Meet Athena member Karen Mangia, future of work thought leader & customer experience strategist

From AT&T to Cisco to Salesforce, the common thread through Athena member Karen Mangia ‘s career has been storytelling. She’s wrapping up her fifth year at Salesforce (where she serves as VP of Customer & Market Insights), translating customer feedback into actionable insights and engaging with their Fortune 50 customer accounts to define, design, and deliver the future together.

When the pandemic hit, Karen’s work changed drastically-from leading workshops and keynoting conferences to grounding her thought leadership in blog writing and book publishing. Since 2020, she’s published three books on customer success, working from home, as well her newest book, Success from Anywhere: Create Your Own Future of Work from the Inside Out (which released earlier this month).

Read more about Karen’s executive journey in customer experience and customer success, why mental health is critical to her work and to building sustainable organizations, and how to prioritize a passion project amid a pervasive culture of burnout.

Tell us about your executive journey up to this point.

My career is a little bit like The Godfather series in that it’s a trilogy. My professional career was at AT&T, then Cisco, and now more than five years at Salesforce. I’ve held roles in sales leadership, customer experience, Voice of the Customer, and now in thought leadership and market strategy.

My journey has been anchored around staying close to customers and being a storyteller. At its core, being a salesperson or being a leader of an organization is all about understanding stories — creating compelling narratives that help people see a different vision for the future and get inspired to build it with you. And, along the way, I’ve written four books.

You were recently recognized as one of the top 50 thought leaders in mental health. What’s the connection between your work, your writing, and mental health?

We’re seeing a clear connection with all the headlines around the Great Resignation, employee burnout, and wellness and wellbeing. We’re coming to understand that high-performing organizations are comprised of high-performing people, and mental health is one of the most critical aspects to us performing at our best. Organizations play a role in contributing to the overall mental health and wellbeing of their employees. This goes beyond giving them $100 to go to the gym. How do we invest in sustainable wellness and mental health for people so they can do their best work when they’re at work?

How does an organization know they need to put more effort into employee wellbeing?

Employees are sending employers an extremely strong signal-they’re voting with their actions by quitting. Organizations typically think of retaining and attracting top talent as a function of offering more pay, PTO, and perks — yet the signal people are sending en masse is that they want more. Not more pay, PTO, or perks; they want more of what matters. And that’s flexibility, autonomy, and choice. People are quitting en masse, specifically for the reason that they’re looking for a context where they can be more mentally, physically, and emotionally well.

How do you provide flexibility, autonomy, and choice for your team?

One of the examples that highlighted this for me comes from General Mills. General Mills looked at their 10,000 employees and they, like everyone else, heard about high degrees of burnout. The wonderful people in HR said, “We really want to do something to help our employees be well and address the burnout people are reporting.” They rolled out additional PTO to give people the chance to step away. Only 8% of employees took advantage of that PTO, and the level of mental health and burnout didn’t change. People didn’t feel better. They were perplexed.

They stepped away, and did some deep listening to their employees about what they needed and wanted. In January 2021, they announced what they called their “Gift of Choice” program. There were three choices: more PTO, more pay, or a donation to a nonprofit of their choice. Within 24 hours, 85% of their employees opted in to the Gift of Choice program, and the top choice was PTO. They got to the same outcome; the only thing that shifted was people had a choice.

When we as humans are unexpectedly offered a set of favorable choices, it lights up these activity centers in our brain that say “This is awesome, I feel amazing, I love it.” This use case is an example of what would happen if employers did some deep listening to employees about the choices they want and what “great” would look like to them. How might that close the gap between what employees expect and what employers are willing to give?

How do you prioritize writing amid your busy operating and speaking schedule?

You have time for what you make time for. In order to make time for my first book, I stepped away from some boards I was serving on to make writing a priority. Simply, I would say divest before you invest: what are you going to press pause on so you can pursue this new project? I learned the hard way from a major medical setback that “and” is a very dangerous word. “Or” is a better one.

Every time I write a book, I follow the same process: first, I start doing some blogging so I have material to work with. Then I block out 90-minute writing sprints on my calendar for multiple months. Last, the second I hit submit or hit the milestone, I go back to a reasonable schedule.

What do companies usually get wrong when it comes to belonging?

Everything. The reality is, everyone wants to feel seen and heard. If you’re in a 1:1 with your manager who’s completely over-scheduled and not present — they’re looking away and you can tell they’re responding to texts on their phone. Do you feel seen and heard in that moment? No. Therefore, do you feel you belong? No.

Belonging begins with belonging to yourself — knowing your values and how your values show up in your everyday life. If one of your top values is time with your family but your boss has a meeting during your dinner hour every night, you’re living outside your values. Creating that sense of belonging starts with getting to know your employees and what they care about in a deep way. That requires deep listening that is consistent and sustained.

What brought you to Athena? How has your membership been helpful in your executive journey?

I wanted to prepare for board service. I had served on a lot of nonprofit boards, and wanted to learn more about corporate board participation. It’s been a fantastic experience. It’s a safe sandbox to ask questions about things you don’t know, but would like to know — and may be less inclined to ask in the context of your own workplace. We all want to portray a certain level of knowledge or business acumen, and sometimes those questions go unasked because you think “It seems like everyone else knows this.” It creates a safe space for those conversations and that learning on how to be a better executive takes place in an authentic and well-intentioned way.

What advice do you have for women leaders who are struggling with burnout?

If everything is important, then nothing is important. When I’m feeling pulled from task to task and meeting to meeting, everything feels urgent all the time. If I step back and ask myself three questions (and a bonus question), it pays dividends.

1. Does it have to be?
2. Does it have to be me?
3. Does it have to be me, right now?
   Bonus — Does it have to be a meeting?

Most of the time, the answer is no. That’s how you find breathing room. And that’s how you get out of burnout.

Some of what drives this culture of overwork is the feeling that we’re not enough. What would happen if your starting point on any day, week, month, quarter, or year is “I have enough. I’ve done enough. I am enough.” What might that change for you? How would you choose differently? Would you still be hustling to prove yourself?

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Athena provides the persistent support, learning, and connections women leaders need to reach their biggest career goals. Learn more about membership here.

Originally published at https://athenaalliance.com on December 14, 2021.