Tameka Vasquez: ‘We are in service of a mission that's bigger than ourselves’

Tameka Vasquez is a futurist and strategist, who helps leaders break free from convention, activate a greater purpose, and forge better futures for humanity. We first connected through our work in the climate tech space, and I quickly came to admire her clarity of thought and commitment to social impact. In this installment of my interview series on purpose-driven leadership, Tameka shares what inspires her, how she thinks about leadership, and how we should think about talent in the context of advancing automation. She's a visionary thinker, who is also grounded and compassionate. If you’re interested in the future of work, leadership, or impact—you’ll want to read this.

🗨 Hi Tameka! Do you want to start by telling us who you are and what you do?

I am a futurist, strategist and the Founder of the Future Quo. We're an advisory group that supports executives to reimagine and develop a bolder vision for the future. That could be the future of their work within their roles, or it could be the future more broadly for their organization, or even their industry. We do research, facilitation, strategy development, and support them with communications across stakeholder groups, and to new audiences. So that's a little overview.

🗨 What energizes and inspires you at work—and outside work?

At work, it’s live interactions with people. I like being in spaces where I can see people go deeper than what they're used to in their day-to-day lives. In the business environment, we’re managing a lot of different things, and it doesn't allow us space to reflect, to imagine, to go deeper, to unpack who we are, why we do the work that we do, how we want to show up in the world. I get energy watching people, especially at very senior levels, and where it's not the level of vulnerability that they're used to. So, just being able to take them into a space where they feel safe, where they feel that they can open up. That's where I derive a lot of energy: watching people be human. 

Outside of work, I derive energy from nature and from being in the world. I love traveling to cities. I go to the park almost every day, as a way to ground myself. I get a lot of energy from being in community with people I love. The personal and professional can be connected in that way, because it's all grounded in what makes the human experience special.

🗨 What pivotal experiences in your life or career have been influential in shaping your leadership style and values?

I spent almost 14 years in the tech industry. That gave me a clear perspective on who I wanted to be and who I did not want to be. I was exposed to leaders at many different levels and from all over the world. I've definitely seen different angles of leadership: leadership when there's ambiguity, when there's safety, when there's risk; leadership with multiple cultures, or in homogeneous environments. Seeing this shaped my view that leadership should be in service of something bigger than yourself. I see leadership as stewardship and as collaboration. 

Traditionally, the style of leadership we are taught is about decisiveness, taking charge, creating rigidity and hierarchy. That drives efficiency, so you can get things done faster. But the nature of the work I'm invested in is not about going faster—it's about going further. It's about sustainability. It's about being able to see a bigger vision through. And that takes time. You have to be able to engage people and meet them where they are. You have to be able to tell a story that makes people feel incentivized when things get tough. And so, my leadership philosophy is that we are in service of a mission that's bigger than ourselves.

The way we get to achieve that mission is by being in lockstep with each other and by recognizing our interconnectedness. The physical environment is part of that equation as well. So, I'm definitely more of a down-to-the-ground, let's-get-our-hands-in-the-dirt kind of leader. 

🗨 How will talent and culture strategies need to evolve in the coming years?

Organizations are exploring how automation and advanced technologies could take on work that people have done for a long time. It's one thing to explore what a machine can do when it comes to mundane tasks like data analysis. It's another thing when we take the human out of the loop, and don't consider the lenses through which different people see the world. This is happening at the same time as the world is becoming far more interconnected and diverse.

When it comes to talent, we really have to think about ways to leverage people for what is uniquely human and uniquely them as individuals. Everyone has their own edge. Not everybody has the same level of skill at things. Not everything might appeal to everyone. But everybody brings something interesting and different to the table. I think we need to make space for really cultivating this.

People have had to navigate life in so many different ways. We need to allow them to maximize who they are and what they can offer an organization. A rigid way of measuring talent against performance metrics doesn’t give the big picture and doesn’t always speak to value. It really just speaks to what the leadership values. If the leadership only values efficiency, that's what they're going to measure performance against. We need to reframe what we are looking for in talent. How can we measure performance in a way that's more holistic?

🗨 In your experience, what are the ingredients of a successful hiring process?

The biggest ingredient is mutual ground. We have to remember there are two sides to this conversation. While we as hiring managers are interviewing talent, talent are also interviewing us. We've lost a little bit of that mutual appeal, because we are in an environment where the supply and demand is imbalanced. There are more people in the market looking for jobs than we've seen in a while, probably since 2008 to 2009. So it's tilted the balance of how much employers are willing to create space for mutual ground to be established. When people have an opportunity to express their values, what they're looking for, their deal-breakers, how they're hoping to grow and contribute, they’ll show up more honestly.

If people are just saying what they have to say to get the job, you're never going to get the fullness of that person. It's going to be a mixed bag in terms of whether their performance actually meets what you saw in the interview. A lot of that could be alleviated if you create a two-way conversation.

I would also say more discussion around what the company is trying to evolve into. Who is it trying to become? What purpose is it serving that's a little bit bigger than your day-to-day work? Talking to leadership during the process gives a more rounded perspective.

🗨 What advice would you give to individuals aspiring to work in an industry or role similar to yours?

The biggest thing I've learned is that knowing how to ask good questions is much more important than having all the answers. I would advise people to learn how to ask questions, learn how to be curious, learn how you can get a person to unpack a little bit more. If I ask clients direct questions, I'm going to get rehearsed answers. I find ways of helping them open up by asking them to tell me a story, or being genuinely curious about things that I've learned about them over time; whether it's how they parent, or what they wanted to do when they were in college. 

Being able to operate at two levels is really important in the work that I do. Meaning I have to have both a zoomed-out worldview of what's happening in a certain space, but I also have to zoom in to say what is the tiniest thing that we can do that will actually start to create a ripple effect. What are small shifts that we can make that start to move us in the direction that we want to go? It’s hard to operate at those two levels, but it's something I would advise people to practice. 

🗨 What brings you joy?

I'm big into tapping into art and finding artists. Not to harp on the automation and AI piece, but I find it really heartbreaking that the kind of work we're invested in automating is deeply human work.

I did my master's thesis on the impacts and opportunities for AI back in 2015, when nobody cared about this topic. I spent a lot of time looking at a wide range of use cases. There are so many things out there that would be amazing to start applying AI to, but when it comes to things that are more in the realm of art, that is something I'm precious about, because I find so much joy watching art happen.

I love street art. I love writers and looking at the things that they come up with. Whether it's poetry, short stories, or books. I love the artist's brain. They're able to tap into the world in a way that makes it easier for the rest of us to navigate the world. When there’s a mural, or somebody has processed this emotion and now I can just kind of take that in, and either use it as a reflection, or use it as a different point of understanding. They've done so much of the work for us.

We need to protect artists. Particularly in a time like this. So many of the movements that we've seen throughout history and culture, started with artists just being like, “Nah, this ain't it.” We want a different world. We want a different way of being. And I just love the way that art becomes this constant medium of hope, of possibility, of truth. That’s a lot of where I find joy.

📢 Want to be featured? Contact us at hola@zocalo.cc for opportunities!