Getting Your Career in Shape with Dr. Candace Steele Flippin

0:00On Builders, I interview executives, entrepreneurs, and leaders about building their business and careers. Today, my guest is Dr. Candice or Dr. Candice Steele-Flippen. She's an author, communications professional, board director, art history buff, and much more. Today, we talk about getting your career in shape, which is the title of her latest book. We also discuss her research on Gen Z, accelerating women in leadership. We prop up Gen X and a bunch of other topics. You're going to enjoy this episode.

0:34Hi, Dr. Candice, how are you? Great to see you. Hey, John, I'm great. Thanks for having me. Well, I'm really excited to talk to you today. You're an author, you're a scholar, you're a board director, and you focus much of your time on leadership development for women, creating career paths for all generations, and your latest book, Getting Your Career in Shape, which I'd like to talk to you about. But before we hit on those subjects, I want to dive in a little bit to your origin story. What was fun to me is looking at your academic history as an undergraduate, it looks like you actually studied art history.

1:12I think I have that right. And was pivoting to a business and professional career, was that intentional, unintentional, or just how life goes? Serendipity. So first I'm going to say for all of those art historians out there or parents who have children who are studying the humanities, best degrees ever. And as I think about where work is going, a humanities degree is amazing because it teaches you how to think critically. And even though I started my career in the museum space, those early seeds that I learned from my academic training have paid off throughout my career. And I ended up working in life sciences, healthcare, medical devices, financial services, and industrial technology.

2:02But the pull through was art history taught me how to look and to listen and to look for patterns and be strategic. So yay, art history. I was just going to say I can second that emotion. I don't think you'd call my degree humanities per se is political science but but but similar people would ask me why you know do you want to be a politician i would say no i don't want to teach political science either but it it taught me how to think taught me in certain ways how how certain parts of the world work taught me how to think think critically um and get into new sort of look at new new um types of businesses and it's interesting your career is very is really varied in terms from from Abbott to financial services, so many different industries.

2:47I imagine it's just looking like at a different period of art history is like examining a new, new category, new industry. Yes. What I like to tell people is, you know, your foundation or your base is, is where you want to start. And that gave me an amazing foundation. And even though I don't work professionally in the arts, I certainly have stayed very close contact as a volunteer, throughout my career. Once I left officially, I served on art boards. I'm actually on the board of the Woodruff here as a trustee in Atlanta. I'm a patron of the arts. I still love the arts, even though I'm not doing it professionally.

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4:04Check it out at business.com slash plus. That's business.com slash P-L-U-S. So the transition from art history to getting an MBA, was that right away? Was that after some work experience? What launched your career into becoming a professional? Serendipity again. So I launched my career working in the arts and I loved it. I made very little money, but I had a great lifestyle. I think I had two part-time jobs. But at that time, we ended up going through a transition in my state. I was living in Michigan and the funding was cut for the arts. And much like people see fundings now being cut and the federal funding was contingent on the state match.

4:53So when the state made a decision to reallocate those funds, I found myself like many others in my profession at a crossroads. And in my case, and please don't judge viewers and listeners, but I was in my 20s and the head of the museum I worked for came to me and she said, Candy, don't worry. We have found a way to keep you. And I'm like, great. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to expand our camp-in program. So camp-ins are when young people and their chaperones come into a situation, in my case, that museum on a Friday night, they spend the night, you have programming for them. You know, they bring their camping bags and all that you sleep on a cot.

5:40And then you have some programming in the morning, they have bagels for breakfast, and they go on their merry way, being enriched, having fun, all those things. And the executive director said, we just need you to do 23 of them. So can you imagine someone in their early 20s who liked to believe like she was living her best 20 something year old life, spending half the year on a cot on Friday nights, right? And sometimes Saturday nights. All I saw was like my, my, my little bit of a social life that I had. Because when you work for museums, you work on the weekends and on holidays. And I thought to myself, oh my God, I will cease to exist.

6:27So I opened the newspaper back in the day when you could go to the one, the classifieds. And this is pre when they were doing it on the internet. And I launched a career. So I took my core skills in program management and planning and organizing and managing volunteers and shifted to go work for the American Red Cross working in volunteer services. So it was really, I'm going to say serendipity, but fear of lack of social life and spending half the year on a cot. That caused me to shift. I did have a part-time job where I worked on the weekends for the Detroit Institute of Arts via a contract managing arts program.

7:09So I still kind of had my toe in it, but yeah, that launched me. And from there, I just followed my passions and wanted to really expand and move to corporate. And so my entree was to start doing national campaigns and I was doing cause related marketing for a nonprofit. And then I was tapped by a PR firm because at that time, celebrities had just started doing those ask your doctor campaigns. The laws had changed. And so I had the distinct privilege of having done large scale national cause related marketing campaigns, working with celebrities. And so that's what that was my entree into corporate America.

