The conversation around women, especially in the creative industries for the last three or four years, has been almost always specifically around lack of female leadership. Why do you think that's the right focus? Why is the leadership question the right question for us to focus on?
Caroline Dettman:
So there's several layers to that, and I do think it is the right focus. You could go into most agencies today, and if you asked them the breakout of creative, it actually sounds pretty good. It’s usually around 50/50, somewhere like that. When you ask them the question of, what about the females who are empowered? So creative directors and above who are empowered to not only come up with the ideas but challenge ideas, build and break down ideas and build them. That's where it shifts to usually under 30%.
The problem with that is that that essentially means that the far majority of ideas that are going out in the world from agencies on behalf of the brands and the companies that they work for, they're missing that point of view. So if you only have folks at the junior level who are a part of that dynamic, they are not empowered enough to ensure that that point of view comes through. The other piece is if you are a junior creative woman or a junior woman in any industry, really, and you do not see females in senior roles, that is a big moment where you think, "I'm not sure that this is cut out. What does that say?" So it's really important that you see a trajectory in which you are welcomed, emboldened, that you have that ability. Otherwise, you're going to take your career elsewhere. I think in many cases that's what's happened.
Charles:
What do you think is the responsibility of women who have reached those positions to reach back? Wendy Clark talks about creating a ladder for people to climb up.
Caroline Dettman:
I think it's only grown, and I think some of the folks that are probably the most upset with leadership today that's not supportive of women is when it's other women. I think it is absolutely incumbent upon us to find women and shepherd them along and champion them and really be their sponsor, and I think women... the female leaders that I am interacting with all the time, they are really going out of their way to counsel and sponsor, not just mentor.
Charles:
What happens to men in that process? I was thinking of the men who were coming up who were perhaps not getting the same amount of time or attention from very successful, accomplished women. We can all learn from everybody. I know that you're a proponent of this. You've already said today you've got three sons, but I've also read that you are a big believer and that this has to be a holistic solution that you have to bring the entire community along.
Caroline Dettman:
I think the biggest mistake that we could possibly make is this is an us versus them, and I just don't see it that way. I think where this movement, if you’ll call it that, has struggled the most is in bringing allies really in full force together. I think a lot of that isn't because the men aren't willing, it's because they're not quite sure how to navigate it. It's a difficult thing to navigate, and we.... I think it's incumbent upon us to be very welcoming.
Charles:
Well, I think there's probably three pieces. One is we're not sure how to navigate it, two, I think in some cases, men are clearly now more than cautious about getting involved in ways that are potentially... they perceive as being risky. So the number of men who are willing to mentor women has suddenly dropped in the last two years following Time's Up and Me Too. The third issue, I think, which doesn't get talked about enough is that I think some people get tired of being yelled at, truthfully. People who want to help keep being castigated for the fact that they are, first and foremost, a man, and therefore must be some part of the problem, where in fact there are many men, I think, who would very much like to be part of a constructive solution. So I agree with you entirely, changing the nature of the conversation so that it actually is, how do we solve this?
Caroline Dettman:
Certainly, who wants to get yelled at? So I just don't understand that approach. That's not helping anybody. This is a we, not an us versus them. so I agree with you. I think those two things are absolutely true. I struggle with the second.
Charles:
Yeah, MeToo.
Caroline Dettman:
Because my experience hasn't been that. I've actually had great male mentors and sponsors my entire career, and that hasn't changed in the last couple of years. In fact, I think it's only grown since MeToo. So I question, I question folks who are like scared all of a sudden, maybe because I have a gravitational pull to kind of being scared. But I don't understand that. I do understand a reluctance, and I do think it's incumbent upon us to be welcoming and to include, and then make sure that everyone feels, no matter what gender you are, that this is something that we all can work on together. I think that's really, really key. But for sure, that second thing, which is true, I know because the data points to it, but it's frustrating.
Charles:
What do you think that's caused by?
Caroline Dettman:
Well, it's lovingly called or not so lovingly called, the Mike Pence effect. I think it's an excuse for people that don't necessarily want this. Or maybe have had bad behaviors. But I think the majority of men, the overwhelming majority of men that I've worked with over my time, aren't that. Some people are just reluctant. But I actually love, I really, really love and respect men who don't know how to navigate who ask, who just ask the question, what is it I can be doing? Recognize that I was going to have the right answer, but I think just the fact that you're asking….
