OYP Episode 02: Eiko Kawano
Eiko Kawano, Group Creative Director at Publicis Sapient, talks about harnessing your strengths as an introvert and bringing out the best in our people as a leader.
Interview
Peter Szczerba - Welcome to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe and how they've taken control of their career growth and lessons on how you can too, on Peter Szczerba, and this is episode two with Eiko Kawano. The superpowers of observation and empathy. Tell us a little bit about your career journey.
Eiko Kawano - I got my start in the industry before what I do now, which is predominantly around user experience and customer experience before those things actually existed. Back when I got started, I was working for a small digital team within an advertising agency, I was in a project management role. I hated it. I have a lot of respect for project managers, because I'm not a good one. And I also had the opportunity from time to time to dabble a little bit in copywriting, and user experience design. But I would say what I do now and my focus is really about leading people to do their best. I'm currently the head of experience for the Toronto office at Publicis Sapient have about 30 people on my team. So it's all about helping them bring their best selves to work, and have the most impact that they can in their career.
Peter Szczerba - Tell us a little bit about a time that you seized an opportunity. What was the outcome?
Eiko Kawano - So last year had the opportunity to speak in front of a group of executives from around the world as part of an internal initiative, Publicis Groupe, and the brief was very open, I was told to pick six minutes on anything I thought was important to talk about. And at the time, I thought, well, something that's important to talk about, but not a lot of people are talking about is mental health at work. So I put forward my submission, I was selected. And this was about a month before the actual session, I also decided that I would do the presentation in kind of more of a TED talk style, meaning fully scripted, no notes. Though I had slides, it wasn't like the words I was saying were on those slides. And so by the time the session rolled around, I was pretty much as nervous as I have ever been in my life. And seriously starting to question why I decided to talk about something deeply personal and emotional with a bunch of very senior people from countries around the world. So I prepped, like I've never prepped anything before, when I finally got up and did the talk, and of all that prep too cold and everything kind of clicked into place. I think it was probably the best experience and the most impactful experience I've had in public speaking. And in the moment, when I finished, a number of people in the in the audience were in tears, there were about 50 people present. So there was certainly an immediate outcome where I felt like I had really reached two people and that the message I was trying to communicate, which was all about the importance of raising awareness of mental wellness at work, really got through the kind of lasting outcome has been kind of a new type of bravery. If I could do that, if I could talk to, you know, CEOs and very senior people who I didn't know who I'd never met before. Well, I can probably talk about anything.
Peter Szczerba - So Eiko, you're a self described introvert? What advice would you give to your fellow introverts who have a difficult time advocating for themselves in the workplace in a way that really feels authentic and true to them?
Eiko Kawano - I think from a career development point of view, introversion is hard because we aren't necessarily the types of people who want to go out and, and network or advocate for ourselves as much. I think sometimes starting off with a written kind of message can be really helpful and we can do a lot in writing. We don't necessarily have to always be in person. So having other ways to connect for introverts that they feel comfortable with can be helpful, but it definitely is a challenge. I think the other piece for introverts is really to call on those superpowers of observation of empathy, and use those talents to apply back into your own work. In the user experience field, for example, we tend to get quite a few introverts because we're all about observing how experiences work for people. So looking at introversion can also come with a very compelling skill set and figuring out how to apply that back into the work.