Leading In The Time Of Virus
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 223: Stephanie Nadi Olson
Hi. I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach and advise their leaders to help them maximize their impact and grow their business.
In today’s world, leadership means meeting the challenges of two viruses - COVID-19 and racism. In this environment, unlocking creative thinking and innovation has never been more critical.
This episode is being published within a couple of days of the very sad news that Sir Ken Robinson has died. He was perhaps the world’s leading thinker and expert on creativity and innovation. His original TED Talk, “Do Schools Kill Creativity”, is the most watched in the history of TED. If you haven’t seen it, take 18 minutes and watch it. It’s extraordinary.
Ken believed in the potential of every child. At its core, his message was profound and simple. Every human being is remarkable.
I was fortunate to spend a fair amount of time with Ken between 2006 and 2008. Everywhere he went, people stopped him to say that watching his talk had changed their life.
My sense from watching people’s response to Ken was that they thought he believed in them more than they believed in themselves.
He was 70 when he died, much too young. But his legacy is extraordinary.
If you haven’t watched his TED Talks, I encourage you to take a few minutes and do that.
They might just change your life.
This episode is a conversation with Stephanie Nadi Olson - Founder and CEO of We Are Rosie.
They are a very modern business, built to match marketing talent with opportunity in very dynamic and flexible ways. If you were going to design a business to confront the challenges of these two viruses, We Are Rosie would be a pretty good blueprint to follow.
They are built to unlock the potential of people.
I suspect Sir Ken would have approved.
Here’s Stephanie Nadi Olson.
Charles: (2:01)
Stephanie, welcome to Fearless, thanks so much for joining me on the show.
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (2:04)
Thank you for having me, I'm so happy to be here.
Charles: (2:07)
Tell me where you are and how are you experiencing, I'm not sure that it's lockdown anymore, is it? What phase are we into?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (2:15)
I think it's still quarantine, maybe not total lockdown. We're still quarantining. I'm in Atlanta. I've been working from my parents' house. Thankfully I have that kind of outlet, not too far from my home base. But with two small children at home, I've been coming there for a reprieve. Working and living in Atlanta still, and still quarantining.
Charles: (2:40)
Tell me how, let me jump all the way back to the beginning of We Are Rosie, because it seems like now, a company that was ideally built for what we are in fact experiencing. I imagine when you conceived it, you didn't foresee a global pandemic, followed by probably the largest civil rights movement in certainly our lifetimes and perhaps in history coming together at exactly the same moment. Tell me how We Are Rosie started?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (3:05)
I'm very fortunate. I've worked in marketing and advertising my entire career. I had this 15 year pretty traditional career in the marketing and advertising space, primarily on the media side. Right out of university, I went and worked at Microsoft and then AOL, then got the startup itch, and worked at a couple startups that had good exits. It was really the birth of my second daughter that caused me to pick my head up and say, “What is the legacy I want to leave my children? What is the opportunity that I have that my ancestors didn't have?” I'm first-generation American, first-generation college grad. I took a moment, kind of what a lot of people are doing now in the midst of COVID, I took a moment to just be like, “What kind of life do I want to build? Am I building the life I want to live long-term?”
I took a moment to reset. I quit my job. I've never done that before. I had three months of unemployment, which is something I've never, it was a gift, a complete gift. I just walked out of my job and thought, “I'm going to re-imagine my life.” It kind of resulted in me re-imagining the way that marketing could get done, and at the time, no, I certainly didn't imagine a global pandemic. I didn't imagine that we would have the resurrection in the news front of the civil rights movement. But I did see a couple of trends that are kind of the underbelly of this industry in terms of, I saw a lot of brands continuing to ask for project-based work. I saw big agencies floundering in terms of how they could respond.
It was very difficult for big agencies, particularly holding companies to shift and respond to that. I saw a desire, small level for brands and agencies to incorporate more diverse talent into the way that their work was getting done. Those two trends led me to think, “How could I creatively solve this problem?” Because the current system is so bureaucratic and so big, particularly with so many agencies rolling up into holding companies. They're just massive behemoths. It's tough, it's like turning the Titanic. How can I build a new structure that would allow the marketing services game to really respond to the needs of both clients, but also talent? One of the things that I was seeing at the same time was a lot of talent leaving our industry, which was heartbreaking to me.
