The Roche Report

I should probably rename this blog reflections of a mother and former Cornerstone attendee - as my blogs are almost entirely about one or the other (have I told you lately that I love Cornerstone?). However, yesterday, I was having a conversation with a really, really strong performer on my team who said that they felt like they were happy to work on any type of project because they didn't really have any particular eminence in one specific area. This comment really resonated with me because it's something that I really struggled with myself -- and if I'm being honest about, is something that I used to feel very self conscious about as an up and coming leader in my organization. I felt like I was "known for" being a hard worker and someone who would see tasks to completion but I wasn't "known for" a functional eminence, which seems to be something that is valued as we talk about thought leaders and experts and branding.  Interestingly, for me, t...

One of my favorite pieces of advice that I've received is "what got you here, won't get you there." This means that the skills and experiences that made you great and helped you to get your current job, role, position, or recent promotion, will not be the skills that differentiate you for the future. This advice was a central element of one of my favorite training classes that I've ever taken, Cornerstone (hi Wayne!), which focused on the divergence from being a leader of people to being a leader of leaders -- and how you have to think differently and have different expectations, measurements, and ways of engaging than you did previously. Interestingly, most of the people taking the class felt that they were "known for" being detail-oriented, fact based, and subject matter experts - and the class challenged us that the expectation for the next level was in fact not about being the SME - but trusting your team of SME's to deliver for you. However,...

Six weeks ago, my dad went to the ER from a fall he had handing my mom their dog’s leash. He basically hasn’t left the hospital since (though he is anticipated be released Friday and things are on the up and up!!!). It has been a tremendous challenge emotionally- but also a challenge to step up as the caregiver to my Dad, especially from a decision making perspective. And, it has been really challenging to try to balance work (and a new role!), my own family, and trying to have some semblance of a social life. Johnny and I laughed the other night that since July (when we started the process of moving my parents out of their house in preparation for them to downsize), we have basically had no downtime. I mostly write about being a working mom- but over the past few weeks, I’ve learned that a new role is equally or more challenging: being a working caregiver. It’s hard for many reasons- there are so many details to keep track of- medicines, diagnoses, recommendations, dates, exerci...

This week, I was named the Digital Strategy & IX lead for my business unit, the Communications Sector for IBM GBS North America (whew, that was a lot of IBM-y terms). Essentially what this means is that I will be leading our customer experience transformation and digital transformation business within the Communications Sector, which serves Energy and Utilities, Media and Entertainment, and Telecommunications companies. I am thrilled. and excited. and proud. really proud. For me, this marks the attainment of a major career goal - I love what I do and the clients who I work with, but more importantly, I really love the team who I work with and I could not be more excited to lead such an awesome, vibrant team. When I started at IBM, I worked with the leaders of the legacy "service lines" that DS&IX has transformed into, helping them with their cadence, revenue forecasting, and staffing processes; I really admired both of the people who served in that role and dete...

On the flight home from the UK, I watched 3 episodes of Being Serena and found myself enraptured by it -- not for the production value or story line really, but because I found it fascinating watching her talk about several of the things that I have struggled with myself (and written about on this blog) like traveling for work, how to be the best at what you do while being an awesome parent, when to stop breastfeeding vis a vis your work demands. It's easy to put people like Serena Williams into an "other" category of "she has so much more ... than me so it must be easier for her" (Insert whatever you want into the ... - resources, talent, support, etc.). And yet, as many of us noted based on her recent US Open win, many of it is harder for her. For example, if anyone else was in back to back major finals, they wouldn't debate whether or not the person had come back; in fact, that could be a career achievement for many! She said two things that really reso...

I haven't posted much in the past month because I have I spent the past number of days and weeks working on two very important presentations / efforts. The entire experience has crystallized (or crystallised, because we had to use British English in the presentation, and that, in itself, was an experience) what incredible work that a solid, well-oiled team can do together. My story about this experience starts with the presentation itself. In a former role, I led a deal team, a large part of which was responsible for helping our IBM teams present in a more innovative and engaging way. My task on one of these two efforts presentation was to do just that - figure out how to create a story that both somewhat made sense in terms of what we were presenting, when we were given a list of essentially randomly organized questions to present. Accordingly, when given this challenge to tackle, my first call was to someone who I've done this with a bunch of times (hi Aaron!), who...

My team got into a discussion this week based on an article that someone posted in our slack channel  about caring for aging parents and how it impacts your career. It quickly evolved into a discussion about bringing your whole self to work - and I wanted to share my thoughts on that topic here... ... which is appropriate because that is the very reason that I started this blog. I started this blog because when I started thinking about wanting a family or realized that I was pregnant with Charlie, I realized that there were not many people that I felt that I could relate to at IBM (or in other consulting firms) who had been "in my shoes" so to speak: "young" aspiring executive, young baby, demanding job with travel, husband in a career with similar demands. There are women at IBM who have done some or all of those things, but if I'm being honest, it was hard to find them. When I found out that I was pregnant, I panicked - and started thinking - "ok...