Charles:
Men who react that way, who say, "I'm going to withdraw entirely." It makes you wonder what it is that they are actually afraid of. It is always possible that somebody can be accused of something they didn't do. There is that risk in every walk of life, every aspect of what we do. What's less likely though, is that if you behave properly, that you are going to end up being accused or criticized by somebody for some strange behavior or some inappropriate behavior. Which suggests to me that there must be some number of men out there who don't understand what is appropriate behavior and what is not. So is that just... not just because it's a massive issue, but is that an educational issue? In which case we should help educate people who don't understand how to behave properly.
Caroline Dettman:
Yeah. It's tough to take on changing all of human behavior. But we did do this exercise which was really helpful, particularly, I think, for the men in my former agency to even know what was going on. So we actually pulled together all the scenarios that had happened over the last two years that people were willing to talk about. We didn't name names, it was just scenarios that had happened. Just the reading of this blew people's minds away that it was happening, it was happening to this degree, and it got them engaged in the solution. We didn't have all the solutions. We wanted to come up with those together. But even the knowledge of all of the different situations that were happening, I think, was mind blowing, but got them engaged in, "Okay. Come on. We can fix this together."
Charles:
Can you give us an example or two?
Caroline Dettman:
Oh, there were a ton. There were a ton of them. I think it was like a binder, like this... like quite wide. It was microaggressions. It wasn't just sexual harassment, although there were sexual harassment too and there were things that were involving interns. Client behavior was a big one that came up on these things. If you think about the power dynamic, that would definitely make sense. A lot of men too, I think, I've found suffer guilt much as a lot of women do, which is, there have been things that have happened in their presence that they haven't necessarily... and women as well, they haven't necessarily stood up for that person, been a part of the solution and I do think that... What I've seen as a result of some of the work we've done is it's really empowering now for men to actually stand up in those situations.
Whether it's the, almost stereotypical now, a woman says something in a meeting, no one says anything, and the guy has the same idea and now everyone's like, “Oh, that's the greatest thing I've ever heard." But it still happens. For a man to say, "That's exactly the same thing that she said five minutes ago," it's unbelievably empowering. I don't think that would've happened three or four years ago. It would have continued to be the behavior that was. I can talk for myself, there were plenty of instances coming up in my career that I saw things happen that I would have handled differently today.
Charles:
So there are two sides to this, obviously. There is no question that bad behavior and misogynistic behavior has been institutionalized, particularly, I think, in the creative services industries, as we define them. We can see that in lots and lots and lots of examples. It's held women back, it's driven women from the workplace, it's changed the construct of the industry. I think that is literally a structural, architectural issue, and work is being done by groups like yours to try and change it. There is another part of the problem which gets talked about less; some, but less, and I think that even less work is being done around, which is women, in many, many cases don't naturally step into opportunity. Is that fair?
Caroline Dettman:
Don't naturally step in makes an assumption that there's something for them to step into. Do you see what I'm saying?
Charles:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Caroline Dettman:
So, I don't think you're wrong and not necessarily always the hand raisers, but I would challenge you to go a couple steps back from that, because oftentimes, men are put in situations that they weren't asking for either, but they're the go-to and they're brought into it. So I think that an awareness and an acknowledgement of that across the board for men and women is helpful because I don't... because then you wouldn't necessarily go to the guy to give him the opportunity first. Have the conversation with both talents that you have, but don't assume that it's not right for the woman.
Charles:
So in that situation, my experience is if you create an opportunity and there is a man and a woman who is equally qualified, the man will work pretty hard to convince you that they're ready, the woman will work pretty hard to convince you that they're not. That's fair. Right?
Caroline Dettman:
Yeah. That's fair.
Charles:
So how do we…. Because I watch people recognize this, I hear people talk about it, and the advice that I watch people being given is, just step into it. Whether it's Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, whether it's somebody else in the industry advocating for women equality, their advice is some version of just do it. Most women that I know feel that and feel incapable of responding to that. So how do we help women recognize that they are not just as capable, but in many, many cases... I would say most cases in my experience are more capable, whether they think they are or not.
