Top Tips from Valerie Cockerell
1. Be Yourself:
“The first one, the B stands for, be yourself, run your own race. Stop comparing yourself to others. Social media is just garbage. You know, tons of people out there look fabulous on paper, on social media, and then just outside the frame there’s, there are divorces, failures, miserable people, anxiety, depression, burnout and all of this. So you don’t know, you don’t know what the others. Just be yourself. Everybody else is already taken, right? “
2. Get Experience and Exposure:
“The E stands for experience and exposure. Get experience. Get exposure. Say yes, try it. You never know. You may end up stumbling on something that you develop a passion for and that you really enjoy. “
3. Upgrade Your Skills:
“And then the S stands for skills. Always upgrade your skills. Things are changing fast. Technology moves way faster now than our ability to keep up. So you gotta learn. You gotta update your skills all the time.”
3. Try, Try Again:
“And then T is for Try, try it. Try again, fail, fail again. You know, but fail better is the saying. And like I said, like I said, you know, crisis, I always say crisis is a mysterious opportunity. I think it’s a Japanese saying. Somewhere in there, there is a nugget of learning and something that will help you later on.”
“Don’t be afraid of change. Try things. You will learn tremendously in the process. You will build resilience, and you will meet people from all over the place that have different perspective, different opinion, and you will learn. And the more you go out there and stick to your neck out and see what’s out there, the more you realise you don’t know much. And it’s a journey. There’s no destination. It never ends. So that’s it. Those are my four things. Best, if you want to be your best, do all of that.”
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
disney, learn, women, organisation, work, debra, give, create, job, story, experience, valerie, love, kids, leadership, day, started, hire, group, realise
Valerie Cockerell 00:00
So you take a transaction and make it an interaction, your front line delivers your bottom line. The moment of truth in your organisation happens right there. Every time it gets challenging. This is such a great learning opportunity.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:23
Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry Taylor, and I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:41
I’m a certified EOS implementer, an FBA accredited family business advisor and a business owner. Myself with several business interests, I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, my guests come onto the show to authentically share the highs and lows of creating a successful business, and how they turn things around in their business to create a better business and a better life, or as in today’s show, they are experts who specialise in working with established businesses.
Today’s guest is fabulous. She was born and raised in Lyon, France. She was recruited to set up the retail arm for Disneyland Paris in 1992 and then later went on to work for the Disney Institute. She met her husband, also a Disney executive, in a laundromat in Orlando, and they now live in Sydney. Valerie Cockrell is the author of manage like a mother, leadership lessons drawn from the wisdom of mum. She’s also a consultant who actually works and trains people on some of the Disney Magic that she’s been involved in. So bringing that magic into your business. Welcome to the show, Valerie, it’s lovely to have you here.
Valerie Cockerell 01:49
Thank you, Debra, thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to our conversation.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:53
Absolutely. We always have a bit of a catch up before we actually come online. As I’ve been learning a little bit about Valerie and and how she got to where she is now. Gonna let her share her own story. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you came to be where you are now, Valerie, because you went Coogee in Sydney, but you’re not originally from Coogee, of course.
Valerie Cockerell 02:10
No, not at all. And I’m sure people will very quickly pick up on my French accent. So originally from France, born and raised and lived in London for a little bit when I was 17 years old. That’s why I learned English. That led me to a job working for Disney. And from Europe, I actually ended up moving to Florida for about a year. I had a one year visa. Worked at the French Fabien at Epcot, for those of you out there that have been to Walt Disney World and then went back to France, started a career in banking for a couple of years. And one morning I got a call from Disney. I said, Hey, we’re opening a park in Paris. We’d love to hire you. You know Disney, you speak English, you understand American culture. And I of course, said, Yes, did the opening of Disney in Paris, relocated to Florida, married an American in the process, became American also and then we worked for Disney. The two of us, both of us, have worked for Disney. I was there for about 16 years.
Half of my career was in retail, and the other half working for Disney Institute. So for people who are not familiar with Disney Institute, this is the external training arm of the Disney company. A lot of organisations out there want to understand how Disney delivers this level of service when they run an operation that is just gigantic. You have Florida is 55 million visitors and 75,000 employees in one site. So considering the volume, a lot of companies are like, Okay, how do you maintain those standards? And this is where Disney Institute, you know, shares part of that expertise with outside organisation. Now the interesting thing is, initially, a lot of companies from the hospitality world or the entertainment world would be intrigued and would want to learn from Disney. But very quickly, we realised that, you know, it’s just common sense. Is just very basic things that are delivered with consistency.
