OYP Episode 27: Mark Eckman

Mark Eckman, Global Managing Director of Business Solution Design at HCL Software and former Managing Partner at Publicis Sapient, tells us about grounding his self advocacy in facts, embracing training early in his career, and serving as a mirror and catalyst when advocating for others.

Interview

 Peter Szczerba  - Welcome back to the Own Your Potential Podcast, where you'll hear stories from leaders across the globe about how they've taken control of their career growth, and  lessons on how you can too. I'm Peter Szczerba. Today I'm fortunate enough to be speaking with Mark Eckman, who is the Global Managing Director of Business Solution Design at HCL Software and former Managing Partner at Publicis Sapient. Mark, really excited to have you on the podcast today. Welcome. Let's just jump right in. Why don't you kick us off by telling us a little bit about your career journey so far.

Mark Eckman  - Sure, I have been a lifelong consultant in professional services. So graduated from college with a BA in economics and an English minor and found my way into technology and business process consulting with Anderson Consulting, which is now known as Accenture, and had a chance to get some great experiences there for over a dozen years in a variety of industries and different areas. Then, about 15 years ago, I was looking to make a change and joined a company which has become Publicis Sapient, currently a managing partner at Publicis Sapient in our client services area, which means I work with a variety of clients in team members just to orchestrate our overall services, and try to help our clients transform their businesses digitally.

Peter Szczerba  - So Mark, with a career where you've had success in a couple of different places you've been able to, you know, find success while having pretty long, 10 years at some of the organizations you've worked at, and most recently, obviously, Publicis Sapient, as you mentioned, for 15 years, I'm curious, what sorts of strategies for self advocacy or promotion have really worked well, for you to continue that sort of growth and success in the various places you've worked?

Mark Eckman  - Interesting question. And I would say earlier in my career, I wasn't really comfortable with the whole idea of self promotion, I guess I had initially thought that results in my work would solely speak for itself. But I was fortunate to have a couple of early mentors who helped me expand and reorient, reorient my thinking, from, you know, the idea of self promotion more towards the idea of self advocacy. And that gave me a bit of a mindset shift and made a big difference. So in they helped me think of self advocacy in a couple of couple of different dimensions. Peter, first of all, just understanding and taking stock of my accomplishments, really, what skills did I develop? What sort of contributions Did I make, to my organization to my clients, and really encouraged me to write these things down really rigorously thinking of facts, examples and numbers that made some of those accomplishments real. The second part of self advocacy with that sort of baseline undergirding it was, you know, figuring out really, you know, how would I like to evolve? How would I like to grow. And those accomplishments, really served as a baseline in the starting point for that, with those accomplishments, documented, and with some idea of where I wanted to go. And how I wanted to continue to evolve and grow, really just became, figuring out what the story if you will, was and what the rough plan to get there would be. And then I use, that as a basis for asking for help from trusted leaders, and honestly being open to different or new opportunities that were somewhat in line with the rough plan and rough direction that I had. But I think at the outset, the distinction for me between self promotion and self advocacy was huge and made a pretty big difference in how I could get behind that.

Peter Szczerba - That's really interesting, because, you know, this practice of documenting and making it very clear that were, you know, at a high level you'd like to take your career and develop and then using that as an input to the conversations you have with various leaders. It seems also like that would translate really well to kind of our new reality where so much of this self advocacy needs to happen in a much more intentional kind of remote environment. I'm curious, do you think that you've continued to see success with that approach, over the last year really, where we've had this major change in in how we interact with folks and we sort of last that organic in person opportunity to demonstrate your impact or tell your story.

Mark Eckman  - I hadn't really thought about that. But now that you mentioned it, yes, absolutely. And I think a key thing there is the intentionality of it. So the discipline to think about what the accomplishments are, what the plan is, and what the talking script is, really lends itself to the reality we found ourselves in for the last eight or nine months, where we have these half hour windows for Teams meetings, or zoom meetings. And we tend to not have the organic whiteboard or hallway discussions quite as much. So going into those conversations, being prepared with a bit of an agenda, a bit of an outline, to cover normal business topics, also, in my experience, carries over pretty well, to you talking about your career growth opportunities, and chances for self advocacy, either for me as a team member or as a leader with some of the team members that I'm working with, as well.

Peter Szczerba  - So I love that you took that there, because I'd love to get your thoughts then on because even as you talked about, like your own journey, and some of the strategies you used, they ultimately did eventually involve a leader or a champion that would help you kind of achieve what you were advocating for. So I'm curious, you know, now you find yourself in leadership position, well, how do you find that you've worked to promote or, or elevate the people around you by by being advocates for them?