I would much rather work for a woman than a man, all things being equal much. See greater leadership potential in most women more than most men for sure. How do we stop yelling at women to just deal with it and step up and step forward, things that they are really incapable of doing in many cases? Certainly, they can't do it by themselves in many cases. How do we practically help them get to the recognition or get to the point where they start to believe, okay, they start to believe that they could do this?
Caroline Dettman:
First, I respectfully challenge that women are incapable of this. I think a lot of women are quite capable. They're having to work past their imposter syndrome, which is a real thing. But let's not assume that women are incapable of it.
Charles:
So I think this is a really interesting conversation, an important one. So the reason I use the word incapable is because... it is not that they lack the skill to do the job or the talent to do the job. What I find is that they are emotionally blocked from the recognition that they are ready and able to do that job, and that they do not get past that moment without some significant intervention helping them to get past that moment. So Wendy Clark talks about the fact... I interviewed her a couple years ago, and she talked about the fact that when Coca Cola called her and said, "We want you to come and interview," she said, “no.” It was only because her mother and her husband said, "What, are you crazy? You're going to go and do the interview," that she even went for the interview. She got the job. Five years later, she's running DDB worldwide.
Wendy would have said no by herself in that situation. Wendy is as powerful and capable a leader as any of us know. She is far from alone in that response. So I guess what I'm asking more specifically is, if you are running an organization that is dependent upon creative thinking, and if creative thinking is dependent upon unleashing the extraordinary power of women, both from a leadership perspective and as a member of that organization, how do we build organizations that recognize that women are going to say no way more often than they should or could, and how do we build a runway that reaches beyond that? I understand and I agree with you, opportunity is not equal. We have to create the opportunities. But beyond that, how do we get these extraordinary women into a place where they are given the confidence to say yes? How do we do that?
Caroline Dettman:
We do this so often in other things that we just don't take no for an answer. So don't just take no as the answer. Sometimes that can just be a really easy answer because then you've got an easy... then it becomes much easier who your choice is going to be. But we have to... I think you have to fight a little bit harder and you have to make a case and you have to help on the confidence standpoint. As you mentioned Wendy, I also suffer from an imposter syndrome. That is a real thing, no question. But there's no reason as an organization can't be like Wendy's mother was or whoever in your life is that confidence champion. For me, my father and my mother were as well, my older brothers, whoever it is.
Companies need to start realizing that if they want... We certainly saw this when we brought more females into leadership at my agency. There was a freelance team who had said no to every shop in town because they just did not think they could be a part of that culture again, they didn't think they could thrive that way. We were like a dog with a bone in pursuing them and showing them and proving to them that they could thrive in this role. Sure enough, they said yes, eventually. They said no a couple of times, but they said yes eventually, and they are thriving. But, it took some convincing.
If I had taken the faster and easier approach, which again, in our business is very easy to do because you need the bodies, you need the people working on the business. So you have to start thinking about this as more long-term versus short term as well, and I think-
Charles:
Organizationally.
Caroline Dettman:
For sure. What's the long term? Because the long term is ultimately what really, really matters. But so often, in recruiting in particular, you're talking about the short term. We are talking about this with some of the biggest companies, tech companies whose growth... Unlike advertising growth, which is not as much, if you look at tech growth, they are really under the gun from a short term perspective, which is why they are having so many issues attracting diverse and female candidates. But you've got to play the long term game now.
I think we have to look at recruiting differently. I think we have to look at... If you put a woman versus a man and their creds, if you will, next to one another, I would argue that the women has had to really face a lot more challenges and hurdles to get to where they are, which ultimately might be a... in most cases, is an unbelievable skillset to bring to that next opportunity. They've had a lot harder and difficult time to achieve that. I would say the same thing about diverse candidates.
I will tell you that in creative, very specifically, one of the main ways that you make a decision has always traditionally been the decision maker when you're looking at a book of a creative is how many Cannes Lions they've won. But if you keep that as your qualification, then the man's always going to win. And the reason for that is because they have traditionally been given the award worthy work whereas the females have not. So if you take the Cannes Lions out of the equation and you look at the work and you start to ask about the challenges that they've had to get to the work and what have you, all of a sudden that's a different conversation, but equally skills that you need in these positions.
