Episode 105: Belinda Clemmensen

Belinda Clemmensen Episode 105

Intro: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Pretty Powerful Podcast, where powerful women are interviewed every week to share real inspiring stories and incredible insight to help women or anyone break the barriers, be a part of innovation, shatter the glass ceiling, and dominate to the top of their sport, industry, or life's mission.

Join us as we celebrate exceptional women and step into our power. And now here's your host, Angela Gennari.

Angela Gennari: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pretty Powerful Podcast. My name is Angela Gennari and today I'm here with Belinda Clemmensen. Hi Belinda. Hi, Angela. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for joining us. So Belinda Clemonson is an author, founder, coach, visionary, and leadership development expert. She supports organizations to develop more equitable, inclusive, and just cultures so that they can thrive today and be more proactive about being ready for the [00:01:00] future. I love it.

Okay. And you are the founder of the Women's Leadership Initiative or Intensive. I want to say initiative, the Women's Leadership Intensive. That's right. Awesome. And then you have a whole bunch of initials after your name, BSC, MED, PCC. Can you tell

Belinda Clemmensen: me what those mean? Sure. So BSC is bachelor of science.

MED is a master's of adult education and workplace learning and change, which has been incredibly valuable to me in my career. Absolutely. Um, and PCC is professional certified coach.

Angela Gennari: Okay, very cool. So tell me a little bit about why you wanted to go into this sector and have you always been in this part of the business or did you start doing something else first?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, great question. So sort of very early in my career, I fell into leadership development.

Both: Okay.

Belinda Clemmensen: And loved it. Um, and so that's sort of what took me down the road eventually doing my master's degree and in adult learning and workplace learning and change. Kind of led me down a [00:02:00] road, um, that was a very fulfilling career for me in leadership development for a very long time, sort of with the belief that, you know, if most of us spend most of our waking hours at work, how can we make workplaces more human centric?

How can we make, you know, leadership set culture. So how can we help leaders set better cultures, et cetera. So I did that for many years. And then around 2018, I was pushing 50 years old. And I was having a bit of a crisis of consciousness, kind of wondering if my work was actually contributing to moving organizations in the direction that was aligned with my values and sort of where I was hoping the world would be going.

Versus was I basically just feeding the, the corporate capitalist machine, right? Just helping people make better widgets. Right. Um, and so, um, that was, I, I'd like to say I sort of moved through that quickly, but I really didn't. I really struggled with that for a few years and trying to get my feet under me of, you know, if I was doing [00:03:00] something that was more values aligned, what would that look like?

Um, what would have to change? Having built, um, uh, having had built a practice in a business and leadership development, was I ready to change my whole brand and identity as I was coming up on 50, which is scary and was definitely a challenge. Um, But when I really looked at sort of what was happening in the space and looked at it through a feminist lens, which wasn't new for me, I've been a feminist all my life.

Um, what really stood out for me is that when you look at the numbers, we're not making great progress and we're not making fast progress when it comes to things like equity and leadership.

Both: Right.

Belinda Clemmensen: And that leads to all these big culture problems right around inclusive cultures, but it also leads to all kinds of productivity and, and, and business excellence problems in my opinion, because we're not capitalizing on the real range of innovative ideas and thinking and perspectives were not, I think, also building the interpersonal skills to have [00:04:00] complex conversations with people with differing perspectives.

And so that was really what led me down this road of the women's leadership intensive and sort of into gender equity and inclusive leadership, uh, work

Angela Gennari: overall. I love it. So you actually are touching on a topic that I feel very passionate about, which is inclusion in the workplace and what Is really shocking to me.

And I bring this up sometimes when I do some public speaking is everybody thinks that we're equal. You know, there's this idea that like, Oh no, no, women have more rights than they've ever had. Women get all these additional bonuses and they get, you know, this push. And it's not true because if you really look at the numbers, it's not adding up.

Like there's, there's still a massive gap in how many women are actually in the boardroom. And how many women are actually at the, at the C level. So outside of female founders, and even that is not balanced because female [00:05:00] founders get less than 3 percent of all venture capital funds, you know, female founders still get less in bank funding.

So, I mean, there's still a massive gap and people just don't realize it until you really start diving into the numbers and see it like on paper.

Belinda Clemmensen: And I think that's such a good point because that's a big part of what I do too, is just educate people about, you know, yes, we do still have a pay gap and here's what it is and here's where it comes from and why it persists and, you know, whatever those sort of those data points are.

And I think, you know, there's, there's sort of a lot of factors that have led to this. If we don't have that information at our fingertips. If people aren't truly educated, then it's very easy to take your perspective and extrapolate that that is the reality for all. Right. So sometimes I'll work in industries where they say, well, we do have a fairly balanced leadership team.

Both: Right.

Belinda Clemmensen: And I say, that's fantastic. And we have to look at the micro and the macro because it's great that you do. But when we look big picture, we can't deny [00:06:00] the fact that the numbers are still fairly static or moving very slowly. You know, and, and when you look at the global picture, right, if we get outside of, you know, North America or, um, North America and Europe, then we, then we see even bigger disparities, um, when we add in the global view.