7:55And then from there, my client hired me and I spent a lot of time in life sciences and made the pivot from there. I love it. And, you know, I want to ask a little bit more about your career progression, because as I see it, there are two like really major promotions, I guess, to get to the C-suite. One is the first time that you're elevated to a VP position or a VP plus position. And in your case, what do you believe are some of the keys that got you that first big step? Intentionality. So when I went to corporate America, I was a vice president in a nonprofit, but in corporate America, it was a different trajectory.

8:44And I remember applying for roles and I would always come in second. And while I never lament roles I don't get, I always believe the ones that you get are the ones for you. I did ask a recruiter, I'm like, well, what is it about these other candidates that I don't have? And they said, well, they have built and in my domain was corporate communications, corporate marketing. And she had said they built a certain type of program, internal communications. And so I thought opportunistically, how can I do something like that in my current role? And at that time. At that time, I was I was the head of communications for the commercial business.

9:29And so I went to the chief communications officer, excuse me, chief commercial officer and said, you need your own internal comms department. So I built that. So I had that understanding. And then I just started networking. And what I mean by that is a lot of times I would go to conferences and then I would go from session to session and then I would work in between sessions. but I started going to the peer exchange ones where you just sit at a table and you're just talking about things. And as I was talking to someone, she was having a dilemma and I was just giving advice. I was listening, learning, giving advice.

10:09And lo and behold, several months later, I was contacted by a recruiter and it was an opportunity to build an internal comms program on the other side, because I knew that was the box that I needed to fix. And I applied. And when the recruiter said who the company was, I was like, oh, I know the leader there that I would be reporting to. And I sent her a message. She goes, oh my God, I didn't know you were looking. We need to get you over here. And so it was, I think it was a combination of being intentional about getting the experience, building it where I was as close as I could, and then going on to do that through networking so I could close it.

10:52And then as I moved in my career, it has really been networking. The majority of the roles that I've received have come through by networking. So I often advise people, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, no matter where you get your energy, invest some of that energy into other people. Because as you navigate your career, you want to have the widest possible aperture for success by knowing people. I love your response to a no in that case and trying to look at things pragmatically and realistically and saying, you know, what would have had to have been true for me to have gotten that job?

11:30Then you check the box and you put yourself in an amazing situation. You know, I wonder if those things, networking, intentionality, are part of the ways that you get your career in shape, which is the title of your most recent book. And I hope you don't mind if you ask if I ask you to to show it to the to the audience. But I happen to have it right there. Oh, my gosh. What a what a coincidence. But probably to use to use an intentionality, there had to be some intentionality with using that phrase in shape, because I think it evokes for me, you know, like getting in shape like exercise or getting your getting your body in shape.

12:11So why did you decide to use that phrase for your career? You know, my domain expertise is corporate marketing and corporate communications. And so as I was doing the research, a number of themes started to come up. And so one of the themes, I just tried to match a letter to the theme. And as I was looking at them, trying to put them together, shape emerged. And it just made sense. And the other thing is I would often tell people careers are journeys and the best trips are with someone by your side. And then I would often tell people when they would talk to me, whether I was mentoring people, I would say, you know, it's a new year.

12:50It's time to get in shape. And so it just kind of all came together. And it's easy to remember. And it's fun. I like to think it's catchy. And the last thing I'll say is, you know, we as humans don't always like change. And so but we like to prepare sometimes. And so I figured it was an easy way to get people to think about moving their career along. Also, what I found in my own career and the people who I've seen be most successful in in their careers is they they invest and you get you get a payoff. Like in exercise, you don't go for one run and you're in shape. You have to work up to it. And then all of a sudden, two, three, six months, you're ready for the next job or you've overcome something that's holding you back or whatever.

13:37Maybe you could tell the audience a personal story maybe from the book or a story from someone that you researched that would help a way that they got their career in shape or at least one of the lessons from the book. Oh my. Okay. So I'll start with myself. I'll start with the first one. I've been very fortunate, extremely blessed. And a lot of people think kind of like I woke up in my career like this, but I actually was a financial shipwreck. I remember going to college and there would be these fairs and it would just be rolls of banks lined up, giving you credit cards. and you fill out this little card, like a postcard, and then miraculously every week's late the credit card comes in the mail.

14:25I'm like, I'll take this one, I'll take this one. And so I graduated with my degree and a ton of credit card debt. And it took me a long time to dig out from under that. And so the first thing I had to learn was how to be better with my finances. And so the acronym, the first one is S, it's about building a strong financial foundation. It's around SAVE. And I talk about, I did save, but I didn't realize how important your financial foundation, your savings is to your ability to have a really great career trajectory. Certainly things can happen. You can get lucky. But in my case, at that time, a dream job emerged and it was heading up an organization that helped people, young people vote.