I had experienced discrimination and a tough time as a woman and a working mother in this industry, and I saw a lot of other people that have it way worse than I do, experiencing similar things. As a result, I saw what I have labeled the talent migration. So people leaving traditional full-time employment, and going to work in an independent fashion. I thought, “Wow, if I can gather up all of this talent, I can put them to work in a way that services the requests of brands.” This drive for agility project-based work, a more adaptable marketing services model and diversity and inclusion, and we can solve all these problems. That was my light bulb moment, and I thought I'm going to build the access point for all of this independent talent, and all of this project-based work coming out of brands.
Charles: (6:23)
You've built a business that has incredible flexibility and fluidity and agility. Obviously the world is changing very, very rapidly. It's changed a lot over the last five months I guess now. It's changed multiple times within the last five months. The story we thought we had in March, it was different than it was in April, it was different in May, and it's different again now. What do you think of the current problems that companies are facing, and what are you seeing? What do you think will be the lasting problems that come out of what we are experiencing?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (6:53)
I think the kind of preexisting conditions of this industry are unchanged, we're just talking about them more now. Racism, lack of equity, lack of agility and transparency are themes that have been happening for decades. That we are just now starting to pay more attention to, which is a fantastic thing. I think that those will be enduring challenges, particularly on the racism and equity front in our industry, because it's a systemic challenge. Like I used to say all the time, racism is in the air we breathe in America. This is not just an advertising problem, this is a cultural problem. We will have to reconsider the way work happens to create a more equitable future. I think that that will be a lot, I wish that we could wave a wand and say like, “Okay, we've got it.”
I think that we will make progress, but it will take a long time. That will certainly be an enduring challenge. I think the drive to work in a more agile capacity is a current challenge that I think we can make a lot of progress on really quickly. We've seen it within We Are Rosie. We've made massive strides in enabling 20 Fortune 500 brands to get their work done in a more adaptable, agile way. The new, big nugget problem that we've been having a lot of conversations around is this, I'm using air quotes here, but like “return to work”. We have started over the last six weeks or so fielding calls from C-suite at Fortune 500 brands who are saying, "Okay, we need to reconsider the way that we engage our full-time employees, and how we are going to get work done in this very uncertain world." We just don't know.
Are things going to be more certain at the end of the year? Are we going to have some sense of normalcy 12 months from now? Maybe, but it's so hard to say, but I think COVID has gone on long enough that it's given everybody a moment to step back and say, “Well, how do we rebuild?” It's the same pause that I took when I quit my job and spent three months thinking, “What is the future I want to build?” That is a challenge that we're hearing a lot about. How do we return to work? How do we re-examine or examine the way that we engage with full-time employees with our marketing services partners, our entire supply chain to be more agile, to be remote friendly, to perhaps have a fully distributed workforce. The cool thing is everything we're talking about is tied together.
When you move to a more agile distributed remote workforce, the benefit is inclusion. This is something we've been talking about at We Are Rosie for three years. The ability to now support brands who are connecting those dots and recognizing that remote work, distributed teams are a form of inclusion is a beautiful moment for us. I think that's really the big new one, is like, “How do we come back?” How do we rebuild organizations that have had layoffs and furloughs? How do we restructure even things like we're talking to clients about, is the way that you manage and promote and hire biased against people who need or want to work remotely? We're now having these conversations on all fronts.
Charles: (10:09)
What about the supply chain? I was talking to Justin Gignac a couple of weeks ago about the fact that the supply chain is designed to produce predominantly white candidates. Companies that are looking around and saying, “Well, we just need to hire more diversely,” don't have a supply chain from which to pull. Are they going to have to work pretty hard to create their own supply chains that are different than the traditional ones? What do you see in terms of that?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (10:32)
I think that diversity is certainly, supply chain is a part of diversity challenges that big corporations are facing. I think I would add on to that, that corporations have to earn the right to represent diverse talent within their ranks, either as full-time employees, as contractors, or even as agency or marketing services partners. I think that this is something that brands are finally starting to recognize. It is not as simple as making a bunch of token diversity hires. It is not as simple as calling your HR partner and saying, "We need to hire backfill four of these roles with black talent." We now as an ecosystem have to ensure that we are doing the work to earn that privilege.
