Diana Alt [00:00:02]:
Hello there and welcome to Work Should Feel good. The show where your career growth meets your real life. I'm your host and today my guest Bosky Mukherjee and I are going to talk about how aspiring senior leaders can fast track getting a seat at the table, even if they have to build it themselves. Boski is a leadership and executive coach and a fractional product executive. She's the founder of SheTrailblazes and a whole bunch of other stuff because she's been in and out of entrepreneurship and corporate her whole career. SheTrailblazes is devoted to helping ambitious women rise to the top of their fields on their own terms. She has programs and community and retreats to set her clients up for promotion or becoming a founder, which she's done a couple times in her career. Welcome to the show, Bosky.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:00:50]:
Thank you so much, Diana for having me. Love it.

Diana Alt [00:00:53]:
Happy to have you here. Facebook strikes again because we met in the women in product group, I don't know, years ago. I've been in there for at least five or six years, so I've been, I've been following you. I think we've been circling each other for a little while.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:01:09]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:01:10]:
And when I saw some of the content you were putting out about executive leadership the last six months in particular, I was like, I got to talk to this woman. So one of the things I wanted to actually jump into is that your LinkedIn has loads of both entrepreneurship ventures like she Trailblazers like PM Dojo, which I did not put together until I was researching for this episode that you're. And you were a founder of that. And then like a jewelry, you had a jewelry business at some point. How do you see these going together? Because so many, so much of the narrative, especially from the really obnoxious entrepreneurs is like, you're a sellout if you ever take a W2.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:01:54]:
So wow, jewelry business. Well, thank you for reminding me. It used to be, I think that was like years ago, years ago, years ago. Probably like 20 2009, 2010.

Diana Alt [00:02:08]:
I had to hit more experience, show all 20 something experiences or whatever on LinkedIn. Yeah.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:02:14]:
So yeah, no, I think the jewelry business has shut down. I could not scale or grow it because I used to make each of these pieces myself one piece at a time. I had no idea how to market, I didn't know how to sell and. But it was a hobby turned business. I, coming from a family that always put a lot of emphasis on education and business or entrepreneurship wasn't quite thought of as the field. So my family is very academically inclined. I almost detested towards anything entrepreneurship. I just knew that if I had to rise up, it had to be within the corporate setting.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:02:54]:
And I knew that I had to get to the C suite. Like for me that was, that was. But there was this always this one little thing where I was like, I want to do something and I want to push and I want to kind of figure out how to sell. And it was like jewelry making was one of my favorite things to do before I became a mom because I could spend a lot of time and I sold enough but then had to put it down. I just make now, you know, random pieces when I get the time. But I actually started. I first sold something when I was, I think 10 years old where I coded and built ordering system for a local cafeteria way back when I grew up. And everyone said you should just give it away, like you've built it now.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:03:40]:
And I was like, no, I'm going to charge for it. If this cafe wants it, they're going to pay me. And so they paid me a small amount. But that was my first sale as a 10 year old girl. And then I continued and that got the jewelry business got shut down. And then I started PM Dojo. Yes, before the pandemic. So 2008, 2009 and then she Trailblazers was around the same time that I started, but I focused more on SHE Trailblazers.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:04:07]:
Now PM Dojo is on the corporate company side for innovation and training. And she Trailblazers is my mission where I want to help 1 billion women in either routes.

Diana Alt [00:04:18]:
Only 1 billion.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:04:19]:
Only 1 billion. I'm gonna start 1 billion and then hopefully we'll get them go there.

Diana Alt [00:04:23]:
The women on the planet like aim higher, Bosky. Come on. I love that you grew that you have this whole. You grew up academic and so you never thought about business because I had sort of a similar thing. My parents were both actually college professors, so they taught at the community college level and we're department chairs and stuff like that. And then my dad retired from the junior college level and went and taught at four year college because he just, he didn't want to do all the research stuff he wanted to teach. So that's why he did community college. He ended up teaching at the same school that I went to whenever I was in college.

Diana Alt [00:05:03]:
So that was interesting. You only want that to happen if your dad's actually good, your parents a good teacher. If they're a crap teacher, it's not fun there. But my, my, my parents both are farm kids, so I did not really realize until I was in my 20s that farms were businesses because I thought of them as a way of life.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:05:27]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:05:28]:
And in particular, the farm, like my dad's family farm, it's 125 years old or something ridiculous like that. Like, it's.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:05:38]:
Yeah, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:05:39]:
It's like many generations have been on this farm, so the whole starting up thing that we've had to do, they never experienced it. And yeah. I never thought of myself as, oh, my dad was a business owner, but he was.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:05:53]:
So it's very interesting because I think, and this is just my hunch, I think the, this generation, right. Like my generation, your generation, I think we had a very different idea of what business looks like.

Diana Alt [00:06:09]:
So my dad, 80s kid, like, baby.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:06:13]:
Yeah, yeah.

Diana Alt [00:06:15]:
And.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:06:15]:
But then when I look at my son, you know, like, he has a very profitable candle business. He's only 11, but he has a profitable candle business. Like, we have to actually say no to corporate orders just because, you know, like, we get requests on a Tuesday. Like today I got a request for, like, I think for a company offside, they want to gift some candles, luxury candles to their employees. And. And they're like, well, can we have them by Friday? I'm like, you do realize my son goes to school, so. No, he. He can be making 200 candles.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:06:48]:
My son is like, why did you say no? Like, I would have stayed late up in the night. And I'm like, no. But he has a very different idea of business. I used to, like, I used to think like, if you're not smart, then you kind of run a business. Because my idea of business back in the day, growing up like, oh, it's like family business. Like, you have a shop here or you do this, you got job because.

Diana Alt [00:07:11]:
Your dad had the job or your mom had the job. When I was growing up, so my mom taught English, all things English, like composition, grammar, literature, at the community college. My dad taught everything in pre engineering except for chemistry because they needed too much chemistry for him knowing that. So he's physics, calc, diffie, Q college, algebra, league, all that stuff. And I grew up with the perspective that only the dumb kids went to school to study business. Like when. When people in my high school class were going away to college and they're like, oh, she's gonna major in business or marketing. My parents would be like, I thought she was smart.

Diana Alt [00:07:53]:
Isn't she in honor society with you? Like, why is she studying business? That's for same thing. We were intellectual snobs of the highest Order. I think I went to Harvard. I went to Harvard.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:08:07]:
I am so with you on that. I am so with you. Like, I, I remember I was. I had moved from India to States. I think I was studying at that point in time. And my younger sister, she's six years younger to me, and she is the only one in our entire, like, we have a small family, like my mom, dad, and the two sisters, but we have extended family. But she was the only one in the entire, like, the family, both sides, who decided to leave maps and science in grade 11, like, whatever that equivalent is in India. And we had to have a conference call as a family.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:08:43]:
Like, my parents were like, you need to explain it to her. She's not going to be able to do anything without math and science. She wanted to go. She wanted to kind of study business. It was so interesting. But I'm like, that is, you know, she turned out fine. But I'm like, yeah, we were very different generation.