Valerie Cockerell 04:40
So a lot of organisation from all kinds of industries would be joining in to learn and I train many people from different countries, different cultures, different organisations and industries. So that was very fulfilling and interesting. However, in 2018 we decided to leave Disney with my husband, fantastic organisation, but it’s also a 365 day operation, and that can take a toll on you and on your family. So we were ready for something else, and we decided to start our own business, which is a bit of a jump, but we relocated to Colorado and started our own consulting firm. We did that for about six years. And six years into it, my husband got an opportunity to run an organisation here in Australia, and we decided, why not at a time of our life where most people will stop thinking about retirement, we’re like, hey, we empty nesters. The kids are scattered all over the place, so why not try it and go and discover a new part of the world, a new culture? And it’s been, you know, fantastic. We’ve loved it. We moved to Coogee last March. So it’s all very recent. I’m still learning a lot, and I finally know where to do my grocery shopping. So, you know, as a French person, I got my priorities straight, but we love it. We love it here, it’s been great,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 05:47
Perfect. And somewhere in amongst all that, of course, you had children, but then you also wrote an amazing book, right? But I have that book here, managed like a mother. So tell me where that book idea came from, and how you got to write that.
Valerie Cockerell 06:01
Well, I think most people you know, as you get to the I will say, the twilight of my career, you stop reflecting back on what you’ve learned. And I actually happened to grow up with my mom, who’s now 92 years old. I’ve heard her all my life say, I wish I was 20 and I knew what I know now. And I’ve heard this so many times Debra that I would roll my eyes every time she’d said it, but now I feel the same way. I wish I was 20 and I knew what I know now. So it kind of, you know, ignited something in me thinking, well, maybe I can take what I’ve learned and share it with younger woman, younger leaders, and help them maybe avoid some of the the hard lessons I’ve had, I’ve had to learn, and maybe help them in their journey.
Valerie Cockerell 06:52
Because at the end of the day, you know, as you age, that’s what you want to do. You want to help people. You want to live a mark. You want to help them do better. You do that for your kids, but I think you do that with your friends and the people that surround you, and if you can make a difference in one person’s life, it’s extremely fulfilling. So that was, that was the motivation for it. Now the topic itself came to me because over the course of my career, I had to several times I stopped working, either because we were relocating from France to the US, or because my kids were very young. We have three children, so I wanted to dedicate myself to them for a little bit. And every time I went back to work, I, like most women, had said not second thoughts, but more I was doubting my ability to take on leadership responsibilities again, I was thinking, maybe my skills are outdated. Maybe I’m not, you know, I don’t know how to do this anymore. And in the process of this reflection, I realised, you know what, what makes a great leader is really not much different than what makes a great mom, and much of the learnings of much of the many of the things that I was practicing as a mom, I realised could help me be a better leader in the workplace. And once I started digging into this analogy, I thought like, well, it is so obvious, it makes sense, you know. So that’s, that’s how the book came about.
Valerie Cockerell 08:23
There was a labor of love, because it took me about two and a half years to write because, you know, I would put it down and then ignore it for a while, and then go back and but eventually it all came together. And the book has 21 chapters. Every chapter is a different competency of leadership. And every chapter starts with a story that happens with my children, and then the second half of the chapter is the insights and the learnings that you can extract from that. So I’m very much leaning to the storytelling first, because I come from, you know, I’ve worked for Disney many, many years, and it’s a storytelling company. But also I know that with stories, people can relate. They will read the story and say, Oh yes, I experienced that as a kid. Oh yes, I’ve experienced that as a parent. And then when, when people relate to a story, they retain it. When they retain it. They can implement it. They can learn from it and then mix, you know, it gives them a tool and something to that they can use in their in their life, at work, their personal life, or their professional lives.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:32
One of the reasons I actually love Patrick Lencioni, he’s one of my favorite authors, and I love him because he doesn’t necessarily tell true, true life stories, but he tells everything in a story first, and then relates the principles of the people management that that fit in around that story. And you’re right, it’s so much easier when you can actually relate to something. Oh yes, I’ve had that happen or it sticks in your mind for a long, long time. Okay, so it is a great book. I’ve just started reading it. I must confess, I’ve not got through the whole thing yet. It, but certainly it’s, it’s great to see that you like and you know, being a mom to what it is like to be a leader. But it isn’t just for women. Is it like this? The same principles apply whether you’re a man, whether you’re a woman.
