012: Rising Like a Star with Claire Pedersen Patel

Pete Mockaitis
Claire Pedersen Patel , thanks so much for appearing here on “The How to be Awesome at Your Job” podcast.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Hi Pete Mockaitis, thanks for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Well you know, I think you and I have both come a long way since being fellow Model United Nations folk at the University of Illinois.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
My consulting star has set but yours is rising and its official according to Consulting Magazines. So, congratulations!

Claire Pedersen Patel
Thank you very much.

Pete Mockaitis
Tell us a little bit, what is the kind of the story or the narrative behind how you found yourselfworking doing some typical consulting to being in a pretty cool spot, getting some recognition from the Consulting Magazine publication as well as being in-charge of the whole associate program over there at Trexin.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah,so I think a lot of successes both working hard and then beingfortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time as far as Consulting Magazine goes. I’m sure there were thousands of people who are nominated for this award so I’m really fortunate to be one of the nominations that got selected. I think getting there and getting those opportunities is a lot of working hard, and then having the right bosses and managers that are able to recognize potential and are willing topromote people into interesting positions.

So, I was lucky. Back when I was an associate at Trexin I kind of started getting the team together to talk about different things that the associates were all thinking about. Then, it gradually evolve from therewhere we were justrecommending topics to the partnership and things like that. Then, they ended up formalizing the role and decided that they needed somebody to lead the team to race on some of the organization andmeetings that I had already been managing, they offered me the role of leading the team formally.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s really cool and so for getting folks together and talking about associate issues and raising that to others in the organization, was that all just your idea like “Hey we should do this!” or how did that come about?

Claire Pedersen Patel
It was reallymyself and then other associates on the team kind of teaming up andsince associates typically at that time all got staffed on different projects, we’re never actually going to get to work together. So, we thought maybe we should grab lunch together every once in a while and talk about what life is like on our different projects. It just kind of build over time and turned into, “What are the skill sets that we should all have?”“How do we learn from each other?” and “What we’ve done on our respective projects?”.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. So, that’s kind of that piece you had some initiative and put that together that was valuable. You were sort of like in a way that the default or de facto leader when push came to shove and they were looking for someone. Tell us a little bit, what was your experience witha boss you said that was really kind of recognized what you brought to the table and was doing some good advocacy for you?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah, so I think it’s bothmy boss or several of my bosses at Trexin as well as a boss that I had back when I worked at Aeon. There were several times when he was like “Well I think you should do this project”. For instance, one time we were starting this IT strategy project and he’s like “Claire Pedersen Patel , I’d like you to represent out business unit on this IT strategy project,” and my response was “No way! I think that’s a bad idea. I don’t know IT strategy and I don’t think I’m the right person to do this. My team is tapped out.” He was like “Well, what do you need to actually do this project? And, what resources could I give you to turn this into a ‘yes’?”

I was being a little stubborn and my response was “Well, you’d have to double my team,” and he’s like “Done. Now what are your next requests?” I was like “Oh,guess we’re serious about this now so maybe I should just go along and…,” but it was a good lesson on taking risks andrecognizing that I had his support on the project so I got a lot of help from him along the way. And, I understood the first step of the project I didn’t really understand the whole process but as we got through the first step, it was easy to figure out the second step. Everything is not going to be clear and obvious so, it was a good lesson on taking risks that I think follow through on other projects too.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s really interesting. So, when you say taking risk, you’re specifically talking about stepping into a responsibility or an area of that you don’t quite really feel ready to do yet?

Claire Pedersen Patel : 

Yes, or recognizing that I would have to learn things to be successful in the role and being confident in my ability to learn something but not necessarily my confidence in my existing knowledge of a certain subject area.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. So, when you’re in the mix of that, I mean when there’s risk, you know there’s fear it seems. So, I guess what is it that you feared might happen when you kind of step into something bigger, and did it ever happen, and how did you manage it?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Well in that case, the IT strategy project was withmy boss, the CIO of the business unit sponsored by the global CIO, his boss and it was going to involve working with various members of the Aon business team. So, I think in that case failure would have been very obvious, and very public and very visible. I think that was the nerve wrecking thing also knowing that my boss was responsible for delivering this and wanting it to go well.I think the fear is failing in those cases but at the same time to grow, you have to be somewhat on the edge and pushing the limits, and appreciating that fear is going to motivate you to learnand do the right things along the way.I’m trying to think of a good example of failing though.