15:22And it was it was up my alley. It was working with MTV back then. And it was working with celebrities. It was doing cause related marketing. It was doing education, all the things I had done in my career. And I had just bought my first home, which I had stretched to get into. and I was in my late twenties and the offer came in and it was a little less than what I was making. And I did not have a strong financial foundation. So I was not able to take that job despite my negotiation skills, because I couldn't afford it. I couldn't, and I couldn't afford to take the risk. And it was one of the first rude awakenings for me as it relates to how your level of savings and the way you're managing your money and understanding how money works can impact your career.

16:19And so I had to get my own career in shape early on. And it was a challenge to change how I looked at my relationship with money and how I looked at it as it relates to my career. So I'll stop there because there's a part two to that story. Okay. I want to hear part two. In my early 20s where I had a credit card and I'd pay down the minimum payment and that's what I had to spend that money above and beyond what I got. And you're you're right. Looking, looking back at that, maybe there's another job you want, but you don't, you don't even bother looking for it because you're sort of focused on, on next paycheck, et cetera.

17:03So important. Okay. Is part two a turnaround or, or, or. Yes. Yes. So remember, I told you how I pivoted in my career to a role to get to VP. So that opportunity came, but it came with$20 ,000 less than what I was making. Right. Yeah. That was kind of what my husband said when I took it. And so I said to myself, you need this, you need this piece because with this piece, you're going to gain all these things and then you can, you can pivot. And so I, um, I, I did it. And the other part of my book, which is the acronym for A-Advocate, which is learning to use your voice effectively. And it also includes working on your negotiation skills.

17:59During my negotiations, I knew that I couldn't change the salary because companies have salary bands. They really don't like to mess with those, but it can be discretionary with other things like your signing bonus. They can, sometimes the bonus, it could be discretionary. So I sat down with the recruiter and I said, listen, I know I'm going to excel in this role. And I have looked at the net present value over the next three years of what this will look like based on what I'm giving up for this opportunity. We need to come up with a strategy that will make me whole. And I said, and so if the salary's here, fine, let's look at the sign-on bonus.

18:39And then let's look at what the annual bonus target will be so that I will stay on the same trajectory. And then I sent him the Excel spreadsheet that showed what my expectations needed to be. He was like, whoa.

18:58And I think it impressed the other side so much. I got the high end that I could with what was in their pay scale. But then I opened the opportunity for myself. So even though my base was lower, I was getting more cash up front. And so in the end, I actually helped negotiate a better salary situation for myself. Wow. And, you know, being data driven, being thoughtful, having a reason. So many people don't do that when they're, you know, talking to me or talking to my peers about salary and moving up. And that's the type of thing that, let's say you're a middle manager and you need to get approval for something.

19:37That's the type of thing that you can maybe get approved when someone comes to you and is thoughtful like that. A bunch of these stories are about your early career, and you've done a lot of work, wrote a book about people who are early in their career right now, Gen Z, and sort of giving them a career path. I guess my first question is, are there misconceptions about Gen Z from older generations like myself? Just sort of a blanket statement. Do I presume things about Gen Z that are not true or might not be true? You would never, John. Just never. Well, here's the reason I ask, because I sort of buried the lead.

20:25But when I was young, there was the Time magazine article that came out that said Gen X, the slacker generation. That was like a famous title. And it labeled me and everybody my age as people who didn't give a hoot about anything. So I wonder if, and obviously that did not turn out to be true. Are there similar things? You know? Yes. I'm a Gen X as well. I like to say that we're like the Jan. We're like the Jan. No. Brady? Yeah, the Jan Brady of the generation discussion. Everyone's talking about Marsha, you know? Which is like the millennials. But no one ever talks about us. Right. So here's what I found in my research.

21:14And that book actually came out in 2017. and I feel privileged to be among the first to really document Gen Z workplace values and career values. So there was this perception that because they were digital natives and they weren't playing outside, like all those things that we heard, but that perhaps that they were lazy, they wanted shortcuts. So their efficiency and their digital orientation was perceived as them being lazy. they were perceived as not believing in the American dream and wanting to work hard and all those other things. And I did not find that true in my research. And I continue to see things very differently.

22:01So it's really looking at it through a lens of how you came up. Generation theory says that when and where you were born and what was happening where you live, shape your values. That's why we hear sometimes people in the silent generation or the traditionalists and even some of the baby boomers have different workplace values because the traditionalists, people who grew up during the Great Depression where things were scarce, their perceived as not wanting to be wasteful. baby boomers when they entered the workplace there was a greater expectation that you could spend your career with one company you you retire 25 years later 30 which watch and your pension or program blah blah blah well you know this millennial and and gen z particularly i mean these cohorts of, I say, workers, young people, younger people, humans, think about what was happening when they were coming of age.

