Leading Digital Transformation with Kim Box

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Narrator

At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity. How do you navigate forward? This podcast focuses on making smart choices in a rapidly changing world. We investigate the challenges of being at a crossroads and finding opportunities that arise out of disruption. Listen in on future forward conversations with the brightest luminaries, movers and shakers. Let's navigate forward together and create what's next.

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Lisa Thee

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Navigating Forward Podcast. My name is Lisa Thee and I'm your host. One of my favorite hobbies is collecting my favorite thought leaders and experts across the field. Those innovators, those movers and shakers, the people that are disrupting the norm and bringing great innovation to bear. And I could not be more thrilled to welcome you guys to meet Kim Box.

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Lisa Thee

Kim is a published author. She is a retired executive from a multinational technology company, and she is a forerunner and being a very desired board member for public institutions today. And I could not be more thrilled to introduce you all to her and have her walk us through what digital transformation means to her. So welcome, Kim. Thank you.

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Lisa Thee

It's great to be here with you, Lisa. Always my pleasure to talk with you. I always come away with something actionable. So, Kim, can you tell us a little bit about your background? Where are you from and how do you think that influenced your your journey and your career?  

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Kim Box

Well, it's interesting. So when I think about where I'm from, I my father was in the Navy, so, you know, I was born on the East Coast and we moved. I didn't go to the same elementary school in the year and two of my elementary school years. I went to two different schools and eventually I eventually ended up in San Diego. And then ended up staying there for my rest of my, you know, junior high and high school. So so it really influenced, I think, my life because I became very resilient.

00;01;56;21 - 00;02;18;20

Kim Box

You know, I was always the new kid and we never thought anything of it. It wasn't like, Oh, why do we have to move? It's just what we did. Every family we met was moving. It was like everybody was in full motion. And and I really I really reflected on it later in my career because when everyone else is kind of hunkering down, when a big change is coming, I'm like, Oh, cool, what are we going to do here?

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Kim Box

How are we going to make this better? How are we going to change it? And I really connected the dots back to being in that environment with the family that moved around a lot and had to adapt everywhere we everywhere we went. But you were doing it in the construct of a community of the military, right? So you were you were having these unique experience, but you were having them with people that understood as well.

00;02;41;17 - 00;03;01;19

Kim Box

Right now probably was a huge benefit to you. That did help, although I do remember in first grade when I went to school and it wasn't on the base or anything, and the little kid next to me just looked at me like, don't copy of my paper. And so, you know, I had those those little experiences, too, as a young child where I was the new kid, that everybody was like, What are you doing here?

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Kim Box

You know, it's so, so, you know, is it always just easy, easy. But but in the grand scheme of things, we we all knew that this is kind of what we did. And, and I think it really helped me to, to kind of go into a situation and kind of assess and and adapt.  

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Lisa Thee

So you have had a successful career in corporate America. You've had a successful entrepreneurship journey, and now you are working in consulting and serving on public boards. You know, that's just an amazing amount of diversity. I think I learned just from your introduction why you're so able to adapt and overcome in all these new environments. For somebody that doesn't know a lot about your areas of expertise and digital transformation, can you give an overview that maybe like your grandmother might understand?

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Kim Box

Yeah, sure. So it's funny, I never thought of it as digital transformation as it was happening, but certainly that was my whole career was built on that. And basically digital transformation is about how do we improve the people and the talent that we have along with the process. And, you know, those those those operational processes. And then on top of that, what tools make it easier?

00;04;12;20 - 00;04;37;23

Kim Box

So if you think about any task, whether it's simple or complex, it's all about that triangle of those those three attributes. So so basically what I, I didn't even realize when I was young, young in my career as a programmer, I was looking at business problems because I was a business programmer at HP. And I would I would go meet with the businesses and find out what their pain points were, and then we would automate them.

00;04;37;26 - 00;04;59;20

Kim Box

And then I just kept doing that and bigger and bigger formats and then eventually started managing it. And I realized that I love problem solving. I'm a puzzle savant, by the way, so I love puzzles as any kind of puzzle I love. I think if I had it to do over again, I'd do some sort of forensic type job because it really, really is what I enjoy.

00;04;59;20 - 00;05;17;25

Kim Box

And I also enjoy that the people change part of it. So I always tell people the easiest part is the tools and the process. The difficult part is helping the team come along with those changes because, you know, they have to change how they do things. You know, it's just but it's fascinating. You know, it's a study in and upsells.

