Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Former Deloitte Consulting CEO Janet Foutty

I recently interviewed Janet Foutty on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today was the leader of a $10 billion business as the first female CEO of Deloitte Consulting. Janet Foutty is currently the executive chair of Deloitte, U.S., the largest professional services company in America, and is the author of the new book, Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership. Janet, thank you for joining us.

Janet: Thank you so much, Adam. It is great to be here with you today.

Adam: It's great to have you on. You grew up in Washington, D.C. as the child of a scientist and an artist. You did your undergrad and your MBA at Indiana University before going to work for Deloitte. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What were the key experiences and lessons that were instrumental to your worldview and to the trajectory of your success?

Janet: Thank you for starting on the personal side. I think it's really important to talk about, sort of, how I was raised because it's such an influence. And they say business equal parts are in science. And as you've highlighted, I absolutely grew up in a family that had a lot of both of those through really different lenses. My parents challenged me to ask thoughtful questions, give very honest feedback, and clearly pay, sort of, careful attention to the world around me. That was, sort of, the centerpiece of our dining room table conversations, which were really lively. But I think it's important to recognize my parents actually didn't start out as artists and scientists. As, sort of, early members in their respective families, immigrant families actually go to college, they were pushed aggressively to achieve very high academic standards and into certain fields. And it wasn't until they both finished their PhDs in those fields that they realized that they actually didn't like their area of study. So, they really challenged my sister and I to follow our passions. The problem for me was, I had no idea what my passion was. It certainly wasn't business. I didn't really even know what business was. I actually, I really thought that business might be selling vacuum cleaners door to door because that had been my exposure as a child. That certainly didn't seem like an area of passion. But I've really become a believer that it's okay to let your passion find you. And I really learned that, again, at the dining room table. So that's, sort of, what formed me. I guess the last thing I would say on the personal development front that I learned from my parents is, continue to reinvent yourself. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of very different things over the course of my career, and meet people whose viewpoints are clearly different from my own, and really shaped me into the leader I am today. So those are a few things in my earlier days that really shaped who I am. And what brings me to this conversation today,

Adam: Janet, for better or worse, we could spend the entire conversation just diving into each three of those points. So I'll start with one of them, finding your passion. How can anyone listen to this podcast find their passion?

Janet: That's a great, great question, Adam. I think for some people, they know from a really early age the things that give them energy, and they match up really well to logical careers. And so, I have lots of friends and colleagues who've been super clear about that for their entire life. For me, and the advice that I give for people who are grappling with that is, it is really about focusing on what gives you energy and figuring out how and what, frankly, maybe not even careers, but roles within careers, can give you that energy. So for me, the things that give me energy are building teams, really complex problem solving, the ability to move from topic to topic, and writing. Those are things that give me energy. So I've tried to, sort of, create and craft the roles and what you could do in 1000 careers with those things. And so, I've been mostly focused on encouraging people to think about really being deliberate about figuring out the things that give you energy and looking for opportunities and or shaping opportunities so that they can help you do the things that give you energy.

Adam: I love that. And something that I think about all the time is jobs that I've had in my life. When, by one o'clock in the afternoon, I felt completely drained. Not completely drained from doing nothing, but completely drained from not being passionate about my work, not being passionate about the mission of my work, not feeling like I was doing what I was meant to do. And on the flip side, when you're doing what you feel like you're meant to do, when you're doing what you're passionate about, you could wake up first thing in the morning, you could work until you have absolutely no energy left, and you just pass out. And you're so excited to do it the next day. So it's not about the amount of time you put in. It's not about the amount of natural energy you have that you're born with. It's a matter of aligning what you love to do with what you actually do.

Janet: Yeah, so do I. I think you and I have that same shared lived experience. The thing that I try to use as a test for myself is over the course of a couple of weeks. If I reach, I'll just pull on your one o'clock in the afternoon thread, in the course of a couple of weeks, and maybe stretch it to three or four. If I'm hitting that one o'clock point and things are not where my energy level is not where it should be, then I know something's wrong. And I need to either change the way with which I'm going about doing my work or find something different to do.

Adam: I could not agree with you more. And to listeners, it's not a matter of taking an extra red ball. It's not a matter of taking an extra supplement. It's a matter of finding something that you love, finding something that you're good at, and finding something that allows you to make a positive impact in the world. And if you can check all three of those boxes, that's it. You have it, you found it, it doesn't feel like work.

Janet: And Red Bull is really not my drink of choice. So that's a good thing. I don't need that to do my job.

