Three questions every ambitious person should ask themselves

Three questions every ambitious person should ask themselvesThree questions every ambitious person should ask themselvesMaureen Chiquetbegan her career in marketing at LOreal lichterstadt in 1985. She has worked at The Gap, helped launch Old Navy, and welches president of Banana Republic before becoming COO and President of U.S. operations of Chanel in 2003. In 2007 she became its first Global CEO, where she oversaw the business and brands worldwide expansion. She left Chanel in 2016 to focus on writing, speaking, and developing new leadership initiatives, including her recent bookBeyond the Label. She recently sat down with world-leading business thinkerWhitney Johnson, author ofBuild an A-Teamand host of the Disrupt Yurself podcast, to discuss how she developed her signature leadership style.This conversation has been edited and condensed. To listen to Maureen and Whitneys full conversation on the Disrupt Yurself Podcast,click here.WhitneyYou studied film and literature at Yale. Ho w did that influence you as a merchant and as a marketer?MaureenI dont think I could have chosen a better course of study, which sounds strange when you think of marketing and retail- you think of numbers and spreadsheets and pie charts and graphs. Literature is all aboutstories and about human connections. And fruchtwein consumer products rely on a certain emotional connection, so I think thats number one.Number two, film and theater really dimensionalize, and show signs and symbols that get us emotional. So as youre looking at an image that evokes a certain emotion, there is a way that being very attuned to your own emotions while watching something allows us to think about how consumers might see something. How they might view something, and ways that we might change or craft an image to encourage purchase.There is a way that being very attuned to your own emotions while watching something allows us to think about how consumers might see something.WhitneyIn your book, you talk ab out a number of instances where you took on roles that werent necessarily glamorous or exciting. Youve been the CEO of Chanel, but its not like it welches one straight shot up the ladder. What are some examples where you took a job or got a role that wasnt quite what you thought it would be?MaureenWhen I got to LOreal, I was going to be out on the road as a sales rep, basically. I ended up being in the north of France in coal mining country, which is traditionally the foggiest, grayest, most dismal part of the country. Thats where I was stationed to sell cosmetic and hair products out of my little suitcase into hypermarkets, which are giant supermarkets like Sams Club.I was supposed to sell end caps- the displays at the end of an aisle, the things that are on promotion. I was supposed to negotiate with managers at the hypermarket, and the marketing team supplied me with behauptung pamphlets full of marketing speak. I realized I couldnt speak this marketing speak, but I had to speak their language. So I asked, What would it cost me to get one of those end caps? I ended up getting the end caps that I wanted.WhitneyYour first job is in LOreal, then you and your husband move to the United States, where you get a job at the Gap. You abflug in the sample closet, then what?MaureenAfter the sample closet, I was in the accessory department. I was assistant merchandiser of socks and belts. Not exactly what I bargained for, but I found ways within that opportunity to stake a claim and make a name for myself. Belts had been ignored by the Gap. In the stores, most belts sold at $9.99, which was barely above cost. Id noticed that a lot of women were wearing jeans and wider belts, so I decided that I was going to build this new assortment of belts for Gap. I loved leather, and of course the kind of leather I wanted was expensive, but I took a risk and had all these belts made. I convinced my boss and my bosss boss that we should price the belts much higher, in the $30s. I wa s convinced that wed sell them, and in fact, we did.WhitneyHow did you convince them? What did you do?MaureenI had all the data points prepared. I looked at the increases of denim selling, pointed out pictures of women with belts on. I sold it with the line, Shouldnt we as Gap, an American company, have belts to go with our American jeans?They were willing to take the risk with me,and it was an amazing success. In so many ways, it built my reputation. I became the belt girl. For me, it was finding the opportunity in even the smallest areas.It was finding the opportunity in even the smallest areas.WhitneyThats a great story- and playing where other people didnt want to play turned out to be a career maker. What happened next?MaureenI was later promoted to the denim department, which was really interesting because denim was an area that relied a lot on sourcing fabrics and figuring out how much fabric to get to the cutter and how much needs to be cut. It was actually very technical an d very difficult, and led me to one of my biggest lessons when I got yelled at by the CEO of the company for not listening to him.WhitneyI would love to hear this lesson.MaureenI was an associate merchant in denim, and I was seven months pregnant. My boss was actually on maternity leave, and Mickey Drexler, who was then the CEO, called