Valerie Cockerell 10:12
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don’t have to be a mom, you don’t have to be a woman to enjoy this book, because we all have one thing in common. We’ve all been kids, and we all remember what it’s what it’s like to be a kid, and we remember specifically, when we teenagers, what it was like If our parents, usually it’s the mom, and by the way, I call the book Manage Like A Mother, because the vast majority of us have been raised primarily by our moms. This is changing for the better, and also know that, you know, dads were all involved, were involved in their own way, but I think we we’ve all been kids, and we remember what it feels like when your parents are supportive, yet they give you enough space that you can make your decisions. They would empower you. They would let you make mistakes and learn from your mistakes, and you remember the satisfactions that came, that came with that. You also maybe remember when your parents were overbearing, controlling you, maybe not giving you enough independence and the frustrations that came with that.
Valerie Cockerell 11:26
So you know, remember all this good learning you know, and take all of that and you know, remember that when you engage with people in your organisation as a leader and trying to find a right balance of giving them, you know, empowering them and letting them make some mistakes and learn from it and develop them. There are so many similarities between the two, and I think we can, even if you don’t have kids, you can just remember those times where you learn, you learn things your parents let you, you know, let you make a mistake and how it felt like that was the end of the world, and then things eventually worked out for you and that’s usually how it is, but it’s just a good reference. It gives people a good reference. And I have to say we tend to over complicate things. We tend to make things, you know, very complex, and I always feel that it’s a lot better and a lot easier to correct course when you go back to basic things. And I know Australians are very much into sports, so I give you a sport analogy. I played tennis for many years. I’m not a I’m no champ by any by any stretch of the imagination, but I played recreational tennis for many years, and whether you play tennis or golf or you know whatever, when your shots, you know your game is off, you can’t hit your shots that are landing where they’re supposed to land, you get a little bit frustrated.
Valerie Cockerell 12:59
I’ve always found that you can recover when you start focusing on taking care of basics. So in tennis, for me, it was like, okay, Valerie, keep your eyes on the ball, bend your knees, hit your shot, and follow through this. These are the basic things you learn when you when you start playing tennis. But by doing that for about a game or two, suddenly my game would slowly, gradually come back, and then I could, you know, strategise and improve. And I think in leadership is the same. You know, sometimes it is overwhelming. It’s super complicated, and we just don’t know. We’re like squirrels, right? Well, heads spinning. We’re trying to we don’t know where to go. There’s so many things, so many distractions, so many possibilities, so many opinion and that’s where I say, Okay, let’s go back to basic let’s focus on, you know, hiring the right people, training them well, treating them well. And when you can do that, then you get about 85% 90% of your job is covered. And that’s the essence of work relationship.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:04
Simplicity. Yeah, it’s something we tend to over complicate things as humans, just by nature. So it’s really important to sometimes take a break and go back to, as you said, to those absolute basics, and make sure you’re getting those right. So I’m sure there’s gonna be a lot of people who are listening and kind of thinking, you know, what was it like to work for Disney? Because we all have this image of Disney, and certainly it’s very well renowned for its amazing customer service, but also we have this vision of everything always being fun, and it’s all about making people happy. What’s been sort of the biggest lesson that you learned in working for Disney?
Valerie Cockerell 14:34
Well, listen, I’ve created a workshop that’s called the method to the magic and the magic being the hint to Disney and I always start my workshop by saying, Look, I have bad news for you. There’s no magic whatsoever, none whatsoever. It’s all about processes that allow you to create consistency and also. Raising the bar so you can connect emotionally with people. So you take a transaction and make it an interaction. And when you can do this, I always joke, and maybe I shouldn’t say this so much, but what Disney does so well is they tap into your heart on their way to your wallet, right? And when you build this emotional connection with people, a positive one, for that matter, has to be positive, you build loyalty. There’s no price resistance. And this is how 55 million people fly to Orlando every year and literally surrender the paycheck, right? And said, Please take my money away from me, because I just love the experience I’m gonna have in in one of your park so that’s what they do. And how do you create this emotional connection? Is by surprising people. And we all have wants and needs.
Valerie Cockerell 15:58
We want certain things. If you go on vacation to Walt Disney World, you want a vacation, you want to spend some time with your family, you want to be entertained, but there are needs that you may not even articulate yourself. You want to be respected, you want to be treated as an individual. You want to be treated as a VIP. Made, made me feel special, right? And so as an organisation, when you can do this, you elevate the service, you go above and beyond what people want. You know, you deliver the want, and you deliver the needs, and you surprise them with this.
So at Disney, they create what they call magical moments, and those magical moments are most of them are planned. So we know that in this bakery shop, on the hour, every hour, they’re going to pull a little kid from the crowd, they’re going to give them a paper hat and let them decorate cookies, and the child’s going to go away with this paper hat and a free cookie that they have decorated like pretend working at Disney kind of thing, and a little certificate, cost of the operation, couple of dollars. The impact on that family you met. You made this kid feel super special. And when the children are happy, mom and dad are happy, and now they have something to talk about. They go back to social media, and they say, I went on vacation for Disney World, and guess what happened to us? And then they relate to the experience, because social media people talk about two things, the really horrible things or the really wonderful things, right?