So it's sort of like, can we open the aperture a little bit from the personal experience, which is important to the organizational, to the cultural and then the global. And that's where we really get to understand what is the actual picture.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. So where do you see, what industry do you see the biggest gap in fewer women at the C suite level and fewer women who are really kind of in charge of making the decisions on the board, on the boards and at that C level?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah. So most of our clients are in what have traditionally been male dominated industries and that's a bigger part of the reason why they come to work with us because they're struggling. Right. So that would be, [00:07:00] um, Mining. Okay. Energy. Construction's probably got the worst numbers of any industry, but I haven't worked that with that many construction businesses yet.

I think they're still lagging, even in terms of figuring out, you know, there's a big push for women in skilled trades, but is that translating into actual numbers in the, in, you know, in the trades, professions,

Angela Gennari: right.

Belinda Clemmensen: Sketchy to see. Plus there's a lot of really small businesses in construction. There's some big ones too, but it's not like mining where you have to be a big company or utilities and energy where you have to be a big company.

Um, so those are kind of the, I mean, those are the predictable pieces, right? Like you would, you would guess that mining and energy and construction had low numbers, but even when we start to split it up, some of those, um, industries are starting to see some good results at the board level because of this push of the 30 percent club, you know, we want to have more women on boards.

That's great. But then it really stops there. So, you know, when we get into, um, the C suite, you might see one or two women, and they [00:08:00] tend to really be clustered around supporting um, functions like HR, particularly, tons of HR, um, legal, sustainability, community relations, those kinds of things, environment.

Yep. So, they're not, um, they're not the decision makers that are driving a lot of the operational sides of the business and those big decisions. So there again, we may have them in those jobs, but are they as consequential? Are they as, um, contributive to the big decisions that get made that have a lot of impact, a ripple effect, right on employees, community environment, resource consumption.

Et cetera. So that's the case kind of in the mining and energy sectors. And then once you get into operations, then you see really low numbers of women as well. Yeah. It's the hands, the boots on the ground, um, places, and those are really good jobs right in the economy. They are, you know, um, some skilled, some not, [00:09:00] um, but those are high paying, um, careers.

And so the fact that we don't see a lot of women, there is a big issue in my view.

Both: Um,

Belinda Clemmensen: they have a lot of work to do culturally to make those, those operational, um, environments more inclusive and friendly, uh, for women, right? Like you think about mining operations, I've been in mining camps, I've worked in mining camps.

Yeah. You know, there's, there's a long way to go. Um, and then I think on the other side, I feel like tech and STEM are still really lagging too. And that, that's even more disturbing in a way, because there's not some of those barriers like in mining, we've got like fly in fly out communities. You know, there's a huge history there.

My women in Canada weren't even allowed underground mines until the seventies, I think, you know? So, but in tech, I'm like, there's no good excuse over there. Yeah. There's no good excuse period. But that one, that one just feels like really it, that one feels like a blow.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. Yeah, I [00:10:00] agree. Well, and I love to see all these STEM programs that are out there now, you know, for women in STEM, but, you know, I can see the numbers, the younger, you know, like they're doing it in high schools and they're doing it, you know, in colleges, but where are we losing women in the process in the workforce, you know, where, where do you think that gap is widening?

And is it because I see women in middle management quite a lot. But it's not beyond middle management that you see women frequently.

Belinda Clemmensen: I think, you know, around the real STEM career stuff, the gap, there's a huge gap that happens in first job. So, you know, women go through young women go through high school, college, university, whatever their programs are.

And those environments have gotten a lot better in terms of inclusion. I'm not saying there's not still problems there. They're for sure there is, but they're gotten a lot better. Women see themselves represented in those classrooms. They'll often see themselves represented in faculty more or less, depending on where they are.[00:11:00]

So it's, it's more equal. And so they get used to that, uh, experience and that environment. And then they go into their first job as an engineer. And, you know, maybe it's for a big engineering firm, maybe it's for a mining company, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Uh, maybe they're going into a technology role and they are hit with a wall of patriarchal culture.

And you know, this has come up a lot, especially with some of our client organizations. It's like a lot of the women who've been able to be successful in those environments have said I'm tough and I've had to be tough in order to survive.

Both: Mm hmm.

Belinda Clemmensen: And I think. Fantastic. You know what? I'm tough too. I get it, but it shouldn't be a requirement of the job.

They shouldn't have to be that tough just to survive your work environment.

Angela Gennari: Right. Right. Exactly. So where, so do you think it's that, and, and there's so many [00:12:00] theories on why, you know, we, we kind of level out at mental management as women, you know, um, it could, you know, they say, well, it's the childbirth.

It's the, It's the time off of work that you're taking. It's the, you know, you don't want to work longer hours. You don't want to do, you know, what it takes to stay until 8, 8 p. m. every night because you want to get home to your kids. And there's some truth in that. I don't deny that. But at the same time, I feel like.

With the work at home trend that's happening, we might have a better ability to balance to be there for our children and our husbands and our, you know, whatever it is. Uh, because I mean, that that's one of the things that I think, um, is an equalizer is the ability to balance because regardless of what our job is, there's still statistics that show women do the bulk of the, you know, the home environment.