Diana Alt [00:09:00]:
Oh, yeah. Oh, I feel, I feel all of this. There was also never a question that I was going to college for my parents. But I remember when I figured out I was going to college, because you're gonna, like, you might. When did you come to the U.S. what year?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:09:19]:
25 years ago.

Diana Alt [00:09:20]:
Okay, so this is before you had moved to the U.S. but maybe you've heard of it. So there was a show, Little House on the Prairie in the 80s, and I'm like a little bitty girl. And I'm obsessed with I want to be a school teacher like Laura, which of course it's like she's doing it at 16 years old, like. But I found out, oh, I have to go to college if I want to be a teacher. And so that sealed the deal. And I'm like 7 years old. I did not become a teacher.

Diana Alt [00:09:48]:
I realized I don't. I'm a teacher. I just don't teach little kids in a K through 12 school. So. So let's talk. You had this whole academically minded life. I don't want to be in business. And then you landed in business.

Diana Alt [00:10:03]:
Can you give, like, the CliffsNotes version of how you went from, you know, an early career that was as an employee into what you're doing now? And what really drove those decisions? Because we're on a show called Work Should Feel Good. Yeah. I'm hoping that you did that to make work feel good.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:10:23]:
Yes, a hundred percent. So I think, I think I'll take a few steps back into the corporate a little bit to explain that shift. So I think Right from the times I started my career as a tech support person, which was a lot of dismay to myself. My parents, like, I'm like, oh, really studied engineering. You went to the U.S. you did your master's and now you're in tech support role. I'm like, yeah, well, I got to pay the bills. That was the only job I could get, you know, within the limited capacity, within your Visa and everything.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:10:53]:
I took it. But very interestingly, the different companies I worked, I was always fascinated with how companies make money and how companies lose money, which I don't know how I got into that, given that I was always academically inclined and always kind of had like, you business. But I think it was probably the first few startups that I worked and they went bankrupt one after the other. So I was like, I gotta figure out this piece so sooner so that I can move and jump the ship and get myself into another place before the bankruptcy happens. Maybe that was what caused it, I don't know. But I was always very much interested. So even in my corporate roles, I was always focused on expanding the business. And that kind of brought in opportunities internally as well as externally.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:11:45]:
And this was also looking back one ways that I was different from a lot of my peers. And so that was one piece, being commercially oriented that also helped me climb into some of the more executive leadership roles and eventually as a GM and the president and all of that, there was a long journey, over 18, 19 years by the time.

Diana Alt [00:12:08]:
I think that's really. I think it's really important to touch on that though, because what you're describing is that you had an interest that led to you developing business acumen. Yes. Started doing it well before you got into your MBA program, right?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:12:24]:
Yes, yes.

Diana Alt [00:12:26]:
And it's so funny because the. One of my. Another product friend that I met in the Women in Product group on Facebook, it's a gal named Jamie. And she and I have had multiple conversations about how little business acumen most product managers actually have, even ones with MBAs. You basically put yourself in a position where you didn't have a choice but to figure that out.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:12:49]:
I had to figure it out. And it was also very fascinating because I was like, if I have to get. So I wasn't. I'm still an introvert. And I was even a bigger introvert when I first came in. And I struggled culturally because India, you do not question leaders or professors or teachers. And here it was kind of encouraged in some shape or form. And a lot of the advice that I used to get Was you have to speak up in every meeting, and I need to think and process things before I speak up.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:13:21]:
And I did not feel like I wanted to show up with a random googleable question. Like, that was not my thing. And I was like, if. If I have to position myself differently, then I need to find something that I can be really good at. And it's also very interesting. And so, yes, I kind of went there. I spent a lot of time with the finance folks, and I wanted to kind of understand everything. Like, if someone were to come and tell me, you know, we have to get five customers in order to survive, I would actually go down and try to figure out, like, okay, what makes up that five customers? What would that account size look like? Is it only customers, or can it come through something else? And I would do a lot of stuff, but again, being in a small startup kind of helps you build a lot of those skills.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:14:08]:
Yeah. But it was really, really helpful. And so I would kind of just even break down even some of the goals that I would get or my team was getting and break it down into the P and L. I loved the P and L. I loved business models. Like, I loved a lot of those boring stuff that a lot of people didn't like. But that is me. But it also gave me, I think, a very important language to start getting involved in some very important initiatives inside of the company.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:14:36]:
So when the financial crisis hit back in the day and my entire team of like, probably 5, 6000 folks got impacted, I was actually offered international secondment out of that entire batch. And we moved to Bermuda.

Diana Alt [00:14:51]:
Wow.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:14:52]:
For a few years. And again it was post acquisition of a local bank with hsbc, got to kind of see completely different. So what I'm saying is, I think the commercial fluency bit of mine opened up a lot of opportunities. Looking back, I can see that that was that one constant factor back then. It didn't seem like you.

Diana Alt [00:15:11]:
You learn to speak the language of money.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:15:13]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:15:14]:
And I think that one of the top things anybody, no matter what field they're in, could do is learn to speak the language of money. I remember I interviewed for a product manager position, and this was one of those. Like, my last job was super toxic. It was. I got a gtfo, right. And I had been interviewing with a small company that later got acquired by emc. Of course, you go through all the rounds. The hiring manager, the director of Engine, you know, the VP of engineering and product, and eventually got a call that said, hey, this company is still small enough that the CEO likes to look people in the whites of their eyes before an offer is made, when he can.

Diana Alt [00:15:53]:
So I got pulled in to this, you know, CEO, like, 20 minute thing that the actual internal. I worked with a third party recruiter, but the recruiter was there too. And he's like, I'm going to go in with you. Like, what is about to happen to me? And the man just looks me in the face and is like, why should I hire you? And I said, you're going to make more money.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:16:18]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:19]:
And he said, how? I said, I'm really good at what I do. I'm high quality. I've worked across the whole SDLC for the products that I'm working on. And your stuff's going to get out faster. So, like, cost to delay will be less whenever I'm on your team. And the HR person is. And this is not a VP of product. This is like Joe Schmo, product manager role.

Diana Alt [00:16:42]:
The HR person just looked at me and I couldn't read his face. Like, it almost looked like fear.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:16:48]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:16:49]:
Got a call before I even got home from the third party recruiter. That's like, what did you say to John? I'm scared that I've like, screw.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:16:57]:
You got the job, right?

Diana Alt [00:16:58]:
I got the job. I had the offer before.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:17:01]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:17:02]:
It's like they got to do the paperwork. It was a Friday. We got to do the paperwork Monday because like, yeah, it's the afternoon. But I just walked in and talked about money.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:17:13]:
Yep. It is. It is crazy.