Valerie Cockerell 17:34
So create, you know, moments like this, where you can tap people into their emotions and give them this moment of, you know, uniqueness that you don’t get to experience much, especially when you’re in a park with another 60,000 people, right? So there are a lot of those magical moments that are already, you know, pre planned and created. But when you do enough of that, and you do it for long enough, then it becomes spontaneous. It’s contagious. So then you have your your workforce, the frontline people, that’s all they think about, is creating those magical moments. And most of these magical men, a lot of preplanned but now there’s a lot of spontaneous thing. And that’s the beautiful thing.
This is when you have a culture where everybody is engaged, everybody is try to create this little moment, this little special moment for the guest. And the guest, you know, they as we, you know, as they’re called at Disney. They’re not clients or customers, they’re guests. Then they go home, and they have this really emotional connection with their experience at Disney, and they go back, and they recommend the company, and they come back. Some people come to three, four times a year, in 20 years in the making. And sometimes you want to the third generation of, you know, within the same family, coming to Walt Disney World, so that that’s the magic. And it’s not magic, because just processes, you know.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 19:01
Yeah, I’m so pleased to hear that, because part of the work I do as an EOS implementer is about making sure that businesses put processes in place for their for their main, you know, core processes. And people always say, but, you know, we don’t want to become robots, but it actually has the opposite effect, if it, and I think it was Isadore sharp from four C’s and said you should systemise the predictable so you can humanise the potential. And it’s like, actually, you just described that perfectly in a story. Is that you they have this absolute standard process where they do the cookie every hour, but it actually creates a culture of people wanting to have interactions and engagements rather than transactions. Love it.
Valerie Cockerell 19:40
And I have many, I have many stories like this. I mean, anybody who’s worked at Disney could share, you know, incredible stories like this. Well, often very emotional. Actually, I did a presentation not too long ago to a group of Brazilian entrepreneur and was speaking in English and had a translator. Yeah, and I was relating a story that is, you know, quite sad and emotional, and halfway through, the translator was starting crying. And I looked at the audience, and everybody was looking kind of strange, and I’m like, Well, what’s going on? And everybody suddenly turned towards the translator was sitting in the back of the room, and she was bawling, trying to translate this story, but it is, you know, it’s beautiful and that’s how you know, then it comes, it’s still very genuine, because it’s just something that people buy into in front line, people.
Valerie Cockerell 20:36
I always say this is the that your front line delivers your bottom line, the moment of truth in your organisation happens right there. You can be a great leader. You can have the most incredible vision. You can be an incredible, you know, have an incredible strategy. But at the end of the day, the moment of truth is going to be, you know, your front line and the ability to deliver your vision. And if it doesn’t happen properly there, and it’s not genuine and it’s not consistent. None of that, you know, none of that. Nothing matters. So this is where, and you look at an organisation like these networks, frankly, Disney doesn’t pay well, you know, if you if your job is to make hamburgers or clean the park or load the attractions and everything, it’s really not exact, financially fulfilling work, but people are very loyal to the organisation.
Because, yeah, maybe you don’t make much money, but let me tell you, you get out of bed in the morning, and you’re given the opportunity and the tools to make that kind of impact in people’s life. You know, boy, you know that. That’s it. You know, people work for three things. They work to pay the bills. We all want to pay the bills, but we want to be part of a team. We want to belong. And Disney, among many other companies that are very successful, does that really well, making sure you belong and you realise that you are relevant, you make a difference. So those are the three things. So Disney maybe doesn’t pay well or too well, but they make you feel like you belong, and make you feel relevant and that that’s it. That’s the magic of it
Debra Chantry-Taylor 22:12
I know that you talked in your book about, you know, building an intentional culture and hiring on values and things. Can you tell us a bit more about that? Because, I mean, we talk a lot with our clients around that, and often they kind of go, Oh, your values. They very fluffy. What does it really mean? It’s only when you start to understand what impact they actually have, it becomes more relevant. But tell me how Disney goes about hiring the right people.
Valerie Cockerell 22:32
So the thing with Disney, and many successful organisation, I think, in any case, one of the thing that I’d advocate for is that, unless you are hiring engineers or pilots or doctors in a lot of jobs, you can teach the skills right. And when it comes to running a register or making a hamburger or doing bloating attractions like a Disney or maybe working a front desk, or, you know, you can teach the skills. It won’t take you too long as an organisation to teach your your new hire, how to perform properly. Passion is something that people will develop over time, because if they get good at doing something, they will feel good about themselves. When they feel good about themselves. They develop a passion for it. The most important thing to me is attitude, because attitude is not something you can change. Okay, when you have a new hire candidate shows up and applies for a job in your organisation, they have that luggage with them.
