LA Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Characteristics of Highly Successful Women

Our first speaker today is Barbara Pererry. Barbara, are you on the line? Yes, I am. Thank you for having me and good afternoon to all. Great. Good afternoon. Well, oh, go ahead. Give us a self introduction. Yeah, I was going to say I'm excited to be here and um thank you for having me and uh little bit of a background on myself. I've been with CBRE for 32 years. It's really the only job I've ever had. I am a vice chairman at the company. I do industrial capital markets and what that is for those of you who might not know is basically I sell industrial buildings that are uh you know it could be an Amazon, a FedEx, a UPS, any of the things that that is all things industrial and actually the pandemic has been good for industrial real estate because it is a booming kind of industry as all of us are switching more to e-commerce and as manufacturing is coming back into the United States. So that's my career. And a quick little kind of fact is I've been a member of the women's network of CBRE for 20 years on the board and that's been a really big part of uh of my success and and at CBRE as well. So that's a little bit about me. Um and we'd love to get started. My uh talk today is the characteristics of highly successful women. And if you turn to the first uh quote by the president of Walt Disney, I like this quote a lot because it talks about defining success on your own terms, achieving it by your own rule rules, and building a life you're proud to live. And I think this is really important because as we're talking about characteristics of highly successful women, there is not kind of a one-stop shopping. There's not one definition. There's not a right and wrong. And everybody defines success a little differently. And so as you're thinking of success and what is success, um you know, it's important what's personal to you and what resonates with you. And as I kind of share with you a little bit of my story and how I've gotten to where I've had over the years, um I think that it's important to kind of realize that each person leads a different path and will have a different way of getting there. So let's talk about the younger me on the next slide. And um this is a picture of me back when I started. I was pregnant with my first child. But I actually started in this business at 24 years old. I had just graduated from UCLA. I was young. I was blonde. I was female. And this was a man's world. There was no women in industrial real estate. Kind of a funny story of how I got to the career path I did was my father um had told my sister who's older than I am that when she graduated from UCLA that industrial real estate was the best career choice for a woman. He did not know that there were zero women in the career. He had no idea. My dad kind of had his blinders on. And so my sister forged the way 10 years before me and became an industrial specialist for CBRE. And then when I graduated from high school, I felt like it was a normal kind of path to follow in your sister's footsteps. But it certainly was a woman in a man's world. And the things and the lessons that I would say that made me successful at this part of my career is really kind of having a thicker skin really knowing that I had to be kind of a little bit gritty and I had to work harder than anybody else. I had to prove myself. I was asking people to trust me on big decisions for their company. And that's kind of scary thing when you're young and inexperienced. So I just said the way I can do this is I'm going to do all the work. And I didn't expect that anybody owed me anything. I felt like I had to do it to get to that point. I didn't even really realize at that point that there was kind of this woman man thing going on. So, I was just kind of like blinders down, you know, just grind and make it happen. And then not being afraid to to fail. I mean, I think that's really the thing when you're younger and you're starting out in this business, you really just have to realize that that the best way to get to the next step is to put in the work. I talked a little bit about my dad and if you turn to the next slide, one of the things there was a changing point in my life, which is this. So I started in leasing. I built my career. I'll tell you a couple of stories along the way as we go. But at one point after I had been working for quite some time in leasing world and my sister who's my kind of was my mentor at the time was also working separately in the leasing world. Our father had been telling us that we should be partners and it was kind of a whole change to kind of disrupt your whole universe. Come into a partnership with a sister. were a little nervous about that and we were kind of thinking that wasn't a good idea. And then suddenly in 1996, our dad passed away uh on the golf course at age 67. And it was almost like his passing was the answer to us to kind of rethink our career, how to change our path, how to think bigger, how to really try to decide that we're going to be a team and make it bigger than we thought. So we actually you know and our dad was the reason we got in the business to begin with and then he was the impetus that we became partners and so we switched from leasing to capital markets and why that was important is it really took my career on a different