Pete Mockaitis:  

It’s hard to find one because you’re such a rock star.

Claire Pedersen Patel
No, there’s definitely cases… I think there’s usually, maybe it’s not failing but adjusting to a situation where like upfront you might not understand it completely and then need to build these skills to be able to succeed. Like upfront, when you start the project you might not be succeeding and might not be on a track to know everything but then, figuring out how to succeed.

Pete Mockaitis
I think I hear what you’re saying. It’s like you haven’t crashed and burned, but you’ve had some awkward moments where you’re not quite crushing at the way you’d like to be at the beginning until you kind of get up to speed?.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yes, exactly. Where it might feel like failure but it’s not actually failure because you find a way to recover along the way.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you, now I am intrigued. Do you have an example or story behind that?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think a good one might befor one of my consulting projects; I went to work at amajor hair salon in their Asset Protection Department. Going into that, I certainly… like I have hair on my head and that’sabout the extent of my hair care knowledge, and I had no experience in asset protection or their prevention in saloons or any retail store for that matter. In that case I had the experience around program management to help them with some things but all of the subject matter expertise related to the program was something that I really learned on the ground as the program was going.

I think it was learning to get along with the people. They were great people butjust learning a different dynamics since I had come from a lot of financial services, clients and the retailhair care industry was really about people coming up through the saloons into the business. So, it was much more… actually a much friendlier work environment, so it’s funny to say that I needed to adjust to working with nicer people butjust a different team dynamic then I was used to. So, a lot of differences but new program management was able to help them get their program together and implement some changes that helped with their business. It was a lot of fun, but I knew very little going into the program.

Pete Mockaitis
I love the stories you shared about how you had some cool was of identifying where there’s a risk of that theft might be occurring and then how the interrogation unfolded and then the client was epically satisfied. Those are my favorite stories. It’s like when there’s a cool business results but it comes from individual people having their work experience improved.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yes. Yes, that was a… it was a lot of fun and really cool to work with adifferent investigators in that project. I really enjoyed getting a little bit of interrogation training, using that now to read body language and just understand whether or not I’m actually connecting with somebody when I’m talking with them based on their body language. Or, if I need to find maybe a different way of approaching a person so, definitely learned a ton from that client and had a lot of fun.

Pete Mockaitis
While we’re on the topic are there any little body languagetips or take-away that you can drop here as a little bonus?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think a fun one is trying to… if you’re sitting facing somebody trying to mirror their body language to then get them to mirror you back and you can get them to either uncross their arms or uncross their legs in order to just be more open to the conversation. I think it’s neat to understand some of those things or be able to see when somebody might be saying ‘yes’ to you but they have their arms cross and physically look really closed up. That’s a time when you might be like “Hmm, he might be saying ‘yes’ but he might not mean ‘yes’ quite yet”.

Pete Mockaitis
Perfect. That is handy, I’m sure that could show up in many different circumstances.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
I want to hear a little bit then. So, you have… there’s some fear and there’s some uncomfortable awkward moments in the early phase as you’re kind of getting up to speed and acclimated. What are some of your pro-tips or best practices for calming yourself down and getting up to speed in a hurry?

Claire Pedersen Patel
For me, I think it’s quickly aggressively like remembering everybody, remember all of the people, understand what equals success for each of the people so that you can help them achieve thatbut it is an interesting part. A challenging part of consulting is always like starting a new client from scratch and trying to understand success or the goals from the beginning and aligning around them so that you can manage the course of the project. I’m trying to think of good tip for managing that because I think it’s, for a lot of consultants, what maybe appeared to be calm about it but its nerve wrecking to go in and try to understand the situation from scratch over and over again.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I remember those days, absolutely. It’s like, I’m asked to do some things like I have no idea how to do that…