This is something that has been important to them through their parents, their upbringing, their teachers, you know, the people they’ve been surrounding with. As an organisation, it’s really hard to change somebody’s attitude, so you want to make sure you recruit somebody who has the right attitude, and somebody who has right attitude is somebody who’s a problem solver, somebody somebody who can self motivate themselves and always raise the ball. And when there’s an obstacle, they figure out a way, and they will learn and acquire new skills and try to overcome problems. And there are some technical ways when you recruit people where you can identify this.
Valerie Cockerell 24:22
And I’ll give you a quick example, if I were to say, Debra, thank you for applying for job in my organisation. Organisation, what are the three things if I were to call your previous employer? What would be the three things you really good at? And then you would tell me a, b and c, because you can prepare to answer that question right. And then my next question will be, all right, Debra now, if I were to call that same employer, where would he say that you have some areas of opportunities, areas where you need to improve, and you may have to think for a little while, because usually people don’t like to share this, but eventually I would say, you know, take your time and you would give me maybe one or two things, maybe my technical skills are not good enough, and then my next question should be so Debra, since you heard this, what have you done to change that?
And that will tell me whether indeed you have the attitude of, okay, first, the humility to say, you know, I have a shortcoming. I recognise it, and I’m going to work on it and try to improve so it doesn’t so I get better at it. So when people have when people will tell you, well, actually sign up, you know, to do this, or I got online, and I try to learn the skills and promote skill. Now you’re starting to see the right attitude, somebody who will take on an obstacle, a challenge, or one of their shortcoming and try to improve. That’s the kind of folks you want working in your organisation. To me, that’s the focus of when you hire people. These are the kind of people you want to have.
Valerie Cockerell 26:00
Then the other thing is, and you know, when it comes to Disney, you have to really be truthful about the job, the expectations, how hard the job is, the intensity of it all. You know, when you interview at Disney, you go to casting, that’s why it’s called, because you’re part of the show, right? To become, to become a cast member, and they make it very clear right away, what are the non-negotiable so in terms of appearance guideline, in terms of what you can or cannot do or cannot say, but more importantly, they’re also being very truthful about this is the environment you’re going to work in. And these are our values. You mentioned values, and at Disney, they we retain them with the word or kid be it’s openness, restate, courage, honesty, integrity, diversity and balance. So this is how we operate within the organisation. Those are the values. And you know, they we’re not going to compromise this.
These are never going to change. Doesn’t matter what crisis we’re going through. This is the these are the values of the company. So you have to be able to align with this. But also, when it comes to more operational thing, let it be known that you’re going to work in an environment where it’s crowded, it’s loud, it’s high intensity, it’s demanding. You work in Florida, it can be 38 degrees out there, plus humidity, and you’re going to be miserable. You know, you have to be prepared. But as you have to be prepared for this.
Valerie Cockerell 27:33
But we as an organisation have to be honest about it, and I think often, especially right now, whether it’s employees markets, you know, people have a lot of options for employers. Sometimes they tend to not be so truthful about a job. And I would discourage you from doing that, because, you know, if people get the job with you, you may have them bring them, spend a lot of time training them, onboarding them, and then they will realise that the reality is not at all what they what they were told it was, and they’ll go and find their happiness somewhere else, right? So this is something that I think organisation have to remember, let’s not sugar coat what the job is. Let’s be honest and recruit the right people with the right attitude in the job.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 28:22
Yeah, I love it, and that’s really, really important. I think sometimes, especially if we, if we want a candidate, we can, we can actually paint a much rosier picture than what really goes on. But they’re going to find out, because, you know, probably on day, if not the first week, it’ll certainly be the second and third week, they’re going to realise exactly what it’s like. And as you said, we invest a lot of time in training people, in onboarding them and bring them up to speed. We want to make sure they really, truly understand the highs and the lows of the role.
Valerie Cockerell 28:48
Absolutely. And you know, I always say companies like Disney always it’s like a duck, right when you go there as a visitor, a duck on the lake looks everything, looks smooth and nice and peaceful. But under the water, there’s a lot of paddling. There’s a lot of stuff happening. And it’s a it’s a tough job. It’s high energy. It can be intense. And like I said earlier, it’s a 365 day operation, and that can be very demanding, yeah.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 29:17
And so it was a 75,000 people working there. So it’s not as if you’re intimate with every single person that you work with, either.