trajectory and a very important one. If you turn to the next slide, you'll talk about teamwork. And this is our team. And you'll notice that there's a lot of women on our team, which is kind of unusual because I told you that real estate is a man's world. That we have a very heavily women's team. In fact, the senior partners for a long time were all women. And we had to actually invite a few men to join the team because it was looking a little lopsided. But that's another story. But the best part of I think you know your success is surrounding yourself by really good people, fabulous people who can help grow your team. and that empowering others and giving people the chance to succeed as well. Loving to learn and take pride in your root in in your in your work. And many of our team members have been with us for a long time. Every single person on your team is important from somebody who's, you know, just starting out maybe to somebody who's senior. And everybody needs to be treated with the same respect and empowerment. And that's what causes people to grow and leads to success. And I think that's a really important lesson and part of the successful woman's story. If you turn to the next slide, I think this is really kind of critical and I think we have a lot of women in different fields on the phone, but when I started there was very few women in business and especially in my field and the women that were there seemed to have a chip on their shoulder or wanting to be, you know, they felt threatened by other women and they wanted to be in competition. They weren't endearing. And this was a really tough thing for me who came from a family of all girls, from a dad who taught me I could do anything I wanted to do. You know, coming from being in a sorority where girls were helping other girls, it was weird to see an industry or being in professional world where there was women at that time that were not actually rooting for other women. And I'm so glad that that's changed over the years. I really feel like the world has changed where women now are really helping other women. And that's what this organization's about. There's so many organizations that you can get involved in that really turn, you know, the corner on really empowering women in business. And I think everybody should take advantage of that. A story when I first started was uh there was a huge listing that I wanted to it would be a a career changer for me and I was pitching it with other people and there was five men and and I was the only woman and we were pitching against a woman at the time. and this is many years ago who uh was a decision maker and a senior person at our company had come to me and asked me to partner with him and I said absolutely I would love to partner with them and so at that point we partnered up and the woman actually did the interviews and said I don't like her I want this other guy and this guy to be partners and the interesting thing is the man said no we're a team I'm sticking by her and we're doing this together and that is what to sponsor. And so what I would tell you is when you have successful women having friends in their corner, it's not just women, it's also men. And there's two things, and I know uh we just mentioned mentorship. There's two things that are really important as far as getting to the next level. It's mentorship and sponsorship. You want to find mentors and be a mentee. that will really take you to the next level because you're going to be using your network and your and your relationship uh power to build that. And then making sure that you have a sponsor. Women who go places and are highly successful usually have somebody in the company that's stepping up to be a sponsor for them. And so that is a really critical part of the kind of overall success story. Let's go to the next slide and talk a little bit about not being afraid to change paths, trying to recreate yourself. I've done this even though I've been with the same company for 33 years. I found myself kind of recreating myself at several different times once when I switched from leasing to capital markets and partnered with my sister again when we formed a national team which was really new and we actually kind of changed the way people did business. And then more recently, unfortunately, not so recent because of the pandemic, but the last couple of years, I've decided to kind of be an international face for the company and have traveled to the Middle East into Singapore, China, Japan, and really tried to build international relationships with people across the the world. This has been a great uh opportunity and I was a little nervous at first especially kind of going into the Middle East as a woman by myself uh traveling. Um but what I would tell you is don't be afraid to recreate yourself to explore new approaches um to raise the bo and to raise the bar. So I think that's an important part of kind of the process of growing and of success. On the next slide, we have what Elellanar Roosevelt said, which is really do one thing every day that scares you. And I think this is an important lesson because you are at a point where you want to make yourself uncomfortable. And by making yourself uncomfortable, you can push yourself to the next heights. So we come to the slide about balance. And I think 2020 was the hardest year to try to come up with