Anastasia Thatcher Marceau is an executive in social impact consulting at Accenture. She's also a world traveler, an adjunct professor at The New School in New York City, and mom to two young daughters. In this episode, Anastasia shares with us how she dealt with the new reality of going back to corporate life after maternity leave, and how she is teaching her daughters the concept of self-love. Anastasia also reflects on how we don't need a title to make a difference in our workplace or our communities.

TRANSCRIPT

Meha: [00:00:00]

Anastasia so awesome to have you here as our guest on The Nine Oh Six.

Anastasia: [00:00:04]

Thanks, Meha. I'm really psyched to be here.

Meha: [00:00:06]

Yeah and what a beautiful view we have right now. Oh my gosh. The Statue of Liberty looking across from us.

Anastasia: [00:00:13]

You have the hookup.

Meha: [00:00:14] Sitting here at Spotify. So Anastasia, there's a few things I'd love to talk to you about today.

You're an executive at Accenture, a consulting company, global consulting company. The work that you do though, it's not what one would think of as traditional consulting. So could you talk a little bit about your unique career trajectory and where you're at today?

Anastasia: [00:00:38]

So for folks that don't know Accenture, it's a global management strategy technology consulting firm.  About a half a million people now and I lead up a team that actually operates as a social enterprise. So mission driven, really looking at the role Accenture can play to impact international development outcomes or more broadly the Sustainable Development Goals. So we tend to partner with nonprofit organizations, foundations, UN organizations, and companies to look at the underserved in emerging markets. So it's, I think it's the best job in the whole company.

Meha: [00:01:25]

So what's an example of a time where you truly feel that you've made an impact.

Anastasia: [00:01:30]

The work we do is usually at an organization or systems level. So it's not that we necessarily work directly with the children or the mothers or the communities we affect, although sometimes we do. But one partnership that was particularly meaningful for me, was looking at global supply chains for food.

So a lot of our food that we eat, particularly off season, we import from other countries like Guatemala here in the US. So I was working in the UK with one of the large grocery stores in the UK, and they import a lot of food from Subsaharan Africa, particularly Kenya. So we went on the ground in Kenya, worked with a major NGO to look at how could the company change its sourcing practices in a way that ultimately impacted the 2 million low income workers, people earning under $2 a day that grew the food and packed the fruit and prepared the food that British consumers eat on their dinner table. So I really thought that project demonstrated how a few small changes at a headquarters of a major company could actually impact the lives of millions of people. So this company would make purchasing decisions based on quality, availability, and price. And when we left, they added a fourth dimension called sustainability.

And you know, I think the impact of that is tremendous. And it's a company that others look to. And so what that company does impacts the whole industry and so that, to me speaks to the  kind of change you can cause.

Meha: [00:03:23]

So many of us here, our podcast listeners might be working in the corporate world. And honestly, not all of us are necessarily at companies where we feel like they are focused on that additional dimension of say sustainability. So what do you think we could do as individuals within our companies to try to make change happen?

Anastasia: [00:03:46]

Yeah. I teach a graduate course on this topic of how companies can have a stronger social impact.

And often my students ask this question and they really want to get in jobs with the titles of sustainability or corporate social responsibility or impact. And I actually feel you don't need to have those words in your title to actually make a change. Just by company's existence and how they do business - that is the biggest opportunity. So look around, if you sit in marketing, how is your company employing ethical marketing practices? How are they depicting women? Minorities? If you look at the supply chains, who are they sourcing from? How are those decisions made? I really think that it's sometimes a disservice to somehow cleave off impact as this special satellite. But it's rather how a company operates. I think this is the biggest lesson that I've learned in my career, but also try to impart to others.

 Meha: [00:04:53]

So in your career, you've worked with a lot of people within your company and different clients, and you've seen also a lot of different leadership styles. So how would you Anastasia define leadership?

Anastasia: [00:05:07]

That's a loaded word. I once had a mentor tell me that to be a leader just means that you have followers. And I think that's important. There's not one recipe for leadership. I think it is about having, you know, vision and having a game plan and bringing others along with it, with you.  

I think people who trust you and seek out your opinion and your guidance, you are a leader. It's not a job title.

