Marta Newhart, an alum from the University of Washington has several achievements including being the highest ranking Latino when she left Boeing where she had been for 20 years. She was recruited by Covidien, a major medical device manufacturing as their VP of Communications and Public Affairs. She then left that post to join a team of former Boeing Executives as the Chief Marketing and Communications Office including and Investor Relations of Suntricity.
During an hour talk with current students, Marta shared many useful insights.
Rather than pack them all into one blog post, I am splitting them up into digestible chunks. This is the third in the series. Enjoy.
Set the pace
When it comes to the work you do and your career, pace is important. If you’re going too fast, you increase the chances of missing the essential details, becoming overwhelmed and even burning out. However, going too slow can prevent you from making meaningful progress, cause you to become bored and lose your momentum. Find the pace provides with just enough pressure for optimal results. Also establish rules that help maintain this pace.
One important factor outside of you that influences pace is the people around you. Most people will not know about the rules you’ve established to make you productive and the things you are juggling. Letting others dictate the pace can take you off track. For example, may be you are someone that has a rule about getting a good night’s sleep because it allows you to perform well. If you constantly allow others to disrupt your ability to get that sleep, you are letting them break your rules. Letting people know these sorts of things and sometimes reminding them can help ensure your rules are respected.
Fitting In
Feeling like you belong is an indication that you are fitting in. Marta provided a unique perspective on this topic. According to Marta, fit needs to be less about who are the people that are “just like us” and more about who is unlike us and can bring us value. These types of differences can include things like, second language competencies, academic discipline, religious belief, gender, and race. This means that we have to refine the way HR brings people into companies.
In short, when we get corporate America to understand that “fit” does not mean someone that looks like “me” we will begin to make progress.
Intellect as Asset
As highlighted by Marta, being smart and not saying anything is like hiding under a rock. Among other things, your intellect is what allows you to excel. It can manifest in the form of good ideas, creativity and well thought out rebuttals to the decisions of others. The attitudes and actions of those around you can sometimes make you feel like your intelligence is in some way a threat and that you should just maintain the status quo. Regardless of what others might say or do, the education that you have obtained (formally and informally) is an asset. Hence, do not apologize for being intelligent. It is the thing that will allow you to do what you do with a level of excellence that is unmatched.
I hope you were able to gain some new insights through my summary and commentary on the lessons shared by Marta Newhart. Look out for the next post in this series in the near future.