With nearly half of American workers opting for independent work, we’re going on a roadshow to interview people staying IN corporate jobs & people opting into something more freelance-y. We’re calling it our “Stay or Go” series in which we look across the work spectrum to ask, “what’s driving you right now?”.

In this conversation, Making Every Job Count Toward Your Career North Star, we hosted a conversation between our Founder & CEO, Brea Starmer, and HR Customer Engagement Director Tameka McNair to discuss Tameka’s career growth, how she seizes every opportunity and makes intentional moves towards her career north star, and ultimately why she is staying in at Microsoft.

Check out all our Stay or Go Series events here: https://lionsandtigers.com/category/stayorgo

Transcript:

Brea:
Hello, everyone hello on LinkedIn! Hello to all of you wherever you are in the world. I’m Brea Starmer. I’m the founder and CEO of lions and tigers. And I am so thrilled to be having this conversation today as part of our stay or go series. So at lions and tigers, we build blended teams of employees and consultants. And so I’m always curious about the choices that people are making around where they work and the season that they’re in. And so today’s episode is an episode about staying in at work. And we’ve got the most amazing guest Tameka McNair who is staying in at Microsoft as an HR director. Tameka is so damn impressive. There’s just so much that we could talk about together. She’s an author, she’s a thought leader, and she has overcome some amazing obstacles to get to where she is. And our conversation today is about her North Star. And how she’s aligned her career very strategically, with that end goal in mind, which is something that I hear from so many folks that they need, they need some of that inspiration. So Tameka, thank you so much for joining us today and for being willing to talk to a bunch of strangers on the internet.

Tameka:
Thank you, Brea, I am so so excited to be here today and just excited on where our conversation goes.

Brea:

Awesome. I want to start by telling the audience about this book. Okay, so I have a hand signed copy of this book, by the way, this is Tameka’s book called Conquering Uncertainty. And we’ll talk about some of the concepts in here, because it’s just so who she is. But I want to pull out and start with one thing in here, which you say that that you are living your mission Tameka, you say that your mission is empowering everyone that I encounter to become the best version of themselves. And to discover purpose. Oof, okay. Okay, so I actually want to start there. I know that’s not our plan. But I want to start there. Because how did you even you have so much clarity of this mission? And I just don’t meet that many people that are that clear. What is that?

Tameka:
Brea, this is a question that I get so often. Yeah. And to be honest with you, I have not always been at that place where I’ve been able to articulate what my purpose is. And actually, it took me being very intentional about reflecting on my life and journey. And so literally, what I did was I went back as far in time as I can remember, and made a dot for each point in my life, whether it was good or bad. And then I went back and looked and said, Okay, where were you at that point in your life? What was consistent about you? And I did that for these 26 points that I had put on there. And from that, what I arrived at is that in the midst of all of the things that I had to conquer, I always realized that the path that I was on was bigger than myself, right? My love for people and my desire to just see humanity become the best. And so that is where it was birthed from a combination of me going back and looking over my journey, and then anchoring to the things that I identified in my life.

Brea:

Dang, okay, I want to take us like almost to the end, like I’m gonna, this is maybe not the way that you’re supposed to host one of these conversations, but Okay, so the conversation that we’re having is about choice, like, where are you spend your time? And so can you just like, catch us up a little bit on how you have accrued that very clear self assessment that you did, to the choices that you’re making right now?

Tameka:
Yes, okay, I have to take us way back Brea. Okay, I came from a home, you know, a single parent household where I am the first and only for many different things in my life. First to graduate, first engineer versed in corporate America. I mean, the list goes on and on. And with that journey, right, I did not necessarily have a blueprint on what my life was going to look like. I just knew that at a very young age that I wanted more, I was seven, actually, when I made that declaration that I wanted more from my life than I had saw in that particular environment. And so it put me on this quest of dreaming beyond myself. And so I went after a degree that seemed almost impossible, right? It my engineering degree and having the many challenges that I went through while going through that program of being the only black female in my particular class, going through a predominantly white school, having my twins in the middle of engineering school, and doing it as a single parent, then you add the element of my baby having a health challenge at a very, very, you know, early age. And so all of those things kind of set the stage on how I dealt with challenges as I went along the way. And when I made it out into corporate America, what I immediately realized was that yet again, I would embark on a series of being the first and only in the rooms. And based on some of the rejections and opinions that people had, I made the declaration that I’m going to reach even farther than I thought.

Brea:
Okay, I just want to like I mean, this is just a masterclass in so many ways of resilience. I mean, your book is called conquering uncertainty, right? So there are so many stories about the pretty incredible odds that you were against. And as someone who’s faced discrimination, although different kinds of discrimination than you I think, there is so much that you have to generate from your own self, to want to even overcome those barriers. There’s something to think about you that I also think is so interesting. And I know I’m going so far off script, but like you, the idea of representation for you is incredibly important, and it’s incredibly driving. And so can you talk a little bit about your North Star, and what that even means for folks because I want them to really start to envision what they should be thinking about.

