Who's Got Your Back? The Art of Building Your Success Squad Season 5 | Ep. 3

SUMMARY

In this illuminating conversation with corporate law powerhouse Heather Barnhouse, we unpack the vital roles that mentorship and networking play in advancing women's careers and leadership journeys.
 
Mentorship and networking play crucial roles in advancing women's leadership, requiring a diverse "success circle" rather than relying on just one or two connections.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Understanding the concept of a success circle with nine different supporter types
• Recognizing mentorship isn't one-size-fits-all but requires customization
• Appreciating the distinction between mentorship (guidance) and sponsorship (advocacy)
• Building connections organically rather than forcing formal mentorship relationships
• Finding mentors outside your profession who bring fresh perspectives
• Learning from difficult relationships what doesn't work for you
• Taking a broad view of networking beyond traditional professional settings
• Resisting overthinking and starting with "low-hanging fruit" networking opportunities
• Asking specific questions rather than making general requests
• Making relationship-building a consistent priority, not just an occasional activity

Think about what room you'd like to have access to, what you'll do to gain that access, and what one question you'd ask someone in that room.

Get in contact with Heather -> click here

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Women in Leadership
• 2:56 Understanding the Success Circle
• 6:45 Heather's Perspective on Mentorship
• 19:20 Organic vs. Intentional Mentorship
• 26:53 Sponsorship vs. Mentorship for Women
• 37:15 Taking the First Step and Building Connections
• 50:51 Final Thoughts and Reflection Question

Transcript

Katie: 1:05

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Tackle Tuesday podcast series as we share our theme for this season. Season five is women in leadership and we're very excited. We have a guest, our first guest Joanna and I have had together. I know the first few seasons Joanna had a whole series of guests, but this is our first one, so very excited to dive into it. We have a lively discussion on mentorship and networking as our focus for today.

Katie: 1:31

So last episode, if you tuned in, we kicked off this season, joanna and I, by exploring the evolution of female leadership. So we considered how far we've come, challenges that persist and the impact of diverse leadership styles. So a key part of progress in this area is mentorship, so the guidance, support, advocacy that can help women navigate their career leadership journeys, and so again, we're going to dive into that topic. We've got some little bits of research to share and, again, a guest with a lot of experience and insight to provide. So with that, joanna, why don't I turn it over to you to do an introduction and we'll get things going, yeah.

Johanna: 2:03

Well, welcome, Heather. I'm really excited to have you here. You're our first guest, since we haven't had a guest on the show since season two.

Heather: 2:09

Wow, thank you for letting me be the test.

Johanna: 2:13

Okay, so let me take a moment to introduce you. So we're thrilled to have Heather Barnhouse join us. She is a powerhouse in corporate law and a champion for women in leadership. As a partner at Dentons Canada, heather co-leads the Venture Technology and Emerging Growth Companies Group in Edmonton and brings extensive expertise in corporate and commercial law, helping businesses navigate everything from startup to succession. Beyond her legal acumen, heather is a passion advocate for mentorship and networking, particularly for women in business. Her work spans industries from tech startups to family-owned enterprises, and she's deeply committed to fostering innovationowned enterprises. And she's deeply committed to fostering innovation, strategic partnerships and inclusive leadership. So, like I said, heather, thank you so much for joining us. We're excited to have you here and jump into this topic, which we know is of great importance when it comes to women in leadership.

Heather: 3:03

Well, thank you kindly for taking time to chat with me. I'm excited.

Katie: 3:07

Awesome, okay. Well, why don't I kind of ease us into our first question that we'll throw at Heather and start to have a nice discussion? But we thought it might be interesting to share a little bit about this idea of a success circle, and this is something in our Woman Up program that we dedicate a whole session to. And so Joanna pulled from this Forbes article the nine types of people you need in your success circle as a resource for us to have some discussions with folks in our program. And really it's about, yeah, you know, a network is important. Finding a mentor can be valuable, but what if there's a different way to build connections? And this idea of a success circle allows us to broaden it, not just rely on, you know, one or two people in that network, and we find it resonates a lot with women. So, without going too into the details of all the nine different types, I'll maybe just mention what they are briefly and then I'll have Joanna open us up with a discussion question.

Katie: 4:00

So in the success circle we would have a mentor, someone to provide some wisdom and guidance from their experience. A sponsor, someone who advocates, helps open doors for you. A challenger might be someone in our success circle who pushes us outside of our comfort zone. A cheerleader can help celebrate our wins, keep us motivated. A connector those people we know, who know lots of people and can maybe help to introduce or connect us to other folks.

Katie: 4:26

Collaborator someone who can work alongside us maybe we're working on similar goals. An advisor can provide specialized knowledge and expertise. And then our last two, we've got the motivator, so similar to cheerleader, but a motivator might really inspire us to keep focused, stay driven, kind of pick us up when we need that motivation. And then, lastly, an accountability partner, so similar in some ways to collaborator, but more so someone who's working on a specific focus or goal and can help keep us on track. So some overlap, some similarities, but what I like about this, the nine types do give us some different types of people we may lean on for different things. So with that in mind, joanna, why don't I turn it to you to open us up into a little discussion?