00;05;17;27 - 00;05;42;12

Lisa Thee

It's all about the human experience. Right. And how do you create an environment where people feel comfortable to come along with that digital transformation? There's something in it for them and they're pulled and drawn to wanting to make that change with you. Right, Exactly. Yeah. So what have you learned along the way of helping people through that journey that you would want to share with others to prevent them from wasting time on things that don't work?

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Kim Box

Well, you know, there's there's always a set of people. They're very there's always various people that are involved in a change. There's the early adopters that just like like me, somebody who looks at it as a great adventure. And then you kind of have the people in the middle that want to make it work their team player. And then you have the folks that that really don't want the change at all.

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Kim Box

And I actually wrote about this in my book because what I discovered was the squeaky wheels have a story to tell. And if you listen to the people that are really, really against the change, you're probably going to avoid some really bad disaster. On the other end. I used to go travel all over the world with I led a 15,000 person organization for HP globally, and I'd go do these these coffee talks and there would always be someone stand up and it's one guy at one of them sit up and you're ruining our our, you know, our support system and blah, blah, blah.

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Kim Box

And afterwards, the manager, you know, a couple of layers down was just like, Oh, I'm so sorry, you know? And I'm just like, No, I want to meet with him. Can you get me on a plane with him tomorrow? And you're like, what? And I. I came walking down the aisle and here I am, this, you know, vice president at HP, and everybody's just like, oh, man, he's in trouble.

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Kim Box

And I go, I sit down. I go, Tell me more. I need to know what is going on. So I don't be afraid of the antagonist. Don't be afraid of the people that are really actually I mean, he was red faced, man, right? I mean, those are the people you want to talk to. And you need to understand that early in the process.

00;07;11;29 - 00;07;33;14

Kim Box

And, you know, he became one of my best insiders and supporters. And as a matter of fact, we sat down and he was doing a very high end VMware. As a matter of fact, he was he was the support team for VMware. Now, this is you know, before VMware was VMware long ago and and he had me sit in and silently listen to the support calls they were having with customers.

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Lisa Thee

And I mean I learned so much. So don't stay up here as if you're even a project manager. Get to the ground level and understand what's going on so you can be as effective as possible. I love that. What's your why? What brings you to the challenges that you face each day? You know, that's a great question. I don't I think it's like my my life, my eclectic life that I have.

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Kim Box

It's it's not one single thing, you know? I mean, I know I've had some pretty amazing role modeling in your life. Do you mind talking a little bit about you have. I really have. And jeez, where do I start? Well, my father was an admiral in the Navy. I mentioned him earlier. Matter of fact, the first commanding officer of Topgun Aviation.

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Kim Box

My model started as a secretary, young and young, single mother. And my parents split up and and ended up becoming the president of a banking division. And so I had some really great super high bar parents who have been supportive in everything I've done. Those are great role models. But, you know, there's been so many other role models.

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Kim Box

One of them is Michael Ziglar, who passed away earlier this year. I mean, he was just amazing the way he took his and this is this is one thing that I've done post HP that that that Michael has always been the most wonderful example of. He took his amazing career and then he went into Leading Pride, which had this mission that was so huge.

00;09;07;06 - 00;09;25;05

Kim Box

So I really feel like, you know, my way is to be purposeful, you know? And it's not always the same purpose for everything. And and it's funny, you hear a lot about people want to oh, I want to do that. There's no purpose. You know, sometimes feeding the family is your purpose. You know, I was a single mom for five years.

00;09;25;05 - 00;09;51;13

Kim Box

I what I had to do was my wife was taking care of my two and five year old and making sure that I was there for them, as well as building my career and my wherewithal to create a life for us. Later on, my wife, I became creating a documentary that you see the me behind me, really, that was about a community that I saw was struggling with teens becoming addicted from recreational drugs.

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Kim Box

So my wife there was being very heartfelt about what was happening in our community and wanting our communities to be healthy kids. Now I look at my boards and I say, You know, my why there is how can I be a really good steward as a board director to make sure that that what the company is doing is not only profitable, but also being a good citizen within our community?

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Kim Box

That's that's really meaningful to me. I love that conversation around your way evolving over time. And I think we all go through seasons where we have different priorities and focuses. It's so relatable for our listeners that aren't familiar with Pride Industries. Pride Industries is a organization that's nationwide that provides employment to people with disabilities and helps them connect with meaningful and purpose driven work.

