Our EVP of Business Development and Marketing, Brodie Wise, is joined by Elizabeth Azari, President of Achieve! Executive Consulting for a thought-provoking chat about navigating vulnerability in the workplace and the transformative power of risk-taking. Tune in to gain invaluable insights and practical strategies for turning your vulnerabilities into strengths and risks into steppingstones for success.

Video Transcript

[Onscreen: A split-screen of Brodie (left) and Elizabeth (right) chatting virtually.]

Brodie Wise

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Tails of Testing. I am so excited that you guys can join us today. This is Brodie Wise. I’m the Executive Vice President at Internet Testing Systems. And today I have Elizabeth Azari, the President of Achieve! Executive Consulting. The more important thing and what Elizabeth does is she’s the business transformation, and she inspires rising leaders. So, I’m so excited to have you here. Thank you for being a part of this today, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Azari

Brodie, thank you for inviting me. I’m really excited to be here.

Brodie

So, Elizabeth, one of the things I love when we talk about this stuff is just to kind of go in deep pretty quickly and just learn. And one of the things I’m doing in this, this role in my company or publicly, it doesn’t matter, is I just try to show myself and try to be more vulnerable and let people know who the real Brodie is. But what does it mean to be vulnerable to you?

Elizabeth

Excellent question. Thank you. Well, I think it’s bringing your best self to work. And by that I mean, especially in a leadership position, is taking some elements of risk and being courageous, sharing some stories, perhaps that would be of service to your team or your audience. And, just being willing to be human.

Brodie

Oh, I love that. And what’s funny is I learned so much from you. And for those of you who don’t know, Elizabeth and I used to get to work together when she used to be the COO over at NBME. And I learned that so many of just your natural tendencies and how you would deal with people and so on. But for you to get into that role and get into the consulting, how did you really get this way through your career? How did you evolve and understand this level of vulnerability?

Elizabeth

I love your term evolution. That’s a great term because that that, suggests learning throughout one’s career, which is exactly what I think is the most important. So, you know, we all evolve and change, and so being aware of yourself as a leader is important. I would say my early portion of my career was very analytical in nature—as an attorney, it’s very analytical. But I was always dealing with people, clients, and they were having real problems, business problems, personal problems, whatever it was. So, you always have to relate to the person and understand somehow what’s important to the person. These kinds of things translate further into the career in a way that not only are you allowed to do this, it’s important to do it. So, asking some deep questions of folks. Not just the what do you do, but do you love what you do? What is it about what you do that is so interesting? That kind of thing. How did you get started? And X, Y or Z? Just relating on a personal level. That sounds a little intrusive, but research, and my experience, but research also demonstrates that people don’t mind those kinds of questions. They engage with them as long as it’s bidirectional. So, I learned pretty quickly that bidirectional is important. And I also had the benefit of some great mentors who encouraged me to show that side of myself at a time when perhaps I would have been less comfortable doing stuff.

Brodie

Wow. Well, that that’s incredible, because I just think about my own life and my own journey. And the person I was early in my career, to the person I am now. If I didn’t start to change, see, and adapt to that. I definitely wouldn’t be operating the way I am now. Especially with the next generation coming through in the new workforce, the new work world. But we are not in that same place. How do you think or what’s the approach that someone should take that in today’s world and bring that to the work world and and start to embrace it out of the gate? That’s a loaded one, by the way.

Elizabeth

Yeah, it’s a loaded one, but it’s great. So the answer is take a risk. I think so, you know, there’s a chane with taking the risk that it might fall right now, that’s one. Another thing that I think is important is trying to figure out what does your audience need. What’s a service to them? Your audience could be your own team. It could be somebody completely unknown. But how do I know what they need? So, it’s the are you picking up on nonverbals? Are you picking up on something someone has said, or are you doing some deep listening? It can be one on one. It could be 1000 to 1. But the point is, how are you picking up on this and adjusting yourself in the moment? It’s not like you can script it. It’s kind of it’s all improv. This is improv as an example, right? But being willing to take that chance to speak up, to show up, to recognize what the group needs and in leadership they need inspiration. People need to be inspired. They don’t want to be terrified. You know, leaders make tough choices, but they can demonstrate empathy and humanity through how they communicate those choices. So, I think of super communication as super connection with people. And that’s the thing to work on.

Brodie

That’s great, Elizabeth. Yeah, the one thing that I’m thinking about, and it happens as we go through our career and I can’t actually put my finger on how I’ve changed. But you have to be aware of how to be vulnerable. How do you get past that point of taking down that wall, making sure that you’re having those real connections with people. And the question is, how do you let someone kind of get there? How did they even become aware that they need to open up, let down those walls and know that they have to have those harder, you know, real conversations with people?

Elizabeth

I’ll tell you what, the way that I learned was through a very direct conversation from two people who were consulting with NBME and they realized that I was holding back. As a leader, at the time, I felt that was the way to do it. And they challenged me. So, it was a direct. It could have been a direct employee, but they directly challenged me to drop that, try something else. You know, don’t lose the analytical side. You don’t have to be stoic all the time and show a little bit of the here’s the human, here’s a little bit, maybe this is something you don’t know. And take that risk. Direct. Very direct feedback. And, then you have to be willing to take that in. So, what a gift, right? What a gift it was. And frankly, it was a relief. It was a relief to be able to do that. Yeah. So, I do think not holding back that’s vulnerability on their part. Right. To tell them to say, hey, what about this? Here’s what we’re noticing. That took some vulnerability and courage on their part.

Brodie

I love it. You just got to be real. You know, be real. Well, this has been just a delight. I hope some people get some good, quick nuggets and they can learn from you, and they can take those lessons and bring it forth. But to close out, I always like to finish with, is there a tip that you’d like to leave everyone with, like the last little nugget of proof that they would like to hear?

Elizabeth

I’ll try. I’ll give you a nugget. So, I talked about risk, right? Taking risks being a little bit daring, being willing to fail. So, about two weeks ago, I was in a lift line for a ski lift. And the lift operator is looking at all of us in the ski line and saying, how come you people aren’t covered with powder right now? You got to take a risk, get out there and fall. Have a great time.

Brodie

I love it. Take a risk. Oh, I love it. The only way we’re going to grow, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth

You’re not trying hard enough if you’re not falling down.

Brodie

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. This was great. Thank you all. If you want to follow up after this, you’ll see Elizabeth’s contact information, and you want to reach out to her and learn more and see if there are ways that she can help you. Just reach out. Thank you all for joining. Thank you. Bye, everybody.

Elizabeth

Bye, Brodie.

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