Letting Go to Grow
Knowing and Seeing the Potential of Others
BY JENNIFER BEYER
Success is a delicately created creature. It takes a blend of different elements at different times, and you soon come to realize success is often situational; based on timing, talent, circumstance, and most importantly the people surrounding you.
This success story and leadership lesson is dedicated to the actions of a tenaciously, brilliant leader, who diligently focused on her people – Doreen Studley, Marketing Wizard for Cox Communications.
First off, Cox Communications was the type of company that invested in education and enablement for their employees. There was an entire floor dedicated to professional development and training. The process was formal with testing procedures and proper gating protocols to ensure you systematically moved through your growth plan, not skipping steps, ensuring you were empowered with skills to be successful in your role, giving you the confidence to go beyond and grow into other more advanced roles.
When I began my journey at Cox, I was a Broadband Analyst at the advent of broadband. I learned how to design broadband routers, nodes, and calculate network capacity. My business, mathematics, and marketing education were complemented with work projects that focused on consumer behavior, brand, advertising, segmentation methods, and go-to-market strategies. After spending years learning the business, I was later given the opportunity to envision and create the company’s first Marketing Sciences division.
The leadership team invested in my development and the company paid for my graduate degree as I continued to garner more responsibility through hard work, perseverance, and collaboration.
During this time, Doreen was the head of the marketing department and was always there coaching and directing her team. She was consistently up to date with competitive offerings and strategies. She was extraordinarily adaptable and expected nothing less from her team. Every morning she’d walk into the office with newspaper in hand, her team on “the ready” for whatever was going to come next.
Doreen was brilliant. She consistently asked what needed to be done, focused on what was right for the organization, played an active role in developing action plans, took responsibility for facilitating discussions, and made sure everyone in the organization felt responsible and accountable.
Much of my success and the success of others I’ve mentored is tied directly to Doreen’s dedication to ensuring I knew I was capable.
But along came another opportunity at Fidelity Investments – a chance to grow my experience. I was conflicted about the transition and there were many who tried to convince me to stay and not go to Fidelity.
However, Doreen had other plans. She took me out to lunch one day and point blank told me “I cannot give you what Fidelity can.” You have a tremendous opportunity to do amazing things and take your career to the next level, taking all that you learned and experienced here at Cox.” And with that one statement, I felt the freedom to step out and run towards my next adventure.
Doreen made a sacrifice that day. She decided that letting me go to grow my repertoire was in alignment with my highest potential.
It is easy to try to hold onto people, especially if you have invested in them.
To hold on is a selfish act and Doreen was anything but selfish. In my own career I have had similar conversations and have followed Doreen’s example of care and kindness in leadership.
Key Elements Important for You on Your Journey:
- You must believe you are extraordinary.
- Management is largely by example. Getting the right things done is what you are paid for.
- Do what is right for each team member, put them first, and don’t stall their growth by being selfish to an organizational goal.