It is a privilege and an honor to get to represent diverse talent, and you can no longer just do it on a whim. There's institutional change that needs to happen within your organization to create a more welcoming environment, and yes, agencies have a ton of work to do on this front, but also brands. We're having those conversations with both. We're in an interesting position because we work with all the big holding companies, but also 20 big brands, and a bunch of mid-scale brands. I think everybody's having that moment where they're like, “This isn't as easy. It's not just a pipeline problem.” It's actually it's a culture problem as well that needs to be addressed.
Charles: (11:57)
I saw a couple of people a couple of weeks ago talking about that problem from a similar perspective, which is that we have to create a culture that is not simply a white culture that has more black or Hispanic or diverse gender members. But we have to create a culture that can actually support and sustain all of those individual cultures within them, or as part of it, exist side by side. That's a big shift for a lot of organizations to make. Since most organizations as we know are led by white males, where do you see the rubber hitting the road in terms of people talking about wanting to do this, and people actually starting to do things in a different way and leading a different way?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (12:40)
I'm glad you brought that up, Charles. Because one of the things that I've been observing lately, is that there are a lot of white males in the C-suite who are making these really broad, sweeping statements about the change that they're going to institute in their organization, and how they are going to do better in terms of creating a more equitable environment for different types of talent to thrive. What I'm seeing frequently is that after these statements are made in the press, the baton is handed to a team of a bunch of women and black women in particular. They're kind of saying, “Okay, now go execute on that. Just make it happen, but I'm done, I'm on to the next thing.” That is a problem. Asking marginalized groups of people to fix problems that disproportionally or only impact marginalized groups of people is not the way to do business.
I'd love to see more C-suite white males taking ownership of this. I talk about this at We Are Rosie a lot. I am the chief diversity officer. As the CEO of this company, it is my job to ensure that we are creating a welcoming environment, that we have diversity represented throughout our ranks, that we hire, pay, promote diverse talent, the same way that we do their white counterparts. I think that we need to really see a more decentralized approach to diversity and inclusion, and not just handing the baton to a token DE&I leader to execute on it.
I'm starting to see a little bit of that. We're making some traction in our conversations with clients, where we're encouraging them to think about it differently. But it's a mindset shift. If that C-suite leader that is in the press is getting interviewed and is saying, "This is unacceptable. We're going to do better." If they are not in the room advocating for change to happen, we are just back in that DE&I panel spin that we've been in for 10 years, where we're just going to keep talking about it and nothing's really going to happen.
Charles: (14:37)
We Are Rosie are really casting experts, in your ability to find talent in different disciplines, in different parts of the world, and then marry them up with the right opportunity and the right experience. Has your vetting process for the companies that you marry people to changed? Are you looking at those in a different way now? Are you looking at those through the lens, some of the lenses that we've just been describing? Is this a good environment for somebody to go into and actually thrive?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (15:05)
Yes. We're having those conversations. It's interesting with our business in particular, because we wear our values on our sleeves. I tell people, "We're an activist organization." At the core, we are in the business of creating opportunity and distributing wealth to underrepresented and marginalized groups of people. That is what we are here to do. We Are Rosie is a mechanism for getting that done. I think the brands that engage with us, understand who we are and what we're about. While it's hard to make, look, we work with 20 Fortune 500 brands. Are all of them 100% aligned with our values? No. Could any 100,000 person company be exactly aligned with our values? Probably not. Because again, there's cultural and systemic issues that just permeate our culture.
But what we have found is that we've been able to attract stakeholders within these companies, I call them our strategic rebels. Those are the people that we need, the strategic rebels that are sitting in the biggest brands in the world, that have an opportunity to really influence our ability to give work to underrepresented groups of people. We need to find them. Our stakeholders are really aligned with our values. I'll give you a great example, we actually had a Rosie who was talking to one of our clients about a project, and kind of vetting it out, and this is a pretty typical part of our process.
There were two things that happen afterwards. One, she felt comfortable enough to call us and say, "I was sexually harassed." She said, "I know that this is not what We Are Rosie stands for." Excuse me. "I know that this is not what We Are Rosie stands for. I know that this is not what you all are about. I want you to know that this client does not embody your core values." We picked up the phone and we called the client. We actually called the president of this company and said, "Hey, here's what happened. We would like an apology. We think it's the least that you can do. We will not be working with this leader within your organization.” If we lose business because of it, that's fine, but we are not going to recreate a misery that so many of us are trying to escape in the marketing industry.