Diana Alt [00:17:15]:
It's.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:17:15]:
It's one of. It is one of the easiest things you can do to also influence people. Because at the end of the day that either the company has to grow it or it has to survive. And you have to understand. And the moment you kind of understand that and you can make that as a part of your language, I think it also brings a little bit of objectivity. Right. Like, you can forget about your functional role and what the goals are and the agendas are. You can kind of talk about what the business and how it's going to help the business.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:17:43]:
And it just opens up a lot of doors. I'm glad, like, you know what I'm talking about.

Diana Alt [00:17:47]:
But.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:17:51]:
To answer your question, Diana, like, what led me, I'm just going to go this very quickly. All of this was happening well until 2016, 2017. By that time, I was a mom. My son was very young. He was probably three or four. I hadn't realized that I was starting to feel very hollow, like a. I was achieving the kind of growth and the titles and the compensation that I always wanted to as an immigrant coming to this country, but inside, I was feeling very hollow. So it was the same kind of work.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:18:23]:
I would go to different companies, lead at the highest level, deal with lots of political schmuck every single time, would have to redesign the entire team, fire, layoff, hire more people, and the same stuff. And I reached a stage where I was starting to feel not fulfilled internally, but I was also dealing with a lot of PTSD by that time, which I had no realization of that mentally and emotionally. My health was like a bonkers. Eventually, in 2019, I went to the doctor for the first time after giving birth in five years. We can talk about that if you want. But I finally reached the doctor when I just knew that stuff had gotten really bad. And I was given three months to live. So that was in early 2019.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:19:11]:
And I decided to go on a medical leave very disheartenedly because I did not want to prove to others that a woman, the youngest woman, actually could do the job of being the president of the company, because there was lots of, I think, doubts that a lot of people said, no, she's not the right person. And I felt like taking a step down would prove them right. And so I pushed, pushed, pushed, but it reached a point where I just couldn't. And so when I was given three months to live, I was like, okay. My doctor said, you may not be able to see your son's birthday in August if you don't change a number of things in your life right now. And so that was what caused me to take medical leave, got better. And that is what prompted me to figure out, how can I bring back doing something that still feels good, work that feels good? And I had a choice of returning back to the corporate in some shape or do something else. And so my husband and I, we talked and we were like.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:20:11]:
I was like, are we going to be financially fine? And my husband said, well, for some time. And I gave myself three months to financially prove two business ideas, one after the other. And I was like, if I'm going to do, I want to try this for three months. And I gave myself three months. PM dojo was the idea that I first tried with in a profitable way and a business model that would scale and grow. And then soon after the PM dojo was proven in three months, I tried doing the same thing with sheet trailblazers. And both of them, I started running at the same time. And I completely got out of corporate.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:20:47]:
So that was before the pandemic hit I.

Diana Alt [00:20:49]:
The fact that you started both of those huge. Because you know, like something I. For those that are new to the show are new to me as a product manager too. Like an executive in product management like you've been. But I always had a lot of scope. You know, I was chasing challenge more than title. But there's so much terrible product stuff that's popped up in the last few years. Because I'm a pragmatic girly.

Diana Alt [00:21:25]:
I'm a big believer like the. This. The least important thing. This is a bold statement. The least important thing for the product manager to be an expert in is the product. They need to be an expert in the problem. There's like everybody else is an expert in the product that you've helped create. And PM Dojo, which again, I figured out this morning that you founded that.

Diana Alt [00:21:50]:
I knew you'd talked about it, but I didn't know you'd founded it is community based instead of like this product programmatic, like let's do another reforge cohort.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:22:01]:
There's.

Diana Alt [00:22:02]:
I've never done reforge, so I don't even know if it's good or not. But I know that it focuses on product.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:22:07]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:22:07]:
More than it focuses on. So I like. Kudos. I'm not worthy because.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:22:14]:
No, no, no, no.

Diana Alt [00:22:16]:
I mean management is so important though, because whether you're doing it or not, like every business has to have. Have it happening, even if there's nobody in the company called a product manager. Because you got to sell something.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:22:29]:
Yes, you got to sell something, you got to save something and you got to service your customers. I mean, PM Dojo was interesting because we've had so many pivots. So many pivots. When I first started PM Dojo, it was to actually help mid career folks who wanted to make a transition into product. Ah, that is how it first started. Because back in the day in 2019, the demand for product management was so strong. But what was happening was two folds. One, it was really hard.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:23:07]:
Like you could go and take up a certification or a product management course, but just doing the course did not give you the experience to work as a product professional, especially mid career. And companies were looking even for mid career, like even for a senior PM role, they were looking for 8, 10 years of solid PM experience so you could spend all your money doing certifications, but you would end up hitting that same roadblock and it would never make you a pm. So that's what PM Dojo tried to do. We would actually have we had a program? It was a program designed, I designed the whole curriculum. But people like we would bring in a cross functional team. So a pm, a designer and a software engineer would work together in the program to build a product in 10 weeks. And we had a 98% success rate. So we've had folks who have not only made the transition into product manager, senior PM roles, eventually moved into director roles as well, but we actually had companies who wanted to hire from PM Dojo.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:24:10]:
So. So that was how PMDoja started. And obviously if you think about it from a scaling standpoint, it was extremely, extremely hard to do that. But then of course then 22, 23 the market was very different where product management hiring looked very different. So we did not accept apms. It was specifically for mid career folks because that was the only way to learn GTM to take it to the product. We were having products that were getting built that actually had users. We also partnered them with companies who wanted to launch their first product.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:24:44]:
So it was amazing. Like you could, you actually had an experience to work with a company with stakeholders and learned all of the circus that happens inside of companies.

Diana Alt [00:24:54]:
Really interesting is like you're in the Bay Area, I'm in the Midwest where people was do were doing product management like they were doing work that earned that eight to 10 years before we were using the term product manager because the actual job title hit the Midwest a lot later.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:25:14]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:25:15]:
And so a lot of my work with people, especially people in the middle of the company, in of the country is helping them realize that. No, that Yahoo that you think you're with, that has a title of PM that they acquired in 2021 when anybody with a pulse could get into product management. We had that moment. I would have to like explain to them you're actually more qualified than them because you did the work for eight, nine years. You were a ba, you were a business unit leader, et cetera. It's so cool. So what's the focus of PM Dojo now? Yep.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:25:53]:
So the markets changed. Hiring looked very different in PM's 23 and so, so I actually shut down the program and PM Dojo now only works with companies. So companies hire me to come in and either coach very senior leaders or actually design a very custom curriculum to help them innovate faster or change them from the traditional model into the product model. A lot of cultural changes. So that's what PM DoJo offers. It's more corporate.

Diana Alt [00:26:22]:
So it's your. It's basically a consultancy now to help drive People. Yes. To product LED thinking instead of project.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:26:30]:
LED thinking, which project LED thinking or run like some very quick GTM innovation, work, design, sprints, all of that.

Diana Alt [00:26:37]:
So it's.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:26:38]:
Yes, it's a consulting firm. But then she blazes with something which is individual, which is something that I've been doing for the last six and a half, seven.

