Leading Change with Confidence
- Kim Meninger
- Mar 18
- 27 min read
In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about confidently leading change. Are you responsible for leading change? Maybe your role requires a lot of influence without authority. Or you’re a leader who has to drive change with your team. If so, you know how challenging it can be to get people on board. This week, I talk with Sarena Diamond, a transformation executive, about how to manage the human side of change. Here she shares a 3-step process for approaching change in the face of resistance, which is almost always rooted in fear. We also talk about what to do when you’re leading change and you doubt yourself.
About My Guest
Sarena Diamond is a multi-dimensional transformation executive with hands-on expertise in Organizational Change Management, Program & Project Management, Communications, Facilitation, and Training. Throughout her career at Accenture, IBM, Pepsi Cola, Hyperion and Mellon Investor Services, she worked with globally and culturally diverse teams, leaders and stakeholders to deliver transformative outcomes. Her client base spans from Fortune 100 enterprises to PE-backed ventures across a wide array of industries and she has worked with countless leaders struggling to find confidence and comfort in their roles.
Sarena is a quick study of people, situations and organizational needs. She faces challenges with curiosity and confidence, brings positivity to seemingly insurmountable problems and is purpose-driven to help teams navigate change effectively. Sarena established Diamond Solutions Group with the goal of partnering with leaders to maximize their investment of time and resources in transformation, while inspiring their teams to achieve great outcomes. Along the way, those same leaders build their own skills, capabilities and confidence such that their inner voice supports achieving greatness and squelches Imposter Syndrome tendencies.
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome Sarena. It's so great to have you here today, and I would love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.
Sarena Diamond
Thank you so much for having me, Kim. I really appreciate it. And I'm Sarena Diamond. I am a independent consultant now, after a 30 plus year corporate career where I focused on business and technology transformation for a lot of years, and now I am focused exclusively on that organizational change side of transformation, the part that helps people overcome the resistance to change in some places, helps them to see the, you know, the outcomes, and I really focus on leaders and helping leaders to develop their own skills, but also the skills of their organization to embrace change and make change happen more simply.
Kim Meninger
And that's such an important area, especially these days, where change is probably the only constant in our lives. [So true.] I wonder, were you doing that kind of work when you were in your traditional corporate role, or was this a change for you?
Sarena Diamond
No, it was. I was doing it without it being called, typically organizational change. They used to forget about the organizational part. They just call it change management or better, they used to call it project or program management, basically somebody that can help to guide the direction and the trajectory. I at the end of my IBM career, I had been doing leadership activities, and there was only one time in my entire career that I had a leader of mine say to me, can you just keep it status-quo? Just focus on the operation. And I recognize that I look at everything just naturally through a transformation lens. I everything in my personal life, in my corporate life, I was always looking to make it better and not that, not that I, you know, it needed to be, but it was always relentlessly reinventing things that I needed to look at ways to make it smoother, faster. I used to, you know, I have spreadsheets for things in my personal life, I have, it's just, it's how I'm wired. So in my corporate career, while I didn't have those titles. I had leadership roles that were responsible for bringing people through projects and programs and initiatives that were transformative in nature and, and through that, I honed not just my own skills in helping bring people through change but also my love for it. And so now, the first when I went out on my own, almost three years ago, I only focused on doing projects and helping leaders sort of be their right hand to do just that. What I discovered through doing that was I know how to make change happen, and I eventually am going to leave, and I don't want to have my me coming to an organization, you know, help them do something, as opposed to learn to do something, so that whole feed a fish, or teacher fish or whatever, whatever. But really, I so now I focus exclusively on being the hands-on, not the, not the kind of consultant that sits back. I'm not, I joke all the time. I'm not really a good coach because coaches ask people to do it for themselves, you know, they stand on the sidelines and let players play. I'm in there going, okay, kick me the ball right then I'll kick it back to you. So I am very much a hands-on player, coach or, you know, but a leader's partner in helping change to happen. And usually, usually my clients are, are they were at their wits end? I wish I could stay there. When I start that, it's, oh, we're thinking this ahead of time. Very rarely is, do I the phone ring for me when things are going smoothly, when we're anticipating a change. It's usually, I don't know what to do anymore. I'm out of I'm out of gas. My second-in-command has resigned. The bone, you know, this is the time of year bonuses are going to come. And now you're going to have a resignation of a senior leader who was driving some key strategic initiative that that a CEO had committed to a board or to their, you know, to their stakeholders, and that's the point at which I've in a call to say, How can I how can I be helpful?
