Speakers at BizTimes Media’s annual Women in Business Symposium, which was held Thursday at the Brookfield Conference Center, offered advice for leading through uncertain times.
The main programming included a panel discussion featuring Roberta Brehm, president of Vyron; Jessie Cannizzaro, owner and master plumber at Milestone Plumbing; Becky Frankiewicz, president and chief strategy officer at ManpowerGroup; and Tami Martin, director of workforce development at Froedtert Health.
Portia Young, director of corporate public relations at Sargento, moderated the panel.
The panelists shared their experiences and leadership lessons, particularly during times of crisis or uncertainty. Below are some of their many insights.
Step up for community in need
Cannizzaro was 15 hours into her family vacation to Niagara Falls when she saw photos of the historic flooding that swept through the Milwaukee area beginning Aug. 9.
It was 1:30 a.m. She texted her sister, whose art studio in Wauwatosa was flooded and was unable to get home because the streets were unpassable.
At that moment, Cannizzaro knew she had to return home. She left her family vacation early on Aug. 10. She went to bed with two hours of sleep and reported back to work at 5 a.m. on that Monday. Milestone Plumbing, which Cannizzaro founded in 2011, is based in Wauwatosa.
“Our team took a beating last week,” Cannizzaro said. “Not only physically, doing what we could to get basements pumped out, but also emotionally as customers were crying, opening up about everything that they had lost.”
It was “the hardest decision” to tell her two sons, who are 5 and 7 years old, that they would be continuing their vacation without her. They cried when she broke the news, Cannizzaro said.
“I felt like I failed in that moment, but it also was a great lesson for those two boys to understand that sometimes your team, your community and your business may need you to step up and do the right thing,” Cannizzaro said. “That vacation that was so important is completely irrelevant when so many people are hurting, so it was absolutely the right decision to come back.”
Make incremental moves
Making decisions during uncertain times can be like driving in the fog, Martin said.
Martin compared the experience of navigating uncertainty to driving through dense fog on her way to Little Rock, Arkansas, where her former employer, U.S. Bank, had sent her.
“You could not see right in front of you,” she said.
In those moments, it’s important to gather as much information or data as possible to make an informed decision. Martin said she also reaches into her “backpack of experience” or goes to a mentor who can guide her through incremental moves.
“I give myself permission to make mistakes and fail,” Martin said.
Be comfortable with being wrong
Frankiewicz rejects perfection. You have to be comfortable being wrong, she said.
“I think in times of uncertainty, it’s easier not to make a decision,” Frankiesicz said. “I personally believe by not making a decision, you’re making a decision.”
Most decisions aren’t permanent, so there is room to course correct, she said.
“I think we’re paid, in my case, to make decisions, and if I wait until I have 100% confidence, I won’t move fast enough, so I reject this idea of perfectionism,” Frankiewicz said.
Sleep on it and phone a friend
But decisions don’t necessarily need to be made right away, said Brehm, who purchased Vyron in 2018.
When there’s a lot going on, it’s easy to feel a pressure and urgency to make a decision, but “nine times out of 10, it can at least wait until tomorrow,” she said.
“Take a breath, step away, sleep on it, and that tends to help you gain some clarity,” Brehm said.
In her experience, it also helps to talk through decisions with her friends, family and others in her support system to help create a path forward. You probably don’t have the best answer yourself, she said, but someone in your circle can help you find it.
“I’ve learned that if I lean on my team, it not only gives me really great ideas, but it builds this bridge, this trust between each other,” she said.
Leading with empathy
Young asked the panel about how to balance holding their teams accountable while still treating them with empathy.
Martin admitted to struggling with empathy as a new leader, before she became a mother. She was “very black-and-white” at times with team members who were single mothers, Martin said, and she has regrets about that now.
“I had empathetic leaders that I learned how to model,” she said. “Part of that is making sure that there are goals set and that there’s clarity, and along with that, there’s empathy. … You have to know each team member as a person and actually know some of what they’re going through so that you can be flexible and make those adjustments.”
Cannizzaro recently had a plumber on her team whose wife had a miscarriage, and he needed to take some time away from work. Cannizzaro shared that she and her husband had been through that loss as well.
“I was able to talk to him in a way that, because of the experience, that made us more connected, give him that time that he needed, where he said to that … if he had been working for the other employer, which is obviously a male, they would never have understood and given their family that space to health, and how much that meant to them,” Cannizzaro said.
Empathy and accountability ultimately reinforce each other, Frankiewicz said.
“I think historically, we’ve thought of them as competing,” Frankiewicz said. “Empathy doesn’t mean you’re soft. It just means you listen.”
The event’s program also included a keynote discussion with Frankiewicz, who discussed embracing disruption amid the increasing presence of artificial intelligence in the workforce. The event also featured a presentation by BizTimes’ Woman Executive of the Year Deb Reinbold, president of Thrive Economic Development.