Diana Alt [00:26:46]:
Jump into that. So what, what drew you to the idea of helping a billion women elevate?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:26:55]:
I. So I had written this on LinkedIn recently. I grew up in one of the very few matrilineal societies in the world, let alone in India. So it's a small town called Shalom in the northeastern part of India. Very different than anything that you would think about in India and women. So I grew up seeing women leaders everywhere around me. They led businesses, they were strong community activists. Men would take on the woman's last name.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:27:35]:
Men would move into women's home after marriage. Women had the first right to property and all of the things that they would inherit from the parents. So women basically completely different from the typical norm that you see. And so that is the world that I grew up in and heavily influenced. I also went to a convent education school where we had Irish nuts. And they would heavily encourage all of the kids growing up. Like, I had more social impact projects that I was leading even. Even as a little kid.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:28:13]:
And so seeing the strong women leaders around me, I just believe that that was what normal looked like.

Diana Alt [00:28:21]:
It wasn't what normal looked like. You were. I had a flash. You were in Barbie land. In Barbie land.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:28:32]:
I was in Barbie land. I was in a Barbie land. And. And I would be very confused when every couple years we would go and visit my grandparents and I would go and see the other side of India, which I was like. But we would only go for like a week or so, right? Like a week here and a week there. I was like, what is this place? Like, you know, there's like cat calling happening and this and that. And I'm like, totally different, right? And I was like, well, I just like Shillong and that's where, you know. And then of course, things didn't help because I had to leave home and eventually come for my undergrad in another part of India alone, without my family.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:29:13]:
And I was like, this professor doesn't even look at me when he's teaching. Like, he's looking. So of course, I was one of the very few women in my engineering class. And he would look at everyone and just ignore me and then straight away look at everyone. I would change my spots, and I would be like, okay, but anyhow, it was very confusing, so. But I knew that world, and I saw what happens in that world. So that is how my. I think.

Diana Alt [00:29:40]:
I think my.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:29:40]:
My upbringing influenced me. But when I entered the workforce again, I was the very, very few women. I didn't see women executive leaders. Maybe my boss was a woman. Most of the women would start leaving the companies as soon as they had kids. And I used to naively believe, Diana, that if. If I were to reach a senior leadership role and I could hire more women, that we would be able to get into that Barbie land that I was used to. And unfortunately, I couldn't do that.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:30:18]:
And I think that was a big part of the frustration and the hollowness that I started feeling, because I would change different companies or I would move into a different opportunity, and I would start again at the bottom to support more women, hire more women, make it easier for moms returning back to work. And somehow, structurally, we weren't still making it easier for women.

Diana Alt [00:30:41]:
Help organizations end up getting a critical mass of women on the board. Yes. That's like, you can't do anything until you have, like, 30 to 40% of the board that are women.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:30:53]:
No.

Diana Alt [00:30:54]:
And you have to have a minimum. No matter how many are on the board, three of them, minimum, have to be women. Token. If there's one, you're a token. If there's two, they pit you against each other.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:31:06]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:31:07]:
Third one in there. Finally.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:31:09]:
Finally, you have some healthy debates. So, yes, I did that, I think once or twice. Only I was able to do that. But I think that was a big part of the frustration that I was like, okay, I don't think I can do this one company at a time. And so if I want to achieve this at a much larger scale, then I have to get out of the corporate and do something much bigger and much bolder. And I also started realizing at that point, I think by 2018, 2019, that by the time I was also a mom. And so I was like, okay, this is interesting. A lot of my mom friends who became moms earlier than me, I became a mom very late in my life.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:31:50]:
But a lot of these moms, they would start questioning whether they were even happy in the corporate life. And so I'm like, okay, is this happening with everyone, or is it just a few women? And I was like, okay, if I have to help 1 billion women, I think career and work should feel something that you can do in your own terms, and you want to Live to work, not work to live. And that was something very important for me because I had put myself in such a big threshold where my life was in danger. And I was like, I want to support both routes. You can reach the C suite either inside a corporate, if that is a career path that you want and if you believe that for you, that is the right path for you. But just because that is the right path doesn't mean that the other path of stepping down from corporate and reaching the C suite outside, if you want to build something of your own, that is not a right path. So if you want to do that, then I'm going to help you build a company and build your own table. Because maybe you are in a situation where waiting to join the right table is not going to happen.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:32:55]:
And so what is stopping you from building your own table and creating your own opportunities? And so for me, I think that realization came into cement, like, very quickly when I started visioning about what she trailblazers is going to do. So that's why we support both sides. And I'm really, really happy about that.

Diana Alt [00:33:12]:
And I'm. You. You message it beautifully on your website too. Because I was, I was like, I need to take notes because in my business the emphasis is different. But I view how you're paid as a clerical decision mostly. And I had that mindset shift in 2014. It was the first time I did 1099 consulting. So I had been a contractor and I'd been internal full time.

Diana Alt [00:33:41]:
But I had the opportunity to do what was one of my most fun consulting jobs ever at AMC Theaters headquarters here in the Kansas City area. And I was a 1099 contractor, which I would never not do again. There's so many benefits to being that because number one is there's things that they can't tell you to do legally. So I'm all about that. But also when you're in that mode, every day that you're not told to turn your laptop in is a positive performance review. Decoupled, like it kind of decoupled how I thought about money too. So there was a lot of really interesting things that happened in my mind. But a lot of my clients are 40, 45 to late.

Diana Alt [00:34:31]:
Like late 30s is kind of the young end of most of my clients up to early 50s sometimes. And people are chasing satisfaction and purpose and challenge of the right level and. And being on their own terms more. And so there's a whole lot of people that are in the. I want to have a side thing because I want to build a skill. I might want to do that later as a full time thing. I'm scratching both itches. I've done this long enough in corporate.

Diana Alt [00:35:06]:
I want to do it as a consultant. Like all of that stuff. I don't think it matters because the first, for someone who has spent most. I've spent a lot of my business time focused on strategic comprehensive job search, which is just marketing.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:35:26]:
Well, if you look at that simply as that. Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:35:29]:
Like what are you, what are your skills as a product market?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:35:33]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:35:34]:
Devising how you're going to go about getting a job is a marketing campaign. Your resume is copywriting. Like all those kinds of things come to mind. So there's so much overlap on the Venn diagram. I've never worked with somebody that tried to start like a SaaS startup or whatever. I'm like, oh gross, do that on your own. I don't, I don't feel called to help people start that. But the whole notion of like either path works.