23:06And I talk about the expectation around effort, which sometimes get classified as less effort or laziness, is just what play looked like and what the expectations of play. So for example, you know, we played outside and they were winners and losers and you dusted yourself off and you did it the next time. Right. I think that we did have this video game. It was like two lines and a little ball and they had to move it. And then you went to the arcade to do Ms. Pac-Man or Pac-Man, like all of that. But at the end you lost. And if you wanted to do again, you know, you quarters, whatever, but that accelerated.

23:44So for young people play is you master something one time, you get to the next level. And I told you before we started, I was traveling yesterday and in the row across room was a little boy and he was playing a game. I don't even think he was six. So imagine you master something and you go to the next level. So in your mind, temporarily, you're thinking that achievement and advancement is not based on how many times you do it. It's just the time you do it. And then you go to the next. And what I've seen play out in my interviews, or young people will say, or millennial, but Gen Z particularly, they'll say, I don't understand why it's taking years for me to get this promotion.

24:31Like I went through the year, I did all these things. I've proved I can do it. I'm ready to go to the next thing? Why do I have to keep showing over and over again for some unclear, indeterminate amount of time before I'm ready to move on? Whereas I'll talk to Gen Xs or baby boomers. They're like, I don't understand how these young people feel like they can just come in and get my job in two years. They need to sit in that seat and pay their dues. And then millennial in the center, they're like, why do we have to be hazed? Like Gen X, and maybe when you remember how frustrating it is. Why haven't you fixed the system?

25:08And so I feel like sometimes that efficiency that these digital natives have learned, like, you know, they'll say, well, why do we have to have this two hour meeting? You could just send an email or a Slack message or something and we're done and keep it moving. And so I see that play out a lot. And it's just how work has changed, how life has changed. And we are slower to evolve our thinking around that or understanding around it. So for folks who are in Gen X and like say leadership positions and have a large Gen Z workforce, what would you recommend to folks of our generation to improve our business and get the most of everyone that works at the company?

25:55Three things. So the first is there's this expectation or perception, I should say, that generations don't matter. And every time I ask baby boomers through Gen Z, is it important that your manager know about generational differences? By and large, everyone says yes. It's important. It's important that my manager take time and improves performance and improves communication. Maybe not for everyone, but by and large, the majority of people say yes. So it's not always just life stage, it's identity and understanding and appreciating that. And just like any type of human dynamics at a large scale, there's going to be a bell curve.

26:38There are going to be people who are in the center and they are more common and they're going to be outliers. So I feel that it doesn't disrespect the outliers to just be respectful and note that when and where someone was born and what was happening shapes what's important to them. So that's one, be open, have a growth mindset, be open to learning that some people may have different expectations based on their generational cohort. Number two is even within that, even within that, I found also through my research that there's certain communication styles that different generations focus on. And so I looked at some work by a scholar out of the UK, and he, Orrin Hargay, he looks at interpersonal communications.

27:28And that's just the way we exchange information and ideas, both verbally, like I'm talking to you, or non-verbally. Like if I say, do you like something and you shake your head? Yeah. And I'm thinking, oh, she likes it. Or if you do a thumbs down, you know, I'm like, oh, they don't like that. Right, right. Interpersonal communications. And I looked at his 12 and I did a study of 1 ,400 individuals. I've done it multiple times. And I was looking for four, one for each generation. And I was going to train people, learn these four interpersonal skills and you'll be golden. Turns out there are three.

27:58So the first one is active listening. That's paying attention to someone, giving them eye contact, not using your device or looking away or multitasking when you're in a conversation. And baby boomers resonate towards that. And I think part of it is how communication flowed when they were coming of age. So active listening. Everyone. So everyone will benefit from that. The second one for our generation, the Gen X, I try to prop this up anytime I can. Thank you. We need it. Is collaboration. And that's because particularly when we came to workplace, globalization started opening up. people were working across borders, across state lines, technology enabled that.

28:47And along with that, we started adopting really great practices around everything that goes in collaboration, keeping people informed, recognizing, some people say we over-recognize millennials, you know, like, you know, feedback was like all the things that make reward systems, everything that makes collaboration great. And so for GenXs, it's really around enhancing your collaboration skills. That's good for everyone. Interestingly, for both millennial and Gen Z, it was one, it was empathy. Now, some people say empathy is putting yourself into someone else's shoes. And I feel like that narrows it because I can't imagine my husband walking around in my stilettos.