Ep. 97: The Non-Linear Path to Success

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Joanne Conroy, president and c e o of Dartmouth Health, and welcome to her story. We are really thrilled today to have C Bilock, who is the current president of Barnard College and President-Elect of Dartmouth College. She’s a nationally recognized cognitive scientist. But really what’s most interesting about her is her leadership journey. So thank you for joining us.

Sian Beilock: Oh, I’m happy to be here.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: So, you’ve accomplished a lot in a pretty short period of time. Talk about when you started on this leadership journey.

Sian Beilock: Well, I mean, I think I’ve always had elements of what I have done that have been leadership in nature. Growing up I played a lot of sports. I was often a team captain. When I was a professor at the University of Chicago, I led a big lab and. I had about 20 students in postdocs. And in, in that way, that was leadership. That was [00:01:00] learning how to manage others and learning that what excited me most was when I was able to bring smart groups of people together to get to answers that none of us could get to individually. And that you can’t manage everyone the same way. And I look back to that, I didn’t know it at the time, but I was getting excited and learning what it meant to be a leader in those situ.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: So making a jump from a very busy role at the University of Chicago to president of Barnard. Like talk about that because that’s a big jump. That’s jump from cultures from Chicago to New York, jump across the country changing your kind of support network cuz you’d been at Chicago for a while and jumping into a role that there are a lot of different skills that were required for success.

Sian Beilock: Yeah. Well I think, when you’re looking at anyone who has been in leadership situations, I think it’s important to dive under. the surface, so to speak. At Chicago, in my last several years, I was executive [00:02:00] vice provost, I was running a big portfolio that crossed many of our academic departments, our graduate school. And so I was really getting experience leading at an institutional level and then, I wasn’t looking to make a switch. I was pretty happy in my role. But one thing I’ve learned in my life is that you don’t get to pick when your opportunities come. And I got called about the job at Barnard and I was really just struck by what a singular institution it was. It was a college focused on women. A small, tight-knit school focused on the liberal arts, but it had connections to the larger Columbia University and so. I thought that was great, like to empower women and to be part of the larger university. What could be better? And so, I jump.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: what was it about Barnard that made you jump? I think whenever we make jumps for several different reasons. Aside from the tight knit institution, was there anything else there? [00:03:00] Was it a new area of the country or we always like new starts too in our career. And this took your activities in a different direction?

Sian Beilock: Yeah, well, I think there’s actually many similarities between Chicago and Barnard. They are both focused on academic excellence. Our faculty are doing research at the highest levels. Our faculty are all tenured at Barnard and. Columbia. But the idea of being at a place that was expressly focused on empowering women was really exciting. And also being a place that hadn’t, I thought, told its story in an accurate way about the power it had across women in stem. And frankly, to be able to. Really be it the head, as CEO of an entire institution, I’d experienced that in terms of my portfolio at Chicago. Whether I was overseeing our press or our arts center or professional theater or the graduate schools, I’d experienced that. But to be really responsible and at the head of an independent [00:04:00] institution was attractive to.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Talk a little bit about empowering women most. Viewers, although not all are women. Many in young women that are just beginning their careers, but a lot of senior women that like to listen to other people’s journeys. So talk a little bit about what you’ve been able to do to elevate the power and the accomplishments of women in your tenure at Barnard.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I mean, first I would say that. , I’ve really ta taken it upon myself to, to write op-eds and to be out there as a voice for issues around women. And I think Barnard is a great platform to do that. So, it’s not just in an educational sphere, whether it’s women in the workplace, or how we think about what it means to have self-doubt. That women often have. I just had a peace and fortune last week about that. And embracing the fact that self-doubt can actually be really powerful. I try and ha have a voice out there in a broad way. And the other thing that [00:05:00] you know I do is with all of my students and alums on campus and off campus, I think it’s. Talking about the fact that this journey is not linear and setting up programs that support that. So at Barnard, we’ve set up an entire office, an initiative called Beyond Barnard, that’s designed to support students as they think about their career journey when they’re at Barnard, but also our 40,000 alums as they think about their career journey through their life. And we know women go in and out of the workforce. We know women have to acquire different skills, and I really do think universities have a responsibility to be lifelong supporters of education. And this is especially true for women. So we’ve tried to sort of model that with how we talk about it, but also in terms of the systems we have in place. And I’m excited because beyond Barn, Up out of third of its users are alums, which I think is really special.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah, that’s really unique. And powerful. I would say you are absolutely [00:06:00] correct that women sometimes take circuitous journeys and we ask all of our interviewees , whether or not they’re an accidental or intentional leader. So which one do you, what category do you think you fall into?

