Season 4 Ep 10: Jolie Vitale

Jolie Vitale, welcome to the Data Strategy Show. Great to see you, Jolie. How are you doing? >> I'm great. How are you? Thank you for having me. >> It's a pleasure. I'm well. Thank you. Look, my first question for all of our listeners out there is, who is Jolie and what do you do? Just give us a bit of a background. >> Yeah. So I am the head of data at Star Heart, which is a workwear company located in Michigan in the United States. I've been there for about six and a half years, and I'll just go into how I got into data and my journey here, because it's funny, I used to think it was unconventional, but the more people I listen to, the more I realize how common it is to have taken a meandering path into this industry. So I originally went to college for art and design. Literally drawing and painting was my first major, and I was not really sure what I was going to do with this. This was a little while ago, so there was like graphic design, true graphic design, which didn't really interest me, but there wasn't really Etsy, there wasn't a lot of what we have today. So I did that for a year and I went pretty heavily into it, and then I decided to shift into marketing and entrepreneurship as a means to have the skills to do what I wanted to do with my art. So I switched majors and I found that I was very interested in consumer behavior, some accounting classes. I had this left brain, right brain strength that I really enjoyed, and so I graduated and I got an internship at a mortgage company, a pretty large mortgage company now in the United States, and it was in marketing at the time, and I was one of two interns. I eventually was hired on for a full-time coordinator role in the marketing space, and I stayed there for a few years, and then again, I was really drawn to how we use information, basically closed loop to optimize what we're doing in the marketing space at the time, and so I had an opportunity to either go deeper into marketing or to go into data, and I was starting a family at the time. I have one daughter who's 15 now, and I decided that I was interested in pursuing this data side. So I went into data and right when I came back from my time with her at home, they were looking for somebody to take over website analytics. So that was very much like right in my domain. So I took over website analytics and did one website, and then it went to five websites. So then I grew a team and I got into leadership, and then as things go, somebody says, "Hey, there's a problem here, it needs to be solved," and I said, "I like to solve problems." So I just took on more and more and more, and then about six and a half years ago, I made the decision to take those skills and take it over to a slightly smaller company, but doing a lot of the same things. So that's how I got here. >> There are so many people who take so many segues in their careers, and I love that. I think that's brilliant because design is still about, I'm sure you get some practical uses still in your day-to-day. I'm sure there's something still in there that helps you in design and when you have to build stuff, and think about UXs. So that's very cool. This season is all about women in data and tech. As we discussed previously before today, I speak to a number of people at events, at conferences, on panels in the workplace, where women are right now, what they're experiencing. Are they still experiencing bias in the workplace? Is there still a fear factor around the imposter syndrome and confidence, etc.? I just wanted to get your take first on your experiences. As a woman who's obviously you've gone through quite a number of different careers, but how you've seen the pattern of women developing in those careers, and where you possibly feel that there might still be improvements to be made, and generally where women are seen as second-class citizens in specific ways. Yeah, so I would say that I've been very lucky at the places that I have worked, and I talk to, as I network and I speak to people, I'm definitely aware of the fact that the companies that I have worked at were great places for women to really be, where I'm at right now, of our directors and above. It is 50% male and female, and that is unusual. And so you end up with, it's not in your face every day, in the same sense as I think some more traditional industries where women are still breaking out in them. What I would say that the most important thing for me as I look at my career was finding a place, and I think on one of your previous podcasts, this kind of came up a little bit too, finding a place where I could balance my work life and home life, and that it was well balanced no matter who was there. So when I look around my company now, and I recognize that this is sort of a luxury to be able to find the right company and the job that you want, especially if it's local, but if I look at where I'm at right now, I really prioritized when I chose this most recent job, a company that had equitable pay practices. So they really look at years of experience, they are constantly looking at their job bans again and again. They have a very clear, transparent rhyme and a reason for how pay is, so that's kind of the structure that allows, in my opinion, this equitable sort of foundation. And some companies are still working on that, to be honest. Yeah, I think it probably varies from country to country, but I think it's still a work in progress. The second thing that I would say