You know, caretaking. So whether it's for aging parents, whether it's for children, whether it's, you know, for their communities, we're still doing [00:13:00] the bulk of that. So when you add that into a high level position, that's very demanding. Um, you know, we having at least some flexibility will definitely move the needle for us.

Belinda Clemmensen: Absolutely. Flexibility is one of the key factors. Yeah. And so, you know, there was, um, the recent, uh, UN SGD progress report said that, you know, women globally are still doing 2. 3 more hours per day.

Both: Wow.

Belinda Clemmensen: Uh, caregiving unpaid caregiving work, right? Like 2. 3 hours per day. Now, again, you're going to see huge geographical variation there, but I just say that number, because it feels like that for a lot of women that I work with.

In North America. Yeah. Right. It feels like they're doing all the things and then they're, they're doing another couple hours, you know, over and above. And so I think until we overcome that, until we get more equality in our households and in our, you know, the way that we do caregiving work in our culture, um, elder care, as you mentioned is huge right now in terms of, you [00:14:00] know, these are big systemic problems.

So they're, they're problems. I think that exists. In our socialization that we need to overcome, like the mindsets, right. And perceptions around these things we all do because that socialization is in me as much as it is in my spouse. Sure. Just different. Yeah. Um, but it's also systems issues, right? Like, so we have not built systems that support.

Parents to work, you know, so school hours are not the same as work hours or expectations around work do not include caregiving responsibilities. Right. And so I think there's this equality in the home piece, but then I also think there's this. Potential revolution in the way that workplaces are set up.

Um, you know, uh, it was Claudia Golden who just won the, um, Nobel prize, right. And, and for her study in, in gender inequality, and she referred to it as greedy work. This idea that our workplaces [00:15:00] want more and more and more of us. So, you know, there's the idea of like, can we balance our lives in such a way that I can work at 8 PM at night?

Cause that's what required of the job. Or do we fundamentally need to rethink the expectations that the job has of us?

Both: Right. Like,

Belinda Clemmensen: why are we working at 8 PM at night? And. Right. This sort of like the myth of endless growth, endless productivity, when we know there's a personal cost and we're seeing this personal cost happen in anyone who's got these intense caregiving responsibilities, but the majority of those folks are women.

And so we see this, um, these decision points in women's careers where they say. I can do that. I'm capable of doing that. Do I want to,

Both: is it worth

Belinda Clemmensen: it? Is it worth the cost to me? Is it worth the cost to my family? Is it worth the cost of my health? And so that's where I see this as, you know, this is not an individual woman by woman problem.

This is a systems problem.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, I agree. [00:16:00] I agree. And, and, you know, companies need to take a step back and say, you know, what kind of employee do I want? Right. And that's one thing that I've, As a business owner, you know, I've had to look at my own views and I know I work too much and then I, but I'm the first one to also tell my, my employees like, hey, it's Saturday, go, go to your kids baseball game, like, you know, stop answering the phone.

And, um, and so I've had to implement rules. And sometimes it's to check myself. Sometimes it's to say, okay, no texting employees after 8 PM, you know, no, you know, if you have something to say, that's on my mind, like if I'm working late, that's a me thing. That's not an everybody in the company thing. So there's no texting.

It has to be an email and an email that I don't expect to be checked until tomorrow, you know? And so those are the things that I've had to put boundaries around my own expectations, because regardless of how I operate. I can't expect everyone else to do the same thing. And if I do it, it's because I want to do [00:17:00] it.

Or, you know, there's, there's a, there's a internal thing and it's not that I feel that needs to be reflected in all of my employees.

Belinda Clemmensen: And as a business owner, that's a different deal. I mean, because the, the, you know, the, the benefit and the cost are right there in front of you as a business owner every single day.

Right. And, and that's a little different when you're an employee, um, especially an employee in a larger company when there's a lot of people, you know, in lockstep to make things happen. It's just, it's a different level of responsibility and it should be right. If you're not a shareholder in that business.

Both: Then of

Belinda Clemmensen: course the success of the business matters to you, but it, it's feels a little less direct sometimes.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. So for companies, how do you, what do you, what do you recommend when you go into a company and you say, okay, let's, let's fix some of these issues. What are the, some of the suggestions that you might make to a business who wants to get to that [00:18:00] 30 percent who wants to do better?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah. So I always will say it's a two, um, two prong approach. So the first one is If you have a gender equity or gender equity and leadership problem, right? Your numbers are not good. Then we have to work to close that gap. So let's, let's do leadership development specifically for those women and help them get on a career progression.

That's going to help them overcome some of the pipeline problems. And like, let's, let's work on that directly and get your numbers up and make sure that when those women do get into those leadership roles, they're really well equipped for it. So they can be really successful support, uh, support and sponsor other women, et cetera.

So that's one track. The other track though, is let's work on your culture. Um, because if those women get developed and the culture doesn't change, then they're coming up against that same barrier over here that has not moved an inch, right? So they're coming back with these skillsets, but it's not being matched on the other side.