Kim Meninger
Mm, and change is such a funny thing because I think we all want change. We especially, you know, you and I are talking at the beginning of the new year, and everybody's thinking about what they want to change and how they want things to be different. But we also fear change, and it's an incredibly difficult thing for humans to go through because we like things to be predictable, right? We like the familiar even it's that whole idea of like the devil you know, right? Even if you're miserable, there's still part of it that feels safe because you at least know what you're getting and change you just. Can't foresee what? So what do you think is most challenging when you're working with people on change? What? What are the key kinds of obstacles that come up?
Sarena Diamond
It's, it is so. It is a great question because it comes up a lot, lots of times. It comes up at that point where a leader is exacerbated because they just don't understand why people aren't getting on board. Why aren't we engaged everything from something small to something big, strategic, right? And when I come in, I ask a few questions. They're almost always the same change resistance in my 30-plus-year career, at the root core of it, it is almost always like 99 point pop up about a percent, almost always based in fear. And it's fear of the unknown. It's fear of doing something that's uncomfortable to your point about, you know, people like to know what's to expect. They like to see that the common. And so if it's fear-based, and it's truly about not being able to see yourself in the vision that the leader has expressed. Or what does this mean for me? You know, that whole acronym, you know, what's in it for me, kind of thing? One of the things that that I start right off the bat with is, what would it how would you come up about a change if they were truly afraid, versus if they were just being stick in the months curmudgeons, right? And it's really funny, because I have had CEOs that tell me, No, no, they just don't want to do it. They're just lazy. They're just, I'm like, Hold on. Hold on. First of all, we'll talk a couple words, right? Especially around imposter syndrome, the word just should be struck in from vocabulary, but we'll get to that in a minute. But the other piece is, would you come about the approach the same way, if you truly believe that they were afraid? If they didn't have confidence in their own ability to be where you need them to be? How would you approach it differently? And when I ask those questions of leaders, it almost always changes like quickly. It changes the way a leader's stance, their posture is toward the initiative that they're trying to embrace. And when that happens, then you can actually make change occur, because now you're taking it from what do the people need in order to embrace the change and adopt outcomes we used to have. I started my career very, very technical. And we used to have technology deployment. That was all the term, right? You're going to deploy a new system. You're going to deploy a new tool, whatever it was. And I learned very clearly in my mid-career to hate the word deploy because deploy means I've rolled it out. I've delivered to you what you should be doing versus adoption, which is I've changed the way people need to do, the work they're doing, the tools they're using, the way they show up and think about their work. And so I would say to people all the time, strike the word deploy, because deploy is a push, right? I've pushed it out to you. What you do with it? It's up to you. I don't care, right? I've got a package left on my mailbox, on my on my doorstep. The package is delivered. It doesn't mean that could be life-saving medicine in that box, and it doesn't do any good when you've pushed, but when someone pulls and they say, I've adopted the new way of working, I've adopted the new technology or tool, and they show up that way, then change happens.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, that's such an important point, and it's fundamentally the human side, right? I mean, we can talk about what change looks like from a technology perspective, a process perspective all day long. But if people don't get on board as you're describing, right, it's meaningless. And so are there when you I love that the way you framed that of would you approach it differently if you knew they were coming from a place of fear and not just stubbornness or resistance, right? What? What would you recommend? Because there are a lot of people listening who are likely in a position of influence without authority, or maybe struggling with I don't know why people aren't doing what I need them to do, right? Are there either questions you would ask or first steps that you would take when you sure are in a situation where you sense people are afraid, and you still need to get them on board?