So, in my recruiting, I like to ask a lot about people's backstories. I think we have been hamstrung in recruiting efforts and continue to go to the same old, same old, if you will. Resumes haven't changed much. Right. We're still looking at the same skill set, and we're not acknowledging that the woman or the diverse candidate has had a lot harder road to get to where they are. In so many cases, that's exactly the gumption and everything that you think that women don't have, but in fact, they've done it their whole career. So you just got to bring it out.
Charles:
We talk a lot about women having imposter syndrome, which is clearly true. We don't talk very much about men having imposter syndrome, which is, in my experience, equally true, but manifests differently. So, given that women are more willing to talk about it, which I think is a benefit,a real positive, how do we make sure that that is then not turned into a negative? Because there is a classic, simplistic, old fashioned definition of leadership that says, be strong, be forceful, be confident, be brave, be decisive. Leaders talking about, I have imposter syndrome, fight pretty hard against that perspective. How do we shift the perspective that says, a leader who's willing to to discuss their vulnerability is in and of itself a good thing?
Caroline Dettman:
I think we're starting to see leaders do exactly that, and they're being rewarded for it. Male leaders in particular who are coming out and being much more human. We're seeing more often than we ever have before, so I think we need to see more of that, and I think the next generation, they're demanding that, they're expecting that. It's not a he versus a she, it's, they're together in this.. So I think we're going to see that more and more. I think what I would say is I would hope that where we're headed in humanity is that the fact that women are talking more about the imposter syndrome and if men have it, then they're going to be able to talk about it too.
So as hard as it's been for women... Again, I'm raising three teenage boys. Men have had it hard in a different way. They haven't been able to show emotion, and the whole notion of a leader was like, you were never going to show emotion. So I think that's changing. I think the definition of that is changing, and I think it's changing for both and we're in this together.
Charles:
It's interesting, because I just interviewed Marc Pritchard of P&G who came out a year ago and acknowledged his Mexican-American heritage.
Caroline Dettman:
Great example.
Charles:
... and said, "I have not been true to myself, I've not been true to my heritage, I've not been true to the values that matter to me." To some extent, it was his version of an imposter syndrome. The thing that Marc did very specifically was he then decided how he was going to introduce that. But he did it in three different ways. He was very clear about, "I'm going to do this. I want it to have the impact on people of my heritage, I want it to have the impact on people who don't see this issue for what it is," and brought it to life. So it wasn't simply the willingness to acknowledge it, it was the willingness to then use it.
Caroline Dettman:
It was a platform.
Charles:
It was a platform. He turned it into a platform. How do we help women do that?
Caroline Dettman:
I think that's part of what you're seeing. I think women are starting to do, and I think you're seeing it with Time's Up, obviously. It was certainly something... When we started Have Her Back as a mission, I was really surprised at how many women were looking for a platform to be able to come together and talk about these things. There's a group called Girlsday which is a Facebook closed group for about... I think it's four to 5,000 women now in the journey. What I love about it is seeing women that don't know each other helping each other out, counseling each other. This is the situation, what do you think? There is a lot of imposter syndrome discussion and people coming together and helping people through that. They don't know each other, this is just through that online community. So I think we're seeing a lot more of that. It's never going to go away. I can't imagine it's ever going to go away. I think it's incumbent upon leadership and organizations to recognize it and then do their part to get people out of that.
Charles:
Yeah, I think that's true. I think there is a lot we can do institutionally, there's a lot we can do at the industry level, there's a lot we can do in terms of creating platforms. I believe - I'm not a psychiatrist - but I fundamentally believe that we are fighting a genetic component, what it means to be a man versus what it means to be a woman. I think we have to build organizations and industries that recognize the difference and don't take advantage of the difference, but actually accommodate the difference. I think that's part of what's happened so far, is that people have taken advantage of the fact that men leap in, women tend to hold back, plus all the other issues that we could get into.
Caroline Dettman:
The reality is that the world has been built by men for men and women have had to kind of figure their way through that. I think what we're seeing now is industries, companies, brands, certain agencies, they're saying, "It doesn't have to be that way." It's easy to say things, it's way harder to actually act upon them.
I think Marc is a really good example, where he didn't just come out and say something, but he took real actions around it, and that mattered, not just for people of Mexican heritage, but everybody is watching him because of the platform that he has. Every company is watching him. Right?
Charles:
That's right.