Meha: [00:05:48]

So one memory I have spending time with you and with your family and with your daughter, Ellie. We were, climbing the steps to your apartment and you were talking to Ellie. This was a few years ago when she was younger. And you said the phrase, I remember something similar to, it's okay to be a leader. It's also okay to be a follower. 

Anastasia: [00:06:10]

We talk a lot about aspiring to be a leader, but leaders need followers and followers, need leaders. It's not necessarily a value judgment, and I think it's very context specific. And some contexts, you are a leader. In other contexts, you're a follower.

 You need to choose where you want to invest your energy. I suppose there are places and times where I make a conscious decision not to invest the energy that it takes to be a leader. And that's overall healthier. I've been bossy, I suppose, since I was a child.

Meha: [00:06:54]

So that word bossy actually. I feel like now in this day and age, or maybe as mothers of daughters, we hear that oh, girls shouldn't be told that they're bossy or they should be told that they're leaders, but so does bossy, do you think really have that negative connotation or that's something we should be aware of or is it okay to just own it?

Anastasia: [00:07:16]

I feel like this is a trick question. Because of course we want to encourage every child, to seize their power to have confidence in their point of view. We want to instill in every person, I believe, that their contribution matters.

However, I think it's also about communication and half of communication, more than half of communication, is listening, not talking. And so to be bossy implies that you talk and you direct, but that you don't listen well. So I do think there is a lesson there. How can you both have ideas, share ideas, lead the game. But also actively create the space for others to contribute their ideas. I think that is a really important lesson. So it's not this either/or.

The folks who listen and speak less but carefully are often the ones who command the most respect and who are the most listened to. It's not about being the loudest in the room.

Meha: [00:08:39]

That's powerful that I guess that the way you phrased it, that listening is an equally important component of communication, not just communicating what your perspective is or your voice that you want to be heard.

So we talked about a little early on, investing time and energy right now is a little bit different context, but I often reflect on how we're investing time and energy into what things in our lives, especially now as parents of two kids each, how did that it happened so quickly.

 I mean, it's such a tough concept, right? And we always hear about, okay balancing work and life. And each of us have as our own strategies to do it. But tell me a little bit about how you're managing to do all of this.

Anastasia: [00:09:23]

It's so hard and it's a constant work in progress. When I first became a mom, I coined the term radical prioritization. to really try to be crystal clear, which of your activities and responsibilities was truly driving the most value. And some of the nice-to-have elements that you made time for before you don't make time for any more, at least for right now. There'll be a time when both of them, my girls are in school and yeah, my schedule opens up again. But for right now, this is a choice I actively make.

And I think there's something to be learned probably even earlier in your career, maybe before you have children, is this concept of very clear prioritization.

There's not enough hours in the day to watch every video that comes out, read every single email, attend every webinar, do your recruiting, do your evening events, do the coffee chats, and just to decide what it is most important for you to be successful and to give yourself permission to let that go. And to know you're actually more effective and productive by doing this. So that's one thing, radical prioritization.

The next strategy is unitasking. So long, for so long we've been trained to multitask incredibly effectively actually.

We've got, you know, your pings are coming through. Your emails are coming through.  You're having a meeting. You've also got lunch on the side. You're doing eight things at once and that's necessary, but it occurred to me that I've actually lost the ability to a certain extent to focus in and do just one thing.

 So gaining a little more discipline to be able to do just one thing can allow you to do that one thing really well. So again, in the context of radical prioritization, those couple of things that you need to do well, unitask.

So what did that actually mean? It means I've turned off notifications. I don't get notifications on my phone. I don't get notifications of a new email. It means during those moments, when I'm unitasking, I do not allow things to come in and make myself unavailable. Means I block portions of my calendar to give myself a bit of time to unitask. Again, you have to know which of those activities that need that attention, but trying actively to create the space to do those pieces well. It's very hard in a context of unlimited demands on your time essentially.

I also think delegation, I think everybody knows this already. I'm not telling anybody anything you don't know, but to maybe invest in a few people that you really trust. And when they come to you say, that's your call. And after they've come to you 20 times or 30 times, they'll start to realize, Oh, this is actually a space I get to make my own decision. And you have to know that they might do differently than you would do it and that's okay. .

