Shadow Day with Peggy Johnson

As I have been alluding to in my previous posts, yesterday was a very special day for me. I had the opportunity to shadow an incredible woman in engineering, Peggy Johnson. Peggy is currently serving as Executive Vice President of the Americas and India. But more importantly, she is a normal mom and woman who has mastered work-life balance and somone I greatly respect. I wrote a continuous series of entries during my day in attempt to capture as much raw emotion as possible. I hope you enjoy reading about my shadow adventure:

-------------------------
10:05 AM
Before coming into work today I was all adrenaline and excitement. It seems goofy, but for me, the reaction that often occurs when people see celebrities is similar to the one I get when near corporate leaders. I have heard and read that one of the best ways to prepare for situations that may cause one anxiety is through multiple “dress rehearsals” an practices. Thus, I spent much of my last 24 hours in the suit I was wearing today talking to myself in mirrors and brainstorming possible conversations and situations I may find myself in today.

The first scenario I had dreamed up did not go exactly as I had predicted. Upon our first meet-and-greet, she was very friendly to me. I explained that I saw her speak at the Q-Awards Scholarship Weekend I had attended in San Diego, and she wasn’t able to recall it! I imagine this is incredibly juvenile of me, but her response saddened me a little. However, upon further reflection I realized that an executive vice president of one of the greatest companies on the globe probably cannot remember a quick one-hour speech to 30 minority students. She is probably involved with so many fantastic speeches and opportunities every week that smaller speeches to smaller audiences probably fade into the fabric of her everyday job.

The first meeting of day was a conference call from 9:30-10:00 with Cingular CTO (Chief Technology Officer) Kris Rinne. My roll in this meeting was simple: I was a fly on the wall, just listening in to see how business gets done. Also joining us in the meeting was Senior Director of Business Development Howard Wright. Kris Rinne is one of those women who is talked about in all women-in-technology circles. I found it almost amusing today how she took our conference from her mobile device. Times have surely changed since my parents were in the workforce only 3 years ago! I also couldn’t help but smile as I listened to the three of them casually toss around first names like Paul (for Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm CEO) and Ralph (for Ralph de la Vega, President and CEO of Cingular). I especially enjoyed watching the body language and nonverbal interactions between Peggy and Howard. Many of the notes I jotted down during the meeting were direct quotes or phrasing used on each side. It was as if nothing said could be perceived as remotely offensive. The speech seemed to be the epitome of diplomacy. Perhaps my biggest learning experience from this meeting was listening to the tone of conversation. Although there were clearly important business deals at play, the whole thing felt very light-hearted. All parties were laughing. A lot. Joking. A lot. This is not something I expected. When imagining the scenario in my mind, I had anticipated a more “corporate” feel. While it now seems obvious, I was pleased to watch how business was able to be completed in good humor.


11:20AM
I have just come from a meeting directed by Peggy called “A-Team Staff Meeting”, which is essentially Peggy’s biweekly staff meeting. In this meeting, one of the 6 members called into a conference bridge since he was traveling back from Argentina. One of the team members had announced his retirement plans, so the first part of this meeting was delegating each of his duties to the remaining members. I found it incredibly fascinating how flexible the team members were to change. One man to my right was told he would probably be going to Cairo, Egypt next week for a round of meetings with one of Qualcomm’s partners, and he simply nodded and smiled. Is this the pace executives are expected to move at? He could literally be off to Egypt in 4 days to meet with a new customer and his response was to simply smile and nod! It also came out in the meeting that Peggy and a team member traveled to four South American countries in four days last week! I suppose much of traveling becomes routine after awhile. But still. Wow. The idea of a global market, while exciting, is quite frightening too.

One of my “starred” notes from the meeting was Peggy’s tactic to explain how to “back fill” the retiree’s position. I found her approach very clever. She explained it something like this: “I am sure as we feel the weight of his retirement, we will all be wondering ‘When are we going to back-fill this position and get some relief?’ I think it will be best for our team to wait until we feel the painful areas, and then hire one of your direct reports into the position.” She acknowledged that her decision will temporarily cause more stress on her team, but showed them how it will ultimately provide long-term relief where it is most needed. It is small lessons like these that I consider invaluable from today!

12:03 PM
The last meeting I attended this morning was a preparatory meeting for Peggy’s Executive Insight Presentation this evening. Essentially, Peggy will speak to about 35 people (director level and up) about her leadership growth and insights she picked up along the way. It is being held at Estancia La Jolla, a very fancy hotel. What does this mean for me? In a few hours time I will be the only intern on the globe eating appetizers and sipping cocktails (or soda, in my case) with 35 of the top leaders in Qualcomm San Diego. Would someone pinch me please? I must be dreaming. While I have quite a bit of work to do for my normal job this afternoon, I am allotting a certain amount of time to mentally prepare for this incredibly rare opportunity.

The rest of my afternoon is free to me, since Peggy will be attending an off-site meeting with a customer in San Diego. It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to attend this particular meeting, so I am happy to relax and work on some tricky Matlab code in my guest office for the afternoon. My guest office is directly next to Peggy’s on the 9th floor of the executive tower. The view is absolutely breathtaking, as I sit here sipping my coffee with the San Diego terrain laid out before my eyes (see pictures of my "guest office" at right). For possibly the 50th time today, I am counting my blessings and wordlessly thanking the people who helped make this day possible for me.


7:20 PM
So I just got back from Peggy’s “Executive Insights” speech. Wow. Just wow. I pulled my car up to the Estancia La Jolla hotel and got ready to walk in when a man approached me with his hands reaching out towards me. What did he want? My keys. Valet parking. Of course. Luckily this was compliments of Qualcomm, but I still wasn’t prepared to have my first valet parking experience today! (Personally, I think a 19 year-old getting valet parking is rather ridiculous, considering most of the men parking the cars were older than me!) The appetizers included deep-fried shrimp kabobs, mushroom roundletts, and beef skewers among other things. I was surprised to see that my hiring manager, Felix Singh, was in attendance. I feel slightly guilty, as I hadn’t told him I would be shadowing Peggy today. My reasoning had been simple: this was a fantastic opportunity, but I didn’t want to seem like I was bragging! Thus, I had explained the situation to my work mentor who I report directly to and simply told the rest of the office I would be gone today. Nevertheless, he already knew that I was shadowing her (tricky managers! Haha), and it was nice to have another familiar face in this sea of Qualcomm executives.

Peggy's actually speech was inspirational, as I have consistently seen to be true in all talks I have heard. She seems to embody this real, tangible excitement when she talks about her past and future. I marveled how she managed to captivate the diverse audience in attendance. I would imagine it is quite difficult to entertain the lawyers, businessmen, and engineers with the same speech! I snagged a picture or two throughout the day, which you can see to the right. Overall, I am still in shock at how well the day went. I always pray that things will go almost exactly as I had planned, so it is a rare treat when things actually go better!