Mark Eckman  - Sure. And I, I've got a very finite number of tricks. So what I've done as a leader is tried to tailor and reorient a little bit of what I talked about with my own self advocacy with my teams. And I think that I can personally do that with some of the folks that work with me in two ways. First of all, trying to serve as a bit of a mirror for them to help them see themselves as clearly as they can, perhaps pushing them to do a little bit of work to rigorously and objectively think about their impact, their unique skills, and the hook of kind of what makes them special. But much like I've benefited from some of that inventorying of things that we discussed, I found that a lot of the people that work with me when they take the time to do that find that they benefit from it as well. And then secondly, after that the sort of mirroring piece, I've had some success in serving as a bit of a catalyst to push people to kind of see the so what behind that, and I intentionally use that amorphous term. So what because it's really different for every person, you know, figuring out what makes them unique, what do they want to do based on their understanding of that, but it might include helping them think about accomplishing a new series of training or learning opportunities, or, you know, pushing them to stretch for a new role that might be less comfortable for them, taking steps to maybe find greater visibility for them, either within their organization or outside of the organization. And, you know, that catalyst in a couple of instances, Peter has even resulted in some team members deciding to find a new opportunity. And we've leave the company that we were working with to go someplace else. But in those cases, I mean, I viewed it as something to be celebrated in a team member really figuring out what made them tick, what allowed them to bring them their best selves to work, and made a choice for the right reasons.

Peter Szczerba  - I love that point at the end there about being you know, a transparent and really genuine, you know, mentor leader to somebody by, if for example, the advice is for them to pursue an opportunity that might be better for them maybe outside of their current role, the fact that that's actually communicated. So I really appreciate that you shared that because I hope any leaders that they don't end up listening to this, that they internalize that because I often find that it's a challenge balancing the interests of the company, and, you know, the interests of the individual, which ultimately should be the point of those types of conversations. I am curious then, you know, with with individuals, maybe struggling to develop some of these self advocacy skills, and I think some of the things you've recommended are mechanical, and they're things that you're kind of in control of maybe some of the softer things they may be struggling with. I'm curious. You know, what advice do you have for folks who are maybe a more junior career stages and struggling to build those skills.

Mark Eckman  - I think that, you know, I was there earlier on struggling to build those skills. And what really helped me and what I've suggested some to some others that has been successful is really as I talked about inventorying the accomplishments and skills and getting a good sense of what you bring to bear. And yes, it's a mechanical exercise. But for so many people, it can be a real eye opener and a real confidence boost. When you think about how many things we do in the course of the year. And the types of new skills you've learned the types of relationships, you cultivate the types of impact you make with colleagues and stakeholders. It's actually amazing. And so often we lose sight of that, unless we deliberately reflect but then reflecting on that. I mean, a lot of people realize that, you know, they're pretty darn awesome. And I think with that realization, it becomes easier to believe that you deserve to, frankly, advocate for yourself.

Peter Szczerba  - I think that's really powerful, this idea of believing in the fact that you deserve to advocate for yourself, and then, you know, maybe tailoring the approach to articulating that impact or, as you advocate for yourself around those facts as if that's more comfortable for you. Makes a lot of sense. And so I'm curious now, Mark, with that sort of belief in the fact that you deserve to self advocate for yourself. I think that plays nicely into this idea of, you know, passive or active participation in your career growth. And I'm curious, do you find, having that sort of belief maybe makes you be a more active participant in the decisions being made about your career? And I also am curious, you know, when you look back on your own career, do you feel like you were a passive or active participant? I guess, I'm curious to hear your thoughts there. Yeah.

Mark Eckman  - So a couple of things in that question there, Peter. But, yeah, I do think that, now that I've been comfortable that I do deserve on some level to advocate for myself, I think striking an appropriate balance in being an active self advocate without being precious or annoying, you know, recognizing that we are in commercial positions, and we need to balance the needs of our business, the needs of our clients with our own personal objectives. So I think I do that now. But getting back to earlier, in my career, I was absolutely very passive, probably too passive, in really thinking that, you know, one, my work would solely speak for itself. And that to my company would somehow just magically put me in roles that would somehow support my professional interests by growth objectives in some of my personal desires. And then I began to realize over time that, you know, I could influence some or many of those things by being a little bit more certain about what it was that was important to me, and also what makes me unique in terms of skills and experiences. So absolutely became more active in frankly, some of that active advocate advocacy is what prompted me to decide to lead Accenture. As I mentioned, I did a quite a few years ago and joined a Publicis Sapient.

Peter Szczerba  - That's really interesting. And I think a topic that really plays nicely into this idea of, of active participation in your career growth is, you know, something that a lot of people talk about, especially now, in these times and technologies, and the problems that we're looking to solve in industries are changing so quickly, you need to be continuously learning. So I'm curious, you know, as somebody who has, you know, developed the ability to participate actively in their career growth, have you embraced this idea of continuous learning to ensure your career development progresses the way you'd like it to.