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Lisa Thee

And so Mr. Ziglar was a leader there, and I believe he's been a mentor of yours through time, correct? Kim?  

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Kim Box

Yes, And he's just been he passed away earlier this year and it was just a huge loss for our community. He's he's someone that has led that led the example of how to take effect. When he started leading pride there, their revenue was 200 decay year over 350 million. And that's no, that's not what it's about. What it's about is his mission was to employ people with with various disabilities, you know, all kinds. He has every, every imaginable anyways, it's a it's a wonderful it's a wonderful way to take all of your experience and apply it to other things, which I do in the nonprofit world, as well as the profit world.

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Kim Box

Yeah, I had a wonderful experience collaborating with Pride Industries. My area of focus and on the nonprofit space is working on disrupting human trafficking and pride was an amazing partner for us. They gave our recovered victims of trafficking and at risk youth access to over 120 employers locally and made those connections to get them back and integrated into our community with the dignity of a paycheck.

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Lisa Thee

So I cannot mirror your point of view on the impact they have more. Just so wonderful to see. So what emerging trends are you seeing in digital transformation and in the industry right now that you think people need to be paying close attention to?  

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Kim Box

Well, you know what? What I think has been really fascinating over this last eight months or so is how the pandemic has been like an accelerant or gasoline on the fire. And I really think that the trends obviously is huge and how we use it responsibly. Obviously, a lot is going into and it's funny, I think, you know, 20 years ago the conversation was, oh, you know, they AI is going to replace jobs or we're not going to be you know, it's going to be some fear mongering. Know, it was very it was very, very well known.

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Kim Box

But I think now what we're seeing with AI is that it's an underpinning of everything we do, even if we don't realize it. Whenever a computer is making a decision that someone has embedded because AI's only as good as the person who programed it, right? Yes. So I think obviously AI, we all know big data. I think making decisions with the right data.

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Kim Box

So I think a lot of the same things that have been happening are going to continue to happen, only it's going to happen faster. Obviously, it drives a lot of innovation, right? You can't just do things we've always done them or else you're probably not going to be around. No, no, you're not. And I think what's happened with what's been for better or for worse with the pandemic is it's shown us that we can move fast.

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Kim Box

Now, can we keep up this? And, you know. No, we can't. We I mean, we can't keep accelerating at this pace for like every single day. But I think we will accelerate faster than we thought. I think there's a lot of industries who said, oh, we need 2 to 5 years to, you know, have all our employees be remote or whatever, whatever, whatever.

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Kim Box

Oh, yes. And all of a sudden within two weeks. So I think it's I think there's a huge shift that's taking place. I think there's a very large shift, not so much as mere fact. We just I just had this conversation earlier today. The companies that were already leading from a digital transformation trend, whether it's a retail that that got on board early with the whole online shopping and all that, or whether it's, you know, work at home or whatever it is, the folks that kind of got flat footed, well, a lot of them aren't in business or they're struggling.

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Kim Box

I think people are realizing the magnitude of digital transformation on all fronts has to be faster. So that's just that's that's not really a trend in terms of the actual digital transformation. But I think it is very significant in the way things are going to evolve going forward. I think people, you know, if you look at consumers and how they're doing things different, it's it's really changing the landscape of everything we do.

00;14;37;27 - 00;15;00;15

Kim Box

And I think people are going to have to pivot constantly to to keep up with that. And it's not going to just be, oh, now we're into 20, 21 and we've changed. No, it's going to keep evolving and, you know, those who adapt are going to be the ones that create the future. Yeah, I think what you're saying really resonates with me because a lot of these technologies are digital transformation and things aren't brand new.

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Kim Box

We've known how to do remote work for many years. We've known how to. That data is important to making decisions for a while, but it became this drumbeat that all of a sudden we couldn't delay the decisions to make the investments anymore, right? We couldn't afford to not let the culture evolve. We couldn't afford to not take advantage of the information that we have to glean wisdom out of it.

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Kim Box

It's almost like we had to feel the pain to be willing to endure the cure which was evolving to the change. Right? It's true. And you know, you always hear that analogy that there's a burning platform, so you must change. But the people that that can see the change it needs to happen. They don't wait to be the fire to be looking at their heels.

00;15;42;02 - 00;16;01;05

Kim Box

They get out there and make the change and they become visionary. Many times you see a vision, you start working towards that and you realize, Oh, that's hot, and you keep pivoting. And like I said, adaptability and flexibility and and seeing what's going to happen next and how you can best adapt is is I think it's a survival technique right now for any business.