Johanna: 5:11

So, heather, we always start off with a reflection question. We integrate that, we do it at the beginning and then we do like another reflection question at the end. So let's start this one with our first reflection question, which is thinking about your own career and or leadership journey. Who are the people who have supported or challenged you along the way, and what roles do they play in your success circle? Okay, so, heather, out of curiosity, how does what we just shared resonate with you from your own experiences, and which of the roles do women tend to not have or lack?

Heather: 5:54

Yeah, what a great question, and I wish I had a great answer for such a great question. But instead I'll ramble on a little bit about some various aspects of what I have observed and maybe what has been relevant in my life, both on both sides of that equation, both as being the mentee as well as, as you become a little bit more senior, trying to fill those big shoes of being the mentor. And just to maybe start off, what I will say is that in my world so as you mentioned in the introduction, I am a corporate commercial lawyer, I'm a partner at an international law firm and have seen, you know, both in my own organization but also in the organizations that I advise I've seen many different models of mentorship, many obviously different models of leadership. I've seen the train wrecks when those things don't go well, and I've also really been privileged to see what has worked well and what works well in one organization. You can't necessarily just pick it up, move it over and expect that it's going to work without a hitch in another organization. And so, as a general comment, I think I would say two things. One is that there is not a one-size-fits-all, and I think what has been illustrated by these nine sort of profiles is that there isn't a one size fits all, and what might work well for one group, one organization, one individual is not going to necessarily be what you need in the moment, what you need in that organization or what you need for that human who is seeking the mentorship and the leadership development opportunity. And so I think it's refreshing to think about the different possibilities and the different types of mentors and mentorship relationships that can exist, because if something isn't working, there's always something else that you can try and there's always the opportunity to seek mentorship or to seek leadership, to demonstrate leadership in different ways and with different people.

Heather: 7:57

And I think one of the things certainly when I think back to being a junior lawyer, I was like what is this mentorship all about Really? Is this another thing I have to fit into my calendar and how is that going to help me and why is it important? And that's not intuitive. Like there was no day in law school that we learned about mentorship or that we learned about leadership development. Just as an aside, there was also no day in law school that we actually learned anything practical about the practice of law, but you know that's a topic for another day All of that to say that you don't come out of a professional school and I assume that it is the same for other professional service providers like accountants and bankers and stuff, and just people in the business world you don't come out fully formed right.

Heather: 8:39

You need to kind of learn these things along the way and I think as a result of that fact, I take a very, very broad view of what is mentorship and what is leadership, and the nine categories that you have listed here form that really broad view. And what I would say is that people my experience has been that people need leadership and mentorship at different times, at different rates, on a different pace, for different reasons and from different people, and that to me certainly like maybe I was just the dummy coming out of law school, but that was not intuitive, you know like there was in large organizations there are often very formal and like well thought out, well intentioned, well meaninganing and successful formal mentorship programs, former leadership development programs, and, make no mistake, those have value and those have place. What I will say is that they're not enough, and the reason why I say they're not enough is, in many ways, just like humans, like we are all humans and I go out into the world and I have a conversation with this person or I form a relationship with that person, and that's going to be very different from the relationship or the connection that you may have with that individual, and people just get along better or worse. Or what works here isn't necessarily going to work there. And in many cases, I think some organizations may very well, in a very well-intentioned manner, try to formalize or impose a mentorship relationship for all the right reasons, but, for whatever reason, the fit isn't there between the mentor and the mentee or the leader and the follower, and you need to be sensitive to the fact that it's not going to be that one size fits all. And so when I look at this list of nine people, like the mentor, the sponsor, the challenger, the cheerleader, you need all of those people at different times, and part of the challenge or part of the Actually I want to say it differently it is a challenge, but it is also the responsibility, I think, of the person who is seeking the mentorship, the person who is on their career journey, to look out for those things, and that may be implicit or that may be explicit.

Heather: 11:05

So, whenever somebody, in my view, whenever somebody is offering you an opportunity for leadership development, for mentorship, take that all day long and if that relationship isn't as great, isn't as successful, you don't form that connection, you don't whatever it is. You're looking for X and they're prepared to deliver Y, that's fine. For X and they're prepared to deliver Y, that's fine. Because having that relationship and learning that about yourself, hey, this person you know is delivering the message perhaps in a slightly different way, or I'm not resonating with this, or they're doing it in a different way from what I would have done. You're still learning and if you take a really broad view of networking and you take a really broad view of networking and you take a really broad view of leadership development and mentorship generally, you can learn. Hey, you know what. This isn't maybe super helpful to me, because my situation is different, for whatever reason, but I know somebody who would really benefit from this conversation and I am now going to connect to them so you can be the mentee who turns into the connector when you know what your mentor in that situation, is delivering or is capable or whatever that they're prepared to do. And so you have that opportunity to switch teams. You are now not only the mentee, but you can turn around and pay it forward and deliver that opportunity to connect someone.

Heather: 12:34

And you know, there's crazy things that happen, like like so many good examples, so many good stories. But, like I think it was a couple weeks ago, I was, I was at this event and this guy came up to me and he was like hey, so do you remember in 2017? You were speaking at this event and I was in my head. I was like no, no, I absolutely have no recollection of who you are. I don't even actually remember the event that you're talking about. And he was like you were talking about. I don't know what he said, but he was like you were talking about XYZ, and eight years ago that wasn't relevant to me, but it is so relevant right now and I want to follow up with you on what you talked about and I'm like oh yeah, it was so great to I remember you. I didn't. I had no idea who the guy was, but he remembered this, he had this connection, this had been percolating in his head. And now here we are, like you sow these seeds and you don't know when they are going to. You know, turn into something later on. But what a great.