Adam: Full disclosure, I've actually never had a Red Bull in my life. My drink of choice is a protein shake. But that's neither here nor there.

Janet: Very boring. And occasional Diet Coke, if I need that extra tiny energy boost.

Adam: You mentioned reinvention and you've worn so many different hats over the course of your career. What were the keys to rising within your career? What were the keys to reinventing yourself throughout your career? And what advice do you have for listeners on how they can rise and when necessary or when it feels right, change course.

Janet: So let me maybe start by just, sort of, spinning you quickly through the chapters of my career and what I've taken away from each chapter because writing this book actually gave me some time to think and reflect on that. So, I spent my formative years, well, I've always been in professional services as you highlighted in your gracious opening, but I spent my formative years on Wall Street. And the role when I really refined in my years there was becoming a translator. So I got really good at how to articulate really complex technology issues into the language that business people would grasp and business strategy in terms that technology people could understand. And today, by the way, I hope that most business people think of themselves as technology people and vice versa. But in those days, it was quite different. And I came to appreciate that I had this really strong skill as a translator, and was able to frame complex issues in ways that people could understand. That knowledge then helped propel me to lead our technology practice. Now I am not a technologist by background by any stretch of the imagination. But my ability to really listen carefully and to help connect the dots really helped elevate our practice to become what it is today. We launched Light Digital, which is a marquee flagship practice for us there. And that was really, for me, all about not only translating but listening and creating shared purpose from an organization. Probably the most pivotal moment in my career was actually next, I took a very sharp left turn and went to lead Deloitte federal government business, quite different from my early days on Wall Street. And maybe one of the lessons here was to think about taking a leap from Wall Street to the federal government. It is a big leap and a big change. There, I was really focused on operational and financial success, and I had the opportunity to create a true culture of accountability. And that was all good. But why it was so pivotal was this business was really, really new to me. Aside from growing up in Washington, D.C., thinking about how the government ran was not something I'd focus my time on. And it was the first time I wasn't relying on my own expertise to solve problems. I couldn't just muscle my way through something because of my own experience and expertise. I had to build a team that really complimented me and create a vision in a topic that I did not know as much about. And that really was incredibly formative for me as a leader. Then you flash forward, I spent a number of years as a CEO of Deloitte Consulting. And that was about leading change to our operating models, to talent models, to go-to-market strategies. And, at the end of the day, actually getting people comfortable with being uncomfortable and with change. As my 20-something daughter says, “Mom, yogis invented being comfortable with getting uncomfortable many, many, many 1000s of years ago”. But I still borrow the phrase for sure. And that brings me to today as an executive chair. And I've really been able to take all of those experiences, ones where diverse voices are heard and valued, where dissent is considered integral to the process, where we're focused with a management team on shared solutions and supporting them for success. So, those are my chapters. Maybe the takeaways from those and I'm sure you'll have your own Adam, as you connect those dots, were about pushing myself into things that I was not necessarily comfortable or confident doing. To figure out how to build really strong teams and to build a shared vision together. And, sort of, a level of adaptability that when I started my career, I certainly did not understand or appreciate would come to be a strength.