And so that's where I, we, we do work on let's support all [00:19:00] leaders with inclusive leadership, skillsets and training so that they have the vocabulary. They have a foundation. They understand it. They can apply it to themselves. They have the ability to have difficult conversations, like all of the stuff that is required to create inclusive workplaces.

A lot of the leaders that I speak to just don't feel equipped. They feel thrown into the deep end. It's like, I don't, I don't even know what all of these words mean anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm expected to keep up, especially by younger folks in the workforce who are way further ahead, you know, I'm thinking about all this.

Than we would've been at that age. And so it's, yeah. It's sort of like supporting them to do better. Yeah. Um, through the challenges. And the other thing I would say always is let's, let's work with whatever data you have, because that tells a story. So,

Both: Mm-Hmm. , you

Belinda Clemmensen: know, not everyone has comprehensive diversity data.

It's hard to collect. Um, but for sure, you know, your numbers [00:20:00] on, on male, female split.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. And you

Belinda Clemmensen: know, your pay equity numbers, like, right.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, it's easy to research. You can run a report really easily. That's right. So, so. If you're, if you're advising a client, like, let's just say I'm, I'm in the security industry.

And so there's very few women at the C level or the founder level in my particular industry. So it can be a little daunting at times, you know, there's, there's definitely those things that I deal with, you know, the imposter syndrome, the, you know, are they going to take me seriously? Do they think that I'm a legit?

You know, security company owner. And so I feel this need to prove myself constantly, even though I've, I've owned my company for nine years, you know, and I still say I run this like a startup because I'm constantly trying to show and prove our value every single day. Um, so how would you advise somebody like me?

Who's trying to come into an industry that's very male dominated, um, to get to the place where I know [00:21:00] I can, I can add value to a company. That is such a good question.

Belinda Clemmensen: That is such a good question. I have all kinds of thoughts about this. One. One I would say is, you know, figure out who your allies are in the industry.

Mm. I'm sure you're probably already doing that, right? Mm-Hmm. . It's, it's like

Both: mm-Hmm.

Belinda Clemmensen: male allies, female allies, you know, right across the board. Right. Who are the people who will speak your company's name when you're not in that room and say, absolutely we should be working with Angela.

Both: Mm-Hmm. .

Belinda Clemmensen: Um, because I do think, um, in a lot of those industries.

It is a lot about sort of, um, somebody knows you and therefore it gives you credibility. Um, it's not necessarily the way it should be in terms of due diligence, but it tends to work that way.

Both: Yeah.

Belinda Clemmensen: Um, and so I think that's one piece of it. The other piece that I have learned and struggled with over the course of my career is, um, to make sure my rates are really competitive.

And I mean, what I mean by that is [00:22:00] most women entrepreneurs underprice our services. Yes. Absolutely. And, um, there's an inherent sort of, um, devaluing that can come with that imposter syndrome that you're talking about. Right. It's like, you know, I'm just a startup or I'm just this, or, you know, kind of this, uh, way we can kind of talk ourselves out of our value and, and sort of feed that storyline.

And so the more I get clear about what my rates are, and the more I don't compromise on those rates, um, the less pushback I get on them. It's been a fascinating. Yeah. Uh, process.

Angela Gennari: Yeah. And

Belinda Clemmensen: so somehow it's just, it's putting a stake in the ground saying, I value our services this much. And if you do too, that's great.

Let's work together. And if you do not, then that's fine too.

Both: Mm

Belinda Clemmensen: hmm.

Angela Gennari: You know, that took me a while because, um, we, we started pricing ourselves kind of in a premium because I knew how much it was [00:23:00] costing us. I wanted to pay people more. I wanted to train them more. I wanted to give them more benefits. And so I wanted to have a workforce that, that felt valued.

And. Thought that that would then translate to our clients seeing the value we bring because we valued our, our employees so much. And it didn't because we were getting low ball all the time. Like, well, if you could just cut your rates, another 20%, or if you could just do this and like, but it's not the same product.

And like, that's what I've just had to, I've just had to come to terms with it because a few times that I've said, okay, sure. Yeah. We'll we'll drop our rates. It has not ended up. Being a good situation for us, uh, because if this, if somebody is only going to look at you based on your price, that's not really what somebody you want, because the moment somebody comes in a dollar an hour less, they're going to go, they're gone.

You know, there's no, there's no loyalty there. They don't understand. They don't see your value when you were priced high. So they're not going to see your value when you're [00:24:00] priced low either.

Belinda Clemmensen: Absolutely. And I think, you know, this is a, this also sort of points to, I think what a lot of bigger companies need to be looking at is like, what is the quality of your supply chain?

So along the lines of diversity, sustainability, uh, human rights, you know, like how, like, so the fact, if you want a robust supply chain, then you want to hire companies like yours that are paying people well, that are giving them proper benefits. Because that whole system is, I think, going to start to come under a lot more scrutiny.

So, you know, as, as those big organizations need to report on their own metrics more, particularly around things like, um, climate, right. These regulations are coming, they're starting, they're harder in Europe, they're coming to Canada next. I'm sure they're on their way into the U S like, you know, so these, these kinds of reporting regulations are coming.

