Carol Watson: “People are choosing not to join companies, which treat the social contract as a transactional relationship”

Carol Watson is an independent consultant, who advises organizations on building inclusive culture. Her fearless championing of inclusion is the connective thread in her career.

Carol and I worked together in the past, and she was an important mentor to me. I admire her ability to get quickly to the crux of any matter, while always staying true to herself. And I admire her adventurous spirit: Carol is from the US, and currently resides in Lisbon, after a few years spent in London.

In this installment of my interview series on purpose-driven leadership, Carol shares how courage and honesty have shaped her career, how to remove bias from hiring decisions, and how critical thinking, relationships and understanding the unwritten rules are still essential determinants of success.

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🗨 Hi Carol. Can you tell us who you are and what you do?

I'm Carol Watson and I am a free agent independent inclusive culture and transformation consultant.

🗨 I love that. And what energizes and inspires you at work and outside of work?

I got into this work because I love to see both organizations and employees thrive. I'm passionately interested in personal cultures, and how our values and identities intersect with organizational cultures and values from a global scale. I love creating value. As a marketer—I will always be a marketer—I’m interested in seeing how audiences evolve, and cultural nuances change. I'm interested in the business of consumer behavior, and how that informs how we collaborate and inform decisions internally and the output that it results in.

🗨 And outside of work?

So outside of work, I'm a strangely passionate hot yoga person. I love how hot yoga rejuvenates and strengthens my mind, body and soul. I love podcasts and audiobooks. I'm interested in dabbling in the podcast world in my next life. I love music and creative expression. I feel like I'm more of an admirer, a genuine admirer, than a creative one in the traditional sense, but I love to be around artists and then dabble-in and support creative expression.

🗨 I love it. And you're in a band or were?

I was and hopefully will be again in my new environment.

🗨 I have a vision of your next life. I'm so excited. What pivotal experiences in your career have been influential in shaping your leadership style and values?

There have been a couple of them. Some of them have been learnings that show up as failures to other people. But I feel like everything is a learning and personal growth experience.

I think the most pivotal one that's kind of guided every career decision that followed was when I was at the New York Times. I was in an executive level role, and the head of the advertising and marketing space wanted to progress me into the next level. They believed in creating generalists at the time where you rotated roles regularly across industries. When it was time to rotate I knew it was not the right experience for me, while grateful for the trust and belief in my skills and ability.

I was conflicted about going along with what was expected and following my intuition. I took the bold move of advocating and creating agency for myself, and I said, “You know, while I appreciate the opportunity and trust in my ability, I don’t believe the role would be a good fit. I don't think that's the best use of my talent.” And after a couple of discussions, she asked me something that nobody's ever asked me, but has changed every decision I've made since. She said, "Well, look, if you were to create a role for yourself, what would it look like?" And in that moment, in real time, I was able to think about it in a very courageous, vulnerable way. And I said, “I’d like to be able to build something. I’d like to have my hands in both the right brain, left brain; the creative side, the business side. I want to be able to make a difference in the organization and in the world.” And she said, “That's great but we don't have that job.” And three months later she asked me to head up the teen version of the New York Times, which captured all the things that I'd asked for, but it didn't exist before.

So, it taught me to not be afraid to be honest, to ask for what feels right to my soul, and to know that the universe kind of raises up to meet you where you need it to be, when you need it to be there. So, when I evaluate roles and opportunities, even if they don't exist, I make sure I voice the value that I can bring, and the breadth of the roles that I can satisfy. And that thinking process hasn't failed me yet.

It was Janet Robinson, who became the President of the New York Times. I don't have her cell phone number, but thank you Janet Robinson. I've shared this story many times and I am hugely grateful for her leadership.

We ask questions in this work, and we might give advice, but sometimes we may not always understand the value of the information to the receiver, because it’s something that someone needed to hear at that moment. And the beauty is—years later—you hear that something that we said, that we may not even remember, has made an impact on someone; how they lead, how they choose their career. The message was something that the person needed to hear that was meaningful to them—we probably don’t even remember! That was the most gratifying part of executive recruiting and coaching.

🗨 In your experience, how will organizations, talent and culture strategies need to evolve in the coming years?