Heather: 13:27

Like this guy I mean maybe he wasn't even at this event, Maybe that was just like some story that he was telling me, but what a great opening, Like he had my attention. He was like, oh, you know, I heard you say this and it sounded kind of like something that I would say, so like it was believable. And now he wanted to follow up and he wanted to connect me, you know, to somebody else who was experiencing something similar. So he wanted to follow up, he wanted to introduce me to someone else, and I guess the point is you never know what. When you plant these seeds, when you're on the receiving end of these relationships, you never know what will come of it. Now, in that situation at least as he described it to me because I have no independent memory of this particular event, but at least as he described it to me I was speaking about something. So arguably I was there sort of in a capacity of an advisor or an expert on a particular subject, and so I was disseminating some information. That wasn't exactly what he wanted to follow up on. He wanted to connect me. He wanted, you know, to do these other things. That's great, Like I didn't expect when I spoke at this event that perhaps I spoke at in 2017, that that is what would happen. But here we are, you know, continuing to follow up on that episode.

Heather: 14:42

One of the other things that, when I made the comment that I take a very broad view of networking, of leadership and of mentorship, One of the things that was again being the dummy coming out of law school that was completely lost on me as a very junior professional, was the power of mentorship and leadership outside of my organization. So, obviously, within Dentons, within my organization, the people who can advise me, the people who can connect me, the people who can motivate me, they're all like me. They're all lawyers. We have some other professionals, but for the most part, in a law firm you're going to get a lot of lawyers, Presumably in an accounting firm, you I need to hone my skills, I need to become the expert, I need to learn the technical, and who better to learn that from? But the people who have been there and done that before me. They are great connectors to opportunities on a very technical perspective was the power of the connections across those disciplines. So in my day-to-day it is very rare, not impossible, but it is very rare that I will have a file that does not include an accounting issue, does not include a banker, does not include, sometimes, a family psychologist dealing with succession planning and transition and all of those things.

Heather: 16:07

What great mentorship opportunities I have been blessed with from people who are not in my profession. And similarly, sometimes it's actually easier to seek that mentorship or to seek that leadership from people who maybe think a little bit differently from you, because you can sort of get into that tunnel vision and that you know that silo about like here's the problem that I need to solve and here's the box in which I can solve it. But when you have that opportunity to collaborate and, to you know, mix and mingle with people who don't think like you, you get a very different perspective. And so I would say that you know, many of the people that have mentored me along the way have not been in my profession. In fact, probably most of the. I mean there's a lot of lawyers, of course, who have mentored me, but probably the most memorable and significant ones to me are people from outside of my profession, outside of my discipline, and partly maybe the significance of that is that was a bit unexpected to me. So it was, you know, more heightened when that occurred.

Heather: 17:11

But I've also heard that the other way, where you know maybe more junior accountants, investment bankers, other professionals will say that to me I want to know how you would approach solving this problem.

Heather: 17:23

I'm running into this issue and maybe you don't want to talk about it within your own organization, so you want to, you know, sort of go more broadly, and so one of the things that I think is perhaps, maybe, maybe again, maybe because I was just a dummy coming out of law school, but that it was more counterintuitive to me earlier in my career was the absolute breadth and the dynamic of mentorship across professions.

Heather: 17:50

So I really encourage people to take a broad view of what is networking, what is leadership development, what is mentorship, because you are always learning something Like there's never. I mean, some mentor-mentorship relationships can be terrible, but you're going to learn that you don't want that and that's really important. That self-awareness is really important. So, okay, that one didn't work, I learned something there, I'm going to try something different, and so, again, I think there's lots of opportunities for mentorship and lots of opportunities for the customization of what it is you're looking for at that time and back to the kind of nine categories. You might not get all nine, you probably won't get all nine of them at one time from one person, but you don't need that and whatever you can glean from that opportunity, I think is worthwhile to continue to think about.

Katie: 18:43

Thanks, heather. I was waiting, joanne, I thought you were going to maybe chime in. I wasn't sure to wrap up this section, but you said so many good things, heather, and I think a lot of it's going to tie nicely to what I was going to share next, but I just want to thank you. I think so much of what you mentioned really highlighted this idea of a success circle right Different people at different times, a broad sort of approach and definition to mentorship and leadership, learning what you don't want. That's so valuable in so many different areas of our leadership journeys. So absolutely agree with that.

Heather: 19:14

It might not feel good in the moment to learn what you don't want, like that's hard right. Because when you're like, wow, that didn't work well, I never want to put myself in a situation where I experienced that again, but you've got to do that.

Katie: 19:27

And kind of embracing that discomfort. I know that's something we talk a lot about with this topic and just broadly as we're developing. You mentioned self-awareness and sort of figuring out our own leadership style or trying to progress in our careers. Like there is an element of having to embrace some of that. Absolutely that's part of the learning right and, like you said, coming out of a professional program you don't know exactly. Here's the five steps on how to start being a lawyer, or this is even how you get a mentor. It's not always laid out that way, so there is some trial and error and I think you highlighted some really nice ways that you've done that.