It's starting with, you know, the environment, but I think it's going to start ESG metrics eventually. Um, So I think you're right. [00:25:00] If we can find a way to get that to the people who are going to want to know, not just how's your environmental or human rights, or, you know, um, track record, but also what does it look like for your supply chain?

Because if yours looks good, but your supply chain is terrible, then that's still not going to fly. And so, um, I do think companies need to think about who they hire in their supply chain for the lot more lenses than just cost. I think it would be incredibly short sighted to just look at cost.

Angela Gennari: Yes, 100 percent agree with you.

Well, and I find that women are really, really good at that too. Women are bigger picture thinkers. Women take into consideration so many more things other than just price. I mean, like, like with, with my employees, you know, for me, it was not just about being able to compete. Price wise with the guys that are out there.

It's about providing a better environment for my, my employees. And so they can have more money to spend in their communities and on their children. And, you know, we look at things from a [00:26:00] holistic view, because that's what our. Our nature is right is our nurturers and it's not just a nurturer of our own children, but nurturing our environment, nurturing our community, nurturing, you know, the people around us.

And so because of that, I think we don't, you know, we don't get narrow focused on one particular aspect of business. We, we look at things holistically. I

Belinda Clemmensen: absolutely agree. I think that's one of the strengths in it. You know, whether you could say is it nature or nurture at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter.

It's a skill set that we hold.

Angela Gennari: Sure.

Belinda Clemmensen: And it's a valuable skill set. And honestly, I really think that it is a, you know, it's going to be one of the most critical skill sets for businesses of the future. I just don't think that this idea that If we don't think of our companies as members of our community, I just don't think that that's going to fly for much longer.

I think younger generations are not interested in profit as paramount to everything else and who cares?

Angela Gennari: And

Belinda Clemmensen: anyone who [00:27:00] presents that way, I think is just, is going to struggle eventually.

Angela Gennari: Well, just like we're seeing a lot of the companies that are out there right now, Boeing is the first one that comes to mind, you know, they were quality, quality, quality.

And then they got to a new CEO decided he was going to focus strictly on the bottom line, you know, shareholder value. That's all he cared about shareholder value. And he forgot about the value he brought to the people who use his products, you know, and, and The, you know, the Boeing planes that we all fly in that, you know, airlines are buying and who that, that has sustained them for so long, they forgot about that part.

And so, you know, now there's a new CEO and hopefully he gets the picture that, you know, the bottom line is not the, the key focus.

Belinda Clemmensen: Absolutely. And I just read this morning and I haven't gone through the entire article, but I believe they've just had to avert a strike by giving a significant pay increase at 25%.

Like it was significant. Yeah. Um, to their employees. [00:28:00] And again, this is the, you know, you can cut things down so far, but as you said, if you start to erode the foundation of your business, because you're all about Shareholder value or, or cost cutting, then there are these, these rebounding effects, you know, this happened, um, in our jurisdiction here.

I live in Ontario, Canada, where the provincial government, um, put a pay freeze on a cost of living increase for nurses and teachers in the province. And so that got challenged. Uh, in the courts, and it turned out that that was something they could not do. And so now they've had to pay back all that money that they thought they had saved.

That's right. And pay the expenses for going through the legal system. And it's just like, there are certain things that are just not worth, uh, trying to cut because it, it involves people and people are your employees or they're your customers. I mean, Right. Right. Right. We're part [00:29:00] of the equation.

Angela Gennari: Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and the bad press that you get from it, you know, like how much does that cost just in, in the trust factor, you know, when, when you have huge amounts of, of bad press that are coming out about your company and your misalignment of values, that is going to resonate for much longer than it takes you to make that money back.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, there's the name Boeing is going to be said with a certain kind of Attitude for quite some time until they can prove themselves otherwise. Right. It's huge impact.

Angela Gennari: I put on, you know, I'm, I'm a little sassy on LinkedIn sometimes. And I put something about like, listen, it's one thing to have your company be in trouble, but when your clients become the butt of memes because of your.

product. Like now you've really set yourself up for disaster because there were, you know, between the Alaskan Airlines debacle and I think it was, I can't remember what the other one is, but there, you know, there are multiple memes out there. I [00:30:00] think it was United or something. Um, but there are multiple memes about that airline.

And so like now the airline is suffering, your clients are suffering because of your poor, poor choices. That's not going to be good. You know, that's not good. That'd be good. Yeah. Good strategy there. So yeah, but you know, there's a ripple effect that you have to maintain. And when you are a business and you are only thinking of one part of your business as being the most important part, like shareholder value, you are missing such a key element, you know, your employees, like the strikes that are happening, though, that is, that's where your value really is.

And the more you can just focus, like I always say, I'm like, we are not client first company. We are an employee first company. And the reason is because if we're constantly taking care of our employees, our employees are going to take care of our clients. If we focused only on our clients and we disregarded what our employees want, we'd be constantly having to fight for our clients again, because our employees would not do a good job.

And so, you know, it's about putting your values in the right place.