Tameka:

Absolutely. So my Northstar is to become a CEO for a fortune 50 company. And my why has nothing to do with the money that comes along with it as I have been in phases of my life, where I’ve had very little or no money, and then phases of my life where I have a little bit more. But for me, it’s about how do I inspire others along their journey to dream big, despite what they may see in front of them. A little girl from Milwaukee, right? I didn’t even fathom what a CEO actually was, or me seeing myself there. But based on my journey of going through and being often the only in the room, I said, I have a responsibility then to show others that you can go dream big, and you can obtain your dreams, not just that you can dream them, but you can actually obtain them. So that is my why. So when I make it to this Fortune CEO, I am 100% Okay, with me inspiring one. And I will do the journey all over again. That’s how important it is for me.

Brea:
And we know that the odds are stacked against us in so many ways. But also we should be celebrating Tony Townes Whitley, Microsoft alumni, who is the second black CEO representing companies on the fortune 500. So what I’m curious about though, in this conversation is we’ve talked about how you have made a really intentional choice about your career in service of this North Star. And I know how thoughtful you are about the jobs that you take, and you’re choosing to stay in, in service of this big bold goal. So maybe tell us about the work that you’re doing today and how that has played out for you how you’ve made that sort of like game plan?

Tameka:

Well, that’s a loaded question Brea and I’m going to try to keep it brief because I have often been known as Unicorns of unicorns. Okay, given that I identified my Northstar, roughly about 10 years ago that I actually wanted to be a CEO. So that wasn’t a dream, like I said, that I had as a little girl. But the clearer that I get about what my Northstar was it actually made it easier for me to be intentional about navigating my career journey. Because for me, what I’m looking at is, hey, what else do you need in your toolkit that will help you for when you arrive at the CEO level that requires you to have a breadth of knowledge, not necessarily be a subject matter in everything, but have enough going information where you can talk educated ly, about various different topics knowing that I will have leaders in my organization who have the expertise in various different areas. And so with that being said, I have made multiple pivots, including five, within Microsoft, in my time here, so some say that I’ve gone on my own Microsoft tour, what I say is that I’m being intentional about learning and growing as much as I can, so that it makes it easier for me, when it comes time for me to say yes to this fortune 50 company, and quite honestly, briea, I don’t know what that company is, I don’t know if it’s something that already exists, or if it is, you know, on the path for me to create a company and be, you know, the first to do so. So that is kind of a little insight into, you know, the journey and then talking specifically about where I’m sitting now. So I’m an industrial engineer by trade, I would have never thought in a million years that I would have pivoted into HR. And as of next week, I would have been in this particular org for two years. But when I think about the things that I am passionate about the employee experience, so people in general, it was almost like a perfect fit. And the role that I’m doing is not a traditional HR role, right? It’s more around integration between how is HR integrating with product and engineering and marketing as we are building out some of the most amazing tools in the world.

Brea:

And tell me more, as much as you can about what Microsoft does for you. Now, let me preface this question a little bit. Okay. So I worked at Microsoft for a while I’ve run companies from Bootstrap from zero to 100, plus employees, I’ve done startups, I’ve done digital marketing agencies, I now am a bootstrap founder. So I’ve kind of seen the breadth of resourcing that happens, and the way that we line up talent across these organizations. And so I know what it’s like to have nothing. And I know what it’s like to work in the enterprise. So talk with us about the decision to stay in an enterprise and an interface like Microsoft in this moment.

Tameka:
Yes. So a couple of things here. One, I want to talk to Why am I here at Microsoft. So Microsoft’s mission, so closely aligns to my own personal mission. So I come here and I wake up every day feeling fulfilled, because this company’s mission is aligning to the things that are very important to me. The second thing is to have the opportunity to work for one of the largest corporations in the world, with some of the most brilliant talent that you will ever meet, it is priceless, to be able to work on projects and programs that are impacting the world in such a great way, that experience is priceless. And as I mentioned to you, I did not have a blueprint. So having the experiences that I have here, having the name that of working for a corporation, like this will definitely make me very, very marketable. And that’s irrespective of if I decide to stay at Microsoft and continue to go up the chain, or I decide to, you know, start my own thing, right, I can leverage some of the skills that I have taped, obtained here to help me there.

Brea:
Totally, I mean, there’s such an access opportunity to right, I mean, even when we’re talking in preparation for this, you’re like, Oh, I was curious about something, I’m just gonna reach out to the so and so. And I’m gonna say I’m Tameka for Microsoft, just the ability to reach out to open doors and to have conversations like that, because of the role that you’re in. Like, I mean, that’s, that’s really valuable. It’s worth so much.

