As women in professional settings, we need to recognize the fact that we often have taller hurdles to overcome to succeed in our careers, but having the correct mindset and creative solutions to such problems are key to that success.
In the latest meeting of SBI’s quarterly Executive Women’s Growth Forum, I was honored to be joined by Kelley Steven-Waiss, Chief Transformation Officer of ServiceNow, who shared her success story and unique perspective to inspire the other women executives who joined us.
For context, Kelley has been a technology and business leader for over 25 years. Her success in leading the development of Hitch Works—a cloud-based SaaS talent mobility platform—led to its eventual acquisition by ServiceNow. She went on to write a couple of books to share her experiences with the goal of inspiring women executives to reach their full potential.
This purpose—as she shared in her latest book, “Valley Girls: Lessons from Female Founders in the Silicon Valley and Beyond”—resonated with me strongly as it matched the aim of the Women’s Growth Forum, which is to facilitate conversations relevant to women executives and find opportunities to lift them up in their careers.
Having read her book ahead of the forum, the first important lesson I learned was that for a woman to succeed in such a competitive space, having the right mindset is crucial.
Kelley draws her inspiration from the studies of psychologist Carol Dweck on having a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset, but she also takes it a step further to adopt an abundance mindset so that she is always focused on recognizing opportunities and surrounding herself with people that enable her to continually develop herself and achieve her goals.
“We all grew up in a capitalist society where we learned how to live with constraints—you only have so much time, money, and resources. Sometimes they’re forced upon you, where people will go, ‘You’re never going to be a doctor, don’t even try.’”
However, Kelley learned to flip that narrative to having ‘no limiting beliefs’, inspired by her mother who made the decision to join the police academy at a late age of 44.
“But if I change my mindset to, ‘There’s nothing I can’t do,’ it really changes everything,” she said.
She faced a lot of naysayers when she started to venture into developing software as she herself was not a software engineer, but she saw a way forward by building a team of people around her who had the capabilities to achieve her vision.
“When you live in an abundance mindset, you’re not predetermined. The narrative is always about the constraints, so if we flip it, how can we make it more about the possibilities?” she added.
That point led me to another question: historically, society has not made it easy for women to move up in their careers. So, what was Kelley’s take on which women’s hurdles were surmountable and which were not?
To her, women still have to work against bias and constraints that exist because humans have historically perpetuated them, but we’re starting to see that barrier being broken down as technology becomes more developed.
“Now we have more access to a lot more information. We’re teaching our kids that they can be anything they want to be, and that attitude is becoming pervasive. So, while there still is bias that exists, it starts with us thinking, ‘I will do whatever I want to do; I will make it work for me,’” she said.
While we can have this grand vision of what we want to achieve, the reality of operationalizing our strategy still starts with meeting people, society, and businesses where they are. What enables us to make a difference is by getting creative and innovative with forming solutions that work around the cost centers that businesses are built on.
Another concept from Kelley’s book that I wanted to explore was her idea of having a ‘personal board of directors’. In building her start-up, she acknowledged early on that she did not have the skills or experience to run every aspect of it.
“I wanted to be intentional about having a group of people who were carefully curated for their skills and experience that I could talk to about my ideas,” she said, adding that it was important that this group could not have her investors, employees, or family members.
“It’s something I highly recommend, even if you’re not running a start-up. You can have a personal board of directors just for yourself in your current role.”
SBI’s Executive Women’s Growth Forum takes place on a quarterly basis. You can check out our calendar for upcoming Executive Growth Forums and learn how you can participate by visiting our website.