00;16;01;08 - 00;16;23;29

Lisa Thee

It always has been. But right now it's even more so. I think a trend that I've noticed through this process with this pandemic is that it really gave us a lot of time to slow down and pay attention and be more aware of what's happening around us. And one of the things that really got elevated during this season was the conversations around diversity and representation.

00;16;24;02 - 00;16;45;00

Lisa Thee

And I'm just wondering from your point of view, working in tech for the time that you did and the fact that you've written a book on on the topic of women's representation in tech, can you give us a little bit of an overview of the book, number one? And then two, some of the themes that you highlighted in the book that are even more important to talk about today, right?

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Kim Box

Right. Well, yeah, the book is really a labor of love because I was very fortunate at HP to kind of live that and and I got to do a lot of transformation. So I had the ability to transform the team to be more diverse. So I and I anyways, the book is about it's taken on a weaving theme, the work in the West, you know, And so it's basically about diversity, creativity, you know, adaptability, what we've been talking about and being authentic.

00;17;18;08 - 00;17;33;03

Kim Box

You know, a lot of times we say, Oh, we want this person to bring new things to the team, but then they get there and you want them to conform and be like the team. And how do you how do you keep those people from how do you keep from doing that? It's a human nature thing, not invented here syndrome.

00;17;33;03 - 00;18;04;10

Kim Box

I think we've all run into that one. It really is. And I you know, I always start by explaining diversity as if you hired everyone like yourself. What kind of creativity would you have? You wouldn't have the same creativity. And that's why it's so interesting to see when I wrote the book, which was it got published around 2012, there was a study out of UC Davis every year, and they would highlight the well, the public companies in California and how many had women on the C-suite and on the boards.

00;18;04;10 - 00;18;26;17

Kim Box

And it was amazing how many women's centric products one was a baby supply company had no women on their boards C-suite and and I think you know how how can you really be sitting there in the boardroom in the C-suite without having people with that that different perspective that you're trying to create around? So my book wasn't about this is this is the right thing to do.

00;18;26;17 - 00;18;57;22

Kim Box

I mean, it wasn't about that. It was about the power, the true power of of diversity and bringing people different personalities is different frame of reference, all different perspectives, different lived experience. Right. And and not only that, but how do you make that a real business imperative? And, you know, so one of my my experiences that I began leading a team across the Americas and I got asked to go in there and transform it.

00;18;57;25 - 00;19;20;15

Kim Box

All the managers were in the United States. They were all men and all around the same age. Later in their careers. And so I flatten the organization and they had like apartments down in Latin America because they were flying down there so much. So it was expensive. So I promoted a woman in Brazil, which the people in Brazil told me, You can't do that.

00;19;20;15 - 00;19;47;09

Kim Box

She's she just got married. She's going to have babies, you know? And I was like, well, I already did. So it was the right decision made. And she's been having an amazing career. I like to think I had a little part and help in that along. But anyway, so I promoted her. I heard another person, Latin America, I heard someone in Canada, I heard an LGBT gal just, you know, best, best pick of all these just happened to be, you know, had an African-American on the team.

00;19;47;09 - 00;20;10;28

Kim Box

All this we we reduced costs because we weren't having everybody fly around. We improve the customer experience because our strategic conversations had the people represented in the room. So they weren't represented. You know, we were they were always trying to understand those cultures, but they really didn't know those cultures. So my point is that diversity is is really a powerful thing.

00;20;10;28 - 00;20;27;11

Kim Box

And it's a lot of fun, too. I mean, you bring all these people with all these different backgrounds into a team and you have all different, you know, mix of creativity. You can never have that if you just hire all people that are they're like you. It's human nature, I know, to gather with people like yourselves. But that's what we see in the boardroom, too. We've seen people create boards of people they know, and they're wonderful, skilled, highly talented people. But it's it needs to be a bigger network of diverse people that can bring different perspectives.

00;20;27;11 - 00;20;57;14

Lisa Thee

Yeah. And actually, that's where I think we had the most recent introduction. Kim, if I'm not mistaken, you keynoted at the 2020 Women on Boards event at the Sacramento Capital and I spoke on entrepreneurship there, and I just really loved hearing your point of view and showing representation. Do you share a little bit with folks about what it feels like to be on a public board and what skills you bring to lead there and how they prepare themselves for it?

