Caroline Wanga on the Career Path No One Tells You About | from Hello Monday

Hey, Work Lifers, I'm bringing you something special today that I think you're going to love. My friend, Jessi Hempel, hosts a podcast called Hello Monday. It's one of my favorites, and if you don't already listen, you should. What I love about her show is how wide she casts the net. Leaders, authors, thinkers all circling the same question. What does work actually mean to us? This episode featuring Caroline Wanga, president and CEO of Essence Ventures, tells the story of how she figured out what kind of career she actually wanted and how she knew when it was time to make a move. It's the kind of conversation where someone's specific experience ends up feeling really universal. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. And if you want more, you can find Hello Monday wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by Study.com. Life can be messy and complicated, and it can be hard to work towards finishing your college degree when other responsibilities get in the way. 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Are you in a place where you know what you want to do next or you don't? If you don't, play with the map. That's how it works. And I will probably have a career map for the rest of my life, but I will probably have 682 of them. From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jesse Hempel, and this is Hello Monday. It's our show about work on our own terms. And if you found yourself here today, my guess is that you are in the middle of the question that so many of us are asking ourselves, what am I supposed to do next? I mean, what's my next right move? Be it here, somewhere else. How do I make the money I need? How do I live according to the purpose that I want? What do I even like to do? Maybe you're not sure anymore. Well, today's episode is for you. Our guest is Caroline Wanga. Caroline is the president and CEO of Essence Ventures, the premier media company dedicated to Black women. She got her start as an intern at Target. And during the 15 years that she worked there, she rose to the C-suite before she left in 2020 to join Essence. She also has a company, Wanga Woman, that is dedicated to democratizing authenticity. And we'll get into what that means. Her new memoir is called, I'm Highly Percent Sure. It's an ode to exactly this. Now, if you're watching our episode today, you'll see that we filmed this episode in our premium conversation studio a couple of weeks ago. This conversation was released in full long form for our premium members. And if you didn't happen to catch it, then you can go back and find the full conversation. The link will be in the show notes. It's worth upgrading to premium just to hear it. Now, without further ado, here's Caroline Wanga. I'm one of those people who really didn't know what they wanted to be when they grow up. Like I had, I didn't have a path I was pursuing. I went to college out of order. And so by the time I got what would end up being a career at Target, because I started as an intern and ended up going to Target. It was literally like, I know the brand. They sell cool stuff. What do I want to do here? Like I literally didn't know. I'd been offered a job as an operations leader and I just like, I just didn't have anything that was important. I did business, so it was flexible. So I had a great... And you were young, right? I mean, well, I was, it was right. I was in my last, they hired me the, right before my last semester. I was a December grad. I did four years of school in two and a half years. It was a whole different, that's an unhealthy choice. But, um, so I, while we were done, I started as a group leader, but I hadn't decided I wanted to be in supply chain and anywhere else. And so I had a great first boss and his guidance to me was, well, then why don't you design a map that gets you through a couple of experiences that are core experiences people who work at Target could have to help you decide? So my first map was, what are some core things Target does that I need to try so that I know which ones I like and don't and then can go from there. And so it was really... I'm just going to stop you because I want to make sure we don't rush past this before people really get the nuances here. Right? Because I think that experience that you talk about right there as a young person is so relatable. That moment when you're like, yeah, I'll design the path, but like, what do I want to be anyways? How do I know? And so you took that question, how do I know? And you gave it structure, right? People gave it structure. And the reason I'm giving you that clarity is because I don't, you know, one of my passions is I want you to know the story as it happened, not as you want it remembered. I literally was simply in the question, I have no idea what I want to do here. A mentor type capacity person is who helped me solve for the fact that I didn't know what I wanted to do, right? And you will see that my career is riddled with relationships that took ownership of asking the question. Cause I wasn't going to say, I don't know what I'm going to do here because I'd have been fired, right? Like that's what I thought. So for the person who go, well, what do you want to do? And I'm like, I don't know. Well, how do you feel about not knowing? I don't know how I feel about not knowing. And so it is about somebody that tapped in that I trusted to just stay with me a little bit longer. And instead of giving me what I expected to be the guilt and burden of not knowing gave me a non-threatening, in my opinion, way to live in that question and not feel pressured, but still at least both optically and strategically see if Target was the place for me. And I think that that was the beginnings of my leadership principles were built in a room where