Bringing Your Whole Self to Teams

Sylvia Burberry, a New Zealander, has worked at Mars for more than 28 years. She is currently President, Emerging and Seed Markets for Royal Canin.  At the time of our discussion, she was leading Royal Canin in Asia Pacific. Previous to that role, Sylvia had held leadership roles in Sales and HR.  Royal Canin, a part of Mars’s global portfolio of pet care portfolio, “improves the lives of dogs and cats through nutrition.”

Sylvia, what’s the one thing you wish you’d learned in your education? 

I wish I’d been taught how to take myself less seriously. you get on this academic treadmill and it’s all about achieving, achieving, achieving, about the human doing, not the human being. 

Early team leading lessons learned

Can you reflect back on the first team you ever lead?

It’s embarrassing to think back that far! I was 23, just had my first child and I’d just been promoted to sales supervisor. I was a baby. I didn’t know what I didn’t know and I was managing these people who were way older than me, several were men who’d never worked for a woman and weren’t very happy. I was a bit school-marmish to be honest. I look back, and I did some things right. I genuinely cared about people. I got out and spent time in the field and got to know them. That was right. But when we got together and had meetings, I’d say, “Shhh! Don’t be talking…Get here on time.” I’d throw tests at people. It’s all I knew. I’m terribly embarrassed when I look back on it now. It was a long time ago and hopefully I’ve improved since then.

Was there any one lesson that stands out?

I think probably the power of relationship, of getting to know people. I had one guy in particular who was really resistant. And you know I can remember spending time, just sitting in the car, talking with him and getting to know him as a person. Eventually I think I wore him down. When you start to get to know people as people, they stop thinking of you as their boss. It closes the distance, reduces their resentment. It builds a relationship where you can actually have a meaningful interaction, and support, develop and grow somebody. 

Leading teams as a woman

You mentioned being a woman and leader. How important a factor do you feel that was, and why?

In one instance, I was working with older men who were by then very weary, and being managed by a young person and a woman at that, back 30 years ago, was really uncomfortable. I was conscious of it, they were conscious of it. 

Now I’m much more conscious of my innate style. There were times that I felt that I needed to conform more my style. Business has largely been a men’s domain. It’s not as much today, it’s changing a lot, but for a long time it was. I can remember being told I needed to be more assertive and bang my fist on the table. I didn’t feel that was necessarily me or was going to make a difference, but at that time it was sort of needed. So there were times when I was the only woman in the room, particularly early in my career. Over the years I’ve become much more comfortable leading in a style that’s very me: tapping into more of my female energy. Now I’m a bit more nurturing, a bit more empathetic.  

I hate when you start talking gender because you start generalizing, and I don’t like to generalize because at the end of the day we’re all different.  I believe those things are really strengths. I know I’m a really good listener. That is a trait that has set me up really well as a leader but it took a long time for me to feel really comfortable and fully accepted for leading in a style that’s completely authentic, without feeling I needed to moderate a little to fit. As the world has become more accepting, I’ve become more accepting of myself. 

Managing up to a difficult leader

Can you think back to a time where things weren’t squaring up very well with your team leader?

As I said, I’ve worked for Mars, Inc. for a long time, I’ve worked with some amazing people, and in an amazing culture. That doesn’t mean you always connect well with everybody. I can remember one particular boss that I had who I was really struggling to trust. With the benefit of hindsight and years, just on a values basis, I tend to not be very ego-driven: it’s more about the team. Sometimes when I work with people who have more ego, I don’t trust immediately. This guy had a very different style, a lot more ego, and I was struggling to trust. I remember this pivotal moment – again, I was still young and in my 20x.  I still can’t tell you where I got the courage to do this, but I remember saying, “You know, I don’t trust you.” And I ask myself, “How on earth did I ever get the courage to say that?”

The thing that I’ve learned is once you’ve named something, it loses all its power. If you don’t trust someone enough to tell them you don’t trust them…that builds trust right away. Unless they do something crazy. Because mostly it opened this conversation and I learned so much about speaking what I’m feeling, speaking about the tension that I am feeling. And when I put it out there, it creates an opportunity to have a conversation. 

Trust and Psychological Safety

When I was working for you I had a similar conversation with a person I was supposed to be supporting who didn’t trust me.  I’m interested in the courage that it takes to “go there”. Are you familiar with Brené Brown? I’m interested in what it takes to cultivate that kind of psychological safety within yourself. How can we cultivate that in others?

I’ve often thought about how I had the gumption to say that in that moment. I think I sort of blurted it out. I don’t remember planning to have the conversation. But what I know it did is create in me a sense of psychological safety to say things that might be really uncomfortable.  Becoming comfortable with discomfort. My best advice is to create your own safety for yourself you have to try it. 

I talk to people about this all the time when I talk about vulnerability. When you first open up and become vulnerable, it feels incredibly risky.

But as soon as you’ve done it, you realize it’s not risky. It actually gives you more power in a situation when you name what you’re feeling. The advice I give to people who are about to do a presentation is to start by telling people you feel nervous because what you do is you engage them, you enroll them in supporting you. If you listen to somebody present and they say, “I’m really nervous”, the first thing you’re going to do is say to yourself, “Oh, I better really support them and encourage them and make sure they feel comfortable. So they’re feeling really vulnerable by feeling that they’re taking a great risk, but what they’re actually doing is enrolling the audience to support them. 

I remind myself that whenever I go into a conversation feeling a little bit uncomfortable. I’ve had some incredible coaches, not formal coaches but mentors, peers, leaders, even people who’ve support me, Carlos, who’ve given me great support, advice and encouragement. I’ve gleaned so much wisdom from people along the way.