Adam: As I was listening to you talk about how you went from point A to point B to point C, the lesson that emerged to me is not being afraid of pushing your comfort zone. Being not only willing to challenge yourself, not only being willing to push your comfort zone, but being eager to push your comfort zone, being eager to go out and take chances understanding that growth comes not by doing things that you know you can do, but by taking chances are by being willing to go out and extend yourself. Another thing that I love is when you talk about your daughter telling you that, hey, Mom, what you think you know, the yogis have been talking about this stuff for a lot longer than management consultants have been talking about it. In reality, the core principles of effective leadership are universal. And what it takes to lead in the boardroom, is no different than what it takes to lead on the basketball court, what it takes to lead in the military, no different than what it takes to lead a multimillion-dollar business or a mom and pop business. And one of those principles is the importance of being flexible in how you lead. And to that end, I want to know if you could share with listeners, in your experience, what are the key characteristics of a great leader? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Janet: So we've talked about a couple of the themes already today that I believe are critical to leadership. I will start with listening because I really, deeply believe it's a little cliché at this point to say that, but the business topics that leaders and executives are facing today, there is no way that any of us are smart enough to solve the complexity of issues that face any business, team, department, division. So, this idea that you can listen and learn from those around you to co-create solutions for the topics that are in front of us, I would put that sort of at the top of the list. The second thing for me, which we haven't actually talked too much about, is building a team. And I'm not at all confused that the reason that I have the privilege to be here with you today is that one of the things I'm good at is building a team of people who both compliment me, which I talked about a little bit earlier, but are often much smarter, more articulate, more thoughtful than me. And the reason that I've been able to build that kind of team is that I've always started with a mindset of understanding what's important to the people on my team, to building a relationship where they know that I will walk over glass for them. And they then internally are willing to walk over glass for me. I can't emphasize enough how important I believe the level of commitment to the people on your team is and how much that will have them perform heroics on behalf of whatever mission you're trying to accomplish, to your point, by the way, whether that is a military, mom and pop, or leading a large organization or a small team. So those are two things that are at the very top of my list of things and we could spend the rest of our time delving into other dimensions. But those are two things that I think are certainly critical to my own leadership, evolution, and might have evolved on those. And maybe I'm going to throw in a third, which is communication. I talked about the fact that I like to write. I did actually not start as a strong writer. It was actually something I hadn't spent a lot of time focused on early in my career. But I found that preparation in writing and preparation in the myriad of conversations that each of us face every day and not being scared about preparing to communicate. Whether that's in writing and/or verbally, whether that's sitting in a podcast today with you, Adam, whether that's presenting to 1000s of people, whether that's in a really tough one-on-one conversation to give someone feedback. That's the third thing I would say is communication and preparing well for the communications that are in front of you. 

Adam: Great leaders are great listeners. Great leaders are great communicators. Lead by example and build trust. The way to build trust is through your own actions and by showing people around you that you're the real deal. How can anyone listening to this conversation become a better communicator?

Janet: I do think that practice, and it sounds so boring and mundane, but practice and discipline, I think, are the keys to becoming better communicators. Early in my career, I said I hadn't paid much attention to writing. And I had a document that I prepared for a client that one of my teammates looked at very late the night before we were going to present it. And let's just say it was a very, very, very long evening. And I was not alone because the content wasn't good. It was a long evening because it wasn't well written. And I took that moment. And it sounds so funny now. So, any of your listeners younger than my more advanced age will crack up. I took a writing correspondence course, where you mail back and forth writing samples into an executive writing coach, so to speak. And I literally remember putting the pages in the envelopes. So I would encourage people if you have not spent a lot of time writing, to use the myriad of resources out there that are available to become stronger writers and to not be afraid of that. I encourage students, I spend a lot of time on business school campuses, I encourage students in business school and undergrad to always be the one that volunteers to speak or write in your case group, in your classroom, in your fraternity or sorority. That obviously applies well to the business community. I encourage our young people to always be the one because it is about practice and discipline and learning. I am having total flashbacks about that correspondence course, which, by the way, cracks me up when I think about it now. I was like, “Wow, I'm really not good at this. I really have to figure out how to get better at this”. 

Adam: What's interesting to me is, I would say, once a week, once every two weeks I come across someone who says to me, “I can't believe you actually enjoy speaking publicly. I can't believe that that's something that you do. And that's something that you enjoy doing, because I'm terrible at public speaking”. And I follow up with, “Well, do you speak publicly? Is that something that you do? What makes you bad at it?”. And I try to probe a little bit and they say, “Well, no. I don't do it. I've never done it before. But I'm just so afraid of doing it”. And I follow up with, “How do you know you're bad at it if you've never actually gone out and tried it”. And to your point about writing, I think that a lot of people might actually be very talented writers but have never thought of themselves as writers. They've never thought of themselves as having that skill or might not even realize just how important strong writing skills are to being effective up and down the ladder in the world of business. And the first step is going out there and doing it and trying it and putting yourself out there. Whether it's speaking to an audience, whether it's putting pen to paper, and you might actually be really good at it. If you're not that great at it, get better at it. But you're not gonna get better at it and you're not going to know if you're any good at it until you start trying.

Janet: On speaking, I think speaking more than writing feels really personal and really exposed. And I really do like your challenge of how can you know you're not good at it if you haven't tried it. If you're the person that raises your hand to present in whatever setting you find yourself in, whatever chapter you're in. I think the other thing I would encourage people to do is practice. Especially if you're in a topic that is one you're not so steeped in. And rehearsals matter. So to me, rehearsals matter and getting feedback matters. Getting feedback on public speaking is one of the toughest things, I think, to take. And sometimes it takes a lot of guts to have the courage to get that feedback. Videotaping to me, which I still do if I have a big presentation, is one of the worst things in the universe to do is to watch myself on videotape. But I forced myself to do it because I absolutely know, Adam, that it makes me better at it and makes me a more effective communicator. And the only reason that being a good communicator matters is you want your ideas to be heard. And you want to get feedback on those ideas. And the ability to articulate your ideas crisply, in a myriad of settings is, I think, sort of, sits at the top of the list for me.