Sarena Diamond
100% and actually it always starts. There's a third of a three-step process for organizational check for me, and I'm sure the prosky people in the you know, the experts in the field, would say, but over my years of experience, the first piece is always building belief in the why. So it can be everything from I want to, you know, adopt a new process or new business technology, or it can be something about a new organizational leader, right? Building belief in the why of the change. Creates an opportunity for people to have a purpose. They can see the reason for the change and the fear comes down, re the temperature in the room, everything comes down really dramatically. As soon as people can understand the why. They may not necessarily agree with the why, and that's a different people will say, Oh, I'll make it. Well, no, no, you can't make them. You can't force someone to believe in something. So sometimes I'll say to leaders, they're going to be people in your organization that will immediately understand what you're going to be doing, and then and of that group, they will understand and they will buy. In a subset, there will also be a group that will understand what it is you're doing and they won't agree. And then you have to talk about what's the root of which their disagreement is. Sometimes it is their past experiences. So then it's really up to the leader to be super curious about based on your past experiences, and you understand why we need to be where we need to be. Help me understand what it is that you're going to do. So I lots of times I will liken it to a chasm, right? If you're trying to hike across this ravine, and you have this giant chasm, and there's water and rocks at the bottom, and you say to everybody, we got to get to the other side. There are some people. And I once saw a humorist in my IBM at the end during my IBM career, who talked about, when you have change, right? And he was very funny about doing it, but obviously, since it stuck with me all these years. But essentially, the story was, there's going to be 100 people in that troupe of people that need to cross the chasm. 10% of those people, no matter what you say, how crazy it is, we're gonna fly over this ravine. They'll be on board with you, just because that's their nature. And 10% of the people, no matter what you give them a steel deck bridge to cross that ravine, they're not going so you really need to just sort of not play to those two sets, right? You need to build belief, and you need to articulate the why, and you need to help understand the 80 in the middle and the piece that's really important lots of times leaders forget is the 80 in the middle. Maybe half of those will understand the why and will understand the process, and will trust you and the others are going to say, my experience says no matter what we do to cross this chasm, we're going to die in the river below, right in the ravine below. And so it's really important to learn from those people, to help understand based on their experiences. What has you if you understand why this is important, you understand the direction that we're going based on your experiences. What has you concerned? And those are the times where when leaders can actually truly listen and be curious and learn the outcome of the whole 100 people on the troop crosses better, because in some cases, they may say, I know that you want to build this rope bridge, but building that rope bridge out of spaghetti, this is going to work, right? We've done that before, and three people died like something, but it's really an important turning point for leaders to not be so self-confident. This is the only way to do it. And when they are willing to open the aperture and say, I know where we're going, I know why we're going there, and I'm pretty sure how we need to get there, but I'm also willing to be curious about the experiences of the rest of the organization to overcome some of those changes. Sometimes it, you know, it's, it's a matter of, I hear you, you know, Mr. Very conservative person, miss, very, very nervous person. I hear you. What's it going to take to overcome that resistance? What's it going to take for you to trust in the direction that we're going, but it I sometimes I see leaders that are just they're out of time. They're overworked already. I don't know a single leader that I've ever talked to that says, Oh yeah, I got, I got tons of time. My life is good. I work three hours a day, and I play golf, there isn't a single leader that ever or at least that's not the ones calling me. They're always working 20 hours a day, and they're not sleeping very well the other four because they're so nervous and worried about the things that they need to do, that they need to bring their people through and, and when we work together, we're able to help that organizational change happen. And it's, it's funny because people, lots of times, will think the organizational change is a soft part, you know, is the, let me just it's not a human HR kind of thing. It really, truly is a strategy for bringing people through the changes that are now constant.
Kim Meninger
Yes, and I'm glad you said that too because I think sometimes people think of like, oh, I have to coddle people, right? You know, this is the, the fluffy part of the change. But no, you're dealing with humans who have very strong fears. Experience, instincts, experiences all kinds of different ways in which they filter information. And if you don't think about that, if you don't spend time on that, you're going to spend a lot more time on the back end.