is that if you look around the men and the women, both able to leave at four o'clock to go to their kids on a society, are they both able to leave and do things? Are the networking opportunities during accessible hours for everyone? And I look at work-life balance as, it doesn't matter if you just graduated college, or if you have pets at home, or you have kids, or you should be able to, the work environment should support that. And so I think it does tend to, when the work environment is so heavily work-driven and so after hours driven, it tends to negatively impact women because women tend to take on a lot of that, but a great work environment should be great for everyone. So that the women don't feel like, oh, I'm at a disadvantage here and I'm having to go up a steeper hill than other people are to sort of manage my life. - So you've had it fairly easier than lots of other women, I think, who I've spoken to. Are there areas though, as you've gone up in that sort of career ladder, where you felt, let's say not willing to come forward for something or feeling a little bit like, I'm not good enough in these areas, then we'll just go ahead and say, yes, women tend to sort of say, well, I'll think about it because I don't cover all of the attributes that are required. - Right. - Or perhaps you haven't, and perhaps it's very simple for you and it's been much easier. And I just wonder if it has been much easier for you, what is your secret source? So you can tell other women what that might be. - I would say that I've struggled, and this has actually been for as much success as I've had, this has been something that sort of like, smacked me in the face over, quite frankly, like the last few months, where you kind of have those moments in life where you're like, I thought I moved past this, and then life kind of has a way of telling you like, no, you didn't. So I would say that I, if you asked me if I'm a self-aware person, I would say, yeah, yeah, absolutely self-aware. However, what I've realized is that I am a very harsh critic of myself. So as I've been taking more and more 360 surveys, as I've been really working on, what are my strengths and what are my values and how am I living those? What I have found is that there's a pretty large gap between how I rate myself low and how other people rate me much higher. And what's interesting is that you could take that and I think you could internalize that and say, well, that's just in my head, but it's not. You change how you show up in the workplace when you are constantly sort of thinking that you're at a different spot. You tend to brag less. You tend to promote yourself less. You tend to be a little bit more, I don't want to say humble, but if somebody gives you feedback, you say, absolutely, I agree with you. Here's what I'm doing to fix it. And you tend to be a little bit more reluctant to say, you know what? I don't actually think that that's a problem. That's a one-off. And I think that that's something that a lot of, men certainly do struggle with this. I know a lot of firsthand to fit into that personality type or have sort of come to that place. However, studies show that women tend to be harder on themselves and a little, and I think that's why you see the data around, women won't apply for a job that's out of reach where men will and research like that because I think that this is not an uncommon experience for women to be very, have a very wide aperture and measure themselves against a higher standard and then not give themselves credit for where they really are. - Does that ever impinge on your leadership skills then and the way that you might come across in some ways? I'm just trying to work out if there's a sort of a cause and effect there. - Yeah, I mean, I would say that, it's hard to untangle all the things that make a person a person, but I think that I could be more, there's a book called "Brag Better" that I think sort of speaks to that, but I definitely would say that a lot of my focus is on improving things and there needs to be more focus on promoting and I think that the ability to promote and is a core leadership skill that any leader needs to be successful, especially in the data space. How often does data get pointed to as the reason that something didn't work? Oh, it was the integration, oh, it was the data. Even when it's not, I would say out of that 80% of the time it wasn't that data. Somebody keyed something into the system wrong, they're not using the application the way that they're supposed to, but it's easy when you're the data person to be like, to take all that on. And so I think that there's a healthy balance of humility and pride that leaders in this space need to figure out. And I think that what my self-discovery has told me is that I need to be doing a better job moving towards the pride without losing the humility. And I think that that's something that people are afraid of is if I do this, I'll just be arrogant. And somebody will come to me with a problem and I'll say, no, it doesn't exist, but we don't have lobotomies when we work on ourselves. We just tweak and find two. - Yeah, yeah, and I think that's generally what we should be doing. I think there are some people who will push back less because as you said, they may sort of pitch themselves much lower, but that sort of is of interest to me because there are lots of women I've worked with who do pitch themselves lower. And is it just a female experience? Is it something that