Diana Alt [00:36:00]:
You should be able to back and forth. I don't believe entrepreneurs are unemployable if they decide they want to go back in house.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:36:07]:
No, it's not, it's, it's, it's absolutely not. And I, I think, I think what I started kind of noticing where I'm really getting like, I'm doubling down on, on the founder's edge side, which is what is called for the entrepreneurs, is like, like there's a lot of people, a lot of women who will come to me and they're, and they're all in there. I think late 30s to mid-40s is where I'm finding a lot of, lot of women who will come and they're like, you know, I really thought that this is the path for me in the corporate. I am starting to reach a place where I don't need that kind of stress and tension. My life. I am still ambitious but I want to do something where I can make that bigger impact and, and I want to also have a little bit of flexibility. And I think a lot of this is coming as companies are doing RTO and all of these things. And of course my client base is women.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:37:06]:
A lot of moms. We have different kind of challenges. I think once you reach that senior level, especially if you don't have family support or any of those things. Yeah. And what has been very interesting is the kind of ventures that they've been able to start, whether they are working and starting to dabble their feet is, you know, how do you build a business where you don't feel the urge to constantly keep on applying. Because if you are only making a couple thousand dollars a month, you will always feel like you want to go back and start to apply right. For a role. Because that doesn't pay your bill.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:37:46]:
Like, that doesn't pay your school. Like education, medical bills, you know, food on the table, anything. And so how do you kind of get to a place? It's so interesting. Like, one woman, she was an engineering leader and one of the big techs for a long time. I think 15 or so years. And she came to me, she wanted to become. She wanted to start coaching engineers to make that leap from IC into engineering manager. And as I started working with her, I'm like, fine, if that is what you want to do.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:38:15]:
And we did a lot of discovery work and a lot of research and everything. And she figured, she was like, I thought it was going to be easy. I'm not enjoying.

Diana Alt [00:38:29]:
Quit and be a coach.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:38:32]:
Yes. So it's again, coaching has become, you know, it's again low barrier to entry and people. She. But anyhow, she was like, I don't know if I'm enjoying this. And I'm like, okay, so what do we like? I spend so much time like, we spend time like we went for dinner and everything. We started talking. I realized she loves cooking. I was like, that's interesting.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:38:54]:
I cannot cook. I do not cook. I mean, yesterday I made pasta, which was nice, but my cooking is like, I'm gonna cook something really special once in a blue moon. I don't cook every day. That was, you know, I'm just not there yet. I don't think I'll ever be there yet. Much to the dismay of my mom, who loves cooking. But yeah, she loves cooking.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:39:15]:
And she actually started. So she now works as a private chef. She's catered amazing food in a lot of my retreats and events. But she has doubled her corporate salary. But that is like full on serious. She is doing another woman. She did become a coach. Another woman.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:39:33]:
You know, I came to know that she paints really well. Like, she does very like amazing art. I've got a painting of hers in our other office and we basically started her art gallery in her garage. And she just went and bought a place now in downtown. She's now an art gallery. Like she has an art gallery she owns that. She sells her paintings. And she is amazingly happy.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:40:02]:
So I think it's also about if you are at a place, I think this is so important. I tell women, I said, if you're at a place where you're like, hey, I'm done with the corporate crap and I want to do something on my own for the next phase of my life and my career where I feel fulfilled. Think about all the different ways that you can do and how you might be able to monetize a skill that you have, a hobby that you have, an interest or passion that you have where you don't have to keep on looking back to finding a job because this is profitable enough and you do have to learn how to run a business if you're going to be running an art gallery or anything of yourself. Right. Or even a coaching business.

Diana Alt [00:40:40]:
It's a, that. No, you raise really good points. And here's, here's another thing I'll say is there are times when it might not be a jump into full time entrepreneurship, but there are times when I have advised my clients that want to make certain leaps that one of the best things they could do is have a side business because they will learn a skill that they're not learning on the job. And marketing is usually the top skill for my people. So granted, marketing, you know, for a small coaching business that you're trying to make $4,000 a month on is very different than marketing in a small and mid sized company that you're trying to change lanes in. But it's still something. And it's just, it shows tenacity and it shows that you're serious about something. I, I love that.

Diana Alt [00:41:33]:
So take a skill, figure out what the gap is for the next thing you'd want to do. Yeah. Start a business where you can get paid for your skill and learn this other skill that you need to do and then figure out where you want to go from there.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:41:49]:
Absolutely, absolutely. And you can always cross over.

Diana Alt [00:41:54]:
Yes.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:41:55]:
I am at a point where I don't think I'm going to.

Diana Alt [00:41:58]:
I don't either, but I could, I could.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:42:01]:
I mean, I always have this, never say never. My husband and I, we often have this conversation, but I'm like, I am at a point at least right now where no, I'm not going to, like I'm going to do all these other kinds of things, but, but I'm not going to. Maybe I'm going to join my son's business at some point, but yeah, like you don't have to stick to a path, but it's really important. Like marketing is so important to learn and learning how to sell is another skill which is so important because either you have to sell, like learning how to sell your idea, your product, your service. Super helpful internally. If you are going to be able to build influence, super important. If you're going to even have a side hustle or a side business or eventually a business.

Diana Alt [00:42:48]:
I completely agree with that. When people say, well, I don't like sales because a lot of, in my, in my business it comes up a couple ways. Like sometimes I literally coach sales people that I have sales as a major component, but I'll be working with an engineer, for example. Like, okay, well, job search is a sales and marketing activity. Let's figure out how to teach you this. I don't hate sales. I don't want to sell. And I'm like, how'd you sell the architecture?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:43:16]:
Exactly.

Diana Alt [00:43:17]:
How did, how did, how did that happen? How did your scalable SaaS architecture happen at your company? Sprung fully grown from the head of zoos. Yeah, I want to turn direction a little bit more to the corporate side of leadership. I could geek out about entrepreneurship all day, but I think it's really important for people to understand some of those key things. The reason that programs like SHE Trailblazes exist. The leader leadership edge.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:43:46]:
Is that what you call your leadership edge for the corporate and founders edge for the entrepreneurs?

Diana Alt [00:43:50]:
So the leadership edge exists because people are not, they need help acquiring the skills to be seen and taken seriously as a leader. So what are some of the top things that these highly intelligent, driven women have managed a whole 15ish years of their career before they even get to you?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:44:14]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [00:44:14]:
What do they not know that you're teaching them about in programs like that? Because I think what people think they need and what they actually need are two totally different animals.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:44:27]:
Totally different things. Yes. So one piece is hands down commercial fluency. You don't get to learn this in MBA schools. So you have to. And it's very, very situational and contextual. You have to be able to really understand how to decipher the formal, informal metrics that the C suite team discusses to measure the performance of the business. So commercial fluency is one piece that I'm going to, I can shout at every single, like from every single mountaintop that that is hands down something that you need in order to get promoted and be seen strategically at senior levels.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:45:07]:
So that's one skill number two. I strongly believe that if you want to reach those senior levels, you have to learn how to communicate like an executive. You have to be able to talk about, you have to kind of make that big distinction identity shift almost from being a functional leader into A business operator. I specifically see this shift happen almost, you know, almost every single time at a director level. So you just have to, you could be a director of product, you could be a director of engineering, you could be a director of marketing. But you have to be able to think when you're talking to your team as a director of that functional role, when you're talking and working with executives, you need to be able to see from a business perspective and you have to shift that lens. You can no longer come and say from a product standpoint, I want to do XYZ or we want to. You have to start understanding that executive language and start operating and communicating like them.