Charles: (17:10)
What was the response?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (17:12)
They were incredibly apologetic. Again, this was the stakeholder that brought us in. The president is the one who signed the contract with We Are Rosie, who believes in our values. She was mortified. She was like, "I'm going to talk to this person right this instant. I would like to talk to the Rosie consultant, and I would like to make it right. I understand that this is completely unacceptable."
Charles: (17:35)
Has it become a buyer's market do you think?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (17:39)
It's shifted. Yeah, it's definitely shifted with the unemployment rate. When we started this company, we were at historical lows for unemployment, and we're now seeing loads of brilliantly talented people out of work. The dynamic has shifted a little bit. But I will say actually in the midst of the civil rights uprising and that being at the forefront, and the call for action within our own industry, we are still the same level of advocacy we do for our talent in terms of ensuring that they are being placed in an environment where they can thrive. We're still upholding that bar. I think it's interesting, the dynamics have definitely shifted with the increase in supply, but also we're seeing a massive increase in demand. Our team has grown 50% since COVID started. It's just an interesting dynamic on both sides.
Charles: (18:39)
I think I meant to ask the question the other way around, but in fact your answer is actually more interesting than the way I would have asked the question. Your point is… I meant to ask, “Is it a seller's market?” Your point is in some ways, despite the fact that there is a greater increase, there's a massive increase in supply based on redundancies and furloughs and so on. That in fact there is actually to some extent more control on the supply side, because you've got people looking with greater care at what kind of opportunity really is this going be, and is this somewhere that I really want to work? There is a higher level of discernment going on.
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (19:13)
Completely.
Charles: (19:15)
What are you learning about yourself from a leadership standpoint? Because I imagine these are extraordinarily difficult times to be navigating from where you sit.
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (19:24)
It's funny I was actually, I was just tweeting about this yesterday. I hadn't really processed this since I started the company. I've been very heads down. Before I started We Are Rosie, I had only led a team for one year. I didn't come into the CEO Founder role with a ton of leadership experience, which I think is both a gift and a challenge. I have the gift of again, imagining what kind of leader I want to be, and how I want to show up, kind of playing my own rules, because I don't have to report to anybody else, and I don't have to fall into the culture of an organization that might not align with my core values. But it's also a challenge. I am all of a sudden leading a team of 16 people in the midst of a pandemic with two small children at home. It's a lot.
I think one of the things that I realized recently is that I have a lot more information and intuition than I often give myself credit for. I used to go get a lot of advice from a lot of people, because I was just trying to gather data. I'm a data person at heart, and I was like, “Let me just get 10 opinions and then I'll make a decision.” Out of necessity and both personal growth, that has definitely curved off. I'm like, “Okay, I've done this before. This is similar to another experience.” Even though startup life is totally 90% of the stuff we encounter every day is shit we've never done before.
But I am finding that I've really been able to tune into my own intuition to find the right way to lead this company, and I've certainly surrounded myself with more leaders within We Are Rosie. My leadership team is like no other leadership team I've ever seen in my life, the most competent, capable people I've ever worked with. It's been a gift to get to lean on them and help them grow, as well. But it's an evolution, it will be a work in progress for the rest of my life.
Charles: (21:24)
What have you found are your leadership strengths that you're counting on instinctively, more naturally?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (21:31)
I'm super empathetic. Being a mother has certainly contributed to that, but I'm also just a very intuitive person, and I think that's really helpful. I can really, even remotely, and we've been remote since day one, I've been able to tune in to people. I can tell when somebody's feeling off. I also have the ability to ensure that we are creating an environment where everyone can thrive, and recognizing that that looks very different. For example, we have people on our team who are like, “I can't really get going until 10:00 AM. It's not my jam, I'm a night person.”
I totally respect that, because I can relate to that. Don't ask me any questions after 4:00 PM, I'm done. I get up and start working at 4:00 AM and that's my thing. I've been able to build an infrastructure within the company to support everybody to show up as they are, and to really welcome that and really care about those diverse perspectives and needs and gifts. I think that those are probably some strengths, and my intuition is by far, this entire business has been built on intuition. I don't have a business plan.
