Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer Podcast Transcript
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer is a corporate executive, human capital strategist, author, and executive coach. Working from the time she was 14, her leadership journey began early.
A working mom and breadwinner serving in a predominantly male led industry. Throughout most of her 30-year career, she was the youngest and only female on the executive team. Navigating a career as a chief executive in gaming, hospitality, and healthcare, while raising two children and pursuing advanced degrees, Cynthia has experienced the joys and challenges of trying to have it all.
With a deep appreciation for those who shined a light for her. And as a special psychologist with a passion to unleash human potential, she feels a personal responsibility to help women claim their agency and amplify their possibilities.
Well, good afternoon, Cynthia. Welcome to the show.
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I’m doubly excited as I tell my audience every day, love getting to meet somebody new every single day. Not just in North America, but all over the globe. And Cynthia, you’re just another amazing guest today. So, we’re going to jump right into your questions.
You’ve got more questions coming up. Quite the career in human resources. You were an entrepreneur, author, speaker, senior executive, and now you’re the founder and CEO of Benson Performance Partners and co-founder of The Zeal of the Heel. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth, and what inspires you?
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Those are great questions. You know, I think as I have reflected on the blessing that my career has been, it really starts with sponsorship and mentorship. And I think about those differently. When I think about sponsorship it’s those people that were advocating for me when I wasn’t in the room.
You know, people that had come to know me that I had built relationships with, that had seen me. In the work environment and and thought I had something to offer. And so, when my voice wasn’t in the room or I wasn’t present, they were the ones saying, you know, I think Cynthia might be good on this task.
And then of course, incredible mentors both women and men have been instrumental in in my growth and my development and continue to be important in my growth and development today. Some of my earliest mentors. We’re female executives and very male dominated environments. And I was just always.
Intrigued watching learning, taking it all in. So, I think that’s been maybe the 1st thing. The 2nd thing probably relates to the latter part of that, which is I am extremely intellectually curious. I’m just a learner by nature. And I find that I can get bored a little easily. So, for me, it was all about, okay, so I’ve kind of mastered this thing.
What’s next? What new certification, what new degree, what new subject matter can I dig into? And so, I think. I think being a learner and being really open to constantly expanding your horizons and thinking about what’s next is. Is important and in hindsight was very important in my career journey and what inspires me?
The 2nd part of the question is I love seeing talent actualized. I. I’m just an enormous fan of watching people who are in a career that fills their cup they, it’s their sweet spot. It’s what they do naturally. It’s what they do unconsciously and that just brings them joy. And I find in my work, a lot of times, Some folks are a little misdirected their chasing salary or they’re chasing the next run on a ladder rather than really.
Thinking about what’s going to bring me joy. We spent a ton of time at work. And so, what can I do that I’m going to be exceptional at and have fun doing? And when I see that evidenced and find people really unleashing those gifts that inspires me.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing you know, going through your whole career there, as far as mentorship mentors are so important for everybody to grow and learn.
Your curiosity, all this bundled up together is truly made the person you are today. And I really appreciate you sharing your unique story. And Cynthia, you help CEOs and companies create remarkable cultures through individualized strategies. Could you elaborate on this a bit and share a success?
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Yeah, you know, when I think about when I think about culture and this is not my unique definition or idea, it was actually something I learned from an organization called Talent Plus out of Lincoln, Nebraska, is that who you select. Who you develop and who you promote creates and sustains culture.
And when you break down and really think about it, the people you’re bringing into your organization, the people that are getting recognized and are getting invested in the people that are getting promoted. Sends a really strong message throughout the organization about what matters and what’s important and what’s valued.
And so, for me, when I’m working with executives, I’m really, whether I’m working with an executive leader with respect to their own team or C-Suite CEOs, it’s really about what are your practices and your processes to bring in individuals that are culture fit. It’s one thing to hire or select for skill and knowledge.
It’s another thing to look at natural talent. And then in addition, how are you thinking about that from do they fit within your unique culture? The quickest way to, to diminish a culture is to start promoting people that don’t live out your values. And so, It through that we can really individualize the approach because then it’s looking at individuals, not just on their resume or their CV.
It’s looking at this really kind of 3-part equation to what they bring to the organization and then it gets deeper into not just promoting people because they were good at 1 thing makes them necessarily go to the next. And so, you know, a great nurse. Doesn’t necessarily make a great nurse manager.
Now, some do but that’s not the requirement of the prerequisite. Great salespeople don’t necessarily always make great sales managers. And so really understanding the uniqueness of that person’s talents, interests how they’re wired, et cetera, helps us to individualize and make sure we’re putting the right people in the right seat, on the right bus, at the right time.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I appreciate you unpacking that a little bit for us today. It is important to recognize everybody’s talents, but moving somebody that has a talent and a specific skill set too, like you said, as a manager or leader, sometimes doesn’t always work. It’s not the right fit.
So I appreciate you sharing that. And Cynthia, you and your coauthor, Kimberly Rath recently wrote your book now near next. Could you give us a little teaser about the book?