somebody took time to ask just one more question and help me through that ambiguous period a lot of us go through when I was scared to say I didn't know, which would have led me to pretend to like stuff that I probably didn't like. Well, so let me ask you, do you have any advice for folks who may be thinking, well, I want to try to design some experiences to figure this out? I do have advice for them. And the first thing that I would say is give yourself some grace. I think we've all heard these stories of people who go, I didn't know what I wanted to major in college. Don't let the smooth taste fool you, right? Like, it's just, you are in a season of your life multiple times through your life where you just don't know. And so my first, my first piece of guidance would be, you will never always know. Like, don't let That first one. The first thing was, where do I currently work? And what are the core things that if you're going to work here, could probably be a part of what you do? And again, that's why I gave the example of Target. It's a retailer. I should know if I want to manage hourly teams, whether it be in supply chain or stores. Because eventually, that's going to be my job if I want to work at a retailer. Don't try to make it up to something that the place is not. Number two, what do you hope to learn? So if you were to look at my map, I still have it because I doodled in a conference where I was bored. But the point is, if you looked at my map visually, it would say at the top for one of the experiences, lead hourly team. Underneath it, you would see three statements. Those three statements were my pre-commitment with people who I had relationships with to help me develop it that said, here's what I want to get out of that experience. Not here's how long I want to be in that job. Not here's what I want to do. It was, I am going to have this hourly experience. So one, I'll figure out if I want to keep being at Target 2.3. And what that does for you is that it tells you when the experience is done, whether you like it or not. You can stay after you've hit those marks. But the point of those three points is that at the point that you have found those three things in the experience, you should be at the place where you're ready to say the strategic yes or thoughtful no. The thoughtful no goes, tried it, don't like it, thank you. The strategic yes goes, ooh, curious. Let me keep going. That's all it does. And so I did that for every one of the experiences. And then all I did with it, and this is the part that I think a lot of people get stuck. At the top of this first map was a question mark, remember? Right? Yeah. And my commitment was, these four things are getting me up there. Now, how do those things correlate? Every person I met with, if it wasn't like a business metrics meeting where we're talking about our operational performance and it was a mentorship conversation or just a get to know you with the very special people that come and have big titles at headquarters or coming by and you should show yourself off, nobody left a conversation with me without seeing that map. And that is difficult for people because it is, it makes you very vulnerable. Yes. Do I have the political clout to do it? Right? And that's why I said, step outside of your operational routine meetings. I'm not talking about where you're talking about the metrics. I'm talking about all of those practices that happen as you network within a company. With all due respect, Caroline, you're you. You strike me as a person who might be willing to say, here's my map. Nope. I'm not that person, but I was in a company where they do that. And again, I am not saying that to dismiss the fact that it's uncomfortable. I'm telling you that it's not because of my personality that it was comfortable. I had done the work to go, what is this place I work? And that's why I said it earlier. Like you got to know where you are. It's not bad to be somewhere where you don't, but like part of what we're talking about here, Jessie, is people are giving away too much agency on what they can impact in their career. I'm not saying everything is within your control, but there are things within your control that are safe and non-threatening to do, but maybe non-traditional that will help you figure out what it looks like. And that's the story you're hearing. And here's why I say that. I worked in a company at Target at the time that had leadership development as a priority. Research where you work, right? And so because it had leadership development as a priority, it was okay conversation to be talking about what you wanted to do next or what your strengths and weaknesses are, what did you want it to eventually be. Right. So there was an environment that didn't make it uncomfortable to talk about your growing. However, the people I was sharing that map with, some of them might've been surprised people who showed up, but again, that's where the people who I had mentoring relationships with are like, Hey, Tim's coming down. Your butt is going to that meeting. You just need to be in that room. I'll tell you why later. But the majority of it was meeting with my boss's peers in the building. Every time I did it, what I was saying to them is, I know that because of where I am on the hierarchy of the company, entry-level leader, you guys are constantly talking about if I'm a fit. You have these talent meetings over in room 211 where I'm just looking through the glass to see if I'm gonna get that next job, right? Like we know the routines that happen. My only request was when you sit in a room and my name is brought up, whether you're my boss or not, and you start to hear them talk about things I do well, things I need to work on, or you start to hear them talk about, Ooh, we want to invest in Caroline, or we don't want to invest in