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Planning to take a career risk?
Smart lessons from a CEO’s career
The Great Resignation makes job and career movements look so easy. But what about our own fears, which are so often the greatest obstacle? Here, we draw some lessons from the career of Sharon Price John, President and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc
By Rita McGrath and M Muneer
Have you been planning to take that career move, but not done so because of the “what ifs” fear? Sharon Price John’s fabulous career is full of lessons on how to get past those fears and get out of your own way.
The fears that come on your path to career progress are aplenty. Being afraid to ask for that next job. Being afraid to take credit. Being afraid to speak up. But as Sharon Price John’s career suggests, the fears of what could go wrong are often wildly overexaggerated, and the upsides of what could go right are underestimated.
But first, who is Sharon? She is the President and CEO of BuildA-Bear Workshop Inc, a teddy bear retailer headquartered in St Louis, USA. She has turned the company around in just a few years and repositioned the twodecade-old brand for the future.
In her forthcoming book, “Stories and Heart,” Sharon recounts an early episode in her life of ambitiously determining to climb a huge beech tree. She made it to the branch she wanted to climb, and then realised that despite weeks of planning to get up the tree, she had somehow neglected to figure out how to get back down! Most of us can relate to this experience as children. As
she reflected on the experience, she consciously noted that setting challenging goals could be labelled scary (it might be bad) or exciting (it might be awesome). Picking “awesome” made the setting of challenging goals something to be enjoyed, not feared. Writing the goals down also makes them much more executable.
So here are a few smart ways you can pan for the risk:
Sometimes you have to experience what you don’t want to learn what you do want
Sharon’s first try at attending a large university didn’t go so well – she ended up returning home to take a break, worked at a blue jean pick-and-pack facility and could easily have given up. But when her co-workers asked her to slow down because she was making them look bad, she realised that settling for the mediocre wasn’t what she wanted in life. She went back to school, changed her major to advertising and created a personal rubric for making decisions based on her middle name, PRICE: Perseverance. Respect. Intelligence. Creativity. Excellence. These came to be critical to her future choices.
What’s the worst thing that could happen?
Sharon was a guest speaker at Rita’s inaugural Women in Leadership class at Columbia Executive Education when a participant asked her whether she would advise women to ask for a raise or promotion. She blinked, and then said, “Of course – what’s the worst that could happen? They might say no, but now they know you are interested and can give you suggestions about what might allow you to qualify for that role.”
Don’t overthink everything
As someone from a small town in rural Tennessee working at a fancy advertising agency in New York, the clash of backgrounds with co-workers could be tough to navigate. This situation is very familiar to most executives in India. And yet, as Sharon points out, it would be a mistake to take every mismatch of expectations as an insult or put-down – sometimes, it’s just funny! As Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, “no one can make you feel inferior without
your consent.” This is most apt for many folks in the new India where discrimination based on caste, creed, income, religion and even political affiliation is rising.
The two things you learn in business school
Making a huge leap of faith to attend Columbia Business School, Sharon had to face down a lot of self-doubt. A rather cynical colleague said that you learn two things in business school. The first is that more money is better than less money. The second is that money now is better than money later. This was in the day
when Columbia was very financefocused, just as most B-schools are. Seen through that lens, it was a dumb decision to give up her income and go into debt.
What Sharon learned, however, was that the quantitative and linear thinking of this mindset could lead to blind spots. Her background in advertising and creative pursuits, coupled with financial know-how, would prove essential to her success in leadership roles. She talked her way into a product management job at Mattel, working on the Barbie account, and even though that proved less lucrative than the roles taken by some of her more financially driven colleagues, it was a springboard to future success. This may seem very familiar for many of the 10+ year experienced MBAs when they look back at their batchmates.
Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be
Just after doing everything right to launch a new, entrepreneurial product, 9/11 and the subsequent snarling of global supply chains doomed the venture. A move to the toy company Hasbro offered the chance to re-imagine what a corporate career might look like, and Sharon enjoyed considerable success with then-iconic products such as Furby and the Butterscotch pony. But after a corporate reorganisation basically eliminated her job, a session with an executive coach led to the realisation that she had what it takes to be a CEO!
Stop Doing Stupid Stuff; Start Doing Smart Stuff
Over time, organisations accumulate habits. These habits make sense for the situation the organisation is in, but over time many no longer make sense. One of Sharon’s key precepts is to encourage people, with humour, to consider everything they are working on in the light of whether it is adding value or not. She says, think of it like the movie Groundhog Day, in which you don’t get past the day you’re in until you get it right!
About the Author
rita McGratH is professor at Columbia Business School and founder of Valize, and M MunEEr is the Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist at the non-profit Medici Institute. Twitter @MuneerMuh