Johanna: 19:57

I was also thinking how much of it was intentional and how much of it was organic what a great question.

Heather: 20:05

I would say that approximately 0.2% of it was intentional and approximately 99.8% of it was organic. And once I realized that organic was good and intentional can be good, but it's harder, potentially I steered like in my journey. Personally, I think I would say I steered away from sort of the more traditional and the more intentional, and by that I was intentional about steering away from. You know the intentional and I'll tell you why. And you know, I think a lot of this has to do with personality and of course, not everybody shares my delightful personality, so this would be very, very different for different people. But when I mentioned earlier that sometimes the imposition of a relationship is just hard right, you're like what could I possibly have in common with this completely intimidating powerhouse person who's at the end of their career and I'm this bumbling idiot who just came out of law school and I can barely tie my own shoes, and so how can I be vulnerable with this person? They're just going to think that I'm a waste of their time and I don't necessarily relate to them. That's a pretty awkward position to be like. Oh please, please, tell me everything you know about how I can solve this problem. And they're busy and all of those things and they're busy and all of those things. Whereas if you go for coffee with somebody or you go for lunch with somebody who is maybe a classmate of yours from undergrad so maybe they're not a lawyer, maybe they went to business school with you or whatever whatever you did, I did sciences, so they're. They have a very different career path, but they're kind of your peer. They're at the same stage as you. They will have had different experiences. You can. You can more openly be yourself with what that is, and they will have different connections. And I know so much of that has happened where you know I'm meeting with somebody, you're having lunch with somebody, you're doing whatever you're doing and they're like I really wish that I had somebody in this profession that I could talk to or who had been down this pathway. Well, I'm happy to introduce you to somebody that I know I have a good relationship with. But for the firm or for an organization to say, hey, this is a great relationship for you to have. You're like, really Like. What do I know about this person? Maybe I don't work with them, and there is a lot of benefit to just getting over that as well and saying, hey, I like this person is donating their time, they're willing to have that, but it can feel really intimidating, and so I think those organic things can come along. Now. The other thing that I want to say is your customers and your clients just like my comment about you can learn a lot from like maybe things that don't go so well.

Heather: 22:48

When we talk about people who push you outside of your comfort zone, that can be your customers and your clients on a daily basis because they want things done yesterday. They don't understand necessarily all of the process and they want you to be. You hold their hand and explain that to them, and what a blessing that is. Because you like. How can I be useful to you unless you understand what it is I'm saying? And sometimes I think as professionals we talk at a level that's all like code, language and acronyms and this and that, but that's not useful when you're trying to have a relationship and an ongoing discussion with somebody who doesn't speak that language.

Heather: 23:28

And so whenever I I had a lawyer tell me when I was really junior like, don't ever assume that they, you know, follow what you're saying. Talk to them as if they didn't go to law school because probably they didn't. And I was like, wow, that's crazy hard, like because we, we in law school you get rewarded for being smart. You get rewarded for understanding the complexity and pointing out the complexity. No one cares. They want to care. They care about how it affects them and what is the pathway to resolving their issue.

Heather: 23:58

And the more easily able you are to communicate that to them, the better they are and they will let you know. They will be like I did not understand a single word. You said I need you to explain it to me again and you get pushed all the time and so from a mentorship perspective, that's probably unintentional. They're just trying to simply understand what it is. You know, you're, you're, you know explaining to them. But that's the organicness of that relationship. So I would say, take whatever you can, whatever is offered to you from an intentional perspective, but then really dive deep on where it seems to be flowing and where you seem to be. You know making that connection.

Katie: 24:43

I really like that. Good question, joanna, and I think what you're saying too. I mean, if we think of mentorship, networking, success circles, all people in our orbit really who can support us and we can learn from, so even being really open with yeah, clients, customers, really anyone we're interacting with, having an openness to what can I learn from this and how can that better help me, I think is really great. Well, kate, with that you've again cued me up very nicely to the next section, which I just wanted to sprinkle a little bit of the research. And, heather, I don't know if you know, but I did my master's research thesis on mentorship, mentorship in academia. So there's lots that I would love to share. Again, you've mentioned a lot of them, but I kind of organized it into a couple of buckets of where a lot of the research, some of which was reflected in my research, looking in academia, but even just broadly in terms of different industries, different workplaces. So, the three areas, maybe I'll mention them, I'll say a few things and then, yeah, I'll maybe throw an option your way, heather, on where we might want to take the discussion.

Katie: 25:46

But women benefit, people benefit from, you know, mentorship, sponsorship, relationships, but I was just seeing some fairly recent research. It was Gallup looking at women, the state of women in the workplace, and they were talking about how more and more research is showing women are increasingly being mentored. So that's good, but there's a lack in sponsorship. And so when we consider sponsorship as that advocacy piece like who, when I'm not in the room, is advocating on my behalf, is speaking up on my strengths, is really helping me succeed, helping me maybe advance in certain ways there's a lack of sponsorship for women. So I think that's really interesting for us to consider and I'd love to maybe, before I share more, just check in and see how that resonates with you, heather, and any thoughts you have in your own experience how women can, yes, develop organically, maybe take advantage of formal opportunities for mentorship, but also consider the sponsorship relationship, because we know that's so important.