Sarena Diamond
For sure, you said, you said the word that I love the most when I when I do this is the experiences of other people. It is because of the experiences that they've had that they hold the beliefs that they do, right? And it could be experiences like people told me, or I read something, but most often those strongly held beliefs. And some cases, those beliefs our resistance to change, but it's those beliefs that are based on the experiences that they've had. So you're not going to change those experiences. What you could do is help give them bigger, broader, different experiences that change them as humans, change their belief structure, change their willingness to adopt a new a new process, or a new technology, or, you know, a new leader, right? How often is it that you there's a new boss that came in and the first reaction is, oh, great, here we go? Right? New, new everything's changing. It'll be the flavor of the month, whatever that is, and, and so that's where lots of times people think organizational change can also be related to that.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, well, and I think, as you're talking about that too, and the importance of being curious and really listening to people is, if I come into a situation and I feel very strongly that we are not set up for success in this change, or I don't see the why, or any of the reasons why I might be resisting, and you just tell me, oh, you know, you just need to you're wrong, and you just need to deal with it. Then I feel gaslit, right? [Correct.] And so you may, like you said before, you may not get everybody on board, and that's just a fact of life, but if you try to plow through people's feelings, you're never going to get the adoption that you're looking for.
Sarena Diamond
Well, and what's funny is that the plowing doesn't, it doesn't speed you up people, lots of times, people think, I'm just going to make them do it. I'm going to and that's first of all, that's I heard recently, heard the phrase leadership laziness, right? Is pushing is plowing, which the word you used? I don't like that, because it comes off as very I've never, I've yet to meet a leader that's lazy. I think they're looking for just get this off my plate, right? Just get every can't everybody just get on the same page. But again, if you go back to those experiences that people had that made them if you've if you have had a boss in your life, if you've been so blessed to have a boss in your life that was always interested in your experiences, in your feedback, in growing your skills, how can I what experiences can I give you, Kim, that would help you to have more, you know, broader experience or broader contributions, to make you feel valued, and all of a sudden, you're a different human and, and if you think about the leaders that you've had in your life that allow you to have that positive contribution, that positive mindset, the positive ability to build belief in a change that's coming, whether it be work or life, it is amazing how the difference is. And I'm sure that you can think of a million people that if you were to introduce something even positive. I had a friend very early in my life who she just was negative, like she could find something wrong. If her, and I remember this, she could win the lottery, and there'd be, you know, all the ways this is going to be a problem. Her husband won some trip. It was a back when radio shows where, and he called into he won some trip, and her first thing she said to me was, Oh, my God, I don't have anything to wear, and it was a tropical and it was middle of the winter, and she's like, and I'm gonna have to find a tanning salon or something because I can't possibly and I'm like, wait, wait, your husband won a trip. But her experiences, if you like, in thinking about that, her experiences were, she was the oldest child. She had all the things behind she didn't have a lot of fun, positive things that naturally came to her initially, and so faced with a really positive change, it happens we have. I had a client last year who they acquired a smaller company, 40 people, but huge revenue in an adjacent industry. So it was going to allow them to open up some really good business opportunities. And what was really amazing was the people that were like, Oh my God, not those guys. They were very resistant because in some cases, they had been competing against each other in the market before the acquisition. [Yeah.] And being able to look at what made them a good what the experiences that the acquired 40 people had that made them a good acquisition partner and a good cultural fit. Soon as we changed how we looked at that and started asking the questions that said, how do we bring them in, not force them to fit in, not plow through what they were doing. It changed the game, and it was really an impactful ability to, to look at that from a leadership perspective. And really it's a human being thing, it could be in your personal life, right?
Kim Meninger
Yes, yeah, you're absolutely right. And what it what strikes me about this is that you're not going to get to that place unless you pause and think about it intentionally. Because when we are in a state of panic, right, or if we're feeling pressure from above to just get it done, we're not thinking expansively about these types of themes, about the questions to ask, about the ways in which to support other people. We're just thinking about, how do I do this as quickly as I possibly can? And obviously that that leads to the plowing through approach, right? The one that's not as effective.