Lasting wisdom from others

What’s one piece of advice about working with a team that has stuck with you? 

When building high performance teams, you hear over and over that when you have a new member, you have to start from the beginning again. We don’t want to do it. We have this great team and we think we can just carry on. But taking the time to onboard someone, not to the business or to the “what” we do, but to HOW we do things, how the relationships work, what’s expected of the team, that at least speeds up the process. It doesn’t stop from going back to the beginning, but if you take the time to onboard them well, I think it speeds up the process. 

In the team I’m leading at the moment, we’re going through a lot of changes. Somebody the other day said, “We’re having another team meeting and another person to onboard. Can we just not onboard them and keep-“

I said, “No.” 

Of course, I’m simplifying the conversation. And there are ways to avoid doing the same thing over and over again, but I think that on-boarding process is really critical. 

No comfort in the learning zone, and no learning in the comfort zone.

What lessons has the pandemic taught you about teams?

The first thing I discovered really early on was that people were in a different place. I lead the China and Korea markets, some of the first markets to be hit. I work in a global team that’s based in Europe. When we were in the middle of things in Asia-Pac, they weren’t in it at all. Then Europe was hit, and Asia-Pac wasn’t in it so much, and I realized we needed to meet people where they’re at. That’s been my mantra through the whole pandemic. When we’re virtual, really connecting to understand where people are at, and giving time and space to connect to people and really understand where they’re at. 

We’ve always, as a team, had these check-ins when we meet. When we meet as a team, we allow more time for the check-in, to talk about their personal lives with their families and about their business lives. What I’ve discovered is when you create that space to check-in at the beginning of the meeting, it brings a presence and a sense of connectedness, even over long distances, that I think has sustained us.

There was an instance recently in a team that I don’t lead where we didn’t check-in at the beginning of the meeting, and there was a lot of emotion and tension that was raised through the meeting that, had we checked in at the beginning of the meeting, would have been a very different discussion. That was a very important lesson we learned when we all checked in at the next meeting. It gives space for people to unload or decompress at the beginning of the meeting so that they can be fully present for the rest of the meeting.

Checking in at the start of a meeting is essential

When did you learn the importance of checking in at the beginning of a meeting?

I think I intuited early on the need to meet people where they’re at. And do that in a genuine way. I had an ah-ha moment when I was having a particularly bad moment. My son had a bike accident. He was in Singapore, I was in New Zealand. He was in the hospital and I couldn’t get back to him. I was working ridiculous hours. And then my daughter got stuck in Europe and was having a really difficult time. I was having all these conversations with people and I realized at the end of the week that I hadn’t shared with anybody how I was feeling. And the reason I hadn’t shared it with anybody is because nobody had asked. And I always ask. And I realized, I’d just had an ah-ha Moment about my own leadership. What I assumed is perfectly normal, checking in with everybody and making space, isn’t something that everybody normally does. 

I work with fantastic, lovely, caring people and I don’t think it was an intentional miss, but I realized that nobody had asked, in this particular week, how I was. I’d asked loads of people how they were. It was an interesting reflection on the things that I perhaps take for granted in myself.

Best team leading moments

What was a peak moment for you as a leader?

Every team I work with I think, “This is the best team I’ve ever worked with.” There are moments, however, where you really get the flow. I remember that transition team we worked with. It was a difficult environment we were in. We were managing a pretty big change. I have a vivid memory of the after-action review where the truth the team pulled together, the reflection on what the team did well and the ability on what we could have done differently, on what the business could have done differently. I remember the energy. I think we had a 2-day offsite session. The energy we created on the reflection and generation on this huge piece of work we’d done and where we’d got to. I think on how proud we were and what we’d achieved. I could think of numerous instances where the team just flows.

Tough lessons learned

Was there a time where you were faced with a tough situation in the team and you were somehow able to get them through it?

I was running the New Zealand business when they had a massive turnaround. We finally got to a decent profit shape. We were doing the operating plan for the following year, and we realized that the exchange rate had shifted and it was going to eat all our profit that we had turned around the year before and take us back to square one. I looked around the room and nobody believed we could get through and improve our performance. We didn’t know how to do it, and I had no idea what to do. Completely outside our control.

I remember getting the team together and saying, “I’m confident that with the brain power we have in this room, we can figure this out. Let’s brainstorm.” We engaged a few extra people further in the organization, we brainstormed it out, sharpened our ideas, broke into small groups and put together a plan. We ended up completely reviewing the portfolio. We ended up with a plan to grow less but make more money and in the end we actually exceeded the plan and delivered a phenomenal result, bringing the power of the collective intelligence, just building confidence. 

I remember your questions: “If you did know what would the answer be?” You have to use that question carefully, but have the confidence that we can find a way when we harness the collective. And pizza always works. Stick a bunch of people in a room with pizza and the collective intelligence will prevail.

Advice for new managers

Finally, what advice would you give to a new line manager?

Simply, I’d advise them to treat people like people, like whole people. Respect them for who they are and they’ll bring their absolute best to whatever they’re doing.  Too often we get focused on the task, or on the people at work. My passion is about creating a space where people can bring their whole self to work. Where I can be my whole self. I know that I’m at my best when other people are able to bring their whole selves and be their whole selves at work. They can be at their best collectively, and I think we sometimes forget that we are people. We’re not workers, or whatever the job is. I believe when you treat people like people and you respect their whole person, they will bring their absolute best.

Thank you, Sylvia Burberry, for bringing your whole self to this conversation.