A day in her RED heels: Mrs. Laurence Bret-Stern

I was never lucky when it came to winning at games that are based on pure luck. I never won a lottery, I never won at the Epiphany (also known as King Cake) and I never even managed to win using any of those scratch cards you buy at your local supermarket (even though I used to buy 10 at a time thinking that this would increase my chances). But one day, and after being pushed by one of my colleagues, I decided to try my luck and put my name in for the opportunity to win a shadowing day with one of the LinkedIn leaders. And for some reason, which is still unknown to me, I won!! Needless to say I will forever be grateful to that colleague!

So here I was on my way to London to shadow the EMEA Marketing Director, Mrs. Laurence Bret-Stern. I was given the opportunity to learn from the best and I was determined to make it count. I won’t describe hour by hour what I did with her, and I won’t reveal if I did indeed follow her everywhere. What I will share, are the key learnings that I took away from the time I spent with her, and I hope you will be able to benefit from them.

Invest in the content you deliver

I was very surprised and actually amazed by the time Laurence spent preparing her decks. The dedication she put in doing that was something I have never seen anyone do. I usually try to make my presentations fun by including images here and there, but she took it to a completely other level. I’m going to start calling her the “PowerPoint Ninja”; she went to new extents of researching a specific font that will convey the idea and feeling she wanted her audience to understand and then downloaded it. She even had the patience of reworking a complete framework just so it fits within the rest of the deck. This just shows us that we need to invest time in everything we deliver; whether it’s an internal presentation or even a local campaign. If the EMEA Marketing Director can do it then we have no excuse. Try to think outside of the box, think about what will move your audience, what will engage them and keep them hooked at the same time. One of Laurence’s favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou who says “At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel” and I think that summarizes it all.

Learn to juggle personal/professional

Sometimes we tend to get so carried away with work that we forget to cross things off our personal to do list. And this is where I learned that this shouldn't be the case. We keep complaining that we don’t have a good work/life balance, but what we don’t realize is that we are the ones who create that balance with our own hands. I have already touched on this topic in my previous post but I had to mention it again because Laurence showed me that even if you’re the mother of 3 beautiful kids and running the marketing team across all EMEA you can still have that balance. On her to do list she has two parts, one that is work related and the other is personal, and she treats them the same. It could be something as simple as having lunch with her daughter, or fixing the dishwasher at home. Point is, you should stop complaining and become the juggler you have always dreamed of; because all the elements are in your hands and all you have to do is manage not to let them fall.

Create your own system and master it

Each one of us has his own routine, his own way of going about his day. For Laurence it was that hot coffee that wakes her up in the morning, for others it might be that warm porridge that you can smell miles away. After that, we usually open our laptops, log in and go straight to our inbox. But something that we need to do differently is to separate what’s important from what’s urgent, which is something that my manager already talked to me about. It is important to start flagging what you want to go through the same day, delete what isn't relevant and action what can be done fairly quickly. Be smart, sharp and efficient while doing this. Don’t waste your time on things that can wait and disregard things that require your immediate attention. Laurence was a natural, she knows what is needed and she just starts working on it, I felt she could do it with her eyes closed. This might not apply to all of us, maybe what I just described doesn't work for you; try to find how you can become more efficient and successful at what you do and start implementing this system so that it soon becomes a second nature.

Dance from the heart

My luck did not end with me winning the shadowing trip, I was also lucky enough, that during my trip to the London office they were planning on shooting a dance video for employees. Standing on a couch with Laurence in front of me, we started jumping and dancing till we actually ran out of breath. While she did that so openly and with such a big smile on her face, she made me realize that a true leader is someone who can be the first one to jump in the pool while doing the cannonball, or the first one to try out a silly game or even dance to get out of it laughing and smiling. Never be shy to do something that makes you happy no matter what it is, and always do it with all your heart. Break free from your daily routine. Laurence makes sure she does that by attending yoga classes after work, and I must say she was able to make me try it with her and this changed my perception about that class. We were in a weird blow up room with fans blowing out hot air and I was more relaxed than I have ever been in a while.

At the end, this has been a great learning experience for me and I feel truly blessed to have had the chance to do it. I just want to thank Laurence for taking me under her wings and showing me what it feels like to walk in her heels (very hard ones to fill I must admit). I would also like to thank LinkedIn for giving me this great opportunity and for finally letting me win for once! Also, Sandra for pushing me to go for it in the first place, and finally Pascale, my manager, who is the main reason I am here today.