Speaking with Impact in High-Stakes Rooms with Brenda Becker

Well, I'm honored to be here. This is like being a rock star for the other rock stars in the room.

Well, I think for me it's how do I show up every day? So my core belief is treat others how you want to be treated and it's very, very simple if you behave that way. And so kindness just goes a long way. So I try to every day lead by example. Lead with empathy. Make it less about me and more about we. So I go into the mindset of I want others' opinions. I want other people to provide me with their thoughts, their diversity of thoughts. I don't want everybody to think like me. So I think when you do that, you develop that culture and vision for a team to show up every day just as I am.

So just mean from a personal standpoint, I just really try to take care of myself. So if I'm taking care of myself, you know, I work out, I eat well, I have a lot of great friends, I'm a relationship builder. So for me, having those connections is really important so that I'm grounded. And I think that I didn't put myself through college to be mediocre. I want to be great. So I want to show up that way. And so if I show up that way, that gives me the confidence to give other people the confidence to speak out, to be themselves, be authentic. I like you know this, what you see is what you get. So you know, sometimes I think we all have impostor syndromes at times, but I just try to remind myself that I know what I'm doing and my opinion matters just as much as anybody else's. And so I do seek out with my teams and other people what are they thinking, give me your thoughts and that builds confidence for them as well.

Well, you know, it's just an interesting story about that quote. My children went to Catholic school and the high school that was their mantra every day. It was a quote by St. Francis de Sales, 'be who you are and be that well.' And I use that with them when they're going through tough times like remember who you are. But for me, it's I'm sticking to my core and I'm leaning into my strengths. So, we all have unique talents. And how do you accept those talents? And I ask people all the time, what's your superpower? My superpower is building relationships and helping develop others and building strong teams. So, we can't be good at everything. I'm bad at math. I still count on my fingers. So, when I build a team, I know what my core strengths are. I know what I do well. And I also know what I don't do so well. You have to be aware of that. Doesn't mean we don't have growth mindsets. We try to get better. We take on challenges. We learn new things. But what I try to do there is counterbalance. I think a good team is when you counterbalance each other. So I count on my fingers, somebody else does the budget. I don't do the budget, you know. So that is constantly reminding yourself who am I? What am I good at? I don't have to be good at everything. And when times are tough, trying to remember what that is and that kind of, to your point earlier, Marcy, was confidence. If I remind myself that I'm good at something. I think we even try to when kids are growing up, find something that they're good at. They try 15 things and they feel really down. Find that one good thing they're good at.

Yeah, but you know, it doesn't mean you can't try to develop yourself in other new areas, but I always go back to I'm really good at this. I know how to do this. And you know, I always say to folks all the time is if somebody was going to write a one-pager about you, what would it say? And if you really think about that, that helps you build that brand, too, right? So, if somebody says, 'Brenda, what's your superpower?' I would say, you know, it's building relationships, meaningful relationships, and it's lifting others up and helping people. I love that. I'm passionate about it, and I'm good at it. I'm not so good at X, Y, and Z, but in that one-pager, I have integrity, right? I lead with my values, how I treat others. So, I think people need to think about if somebody was going to write that one-pager, would you want to stay? And I think that will help build their confidence to realize, well, yeah, I'm good at this and I'm good at that and this is how I live my life. These are my values.

Right. Right. We all get caught up in the minutia.

Well, you know, I look at today is constantly changing right now. It's you look at even what's going on here in Washington, the first 100 days are today. Like there has been so much change. Somebody asked me the other day, do we need neck braces from whiplash? And I say no, you know, and how do you do what you're doing and you know as a team I lead the team by okay we need to focus on what's important we need to look at how this impacts us whatever change it is in any organization how do we use what we do well to navigate that we don't have to defend things we don't have to but we have to navigate what is being asked of us whether it's, you know, a structural change, a, you know, we just got, you know, we got to watch our expenses now because of tariffs. So, you know, my thing is to lead by first of all communicating what's going on, laying out a vision of what that means for us and then bringing everybody in the team of how we're going to accomplish that and what are people's ideas, what are people's thoughts. I think it's very important to not be that person that walks in the door and just say okay this is the change and this is what we got to do and this is how we're going to do it. I think it's better to get participation by the people that will be affected by that change and so that's how I go about it and I empower people to say okay what part of this, you know, can you take part in or take charge of. I don't want to be in charge of everything, God forbid.

I, you know, what's wrong with you there that comes with time too. I mean as a younger manager nobody teaches you how to be a manager.