 Meha: [00:13:07]

So when did you come to that realization about this? I love the phrase unitasking. What was the moment you were like, okay, something needs to change.

Anastasia: [00:13:18]

I discovered practicing yoga and how much my mind needed that. And it's nice for your body too, but mostly my mind and the kind of clarity that it can bring you after a yoga practice. Where you are unitasking essentially for an hour, an hour and a half, really focusing just on breathing, moving your body, but while breathing. When you actively try to not think about all the chatter and I have practiced yoga now for many years. And if I am about to let's say, give a presentation. I have spoken in front of the UN General Assembly. I have to do public speaking from time to time and it's incredibly nerve-wracking also, I lead a lot of business development conversations with very important people who I admire, who scare me a little bit. And to not have all this chatter in my brain, to be able to walk in, in front of a group of people or even one person and give them my  full attention is unitasking.

It's not thinking about what am I going to say now?  What did I have for breakfast, what do I have to do after this? Oh my God. I'm so scared." It's about just being there and open. Wow. It's a skill. That's a real skill to be able to do that under pressure.

So in my line of work, I felt that this is a real benefit, but it's actually bigger than work. To be able to show up for your family or your friends, or even your own activities, your own hobbies, and just be fully there, you know, this kind of whole mindfulness thing, which I need to learn more about, but I'll just say, I think about it as unitasking and the ability to give your full attention to something.

Meha: [00:15:04]

Yeah. Cause like you said, applying it, not just in the work context, but even we said family, but even, with our babies, our toddlers. I mean, right now you, I have a newborn at home and he won't know if I'm texting on my phone while breastfeeding him, but he actually could. You sense if you're not fully with someone.

Anastasia: [00:15:29]

Unitasking with a small child is I think the absolute hardest thing let's just start out.

Meha: [00:15:36]

So actually expanding one of them more or on your family. So you have two beautiful daughters now and and you guys are a power couple, both have careers that you're working towards.

Tell me what the experience Anastasia of going back to work after both of your maternity leaves and what are some adjustments that you had to make to the new reality?

Anastasia: [00:16:00]

Yeah. Well, I spoke about radical prioritization already, so that's certainly one.

I think the second is about having enough trust in your team and your colleagues to be open about what you need to be successful.

I think also giving yourself time and patience to fully get back in the game as I call it.

Takes a lot of head space to think about all the moving pieces, the political agenda, to chart a course, to navigate. And if you step away for, I stepped away for six months, it doesn't sound like that long, but when you step back in, nobody gives you a map.

I'm trying to figure out the lay of the land. What are the big discussion topics? Who's in control of what? What is my agenda going to be? At the same time while trying to now process all this new information about this child, who's completely dependent on you for absolutely everything.

There's a lot of  headspace. They talk about mommy brain. You know, I think this is related to it.

And, I struggled a bit with postpartum depression, with my second child in particular. Luckily I am emerging from that.

And I will just say, maybe you're going through that. Or maybe you're considering having a child just know you're going to come out of that tunnel and it's okay to take a few months or even a year and just get through.

When I'm having a tough time, I don't know who it was that said, you know, showing up is half the battle . Just show up, just show up. Unitask, radically prioritize, trust your colleagues, ask for help, but just know this is not the new normal necessarily.

 So after my first child, it probably took six months to a year to get back in the game. And I was scared. I was scared it was never going to happen. I was scared I was not going to be as effective as I used to be, but you get through it. And then you make choices about again, where you want to spend your time and what is going to allow you to bring your best self to work. If you feel guilty as a mother, you're not going to bring your best self to work.

If you can find a way to have that balance, you'll bring your best self to work and your teams will be better. Your clients will be better. Your partners will be better. Just trying to have that honest conversation and do it for yourself and work it out within the boundaries of what you can with your employer. There's often flexibility if you ask for it.

Meha: [00:18:49]

What are ways when you were in that moment? That you thought, okay, I can do this or I can show up. Right? Like what helped push you to that?

 Anastasia: [00:19:03]

Coffee. Lots of coffee.

There's a lot of different threads in my role. Leading a team and a practice, leading a business that I have to mentally take hold of. So to start finding a few threads, don't try to grab the whole ball of wax at once.  Find a few threads and then build from that.

