Jacob Warwick: commitment

Transcript context

…Say things actually do fall apart, say you just pushed too hard and they're just like, "Okay, we're going to move on with another candidate." Or they make you an offer and they rescind it or they promise something and they don't deliver, how do you approach when things go sideways? Couple elements of that story. One, the not delivering pieces, that's more common. Rescinded offers, I've never had a client with a rescinded offer. What I will get is a, "No, this is a top take it or leave it." Fine. They get an ultimatum. Fine. I have however helped somebody, they weren't a client, also a CMO, and she was offered an $800,000 contract total, cash-wise, and it was rescinded. And so I took this case on pro bono. I got a phone call. I was like, "I just want to see how this plays out." And she was in tears. She lost this deal. Turns out she had a career coach that said, "You need to negotiate like a white man." That was her advice. "You need to be aggressive, you need to do this, you need to do that. You need to negotiate for your worth." Which I understand the appeal of that as if I would understand a woman that wants to negotiate like a man and get hers, I respect that. In this situation, the context that was missing is that she was negotiating with other women. So she was negotiating with this female CEO and three other females on the executive leadership team and they rescinded the offer because it sounded like she was a bad cultural fit because she was acting like a man. She wasn't being her authentic self. She was acting in this persona that she wasn't comfortable with. And to be honest, she said to me, "I wasn't comfortable with that advice, but I did it anyway because women should stand up for each other. We should push." And I commended her for that. And so what we did was I said, "Look, call the CEO, explain what happened. Share that, obviously, it's important that women take care of each other. And it's clear to me that you have. There's that positive reputation. I got to be honest with you, I hired a coach to try to understand what to do because in the past I've failed. In the past, I haven't been my best advocate. In the past, I've done less. I suspect you know what that's like." Boom, shared identity. They all know. All women know this together collectively. This is a shared identity tribe thing. "I made a mistake and I disagreed with the advice, but I did it anyway because I had to try. " And they brought the offer back on the table for her authenticity and transparency. So that was the path that we... There was two phone calls to come up with that idea. She got that deal back on the table, is now happily making 800,000 a year. So when things go south, approach it with honesty, integrity. Say like, "I made a mistake." Take ownership. Extreme ownership really helps here. That could probably be one of those points. When you fail to deliver, take ownership of that. Take that note. It may mean you're getting level set a little bit in your career. That's okay. You're still growing. I love that approach of just like, "Okay, I hired this coach. They gave me bad advice." Was it actually-…

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