Adam: To discuss your new book, Arrive and Thrive: 7 Impactful Practices for Women Navigating Leadership. What advice do you have, specifically for women, on how to become better leaders? And what advice do you have for men on how to become better allies?

Janet: For women to become better leaders, if I had to boil it down to one piece of advice, I would say that it is getting comfortable that you don't have to have all the answers. I think women in particular, and this is a ridiculously broad generalization, feel that if they don't know everything about a situation, every detail, are so accomplished and clear that they can shy away from leaning into the conversation, taking the next role in it. You find it in these myriad of situations, that women don't always carry the confidence that men do. And so, it is getting comfortable and building confidence that you don't have to know everything to be in the mix. I find that men and women can be great. So, by the way, for women to get better at that, you have to kind of put yourself out there and create a cohort of people who you can trust to say, I’m thinking about this, but I'm nervous about it. What do you think? And then you can get the pushback to say, of course, you should be in the mix. To lean into that conversation, to position yourself for that role to give that feedback. And that, I think, creates the perfect opportunity for men to be allies. Because whether you are a colleague, a friend, a boss, a subordinate, in a world with women your ability to actually know that about women, that they are often less confident, and to help them create that confidence. In my mind, that is at the top of the list of things that men can do as allies to help women be more effective and more successful and thrive in the roles that they're in. And I really do believe that women being successful and thriving creates better opportunities and outcomes.

Adam: And for everybody, which is a key message of your book, the importance of inclusive leadership, which is something that I could not agree with more. You mentioned early on in our conversation one of the keys to your success at Deloitte is focusing on building a culture around diversity and inclusion. And I wanted to know if you could share with listeners, what in your view are the keys to building a truly diverse and truly inclusive organizational culture?

Janet: So first, I'll start by saying that though someone who has always cared a lot about the topic, my own evolution and journey on this topic has been significant, both at the midpoint of my career because when I started my career, I was on Wall Street in technology. The last thing I was thinking about, I truly did not think about the fact that in most rooms I walked into, I was one of very few, if only, women. I was focused on doing my work and being with my clients. So I had a big learning, sort of, at the midpoint of my career in and around how to help and how to start thinking about diversity. And that is how important creating diverse teams is. But the learning that I've had more recently has actually been around equity. And that's been a very meaningful learning, for me and for organization. The recognition that the playing field that we all certainly live in, in the communities and the environments where we live and work, are not fundamentally equitable. And that we might have to do things that feel quite different to us culturally to create more equity. And I have come to the place that I believe unless we have equity, we are not going to have diverse and inclusive workplaces that we've actually been talking about for a really long time. And that's a very big mindset shift. And I started to use the language that I've been trying to challenge orthodoxies within our own organization, in my own thinking, to really look for the places where an environment that's egalitarian, which is really how I thought about my own, sort of, world. You get there and you show up, you have equal opportunity. Realizing that the playing field is so different depends on where you were raised, what you had to do to get through school, how you show up in the workplace. That there are many ways we can have a whole nother conversation, Adam, around the orthodoxies that live and create an equitable environment. But that's what I've really been trying to focus on is breaking down those things that can create equity, which then can create the space for diversity. And at the end of the day, what we all want, which is an inclusive environment for everyone to be heard, and their ideas welcome. And they can be themselves in the work and corporate environment.

Adam: When you were leading Deloitte Consulting, you were not only leading a $10 billion business, but you were leading a life as a wife, as a mom. And as someone who was dedicated to many passions and pursuits outside of work, health fitness, I don't know if listeners know this about you, but you're a big Chicago Cubs fan.

Janet: I know you hold that a little against me, but well, we'll let it go for now.

Adam: You know, there are other teams you could root for that I would really hold against you. I'm kind of neutral to the Cubs. What were the keys to managing your time, managing your priorities, managing your focus, managing everything, and being able to excel, inside of work and outside of work at the same time.