Diana Alt [00:46:11]:
I love that you brought that up because a thing that a lot of very successful leaders do, but I don't hear as much about programs anymore, partly because I'm out of corporate and partly because leadership development changes every time. But 15, 20 years ago, to learn a lot of that, at some point you would hit some sort of emerging executive status, especially in larger companies where the next thing was great. You're going to do a two year, three year rotation program. And so you might be product, but you're going to lead customer success for six months or a year and then you're going to go and lead consulting and then you're going to go over here and lead engineering or tech support because that breaks you out of that functional domain. And one of the beautiful things about product management, that is why I think that the, that's the least important person to own the product is because nobody touches more stakeholders.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:47:14]:
Yes, I had a, I had a.

Diana Alt [00:47:19]:
Director that I worked for years ago. Love, great guy. And he used to draw product management as a, like the middle of a wheel. And then everyone else was spokes that was. I've drawn that picture for like every training I've done about products since then. Yep. So the people, those are the things that you're not learning too.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:47:40]:
And the third piece that I would add is around sponsorship. So that becomes super important. I think it's super important for both men and women. But for women it becomes really important because as women, I think we keep hearing this from our first job, that we need to get mentors in order to succeed. And a lot of companies have mentorship programs. I love mentorship programs. I have had mentors in my own life. But I think mentors have a role, a very specific role.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:48:08]:
But you have, if your mentor does not hold the power inside of your company to approve promotions or sign off big salary increases for you, then Basically, that mentor is going to give you advice to fix and improve a few things. They will not be able to open doors for you. And as women we, because the whole math is so different in companies where senior executive roles, you largely have men and as humans we like to support, we tend to support people who remind us of our younger self. That's just how human brain works.

Diana Alt [00:48:46]:
Yes.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:48:46]:
Because you have largely men executive teams, male counterparts, male peers in a very informal ways, they do get sponsored by these senior executive roles. Women, on the other hand, we are stuck with mentors. And that's why women are over mentored and under sponsored. And so a big piece is how do you engineer those sponsor conversations? Because I do not believe that at senior levels you can just speak up and speak up and take on more work and take on more work and saying yes to another highly visible project, you're not going to end up getting promoted. You'll just end up on the fastest track to burnout.

Diana Alt [00:49:23]:
Thank you. Because here's. Let me, let me tell you some of my rants.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:49:27]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [00:49:29]:
Number one, I'm going to try to remember there's a TED talk that my friend Morgan, who is product manager showed me a few years ago and it's about, it's a woman talking about the concept of carrying your papers, which is directly about sponsorship. And it like she tells a really interesting story about how promotions and reviews happen to her company. So I think sponsorship is where it's at. And I think that women are addicted to finding female sponsors.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:50:00]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:50:01]:
And there many women are also addicted to I don't need no man to help me. And the real fact is that especially women, especially younger women and women of marginalized communities, the top thing they could have in their corner for their career development is a white male sponsor.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:50:23]:
Yes. As hard as it sounds, as bad as it can sound. Yes.

Diana Alt [00:50:30]:
And you should want it because if you want to get to be in the boardroom where you're influencing white men, don't you think that you need to have built relationships just like you want them to realize I'm leading brown women, black women, white women, just, you know, non binary like whatever, pick anything in the rainbow. You want them to be communicating with the demographics that they are leading and you need to communicate with the demographics that you are influence.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:51:01]:
You need people with political clout and political capital higher up in the company. Whether if it's a female executive. Great. And, and so important point, Diana, that you mentioned is a lot of times I think women think, I'm sure men also Think I've had these conversations with men as well that okay, if it's not my manager, it's my skip level. But depending on the company, your skip level might not have the right political capital to open those doors because they themselves might be struggling to get for their own ideas. And this is why in my program we focus on building multi sponsorship lanes so that as reorgs are happening so often in companies, as leadership changes are happening, you don't want to waste one year putting all the eggs in one basket only to realize that that leader has gone now. Yeah, back in square one. Like for me, like it just doesn't make sense.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:51:54]:
Right? Like, you know, because then it's like another year, another year, like three years. Like you lose one year momentum. You're now talking about about three years to get promoted. Especially right now as, as promotions are getting fewer at senior levels, promotions are as it is, fewer layers are getting smaller in companies as companies are getting leaner and things like that. You have to think about career growth so differently. So yeah, so those are the three things. Sorry, I digress.

Diana Alt [00:52:21]:
Thank you for sharing that. And I, I think those are fantastic to step through. And the. So let me ask this. If a person is in the. They hear us and they're like light bulb. I need one of those sponsors. What are the top two or three things that you would tell them that I know you want them to have multiple, but they're going for their first one.

Diana Alt [00:52:46]:
It's a new concept. What would you have them do as the first step or two in order to go and get that sponsor?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:52:55]:
Yeah, yeah. So you cannot go and ask a senior leader to say can you sponsor me? You know, it doesn't work like that. Even if your company has a formal sponsorship program, it just doesn't work like that. They need to feel that you are sponsorable and they need to feel like they can insist your name at their level conversations. That's really what the goal is here. So how do you do that? I'll give an example of one of one of one of the clients that I work with. So she has, she's, she, you know, she works in a mid sized company and she has, I think about four layers above her VP Director V Senior Director VP svp, EVP and then the C suite. And she came to me and she was like, well, I need to find these sponsors.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:53:44]:
Who are they? And so the first thing that I say is that even before you go and start to think about sponsors, you have to make sure that your first two Pillars are really strong, number one, that you are, you are really good in communicating like an executive. So you can, at least they're going to be wanting to listen and hear what you have to say. Otherwise it's like you are speaking French and they're speaking German. Like the language has to be similar, the altitude and the wavelength of communication has to be similar. So make sure that that is green and that commercially you are strong. Like you understand how your company makes money, loses money, how the money moves. Inside your company you have a few things. Now let's talk about sponsors.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:54:27]:
So the first thing is you want to look at your org chart that's pretty accessible to everyone. And you need to identify maybe three or four powerful, powerful people in your company. You may see this through all hands or all staff or some of these broad company level announcements that happen. Like, who are these powerful people? Who are even these senior leaders that they look up to when something important happens or when something happens in the company? Who do they look up to to come and like figure things out? There are always these interesting power structures even influence formally inside the executive teams inside your company. So take a guess and identify three or four or five people. Not everyone's going to be a sponsor, but at least that's a starting point to identify your target audience. Yeah, that's step number one. Step number two is going to be where you are.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:55:24]:
So what? That's what we did. The second thing that we did with her was I started asking her a whole bunch of questions. I'm like, okay, what happened in your last company? Company all staff, like, was there an important announcement that came in your company from an executive leader? What did they say? So I looked and I read through all of those and then we tried to sit down and connect the dots between her work and some of those four or five people that we identified. Right. So one executive, he was a CRO in the company Chief Revenue officer. I was like, okay, this one seems important enough because this person's name has come up multiple times within the executive team. I said, let's try to figure out what does the CRO talking about. What is the CRO's important stuff? What are their CRO's key messages in all of these company announcements? I'm like, okay, let's try to figure out how does your work connect? And kind of didn't connect initially when we saw.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:56:21]:
And so I said, okay, next time the CRO comes and talks in the company, all hands, which they were doing, I think once a quarter, I said, just Send a Slack message and just kind of send a Slack message and say something that they talked about. Find that one point and talk about how interesting you find and why did you find interesting.