Claire Pedersen Patel
You’re like I don’t even… and I don’t even know how it works here. I don’t know who to get involved? Where are the teams? Where’s the expertise in these different areas? So, I think understanding the people in the organization first is the best way to go because then you can understand who to go to, to get the right information. Then once you get the right information, you can work with those people to construct the right solution that helps them get to success.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot and that’s applicable I think. Anytime you’re starting a new project, either in consulting, an industry role or a new job or role kind of whereveryou’re landed as a professional. And I think that, what you said there is actually a pretty actionable tidbit, if I may just giving some credits there, is that you are thinking kind of clearly and strategically about what are the most important questions I need answered and who can answer them, as opposed to just hoping.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yes. Hope is not the answer but I think having a positive attitude is great butI think the way to get to the answer is through figuring what questions you’re trying to answer. I think early on I was always like “Well, how do people know everything and why are they so confident and think they already know all of these things,” now, over time when I can’t make a decision I have come back to approaching it with like “Well, what question do I still have and what information could I get to be able to make a decision?” Then, focusing on that and understanding that if I… in my gut don’t have enough information to make a decision, maybe that’s enough information to get more information and then come back and try to make the decision another time.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that a lot when you mentioned, “How do they seems so confident?” in your experience now, – looking back a little bit – having some reps on this, would you say that “How do they know?” or “How do they seems so confident?” is just that they’re great actors?Or how do they seems so confident?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think it’s both. I think there’s people who either know a slice of things and are really good at that subject matter area, and, maybe do know it. Then, I think there are just people who are really good at selling. Like maybe they know fifty percent, but they really own that fifty percent. So, it’s important to try to recognize the difference for somebody that can really talk the talk but then the people that can also walk the walk as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay quick role-play. You’re in a medium type environment; someone asks you pointblank “Claire Pedersen Patel , what’s the answer to this?” aquestion you don’t know the answer to. It’s like “Ahh! What we feared has happened!” what do you say?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Actually I would start by saying “um probably” and then I would try to reground and ask them clarifying questions.  For better information and then, either answer the question or give them a plan on how I could answer the questionbut I’m usually not somebody who would make something up just to try to answer a question.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, absolutely. That’s a recipe for getting the firm in some trouble.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Absolutely, and it’s difficult because there are times when you’re like “I should be able to answer this question already.There should be a reason or I should have enough information to answer those question and it should be straight forward. But then, if it’s not, figuring out what the challenges are with the project that might prevent you from answering some obvious question early on and addressing the challenges.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay, that’s good. You, give them game-plan, that’s fun. I learned a fun phrase instead of “Idon’t know,” we’d say “It’s unclear”.

Claire Pedersen Patel
“It’s unclear. The information might be out there in the world but we don’t have it yet”.

Pete Mockaitis
“It’s unclear to me right now,” which is kind of saying “I don’t know”. I like there’s a little  ambiguity the mix, “It’s unclear”. So…

Claire Pedersen Patel
I like that. It’s not just me that doesn’t know, other people in my situation would also not know.

Pete Mockaitis
Scholars have wrestle with this for decades. Well, that’s fun if there’s nothing else you want to share there about your kind of ascent and pushing yourself and how that’s worked out, I’d love to shift gears a little to, so now you’re running this associate program and it is growing in a hurry, which is pretty cool, so tell me how many associates are there now and how many were there like last year?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Last year this time there were five people on my team. Right now, I’m about to have seventeen people on my team.Out of that seventeen I also promoted some people so only two of the seventeen where actually on my team last year, at this time.

Pete Mockaitis
I see so… now that’s a whole boat load.

Claire Pedersen Patel : 

Yes, so it’s a blastand really cool to see just new smart people come in and make a name for themselves on projects because I respect a lot and have told the team frequently that “If the early joiners… people who joined the team hadn’t done a good job – invent smart talented individuals – then this whole thing would’ve stopped a long time go and we wouldn’t have been expanding so quickly”. So, I think recognizing talent has been a big part of it.

Pete Mockaitis: 

That’s great and it’s kind of fun. And you use a bit of a purpose there in terms of legacy and what the implications are for the future. So, I’d also like to hear a bit there. Now, what is your role associated with hiring them? Are you the decision maker or how does that work?