Belinda Clemmensen: I think so too. And I think we [00:31:00] forget that this is just one point in time, right? Like, there were other points in history where corporations and organizations served a different function in the community, right? Or they, or where people did literally work nine to five or nine to four.

And had weekends off and evenings off and vacation time and pensions, you know, so this is the point of time we are right now. It doesn't mean that other systems are not possible. We've, we've seen other systems. I'm not saying we go back to the way things used to be. That's not the direction, but we can recreate better systems.

And I think as organizations, that's an exciting opportunity. If we can let go of some of the. You know, kind of immutable assumptions about the way things have to be. It's like, well, they could be better.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Absolutely. Get creative. So what other values do you feel like, what, what does equality in business, you know, when you have equal amounts of women and men at the table or, you [00:32:00] know, genders of, of.

Yeah.

Belinda Clemmensen: I mean, I think it does in a few ways, I think it, um, it it's going to broaden the, a number of different points of view you might have about an issue. So let's take like a consumer goods company, for example, you know, you are going to be appealing to consumers who Who are also diverse, right? And so it only makes sense to me that you would want your teams who are creating those products and describing them and, um, developing them and marketing them to also understand that diverse consumer base, you know, so I think there's the potential for greater innovation.

I think there's the potential to get products and services much more aligned with your, your end users and customers. Um, I do think [00:33:00] there's a lot of data that would show that diverse teams outperform, you know, on most metrics in industries like, like mining and energy and construction. For example, one of the things that has been shown with more gender diversity on their teams is that their safety records go way up

Both: and their

Belinda Clemmensen: injury frequency goes down.

So there's, there's two sort of things there. One is, um, they challenged the perception of, of risk. Well, there may be this sort of like, you know, certain way of addressing risk that the all male teams have had in the past, a woman might come in and see different risks and raise different risks as part of that profile.

So there's that piece. And then there's also, you know, for example, one of my clients, um, is, um, a hydro company and it's their women in forestry division. So they're, they're the ones that are out cutting trees and putting the lines up. And it's a small number of women. They're amazing. And so they've really changed the [00:34:00] way that that work gets done because they can't lift equipment the same way.

They don't have the same body type. So now that they're approaching the way equipment gets used differently, all of their male colleagues are approaching it the same way they are,

Both: because it's

Belinda Clemmensen: just better ergonomically. And so the injury rate among those male foresters is also going way down because they're adopting these new ways of doing things that the women foresters brought in, right?

That's fascinating. I love it. So it's just, I think there's just all kinds of cool potential here to learn from difference, um, and make things better for everyone. And I, I think if we can get out of this really binary, like, um, if I get more, you get less kind of mindset and say, how do we come together to, um, basically improve everything for all of us?

I do think there's much more potential for that kind of innovation there.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, I agree with you, you know, and this is a very small example, but I had, uh, they had asked me to be a judge, an [00:35:00] entrepreneur judge for DECA, and DECA is a high school organization, and they had their national Finals in Atlanta.

And so I volunteered to be a judge and judge the entrepreneurial ventures that these kids were coming up with. And so I had to evaluate them on a multiple multitude of scores. Like they had all kinds of different categories that they had to compete in. And it was so fascinating to me. And I just kept thinking about this because they didn't have me write down, you know, gender or race at all, but it was just something that I started noting.

And, um, what I found, and this is my own, again, very, very small sample, is when, when two young ladies came to me, theirs was very focused on, um, you know, how can we treat our employees better? You know, how can we do a right by, you know, how can we do great marketing? How can we do right by our customers?

Like there was, there was, it was almost an emotional component to it of, of just wanting, keep wanting to do [00:36:00] good. And then there was when the, Two young, two young men came to me. They would usually say, well, we, we, we want to focus on the operations and the logistics, and so there's, was very sound operationally their plan, but they were missing out on that key piece of like, how are you connecting with your clients?

How are you connecting with your employees? And they didn't really have answers for that. Right. Other than like, well, we pay them.

But then when we, I had two minorities that would come to me, there's was very community minded. You know, how are we, how are we engaging with our community? How are we giving back? How are we sending, you know, volunteers out into the community? How are we educating them? And so there's, was very community minded, but the ones who had the diverse teams, you know, which were few and far between, because I noticed that it didn't align usually that way.

But when there was a diversity amongst the team, it was the best plan, like the most holistic, well thought out, you know, well rounded plans. [00:37:00] And so anyway, I scored them the highest because they thought of all aspects of it, of business, not just, you know, one or two key categories.

Belinda Clemmensen: What a great microcosm.

Like I think that says a lot, right? That says a lot about the different values of those groups. Again, whether they're learned or whether they're inherent, who knows? Right. Um, but about how helpful it is when we can all bring those all things all together to create something better.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Absolutely.

But I love what you're doing. I think it's really, really important. And, um, I applaud you for, for taking the initiative to go out there and educate people on how important this is.

Belinda Clemmensen: Thank you. I love the work. I have to say, sometimes it does feel like a risky conversation to get into, as I'm sure you know, you're having it to, um, to be a voice for these things is important, but also, you know, we, we live in times where it's not always well received.