 I do think, I know I was in an incredibly fortunate position to have a woman who I teamed with very closely. She covered my role when I went on maternity leave. And when I came back, she continued to cover parts of my role and she's a mother herself. And so having just such a strong degree of trust and working relationship, I never could have done it without her.

Not everyone is going to be in that position.

ButI think those of us that are career women in leadership roles, want to have a family want to do it all. Sometimes it's hard to give up the power or the control, but it's so freeing when you trust in someone and help build their career. And again, and your radical prioritization, what are the pieces where I can contribute the most and what is ultimately going to drive the most value? And focus on that. And have a conversation. You know, it has allowed her to grow as well in her career and take on the leadership. So we both win. It's worked out, it's worked out really well. I couldn't be happier.

Meha: [00:20:41]

That's amazing. And like you said, that trust that perhaps you helped build early on when you're part of a team. That carries through in moments when you especially need that from a team.

So reflecting back on, kind of life as an individual say before family,  maybe as a couple or then after family. I've known you for many years Anastasia, I know you've always been a world traveler, a global traveler. So, how have you adjusted to that new reality that it's not as easy to just hop on a plane when you have two kids under four?

Anastasia: [00:21:17]

That has been one of the hardest things actually to give up.

And I'm trying to embrace this concept of phases and there are different phases in your life.

Meha: [00:21:32]

What, what do you feel drives you in a stage? And then actually second question was, could relate. And how do you define success?

Anastasia: [00:21:41]

I actually recently took one of those quizzes that my therapist recommended about what drives you.

One of the things was love was actually number one. And the second thing was beauty.

So maybe to start there, I think the family relationships and the friendship, what I'll call social capital is a huge driver.

Being engaged and excited about going to work is because of the amazing team. Because of this engagement with people who I love and who love me. In so many words. Beauty, you know, I am definitely seeking out as a of core driver of decisions. Beauty in terms of natural beauty and art, and some of those travel plans, you know, we spoke about it was this beauty of humanity. And, you know, I don't know if I can. It's very subjective, I suppose, what, what is beautiful, but I think there is something there.

And then I guess the very cliched kind of things that I want my life to matter. For other people. I'm not terribly motivated by fame or title. I'd like validation. I'm not sure that's recognition, but I do want to feel the time that I spend and the energy I put into my activities and my achievements leave things better off than they were had I not come along.

That that drives me. And I suppose to be honest, I'm also driven by power. I think power has a negative connotation and I mean it, in the way of power to influence and change. Power can be used for good or power can be used for evil. I often say I use my powers only for good.

Meha: [00:24:13]

Thank you for saying the word power, because like you said, there could be different connotations for it. But for example, the phrase, if we say power women, you know, for me that has an empowering connotation, right? I mean power and the word empowering too. And when you had the ability to have power, you also have the ability to influence, right? It'd be influenced things in the direction you want.

Anastasia: [00:24:35]

And power for what I think is important. Power for what and then also recognizing the responsibility that comes with power. You get to lead a team and to have people that are looking up to you and trusting you and you maybe control whether they advance or whether they get a certain opportunity. That is a huge responsibility. And so power is a loaded word, but I do know that I seek positions of power in different realms of my life.

Meha: [00:25:18]

So one question Anastasia, we ask all our guests on The Nine Oh Six. What do you love about yourself?

Anastasia: [00:25:25]

What a great question. I am trying to actively talk to my four year old about this concept of self love. It's so much more important than these fairy tales that she's obsessed with about finding someone else that will love you. That's wonderful too. But what do I love about myself?

I love that I can get things done. I love that I'm ambitious. I love that I'm relatively unafraid of failure. Everybody's afraid of failure. I think relatively, I expect to fail at a lot of things. And I think that is important.

I suppose, I love that I'm emotional and passionate. I'm going to be starting some executive coaching soon. And I'm wondering if this is going to come up. Maybe I'm too emotional and passionate at times that I need to get more facility with that. But I do love that about myself. I love that I can get really excited about things.

The flip side is I can also get depressed about things, but I love that too. I like that I have a range, a big range of emotion. I love that I can have a conversation with anybody.

Meha: [00:26:55]

Is there anything else? That you feel like we didn't discuss right now that you'd want to share any other anecdote or story or experience?