Claire Pedersen Patel
So we go through a few phases. There’s a recruiting phase where the recruiters will do some screening. Then, myself and one of the other members of the associate team, one of the managers would do the associate interview and say like “This person is approved to join our team”.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Then, we would recommend that candidate to a partner for interview, andby the time we recommend the person to a partner for an interview we have to be pretty solid on recommending that we would hire that person.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, so it sounds like you very much are on the frontlines and have a criticalrole in that candidate getting to the end.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, because I kind of what I want to know. So, that tees up the next question, tell me and everyone here, what are the things that really pop on a resume? In terms of skills or things that you go “Oh yes, this person will be great?”

Claire Pedersen Patel
That’s really tricky because I stand by yourinterview for personality. Then, you can train for skills as you go, but you can’t ever train for personality along the way.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright.

Claire Pedersen Patel
And that means that I’m trying to find personality in people’s resumes which is tricky. It usually comes down to finding somebody with really solid experience that I think makes the foundation of them being a good consultant. Then, trying to screen for them and meet them on the phoneto understand personality better. I think one thing I like a lot is when I see somebody who’s stayed with the same company but grown in what role they’re playing in that company so it shows they’ve kept their relationships but still bend somebody that’s grown, taken on new challenges in their own company.

But, it can vary a lot based onthe different candidates. I mean I have somebody who talked to be about how he quit his job and decided that he wanted to go open a bar but the first step was to go bar-tend for a while. By bartending for a while, he learned that opening a bar was not for him and came back into industry and he’s not pursuinga consulting career. Or, I have another person who went and worked in Africa where she was helping them open a hospital in Africa. So, I think that ability to identify something that you’re passionate or even something you think you might be passionate about and, be brave enough to pursue it is a really cool trait.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that is fun. So, within those experiences, you see a thread associated with bravery or courage which makes a lot of sense as a key thing that can make a consultant successful as we just mentioned: you’re going to be thrown into new situations again and again where you don’t quite know what you’re doing at first. So, you need that bravery to tackle it. What else are you looking for or what really catches your eye in terms of making an experience great on a resume?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think a variety of skill sets –  so another person on the team has an engineering background but then talked to me about selling real estate which sales and engineering aren’t really an obvious combination for a lot of people. I’d say very few people can do both of those things so things like that, that are just like “You’re an interesting person and have a cool background. Let’s give you the right expertise and training to really capitalize on that kind of sort of core confidence you said you have”.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s good, that’s good.

Claire Pedersen Patel : I think confidence, that was a important factor in a lot of those things where you can know what you want but not pursue it fall into a trap of just pursing what the company tells you to do. Or, what you think you’resupposed to do –  so showing that you can kind of identify what you feel is right in your gut, and be brave enough to pursue that I think is an important theme.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes, I like that. So, once the associates are in, usually how old are they or is it fresh out of undergraduate or what’s the range there?

Claire Pedersen Patel
The range expanded a bit but I would say about a year out of college through five to six years out of college?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh just perfect. That’s why I thought you should be on this program, that’s lovely. So, within this population of folks, what do you see are skills like even when you get a talented, sharp, brave, going places individual, what are some skills or themes have you identified that can often be a little bit lacking? Or, areas that have most often need a bit of a polish or an upgrade?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think an interesting area that a lot of these people are starting to face is that they’re all good individual contributors and can manage their own workloads well. Or, at least within a certain amount of time can manage, get organize and manage their workload fairly well but a lot of them are going from that to either managing the team at the client side or managing a team internally within Trexin. Learning how to rely on other people as well, I think is a really important skill set, and the social awareness to understand who they are, how they influenced that other person and how to motivate that other person, direct them, helped them do what they need to do. I think a big skill is going from an individual contributor to a team contributor, or to managing a team.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh certainly. Any pro-tips for when you’re at the cusp, you’re at that tricky transition point right there from the individual contributor to managing a small team. What are some key things you think people forget or need to have an “Ahah!” moment along the way to pull it off well?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think it starts with self-awareness and understanding who you are and how you influence the people on the team. I spend a lot of time with the team looking at Myers Briggsand understanding who you are and then having the opposite team, so like the introverts and extroverts went on their respective sides of the rooms and talked about who they were, what they value in interactions, how they might be misconceived in interactions so that everybody understood that it’s not right or wrong to be introvert or extrovert. But, you need to understand like your toolkit that is your personality and how you can apply it to different personality types to connect with them or effectively communicate with them.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh yes, that’s important. That’s important. myersbriggsworkshop.com anyone wants a piece of that come on down, self-plug, happens every once in a while.