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I read that question. I thought it was great. And , I guess like a true scientist? I’m gonna say I’m probably both. I think it’s hard really to categorize as one or the other. First of all, I think no one’s path is linear. And what I would argue differentiates me from other people I’ve seen is that I’m willing to move and take jumps and step out of what is comfortable. And I think every, not everyone wants to do that, which is fine. And I certainly seek out opportunities to learn more. I really love getting opinions that challenge how I think. And so in those ways, you could say I’m very intentional in what I do, but no one plans their career journey down to the T. And I think it’s a misnomer to argue that’s the case and you can always tie it back and tell a story from [00:07:00] looking back. And so I worry sometimes when we talk about intentional leaders, people think that they have to have it all planned out and I would argue that one of the things that differentiates the best leaders and the most successful from those who are not, is that they’re taking unexpected opportunities when they come and also when they don’t get what they want. Like, failure is a big part of my life. It’s a big part of every leader’s life. And if we can’t get up and turn in a different direction or figure out how we’re gonna wipe our knees off and go move somewhere else, like that’s. that makes it impossible to go in, in new direction.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: I do counsel women that they have to take a level of personal and professional risk if they really want leadership, and that’s the first hurdle for them to overcome. I’m struck though by the definition of failure. I think a lot of people think it’s a very public thing, but often failure can be just as you said, just not getting what you want. Things don’t necessarily [00:08:00] fall. in the direction that you expect them to go. And it’s managing that. Talk about maybe an example where kind of you lived through that you didn’t really get what you wanted.

Sian Beilock: I have so many examples from my life, like, I feel like every day I don’t get what I want with something. I’ll say it started early though. Like I played soccer at a really high level in the Olympic development program and I didn’t make the national team and I was like, my whole identity was really around that and being successful at sports and it made me one, realize that I can’t have my whole identity around one thing and two that like I don’t have to just play sports to be successful. And I went on to get a PhD. One of my PhDs is in kinesiology and sports psychology studying sports. Right? And so, I would say that was one of the first places where I. Learned how to take a different step. And then it’s been, all along the way I, didn’t get all the jobs I wanted when I was a professor. There were certain positions [00:09:00] in the leadership at the University of Chicago that I didn’t get. And then I took different directions. Now, not all the time people knew I was up for those positions, and that’s part of the personal failure. But I wanted ’em and. , I just moved in a different direction or thought about what I needed to do next, and , it’s worked out. I think, there’s lots of different paths that would’ve also been fine. But it is this, ID, I think it’s really this idea and it’s so easy to be hard on ourselves. We’re like our own worst critics. And I talk a lot about how the most important conversation we ever have is with ourselves. And we tend to not be self-compassionate. This is especially true for women. And we have to be able to talk to ourselves and push ourselves like we would push a good. And that means, when we don’t get what we want, stepping back, I usually give myself like, a night or a couple hours to ruminate and then I’m done

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah, there’s an art. There’s an art. Putting it in a box and putting it on a shelf and [00:10:00] not revisiting it, so,

Sian Beilock: Yeah. Or, I mean, my research shows and my colleagues and I write about this in my book Choke, that, there are techniques to deal with that. It’s hard to put it on a shelf, right? So you give yourself 10 minutes to write it down in your journal, and then you close a journal, or then the next time when you think about it, instead of. Dwelling on the failure, you think about one or two things you can control next time around. And it turns out that actually changes how the brain functions, so that we’re focused on what we can do and want to do rather than revisiting the past. And that’s actually really helpful for getting us moving forward.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. So let’s talk about your move, your president-elect of Dartmouth College. And before we talk about that, what are you gonna miss about leaving Manhattan? I’m gonna tell you that there’s no GrubHub up here and