You make a lot of mistakes to become and a manager is different than a leader. If you don't have any followers, you're certainly not a leader, right? It's like a man walking in the woods or a woman walking in the woods with like nobody there with them. It's just taking a walk by yourself. So, it's really important that you bring those people along with you. But I just recall back in the old days, you know, we just it was all about me and my ego and, you know, trying to figure it out all by myself because I thought I had to. And I keep telling my children right now that go through their struggles with new jobs in their 30s is it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to go to others to find out maybe there's a better way to do it or they could be helpful in your thinking. I think everybody thinks they have to do it by themselves and that's, you know, it's just unproductive at the end of the day. So once I learned it was more about we, you know, than me I think my life got better. I think I became a better leader. I became a better manager of people. I didn't think I had to do it and they're feeling frustrated because they wanted to do it. A perfect example of that is somebody came in as could you go to this meeting and I want, you know, and I finally looked at her and I just said well if I go to all this stuff why do I need you? Go, I don't care what title you tell them just go, go do it, show up, you're the expert in the area and so that was kind of one way for somebody else to look at it.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Well, I would say don't walk in the door and think you know it all. Because that's the worst thing that you can do. I think when I've walked in, I was just recently couple years ago was my newest thing being appointed to a corporate board was listen, learn, listen and learn. Ask questions. It's okay not to open your mouth right away, right? That's where the confidence they brought me on. They appointed me to that or they gave me I earn roles but I earn that role for a reason. So I'm already at the table, right? So when you walk in I get to know all the board members or I get to know all the people when I started here at Boston Scientific go around to all the leaders of the different business units and say what's keeping you up at night? What do I need to know? What's important to you? And that's how you start building that relationship and trust. But if I come in there and say, 'Well, this is how we're going to do it and, you know, you got five days to give me this information and we're going to,' they've already tuned me out, right? So, I think when people try to walk in that door kind of, you were talking about change earlier and you just say, 'Well, this is just the way we're going to do it.' And they try to make changes too quickly in an organization, it just backlash.

Yeah. If you just run on the headlines, you're like, 'Yep, me too.' And then you can kind of quickly move on to the next meeting.

I gave a great information today, right? Yeah. And whether I've heard or not, I'd let them believe that they gave me that information. And sometimes it is something I don't know everything, you know, or the fact that said, yeah, on the set then if it's said like 10 times by 10 people it doesn't matter where the same headlines like well this one's really important, you know, you're allowing them to share.

Well, we need that diversity of thought. So when you look at the environment I'm in today, you know, very highly political, you know, we have both sides of the aisle. And so my team, it's all Republican right now, but I don't just get rid of the Democrats and hire Republicans. I need that other perspective at the table all the time. And it's going to flip again. And so I think it's really important that and or, you know, like well that's your opinion. Well, wait a minute. We need to hear this voice in the room. And Marcy, you've worked with us and our team on that exact thing. By how do people think and how do you bring that out in them? So that's really important to have at the table. So I agree with you. I like that. Say the 'and' and the 'and also' and 'also' and 'also'.

Well, I have been in meetings where people were talking over one another and I've had to stop them and say, 'You're talking over one another. Let's listen.' I did it in a board meeting not long ago. It was I took a risk by doing that, but I just and we went into executive session and I just said, you know, people need to listen better because we're not really hearing what people are saying because people are talking over one another. It was like but it put people was feedback for the group that we have to. So here in our office we don't have a lot of conflict. We might have difference of opinion but we just work it out together. We sit at the table and work it out. We had an issue this morning that we really were like, what should we do on this? And there were a little bit different opinions. So, I just kept asking different people, well, where are you on that? If they weren't speaking up to make sure we had consensus on how we were going forward. So you have to my opinion or my approach is to make sure that I am asking others in the room and not just listening to the loudest voice. I think a lot of times the loudest voice is the one that sometimes wins because they're willing to speak up. I think I've learned through years of being with this team there are some people that need more time to think about something. So you have to then go to that blue green or the red yellows, you know, the I want to participate. I'm gonna talk fast and I'm gonna think quickly. And others that are just pondering it, I want the ponders to speak up at some point. So I seek them out.

Mhm. What we've tried to do here is say, okay, we all have personal opinions about whatever social issue there is, divided issues, but when we're here in this organization, and I think people should think about that with their own, what's in the best interest of the organization that I'm working for, not Brenda Becker's, not, you know, Marcy Stout's, you know, what is in the best interest of the organization and put that hat into the ring. And that's how we work here. And that's kind of the culture we've said. This isn't about us personally. Even though we're bringing our personal thinking to the table to come to the best outcome, we want that. But at the end of the day, this isn't, you know, a divided issue, which we could name many of them right now socially that have kind of overtaken a lot of the space in the room. It's the elephant in the room most of the time. So we have to coach through our organization because we've become the center of the universe here right now because government is ginormous right now. We have to keep that calm because if we don't keep calm everybody is going to be like wow if Washington and the team if Brenda and her team are, you know, blowing up that's not going to help anything. So, we just try to stay calm because it's the right thing to do. It's the right culture to create when times are tough.