life balance. It was really difficult. Um, but what I would tell you, I really feel like it was blurs day and the lines between our professional life and our business life really merged. But it is really important to create balance in your life. And I've like changed all my passwords to be something about balance. Keep reminding myself I need balance. Trying to figure out how I can get more balance. But really trying to appreciate the fact that you need time. You know, to be a successful woman, you need some time to do things that make you as an individual feel good. Whether that be, you know, exercise, time with your family, time with your friends, socializing, whatever it is. And as we come out of this pandemic, I hope that people will have actually learned more balance as we kind of reemerge into a normal life and what things look like. If we turn to the next slide, I would tell you this. Um, put life in perspective. Uh all of our careers are important and being successful is not just about careers. Being successful is being a whole person. And I would say that um the photo on the bottom is two friends of mine, one of my some of my closest friends from high school who both passed away of cancer at 40. And when that happened and now I'm in my 50s, um it really did make me put life in perspective and say that life isn't all about success at career. It's about success of being a person and celebrating and appreciating the things in life. I kind of say about commercial real estate, I'm not doing brain. If anybody on the phone is a brain surgeon, then you are doing brain surgery. But I say about my career, I'm not doing brain surgery. So if I make a mistake or if I fail at something, you know, it's it, you know, I'm it's I'm not a brain surgeon, so it's okay. But you need to put life in perspective and celebrate every day. And then turning to the slide about integrity. Everybody is known for your reputation and that's really all you have. Your reputation in business is kind of your key kind of point in your life. It is really hard to build a good reputation. It takes years. You've got to, you know, build and you're going to grow your career and you're getting your name out there and you're you're becoming, you know, known for something, but it is really quick if you ruin it and it could be one little mistake that could ruin it. So, it's really important always to put integrity first. really your trust, your integrity is the most important thing and being true to your word always. And I would tell you that, you know, one of the things that we've done in our business is really trying to put your client's needs first. So sometimes we'll make decisions that are not good necessarily for us, but they're good for the client. It might cost us money, but the client will gain money. So those are some of the key things that I would say in learning about kind of this the successful woman. kind of in closing and we're going to take any questions here in in a second. So if you have any, please feel free to ask. I think it's it's important to remember that you make your own definition of success. If you work hard, if you have integrity, if you're happy with what you're doing, if you're able to celebrate life, that is could be, you know, your definition of success. But everybody needs to kind of define it on their own. I think it's really important that you have a plan, a a business plan that gets you to what you'd like to do in success, that you focus on it, that you look at it regularly, that you have successful friends and women, women and men in the business. And hopefully everybody will uh you know kind of take their careers to the next level. With that, I'll open it up for any questions uh if anybody has any. Oh, well, thank you so much for that presentation. And that was wonderful. We've had a couple of points. Um Jennifer says, "Great story and points, Barbara. Thanks for sharing your story." So, just a reminder to anybody if anybody would like to ask a live question and you've dialed in, hit five star and I can unmute you to ask a live question or you can put questions into the chat. So, and so we've got had a couple of questions that have come into the chat and please feel free to ask some more questions. and some and our first question comes about mentoring and somebody asked did you have a mentor and was your mentor a man or a woman. So I've had mentors that have been both men and women and I don't think you need to discriminate. I think that I've maybe had deeper mentorships with women because maybe they've gone through similar things that I have. Um there's been different different parts of your career you need different mentoring. What I would tell you is is that, you know, I was very senior and they paired me with a gal who was very senior as well, more senior than I was, and it was one of the best relationships because we had different personality styles and we both learned from each other. But I would say that if you want, if you're interested in getting a mentor, there's formal mentorships and informal. Informal are easier. What I would tell you is look around your kind of network. See if there's somebody that you feel like would be a good mentor. reach out to that person and ask them if they would be willing to, you know, grab a cup of coffee and then it's a matter of your kind of keeping in touch with that