Caroline Dettman:
In pay equity, everybody's watching Salesforce and what's happening there, so from a male leader who took that on. So every time a company steps forward and does these things, the world is watching.
Charles:
So we want to build businesses that are built for everybody. Does that also mean in order to do that, that we can't treat everybody the same?
Caroline Dettman:
Correct. Because everyone's not the same. That's all the bias and everything else that goes into this. But it has been…. It's always interesting. We're always asked for the business case for women in leadership or for diversity in leadership. We went and got the business case. The business case has been more than proven on both fronts, and that still hasn't been enough. But what's been always fascinating to me is no one's asked the white male business case. It's just that that's the way it's always been. So that's okay. But even with the business case, it's not necessarily something that everybody is adopting, and it's because it's hard. Right. It's hard.
But I will tell you, certainly from a creative perspective, is if you don't have different point of views, the work's just not as good. It's just not. So it is harder, but your results, again, thinking long term, are better.
Charles:
Yeah, for sure.
Caroline Dettman:
We've got all the data that supports it, and yet it's still really hard for companies to say, yep, we're not going to talk about this, we're going to actually do it.
Charles:
I think to your point, the status quo is a very alluring, comforting place.
Caroline Dettman:
For sure.
Charles:
We know what this feels like and-
Caroline Dettman:
It's really easy to stay in your box.
Charles:
Right. It's easy to convince yourself that you can. It never works that way, but we are somehow preconditioned to believe that what we have today will be there tomorrow and the day after if we do nothing to shake any of this.
Caroline Dettman:
Correct.
Charles:
Not true, but-
Caroline Dettman:
Correct.
Charles:
... that's what we've convinced ourselves. Just talking about you for a couple of minutes. How do you unlock creativity in other people?
Caroline Dettman:
My job has always been to find people who I would love to work for someday because they're that good and get out of their way. So to not create any barriers for them, specifically for me. But I feel like my job is then to ensure that... As best I can, whatever barriers they may be facing, my job is to get those barriers out of the way so they can be the best that they can be. I think it comes down to that.
Charles:
You've talked a couple of times about being drawn to things that make you anxious, I’m not sure that you used the word afraid. What's your relationship with fear?
Caroline Dettman:
It's so funny. I have been told many times, "You seem fearless," and that is not the... It's just not the case. I think it goes back to, I have a somewhat healthy…. I'm scared of a lot of things, but I get pulled toward that feeling. So in my work life, no question, as a creative person, it's the ideas that you think will get you fired that usually are the ones that get you hired. Again, you are always pulling to the more scary. Typically, the most bold things have never been done before. So that's just scary in and of itself and yet that's such an important thing to be creative, right, is doing things differently. So I feel like I have a pretty healthy relationship with it. As I said, there's something about being uncomfortable that I've always rather liked.
Charles:
It serves you well.
Caroline Dettman:
I think so. The notion of leaving what I think most people - and I would agree with them - as a chief creative officer in the agency world, it's a pretty great gig. So even just the notion that I felt compelled to go out on my own with my two partners and do this business and really risk a lot in order to do that, and now taking on this whole new world as an entrepreneur, it's scary. It's scary every single day. I've learned more probably in the last six months than I've learned in my entire career. But that's what also makes it great.
Charles:
How do you lead?
Caroline Dettman:
As ridiculous as it is, it goes back to really being, I think, a good storyteller, but authentic in that. I think you have to have an authentic vision to lead and you have to make others see themselves in that and you have to bring them along on that journey and give people the ownership in that.. So it can't just all be about you, I think you have... it's an aspirational leadership, authentic and very personal to the folks that you're leading.
Charles:
What are you afraid of?
Caroline Dettman:
I'm afraid that I have…. This is what I'm afraid of. One of the reasons…. When MeToo happened and virtually, I'm sure in your life too, every woman I knew in life was posting about these things that had happened to them, I actually didn't post my story. That was a mistake, because people made some assumptions in me not posting that nothing had maybe happened. I was the one person in life that things hadn't happened to. That was far from the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was actually quite fearful, paralyzed almost, with where would I even start? Because of all the things that had happened. I just was like... didn't even know where to start.
