Episode 03: Kirstine Stewart, Chief Strategy Officer, Diply

Steven Murphy:

From the corner of Bay and Dundas in Downtown Toronto, this Like Nobody's Business, a podcast of thought leadership and business innovation. I'm Dr. Steven Murphy, Dean of the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Kirstine Stewart is a media executive, bestselling author, and Chief Strategy Officer of Diply, a leading social entertainment publisher that creates captivating content for millennials. Kirstine joined TRSM's Distinguished Counsel in Residence Ralph Lean to talk directly to TRSM students about law and business, as part of the lecture series Law, Business and Politics: The Real World.

Ralph Lean:

Toronto Life placed Kirstine on their Most Influential Torontonians and Canadian Business Magazine Top 50 Business People in 2015.

Kirstine S.:

Thank you for inviting me. It's great. It's such an energetic kind of time right now. I think there's so much that, as individuals, we have access to. And when you talk about influence, and talk about how each of us can have a voice today, I think technology has really provided us with pathways that were never there before, for good or for bad. But I think when you use it for good, they're really incredibly moving and really helpful, in terms of bringing you your own voice.

So I'm happy to talk to you guys, as you look to how you're going to be expressing your voice, as you look to finalizing your education and getting out there in what I call the real world. I think the real world kind of seeps into everybody's everyday life much more than it ever used to, and it's nice to see your experiences, and just love to talk to you about it.

Speaker 4:

What do you make of the glass cliff as a point to justify why women are not cut out or lack the acumen to lead major corporations? And what can women do to avoid falling into this trap?

Kirstine S.:

I think that's a good question because I think you point out something that's really kind of an interesting dichotomy out there, which is, we talk a lot about the glass ceiling, but there is this thing called a glass cliff. And it's been noticed by, not just me, but a few other people.

In fact, I actually believe that, in my career, I've benefited from being willing to stand up on the glass cliff. Because and just to kind of put it into context, and when we talk to, like today, when we talk about things that are pretty gender-related, like I have no expectation or belief that people so easily fall into buckets. That there's a woman thing and a man thing, and others of this thing, and of thing.

Ultimately, it's all about people and personalities, but there just happens to be in the way that when you're a woman, in particular, addressing your work life and your career, there are certain expectations that might be put on you unfairly or fairly, mostly unfairly that often get duplicated in other areas. Like if you are a person of diverse background, or if you just look different or sound different, then what has been the typical boss all these years, what people kind of picture as maybe the Mr. [inaudible] version of what a leader looks like.

So just to kind of preface all the conversation today around women and men, it's not really about the differences between women and men. It's more along the lines of the difference of personalities, and I do think that there's a time right now that we're in, which is an exciting time, where we're actually breaking through the idea of stereotypes, and models, and thinking about the attributes an individual brings to leadership.

Speaker 5:

In your book Our Turn, you state, "That to be anything other than authentic will inevitably compromise your confidence. In a society where it is necessary to have gender quotas or comply and explain principles to promote equality, it seems that even the government does not have confidence in our ability to achieve success on our own."

Thus, as young females in our graduating year, how do we go about bestowing confidence, in not only ourselves, as great leaders, but to society, as a whole? Furthermore, do you believe that gender quotas may be acting as a double-edge sword, enabling women to take on positions of power, but disabling their ability to be taken seriously?

Kirstine S.:

Yes, for all good reasons, you've been raised in an environment where you get told that things are pretty equal, and that's a good thing. That's how I've been raising my daughters, that's what they believe. I think they're going to have a bit of a shock when they go out there and see, that unfortunately, the world hasn't changed maybe as fast as it has inside our household. That we're maybe a bit off the norm, when it comes to what those women are going to experience, my daughters, when they graduate.

So I think there's certain key things that you can kind of break down in your leaving here, and looking for your place in a career. I do think authenticity and keeping true to yourself is incredibly important, no matter who you are, because you could only feel comfortable and strong in what you're doing if you are being who you want to be. That authenticity comes through in everything that you do, and it is actually probably your biggest strength.

That means, you can't compromise the fact that you're a woman, that you're of a certain color, that you're of a certain background. Like you can't hide that, that's not, and you shouldn't. Your strength should come from the fact of all your experiences, and what brought you here today, sitting in front of an interviewer or a new boss is the culmination of everything that you are, and everything that you've learned along the way. If some people can't deal with that, that becomes their loss, but it becomes your pain because you end up being the one who doesn't get the job.

You end up being the one who worries about where that next paycheck is coming from, or whatever, and that's not good. But you have to believe that when enough of us out there, and again, it's a matter of time and that gets frustrating, but when enough of us out there start changing the dynamics of how individuals are recognized, then you start to see movement and change. And I do see breaks in that kind of ... In the wall that has kind of separated people, according to gender or whatever it is that has kept them kind of categorized.

I do see that people with individual abilities are starting to get recognized for those abilities, as opposed to what they look like, and what their color is, and who they are. That's a good thing, and I think the more we reward that, and the more those businesses do better than those businesses who don't do that, I think you'll start to see change. As a person going out there though, it's so important that you go out with that confidence, and understand that you are bringing an ability that these people need.

Speaker 6:

In your opinion, how should a woman carry herself in the workplace if she's surrounded with criticism, and wants to move up positions? Does she continue with her goals, or does she address the scrutiny and remodel her plan?

Kirstine S.:

We do worry about that kind of, we're so open now to the kinds of criticism that are instant because we have Twitter, and Facebook, and Snapchat, and like there is so much more, everyone thinks they're an expert, everyone thinks they have an opinion. And the media has never been good in portraying women, they've always kind of typified them, and kind of classified them in different ways.