You know, it's interesting. There's a lot of talk about how there are five generations in the workplace right now, growing shifts in immigration, and global cultures mixing together. And each of those generations and all those intersections have different values. But companies and organizations are also challenged with AI transformation, the need for efficiencies, reduced engagement, and performance pressure. These competing forces don't have the same human-centered focus.

So, with all the conflicting confluences of expectations and values, we have a trust crisis among talent. People entering management, or advancing in a company are asking: “Can I trust your values?” Many companies are now pivoting on values, which should not be changing if they are core beliefs. And so, people are choosing not to join companies, which treat the social contract as a transactional relationship, and are choosing to build work and companies on their own.

So, companies need to really figure out how they can build trust with talent again. I think it's at a crisis level, given all the focus on efficiencies, M&A, climate change, AI transformation, and all of the other things that are at odds with who people want to be, and their ability to have agency, to choose, and move, and go to places that speak to their personal cultural values.

🗨 Yeah, I completely agree. The trust is broken. I'd love to understand how you think about hiring. In your experience, what are the ingredients of a successful hiring process?

I guess this is utopia. You know, most hiring is not on LinkedIn, it's from relationships. And so, in a utopian world, the hiring manager is really thoughtful about what culture can be a ‘culture add’ versus ‘culture fit’ to the team. What will really make a difference to fresh thinking and problem solving. They've gone through some meaningful personal development to understand how they culturally personally show up in the process, where their own biases are, where their preferences are triggers, and excluding different thinking.

We all have preferences for people that are in our circle of trust, who share our own values and experiences. We all have preferences for people who have been through the same lived experiences (for example, schools, companies, thinking style, etc.). And so, creating systems for checks and balances, in what is a biased process, so that people are asking consistent questions, there's an interview panel, there are consistent feedback processes with a wide candidate pool. We can edit out the biases through feedback processes, because we can't be trusted to check our biases on our own.

The result is a tangible, technical, and human way to make sure that you're getting the best talent that's out there. And that takes some work, some effort, and some courageous decision-making.

🗨 Equitable hiring practices are definitely not the fastest, or most simplest. But they are worth the effort over the long-term. What general advice would you give to individuals as they aspire to progress in their careers right now?

Many people think about only technical skills, or want to hear about how they've done it, or been successful in a previous job. What we don't really pay as much attention to, and especially now that AI has become so prevalent, is the critical thinking and the humanness in the work; and how you develop people, build relationships, and navigate the unwritten rules in an organization. So, whether you're coming out of college, or you're in a senior leadership role, what worked in your previous life may not work again in the current organizational culture that you're interviewing for, or the industry that you're coming into.

So, no matter how technically proficient you are, really recognizing your whole being, and what you're bringing to the role is important. Building self-awareness, understanding the political dynamics, and all the unwritten rules, so that you're asking the right questions, and setting yourself up for success. Whether it's a technical role, or a more human focused role, or a creative role, I think it all applies regardless of industry, because that's where I see people unfortunately struggle, particularly those coming from non-dominant cultural groups. They think that their technical skills and hard work will be the most important variable to success, and the further up you get, the more the humanness, relationship skills and navigating the unseen are important.

🗨 And it's hard to learn that because it takes time. It comes from the years you put in, or the life experience you get. Personally, I felt like college was kind of over my head. Marketing and finance were just practical skills. What really shaped me, and made me prepared for life, was studying abroad. It was understanding how to move in different cultures, and observing, and not having the pressure of school.

Yes. I think it’s also important to pay attention to your virtual board. So, people talk about mentoring, and sponsorship often, but there's so much to learn from different thought leaders that you may admire with whom you may not even have a real relationship, but can inform your decisions when you're in difficult situations. Really understanding who can help inform how you navigate the culture with grace and self-worth is tricky. There are people across industries, countries, roles that have insights and guidance to share, whether you know them personally, or not, whom we have to search out and embrace.

🗨 It's like who's your career crew?

Yeah. I love the phrase, career crew.

🗨 Yes. Who are the people you can really check in with? This is awesome. Well, thank you, Carol. It's so lovely to see you on this side of things. And now I want to go visit you in Portugal. Lisbon, wow!

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