Valerie Cockerell 29:24
And out of those 75,000 so first of all, Walt Disney World, Florida, is the biggest single site employer in the US. So the only thing bigger than that would be a military base. But when it comes to the private world, Walt Disney World is by far the biggest single site employer. And and, you know, you have these 55 million people coming, and you gotta be ready for them. And you, you know, sometimes people say, How do employees keep a smile on their on their face? It will say, we hire smiling people. We hire people that are you. A beat and a little bit extrovert and and maybe, when you go through this interview and we tell you about the values and we tell you about the environments you’re going to have to operate in, some people will say, you know, nope, and no can do and it’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It just doesn’t make you right fit for the Disney organisation,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 30:21
That’s it. You know, talk about a lot with clients. It’s like, at the end of the day, if somebody doesn’t sort of fundamentally share your core values in the way that you operate, it doesn’t mean they’re a bad person. In fact, quite the opposite. In some cases, they’re just not the right fit for that particular organisation. But they will find somebody somewhere else where they feel really great in terms of what they do?
Valerie Cockerell 30:41
Yeah, I experienced, you know, I mentioned earlier, I worked for a bank for two years, and I thought, at the time, I was in my early 20s, thinking, I want you to be a stock broker. And I don’t know, it just appealed to me. I had this fantasy in my head of being great in banking. And after two years there, when Disney called and say, We opening Disney in Paris. Would you like to join our organisation? And I was, of course, I do, of course, because I had realised by then that I wasn’t a right fit for the banking world. Doesn’t make it’s the you know, it’s a bad environment. It just means it wasn’t the right one for me, and I, I would not have been able to articulate it this way so clearly, but now looking back, that’s exactly what it was I realised I wasn’t built to work in the in the banking world, and that’s it. Nothing wrong with that.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 31:32
I know that when we spoke before the podcast, you’re very passionate these days about women and women lead in leadership and some of the diversity that that can bring to an organisation. Would you mind sharing a bit about your feelings about that and what you want people to know?,
Valerie Cockerell 31:48
Yeah, this is interesting, because when I finished the book, and you know, when you write a book, it’s at some point you have to cut the umbilical cord, and it’s painful, because as time goes, the more you talk about your book, you think over certain things, and you’re like, Oh, I wish I’d talked about this and mentioned that or extended on this. And one of the area that I find myself getting into now is saying, Okay, if we make the argument that women and mothers are uniquely prepared to take on leadership responsibilities because of all these competencies that they practice as moms. Why is it we have so few women in leadership when we actually have parity in the workplace and in the US today? And I’m I don’t know what the numbers are exactly in Australia, but I suspect that probably very close.
You have about 70% leadership roles are held by men. And I would say even 70-75% the higher you go, the fewer women you find in the workplace. So why is that? And that’s why, you know, in the book, I say, if men read that book and they realise a lot of men, actually, if you ask them, you said, you know who’s who are the people who are the most influence your leadership style? A lot of men will say, my mom. It’s like, okay, so if you understand that women have this uniquely, unique talent to take on leadership responsibility, why don’t we have more women in the workplace as leaders. And so it goes through certain things, I think the number one being equal pay. Because when you give women equal pay, and right now, for $1 you pay every man, you pay about 75 cent, 85 cents, sorry, in the US, I think it’s 70 cents in Brazil. So there’s, I think Australia fares actually better than than the US. I want to say it’s about 10 cents or something like this. But if it’s equal pay, equal work, why aren’t we given equal pay?
Valerie Cockerell 33:53
Because when you pay women enough, then they can take care of their children, they can afford child care, and then they can go to work and be effective, not having this, you know, guilt of you know, I’m not giving my kids the best experience possible or the best upbringing possible, or the other way around. I’m staying home with my kids, or I’m spending time more, investing time in my kids, and therefore I cannot do my job, you know, completely or the best way I could, because I’m always like, you know, shuffling back and forth between the two and just often, it’s because the money is not there to make sure the children have quality child care, so women can dedicate themselves Fully to their job and be given the flexibility sometimes, to go back and take care of the kids.
Valerie Cockerell 34:48
There’s also, you know, equal pay is one thing, mentorship, giving women the right training, the right opportunity, hiring based on talent, not solely experience. Big. If you focus on experience, well, the most experienced leaders are men, so then the problem repeats itself. Your pool of candidate will be in majority will be male, and therefore you have fewer women leaders to tap, you know, to hire. So it, you know, all these are basic steps that organisation can implement to make sure that women are giving a better chance at leadership.