Heather: 26:42

So what are your thoughts on that? I agree. I agree that mentorship is in the spotlight and sponsorship is maybe, perhaps in the shadow a little bit and we need to work harder to find ways to bring that into the spotlight. I think it does depend a little bit on the room that you're in and the organization, and I think some organizations are better than others at developing those sponsorship opportunities and networks, and some organizations are very adept at being deliberate about. Okay, as an example, in our organization we know that there's going to be a C-suite, somebody's going to be retiring in the next three to five years, and what are we doing to groom our existing people so that they will be available, competent, qualified this will not come as a surprise to them that if they want to throw their name into the ring, they will be in a position to be able to do that. So that's one thing. The second thing is that some of those organizations go a step further and they think about the you know the DEI metrics around that and how do we make sure that we have the right composition so that we have a diverse leadership team or we're filling the role not necessarily with people who look exactly like us. Now, you can't do that just to check a box Some. You need to be very thoughtful and deliberate about how you do that.

Heather: 28:03

What I will say is that there are all these ancillary things.

Heather: 28:07

So I I'm, of course, coming from a professional services background and from people who have come out of maybe a like from an academic perspective, come out of a professional program, and I I realize that that is not the same experience that everybody coming, everybody in the workforce has.

Heather: 28:21

But when you think about these networking opportunities and you think about developing the success circle around you and the people who will help you raise to the next level, whatever that means for you, it's not always in your organization.

Heather: 28:40

So, as an example, when an organization organization like a law firm and accounting firm, for example, they would have a number of organic relationships with community organizations, like they would have people who sit on boards or are on advisory committees or similar roles like that, and there could be opportunities not for advancement within the firm, but somebody in my firm knows that the board chair is, you know, going to be retiring or they're looking for board members for this charity or for this organization that you're passionate about, and there's the sponsorship opportunity that I see very often successfully executed, of being able to sponsor people for those kind of side pathways. Now that then opens up a whole other door of people who can be part of your network, people who are different from you, and so that might seem like a bit of a sideways step rather than I'm stepping up in an organization, but the sponsorship can be easier, I think, for more people to do and really important to open up, to continue to open up doors for advancement within your organization or elsewhere.

Katie: 29:58

I like that, the sidestep. Like you said, it really comes back to not underestimating the power of all of these connections and, like you said, you don't know if, in the example you gave at the beginning, the person who remembered you from how many years ago, the thing you said or the thing you did, so not minimizing some of those opportunities, I guess, to connect and broaden the net.

Katie: 30:17

It sounds like is some of what you're saying, Joanna. I want to give you a chance if there's anything you want to ask or add in terms of how do we gain more sponsorship as women?

Johanna: 30:26

And I'm sorry, Kate, did you define what sponsorship is?

Katie: 30:34

Yeah, I mean I talked a bit about the advocacy of people are. What are they saying? Are they speaking up on your strengths or advocating for your progression when you're not in the room? So that's some of what I had shared, but what would you like to add to that?

Johanna: 30:42

Okay, I guess I'm thinking like typically, who this person is right, Because it's usually someone who has influence and authority, someone who has access to rooms and groups that you don't necessarily have.

Johanna: 30:55

So it's not necessarily someone who's maybe a peer, but they may have a lot of influence that you don't have. But I guess I think that sometimes that's what's missing from the sponsorship piece is that we're not really thinking intentionally about like who are those actual people that have that influence? Not everyone is the best sponsor. They may be a more appropriate mentor than a sponsor, and so when I think about even a connector, someone who has a lot of influence, has a wide net in terms of their network, could be a natural good sponsor as well. So I think that's the only thing that I was thinking about too is like, when you're like who is a sponsor then, and what are the qualities or characteristics or knowledge pieces that they have? And I think the influence piece and authority piece and power piece I guess in some extent is an important element of a sponsor that I wanted to point out.

Heather: 31:47

I would challenge that a little bit, just because I couldn't be a lawyer without sometimes being the devil's advocate. So, if it's okay with you, I just want to challenge that momentarily, because you're right that sponsorship means influence in many cases, but I think that everybody has influence, so you can use your power, you can find your power, and you can find your influence for people who may not be in the same room as you are, and there are many different rooms. I think of an example when I was quite junior, there was a lawyer who had been a professional dancer like her whole career, and so she had this whole circle of influence, had nothing to do with law, she had this whole circle of influence around dancers. And then there was an opportunity at a very prestigious ballet that she was very interested in applying for again, kind of as one of those sideways steps, not within the organization, and that opened up a world of opportunities for her. And it was somebody who would maybe have been, you know, less influenced than her in a more traditional sense, but she was. This woman was so connected in that dance space that she had power and influence that this individual didn't in that room, and so she was able to, you know, open open those doors. Did she have power and influence in maybe more traditional way? No, but that didn't matter for the opportunity and for the sponsorship that that woman was was looking for.

Heather: 33:17

And when I was really junior, I benefited from sponsorship from very traditional, influential people and also from really not traditional, like just organic things. That happened to me and I remember in one of those situations I remember thinking that was totally random, like I just was in the right, I just met this person in the right place at the right time and this landed in my lap. And then I remember thinking to myself do that for someone else? This happened to me and I can take the 10 seconds to send an email to connect somebody. It costs me nothing. I can take someone for lunch and introduce these two people that because they may view that I have influence I think I have no influence over, you know, some traditional things but the power of being able to take the time to send that email, to do that connection, that's what this is all about.