Diana Alt [00:56:41]:
Right?

Bosky Mukherjee [00:56:41]:
So we figured out that spiel and I asked her to send a Slack message. She sent. So we sat down to craft that message like an executive, but nothing came out of it. It. And she was very dejected. I'm like, you know, it's like fishing. You have to have patience. So let's kind of keep, keep this person in the radar.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:56:59]:
Let's try to do something similar with another person. And so we did that and sure enough, in the next quarter she was leading an initiative where we were able to connect the dots with an initiative that the CRO, the pillar that the CRO was really passionate about and was one of the top goals in the company. And so she sent another Slack message. And again we crafted that Slack message where we connected with something that the CRO said the previous quarter and this initiative that she was leading and we connected the two dots and it was just a two liner. And I think in a two weeks or three weeks she received an email or a message from the executive assistant of the CRO and said, hey, Sierra, I know you've sent a couple of messages, so. And so as Joe is very busy, as you know, but Joe wants to have a quick chat with you. Can we set up a meeting? That is what started this meeting with her. And she went in and she didn't kind of give an update, but she kind of presented again.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:57:55]:
We prepared a lot for that meeting, but it was very interesting. Now Joe was interested genuinely after a couple times to be like, what is this person doing? And so Jenny was able to, you know, talk about this particular initiative connected back to what the CRO was talking. And it was more of a discussion about where the CRO was maybe thinking through that initiative. Where were some of the things that Jennie was not thinking through? It was more about alignment moment. And Joe became one of those sponsors for her and we did something very similar with the other people. So she didn't talk anything about her career. She didn't say, can you be my sponsor? It was an alignment.

Diana Alt [00:58:33]:
It's so important. And I love the map that you gave. Like that was a master class in the last five, six minutes. Something I'll say to the people that are listening to this. You know, Bosky just said, hey, make sure you are sponsorable. Make sure that you understand commercial things. This is one of those areas where a mentor versus A sponsor can make sense because if you have a good relationship with a mentor that's a layer or two down from the person you want to sponsor you, you can ask them, say, hey, I've been doing this work to try to understand commercially where we're at. Can I check my understanding with you? That is a brilliant use of a mentor.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:59:13]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:59:14]:
Which effectively is what Bosky was doing with her client that she just talked about. So don't think that this conversation about sponsors is saying, don't have mentors, saying, have both. I want to talk a little bit about executive presence and then I'm going to go into a little kind of lightning ish round.

Bosky Mukherjee [00:59:38]:
Yes.

Diana Alt [00:59:39]:
Before we close. So executive presence is one of those things that is a really like. So I see a lot of women rejected out of hand because they think it's so male coded at their peril. And I noticed when you were talking earlier about this is what senior leaders need, you said communicate like an executive, you didn't use the term executive presence. So can you talk about how you view the difference between those two things? Because your website's got executive presence on it.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:00:08]:
Yes, it has.

Diana Alt [01:00:10]:
Yes.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:00:11]:
Yes, it has. I think executive presence is non negotiable. You just need it. I just think that the fact of the matter is that women tend to get that feedback quite a bit. Like I haven't heard, like when, when I have sat down in promotion calibration discussions or talent review conversations and companies, I have 100% of the time heard the phrase executive presence used for a woman and never for a man. So this is why I think it.

Diana Alt [01:00:46]:
Used about a man. But I think you're, I mean, you're onto something there for sure.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:00:51]:
It is more like it becomes vague. So. But at the same time, I also believe that executive presence is non negotiable. But in my head it was something that I have had to struggle with a lot because for the longest period of time I naively believed executive presence means I had to either have power poses back in the day when we would go to the offices, or I had to stand in a certain way and take up space. And I'm not like that. I like to, I like to stay small and, you know, not create trouble and it didn't work a lot of the time, or I needed to speak in a certain way, I needed to be louder or I needed to wear clothes in a certain way where I needed to put my hair in a certain way and put makeup on. And there is data that if you put makeup on and you dress up well, you tend to be taken seriously as a woman in corporate. I'm not going to deny that.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:01:41]:
However, I struggled in my head to rationalize how can I show up as leadership material or be seen as kind of an executive sparring partner to the executives without forcing myself to think about I need to have a power move, I need to dress up in a certain way, I need to look in a certain way in order to be treated as an executive. What I have understood or how I like to teach women. Executive presence is on the spot thinking. So there are a few different parts. Number one, you don't need to take on more work of your manager or your skip level if you want to exhibit executive presence.

Diana Alt [01:02:20]:
But you do more discernment, actually. And discernment is a term that people don't talk about a lot, but it is one of the top factors.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:02:28]:
You don't need to take more work, but you need to be able to think, operate and communicate at least two levels above you doing the same work at your level. But you need to be able to operate, think and communicate. This is where executive communication becomes really important. What I mean by that is you need to be able to think about the business, not just your role and your project and your function and what challenges you're having with the engineers or who is kind of, you know, that is low level tactical stuff, but from the business. These leaders should be thinking about that. Right. You need to be able to anticipate questions and objections. You need to be able to influence politically.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:03:11]:
Right. And unless and until people are sabotaging, I'm not asking playing games, that is another distinction. Because a lot of people think, well, I need to start playing the politics. And I'm like, no, you don't need. There's a difference between politics and sabotaging people and sabotaging things at company. You don't want to sabotage, but you have to be able to play the game of chess. If the game of chess is being played at your company, you cannot go and play cricket. You're not going to play checkers, checkers.

Diana Alt [01:03:38]:
Or chess checkers all the time. They want to play checkers, they want to talk about all of the checkers, including the ones that have already been taken off the board. And they want like a pat on the head and a promotion for talking about checkers, which works when you're 24 years old and you're trying to go from tech support to senior tech support. It does not work when you are 42 and you're trying to go from senior director to VP.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:04:05]:
No, no. And it's all about influencing, like politically. How do you influence different agendas and different goals? Because at that point you're trying to influence, let's say an executive who is running customer support or success. You're also trying to influence sales or an executive leader of sales. You're trying to influence an executive leader of finance. And you see suite, they have different goals in mind and they think about the business differently. You have to cut through all of that and bring all of them together. So for me, executive presence, if I were to decode it and explain it, is about how you think, operate, communicate like an executive that you're trying to influence.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:04:43]:
You are able to think through your responses on the spot. A lot of us, we can think of the right answer after the fact. We'd be like, I should have said that, I should have done that. But on the spot, we either react or we start speaking too quickly or we don't say anything at all because we're still trying to figure out. I think the speed at which you think and communicate needs to become smaller and smaller and smaller. For me, that is exactly.