So

Angela Gennari: no, you know, I had a very challenging, [00:38:00] I just have to share this one little, so we had a very challenging, um, I was doing a public speaking. Uh, event at a security conference, uh, a little while ago, and this literally was the week after the trump, um, assassination attempt. And so, um, I was dealing with, you know, a lot of the security was, you know, it was a very anti D.

1. I. You know, time they were, you know, this was, this would not have happened if this wasn't a DEI thing. And, you know, these women should have not been there. And so I was coming into a security conference to talk about DEI in a time when that was not a welcome conversation. And so I really kind of had to think through this and like, how am I going to go ahead and address the elephant in the room?

Before it becomes, you know, everybody tunes me out the moment I start talking. And so I put up two slides on the, on the screen. And I, the one slide was of the women at the [00:39:00] at the Trump assassination attempt. And then it was the other slide was the police officers at the Uvalde school. And this is going to sound controversial, but, um, you know, my, my thing was, this is no more DEI than this was.

And I was like, you know, you can't say this is a DEI issue when you have all these men at the, at the Uvalde school where all these children are getting killed. And these gentlemen have gotten to be, you know, they were charged now. These officers incompetence, it knows, no, it was no gender. And so it's not a DEI thing.

It's a lack of training. It's a lack of leadership, lack of competence. And so that, that knows no gender. And so, you know, you can't say this is a DEI thing any more than that was a DEI thing. So. Well done. Yeah, so I had to get addressed.

Belinda Clemmensen: Well, you had to get in front of it. There's no other way. As you said, there's no other way.

Right. And I think that's, again, it's that sort of courage to go head on into [00:40:00] these conversations and say, like, let's really look at this. Let's And, you know, sometimes that's, that's about also sort of debunking some of the stuff that comes through the media, right? Which of course has, has a certain reason for presenting things a certain way.

And so again, we just have to dig underneath it and try to find the more true answer to whatever it is that's in front of us.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's tough. And, and when you have conversations that are going to be, you know, it's going to be tough. You know, you're in a room full of, you know, I'm already women in security.

It's, you know, we're, we're a small segment. And so I had to say, this is no more representative of women in security or women in law enforcement than this is of men in law enforcement. And that's it. And so I think it at least resonated and people were like, okay, yeah, I get it. You get that. Like that, that, that makes sense.

So, so what advice would you give to your 18 year old self?

Belinda Clemmensen: I think, you know, I, I definitely have traveled the road, you know, the path less traveled the road, [00:41:00] less traveled, um, through my life. Um, mostly as an entrepreneur. And as you know, that's, you know, you're, you're building the path as you're, as you're walking.

Both: Yeah. Yeah.

Belinda Clemmensen: Um, I think advice to my 18 year old self would be, um, it's, you know, I already knew that I didn't want to do things the way everyone else did, which is wonderful. Yes, exactly. And I think I would just say like, just be okay with that. Like it's going to work out. You don't have to. You know, follow, follow the thread that's genuine and, and trust yourself and see where you end up.

Angela Gennari: Yeah, absolutely. So did you make the right decision when you were in your 50 when you turned 50 and you said, I want to do something different that aligns with my values? Did you go down the right

Belinda Clemmensen: path? Absolutely. I mean, stepping into this work, um, I haven't had to leave my leadership development work behind because it's still important and valuable and relevant here, but the, my [00:42:00] why is so much.

Uh, more inherent and integrated into my everyday work. And I love that.

Angela Gennari: I'm so

Belinda Clemmensen: grateful.

Angela Gennari: That's amazing. Well, again, I applaud you for what you're doing because it's, you know, these are difficult conversations to have sometimes. They're not, they're not always welcome conversations. And so, you know, it takes courage to stand up and say, we're going to do, we're going to talk about something because it needs to be discussed.

And, you know, it will be easy to sweep it under the rug and say, well, it's, it's getting better, you know, little by little by little, but it's not, it's not changing enough. So,

Belinda Clemmensen: yeah, I often say people come in, people pay me to come in and tell them things they really wish they didn't have to hear, you know,

Angela Gennari: This is true. So one of the questions I ask on this podcast all the time is, you know, as women, we give our power away pretty frequently. Um, so can you tell me about a time that you've given your power away and another time that you stepped into your power?

Belinda Clemmensen: Yes. This, this question gave me [00:43:00] pause. So I had a recent experience and I think this is like, it's a function of my socialization.

I mean, I grew up in the seventies and eighties. In a household where my dad was a business owner and my mom worked in the business a bit, but also was a hundred percent responsible for the home caregiving work. So very sort of traditional, uh, male, female, uh, gender roles and expectations. And I've sort of been trying to shed that stuff, you know, all my life, but some of it's still in there.

And part of that is the be nice piece, right? Like be polite, be nice. And so I recently had an experience where I kind of got trapped in this conversation. It wasn't a conversation. It was a interaction with a, um, a guy who basically monologued at me, um, for a good stretch of time.