00;20;57;14 - 00;21;20;24

Kim Box

Yeah, sure. You know, I always say that business acumen, financial literacy, literacy, our entry into the game, these are high stakes boards. You know, publicly traded, lots of regulation, lots of, you know, just big, big companies.

00;21;20;26 - 00;21;45;12

Kim Box

So to just be prepared, if you're young in your career and you have a desire to possibly be on a public board or large private, you have to have business acumen. A lot of times they want someone who's been a CEO or you could have for me, I hadn't at the time I got on my first board, I was really kind of a CEO role, but other but, you know, I led $1,000,000,000 organized global organization so that that qualifies.

00;21;45;15 - 00;22;03;14

Kim Box

But then you were responsible for a profit and loss center. You know how to read a balance sheet. You know, I wanted to be accountable. Yes. And so you need to have that experience and then you bring it. But there's also other types of people on the boards, like attorneys that have a specific knowledge of the industry of what you're in.

00;22;03;14 - 00;22;29;21

Kim Box

So it doesn't always end up being just the CEO. We also have a lot of accountants which are amazing CPAs that need to be represented on the board for audit committees and keeping us financially astute. But really it's about business acumen, industry knowledge of the industries. For me, I what I brought to the board was very, very deep and wide information technology because that's what I did my entire career.

00;22;29;22 - 00;22;49;04

Kim Box

I've managed, I've done every job or even even connected the Internet in the Roseville HP site. If you you how are you? How old I am. No, just kidding. But but I did. I connected it. I plugged it in. I was a telecom engineer because everyone said COBOL was going away. So that was, you know, back in whatever year.

00;22;49;04 - 00;23;11;05

Kim Box

But I studied Fortran in college to put a time stamp on me. So yeah, I went, Yeah, but I'm just saying that, you know, I had done every job in I.T. and I then I managed every job that I managed it regionally that I imagine globally. You know, I ran outsourcing for HP for seven years for all of the front end support companies like Microsoft that we did their internal help desk, so on and so forth.

00;23;11;07 - 00;23;31;00

Kim Box

So I bring to the board not only and I've got a CEO now of a couple of companies in the last ten years, so I bring my business acumen, but I also bring some other talent like the information technology, good governance. You know, I do a lot of training, too. I go to a lot of programs to to learn how to be the best board member I can.

00;23;31;00 - 00;23;55;11

Lisa Thee

So, yeah, it's an interesting time. I mean, California was the first to pass a law requiring female representation on boards. Washington's now followed suit. And recently the Nasdaq is is also encouraging that. So I'm really excited to see the access to the boardroom growing. And I guess my question is for people that are early in this process, are there good steps to take early on? Like, for example, what are your thoughts on serving on a nonprofit?

00;23;55;15 - 00;24;22;05

Kim Box

Yes. Yes, absolutely. A really good start is to get on. And there's all kinds of nonprofit boards. There's small nonprofit boards, all different, you know, someone I know who's very, very young, just out of college got on a board for someone he someone he knew. We needed somebody on a it was a small orchestra kind of thing or some sort of musician.

00;24;22;07 - 00;24;46;14

Kim Box

And they needed somebody with his background of his school. But anyway, so so there's lots of ways to get involved in nonprofits and build your board, experience your acumen of just what does it mean to be on a board, What is board governance? What? How is it regulated? It's such a great exposure, right? It really is. And you can also look for, as you grow your skills and your business, various business talents, you can also look to be an advisor on boards for startup companies.

00;24;46;14 - 00;25;14;09

Kim Box

There's a lot of people that need advisors for many, many different things and that just gives you exposure and and more and hopefully equity. Yeah, yeah. Some little sweat equity in there. Diversify your portfolio. Yeah. You know, I just, I always tell people that, you know, you're interviewing every day so you all your actions that you do and everything stuff that you do, all the results that you get, they build over time.

00;25;14;11 - 00;25;32;19

Kim Box

And and you know, I didn't start out out of Chico State where I went to school and got a job at HP thinking, oh, I'm going to I'm going to shoot for being a vice president one day. I really didn't. I started growing my skills and I really like one one success. We get another the next. And I just kept growing it.

00;25;32;19 - 00;25;51;27

Kim Box

And then I then I'd set my sights on the next piece. And then I did before I left, HP decided I wanted to get involved in boards. So early on I volunteered through through HP to get on a nonprofit, and I kind of got my feet wet that way. So it really is a great way to a great way to get involved in board of directors type work.