Caroline. Right? Whatever that. When you are in that room, here's what I need you to be for me, person A, B, and C, beyond my boss. My boss is going to be for me. I need you to be the person that comes back to me and says, okay, here's what you have support for. What is your view about building a personal brand and how do you connect this to your concept of a career map? Two things. First thing is my perspective on personal brand. I'm going to give my answer with a reframe of the question, which is I don't work on personal brand. I work on personal purpose, but I wasn't always that enlightened. So I understand the question. And here's why I share it to you. Part of what we have earned permission to do in this season of the general workplace, right? In time's chronology, I need people to stop trying to be something for work and something for life. Right? And I know why that's been important to survival in the past. Right? And so I give that because I only hear the personal brand question when I'm listening to people talk about their professional life, their job, what they do, whether you're an entrepreneur or not. I don't hear anybody talk about personal brand when they're talking about themselves. Like the personal brand of what you're shopping at the grocery store. Do you worry about the personal brand for that? But I think what's been missed in there, there wasn't adequate communication that we had moved out of this era where you need to build this toolkit about who you are internally for work. And then you have this other toolkit for life. You will lose if you keep those things separate. The modern workplace, the modern world no longer accommodates that, but it forgot to tell you. It forgot because now you're hearing companies say, bring your authentic self to work. Well, you want 50% because I'm not bringing the, right? And it's not people's fault. It's the workplace shifted in what it started to say it wanted people to show up with without giving them a map about what's different. So my first thing would be, if you are trying to answer the question of your personal brand, I would offer to expand the question to your personal purpose. And then how does that show up when you are working? How does that show up when you are living? How does that show up when you are growing? Right. And I say it that way, because it also, and there's an exercise I talk to people about. The question about personal purpose will automatically take you to what your natural giftings are and strengths and will face you with the things you're not good at. And your job is going to be, stop trying to be good at the things you're not good at and spend 90% of your time doing things in your natural strengths, people, because you will only be a C if you focus your energy on what you're not good at. I fully recognize that the corporate environment teaches you to focus on being better because it's afraid to say, I'm not good at that. If it's something the company values. But I would say if you choose to go that path, then don't be mad that you're on the hamster wheel. You chose the hamster wheel. The gain will be much more magnified and you will feel a whole lot more grounded in who you are because your personal brand doesn't matter if you know your personal purpose. I don't want to not ask you about failure because you have this conviction that we can turn failure into our competitive advantage. And it doesn't always feel like that to me. So I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that. First of all, I am an Olympic level failure. Let's be really clear about this. And I share that with you because I think it's, I think we've got to change the narrative that was given to us that failure is something you try to avoid. If you happen to stumble upon it, please resolve it before anybody finds out and you better hope nobody saw and doesn't bring it up tomorrow. This episode is brought to you by National Business Furniture. You can find them at nbf.com. What your workspace looks like says a lot about the way you work and can make a big difference when it comes to productivity. The truth is our surroundings can impact how we think, how we feel, and who we become while we're in them. Your workspace can affect engagement, productivity, and maybe even retention. That's why getting your workspace right matters. It's proof that you value your team. National Business Furniture believes that every business deserves furniture that lasts, service that More question for you here from Paul Cotton in Texas who asks, he wants to return to career mapping. Does a map apply to older senior execs wishing to transition into new types of roles? Yes, yes. Here's why I answered that before you finished the question. You did. I've had four career maps. So the first one was, I don't know what I want to be. The second one was, I want to be that. How do I get there? The third one is, what the hell am I supposed to do now? That map became about, I think I like this work because it touches my nonprofit background. What does doing this work for the rest of my life look like, even if it's not a target? Because I still got to pay her college bill. And so that third map was, what do people who work in DEI do beyond have DEI roles and companies? I found out people, they write books, they go start consulting, they do all of that. So I started to play with this idea of, if I finish DEI, if I love DEI, I want to do it at other companies or whatever would that look like, that was the third map. The fourth map, is active right now at Essence. And I share that because I have never said that the career maps are proprietary to a particular life stage. But because of the type As that are around me all the time, they always hear this idea of you only do one and you only do it once. What I'm sharing with you and why I could answer the question regardless of