Sarena Diamond
I 100% agree with you, and I do think that the pause is hard most of because, not because you it's it's typically not a commonly practiced activity, but it's also because there's so much pressure on every leader I know that to get more done, to accomplish more things. And so sometimes that's where I don't want this to be a plug, but it's sometimes having a partner who can be your pause partner, right? That's where lots of times I come into organizations and do just that. I had a client also last year, phenomenal organization, and I just I loved them. I loved everything about their culture and their process, they were struggling to operationalize. They were approaching their first 100 million dollars in revenue. I mean, it was a big, not, not a small company, and yet they didn't have some standard operating processes. They knew what they wanted, and they had a very, very impressive young woman that was targeted. They wanted her to take on the COO type of role, but they didn't have any operational process. They didn't even know what that really looked like. They didn't have the C suite. Didn't have experiences with someone in a COO type of role, and, and she wasn't sure. Obviously, she was concerned that she didn't have the experiences that she'd been with the company most of her career. She didn't know that she'd had the experiences to do that job, and so it was actually probably one of my favorite, certainly my favorite client cultures to date, but also my favorite opportunity to mentor this young woman, to say your experiences are what you are, and they're phenomenal, and they've led you to all kinds of things, but this is a change. Organizationally, it's a change business, it's a change or personal life, but also from a team perspective, how they saw her, right? She'd grown up, sort of grown up in the company, and being able to embrace all that went with that was really important. So I actually had sort of a dual role. I stood up all the operational processes that allowed people to standardize and do those things, but at the same time I was mentoring and helping her experiences to be broader, to allow her to see herself. Is that.. in that COO role. Spoiler alert, she was fabulous. I knew she was going to be, but she was fabulous in the role from day one and rounded out the year. And I don't I haven't really found, I haven't dialed back yet to find out if they hit their 100 million, but it really was a phenomenal experience for me to see that building of experiences, broadening of belief systems for an individual, as well as for an entire organization, affected change, and it drove change in the organization, unlike anything you know that that the all those traditional ways of making change, plowing through the change, or making people do it happen so well.
Kim Meninger
And you bring up such a good point, because I was going to ask you that too, is, what if it is the leader themselves that's doubting themselves, right? Because, yeah, that's a lot of responsibility. You're probably feeling this sense of, oh, no, what if I get this wrong foster syndrome? Who am I to be? You know, sort of make demanding these changes from people, and maybe when people do push back, you think maybe they're right, right? So, you know, what thoughts do you have on that?
Sarena Diamond
You know what? I love this, and I love actually, that your entire podcast focuses on this, because I have yet to meet a leader that despite the bravado, sometimes it's women. Let's be clear, I worked at IBM for the during Ginny remedies to. And you're and she does not come across to anyone as fearful or timid or, you know, imposter at all. I'm sure that she struggles with the same kinds of things other leaders do. I've met many women and men leaders who, who don't struggle outwardly with imposter syndrome, but more so I meet leaders who are to your point, they're fearful that they're not enough, that they don't see themselves in that that piece that's enough. And it's very interesting because I, I look at that and I say, back to those experiences. You can't undo the experiences that you've had. But if you ask yourself, What experiences do I need? And it can be your own personal experience, or can it be an experience that someone on my team has that can make me better as the leader? Now, right? I'm not as a COO if you don't have, if you get plunked into a COO function, and, oh, by the way, it happens to include the IT function and the finance function, I've had a leader say to me, I know nothing about finance. I can make I can sort of fumble my way through the it decisions, but I know nothing about finance, and I hated all of the accounting classes in my MBA program, and I've had that conversation with them to say, it doesn't have to be you, it just has to be your experiences. So when you go find a leader, a second in command, whatever your choice is in that area, and you build out those experiences, it broadens your experience and your comfort level with that topic. And so one of the things that I will help because imposter syndrome happens to all of us, not just at work. I mean, I have yet to know a new mom who doesn't go, or new dad who goes, I don't know how to do this. I have a friend's daughter right now who they gave birth very early. Luckily, Modern medicine has made it so that these little six-month-old twin girls are doing phenomenally. And I reached out to the young mom, and because she's been posting and sharing on on social media about and they're knock on wood, they're doing fabulously