From C-Suite to Me-Suite

06/28/22 • 31 min

You’re a high performer who wants a career on your own terms. Maybe you’re exploring the best next step? Maybe you feel stuck? Maybe you want more? No matter where you are right now, you need options. When you have options, you’re in control.

It may be time to change your mindset from C-Suite to Me-Suite. A well-planned strategy can help you answer the question: “How can I achieve the pinnacle of my career and have a life I cherish, too?”.

Donna Peters joins the Goizueta Effect Podcast to discuss strategies for career-driven individuals who want more out of their work and life. She is an adjunct lecturer for Emory University’s Goizueta Business School’s Executive MBA program where she teaches healthy career-growing strategies. She is the founder and CEO of a career coaching organization, The Me-Suite. Her book, Options Are Power, helps high performers understand how the pursuit of their next career success, and a focus on a healthy lifestyle, are inextricably intertwined.

This episode of the Goizueta Effect was co-created in partnership with Emory student Scott Masterson.

The “Me-Suite” Mindset Defined

In most businesses, the C-Suite is composed of key positions including the chief executive officer, chief financial officer, and chief marketing officer. Among top priorities, these leaders handle three core duties: They marshal the core values of the company, keep the day-to-day operations running smoothly, and stay fresh and relevant for the future of the organization. When looking to lead our fullest lives, we should be thinking as C-suite leaders.

Peters developed this idea while on a business trip and has lived by it ever since. Like the C-Suite, we all need core values, a definition of primacy for ourselves (a sense of what is most important at any given time), a financial plan, a personal brand, relationships, an understanding of skills and strengths, and care for physical and mental health.

Usually, a company has one executive to oversee one specific area -- we should try to think like each of those executives across different scenarios given our lives are riddled with micro and macro decisions, like a business.

Components of the Me-Suite Mindset

Thinking Like a C-Suite: Companies that Lead by their Core Values

Airbnb has a core value of “accessibility of home” which creates a warm place of family-like interaction. When the refugee crisis was peaking over this last year, Airbnb started offering free housing to refugees. It was an example of how the core value of the company as a moneymaker was also being used to say, "But this is who we are. And this is what we do. I'm not changing my company and my values. I'm just applying the value in a different situation. Still staying true to the core value of the company."

Airbnb’s decision directly aligned with its positive core values. Companies actively make these decisions since core values are the foundation holding their business up.

Primacy: Not Everything is of Equal Importance

When at a crossroads between choices consider asking yourself, “What matters the most right now?” For example, you may need to decide between salary and title, or salary and company reputation. You need to decide which aspects matter more to you in that moment.

While high performers want to achieve, they often always say “yes” to everything. Primacy can provide a great guide in learning to say “no”.

Developing Your Personal Brand in a Remote Working Environment

We have a personal brand whether we like it or not and we need to own it. Develop your brand so it signals what you want to attract.

Think about the mediums you have access to online: What does your LinkedIn profile say about you? What about your punctuality to online zoom meetings? On your screen, what’s behind you and how are you dressed while on call? It’s all up to you and there are no wrong answers if each decision is intentional.

Relationships and Networking: It’s Necessary and More Natural than You May Think

People often describe networking as “slimy.” Think of it as a bank account: we’re constantly making deposits and withdrawals by helping one another.

Connections can also be characterized like a temperature on a thermometer; hot, those who will respond to you in 20 minutes with an emoji; room-temperature, people you may have just met or you connected with on LinkedIn because you went to the same university; to frozen, unfortunate relationships that are not helpful to you. Networking is crucial in creating powerful options that you can draw from. Understanding where your connections fall on the temperature scale is a great first step.

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This episode of the Goizueta Effect was co-created in partnership with Emory student Scott Masterson.

The “Me-Suite” Mindset Defined

Components of the Me-Suite Mindset

Thinking Like a C-Suite: Companies that Lead by their Core Values

Airbnb’s decision directly aligned with its positive core values. Companies actively make these decisions since core values are the foundation holding their business up.

Primacy: Not Everything is of Equal Importance

While high performers want to achieve, they often always say “yes” to everything. Primacy can provide a great guide in learning to say “no”.

Developing Your Personal Brand in a Remote Working Environment

We have a personal brand whether we like it or not and we need to own it. Develop your brand so it signals what you want to attract.

Relationships and Networking: It’s Necessary and More Natural than You May Think

People often describe networking as “slimy.” Think of it as a bank account: we’re constantly making deposits and withdrawals by helping one another.

<...

Previous Episode

The Journey of an Idea

When CEOs are asked, "What is a skill you most value in your people?" time and again, creativity, problem-solving, and innovation top their list. However, according to Ad Age, 75% of people believe they are not living up to their creative potential.

It’s easy to see why. It can be a long slog from initial concept to final product. Even in organizations that pride themselves on rapid iteration and experimentation, most truly novel ideas either stall out or lose their originality along the way. How do you defy those odds?

Jill Perry-Smith joined the Goizueta Effect Podcast to discuss creativity and how businesses can take ideas from the mind to the marketplace. She is a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School where she has researched the intersection of creativity, innovation, and business for nearly 20 years. She received her PhD in organizational behavior from the College of Management at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has consulted numerous Fortune 100 companies, and has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, CNN, and Fast Company.

This episode of the Goizueta Effect was co-created in partnership with Emory student Scott Masterson.

Can You Learn Creativity?

Similar to the question, “are leaders born or made?,” creativity may come naturally for some, but everyone has the capacity to develop a creative skillset. Nowadays, the workplace is more flexible than ever before. Creativity is rewarded and encouraged in the most successful firms.