you've been born up with? Is it something that you've had to push and suppress? Because it's really interesting for me to, you've said that today. I don't think anybody's bought that up actually so far, but I'm just looking at and thinking about some of the women I've worked with and also equally some of the women around me. And they potentially, I've never thought about it that way. There are certain traits in that. Do you think that that's something from childhood or do you think that that's just like a defense mechanism? What would that be? - I wish that I knew that. What I would say is that I would suspect, this is just my hypothesis, that most people who would relate to the situation that I just said would look at themselves in middle school and high school and say that it was there then. So for whatever that means, for whatever that, and I think that you see, some of the stories that I hear about are, when I was in school, I was, people thought I was annoying. I was always raising my hand. I was always wanted to have the right answer. And so, and I think that when you're, wow, this is like getting like much deeper than I expected it to, but this maybe comes back to our kids, our girls. And I think that you look around and, if I think about being in school, a lot of the boys didn't care. They didn't wanna look smart. They didn't wanna get teased for even the smart ones. And I think that, there was a dynamic, I can think of almost every class where there was a girl who would raise her hand and you'd get the eye rolls. And I think that the message was like, kind of like don't be a brown-noser, don't flaunt it. And that's just one experience. Again, I think everyone has different experiences. And I would say that some of those women who really stuck with that are some of the most successful women out there because they didn't let that sort of dynamic deter them. But I would bet that most of them had a point where they felt some sort of shame or some sort of dissonance in what is, how this sort of manifested. So, I think it probably starts pretty early. And then, at some point you just need to figure out, are you gonna let that continue to limit you? Or are you going to find your voice again? And also that, that's what makes you special. That's what people need, is to hear your unique perspective and your unique voice. Not to go on a tangent, but I think that Susan Cain wrote a really good book about the power of introverts. And she has a TED talk, if you don't wanna read the whole book. And the practices in there were designed for introverts, getting the most out of introverts that you have their voice. However, I would argue that the practices in there are also critical for getting the most out of the women who may or may not be introverts. So, just getting the most out of everyone in the room and hearing everyone's points of view, using some of the practices that she suggests, I think are critical to making sure that your louder speakers, with the single points of view, don't sort of overpower the rest of the group. - Great suggestion actually, 'cause my wife is an introvert. So, that will be interesting for her to read. Look, you talked about working and then having your daughter and so on. And was that difficult to balance everything in terms of all of the early parts of your career? And were you always mindful that you had to be the carer in that sense? And you always had to sort of default to that role, because there's a lot of roles that we play at work, there's a lot of roles that we play at home. And I'm just sort of seeing whether that manifests itself in a very different way with women as it does with men, because men generally tend, well, I'm not gonna be so broad-sweeping in my statement, I would say I tend to do less than my wife, because it's quite normal. And I think that's just generally me in the way that I am. I compensate for it on other sides. But is there something that you had to deal with or juggle or perhaps you were brilliant and you managed to get through it perfectly well and no problems whatsoever? But I've heard from other women that often can become quite a difficult period in their lives. - Yeah, so I was, in my situation, I became a single mom between six months, when she was between six months and a year. So it was pretty early. So it's hard to say what that load would have been like, and I had sort of the other partner in the house constantly. It was very much, there was a daycare in our building. So it wasn't paid for by the building. Now that's a whole other piece, depending on where you're at that adds into it. But I would drop off, she was the first one to get dropped off, the last one to get picked off. And I think that for her and her personality type, that was probably actually, she did pretty well with that. There were some kids who were definitely, you could tell they were having a hard time, but she's like, okay, and I think she got a lot out of that experience of social and sort of like the structure. But I think that the hardest, besides the fact that there were the opportunities of like, how am I gonna do this event till nine, 10 o'clock, balancing those sorts of things? I think the biggest challenge was the stress that I took home. I mean, I was, it was a very high pressure sort of culture. There was a lot of expectations, there is very fast pace, which I love. But I think I had a hard time then shifting into, a lower key energy and also having the best of my energy available