Claire Pedersen Patel
It’s good, Myers-Briggsis awesome. One of the guys on the team, after we did our Myers-Briggsworkshop, went back and got his whole project team to do it. He thought it was cool and brought it up. He’s like “They’re never going to do it,” but the sent them the link anyway, and within twenty minutes they had all done it and we’re talking about their personality types and learn a lot about each other as a result.

Pete Mockaitis
Fantastic. Well, I’m a true believer so it’s not perfect, it’s not for everything and some people misuse and abuse it but, fundamentally, I’m a believer. That’ll probably be a topic of another episode, one of these days.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Talking to Myers Briggs. So, that’s cool.Any other ways to make that leap? Individual contributor to management.

Claire Pedersen Patel
I think there’s also, if you’re smart individual learning some patience. Everybody else might not be as smart as you are and being patient to just make you bring everybody else along on that journey, take the time to communicate what’s going on, give people time to digest that communication. I talked a lot recently with another team member whowasn’t in-love with one of his coworkers butit was… and he was trying to show that feedback but he was spending some time where he was right about the situation and understood what was going on but needed to find the right way, and share that feedback with other people and let them digest it. Then, fix the situation and work with him to resolve it where maybe learning and completely understanding situation might been faster for him but, getting other people along on that journey and allowing them to fix the situation is a longer process. So, learning to be patient, learning that like sometimes your team, you need to communicate. That does take time and it’s a step in the process, I think important.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you and that and patience, it can show up some times in all kinds of little ways like I recall sometimes folks would be presenting a slide deck. Then they’d say “Does that make sense?” and what they’re really saying is “Can I move on yet?” or “Am I going too fast for you slow people?”What is some other like “don’ts” like don’t do that, “Does that make sense? Does it make sense? Can we go now? Now?” what else should we not doif we’d want to avoiddouble negatives here? If I want to avoid conveying impatience, what should I do or not do?

Claire Pedersen Patel
That’s interesting because I think I fell into that “Does that make sense?” trap early on and part of it wasn’t from being impatient or not wanting to bring people along. I think some of it came from like a complete fear of public speaking and if I was presenting the slide deck I was like “Okay, next slide. Can I please get down and stop presenting this thing to you?” but, slowing down, talking through everything, making sure everybody was on the same page actually could take the pressure off of public speaking because it was more of a collaboration and people are asking questions along the way, and then you’re sharing, speakingby making it a discussion and everybody comes out of the room understanding what’s going on.

Pete Mockaitis
Great. Great. Well, anything else that you’d like to make sure you share before we shift gears into the fast favs?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Let me think… no, I don’t think so.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well then let’s jump in, can you tell us first a favorite quote, something that inspires again and again?

Claire Pedersen Patel
My favorite quote is ‘it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, its about the size of the fight in the dog’. I’ve always been one of the youngest, the shortest, or the most petite but still, that doesn’t mean I’m not tough or not ready to dive in and work on problem solving just as much as the rest so,that’s my favorite quote.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I like it. Tell us, perhaps, do you have a favorite study or experiment you find yourselfthinking about or referencing again and again.

Claire Pedersen Patel
This was a tricky one, I thought about this one for a while.There’s this study about ‘lovable fools versus comPete Mockaitisnt jerks’ and it looks at social networks… it’s by the Harvard Business Review and it looks at social networks: if you’re at work trying to get help on something, who are you most likely to turn to? Most people would obviously go to the comPete Mockaitisnt, lovable person or they would avoid going to the jerk who’s also an idiot. However, if your choice is to go to a lovable fool that can’t give you the right answer or the comPete Mockaitisnt jerk, you’re actually more likely to go to the lovable fool than the comPete Mockaitisnt jerk to get your question answered, which is really interesting just to see the balance between EQ and IQ in the work place and the importance of both understanding and being able to work with other people. I think that’s a really interesting one.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, that’s a lot of fun. I love a good two-by-two,so…

Claire Pedersen Patel
Of course, yeah. I’m a consultant; I couldn’t get through this without mentioning some sort of two-by-two.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. It is a great one, I hadn’t heard of it and I love it. How about a favorite book?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I liked Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg a lot. I think, there were things in my career that I had potentially been more shy about or not fully appreciated, and a good book about stepping up as a female in the workforce really resonated with me. It talked about personality differences between males and females and how they approach seeking a promotion, and if you’re going into a meeting,who’s more likely to go sit front and center, right in the middle of the table versus who’s more likely to step aside and search for the corner of the room and take a seat at the end of the table then, just how assertiveness is received by different genders.