Harnessing a Broader Definition

Typically, when we think of creativity, we think of artistic expression. In the workplace we think of breakthroughs in technology, but some of the most important creativity has to do with creative problem-solving.

The Process of Creating an Idea

One fundamental way of studying the journey on an idea is categorizing the different phases that an idea goes through from the time the idea is birthed to the time when the idea is implemented.

The journey an idea takes isn’t always linear: ideas have a bumpy journey. The ideas may cycle backward several steps in the process after months of planning. Creators may get less confident in their idea and be less willing to take the risk and put it forward. They must also deal with an onslaught of input and valuable feedback from others along the way, which lengthens the process. Alongside such a complex process, the novelty often gets snuffed out of the essence of the idea.

The Phases of the Idea Journey: With Whom Should I Collaborate?

Each phase of the idea journey is unique and requires specific attention to ensure optimal results. For example, the collaborative needs change across phases. Risk must be considered when developing an idea as well: an idea is original since it has not been done before. As humans, we tend to stick to what is most comfortable and this can combat the innovation process.

The Generation Phase

The generation phase is when a concept is born. For this phase, the best people to associate with are acquaintances and strangers. Innovators need inspiration and an open mind. Speaking with strangers is a great tool for spurring this inspiration. Since people that are close to us tend to be more like us and potentially over supportive, going outside our comfort zones and talking to people in different social spheres will facilitate open-mindedness.

The Elaboration Phase

During the elaboration phase, creators need support and encouragement to develop their ideas. It's risky so friends and close peers are extremely beneficial to the process. Typically, managers are not the most helpful as they can be viewed as evaluative.

Deeply analyzing the idea with one or two other people as opposed to sharing it with a larger collective is most valuable.

The Promotion Phase

During the promotion phase, influence and reach are critical due to the risk associated with the idea and lack of precedent. This phase can entail the acquisition of resources and the selling of the idea to others. It's not always easy to get decision-makers to understand or buy into an idea, because of these inherent characteristics of creative concepts or ideas. At this point, we want to seek network brokers: people who are linchpins connecting otherwise disconnected people across the organization. They provide access to people and exposure.

The Implementation Phase

Shared vision and trust are what's needed during this phase. A cohesive team with a shared north star can drive success.

Tips and Best Practices for Facilitating Workplace Creativity

You don’t have to hire a Chief Innovation Officer to en...

Next Episode

Partnering with the Frenemy

Corporate partnerships can serve to expand the pie of joint benefits, improve profits, and gain sustainable competition, but successful partnerships don't often last or come easy. Despite the good intentions of both parties, partnerships often don’t pan-out as intended which leaves both sides frustrated and unable to reach their full potential together.

Sandy Jap joins the Goizueta Effect Podcast to discuss frenemies in business, including how you can take your partnerships to the next level. She is a Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. Prior to this, she held faculty positions at MIT's Sloan School of Management and the University of Pennsylvania's, the Wharton School. She has published widely on topics such as strategic partnering and organizational relationships, go-to market strategies, and e-procurement. She is the author of Partnering with a Frenemy, a book on the dark side of business relationships. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, CFO Magazine, and Harvard Business Review.

This episode of the Goizueta Effect was co-created in partnership with Emory student Scott Masterson.

A Successful Partnership

Partnerships are exceedingly important in today’s competitive business environment. A successful partnership often creates a “1 + 1 = 3” scenario: an outcome where both companies are better off collaborating than existing separately.

Common Partnerships

Business collaboration comes in many forms. Most simply, you can think of manufacturers working with distributors, distributors with wholesalers, and retailers with suppliers.

All distribution activity in the US accounts for over $3 trillion or about 30% of our nominal GDP. In essence, the sales activities that happen between firms that are often the basis of partnerships represent a huge amount of money in our nation and our economy.

If there is such a great incentive for upholding the “1 + 1 = 3” principle, then why are partnerships so difficult to maintain?

A Not-So Successful Partnership

“Frenemies”

Once harmonious partners often become frenemies – organizations that pretend to be friends, but that are also enemies and/or rivals.At the beginning of a partnership, often both parties get a lot out of collaboration, but many times this dynamic turns a corner and starts to unravel. The souring process can be rapid or lengthy.

For example, Google and Samsung have collaborated for years to maintain a large market share in the cell phone market: Google provides the operating software for the cell phones, while Samsung is the manufacturer of the phone itself. The partnership resulted in beating Apple in market share handily; however, as the partnership became more successful, it bred dependence between the two companies.

Samsung worried that Google might become too strong and that they, as a partner, might desire a larger share of the pie. At the same time, both partners realized they were heavily dependent on the other. To combat this dependence, firms will often do something called counterbalancing. They will try to push back on the feeling of dependence by doing something that makes them feel like they have power.

In the case of Samsung and Google, Samsung began developing an operating system known as Tizen and Google purchased Motorola...and thus, the unraveling began.

Partnership Life Cycles

When academics discuss life cycles, they are talking about how something unfolds over time. In terms of partnerships, typically, a life cycle will have distinct phases that describe the status of how two firms feel about one another.

The Awareness Phase

In this first phase, two firms become aware of each other and might get to know each other by engaging in small-scale collaboration. The awareness phase often goes well, and there is little at stake for both parties if one were to disengage from the other.

The Buildup Phase

The second phase is all about increasing the connection between the two companies. There may be more monetary transactions taking place between the firms and more sharing of knowledge.

The Mature Phase

After the buildup phase, companies often get a gauge of optimal interaction and prefer to remain constant at that level. Firms will have stable transactions over a period without one firm encroaching upon the other’s territory. In this phase, both firms are reaping the greatest rewards from collaboration, and fluidly interacting for mutual benefit.

The Dissolution Phase

The last phase occurs when one firm’s grow...