for her after work. And so that was a really tough period. - What I would say, as I look at some of the other women that I've led who have started families is a lot of them, especially when you look into like leadership, very high achieving, they've gotten where they're at for a reason and then they start a family and they sort of feel like something happened to them. They can't operate at their level anymore. And the best advice that I've given is you have to realize that the level you were operating at was so much higher than most of the people around you even. And so you at your reduced or it just makes you, one having like, doing this back and forth, I think makes you better. I think you realize anytime you do anything outside of work, I think you have different contexts for how you'd approach your problem at work. Whether you're coaching a sports team or volunteering or really doing anything. So my piece would just be, it is really hard and you have to be really clear about what your values are too. So if your value and this was, if your value is being achieving and work is a big part of your identity and who you are, you need to come to terms with that. And as a woman and not apologize for it. Some people like in your family, they may all be, you might have a bunch of sisters who are all stay at home moms and they might be like, listen, your kids are gonna be ruined, right? Like, but only you know what's right for you. And on the other side, if you value family centrism, if you value being there for your kids, then you need to say, I'm not gonna be doing this project this day because I have chosen that I always wanna be there no matter how little the thing. I wanna be at school when my kid gets this thing. So I think it's important to pick that, like consciously know that early and then kind of like fight the voice in your head that's telling you you need to be everything 'cause it's impossible, right? - Yeah. Do you think COVID helped that sort of, that work-life balance? And everybody saw that even now we're all at home, one didn't realize how much there is to do. And even for you as a single mother, that must have been pretty tough just to have to balance it or maybe you were lucky, she was older and a little bit more mature. But I'm sure there were days where there were struggles. - Yeah. I would say I know a lot of people where COVID helped them. I know a lot of people where COVID was the worst time in their life for these reasons, right? For the reasons of it didn't, there wasn't the eureka moment. They just had to do twice as much, right? - Yes. - I would say that, so I think it really depends and there's probably, for every person there's probably a lesson of looking back at that and being like, how did it go and where am I at now? For us, I think the most important thing was my daughter actually taking the autonomy over the age that she was at. There was a, you need to, I can't be responsible for your schoolwork. You need to be responsible for your schoolwork because I literally can't do my job and your job and also an acceptance of like, what is, what's okay, does she have to have straight A's on everything or is it okay if this miscellaneous, elective is a B minus, that's probably fine. So I think there's also sort of coming to terms with like what you're willing to negotiate on. - Yeah, yeah. Just moving into, you talked about leadership earlier. Are there, do you think generally that men and women have different leadership traits or are they just generally very similar and they've all been molded in a specific way? Or do you feel that there are things that women do differently in a leadership role? And perhaps you've also taken a different approach to being leader or mentoring or coaching. - Yeah, so there was a 20, one of the tools that I've used that I really liked was called a leadership circle. And there was a 2023 study that they did where they said that women are statistically and like significantly over indexing in the traits and skills that make successful leaders. So these they call the creative skills which are relating self-awareness, authenticity, systems awareness and achieving. And that's, and then there are other traits which are their reactive. So they either have creative or reactive are complying, protecting and controlling. So, I would say that based on that, there's data to suggest that women would make, it would have these traits naturally that would make them strong leaders. I would say when I look at my own leadership circle, which I did in my last role, so it's probably eight years old now, I was leading a bit from, I had some of those traits but I was leading a little bit more from protecting, which is one of the more like male dominated traits. And so the question is, is that just me? Is that just how I lead? Or was that a byproduct of the environment that I was in and what I saw happening around me? And I think that the dynamic that I would say is sneaky. It's a very sneaky dynamic is even where I'm at, where you say, okay, let's say you're 50/50. By the time you get to a director role, you're probably over 30, I mean, at minimum, right? And you've been doing this in the workplace for a while. And so it's hard to say how much what we value at work has been dominated by a, like created by a male dominated sort of expression of traits to, you know, you go into a meeting and in order to be heard, you have to speak over people. You have to talk about the problem at hand, not