Diana Alt [01:05:09]:
I love that definition. I'm a, I'm a person that usually is quick to speak. Like when I, I need to go away and do my work, but usually I can come up with a nugget and then go back up the nugget. I'll send you that later. And I think that's a really viable technique for people to use to drop a little, drop a little breadcrumb and then give them a whole loaf of bread later. One of the big things I see, I see it in women in particular, but I've seen it in analytical men is they have the idea that the most words wins. Really. When I look at some of the best leaders that I've respected the most, they have said the least words in the room and they said them quietly.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:05:58]:
Yeah, 100.

Diana Alt [01:05:59]:
I have.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:06:00]:
It's been my same experience as well, Diana. I mean, yeah, I mean, you have to be able to comprehend a lot of the things that are happening and a lot of times what is happening in those senior levels. Like, if I were to look at it objectively, a lot of the times it feels like a circus happening regardless of which company you join. It's like the tricks differ and the people differ, but it feels like a service. Like if I were to look at it outside and, and I think like your ability to stay calm and get influence and get buy in and help drive Clarity on the spot, like knowing how to respond. When should you actually further the argument? When you need to just stay tuned, quiet in the room. These are all parts of executive presence. And it's so for me, it's really, really that how do you show yourself those executive level, like good executive level qualities and skills to actually move the conversation further? That is executive presence really well.

Diana Alt [01:07:06]:
Thank you for that explanation. I'm going to pop into. I have three questions I like to ask everybody on the show. Okay. And then will make sure that we say out loud these things we've been putting on the screen for the audio. Kids, what is the worst piece of career advice you've ever received?

Bosky Mukherjee [01:07:25]:
So many. Okay, so this, this one, this was for the longest, long, like many, many, many, many years. Every single time, it didn't matter who. I asked different people and they all said the same thing. And what they told me was that I need to say yes to another project. And so I went on in spirals and I kept on saying yes to this project and that project or if a certain initiative was super important and gained a lot of visibility and would get a lot of executives excited, I would actually say yes. Why? I say it is the worst career advice. And that is because I already, my plate was already full.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:08:12]:
And so if I took on a highly visible project, like I was not doing my job, the real job well, and this other project didn't go well, and I would be so lost. Even when I would communicate that, it would just reinforce the message that I was a worker bee. So every time with a highly visible project, I would go and communicate the progress to the senior leaders or the executive leaders, I would again speak in that same way. And it would basically reinforce the very message that I wanted to get out of. Right. So for me, I think I spent like five or seven years spiraling in this notion because I just, just I.

Diana Alt [01:08:51]:
Did the same exact thing. And I mean, it's really interesting. I feel like if I went back into corporate now, I'd be a much better employee.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:09:00]:
Oh yeah.

Diana Alt [01:09:01]:
And I'd probably go in at a senior principal. Senior or principal product. Maybe like somewhere in there.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:09:08]:
Yeah.

Diana Alt [01:09:08]:
Rector adjacent kind of level. But I have coached so many people that are at levels that I've reported to now that I know how to do all this so much better than I would have before. Here's another one. What is a personal habit that has helped you be successful for?

Bosky Mukherjee [01:09:31]:
So my mom says that even as a little girl, I used to time box things, which is very interesting. I don't know how I learned time boxing, but apparently I did that. And as an adult, it has been extremely, extremely helpful because I'm a perfectionist. Like, I want to get things like the best possible and I want to feel really proud about the work that I do. And so for that I would find myself in rabbit holes. Timeboxing was that one technique where I would say, okay, I'm giving myself 30 minutes, I'm going to do the best work possible and then I'm going to let it out and basically get feedback. That has been extremely helpful. I told you that when I started my own company, I gave myself three months.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:10:18]:
So that was time boxing. And in real life, where I wanted to, I said, in three months I'm going to prove that this business works and it's going to bring in money and I need to get that validation. I'm not going to offer anything for free or for low money because that doesn't prove that. So for me, time boxing has been like a game saver and something that I use in everything that I do everything well.

Diana Alt [01:10:40]:
That's amazing. I love time boxing, but I sometimes, sometimes my time boxes are just for focus. Like two hours goes to this today, even if it's not done. And I'm trying to get better at time boxes. I'm actually reading a book on perfectionism right now. So it's, it's phenomenal. It's by a guy named Greg Chasen Chassen. It's called Flawed.

Diana Alt [01:11:07]:
I'll send you a link to it later.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:11:08]:
Okay.

Diana Alt [01:11:09]:
Just me and Bosque exchanging book club. What is something that you've changed your mind about in the last, I don't know, couple of years?

Bosky Mukherjee [01:11:21]:
Oh my God. That's a really good question. What have I changed, Adam Grant? What have I changed my mind about? Okay, so this one I don't need to fix. I don't need to fix toxic people. The reason, the reason for that is earlier on in my career, I was this gung ho person when if someone did something wrong, either by me or by a friend, I wanted to teach that person a lesson. Either it would be a full blown argument or it would be something where I would make that other person realize how wrong they were. Were. And so my husband would often tease my husband and I.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:12:07]:
Like, we've been together since we were 18, 19, and now of course we are married. So he knows me too well. And he used to joke with me all the time. He's like, aren't you gonna. Honey, aren't you gonna Teach this person a lesson. Yes, I gotta teach this person a lesson. But I've kind of realized now that I'm like, I don't need to. I'm not your mom.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:12:25]:
It's not my job to make you a good human being. Like, that's your life. You do you. I'm gonna protect my energy level. I'm not gonna spend energy on you.

Diana Alt [01:12:36]:
Like most of those. Especially if the person in question is doing more harm to themselves than they are to you, then it makes complete sense. I love that. Can't fix toxic people. So I threw up Bosky's website. If you want to learn more about her Leadership Edge f or Founders Edge Pro programs, she's@shetrailblazes.com. that'll be down in your show notes too. With all of her socials and her ID on LinkedIn is basically just Bosky.

Diana Alt [01:13:08]:
LinkedIn.com in Bosky, which. I love your name. It's fun to say.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:13:14]:
So name. You know, it's a Polish name.

Diana Alt [01:13:18]:
I did not know that. I did not have a Polish name on my new friend from India on my bingo. But it's a cool name. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. I think that there's gonna be. There's gonna be a lot of people love this. I feel like we're gonna have a good time when we drop some drops, drop the live stream or the episode in that women in product group, because you're so real over there. But thanks for coming.

Diana Alt [01:13:45]:
I'm sure we'll come back and do this again. I feel like this is one of the best conversations I've had about what it really takes to be a leader of anybody that I've talked to. So.

Bosky Mukherjee [01:13:58]:
You're amazing. Thank you for everything that you do. And I can't wait to watch this.

Diana Alt [01:14:02]:
All right, me either.