Mark Eckman  - Absolutely. And I think that what I've also done over the years is have realized that that learning can take a bunch of different forms. I mean, most of us enter the workforce having gone through your 16 plus years of formal education and tend to think of learning in the form of formal training, whether it be sending being sent away to a conference, a series of internally developed classes or things like Like that. And then frankly, early in my career, formal training, through Anderson Consulting was fantastic. And it was a very robust, very rigorous training plan a lot of classroom and self study, kind of things that were sort of laid out for me. But as I advanced a little bit more, I really adopted two other little bit more self directed ways of learning Peter. The first was just observation, frankly, trying to be a lot more intentional in picking up things from people who I admired. Some incidences was clients, and some instances, it was my leaders and bosses, many cases, it was peers or team members that were working with me. I guess at some level, I've been really fortunate that I've had a chance to work with so many impressive people. And finally, came around a couple of years into my career to the fact that man, I can learn from a lot of these impressive people, they've got skills that are different from mine experiences that are different from mine. So observation, and then certainly reading, as I said, at the outset, I was an English minor back in the day, I think I'd been a voracious reader from, you know, probably first grade or thereabouts. So, you know, I read books, articles, when it's serious stuff, it tends to send around business, economics, policy, or history. And then, for a little bit of fun, I'll throw in sports and fiction, and really dig into reading, and I look at it from a general standpoint, there are some things that I'll look just to broaden my thought process to open myself to new ideas. And then I also have some targeted, targeted things that I will dig into and read.

Peter Szczerba  - So Mark, I'm kind of excited cuz I want to dig into just a little something that you mentioned there around you loving to read sports and fiction, specifically, sports. And I know that in previous conversations between the two of us, we've talked about sports, and the fact that they are big parts of our lives. Now, as fans previously as participants, maybe even at high levels, especially with basketball as a shared interest of ours. We're very curious, because I feel strongly about this, what do you think about, you know, sports at an amateur level, and you're growing up? And maybe even continued participation sports at a recreational level? When you're, you know, a professional otherwise? Right? Do you think they contribute to people's success in their professional careers, just because of the things that you've learned in terms of team dynamics, being able to carve out a rule for yourself in a team oriented sport, and still both drive the success of the team but, you know, find your own way to shine as well. And that's very similar, I think, to self advocacy. I'm curious, because I don't always feel that people agree with me, but I'm curious for another sports fan. What do you think about how this impacts people's downstream success in non sports related professional careers?

Mark Eckman  - Peter, I'm excited that you took us in a slightly different direction there. I think it's a great and interesting question. And I think I agree with your overall premise. And as I unpack that a little bit, I think there's three primary ways that I've at least seen some personal benefit from, you know, being involved in sports from an early age. The first was, frankly, discipline, and in high school, going back to playing sports year round competitively, and wanting to maintain your good grades in additional extracurricular involvement. I got pretty ruthless pretty quickly with prioritization and time management, just something that a lot of people didn't necessarily have to do quite as much. Because they either weren't playing sports or were maybe only playing during one season. And then specific the second discipline or discipline thing within basketball, is love the game and had some natural strengths, but had a number of natural limitations that I had to be really intentional in working for years to overcome, whether it be finishing with the left hand or just increasing my explosiveness to at least get to the point where I can dunk a volleyball. I had to really work and decide that those were important in some of that discipline. Some of that rigors absolutely carried over. Second thing and I won't belabor it too much, but I thought you made a great point just about how you fit in in the context of a team. I mean, everyone wants to score 30 points a game and get on the front page of the paper, but very few of us are LeBron. So we need to figure out, you know, what are the ways that we contribute in a team context? And then how do you play to your strengths, you happen to be able to see the court pretty well to pass intelligently and at least be tenacious and try to rebound. So you've played some roles that did that fitting into that team? And then wasn't part of your question. But something related to sports that's been incredibly helpful for me, is, as an adult, I've coached a lot of kids teams. So I think over 20 seasons, and man, you want to talk about a different type of patience, and a different type of planning, preparation and teaching. I think that that's frankly, made me a better boss, just as I've thought about, you know, how am I going to get some levels teach these six year olds how to shoot a proper layup, or to teach a bunch of middle school kids how to break a full court press, but really breaking things down, it's been incredibly valuable for me.

Peter Szczerba  - Mark, I can honestly talk about, you know, the connective tissue between athletics and sports and, and people's non athleticly oriented professional careers all day. And I love some of the sentiments that you layered in there, especially around you know, how coaching has helped you in in terms of your own approach to professional development of others in yourself. Now, you know, another thing that's very common amongst athletes is this idea of how what they do on the core on the playing field impacts their legacy, whether as a player as a coach, and you know, a lot of athletes really zero in on legacy legacy legacy. I'm curious for you, in your professional career, you know, how do you want people to remember you, what do you want your legacy to be?

Mark Eckman  - Like, I don't know that I've ever thought of myself having anything as grandiose as a as a legacy. So but you know, in terms of maybe how to, you know, be remembered or some of the impact to leave behind? I guess, it's kind of simple. I hope that people would say that, you know, I worked hard, that I cared, and that I helped them learn a little bit more about themselves in the process. And while doing those three things, I helped them get better, and I help them do better.

Peter Szczerba  - I think that's a fantastic closing sentiment, Mark. And I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. This has been incredibly interesting and inspiring. So again, thank you and I look forward to future chats.

Mark Eckman  - Likewise, Peter, thank you very much. Take care.