well. And I reached out to her, and I just said, I just wanted to tell you, in case nobody has you're a rock star like you are doing this. And she was really grateful. But, and which is important, I think, from a leadership and rising and helping others rise. But what was really interesting to me was her response was, there's so much going on here in the NICU I just can't wait until they're big enough that they can go home and things can get settled down. And I resisted saying what I wanted to say as the bomb of now grown adults. Oh, sweetheart, keep them in there as long as you possibly can because you've got all the help, all the support structure, everything around you. You want to have somebody that's bringing you in, and that's the expert. I remember looking at my firstborn and going, Wait, you're letting me take this human being home. Like, what is wrong with you? I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before, and they don't come with those instruction manuals, so it's the same kind of thing. You've newly gotten promoted, and your reaction is, this is awesome. I got I'm going to have the salary that I the prestige, the title, I'm finally, oh, wait a minute, what I'm supposed to do this job. And I don't know anybody that doesn't react, at least privately, at least if they're truly being honest, privately with themselves, going, I don't know what to do here. And it's not it's sort of like saying I want to spend a couple more days in the NICU, right? I want to have people around me that are calm, that know what to do, that are patient. I remember my older sister coming when my firstborn was home, and I recently packed up some of the baby photo albums, and there's a picture of my newborn son with my sister holding him, and I had added a little caption in the scrapbook that said, Oh, thank god someone that knows what they're doing is here coming out of my son's mouth. And I remember that to this day, and I think it's the same way with leaders, sometimes they just need someone who has come before surround themselves with people that know, I I'm a very big believer in your internal voice is the loudest of anybody that you're speaking 1,000% there is nothing anybody externally can tell you that's going to change what you believe about yourself. But that doesn't mean you should squelch those voices, right? You should absolutely surround yourself with voices that help you to feel at least validated in what you're doing. At least validate because imposter syndrome doesn't go away. I don't believe it ever goes away once you've you, once you create that belief or that that negative talk the inner voice, all you can do is try and drown it out with other experiences, other voices that can help you, as a leader, as a human, as a new mom, to feel okay with that and, and the other thing that I recently. Um, there was an interview Billie Jean King was it was the topic of conversation. I think it was the, the anniversary of the big match against Bobby Riggs or something. Was recently in the news, and it was on this one of the networking groups. And there was a lot of discussion about this. And it was really funny, because I remember back to that as a very young girl, and I don't remember thinking it was all that big of a deal, and I and I spent a lot of time trying to think about why didn't I think it was a big deal because I was one of three daughters to a single mom who knocked it out of the park, raising us, having a job, holding down a household who was the only daughter of one of a single mom with a single aunt who role modeled for them how to you just do it. You show up and you just do what you need to do. So I didn't grow up with a lot of voices that said girls can't beat a boy at tennis like I didn't grow up that way. So I don't struggle with a lot of the internal voices that said, just because I'm a girl, I can't I have the other internal voices that say, right? But I think we all, all of us, have those experiences. So if you all have those internal voices, all you can do is surround yourself with support structures, networks, other people, voices that can at least balance out those inner voices that keep you from feeling that you are doing all the things, because at the end of the day, we just want to be confident in what we're and the confidence comes from individual experiences or shared experiences that lead you to, you know, to a positive direction.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, I think that is such an important point. I mean, we, we spend a good chunk of our lives in school, right? Where we have teachers and we have support resources, whether that's tutors or parents or, you know, people that are helping us with our homework and making sure we're staying on track. We've got peers that we can rely on. And then we find ourselves in the workplace, and suddenly it feels like asking for help is a sign of weakness, right, or learning others, as opposed to saying no, this is how we have thrived from for most of our learning opportunities, right? Why would we change that now? And you know, why would we try to reinvent the wheel like you're saying? I remember the same exact feeling of like, oh my gosh, you're going to let me take this little person home with me, right? But we are not the first mom to ever leave the hospital with a newborn. We're not the first leader to ever, you know, lead through change. Why suffer in silence? Why make it harder than it needs to be when there are people out there who are willing and able to support you?