I think the section in the book about who’s most likely to sit where in a meeting is very interesting because I can see it now in meetings where I can tell the most confident people will go straight to the middle of the table. But then, as a result, a lot of the conversation will center around the middle of the table and those that sit towards the end sometimes get left out of the heat of the discussion. So, it’s just an interestingbook that I think spoke prettyclearly to me and resonated a lot.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, great! Thank you. How about a favorite habit, sort of a gaming changing personal practice of yours that’s boosted your effectiveness?

Claire Pedersen Patel
I like from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. There’s a whole section on organizing your work around urgent work versus important work and how urgent work can dominate over important work. So, I’ve actually learned to structure my to-do items around what’s urgent for the day. Try to just triage that and get it out of the way as quickly as possible so that it’s closed and not lingering out there. But then, also to save time for the important stuff because that’s a lot of the meaningful things like I’ll have a lot of urgent things around – like   a client project – but then needed to comeback to set a goal setting process for my team, that’s also highly important. The urgency builds with time, it’s not as urgent as the client but, equally important.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. How about a favorite tools or any sort of gadgets, software, hardware or things that you lean on again and again?

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah, lately I think it’s really been about how do I get information I need on each of my different devices so I love OneNote and the ability to take notes on my phone, my iPad, may laptop and have it all in one place. So, I think lately it’s just been about how do I keep integrated across all my different devices so that at any given point in time I have everything that I need. I don’t have to remember what happen during that meeting two weeks ago, I have that work with me at all times.

Pete Mockaitis
Favorite time saving trick?

Claire Pedersen Patel
This one was kind of a tricky one because I think you want to do thing right. So, I think it’s taking the time to do things right the first time rather than having to come back to you and having to recycle or redo them a second time and correct them. I think it’s also about delegating and building a team that helps you get more done.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. And, a favorite role model? Someone you look up to professionally and why?

Claire Pedersen Patel
My mom. Actually, my mom,she was a CIO and also a single-mom so she worked really hard to be successful at both of those things.Did some pretty amazing things and was brave enough to go with my stepdad and take a job in Europe, working as a CIO for about five years and,for the longest time growing up, she would ask me what I wanted to do when I grew up and my answer would be, “Idon’t really know yet but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to do what you do for a living mom”.And now, as an IT professional, she have the opportunity to stand up in my wedding to say “I told you so”.So apparently, something didhit home with everything that she’s taught me, and she’s an amazing leader and also a wonderful role-model.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, it’s beautiful. What would you say is the best way for people to find you if they want to reach out to you or try to become one of your associates, what should they do?

Claire Pedersen Patel
LinkedIn is probably the best way to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Alright, just punch in your name in LinkedIn.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the most reliable way.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And, as we part waysa favorite challenge or a call to action that you’d like to leave folks with, those who are trying to become awesome at their job?

Claire Pedersen Patel
So, I think a story that shared just about every year or every time I do a goal setting or career discussion with one of the associates about… one of the associates who just got promoted out of the team and at the end of 2014, we were doing his review when it was like “You’re doing an amazing job as far as Trexin’s concern. Here’s all these awesome things that you did and like great job, here’s your raise, your bonus, everything”. His response was “Well, I feel like did a great job that I don’t feel like I grew as much as I could have this year”. So, I think it’s the challenge is don’t limit yourself to your company’s definition of success. Everywhere, you should set your goals based on what would make you satisfied at the end of the year. Then also incorporate what keeps you employed and keeps your employer happy, but, start with what makes you happy and makes you feel fulfilled at the end of the year.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, beautiful. Well Claire, thank you so much. This has been a delight. Congratulations and keep on truckin’.

Claire Pedersen Patel
Thank you so much, this was a blast.