Janet: So, I really appreciate you bringing on family into the conversation. We started talking about, sort of, family growing up. My family, both the family I was born into, the family I've had the privilege to create, and the incredible opportunity to create, are the absolute centers of my universe. And there's absolutely no doubt about any of that. But I think that it's really hard to give advice on how to make that all work. And it's one of the things I've tried to myth bust for a number of years. Because the way with which I've organized and orchestrated, by the way, that's making it sound much more organized and orchestrated than it is, is incredibly personal. And I've had some big learnings and have stripped away a lot of judgment as I've tried to navigate the twists and turns of my personal life. The judgment of choices that others have made because of the way I was raised, the type of family that my husband and I have tried to create, the decisions and choices that we've made are very different from the decisions and choices that others have made. And for me, it was really freeing to actually realize that and I think it's actually made me a much, much better leader to actually realize that because it is so incredibly personal. But with that as a backdrop, I'm really, really good at compartmentalizing. I'm really good at setting technology aside. When my kids were little, my phone was in my bag until my kids were in bed, full stop. When I get home from work, if I was working locally, I was able to create the discipline to do that. So, when I was there with my kids when they were little and even today, they know they have my undivided attention when I'm with them. On the fitness front, I figured out early in my career after some mishaps that if I could get myself out of bed early, without getting into my email and text messages and news of the day, getting my workout in before my day started. That's the only way it was going to happen. And that time and space, by the way, I'm not a morning person by nature, so in case you might have thought that I am, I’m not. But being physically fit does give me energy. And for me, that has to happen early in the morning before my day starts and that is before, well, now that my children are young adults I do look for text messages from them before I start my day, but everything else stays, sort of, parked until I'm done working out and out of the shower. So it is all about figuring out the routines that work for you and how to compartmentalize dimensions of your life, whether it's fitness, family, work, and then also looking for times to bring them together. And I really look for opportunities to do that too. And maybe I'll close on that note that one of the things I've been trying to do is to think about how to create more opportunities for people in my work life to spend time together outside of happy hours. And I'll just use that as an example. And so, I spent a lot of time looking for creative ways for my teams, if we're off-site, to go on a hike together, or to go spend time doing different things together. And that's the way I try to also bring my personal and professional lives into some intersection.

Adam: A quick follow-up on that, what advice do you have for leaders at companies trying to figure out how can I build a stronger, more cohesive, happier, healthier culture? How can I get my employees to live a happier and healthier life and marry the two, the personal and the professional, within my organization? Any quick tips that you have for anyone listening?

Janet: I think at the top of the list is a webinar about authenticity today, which I'm surprised we got this far and I have not brought that up. But I do think leading by example is absolutely one and being comfortable and confident to demonstrate that. And I'll tell you, it took me a while to get comfortable and competent, demonstrating the decisions I was making about my personal life and my own choices. And so, I've worked very deliberately to share those. Because I do think that if you can see it, you can be it, which is a little bit trite phrase, but I still like it. If you're in a large organization, figuring out how to create, and actually in a small organization as well. How do you create leaders in space and benefits that encourage healthy habits? One of my predecessors created a role called a chief well-being officer. And that has been, and it was not someone who was very senior in the organization, but she had real passion for how we think as an organization about well-being in the intersection of health and well-being and work. And she has done wonders for our organization and helped us shape those conversations. So those are two things I think about.

Adam: And, I think, a really important message that you have for listeners, which is something that I am 1,000% behind, is prioritizing your health and prioritizing the health of everyone on your team and everyone in your organization.

Janet: At one point in my career I had to create a set of leadership principles and I had to write them down. And that was a very humbling exercise, by the way, because some of my very good friends are like, yeah, no, you don't really lead that way. You really do lead that way. But one that is stuck in the bullseye of that is your and your team's health and well-being and your families is the number one priority. If you don't focus on it, everything else falls apart. So that is one for me for sure.

Adam: And I think for anyone listening it extends to mental health as well.

Janet: The evolution in our organization of that conversation, it's been really fascinating to watch our chief well-being officer in her early days. She was an athlete by background, she was very focused on physical fitness. And then she migrated into health and well-being in and around eating food and sleep. And I feel so fortunate to have her because she's really pushed all of our thinking and mind in particular in and around mental health and mental well-being and the intersection of all those topics. So, Adam, I think that point is very well made.

Adam: Janet, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Janet: I love that question. I think that finding the right balance of competence and listening and having confidence that you should have a point-of-view. And that point-of-view can be a strong point of view. But always listening and sort of signaling the feedback and sounds around you to be willing to adjust that point-of-view as you learn from others around you.

Adam: Janet, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Janet: It was truly my privilege and pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation. And thanks for having me.

Adam: The privilege and pleasure was mine.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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