00;25;52;00 - 00;26;14;27

Lisa Thee

I must admit I was I have made it to the level of CEO of my own company and still didn't understand exactly why there was a huge benefit of people pursuing roles and public boards. Q Help our listeners that maybe aren't as familiar with board of directors understand why they might want to consider that goal and how long they should expect the process to take?

00;26;14;29 - 00;26;42;13

Kim Box

Well, you I've heard it's a very cagey process. It's not there's not like a job application that you can look at through LinkedIn. It's really about having you got to take time early on to grow your network. First of all, really grow your network. There are recruiting and I think with if if you're a woman or someone in one of those underrepresented groups, there's a lot more outreach going on now, which is really wonderful.

00;26;42;13 - 00;27;03;24

Kim Box

I think that's what it's going to take to get the diversity where it needs to be. But yeah, and honestly, I feel very honored to be on the boards. I mean, I think it's a it's it didn't come easy. The first board took me by the time I decided, till I finally got connected to it, it was probably four or five years and the next one was another five years.

00;27;03;24 - 00;27;27;27

Kim Box

I mean, it's it can go faster for other people, I don't know. But definitely the higher level executive you are, the more opportunities because there's just there's just a certain amount of business acumen that that people really need. So yeah, so typically for those large private and public boards, you probably want to have experience as a VP of large company or a CEO of a smaller company.

00;27;27;27 - 00;27;50;24

Kim Box

You usually are part of the requirements of the checks on the dance card to be important. Many times, many times you'll see with when they're looking for a new board member, they'll say ceded CEO. They want somebody that's currently a CEO, not always, but that's changing, too. I think as as people are looking for different skills. As a matter of fact, right now, one of the hot skills is the h.r.

00;27;50;25 - 00;28;16;19

Kim Box

The chief h.r. Officer Oh, you're saying, you know, eight years ago or when 2008 hit, there was a whole the whole sarbanes-oxley and the collapse of almost all the finance and everything. So everybody there, there's rules that emerged about having financial people on board and and responsibilities. You have to have certain qualification to to be on the audit committee and so on.

00;28;16;21 - 00;28;40;03

Lisa Thee

There's different trends emerge based on different things happening. And right now a big trend is having people like a employment law type person or something like that. So there's a lot of opportunities. It doesn't have to be a CEO type person is sometimes there's a skill set that becomes really necessary for various boards that thank you so much for shining a little bit of light into sometimes a mysterious place.

00;28;40;03 - 00;28;56;23

Lisa Thee

For some people, it's really helpful to have that point of view. So Kim, you've had a varied and interesting career. What what's been your biggest failure and how did you navigate through it?

00;28;56;25 - 00;29;20;16

Kim Box

Gosh, you know, I've had a pretty successful career. I think I, I think if I think of failures, which it's funny, I grew up in a household in a mentality of never regret anything. So I don't I don't even think of failures as they're all, you know, they're a step in the journey, right? Yeah, I'm going anywhere without them.

00;29;20;21 - 00;29;40;18

Kim Box

But there's definitely things that and I'll I'll give one example of something that happened when I was young in my management career because I think it's it's a really common thing that happens. Maybe, maybe it was just me, but you can tell me. But when I became my first level manager, I wanted really badly to work my way to the middle management.

00;29;40;24 - 00;30;09;01

Kim Box

If managers. And one day my boss met with me and he said, You know, your team would take a bullet for you, but your peers do not like working with you. And I was like, Well, they don't like working with me. But the thing was I was really hard driving to get the results and take care of my team at the expense of my of the other team was like, I didn't know that I needed to manage up and down and sideways.

00;30;09;01 - 00;30;27;19

Kim Box

I need to make sure my team was doing what they needed to do, that I was meeting the goals of the Upper Man. That's the part I was good at. But the but the horizontal, how can I make them successful? And he told me, you'll never be promoted until they can see you as their boss. And I was like, Oh wow, that's an amazing take away.

00;30;27;21 - 00;31;04;04

Kim Box

It was it was like mind blowing. Totally changed everything. And as a matter of fact, I had several people that I coached as I became higher and higher level, that I gave them the same thing. You know, if you don't start working on how you're getting along and making those other teams successful along with yourself. And it sounds funny because if you know me, I mean, I am competitive, but I'm not cutthroat necessarily in terms of you're not wishing others poorly, you just weren't prioritizing it because, you know, I just I just saw the path to success as giving my own results and not as the team results.