What really propelled me to take action was during that time frame, I'm talking to my mother... My mother started her career as a stewardess, when they were called stewardesses, for TWA. Late 1960s, she was weighed once a week, to give you a sense of the time. MeToo propelled us into a live conversation about that time in our life and all that had happened. As she's talking about all the things and the things that she had to put up with back then, it occurred to me that every single thing that she talked about had happened to me within the last decade and some quite recently. We shouldn't all have to share that. I'm most excited about this work that we're doing to change women's backstories going forward. I'm most fearful that it won't happen.
Charles:
Have you told your story now?
Caroline Dettman:
Yes. Oh yes. Again, I haven't told the whole story, but yes. One of the things that I recognize and how I would start off most of my talks, my public speaking, was telling my story. Because like I said, I was amiss for not telling my story. So yes, I eventually did tell my story online. Again, being an oral storyteller, I tend to tell it live in presentation.
Charles:
Tell me your story.
Caroline Dettman:
First of all, it'd be way too long for this podcast. But I think... I've suffered everything from being touched, being followed into hotel rooms by clients, as an example, being touched when not asked. One of my first leadership meetings, I was introduced by a C-Suite member for the first time to the room as a MILF. Not by my name, not by my title, but as a MILF.
Charles:
In public?
Caroline Dettman:
At a dinner the night before at the leadership retreat.
Charles:
How do you even put that into a sentence?
Caroline Dettman:
You can't believe it happened, except it happened. I think they thought they were being complimentary at the time. I've been told that I am fuckable by people that I work with, I could go on and on and on. I think what startles people is at least two of those examples happened within the last two years.
Charles:
The last two years.
Caroline Dettman:
Yeah. So this is not stuff back in the ‘well only when I was coming up’, although there was plenty for that. So like I said I could go on and on and on. It is just stuff that we have all had to deal with. Again, I tell the story because I think it's important for women to know that this is something that we all share, but I think it's really important for men to understand as well.
Charles:
For sure.
Caroline Dettman:
I saw your eyes sort of like go deer in the headlights at some of that stuff. So I do think it's important for us to tell those stories. So I don't want to have a conversation with my sons and their kids and have these same stories coming up. So that's-
Charles:
Have you talked to your sons about this?
Caroline Dettman:
Yeah. It's funny. What's really interesting, and this obviously was not planned, but myself and my two partners, amongst us, we only have sons. I, maybe, in some ways, feel a greater responsibility to raise good men. I think what... But I will say, I do think that consent is something that was never talked about when I was their age, and it's something that they're talking about with each other and with us, obviously. They are surrounded... They are the kids post MeToo, and they're seeing everything very publicly. So I think they are just so much more aware certainly than we were. But yeah, they probably have an added responsibility given they are three teenage boys of a female founder of a company called Have Her Back Consulting. You could ask them, they'll tell you.
Charles:
When you are in a situation like that, when you are standing at a dinner or sitting at a dinner and somebody describes you as a MILF, what's the impact of that on you, both in the moment and then the next day? Does that linger with you? How does that affect you? How are you changed by that?
Caroline Dettman:
You can't not be changed by that, it also is very dependent upon where you are in your career at the time, I think, in terms of how you might respond to that. I also think prior to MeToo culture, you just wanted to forget that it ever happened and it was compartmentalized because you didn't think anything would ever be done with it anyway. I had a client that was very, very problematic. I remember at the time, if I had reported that client, we would have lost the business and I would have been out of a job. There was no questioning of that in my mind.
So the guilt that I have now is I didn't report it. Not surprising, that person went on to do it to a lot of other people. You tend to think, maybe it's just isolated only to you, back in those days. Eventually I removed myself from the situation. That's how I dealt with it. But unfortunately, the problem was still there and it continued. So I think what's good about what's happened today is people feel empowered that something may be done. We're still seeing issues here, but at least A, you're not alone, you know that this is not something that's just happening to you, you know likely it's a pattern of behavior. And then depending on where you are in your career, I think you can handle it somewhat differently. So-
Charles:
Do you now confront it when it happens?
Caroline Dettman:
Yes, yes. It's almost not fair because of where I am in my career.
Charles:
How is it not fair?
Caroline Dettman:
Because I don't want women to listen to this at other stages of their career. Like I said, when I was more junior, I didn't confront it. I think now, on the platform that I have, I feel very emboldened that I can deal with it.
Charles:
Do you see them react? Do you see them suddenly aware of what they've done?