I think that I wear my emotions on my sleeve sometimes. Probably not shocking. We all do. We have our moments, you know, where I have to have a little, you know, okay, you know, take that out of the equation. But I think you hit the nail on the head. People just want to be heard. And if they don't feel like they're being heard, that's when the passion and the emotion comes out. So if as leaders we listen again going back two ears, one mouth if we listen and let them be heard even if we don't necessarily agree or that's not the direction we go we heard that point of view and you say I heard you you just said this however, you know, people just, you know, even with our kids right they just need somebody to listen to them they don't need us to fix the problem they just need to be heard. If they're not heard, you know, then they go into extra anxiety spin.

True. True. But I'm right this time. You know, it's just true that, you know, it's really diversity of thoughts. And you know, the other thing I always love about you is it's you said this in the beginning, but like knowing who you want to be more often. Like know your brand, live up to that person you want to be, know your superpower, stay in that lane. And if you kind of stay in what makes you feel confident and impactful, and you make other people feel heard and valued around you, it's just like you're just kind of building moments of your day, no matter how stressful they may be, with people that are helping you be more successful while you're helping them be more successful.

Well, I think that I have been in an organization where that skill set that I brought to the table was not valued. So, I think that for anybody listening here, make sure you find the right fit in what organization or what group that you belong with. Because it wasn't until we brought in a management consultant that finally identified for me why I was miserable a lot of the time is because the other I were working out were up in this quadrant over here and I was by myself down here and he said finally somebody like said you all need her to meet you in the middle with what she's bringing to the table they weren't valuing relationships when somebody said to me, oh, you need to transfer your relationships to so-and-so who's now running this. And I said, well, I'm happy to introduce him, but you don't transfer relationships, you build relationships. But that was so, as you can hear me, that was a huge disconnect. And I was there for a very long time. I liked the external people I worked with and what I was doing, but it was every day a clash of making me feel like I didn't know what I was doing almost. It was like, you know, because you're not a policy wonk. Well, no, I'm not. I'll admit it. You know, it's not my thing. You all are policy wonks. So, so you need that in the middle. So, people need to find the right fit for themselves and need to trust their gut on that. It's okay not to fit somewhere and go find out where you do fit, where you are valued. Not that everybody's like you, but they value what you're bringing to the table. Whether you're a good budget person, you're a good financial person, you're, you know, good at data or you're good at marketing, whatever it is that your superpower is that it's valued where you go because you will be miserable if it's not. But knowing who you are and sticking to that core value is really important.

Yeah, that's helpful. And then I stayed there, but I did move on and actually went over into the government and one of the things we had talked about earlier is where have you been in a situation where it, you know, was new and uncomfortable and so and how did you deal with it? And I would say to anybody just trust your gut at the end of the day and go back to that core. So I went over to the Department of Commerce. I had not been in government. I walked in there and I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing. What am I doing here? Big impostor syndrome. Impostor. Impostor. Went to the first meeting with the senior staff and the secretary and we're sitting around the table and everybody was real serious. I'm like, 'Oh shit.' You know, like. And so we're going through the agenda and he had some meetings with me. I did the legislative affairs members of Congress and he's kind of reading through their bios because we didn't know what we were doing yet. And I go, 'Oh.' He goes, 'Oh, he went to BU.' I go, 'You've got a bonding moment.' The whole room like started laughing. I go, 'Okay.' I used my sense of humor and I know what I'm doing here. I know why he needs me here. And that was just trust in my gut at that point. And then I built a really good team. I walked in, you know, there's political appointees in career. Walked into the career. I said, 'Okay, if you were well, how would you organize this department if you were in charge?' They went and I think they worked all weekend. I felt awful about it. And they came back and they had this whole, you know, structure of how they do. They've been there a long time. They knew what they were doing. And I said, 'Okay, so what box do you see yourself in?' And they told me, I go, 'Done. You're in those boxes.' They were loyal from that day on and we built a really great team because we had a structure in place. They were where they had a good fit, where they brought value and they were not political appointees with that new administration, but they were there steadfastly and I knew I could rely on them. So empowered them to be where they thought they would fit. So I took the opportunity of being like, 'Oh my god, what have I done? Did I make a mistake?' And turned it into, 'Okay, go back to who you are, be who you are and be that well.' And that's what I was. And try to be somebody I wasn't.

Well, I appreciate being invited and everybody stay above the line and just believe in yourself.

Bye guys.