Johanna: 34:12

Yeah, oh, I would agree with you. I by no means did I imply traditional versus untraditional. I wouldn't even put that as a differentiator because to me it just comes like you said it, when you said about that dancer in some rooms, that she had a lot of respect and credibility. To me, that's what we're looking for when we're thinking about influence, right? So what rooms you want to get into, what people you want to connect with, try to find those individuals that have access to those spaces and have a lot of credibility within them. Traditional or untraditional, I don't think it really matters, but it's just trying to understand more, like what rooms are you trying to get into, which people are you trying to be connected with and who are those individuals that can give you that access? Is what I'm saying by that sponsorship.

Heather: 34:57

Yeah, I agree, you want to choose people. You want to choose to surround yourself with people who will say your name in a room full of opportunities and then, if you have the opportunity someday to do the same and say someone's name who may not have enough people saying theirs, take that opportunity, right.

Johanna: 35:17

That's why I like the success circle too, because we talk about the women in our leadership program, women Up. We have a whole workshop devoted to my success circle and we talk about, we have them do an activity where what's the difference between a success circle and a network, and many of them and it'd be interesting to get your thoughts on it, too Many of them like networking is very self-serving and it's one way and it only happens in professional settings, versus a success circle could be personal and professional and it's reciprocal. So, just like you said, can we give back to people who have given us, or even just other people as well, that if we're in a position to help and support, as we've been helped and supported in the past, can we do that their take on? It is, a success circle gives you the space to do that, whereas a network is more limiting.

Heather: 36:08

I don't know, I don't know. I think that can be true. But I'll give you an example that happened to me this week.

Heather: 36:15

I was invited to this networking event this group, this very organized group, very deliberate event, this group, this very organized group, very deliberate, very thoughtful and it was, in the first 10 seconds, abundantly clear to me that this was not the space for me, like, for a whole bunch of reasons, this was going to be a one and done lunch opportunity for me. And then, as I sat there, I was like well, now I got to sit here for another hour and a half, so what can I do? And so I looked around the room and I said so, some people are talking kind of about their, their, um, what they need to kind of move their business to the next level. And I, I there was 10 people in that room that at the end of that I said I have a connection for you, I'm going to introduce you to this person. I'm, I have already determined I'm getting nothing out of this opportunity. And I did 10 introductions to people in that room. So I don't know that it's always not reciprocal.

Johanna: 37:07

I agree, Kate. What are your thoughts on that? Every time they say that we give them the space to think about it and to talk about it, what are your thoughts when they differentiate the two in that way?

Katie: 37:18

I don't know. I mean, I'm agreeing with everything you just shared both of you, I think your perspective on it, and I don't know if it's kind of like a first reaction when people describe it that way. And then I think, when we dig a bit deeper, what do you really mean by that and what is holding us back, maybe? And what is this? Where does this perception come from? Because I'm thinking to a lot of women in our program come in wanting to develop more confidence or feel like they have a lot more that they need to gain to be more confident, and really it's a lot of coaching and sure sprinkling in some tools and really, though it's creating, it's nothing we tell them that is going to help them either to maybe reframe what the network is or how to do it or how to gain more confidence. It's usually just time for them to reflect, maybe a bit of coaching and hearing from others. Usually that's where the magic happens. It's not exactly what we're teaching.

Katie: 38:07

right, it's them. But often in that space, realizing like okay, I'm new in my career and you're at a later stage and wow, you actually experienced the same thing as me, it becomes very like normalizing and kind of humanizing.

Heather: 38:19

So that didn't really answer your question, but that's where I, yeah, I also think like I could very easily, in the example that I just gave, I could very easily have sat there and been like, oh, I'll just focus on my delicious lunch right now and then like think about what I'm going to get back to doing this afternoon. But I decided, I was like, well, let me be challenged here and see what I can contribute back to this room, because I would not be at the place that I am in my career without people taking that chance on me and opening those doors. So if I own it and I want, I mean maybe they will do nothing with these connections that I have done and that's on them, but I have done what I can to facilitate that introduction, and in a very, you know, self-serving way, because I, as you mentioned at the beginning, really try to focus on the empowerment and the development of women, women entrepreneurs, women professionals. So all the connections that I managed to dream up were for women, right?

Johanna: 39:13

You know, to build off what you're saying and to wrap up the whole thing around success circle versus network, I would say I don't care what you call it, at the end of the day, as long as it's some kind of a mechanism that you have established for yourself that allows you and supports you to build connections with other people. But also and I think when we talk about confidence, what better way to build your confidence than to know that you're also in a position to help other people? So you were saying it sounds like you're. Like your journey through your experience of networking and mentoring self and others was very much linked to your purpose of wanting to empower other women, and I think maybe that's also a piece that needs to be considered. Like we will also focus a lot with like what is your purpose? Why are you here, why you do what you do, and that needs to be aligned with your mentorship. Networking or success circle building strategies is one of the things I was thinking. Go ahead, I think you also have to own it.