what your personal demographics are, every time I was sitting in a curiosity or a moment related to what I wanted to do next, the first thing I did was see what kind of map it needs to be. And what kind of map it needs to be was defined by what is the box at the top I'm trying to solve for. So forget your age, focus on where you are in your professional career. Are you in a place where you know what you want to do next or you don't? If you don't, play with a map. That's how it works. And I will probably have a career map for the rest of my life, but I will probably have 682 of them. But it's become the exercise that has always given the right strategic thought and action to continuing to advance in my career, especially being a girl who's never been qualified for any job she's had on paper. Okay, I love everything about that answer. This question comes from Maxine Gray. She's here with us in the US. Thank you, Maxine, for this question. Hi, Maxine. She says, what rules have you rewritten that were key to your personal and professional success? Was she planted? And why did they matter? Here's the answer to that. It's a simple answer. It's always a long one though with me. Here's the thing. I operate, and that's where the title of this book came from. I'm highly uncertain. There were only a couple things were non-negotiable and the title was one because I've had it in my head for years. I had to learn two voices. I had to learn what my intuition sounds like, and I had to learn what my inner saboteur sounds like. The reason I had to understand them was because my inner saboteur is a slithery, sophisticated, manipulative sound that capitalizes on everything I've done wrong in life, every speculation I have about what people don't like about me, what I don't like about myself, what might be the judgment I experienced. She is well-versed. She is ruthless. She is malicious. And she will attack at any point. And I had to get to know her voice and how it was different from my intuition because she sounds a lot like my intuition in tone. She doesn't in intent. And the reason I focus on my intuition is because that's the advice I was given when I went to go be a CEO because I'm a collaborative leader and I was told, You're going to be in a position for the first time where you're going to have to make a lot of decisions by yourself. So you better hone in on that intuition. So doing it for the job then turned and helped me benefit for it overall. And so I would say, acknowledge there's always going to be a negative voice that is you, that is going to use everything that it thinks you did wrong or has been manipulated. I'm not talking about the people outside. I'm saying you're talking to yourself and it is going to debilitate you. It is going to be the one that makes you believe you won't get promoted and all of these things. And it will stay the loudest, most influential voice in your journey until you learn the other one. Me learning my intuition did not prevent my inner saboteur from showing up. What it did was give me patience for her to run her course, gave me permission to study her habits so that I knew how long she stays, what's her typical stuff. You became a mom, you don't have a husband. Like she's got all these stuff she does all the time. People don't like you because you're too brash. I could endure and study her to be ready for her when I had another voice that was intuition that was giving me all kinds of the right type of insight focused on my strength and my purpose in life to go. So she may strike. Caroline, you've never been a CEO. What the hell do you get to be, say you're a CEO for? Nobody wanted you to be the CEO of Essence. That's inner saboteur. Intuition was like, you've never talked about roles before. Why are you doing it now? Right? So that is, that is what I would offer. But again, this book is all about that last question. It is about living with your intuition as your weapon that supports you, silencing your inner saboteur through the lens of knowing what she says, letting her run her course, and follow what your intuition says and let the people around you help you be there. And I promise you that you will thrive in a way that you didn't know, but most importantly, you will be surprised about how things that are really easy for you become game changing. And you're worried if they know you did it on the toilet. And that is a sign that you're working in your purpose. That was Caroline Wonga. She's co-founder of Wonga Woman. She's the president and CEO of Essence Ventures. And she's author of the new memoir, I'm Highly Present Sure. Such a great title. I love how unyielding Caroline is when it comes to character, right? She's someone who knows who she is. And she also understands that learning this, it didn't come overnight. I hope you heard in our conversation today a few practical ideas for how you can map out your own career, one that is authentic both to yourself and to your goals. We're going to get into all of this and so much more at Office Hours this week. And I hope you'll consider joining us, especially if you haven't before. We meet every Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. Eastern along with our senior producer, Sarah Storm. I will go live from the LinkedIn news page. There will be a link in the show notes or you can always find us by following me on LinkedIn. And if this episode gave you something new to think about, well, maybe it'll help someone you know. Text it to them right now. I'd really love you to. That's it for this week, but I will be right back here next Monday and I hope you will too. I'm Jessi Hempel. Thanks for listening. This episode is sponsored by Toyota. Independence is one of those words that sounds simple, but when you really think about it, it's deeply personal. 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