I’m really interesting right now to see. I’m really excited about the upcoming American elections, and I don’t want to open a can of worms. But you know, the idea that possibly a woman could become the president over there and have this, you know, incredible leadership opportunity may move the needle for women, you know, and provide more appreciation for what they bring to the workplace, because it’s not exactly the, you know, it’s not better or worse than what men do. And there’s a bit of stereotypes in this. So I want to make sure I’m not putting everybody in one box, right?
Valerie Cockerell 36:14
But the vast majority of men are, you know, more assertive they can, you know, they have a self confidence that women don’t have. It is a done, a known fact that if there is a job opening, women will only apply if they have 100% of the criteria’s that are required. Men will apply if they have 50% of the skills required, because they’re like, hey, I can wing it, or I can learn on the job, right? And I think historically, men have always survived because they are strong and they have power, and they can rely on the athleticism and the strength to overcome women overcome by forming a tribe, forming a group, being on defensive, looking at red flags, analysing the situations, and making sure that they prepare for everything.
So you know, take that centuries later, when you put those two approaches together in the workplace, now you have a winning scenario and you have two different perspective, two different approach. Again, lots of stereotypes here, but generally, this is how women approach leadership, and this is how men approach leadership. And if you can combine the two, I think it’s it makes a really interesting, interesting formula.
Valerie Cockerell 37:38
You know, it’s interesting. I read not too long ago, there was a study that was done at, I believe it was MIT and Carnegie Mellon, and they were trying to measure the IQ of a group. They we’ve always measured the IQ of an individual, but what happens when we put people as a group, so they form three teams, and they gave each, each of them the same assignment. And what they found out is that the first learning was that if you put a lot of really high IQ people together, it doesn’t necessarily make that team more productive or smarter. It doesn’t. You can’t add up everybody’s IQ and have this super smart group. The second learning was that if in the group you have one person with a really high IQ, but this person hijacked the conversation in the decision making process, the performance of the group actually goes down. And the third learning, which was really unexpected, and they were not even trying to investigate that, but they realise that the performance of the group goes up pretty drastically when they are more women in the group.
Why? Because women based, you know what I was just saying is them, they’re more they’re used to collaborating, they listen better, they rigged the room better, they’re more open to constructive criticism, and as a result, it made the group more productive, and got to a better performance from that group. So it was something that they stumbled upon. But I think, once again, that it’s about bringing variety, different perspective, different approach, and now you get a team that that is that performs better in general. So those are the things that you know. None of that is in the book, but I’ve kind of after writing the book and like, Okay, if women have all these competencies built in, why not leverage that in the workplace? And that’s where I try to make the case for more women in leadership positions.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 39:43
Yeah, and I think, I mean, I’ve always been a big advocate for diversity. I was on a lot of boards, and a lot of like, a woman on boards, and it wasn’t about having quotas and things, but if we could just have more diversity across the range, right? Whether it be around the sexes, around their backgrounds, their experience, it means that everybody in that group or. Actually be better because of it. So it’s a good it’s a good thing. Okay, look, I’m sure we could talk for hours, but unfortunately, we don’t have hours to talk so and I always like to ask the guests to give our listeners three kind of tips or tools that they could actually take away and apply in their life outside of this. What can you share with me? Valerie.
Valerie Cockerell 40:22
So I’ll tell you what. I’m going to go back a little bit in time. And, you know, like I said, in 2018 we started our consulting business with my husband, and in 2020 of course, covid happened. So every single engagement we had scheduled got canceled, and it forced us to, you know, think out of the box, as we say in the US, life gives you lemons. You have to make lemonade, right? So we developed a college course, and we also developed a course for realtors that they can use. So it’s kind of bringing the Disney Magic to your real estate world, or, you know, all of this. And what I learned through the process is, you know, crisis can be a real opportunity, and if anything working as self, it’s a bit dangerous, it’s a bit scary, it’s a bit a bit doubting. But every time it gets challenging, this is such a great learning opportunity, and I found that was it.
Valerie Cockerell 41:27
When you an entrepreneur, you are going to going to be going through that this roller coaster. There’s going to be great days, there’s going to be bad days. The thing is, unlike in the corporate world, there are no safety, safety nets, no nobody’s here to support you and encourage you, so it’s something you have to start doing by yourself. And when I look back at my career, I realised that every time things were uncomfortable and were challenging, this is where I learned the most. So one of the thing that Sharon mentioned, we created a course for college students. And we worked with several universities in the US that had hospitality programs. And one of the things I tell college, so you asked me about two, three things, but I’ll give you four.