person, using it as a form to ask them questions and building that relationship. Oh, that's wonderful advice. Thank you. Well, our next question comes from Emily. And Emily says, "I just recently graduated from UCLA. And any tips when I'm the only woman in the room and I need to make a presentation to the group?" That's a good question. I have been very many times the only woman in the room. And the interesting thing is everybody remembers your name and you don't remember all the guys in the room. They remember because you're just the only female. So that's like one of the hardest things is we're trying to remember names and go Bruins. But what I would say is this. If you're the only woman in the room, you really stand out. You should be really proud to be there. You need to make a point. You need to sit at the table, the front of the table. If you do, you need to be vocal. You need to participate. You know, a lot of times people are young. If you just graduated, you might not think you have anything to add, but don't be afraid to add to the conversation. Don't be afraid to speak up. And I would say that, you know, don't overdo it, right? At the beginning, you're kind of probably learning. But what I would say is be be available to volunteer to take on roles in that meeting or to do follow-up. Kind of put yourself in a place where you can stand out and you're already standing out because you're the only woman in the room. So, that's a good thing. Well, good luck, Emily. Well, our next question comes from Diane. And Diane says, "Do you find that you change your communication style when dealing with men versus women? If so, any tips? Yes, I think we do. Um, it depends on how well you know somebody. I think that's kind of the communication style. I try to make all my customers and clients friends. So, then it's a little bit more informal as far as communication. But when you're dealing with men, I think sometimes you just need to get to the point. You need to be direct. Uh, I wouldn't be afraid to say what you're thinking. Um, and I wouldn't, you know, I I think that's a little bit more direct communication. And I think with women, you might have a little bit more of a kind of a kind of a touchyfey or more maybe a little bit more kind of getting to know each other, but be direct. And if you don't know the right thing to say in a conversation or a meeting to add, you know, a don't be afraid to ask questions or b don't be afraid just to be quiet, listen and learn and ask questions later. Those are two chances or opportunities you have. Oh, wonderful. Thank you. And our next question comes from Lynn and Lynn says, "How have you handled dismissive men?" So, it's interesting. Um, that is a that is a tough question. I try not again coming with a thick skin. I try not to let it get to me. I kind of in my mind I am very positive and I do not like negative energy. So, I kind of like put a shield like a a subconscious shield around me saying, "Listen, this guy doesn't know how valuable I am. this guy doesn't understand where I'm going to be. And now it's kind of fun if I've been in the business 32 years to kind of look back on those dismissive men and see where I've gone and maybe where they haven't gone. But I think it's important to not let that get to you. And it's important to speak up. I also have sometimes had the question that if somebody says something that makes you feel uncomfortable, how do you handle that? And that might be kind of in dis dismissive. And I think it's okay to say, hey, you know what? That doesn't make me feel comfortable or you know, hey, that's really not cool to say that or whatever that is. or however you want to reframe it. I think it's important to be uh professional always respectful, not whiny, but to speak your voice. Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for that. Well, um our next question comes from Amelia comes from Amelia. Ameilia Amelia says, "Do you know of any confidence building exercises? What can women do to build confidence even outside of work? So, it's interesting to me because um one of the things I did right out of UCLA and I was never shy, but I did the Toastmasters program and I liked Toast Masters because it puts you on the feet for speaking. It gave you kind of confidence to do it or volunteer to do things like that. Join, you know, maybe, you know, become part of a board, volunteer for a charity thing where you're speaking up and leading it. I think that you can gain confidence by leading and being participants in events. And so, um, I really would recommend something like a Toastmasters. I would also, um, you know, put yourself in situations where you feel uncomfortable. You know, kind of like Elanar Roosevelt, do something every day that you're, you know, feeling uncomfortable and putting yourself out there. And if you can put that uncomfortableness and you succeed, that builds your confidence. Oh, wonderful. Well, our next question comes from Sally. And Sally says, "When I think of CBR, CBRE, I think of on-site. So, any advice for working in an environment where employees are not able to work from home, how do you keep up morale by still and still meeting the demands of being on site? Well, so we have not been on site. The last time I was in my office was March 2020. And so, we're all virtual and it's really difficult, right? I mean it's and we've onboarded