FountainBlue's December 12 When She Speaks program on the topic of the 'Seventh Annual 'Men Who Open Doors’ Program. Please join me in thanking our esteemed panelists.
Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
The 2024 Men Who Open Doors Honorees are:
Kamal Kharrat, AppSec Engineering Leader, Halliburton
Sathish Nayak, Senior Director of Engineering, Pure Storage
Dave Winn, Senior Program Manager, Databricks
Raymond Zheng, Managing Director, Honda Innovations
This program also features a light roasting and introduction by our nominating executives:
Cynthia Dote, R&D Operations Leader, Pure Storage
Mio Harimoto, Venture Director, Corporate Venturing, Honda Innovations
We were honored to highlight the leadership and accomplishments of this year's ' Men Who Open Doors' awardees. Our executives came from a wide range of backgrounds, but they had much in common:
They have a passion for continuous improvement and a track record for navigating their careers through technical, leadership, process, and innovation challenges.
They have been acknowledged and rewarded for their empowering and engaging leadership style, which has led to the creation of many projects, managers, and initiatives.
They are committed to delivering immediate results and equally investing in setting up ongoing future results.
Below is a compilation of their thoughts on how to best open doors for others.
Work with executives to define projects and programs worthy of funding and ripe for distributed participation. This may be the foundation for opening doors and providing opportunities for people to shine.
Look beyond the typical go-to people or the 'logical' choices to tap people with more diverse backgrounds for opportunities and initiatives.
Guide broadly and lightly, outlining goals and rationale without overseeing how solutions can be implemented.
Provide counsel, resources, and advice to help navigate challenges successfully.
Balance the need to deliver on current initiatives while setting up for longer-term strategic success and impact.
Counsel the full person - the technical and tactical prowess to accomplish a task and the emotional fortitude and drive to persevere despite ongoing challenges.
Before you open a door, consider which doors should be opened, when they should be opened, for whom they should be opened, and why they should be opened. This will maximize the likelihood that a door-opening connection will benefit all parties.
Thoughts on how to support your team and those you mentor:
Be open to doing things that might make you feel uncomfortable, for that may be the best opportunity for growth.
Offer a nudge to help someone have the confidence and opportunity to walk through an open door, engage, and succeed.
Ongoing connection and communication may help someone achieve full results from an open door.
Sometimes opening doors might mean that someone needs to do difficult and unpleasant things.
It was inspiring to learn from our panel this month. The bottom line is that opening doors for others strengthens and improves us as managers, leaders, and people. Leaders like the ones we featured today help ensure this.