Sian Beilock: Yeah.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Uber. So get ready

Sian Beilock: , I really love the city. I think there’s an energy that comes along with it. And I love Barnard, like being at Barnard has been really special [00:11:00] to me, so I will miss both of those. But I’m excited for a new adventure. I’m really excited to be at a university that brings together the medical system along with a business and engineering and a just a real focus and import of undergraduate liberal arts education. I think there’s not many models of universities that do that well, and Dartmouth can really lead there. And I’m excited for more outdoors and just to have it to be, do something different.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. This is a place where you can actually be hiking and kayaking and biking five minutes outside of work. So we definitely make it easy for people to be active. So let’s talk about moving to a new institution. A number of people say you don’t change. Anything except the ink. And the ink wells the first six months. But that’s an old perception of how you enter an organization. As you counsel people, how do you counsel people to make that [00:12:00] shift?

Sian Beilock: I’ve now done it with Barnard and I’ll do it again with Dartmouth. And first of all, I think having that experience is invaluable because there are different cultural norms and you’re not there to completely change an institution. You’re there to take what’s best about an institution and move it. Forward as a leader. And so for me, the biggest part of the shift is just learning and listening. I didn’t realize when I came to Barnard how blind I would be coming in because I’d been, when I shifted into leadership at Chicago, I’d been a faculty member. So I knew who to talk to. I knew. what the institutional history was. I knew that who screamed all the time and when you really had to listen to someone who was speaking loudly. And what I hadn’t really anticipated at Barnard was that I wouldn’t have that knowledge. Like you have to learn who to listen to. And so I’m a scientist, so I think about converging evidence and I’m a big fan of asking lots of people the same questions and trying to get to. The end [00:13:00] result is, and so I’m Marty doing that at Dartmouth. I’m listening and learning and I have a lot more to do, but I think that is the most important thing coming into an institution. And then it’s really figuring out what are the low hanging fruit, what are the longer term plans, and how you’re gonna pull on the DNA of an institution to push it.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. Yeah. All really important observations and we’ll keep you busy for sure. There’s a lot of d n a up here, so, and but everybody is really enthusiastic about your arrival. Talk a little bit about what advice you would give your younger self, because we do have a lot of younger, early career women that listen to this podcast.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I mean, I think that I would say be nicer to yourself. Like , that’s a big one. And. again, it’s like I really do [00:14:00] think from graduate school on, I learned this, that success is not about you doing it all. It’s about figuring out where you pull in experts and how you can do something that cognitive psychologists talk about is distributed cognition, right? Our thinking doesn’t all have to happen in our own brain. It can happen across brains. And so it’s figuring out who your great thinking partners are. who you can rely on and call to get answers to questions and then moving forward. And I think from, I’ve seen this in many young people coming up through the system, and especially women, I would argue we often feel like we have to do everything ourselves. And that’s not what great leaders do in my opinion. They know who to bring in, they know how to build the team around them, and they know how to ask.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah, you’re right. Women don’t often ask for help and don’t create kind of a council of advisors outside their current environment. And that’s actually very powerful. If [00:15:00] outside of Barnard and outside of University of Chicago and outside of Dartmouth, who do you regard as your kind of council of advisors? So you’re still building.

Sian Beilock: Yeah. I mean, I. , I’m pretty meticulous about this. Like I have Excel spreadsheets of people I feel like I need to touch base with like every six months or every three months. Certainly other academic leaders, like other presidents or people who have been presidents several people who lead companies in the business world, like outside. And frankly, like for whatever issue I have, I figure out who’s the most expert. call them, like get a connection and call them. So whether it’s thinking about real estate or thinking about how we should think about something invested in the endowment, like what I feel like I can do is get to people who I can get an opinion from and get an opinion that allows me to ask the most important questions of the people that are working.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. Have you ever [00:16:00] received any advice that you thought was really. because not every piece of advice is applicable to this situation.