Sarena Diamond
Well, and, and the question really the why or why am I feeling this way? Am I? Is there some deep-seated belief I have that says I'm supposed to know it all just because somebody promoted me, or somebody hired me, or somebody gave me a child? I carried the baby for nine months. I should know right, intuitively, not. It's interesting, when we first started connected to try and talk about this podcast I kept thinking about in my IBM career I had 15 years we hosted a camp for girls from underprivileged school districts that had they had aptitude in science, technology, engineering or math, a STEM camp, but they didn't have role models, and so the IBM Research Facility, we used to host them one week a year to come in, and they were selected from their teachers for just for that reason. And what was amazing was to see these 13, 12, and 13 year old girls change in four days by having their experiences broadened just taking something that they had an aptitude for and then putting them into a, you know, a class where we talked about states of matter, or, you know, the sweet science of chocolate, seeing their experiences. And it worked, like we were able to see the growth of those individuals. I think about that when I think about a new mom or a new leader or something where it's like your experiences, you are who you are, someone sees that in you that your ability to be of a leader in their promoting you, and yet your experience isn't there yet. And if you broaden the aperture a bit and see how you can do that, you can continuously learn in new ways. The future is limitless for folks, even if you're struggling with those voices that told you maybe you weren't enough for, you know, whatever those internal voices may have been.
Kim Meninger
Yes, that's a really important point, too. And I think the expectations we hold for ourselves rarely align with what the expectations are first, right? And I talk about this all the time with clients and just people in my community, where they'll say, you know, my boss just asked me to take on this whole new additional area of the business, and I'll tell them I don't have that experience. And they'll say, Oh, that's okay, you can learn it, right, right? Obviously, they don't have an expectation that you're going to know this on day one. You've already told them you don't know it, and they're okay with that, right? And so I think it's like, how do we reset our expectations in a more realistic way?
Sarena Diamond
It's a, it's a great there's a great question that I will say to clients lots of times when they are in that exact what is it that you have seen from my past performance that gives you confidence that this is a great position for me? Yeah, right, because, honest to God, I took a job once it was crazy. I took the job because I was in the right location, and I didn't ask that question. I was told a couple months later that I was local. It was back. I mean, I'm very diversified, and I happened to be able to drive to the office where the other leaders were. What I did ask, but I didn't really understand it was what makes it about this leadership team. Now, the dynamics of that leadership team required somebody to be physically in the building with them. It was just that's the kind of leaders and the experience that they had. But was really interesting, the woman who had been doing the job for four years before me, was remote, and she struggled a lot now, not in her capabilities and not in the output, but in the interpersonal relationships they had with the other leaders of this division of IBM. So it's very funny because I didn't ask the question then it was I sort of learned that I should have asked that question, but I'm kind of glad that I didn't, because honestly, I don't know that I would have taken or I don't know that I would have allowed myself to accept a promotion based on where I lived, that seemed to me to be the voice inside my head, not the right criteria. But so I'm glad I didn't ask the question at the time, but it is an easy question when you're still doubting whether you take the job. What is it that you see in me or my experiences that indicate to you that I'm a good bet, right? That, right? And if it's you're the last man standing, maybe, maybe one. Or you wish you didn't ask the question, but you're saying, all right, fine, I'll do it anyway.
Kim Meninger
That is a great question, I think. And then you aren't trying to read the other person's mind, right? For sure? Yeah, oh my gosh, Sarena, I could spend the rest of the day with you. This is fascinating conversation, and change is so hard for so many reasons. So, I absolutely love the work that you're doing and appreciate the insights that you're sharing for others who want to learn more about your work and follow your progress. Where can they find you?
Sarena Diamond
Probably the best is LinkedIn. I am pretty active on LinkedIn, and I share stories and experiences there. I'm going to, actually, in 2025 I will be hosting a few hope, hoping to hope, host a few workshops to help leaders more simply do that. Certainly, you can get to my Diamond Solution Group LLC website. But if you're, if you're looking for me on LinkedIn, you got to make sure that you spell it right. It's Sarena with an A, S-A-R-E-N-A Diamond. And I, I so happy to connect with anybody. You can book a free consult if you need some time to just sort of pick apart some questions, and I'm happy to do that, truly be happy to do that on a regular basis.
Kim Meninger
Well, thank you so much, and I'll make sure that that link is in the show notes as well. And thanks again for being here.
Sarena Diamond
Thank you Kim, and thanks for the work that you're doing. I think it's so super important that women, mostly, but women and men that are struggling with any of those internal voices have a place to go and to listen to broaden their experiences so that they might actually squelch, or at least drown out those voices with more positive thoughts.