Heather: 40:12

So when you come to law school any other professional and you have to focus on becoming a good lawyer, what kind of law are you going to do? How are you going to get good at that? You have to practice a lot, you have to make some mistakes, you have to ask some dumb questions. You have to do that and then eventually the rate of dumb questions eventually diminishes and maybe you have a smart question every now and then and then maybe you become useful in a few years. And all of that you cannot and this is again something that you are not taught in law school or in any other professional. You can't just slot in networking and thinking about the success circle and mentorship and leadership. You can't be like okay, it's Tuesday at three o'clock, therefore, I'm going to think about leadership. That has to be top of mind.

Heather: 40:55

Every time I go to an event, every time I'm meeting with another lawyer, every time I'm meeting with a client, there is an opportunity there.

Heather: 41:02

Are they all going to turn into something? No, but I can try to influence so it doesn't turn into the biggest train wreck in the history of ever, so that I can build that relationship and I can come back to that and I think many people get consumed by I need to be technically proficient 100%. You absolutely do. You also need, at a very early stage of your career, no matter what your career is and no matter where you're going on your trajectory, you need to be thinking about the people that you will surround yourself with and you need to think about how can I put myself in rooms and be with people that I want, like the success people that I want around me. That might be called networking, that might be called I don't know, like going for drinks on a Tuesday and that might be called a success circle. But you need to be intentional about the regularity of that. It's not just a when I'm not busy on a Tuesday.

Johanna: 41:53

And be willing to go outside your comfort zone. Bring it back to what you said early on, Because some of that requires you to be a little uncomfortable.

Heather: 42:01

A lot of it is yeah, a lot of it really sucks.

Katie: 42:05

Yeah Well, that makes me want to ask maybe a final question before we move to wrap it. Time flies. There's so much more I want to get into, but you've also touched on a lot of what the research tells us. You know the one size fits all for mentorship. Like when I was doing my interviews during my research, I asked everyone that I met with. Like when I was doing my interviews during my research, I asked everyone that I met with. I met with new faculty members and senior faculty members and I was sharing some research that had been done over decades around mentorship and academia and how it often struggled to achieve its intended outcomes. I'll put it that way.

Katie: 42:36

And I asked people at the very beginning how do you define, how would you define, your ideal mentorship? And everyone said something different. Some people liked the formalized, very intentional approach, because without it they might not know where to start. Other people had more organic relationships that they leaned on and formed and didn't care much for a structured approach. Some people liked peer mentorship. Some people, you know, it was really really subjective and unique to them. So, yes, there's not one way to do it. I think you highlighted that really well. I think we talked a bit, too, about some of the unique contextual you know factors and experiences of women. I think we sprinkled some of that in, but I want to end. I mean you talked about, you know, yes, embracing the discomfort, putting yourself in those rooms with intentionality, really seizing opportunities to connect with others. What advice would you give someone who's feeling really stuck or feeling really apprehensive about taking that first step? Because it all sounds nice, but how do you start to get that going?

Heather: 43:31

Yeah, good question. I think there's kind of two things that come to mind immediately is one don't overthink it. Don't think you need to be like I'm going to map out the next 25 years of my career today and I got to know where I want to go and then back it up 25 steps and then take that first step, because if that first step is not available to you, the success of your next 25 years is a pretty big risk to put that on the line. And so't overthink it, like if, if your goal is, I want to get to know some other people, what is the low-hanging fruit? So, as an example, I can speak from the legal profession. There is the cba, which is the canadian bar association, which hosts a number of um sort of uh, I guess educational sessions, like if you're a litigator, if you're a wills lawyer, like they'll have sessions targeted specifically to those people. Go to those, meet the people who identify there, meet the people who are not at your firm. If your firm hosts, you know, like we have done these kind of like speed dating, speed networking things, because I don't know what people, I don't even know where the courthouse is. So like, how could I possibly know what a litigator does in my firm, so they put together these like little speed things and just show up. Just show up and get to know somebody that you don't already know so that you can, you know, develop that relationship and then maybe, the next goal. So now you've done that and you feel okay and you didn't die and like the world didn't blow up.

Heather: 44:58

Maybe the next time you have an ask, I want to ask that person how they balance career and kids. I want to ask that person who I know, who mentioned to me, has a special needs child. I have that as well and that's maybe unique or particular to me. I want to ask them about that, if you. My experience has been that if you ask somebody a very like not just like tell me about your life, but you ask a very particular question, I want to know how you, you know, navigated this challenge. Or tell me about how you got from point A to point B.

Heather: 45:29

People are very generous with their time and with their responses. They just need to know that you're interested in the question. So do that. And then, if you get a good reaction, or somebody says, well, my child, you know, goes to this special school or we're thinking about this program. Could you introduce me to them? I would like to follow up People again. Not everybody, this is a generalization, of course, but people I have found very generous and very willing to help, but they don't want to impose that necessarily. So what's the low-hanging fruit? What can you do? And then also, you probably have some friends from business school, from law school, from undergrad, from when you were a hostess at Earl's. Get together with them, keep those people in your network and find out. It doesn't need to be complicated, but just get out there.

Katie: 46:19

That's really good advice. I really appreciate that. I think that'll help a lot of people. Simplify, Don't overthink it, Just show up Asking those questions. From what you said in a very genuine way, people are going to see through a very robotic approach to like this is me getting a mentor rather than I'm trying to build connection, Exactly Like you feel that this is think building. It gets easier if we kind of rip that bandaid or we put ourselves in more of those show up type situations. Not only are we learning more about ourselves meeting new people, but it's easier often, Right? So yeah, I really like that as a kind of final, final question. Joanna, I'll let you I mean, add final thoughts there and I think you'll take us home here with a little wrap up reflection home here with a little wrap-up reflection.