00;31;04;07 - 00;31;20;24

Kim Box

And once he opened my eyes, like he said, you can keep going as you're going, but you'll never be seen as someone who can be a next level manager If you're not helping the whole team, like take a project on that is the whole team that you're going to. And then then I just was like, Oh, wow. So I think a lot of people do that.

00;31;20;24 - 00;31;45;28

Lisa Thee

I think they they I agree. I think it's a blind spot for people. I see a lot of people that I work with that are great at managing up, but not down or managing down, but not up. And then I think that horizontal component is such a great eye opener for our listeners because I think sometimes it's easy to lose sight, especially in remote environments where you're not seeing each other in the same space as much, Right?

00;31;46;01 - 00;32;09;01

Kim Box

Yeah, I know it's true. And you know, being a good steward of the overall mission of whatever you're doing all to that whole thing. TIME What's the saying about how the tide's all rowing water is rise. Well, boats float. The rising tide, you know, helps everybody. And so, you know, and it's it gets to be a lot more fun.

00;32;09;03 - 00;32;27;21

Kim Box

You know, it's more fun when you're all working together on on instead of going into the the review meeting, everyone feels good about meeting their results. So, you know, I was like, diehard, like, I'm going to meet my results. I don't want to be the one going in a team. But when you think about it is how can I meet my results and everybody else to what can I do to help?

00;32;27;23 - 00;32;46;25

Kim Box

Making sure I'm not doing something that wouldn't help them. Then it just changes your whole perspective and it makes you a good leader. Having that service mindset, how do you be of service to those around you? Right? Yeah, that's a great thing to learn early in your career. I think that mentor, that boss did a nice service because how do we know otherwise?

00;32;46;25 - 00;33;13;29

Kim Box

We come out and we're told, you know, you're good at this and you go do that and you do our best. But sometimes you don't realize until you have that guidance, we all learn from each other. Well, you know, and another thing, Justin, if you think about, I guess the term failure or whatever, I also think about times when I've been in a position that I was not enjoying and I just couldn't get into it and and maybe I could grind through it.

00;33;13;29 - 00;33;36;16

Kim Box

And I trust me, I've done it sometimes for way longer than I should. I can relate. And, and it's like it's hard to get out of sometimes. But I would to me that's been my more bigger mistake is is not seeing that that this isn't a good fit for me no matter what I need to figure out what to do about it because I'm a very loyal and responsible person.

00;33;36;19 - 00;34;00;25

Kim Box

So it's hard to sometimes It's hard. I agree. It's just I have that much on my mind. Often. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. And I'm really paying attention to what my work experiences, what's lifting my energy, what's just draining my batteries quicker than I'm able to recharge and being able to spend time on your strengths versus the things that that bring you down.

00;34;00;25 - 00;34;22;29

Lisa Thee

Right. So speaking of recharging, what are some things you do to get your energy back as you're moving through life?  

00;34;23;02 - 00;34;40;22

Kim Box

Oh boy, I have so many hobbies that I want to hear about. Well, I love to paddleboard. Whew. Yeah. Yeah. Now I love to paddleboard. And I'm. I've been a runner, a triathlete, a lot of a lot of hobbies like that. Just this last week, I've been out the lake three times while the sun is rising and running along the levee here in Folsom. And that is literally one of my biggest joy, is watching. The sunrise to me is is the promise of a new day is just there's nothing like it. But I also am an artist, so I paint.

00;34;40;22 - 00;35;00;12

Kim Box

And it's funny, when I was that age, I painted a lot. And then when I left, I was an entrepreneur and I, like all my hobbies, got put out when I can relate to that. I'm sorry to interrupt, but yeah, survival. Yeah. Seven by 24, you know, you're just like, you just can't do it. It feels like you can't do anything else.

00;35;00;12 - 00;35;25;02

Kim Box

But I've, I've in the last year during the pandemic, actually, I started doing watercolors again and painting. And so I just have a real creative, a very creative side. So I really enjoy that. And, you know, obviously being with my my family and friends and and that type of thing. But but yeah, I like the outdoors. I'm very, very, you know, like go hiking, go out ten mile hike or something like that. Being out in nature, I think is the biggest thing that recharges me.

00;35;25;02 - 00;35;48;12

Lisa Thee

Oh, Oh, I love that. Where do you go to keep learning and growing? You've obviously evolved and taken on new things over your career. Where are your places that you you go to keep?  