me into an advertising meeting. The goal of these meetings was usually to figure out what products were going to advertise at the Gap. I rushed down to the conference room, and I started to show him my brand new finish in a new pant called the wide leg jean. Boy, was I excited. He looks, and says, If this is such a good wash, why arent you doing it in the classic fit jean? I say, Well, no one wants to wear the classic fit jean anymore. Its old. It doesnt fit right. He asked, How many classic fit jeans are you selling? It was about 20,000 a week, and at the time we had a similar wide leg jean, and it was not selling even a fraction of that.I kept going , almost steamrolling him and finally he stopped the meeting and walked out.WhitneyWhat did you do? How did you feel?MaureenI started to cry. I was really upset because I thought Id lost my job. I went back to my office, the phone rang and it was Mickey. Mickey said to me, Maureen, youre a really good merchant. But you need to learn to listen. Really listen. Not to me because Im the CEO. Listen to your colleagues. Listen to your customers. Open your ears. Take things in.I thanked him. And I continue to thank him because its such a critical part ofwho I became as a leader.You need to learn to listen. Really listen. Not to me because Im the CEO. Listen to your colleagues. Listen to your customers. Open your ears. Take things in.WhitneyCan you think of a time when you were CEO and you heard Mickeys voice in your head? A time where you thought, I need to listen right now?MaureenWhen I first came to Chanel, I was the only woman at the head of a table of ten men, and they were really savv y executives. All of them had been in the business for 20-odd years, and many of them were a lot older than I was. I went through about a year of training, so I was traveling around the world, looking at our manufacturing, looking at our sales, looking at our marketing- every department.By the time I got to be the CEO, I really wanted to institute some strategies, but I found myself saying, Youve got to slow down. Youve got to listen to things from their perspective.WhitneyCan you think of one of your hardest days on the job as CEO?MaureenThree or four years before I left, I had made a decision based on how disrupted our world was, through the Internet and globalization and millennials- all these things were coming at us that had not existed before. Were standing in front of the unknown. I had decided to launch a leadership program because I felt that the way to address problems was to go more systemically to the core and ask, How do you get leaders tochange their behaviorsto be abl e to take in this unknown future? I had practiced a different kind of leadership myself, which was much more about listening and asking questions. So I figured we should all actually embrace these qualities because this will help us with all the disruption in our world.So on a rainy day in July, I corralled my team into this big dusty ballroom. I first sent them outside to do team building exercises. If youve done team building exercises, sometimes theyre great, and sometimes you really dont want to do them. This was one of those times they really didnt want to do them. Then, I bring them back in and I tell them that we are going to proceed with this program, were going to learn how to be more empathetic and listen better and be more agile, etcetera. Of course, in that moment, Im doing everything but that.At lunchtime everybody was chit-chatting about how much they disliked the consultant I had brought in, about how much they hated the exercises. I asked them a series of leading que stions that they refused to answer. I realized that I had made the very mistake that I didnt want to make. I had actually become what I didnt want to become. I was trying to force a leadership program down their throats. So I stopped the offsite and I actually wrote a letter to each one of my leadership team members asking them for an hour and a half of their time just to talk to me about what they cared about.WhitneyWow.MaureenAsking, what in our culture do they want to keep, what did they want to evolve, where were they in their leadership? How did they feel about their positions? Everyone gave input to a document that actually set the course for another leadership initiative that we all created together. But it was tough at first. I was crushed by knowing that I went intoit the wrong way.WhitneyIf you were to talk to a college student who says, Someday I want to be a CEO, what advice would you give them?MaureenI actually dont love to give advice, but I like to ask a lot of questi ons. So I guess I would ask the question, Why? Why do you want to be a CEO? What about being a CEO really attracts you? And what makes your heart sing?Because what Ive noticed is that we have ideas about what these positions are- what you do, what you get to do- but we dont always understand the complexity, the difficulties, the responsibilities. I ask a series of three questions, instead of giving advice. I like to ask people what makes their heart sing. I ask, If I strip out the label, if I strip away the CEO title, why do you want that job? And, What cant you live without?Another thing I like to think about is asking, What do you do well, andwhere can you make a mark thats distinctly your own?This article firstappeared on Heleo.