Johanna: 47:03

I remember listening to a woman entrepreneur. She was sharing her story about a time that she went through a really tough time. Her business grew rapidly and she got very confident and comfortable and then it tanked. She didn't know what she was doing wrong and she was really struggling emotionally, psychologically, through that time. Financially. The lesson she learned that she shared after she came through that time financially, the lesson she learned that she shared, um, after she came through that was the thing that she did.

Johanna: 47:28

That was different from the time she was successful to the time that her business started to take a nosedive. Was she disconnected with her network, her, her peers, her friends? Uh, her community. And her community looked different. Some of it was just staying active on social media and sharing her knowledge and the passion for what her company does with her followers. She had pulled back on that, maintaining the relationships with clients and other people within her network. Some were intentional and some were not. Some were just good relationship building and maintaining those. She'd stopped those as well, and there was a negative correlation from her pulling back from those and her company not succeeding as much.

Johanna: 48:09

And so don't ever underestimate the power of a relationship and I think it's also it doesn't always have to be, it's specific to achieving a certain goal that you're going after. A lot of it is just even for your overall mental health and wellbeing. Knowing that you're not alone as well, I think is important is what I would say in terms of what I got out of the conversation and all the things that you said, heather, great. Before I ask the final, we had a key call to action takeaway, which is another package and a nice little reflection question. I'm going to shift the question because some of the things that you said, heather, I think are important to ask our listeners.

Johanna: 48:49

But before I do that and close things off, well, first of all, just thank you, for you're a very busy woman, so thank you very much for taking the time to meet with us. It was fascinating to hear your own experiences and the lessons that you've learned. I think our listeners will have a lot of key takeaways from that from themselves, and it was interesting to look at it in a different way that maybe people may think of what a network or mentorship needs to look like and consist of. Right, but I want to just turn it to you to see if there's any final thoughts that you'd like to share.

Heather: 49:20

I would say, just picking up on on what you said in terms of kind of the takeaways and looking in maybe some unusual places, one of the things that that I did as a during during the pandemic and, joanna, you know this because you were a guest on my podcast I have a podcast through Denton's on women in leadership and entrepreneurship and it is fascinating to me. The so an episode will air and I'll get these completely random reach outs from people on LinkedIn or who will look me up and they'll be like can you introduce me to so-and-so who I heard on your podcast because she was telling a story about whatever and it really resonated with me and I need to introduce her to my friend or I want to talk to her and will you, you know, be that bridge, Will you be that connector? Again, that costs me nothing. I am happy. I mean, sometimes they're crazy and so maybe that's not always ideal, but I am happy to be that connector and to and to introduce them.

Heather: 50:16

But if somebody reaches out and you never know where they're going to come from and you never know what is going to resonate like people will say to me hey, like that guest, I'll be like oh, that was interesting. Okay, like you know, like you never know what will resonate or the things that I think might be super relevant. They often aren't, and so I think we get locked into our own perspective. And again back to my comment about take a really broad view, because there's something there for everyone and whatever it is that works If you're super introverted and you don't love to be in a room full of people, but you want to reach out in a private message and have a one-on-one conversation, because you heard, do it Like, absolutely take ownership and build the career that you want.

Johanna: 50:56

Well said yeah. Tell us about the podcast before I give the final reflection. Question your podcast.

Heather: 51:01

The podcast is about women in leadership and entrepreneurship, and I love to host powerful women who have really interesting stories. The fun thing for me is everybody's story is different and the nuggets that they have are so unique and, as I said, like people reach out to me from all over the world every time an episode drops and they want to be connected to these local women who they're like well, it's just this great little tiny story or this little business? No, your impact is way bigger than what you think it is.

Johanna: 51:32

What is the name of the podcast, or share the name of the podcast.

Heather: 51:35

Women in Entrepreneurship and Leadership.

Johanna: 51:37

And we can put a link in our show notes so people can access it. Wonderful. Thank you so much, Katie. Any final words before I give the final reflection question?

Katie: 51:46

Oh, just thank you. I'll echo Again. This was very exciting. I feel like we could keep yapping away. There's so much more I'd want to ask you, but just thank you for your time and I got lots of little nuggets out of what you shared. So thank you, heather.

Heather: 51:57

Well, thank you for the opportunity. It was absolutely my pleasure.

Johanna: 52:04

Yeah, and we'll encourage the women in our Women Up program to listen to the episode, especially when we get to that workshop around the success circle. Thank you, okay. The final question I've shifted and I want to ask our listeners is to think about what room would you like to have access to. So think about that first. That's the first question. That's the first question.

Johanna: 52:28

The second question is what will you do to gain access to that room? One thing you could access to that room. What's one question you would like to ask someone in that room? And that's a wrap on our episode on women and mentorship. So we've explored the power of mentorship, the importance of networking and the role of a strong success circle and the role that it plays in advancing women's leadership. So, as I mentioned, thank you, heather, so much for sharing your insights and experience with us and to our listeners. Keep the conversation going, share your thoughts, tag us on social media and let us know how you're building your own success circle. See you next time, thank you.