new employees during this time. So this is not this is a very difficult task and so we are definitely not on site. I think it's really important to have connection with the team. That means having regular calls touch base with people you know when you hire a new person have kind of ongoing kind of touch points with them so they can see you. Uh I hate to use the word Zoom but you know Zoom calls are good because you can see each other. I know we're all tired of Zoom, but you know, just having face to face, you know, kind of uh on at least on the computer for now. We've done some morale building things where we've done a wine tasting or, you know, we we actually for the holiday season, we did a virtual gift where everybody on the team kind of said something nice about somebody else as a virtual gift and everybody left that instead of doing our normal exchange, which would have been an actual gift exchange, you know, we weren't together. Nobody wanted to be shipping Amazon presents all across, you know, every to everybody else. And we just did this virtual gift where we gave each other kind of some kind of good uh, you know, kind of feelings about what they they did well. And the other thing I would say is maybe do some coaching. And so there's some coaching tools out there. There's some strengthfinder exercises, things that you can do with your team to kind of build morale, kind of, you know, help everybody grow. But it is tough. Not being on site is a difficult thing. Um hopefully we'll be back in person soon, but I don't think it's ever going to go back to totally as normal as it was before. Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you. Well, our next question comes from Addie, and Addie says, "How would you handle the fact that you only have 60% of the qualifications for a job if you're trying to get through to the hiring manager? How do you con how do you try to secure that job?" I think you would focus on the qualifications that you do have. So, you focus on that 60%. Nobody has Okay, this is where women and men differ. Most men applying to jobs do not have all the qualifications. I I've heard this time and time again, but they don't care. They just they just go for it. And women should do the same thing. You don't need to have all the qualifications for any job to hire. You what you need to have is a good attitude. And what you need to do is be positive about it and show the contributions that you can make to the organization, you know, with your hard work and your positive kind of, you know, demeanor. I don't think you need to have all the attributes of or everything that the job calls for. And I know that men don't think that way. In fact, there's studies about that. I've read them. Um, I think that if you had 60%, you are very qualified to get that job. And you should feel good about it. I think the reality is is that you sell the fact that you're a fast learner and that you know most jobs you learn on site. So I would not use that as anything to handicap you from getting that job. Oh, that's great. Well, I know you've um already touched on this a little bit, but we're gonna but somebody else asked, so we're going to ask it again. And and this came from Iris. And Iris says, "Do you have any ideas on how to be a good leader while building your team remotely? So, I think it's important to be communicative, to be available, to tell people that if they need to talk to you that they would, to give people a little of a kind of a break in the sense that, you know, we've know that a lot of our teammates are home with kids who are learning in the same room as they're working and you need to be a little bit more I think um you know, kind of give give everybody a little bit of a bandwidth here because it's a challenging time. Um, being a good leader to me is is treating everybody as a kind of equal participant in your team and making sure that everybody knows that they're important and if they feel important, they're going to rise to the occasion. Being virtual makes it harder. So, it might be sending them a note, you know, having a little one-on-one telling them the things that they're doing right. If there's room for improvement, you know, trying to be a mentor to that person as well as a leader. Oh, that's great advice. Well, we're going to wrap up and we're I think we're going to wrap up and move to our next panel. We've answered all the questions that have came in from the chat. So, thank you for everyone for answering questions. So, before we move on, will you um So, before we move on, do you have any final words of wisdom or advice for our group? I would say those are great questions. It sounds like everybody's thinking about how to get to the next level. And what I would say is that's the right thought to be thinking of how to get to the right ne next level to visualize how to get to the next level to think in your mind how you get there and start like kind of seeing yourself there you will get there and I'm a real big believer in that. I think that you can't be complacent. You need to kind of push yourself and if you don't think you go, "God, that's too high of a step." Push yourself. You can get there. So for everybody on the phone, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Um, and I think uh by joining groups like this and and working on self-improvement, you're all on the right path.