take a step back and talk about all of the context around it. So maybe there's sort of almost like coping mechanisms or things like that that are still ingrained in our culture, where even if we have 50/50 women at the table, we still are leading from the masculine traits rather than some of the more like, or masculine energy even rather than some of those traits that women are really good at. And I think that it'll probably take a while, even once we reach equalization, I think changing the culture will probably take longer, right? So it's a long game. - Okay, that's really interesting. I never thought about it from the sort of male perspective and that kind of protective view as well. Fascinating, fascinating. Therefore, what do you think that up and coming leaders, female leaders in the workplace, what do you think they need to focus on? And where do you think they need to push the boundaries with themselves? You know, if you sort of look back on your career, what would you have done differently? - I would say one is having an accurate view of themselves in the mirror. So it's all about accuracy. It's, you know, what do I believe about myself? What do I believe my strengths are, the things that I bring to a team, and what do other people think that they are? If that is a deviation, as I said, it is for me, and it probably is for a lot of people generally, but especially women, you have to reconcile that and know what your strengths are. I think that's like number one and what they're not. So that self-awareness. And then I would say it's probably, you know, depending on the workplace, this may or may not be like, so I would say it's finding other women to give you that feedback and have that trusting relationship with who can sort of, you know, guide you. Now, in some places, there are so many that it's not hard to do that. In other places, it has to be a lot more formal. Hey, can you mentor me? Hey, I went to the meeting. I went to this meeting. I was the only female here. I'm gonna tell you secondhand how it went and what would you do because there's so few, right? So I think it really depends, but I would say a lot of it is that awareness and then, you know, finding those mentors or partners who can really be super authentic with you and be really honest with you and building that relationship so that you are supporting each other, but also, you know, keeping each other out of your worst parts and like challenging each other to show up to your best and really stay like mentally strong. - That's fantastic. I love that. So my final question to you is looking back at your, you know, looking back at your career and then looking forward with your daughter and, you know, obviously you've still got a long road, you know, for your career. What's some advice that you would give her though as she's trying to find her place in the world? You know, as right now, obviously a teenager, but a young female and, you know, one day going to be entering, no doubt, the working world. What are the top two or three things that you would say right now? These, this is what you need to think about. - I would say, yeah, I mean, I would say for anyone, they have to think about what sort of a lifestyle they're going to be happy with and is the job that they want to do realistically? Are there careers in that role that are going to meet that lifestyle? Some people are very comfortable with, you know, I want to be really comfortable in terms of, you know, financially, other people say, you know, I only need enough to get along. I want to be able to enjoy my life, right? So like, I think it really starts with like having a realistic look at that. And, you know, so I think kids kind of know that to a certain degree. Like there's kids who'll sit there and study all night and then there's kids who are like, you know, I really don't want to do that. So like kind of using those clues. I would also say like, we don't do a good enough job of pointing out to people of any age really, but like what careers exist out there, honestly? Like, there are so many more. I think most kids, they kind of have like what their parents did and then they have like a few other things that they know about, maybe that they saw on, you know, the internet, things like that. So there's so many roles even within tech. I mean, and so many that keep getting created. So, you know, when I first got into what I was doing, you never went to school for analytics or data. That was not even a thing. - No, absolutely not, yeah. - Since then we've had these really exciting roles like technical product owner or technical product manager, data strategist. Now you have prompt engineers. So like it's always changing. So I think it's sort of, I would say the more you can either shadow your parents' friends who do something or ask them questions or go to career days or just like explore what it is and point yourself in a direction, then really learn about what exists in that place and talk to people is probably kind of my, I think that's like my main advice. I know it's probably easier. It sounds really easy when I say it, but it's probably a lot harder, but yeah, I would start there. - Great. Well, look, thank you so much for your time. It's been fantastic speaking to you, Jolie. I've had a huge amount. So thanks for bearing your soul. 'Cause as you said, I didn't know it was gonna get this deep, but it's been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time and everything. Yeah, thanks.