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Yes, I’m super excited about this. It gets back to what inspires me and my passion. So, our book publication date is March 19th, 2024.
And just a little just a little opportunistic moment. Pre-sale will be up and available here just before the holidays. So, I’m excited about that. It’s, we did a lot of research. Our theory was that women in particular and mid-career women are so busy at that stage of life that they are, and they’re conditioned really to look down and work hard, right?
Put your head down and work hard. Good things will happen. And when we think of mid-career, it’s really the longest part of our career journeys. So we, we don’t really age bind it. But if we were, it’s kind of that 28 years old to 55, it’s three decades. And it’s easy during that period to get stuck or stagnant or restless oftentimes because we’re so busy as women in particular, and the data and the research really lines up with this.
So, I think it’s important to remember that when we’re talking about taking care of others, whether, whether we’re taking care of children, or we’re taking and leaning in and nurturing spouses and significant others, or with the aging parent population, et cetera, that we put ourselves last and when you ask women, the top 3 to 5 people who they invest in, or nurture most, They don’t mention themselves.
And so this methodology that we created now near next really tools. It’s very actionable. It really tools women. And I will say, we have found this resonating quite a bit with men as well. Men also resonate sometimes with thinking about intentionality of their career journey. And they also think about it in terms of their sisters.
In my daughters, you know, wives, significant others, etc. But it takes on this notion that in the now really energizing yourself agency. How do you create space for intentional investment in your career? So, it talks a lot about creating boundaries and really letting go of a lot of guilt and embracing grace.
In the net in the near, we focus on a blueprint of identifying what is your next and having a vision around what is your next and you define the timeline, whether it’s. It’s three months from now, a year from now, or four years from now it’s yours to define, but putting intentionality, igniting intentionality around movement and progress towards your next, even if it’s seven minutes a day.
So it takes away this notion that, you know, I’ll wait until the kids go to kindergarten or wait until the children go to college, or I’ll wait until this other thing happens before I’m going to focus and saying. Do something right now, even if it’s baby steps and then to the next and really actualizing your potential.
And so, that’s sort of the teaser of the book. I think that it’s quite generalizable. We’ve had mixed audiences, men and women. We’ve had younger women in groups listening to the message. But we interviewed through qualitative data, 30 women with a collective 900 years of corporate experience, representing 7 countries and 5 race ethnicities.
And the thing they all had in common is that they didn’t have intentionality around their career journey. So, I think the topic is really resonating right now. And I think even post COVID, where a lot of folks are trying to figure out what’s next. It seems quite timely.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I can’t wait to get a hand on the book and, get through that, that is just amazing that you’ve taken the time to do these interviews and also the output, the outcome is an amazing book. So, thank you for you and Kimberly putting that together and Cynthia last question of the day, are you leveraging any new or emerging technologies in your business?
And if not, that’s okay. Have you found a cool tool or app that you found useful?
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Yeah, you know, 1 of the things so I have recently transitioned in the last 6 months from a corporate executive role into really leaning in heavily with particularly the zeal of the heel and the book and executive coaching and so on so that has That has given me an opportunity to start to source different technology then perhaps, I have been using in terms of applicant tracking systems and other HR tools.
One thing that I was recently introduced to a woman named Julia Heatherwick. We were introduced through both of us as executive coaches and through LinkedIn. She’s testing a coach bot, which I think is really interesting. So, I played around with it a little bit. It’s through coach box, coach VOX. com. And essentially you train the coach bot to replicate your voice, your methodology, et cetera, so that outside of your more formal coaching experiences that your clients can go on with more immediate or quick.
Problems that they might be thinking about or questions that they might be considering. I think it still needs a little more testing to determine. Can it fully replace or service that intermediary? But the early my early testing has been really interesting. So, I think it’s worth a look. The other thing that in my public speaking business that has been it’s not new technology, but it was a, maybe for me, it was a new way of thinking about it is recently at an impact 11 conference.
And we talked about using chat GPT in helping with some of the storytelling within our keynotes. And what I found so fascinating is that you could put in sort of the essence. the story and then ask for tone, that you want to make this a humorous story or an inspirational story. And some of the what chat GPT then through the AI reports back is pretty interesting.
And if nothing else, it’s a great thought starter. I don’t, I wouldn’t recommend creating your entire keynote using a chatbot or excuse me, using AI. I think it takes the authenticity away. But using it to just get some ideas and sort of creative thought starters for me was a new way of using technology.
That’s pretty pervasive at this point.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. I appreciate sharing the couple examples there. Obviously, AI has kind of taken over our lives in a good way and a bad way. We’ve got to obviously move through this period cautiously, but that’s all that was talked about, I think in 2023 on this podcast is chat GPT and Google Bard and some of the others.
And it has just created a proliferation of AI assistant types. Applications out there, which everybody’s embracing. So, thank you. And Cynthia, it was such a pleasure to have you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer: Brian. Thank you so much for having me.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