Sian Beilock: Yeah. I mean, I don’t, I think that’s one of the big important things to remember. Like you don’t have to do what everything, everyone tells you to, like, you have to sort of figure out where your. God is taking you. And once you’ve collected the evidence and you’re gonna move in wrong directions at some point, but you don’t have, just because you’re getting the advice, doesn’t mean you have to listen to it. And I think oftentimes we, again, especially as women trying to please those around us, like think we have to do what everyone says and it’s about. Hearing the advice, especially if it’s critical of what you’re doing, which I think is really important. And then deciding how much you’re gonna take of it, what you’re gonna believe of it. Like, one of my mentors said to me, look, it’s really great to have lawyers around you who are telling you exactly what they think and what should happen. But remember, you don’t always have to listen to them. Like it’s just an example, like this idea that you’re freed [00:17:00] from always having to do what everyone around you is saying is. That’s, it’s very powerful . I listen to the lawyers most times, by the way,

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Well, we have conversations. We want our legal counsel, who is amazing to be our partners and not our policemen,

Sian Beilock: Yeah.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: is like a, it’s a very fine line, and they seem to resonate with that. They really want a partnership.

Sian Beilock: And I take a lot from my. , my background in psychology, but there’s something we talk about called source monitoring. Like who said the information that you’re getting, because it’s not just important, the information, it’s also important who’s saying it. So if you’re getting information about something that you should or shouldn’t be doing in the legal realm for ma, for example, it that matters much more if a lawyer is saying it than your VP of finance, right? Because the lawyers the more with the expertise, and I think we sometimes don’t pair those together. Who’s saying it and what they’re saying and that it’s that conjunction that ends up being really important.[00:18:00]

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. And very important as you manage your board, and I think a lot of people don’t appreciate that we work for our boards.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, my board is my boss. Like my daughter says to me like, who’s your boss? I’m like, oh, that 32 people right there,

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: and managing the board and. in a very positive way, communicating with them, keeping them up to date, but also using their expertise in a way that uses them strategically and not operationally is a skill.

Sian Beilock: Yeah, I mean it’s, boards are tricky, right? I mean, they’re there to help you govern, not manage, and it’s very easy to fall into the ladder. And it’s a responsibility on the CEO O side as well as the board side. But I fully believe that if. CEOs and the people that work for them are not bringing the board in at the right level. It’s, that’s our fault. Right? And so we have to bring the board in on our strategic journey so that they can help us at a strategic level. And what that means, which [00:19:00] is very hard to do, is we have to give boards our mental model of what’s happening. We have to, is put it out there so they can react to it because they’re not there in everyday life the way we are. And I think it’s a really hard skill to master, to bring them up to speed and then give them the right mental models so they can ask questions at the right level and push at the right level.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Yeah. And they can be incredible resources when you have boards that have people that are in other industries and have different governance models and are. Are actually enhancer leadership

Sian Beilock: Yeah. I mean, it goes back to this idea of distributed cognition, right? Getting other people to be the thinking folks with you. Right? And I consider the board to be. An example of calling on experts to think through things, to like challenge. I mean, the best ideas come when we are challenged. When people think differently than us, whether we change our mind or not, it’s gonna help us crystallize what we’re arguing and what we’re thinking and how we’re communicating. And [00:20:00] sometimes we’ll also change our mind too.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: So, last question before we finish up, cuz I know you have a really busy afternoon. So talk a little bit about, personally, I know that you and your daughter are moving up to Hanover and , what are you most looking forward to as a family? Not having anything to do with work. And what is she specifically looking forward to doing?

Sian Beilock: well, she visited the middle school and really liked the cafeteria, so that’s good. I think,

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: is great up here,

Sian Beilock: I think this idea that there’s just a little for her, like a little more freedom to be out and about and walk to town and That’s exciting. Like them being in a city where things are more constrained in that way. And I’m really just looking to being in a community that takes care of each other to being part of that. And to being in a place where I think there is a focus on great education and what that means [00:21:00] inside Dartmouth, but also for the community at.

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Well, it’s been a pleasure really talking to you today. You’re just an inspiration for a lot of women that aspire to leadership in higher ed and in many other industries. So, Thank you so much for your

Sian Beilock: Oh it’s really fun and I’m really looking forward to working with you

Joanne Conroy, M.D.: Me as well. Thank you.