Caroline Dettman:
Not necessarily that they're aware of it, but I think it's sort of a bullying behavior. Typically when they don't get away with it, they kind of move on.
Charles:
Do you find other people calling them out when it happens more these days, or is it still silent, taciturn acceptance?
Caroline Dettman:
I haven't necessarily had someone call it out, but I have people, after the fact, come up to me and say, "I didn't think that that was right. What did you think?" Which I think is a giant step forward, because no one asked me about that back in the day.
Charles:
But not where we need to be.
Caroline Dettman:
Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think there's a lot of work to do. So when we launched this business, some of the misperceptions was like, isn’t this pretty niche? Haven't women kind of made it at this point? I would love to say that they're right, but I think there's a ton of work to be done in this space, and I feel pretty great job security for a good time to come.
Charles:
I think in fact the work to come is much harder than the work that's already happened.
Caroline Dettman:
Correct.
Charles:
Because I think the stuff that's happened tragically was the easy stuff almost, right?
Caroline Dettman:
Agreed.
Charles:
Making people aware of those kinds of stories, we can now do that.
Caroline Dettman:
Awareness is easy, the action's hard.
Charles:
Very, very difficult.
Caroline Dettman:
We have said…. I will tell you this to leave this on a positive note. Our intention from minute one was we believe most people and companies have good intentions, really. We don't think most companies are evil about this. There might be some, as we've heard about, but the majority of, I think, companies have really good intentions. The hard part is turning that into intentional action, and that's our business model, is that we can help companies go from good intentions to intentional actions. We had to have an interesting conversation as we formed this business. We knew we would get some calls from companies in real crisis, and in some cases, depending on their history, that's not the clients that we're looking to work with. We're really looking to work with the ones with the good intentions.
We only launched in September, but we have signed some of the biggest companies in the world, and these are the ones that I would describe as the ones with really good intentions that have taken some action but really need help to be a bit bolder, or have good intentions, but they're not quite sure how to pull the trigger. So, the business case is now proven. There's a business out there for these companies, and it's been really exciting to see, I think, people at the company, in the C-Suite, that didn't necessarily work together before.
So you had marketing sort of over here, talking externally, and then you had your HR and D&I people over here and now they're realizing that actually, they have to be in this together you can't say one thing to your external audience and then not live it inside without it being called out. Of course, when that happens, that is a huge detriment to your business. I think there's also a sense of urgency here that we haven't seen in years prior because of culture and culture demanding it.
Charles:
I wrap every episode with three takeaways. One, you are clear about what you're trying to achieve, you have real intention, and it's specific. I think that is absent for a lot of leaders, actually remarkably absent. I think you are very, very clear about what it is you're trying to achieve. Two is, obviously, you have extraordinary determination. In the face of just incredible opposition, sadly you're not alone in that, but you have fought through that and you have shown up and you are making a difference. And then third, I think, that goes hand in hand with this. You have not only the courage of your convictions, but you have the courage to keep pushing through the stuff that would be easy for you to get in the way, including your own doubt about yourself.
But also, I think you've been willing to push through the obstacles that most people don't get through, which is the transition from working from a large corporation to working for yourself, for instance and showing up, and the notion that you are drawn to things that make you anxious or frightened and you feel that's where the good stuff starts to happen is in and of itself a courageous act, and I think is true of many successful leaders.
Caroline Dettman:
It's almost like reading your obituary. But yeah, I think in an amazing way, in a short conversation. I think that that feels right.
Charles:
Well, I don't think we'll be reading your obituary anytime soon. You have a lot left to do. Thank you so much for joining me today. What an amazing conversation.
Caroline Dettman:
It's been great being here. I'm humbled to even be here at all, so thank you very much, Charles.
In next week’s episode, I talk to Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, the director-general of the Confederation of British Industry. The CBI represents 190,000 British businesses. As you’ll hear in the era of Brexit, that means Dame Carolyn’s leadership has been tested under some of the most extreme conditions any of us can imagine.
“I have kept pretty calm through it, there has been quite a lot of personal criticism. But it goes back, I think, to having a real belief in what you're trying to do, And one of the reasons I wanted to do the job, is I do believe, really fundamentally, in business as a force for good. I do believe in the power of business to create real opportunities for people.”
