ALLIES | INCLUDE

Allies Include with Ken Lamneck, Glynis Bryan, and Gavriella Schuster

As part of my series on ALLIES, today we are going to talk about the I in ALLIES, Include. 

Inclusion is about creating a culture where everyone feels like they belong.  They feel safe to share their perspective and valued for what they say and do. 

How do you ensure you are being inclusive?  Look around your team, organization and the meetings you are in and take mental note of whether everyone who should be represented is present.  When you walk into a meeting, a team, or a group, seek out those not sharing their ideas and work to include them in the conversation. Look around the room and encourage everyone to contribute. When someone does speak up, demonstrate that their opinion matters.

Go out of your way to invite female colleagues in informal meetings that happen over lunch or drinks where they may not feel comfortable inviting themselves.

I would like to introduce you to two people who will share their story with you about the impact of these actions.  My esteemed colleague, Glynis Bryan, who is the CFO for Insight. She is known for delivering results and for her commitment to driving customer and partner satisfaction.   Glynis is also the winner of the 2021 Women in Cloud Allyship award herself but today, Glynis will share her story of allyship and how it has made a difference in her experience and confidence in building her career.

I would also like to introduce you to her ally, Ken Lamneck who is the former Chief Executive Officer for Insight.  

Both of these individuals have led impressive businesses and hold executive roles.  But we are going to play Monday morning quarterback and take you back to a time in their history when they were just connecting and the road that was paved by Ken’s intention to become an ally for Glynis.

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ALLIES | ELEVATE

Allies Elevate with Gavriella Schuster and Lori and Steve Borg

In this episode in my ALLIES series we are going to talk about the E in ALLIES, Elevate.

I would like to introduce you to two people who will share their story with you about the impact of ally actions.  Today I am joined by Lori Borg and her ally and husband Steve Borg.

Lori Borg has spent nearly 25 years working alongside Microsoft, has built and sold two companies, has been a seller, a Sales Leader, a founder, CMO, CRO, CGO and CEO.  She was a  Global Head of the Microsoft Alliance for one of the worlds largest technology firms (Cognizant). Lori’s first company, Northwest Cadence, was Microsoft’s first Gold DevOps partner in the US (Northwest Cadence), her second was Microsoft’s largest Azure partner in the US (10th Magnitude), and today Lori is serving as the Chief Growth Officer at MCA Connect.

I would also like to introduce you to her ally, Steve Borg , who started his career in the Microsoft ecosystem as an early MVP on Visual Studio Team System (Microsoft developer platform). Steve is an entrepreneur who co-founded a small .NET training and consulting company, and quickly became know for his public speaking, writing, and thought leadership in the DevOps / Developer community. Steve was the co-founder of Northwest Cadence alongside Lori and today Steve leads the product team at Microsoft who is building Microsoft’s first medical imaging platform on Azure.

Both of these individuals have led impressive businesses and held executive roles.  But we are going to play Monday morning quarterback and take you back a few years back when Lori was the CEO of her own company and Steve took intentional action to make sure her position was elevated and valued. 

When you elevate someone you are providing them opportunities to be more visible.  That can be as easy as amplifying their voice and making sure they receive credit for their ideas or looking for new projects or opportunities for the individual to demonstrate leadership and become more visible.  It is about elevating them and their position.   You might think a CEO does not need an ally in this respect but you will hear otherwise. 

There are several ally actions you can take without anyone’s permission.  Actions like advocating, listening and lifting others up (to learn more see my blog posts on those).  However, when you act as an ally and elevate someone, I consider this to be proactive allyship.  That means that you must have their position as you are taking intentional action to put them in the spotlight, give them more responsibility, visibility and a higher level of inclusion.  This requires that the person you are supporting and empowering agrees that they want this level of attention.  If you have not already discussed your potential actions with the individual, it could have the opposite impact of what you intended.  They could feel overwhelmed, and underprepared.  That would not be the situation you want to put them in.  But when you do have permission to elevate them, their work and/or their position, acting in this way could be a game changing move. 

As you listen to the full interview below, consider how you might take action to elevate those around you who may not be getting the credit, the visibility or the support they need to breakthrough in their role. 

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ALLIES | SPONSOR

Allies Sponsor with John Schwarz, Maggie Chan Jones and Gavriella Schuster

As part of my series on ALLIES here is the interview for the “S” in Sponsor. 

Wise words from both Maggie Chan Jones and John Schwarz as they share their story of sponsorship in the Avast board room.

To quote Maggie: “sponsorship is a partnership of achievement and advocacy.  Sponsors are those who are at a higher level in an organization who see the potentials in you as a protégé and next generation leader.  They may challenge you to a bolder vision for yourself, help open doors to new opportunities, provide visibility, and expand your network.  They are the ones who speak positively on your behalf even when you were not in the room.  Sponsors are most often “earned”.

Very often, people use mentors and sponsors interchangeably.  But I love this analogy to distinguish the two roles.  Mentors shine a light on the door and sponsors kick it open for you.”

Maggie Chan Jones is a long and influential business advocate of DEI.  She founded Tenshey, Inc. in 2018 and currently serves as CEO. Through Tenshey, Maggie focuses on elevating more women and underrepresented leaders into leadership roles.

She is a Board Director at Avast and Open Systems. 

Maggie is also a renowned author of the book Decoding Sponsorship which I highly recommend you read, and I am delighted to have her join me today to speak more about that and share one of her stories alongside one of her own sponsors John Schwarz.    

John Schwarz is a very accomplished leader. He is a Founder and Chairman of Visier, a software business focused on delivering analytics applications to business users. He currently serves as a director of Synopsys Corporation, Teradata Corporation, Avast Corporation, and as an advisor to the Dalhousie University.

In the interview Maggie and John share their story in the Avast board room.  How John sponsored Maggie’s nomination into and more importantly participation in the board room.  What that looked like and the actions he took to be her ally.

Please click the link below to listen to the full interview.

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