Anastasia: [00:27:03]

Yeah, maybe to talk about feedback, because I think people often ask for feedback. People are given feedback. There's a lot of structure, even around feedback in many corporate environments. And my feedback, my advice is to only take onboard the feedback that is meaningful to you. Just because someone in a position of power says, you need to work on your communication, or you need to do XYZ. You need to decide. Yes. I'm going to really think about that and take that on. Or no, that person doesn't quite understand how I've defined success. Doesn't quite get me. So thank you very much. I'll consider it, but just to be discerning with how you interpret and process feedback.

Meha: [00:27:58]

But would you say though that to be able to do that as an individual, you need to have enough self confidence, or would you say a healthy ego to be able to separate what feedback you want to take in versus kind of.

Anastasia: [00:28:14]

Absolutely. Maybe this gets back to your question about what do you love about yourself?  Everybody has days where they feel really sure of themselves and days where they think what, I don't know what I'm doing. Know which day it is maybe when you listen to the feedback.

Meha: [00:28:29]

Yeah.

Anastasia: [00:28:30]

And you don't have to know or have all the answers. Sometimes I think there's an intuition and because. You know, we, we grow up in an education system or maybe a society that tends to be very left brained in some respects, maybe analytically, you don't know, you know, should I take this on? Should I not take this on? But there's that little voice that's like, yes, this is resonating. Or, I'm not quite sure. Just listen to that little voice. Just that intuition is important.

You asked me what defines my success. Or what defines success to me?  I think success is about being happy. I recently read a book that had a whole chapter on happiness that I found very interesting. On the one hand, it says that happiness is really just a chemical in your brain, just serotonin, but then there's also a competing theory that happiness is not just about your momentary feeling good kind of hedonistic kind of thought, but it's about purpose. And it actually talks about parents that parents are often unhappy. We're up late. You know, our child is stressing us out. We unhappy on a day to day basis. However, over the course of life, we are happier. We feel happier, but it's related to sense of purpose - that being a parent gave you more purpose. Then there's also a whole discussion around happiness that is related to your expectations.

And it made the comment. If you look several hundred years ago before people had electricity and running water and the deaths rates were higher, were they less happy? Maybe, maybe not, but there was a hypothesis that says probably not, because now we expect all these things. So when our hot water heater goes out, we're really unhappy as opposed to thrilled every day when we turn on the shower.

So this idea of expectations sits well with me. Sometimes I try to lower the bar for myself in some areas to be pleasantly surprised. I think that that is important. And then there was a final point on happiness that was just, you're either kind of born happy or born, less happy. So there's some people who maybe be natural happiness as an eight, and they fluctuate between a six and a 10.

And I actually thought of you when I read that Meha. Directly thought of you . You know, you need to have a job for the income, unless you are just, you know, fortunate enough to be born into a wealthy situation. And so that income enables you to have a lot of the material things in your life that allows you to go to the movies and eat amazing food and go travel and all these things that give you serotonin and dopamine, but also you need this purpose and direction. And so choosing a career that hopefully has some fulfilling aspects, maybe choosing a family or not, maybe it's writing a book, you know, maybe it's becoming a really good swimmer, but like, whatever it is that you work at. And have that accomplishment to have that sense of purpose and then having some expectations and trying to manage those expectations so that you aim high enough.

But also don't set yourself up always for disaster. It's also kind of recognizing, Eh, I'm a six, I'm kind of happy and content being a six. So yeah, so I could have defined success as trying to balance all these different forms of just trying to be happy. It's not your title. It's not somebody telling you, Hey, you're good enough to be promoted. I strongly believe that is not success at all. That could be a component. It certainly feels nice.  Do not let that define your success. Be way more interesting than that.

That's a fantastic analysis of happiness. Gives us a path that we can figure out how to achieve that. Yuval Noah Harari. Sapiens, A Brief History of Human Kind. You have to make it to the end. It's one of the final chapters.

Meha: [00:32:46]

I'm actually only halfway through that. Okay. That's goo d , awesome.

 Thank you so much, Anastasia for joining us today on The Nine Oh Six.

Anastasia: [00:32:57]

It's my pleasure. Good luck.