And I usually tell I usually tell students. I say, Okay, you want to be the best you can be. So think about best, and you take those four letters. The first one, the B stands for, be yourself, run your own race. Stop comparing yourself to others. Social media is just garbage. You know, tons of people out there look fabulous on paper, on social media, and then just outside the frame there’s, there are divorces, failures, miserable people, anxiety, depression, burnout and all of this. So you don’t know, you don’t know what the others. Just be yourself. Everybody else is already taken, right? So that’s the first one.
Valerie Cockerell 42:52
The E stands for experience and exposure. Get experience. Get exposure. Say yes, try it. You never know. You may end up stumbling on something that you develop a passion for and that you really enjoy. We made our three kids, when I was 16, work in horticulture at Disney, which meant that during July and August, they had to get up and be at work from 6am to 2pm weeding and mulching when it’s about you know, 38 degree weather with 95% humidity, it’s a miserable job. And I remember my daughter saying, Mom, why do we do this? You know, this is hard. This is I got stung by bees and this and that. And I said, You know what, Margo, one day you will realise what a great experience it was. And some years later, she went and applied for a job, and the talent acquisition team was, like, you worked for Disney. What was that like? And she explained what she had been doing, and I said, Wow, you actually got up at 5am and showed up at work at 6am every day. In this kind of circumstances, he actually says something about you. And that’s when she realised that, yeah, I learned to be resilient, to be reliable, show up, be on time. You know all of this. So any exposure, any experience you can gain, is valuable.
Valerie Cockerell 44:12
And then the S stands for skills. Always upgrade your skills. Things are changing fast. Technology moves way faster now than our ability to keep up. So you gotta learn. You gotta update your skills all the time.
And then T is for Try, try it. Try again, fail, fail again. You know, but fail better is the saying. And like I said, like I said, you know, crisis, I always say crisis is a mysterious opportunity. I think it’s a Japanese saying. Somewhere in there, there is a nugget of learning and something that will help you later on. And it is uncomfortable. I went through that as a kid when I moved to London with my five words of English, and I could say my name is Valerie. Am French, and that was it, but, and it was really uncomfortable and miserable. But you know what? That I learned English. That’s how I got the job with Disney. That’s how eventually, you know, at some point I I managed to go from France and relocate it to the US when I that’s how I worked from retail.
And then eventually, when I went back for Disney, I worked for Disney Institute to do public speaking. This is not something I had ever envisioned that I would do, and it wasn’t comfortable the first couple of times. And then you slightly get better, and then you get to enjoy it today. This is how I moved from the US to Australia. It is not easy to put everything you know in a container and hope for the best and oh, let’s go to the other end of the world and see what what’s going on there. Don’t be afraid of change. Try things. You will learn tremendously in the process. You will build resilience, and you will meet people from all over the place that have different perspective, different opinion, and you will learn. And the more you go out there and stick to your neck out and see what’s out there, the more you realise you don’t know much. And it’s a journey. There’s no destination. It never ends. So that’s it. Those are my four things. Best, if you want to be your best, do all of that.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 46:17
Do all of those things. That’s wonderful. And as you said, crisis can be opportunity. I think it’s really true. It’s funny, I have a reverse experience. So I’m actually from the UK. Grew up in the UK, and I actually got dumped in France when I was 13 years old by my parents to sort of go and learn French. And we had learnt a little bit of French at school, but it was pretty average. You know, you don’t really learn real French when you’re there. I spent six weeks there. I came back speaking fluently. It was awful in the beginning, but now I have lifelong friends that I go back and visit. So it’s, it’s all good, perfect. Well, I just remind people a couple other things you’ve said. So best is obviously one of the important things. I love the fact that you talk about going from transaction to interaction. That’s really important.
That’s how you create experiences. That’s what people remember. And I guess the key one that I actually wrote down is the front line delivers your bottom line. So your people who are there at the front line are the ones that can make or break the business. So absolutely fascinating. I’ve loved learning more about Disney. We actually use Disney as an example in our EOS teaching. And so it’s really nice to actually hear from somebody in the organisation here that what we talk about is happening in there. So that’s fantastic. Your book. I’m going to finish reading it now, so manage, like a mother. I’m going to put the link to that in the Agile podcast. And as you said, it’s full of stories, which is how we all tend to learn so Valerie, I just want to say thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it, and I look forward to remaining in contact. Might even see you in Coogee one day.
Valerie Cockerell 47:35
Wonderful. Thanks, Debra, thanks for having me.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 47:37
Thank you very much.
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Debra Chantry-Taylor
Certified EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner
#betterbusinessbetterlife #entrepreneur #leadership #eosimplementer #professionaleosimplementer #entrepreneurialbusinesscoach
Certified EOS Implementer New Zealand
Certified EOS Implementer Australia
Certified EOS Implementer UK
Certified EOS Implementer NZ