Charles: (22:42)
Where do you find you struggle from a leadership standpoint given what's going on? What are the challenges you face?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (22:48)
I go too hard. I have worked probably 70 to 80 hours a week for two and a half years. I just recently did a 360 review with my team and that was some feedback. It's like, “Steph maintains this pace that is impossible for anybody else to keep up." That's the challenge for the people around you. I don't expect that from others, but the implicit assumption is like Steph expects that from everybody because that's her pace. That's certainly an Achilles heel for me, and not making time for rest. I don't really know how to relax. It's not like a setting that I have. I'm very much raised by an immigrant. My dad's 76, he still works full-time. I'm on that path. That's who I am at my core. I have to be careful even though that's how I thrive, and that's how I show up, to ensure that that's not the expectation of my team, certainly not in the midst of a pandemic, when everybody needs to be taking care of themselves.
Charles: (23:53)
Rolling forward, if you were to look forward a year and maybe we can pick up this conversation a year from now, we can talk about what this conversation looked like a year ago. What do you think will be true of the way businesses are operating a year from now?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (24:08)
I think that without a doubt, they will be doing what they said was impossible six months ago, which is that they will be working in a distributed fashion with at least a hybrid model, partially remote, partially in office. In a lot of cases, a fully remote model when they said that that was not possible at all. That is something that is inevitable, and it's just kind of our hand has been forced. I think it's a beautiful thing. Because I've been beating the drum on remote work as a form of inclusion for a long time, and so I think that will help. I think that will necessitate us reconsidering all of the stuff that we've said is impossible. There's just on a diverse talent pipeline. We have to work with a major agency, but like we do this, this way and we've always done it this way.
The cool thing is that COVID is doing for us, is it's creating an environment where everybody has to use their figure-out-er muscle. I think in corporate America, we stopped figuring shit out a while ago. We just fell into, “But, like, this is how it's done." This is what we do.” I think as we flex that more and frankly the cat's out of the bag in so many ways. Can you imagine your company calling you tomorrow and saying like, "I know you've been working from home for six months, with whatever you have going on in your personal life, but now you can't do your job remote." That ship has sailed. You're not going to be able to stuff that back into, “Hey, this is how it has to happen, you have to be in office.” I think that's a beautiful thing.
So I think it's going to allow us to question really big paradigms, that we have just taken for granted, or we've assumed are immovable. And that includes everything around diversity, where work happens, how work happens, how we look at our supply chain, how we evaluate partners through procurement. All of these things, these big, bolder things that we've just taken as immovable will be up for debate now.
Charles: (26:06)
And what would you tell candidates moving forward? What do you think they have to bring now that is different than it was six months ago?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (26:17)
Yeah. I mean, I think that candidates, consultants, freelancers, anybody looking for work needs to get real on the type of work that's going to light them up, and go do that. Right? There's so much in flux right now that it's not as simple as like, "Oh, let me just get another job doing this thing that I kind of care about because that's what I've always done." I think I would encourage anybody looking for work right now to use this pause the same way I did before I started this business, and really think about your core values. What type of work has resonated with you throughout your career? What lights you up as a person? And go find that work. As we re-emerged from this, we're going to be reconsidering everything. Now's your chance to shoot your shot. Go use this as an opportunity to find the work that you love, that's going to make you happy and give you the life and the career that you deserve.
Charles: (27:11)
I think that's such an interesting point. I haven't had anybody really talk about that, particularly in the last few weeks, because I think when you're in an office environment, at least some parts of your motivation, if you will, is just the energy that surrounds you, right? And the natural drive forward and the impetus of the day to day dynamics of being in an office environment. And I think when you're working alone, certainly I've found this to be true from the way that I have worked now for the last decade, you have to do things that really matter to you because otherwise there's nothing to make you do it.
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (27:43)
Yep.
Charles: (27:44)
There's nobody looking at you going, "Where's that thing?" Yeah, it's a very interesting point actually. Last question for you. What are you afraid of coming out of this?
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (27:53)
Oh, I try not to have a lot of fear. But what would make me bummed is if we don't use this as an opportunity to change for good, that if we just revert back ASAP, and whatever version of prior life we can get, because the truth is the way life was happening, the way work was happening prior to COVID was broken. Like it wasn't in service of so many people. The majority of people, it was not in service of. And we have this incredible opportunity to reconsider it, to be more aligned with us as whole human beings. And I really hope we jump on this chance.
Charles: (28:36)
Yeah. So well put. Thank you so much for sharing today. Thanks so much for coming on the show, and continued good fortune and success. I think your business is clearly built for the era in which we're living through and I wish you nothing but the best.
Stephanie Nadi Olson: (28:49)
Thank you so much, Charles. I really enjoyed it.
Charles: (28:52)
Likewise.
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