Both: And I

Belinda Clemmensen: eventually extricated myself from that, but I did a lot of smiling and nodding for the, for the time that the monologuing was happening, not wanting to be impolite, trying to think of what could I say that would.[00:44:00]

You know, extricate me from this situation that I really not that interested in listening to this person. Um, and the only thing I could come up with in my mind as I was listening was something that would sound pretty direct and pretty rude. Right. And so rather than go there, I suffered through it.

Angela Gennari: Oh, gosh.

Belinda Clemmensen: And I feel like that was a place where I gave up my power. Fairly recently, and I remember afterwards being pretty furious with myself. Like, what are you doing ? Like you just put up with that. Like Uhhuh , come

Both: on.

Belinda Clemmensen: But it was this thing about like if I could find a way out that would've been polite, I would've taken it right.

But I wasn't willing to be rude. And I think that's the sort of piece around, not that I'm advocating, go out there and be rude to everybody, but I think there's time and place where you just need to say the thing. Yeah. And if somebody is offended. Okay. Cause I'm kind of offended by the monologue. So right.

Yeah. You can be offended too. We'll both be offended by each other and we'll move on.

Angela Gennari: Yes, they can agree with you. Cause I mean, that [00:45:00] is something that we do have to overcome sometimes as women is just, you know, being polite and, you know, and, and even when it comes to safety and that's another thing that I try to really impress upon women, like guys, be polite.

Please don't put yourself in a compromising position because you don't want to be rude to somebody, or you are too afraid to tell them no. Like, cause I feel like a safety issue is a, is a massive reason to be extremely rude to somebody. You know, you can hurt their feelings. It's okay. Protect yourself.

And so, yeah, I see, I see that a lot, even still. I think

Belinda Clemmensen: that's a really interesting spin on it because If we were to think about it as safety, like physical safety in the case that you're talking about, but it's also. You know, I think there's like, uh, you know, there can be psychological safety or social safety or all the other reasons why we sort of guardrail ourselves in those situations.

And, um, yeah, being willing to, to, yeah. [00:46:00] Speak the thing out loud. Be a little rude.

Angela Gennari: Yeah.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah, there reasons for doing that.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Holding boundaries. You know, it's another thing that we're not used, you know, we're not accustomed to is, you know, oh, well, you know, that's, that boundary is, you know, we're gonna let that go.

Like, no, A boundary is a boundary boundary. A boundary's a reason.

Belinda Clemmensen: Yeah. And I think that's maybe my example of, of being powerful is just how I'm much more able to hold my boundaries with clients now. Yes. About the work we do, we don't do, um. If they're not serious about doing this work, we're probably not your people, you know, that kind of thing.

Angela Gennari: Absolutely. Yeah. And my boundaries go with disrespect to, you know, like where, where somebody is disrespectful, like I, you know, we're just, we're just not the right fit and that's okay. You know, there's, there's no, there's nothing set in stone that we have to work together, you know, that doesn't have to happen.

So. So, um, I really enjoyed this. This has been a lot of fun. Um, but what, uh, one more [00:47:00] question for you. What do you wish more people knew?

Belinda Clemmensen: I, yeah, I don't know if this is, I don't know if people don't know this or I just maybe wish it was part of the conversation a lot more is this idea that all of us, regardless of our identities, our genders, et cetera, you know, I think most of us, are looking for connection, belonging, community fulfillment.

You know, there's, there's sort of this humanness that I feel like we get, we leave it aside too much from the conversation, from the way we build a business, from the way we, um, engage in the world. And I, and I just feel like here, we all are longing for that.

Both: And if we,

Belinda Clemmensen: if we talked about it more, if we brought it more into focus, maybe we would work together on it more.

And I I mean, maybe that's The eternal optimist in me talking, but I just feel like there's such potential there for, for coming together and coming up with better solutions.

Angela Gennari: That is beautiful [00:48:00] and a great way to end. Cause I think that that's very, very powerful. So Belinda, how can people find you?

Belinda Clemmensen: Uh, you can find me at women's leadership, intensive.

ca okay. Long website, but, um, yeah, so there's a book page there for the book. There's a description of the kinds of programs that we do. Um, and there's also a really excellent resources page. Okay. Um, so articles, books, film, TV, you name it on, uh, issues of gender equity. So that's just an open resource that we try to keep adding to all the time so that people can go there as a bit of a one stop shop.

Oh, that's fantastic.

Angela Gennari: Well, thank you so much for everything that you're doing. I really appreciate you. And I appreciate everything that you're doing for equity in the workplace, because I think it's just so, so important, especially for our younger generation coming up. I think, I think that they will, um, you know, there's an expectation there, uh, that they will be [00:49:00] able to have better opportunities.

And I'm really hoping that they do. So I think, I think that we're setting them up for success. I really do. I feel like, um, You know, people like you are paving the way. So I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Angela. Absolutely. I love this conversation too. Yeah, this has been fun. Well, uh, you can also find Belinda Clemmensen on prettypowerfulpodcast.

com. So please do check her out. And, um, we look forward to talking to you next time. Thank you, Belinda. All right, everybody have a great day.

Intro: for joining our guests on the pretty powerful podcast. And we hope you've gained new insight and learned from exceptional women. Remember to subscribe or check out this and all episodes on prettypowerfulpodcast.

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