Tameka:

Yeah and to double click a little bit, because I want to make sure that I talk a little bit too about what Microsoft does for me, while I’m staying here. Yeah, navigating my life as a single parent, I have had so many moments of uncertainty, even while, you know, raising them, etc. And so Microsoft has provided me with a level of security, right? When I think about financially or healthcare and all of those things. It that’s important for me for where I am at this stage of my life. And for me, I have always been intentional about looking at the totality of where I am in life before making a decision. So when it came to my pivots are always looked at, where are my children along their journey? What is it that they need from me? And so that has been very important as well.

Brea:
I’m so glad you said that. And thank you for sharing that piece of it. Because I hear that a lot in these like private conversations with folks that well health care benefits are such an issue. They’re such a barrier. And the access to them are not distributed equally. Security is such an interesting topic. And what’s it’s funny that you say that even despite the fact that we lost almost 300,000 tech workers from our economy, from from full time jobs over the last 18 months, and you still are feeling secure at Microsoft. Now, we’ve all been in this world a long time, these things shift as business priorities shift. But the sense of security can also mean relationships and connections that you build, if things shift or change for you from an employment perspective. So I think that it’s really great to have you call that out, because it is something that people really put into their calculation. It’s different for every person, right? Like, I also don’t want to imply that there is no security in the Freelancer world, you know, I’ve I off sometimes say that I’ve been laid off twice, I’ve executed three layoffs, and I’ve never lost a contract. So there are very different scenarios, that of how you consider security. But I want you to talk a little bit about the stakes a little bit more to be good, because, you know, as a as a mother, you’ve got these two kids, and so many so many of my audience and followers are our mothers and caregivers. And I think that we often underrepresented how important caregivers are to our economy and built into our workplaces. There actually, if you if you look at your population, through the single biggest identifying groups, 79% of employees are primarily caregivers for either for some for someone in their lives. And so I just want, I wonder if you could share with me how you think about being a mother and how that affects how you show up at work and some of the work that you do, how does that impact your business strategy? Does it impact your employee engagement? Like? How do you think about that?

Tameka: Oh my goodness, me being a parent, as a parent, where it required me to always juggle multiple balls at one time. I often say that, you know, I am an expert at program or project management, because I had to learn how to do it. Right. So for the last 17 years, that is a skill that I had to learn how to do, how am I managing my time? What are my expected outcomes? What are the steps that I’m taking to meet these goals. And so I take a lot of that what I’m doing as a parent, and I apply it when I am going into my various different roles. And as I mentioned, I’ve made a ton of pivots. But I still have, you know, a methodology that I use based on how I’ve had to navigate my personal life. Right. And I think that it’s important to emphasize that when we think about how are people getting skills, you can get skills through professional training, and you know, education and those types of things. But life, right will also teach you some things that are applicable to anything that you do in life. And based on some of the challenges that I have dealt with, with being a single parent and navigating my career. It’s made me hypersensitive to inclusivity. Diversity, to accessibility, all of things are important to me. So when I am stepping into rooms, those are the things that I am going to be an advocate for. Because I know firsthand what it felt like in my personal life not to have those things.

Brea: Yeah, what an amazing example to for your kids. I grew up at the knee of a primarily single mother and I watched her work from the receptionist desk to the corner office over the course of my time as a kid and it was such an impact on me. It’s how I know mothering to be is calling is work. We didn’t call it working mothers back. But but the hustle that is required is it’s it’s really remarkable. So okay, so we’re almost at time because these are just quick little conversations Tameka. Okay, so what I just want to give you if there’s one more thing that you want to share one more thought something you’re optimistic about perhaps something you want folks to land, from your message.

Tameka:
Yes. What I hope to land from this short time that we have together is that I want everyone watching to dream big, and reach for the stars, not only for yourself, but for those behind you who are watching who needs you to reach your north star as an inspiration for them to reach theirs. And I want you all to be empowered to take your career and your journey in your hand. You decide what it looks like. And that may mean may mean a season of your life that you want to be in a corporate environment and that you decide that you want to then do your own thing. But I want you to be empowered to take your path as you see fit.

Brea:

Wow. This has been amazing. I could talk to you for hours and I think we have.  We will drop links to of course your book but also to follow you on LinkedIn. I would encourage anyone to do it because Tameka It is such a thought leader and so intentional about the way that she shows up. I feel so honored to know you and to get to witness your journey. Thank you to Kelly for introducing us. And, and I want to thank the folks for tuning in if lions and tigers can be helpful to you on either side of this journey, building teams, high performance teams or to pursue your own path, I’d love to be supportive of you in that mission. Thank you.