00;35;48;15 - 00;36;30;03

Kim Box

Well, right now, because I want to be the best board member I could be, and I spend quite a bit of my time on boards and board work. I do a lot of programs about governance. I'm on a compensation committee, I governance nomination, governance committee, audit committee. I'm the chair of Finance and Capital Committee. So I, I go seek out a lot of webinars and things like that, especially right now with all this. The other thing is I really do a lot of research on things that I'm interested in, so it's not really a traditional class, possibly traditional type of training, but like right now I'm consulting with a company, I'm doing strategic advising and it's in an industry that that I of tangential information.

00;36;30;03 - 00;36;51;10

Kim Box

I'm on a board that is related to the industry, construction industry, but this is all different. So I love going out and learning about that. And by the way, that's one thing I found out about myself. I got on a board of an industry, my very first board in an industry that was not my career industry, but I brought information technology and strategic leadership and all of that.

00;36;51;13 - 00;37;11;20

Kim Box

And I found that even though it took a while to learn all the acronyms, acronyms and all these things that I really loved it. I loved the steep learning curve and I loved learning a new industry. And so now when people ask me what kind of board do you want to because I'm seeking other board positions, what's your industry?

00;37;11;20 - 00;37;34;08

Kim Box

What I said, you know, I'm so open because I love learning. I don't want it to be the same industries. I'm already in. Like lots of people get all the same industry, you know, they'll have a threat or whatever. But for me it's like there's certain things I'm interested that would be really cool, you know? But I'd love to see entrepreneurs, you know, you want to be the honeybee that cross-pollinate ideas across multiple industries.

00;37;34;14 - 00;37;56;23

Kim Box

And I'm guessing that pulls it through. Back to the diversity thread, right? You always see the art of the possible from looking at things from a different perspective. And yeah, and I'll be inspired by that. Yeah. And having that diversity on those, those boards or whatever organization I'm involved in. Yeah, I, I'd like to think I bring a different kind of diversity with my, my own uniqueness.

00;37;56;26 - 00;38;17;10

Lisa Thee

Yes, absolutely. So, Kim, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. I'm sure you've inspired many of our listeners for people that want to follow you and keep in touch with what you're up to, where is the best place to find you?  

00;38;17;10 - 00;38;34;04

Kim Box

You know, I think LinkedIn, LinkedIn, campus, I think the actual if you had to that how you just look people up with the name. Yeah that works. I think my name on on the actual LinkedIn thing is Kim box inspires and that's my Instagram as well. And Kim likes Inspire. So wonderful. It's more my running in the mornings. It's not my business. So you could do the LinkedIn and can we get the name of your book and where we can find it? Yeah, it's Woven leadership, The Power of Diversity and Transforming organizations to success. And it's on Amazon

00;38;34;06 - 00;38;57;18

Lisa Thee

Wonderful. And last but not least, I just know you to be a passionate person about nonprofits and giving back to the community. Are there any organizations that you recommend for people that want to support that mission of helping to prevent drug issues in the community? Are there any places you recommend supporting for people that are concerned about those issues and topics?

00;38;57;18 - 00;39;16;14

Kim Box

Yeah, there's a lot of topics. Well, I have a nonprofit called Pathway to Prevention. That's well, that is exactly the place that I put together about. Can you please share a little bit more about how people can be more in that space?

00;39;16;14 - 00;39;47;13

Kim Box

Yeah, pathway to prevention dot org. And it's basically free resources for any schools or parents talking points for how to talk to your teens about recreational partying and how that can turn into something else and very, very passionate about that. I'm also passionate about anything to do with helping prevent suicide or or supporting families. I lost my sister 15 years ago a couple as of a couple of days ago to suicide. And so I give to friends of straw for survival and duck org. And that is a group that helps families with this just a difficult scenario after the fact. So that's another one that's top of mind.

00;39;47;13 - 00;40;11;14

Lisa Thee

Yeah. Kim, you're such an inspirational leader and I love your commitment to the prevention of trauma and spreading trauma for families. So thank you so much for being with us today.

00;40;11;14 - 00;40;32;17

Lisa Thee

You really do inspire. We're really grateful for your time. Well, thank you. Thank you for having me. It's really a pleasure, Lisa. Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Navigating Forum podcast. We'd love to hear from you. At a crossroads of uncertainty and opportunity, how do you navigate forward? We'll see you next time.

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