I think though, what I like to see is that in those mediums today, we actually do get communities of people fighting back. And again, even though they're not the majority of people, they're out there, and I think the more that, as individuals, instead of listening to the criticisms, and listening to the people who are actually there to support you, and bolster you, and realize you can actually get more of them, I think that's the only way I could get through it.

And I think that's a good way to kind of approach it because you will not change the minds of necessarily everybody, and those are systems that have been built for a very long time, and very hard to change. But you can see those moments, like that moment I had with that young woman in the hallway, as like, "Wait a second, this is actually, there are ... There is the other side to this, and I should listen to that more than I listen to the negativity."

Speaker 7:

Do you believe that digital media platforms and organizations have a social responsibility to ensure that the content they're publishing is, in fact, credible and reliable? Or, do you think it should be ultimately up to the end user to determine if the content that these websites are publishing is true?

Kirstine S.:

I don't know how even Facebook, I don't know they're going to try their best to make sure that they police as much as they can. But again, they can't police everything because think of all the bits of digital information that get released in every second, let alone every day. It's very difficult to keep a handle on everything, as people, individuals, it's UGC content, it's user-generated all the time now, so how do you keep a handle on every piece of content that somebody around the world somewhere is uploading at any particular moment.

And the issue now is not, people call fake news the things that are truly fake news, and people are also calling fake news on things that they just don't agree with. So how do you, as a platform, police something when the question is, "Well, what is real and what's fake," when you're telling me something that you just don't believe it is fake, how do I know where the line is?

The desperateness and the value of attention and the desperate measure people go to get that attention, is I think, that's the challenge right now, is how do you make sure that good quality content is what rises to the top? And because you see these cycles happen through history, whether it was in the 1930s this happened, in the 1950s, it kind of happened again, and I think we're seeing it now again. It was with every mode of medium change, so it was when the newspapers came out, then you had fake news. It was when television came out, you had a bunch of fake news.

Now that everything's on digital, you have a bunch of fake news, but in whatever way, that's going to be harder to wrestle in because there's going to be so many outlets involved, but I think the quality outweighs the false news. I think it may end like it seemed to have in the last generations, you're going to hope that it does again, but what mechanisms are going to have to pull together?

They're going to be really hard because it's, like I said, there's so many more pieces to try to control. But it's the rise, the way that you see the news organizations fighting back against people yelling fake news at them, and coming up with some really good quality journalism, that is what you hope rises above the rest.

Speaker 8:

How do you foresee the laws and regulations surrounding broadcasting changing with the continuous developments in technology, and the introduction of new forms of media? Do you believe that newer forms of media, such as Netflix, should be regulated under broadcasting law, or remain as they are?

Kirstine S.:

I'm going to say something controversial here, and say that all broadcasting should not be regulated, like not in that way. Not in the connecting content type regulatory way that prescribes how many hours of this, and what qualifies as Canadian, and what doesn't qualify as Canadian, and I'll tell you why.

We have such opportunities in these platforms to create some really cool and interesting content, that I believe, if they had been regulated in the same way that traditional television was, it never would have been made. And we can have arguments about what is Canadian, and it's like there's a system, which is like six points out of 10, and 10 out of 10, and it's like how Canadian is Canadian?

I think, in the end, we're at a point now, where consumers are educated enough, we have talent enough in this country, to be able to tell our stories without being prompted by regulation to do so.

Speaker 9:

Given your experience, how do you think we can tackle today's job economy? How should educational institutions and students adopt to the changing environment?

Kirstine S.:

If you go 10 years back, you wouldn't have even thought that there would be a company named Google, and that a company named Google would be worth a $1,000 a share. So this pace and our world is moving so quickly, that my only advice to her, and it would be the same advice I'd give to anybody who's looking at what they're going to do in their careers, is again, understand what you're good at.

At the same time, understanding what you're good at, and what motivates you, and what you're trained in, you can also see how you can apply that into fields you never even though of. So you really have to keep an open mind about what that means. And I'll give you a good example. There's a lot of journalists out there right now, who find themselves out of work. There's a lot of competition, a lot going on in the journalism field, a lot of new graduates are coming out, and there's not every job for every person.

But what I'm seeing is a transition, where a lot of journalists are understanding that their ability to tell story, so their ability to build narrative, their ability to understand peoples' stories, and to be able to translate them, that means, you can do things that aren't just strictly journalism. It may have been looking at things like the former editor of the Global Mail is currently working at the RBC, being their head of innovation, in terms of digital and communication. I've seen a lot of journalists take those kind of jobs at PR companies, or like again, it's that ability to build a narrative that they've studied, and they feel they're good at. It didn't have to be in the very strict sense a media job or a journalism job, they could think of using that somewhere else.

So I think what I did was I took my interest in kind of figuring out what motivates people to communicate, and how they communicate with each other, and took that in a world where we've gone from media to digital, and just understood that it's the same skills. You just have to figure out to fit them in the new world, so you have to always be constantly looking around at the world around you. Schools can never move fast enough just because of the basis of how you build curriculum, and how you build everything that supports it, in terms of the resources, and teachers, and everything from textbooks.

So we can never move school as fast as you can, or education as fast as you can move the workforce out there, but you can still take from it the basics of what you've learned, and transfer it into the new workforce. You just have to think about how this fits in the new space.

Speaker 10:

My question was about women's' sports, and how you see us developing that into something that receives the same type of attention that men's sports does?

Kirstine S.:

If the argument is, women's sports are less valued than men's sports because of the attendance, or because of the willingness to pay for them, there's certain sports that you can see that now getting equalized. Like tennis, like soccer, Olympic Soccer, things like that. So I think awareness is incredibly important in driving the value of women's sports. We need to make sure that women's sports is seen, and available in a way that men's sports is, because if you don't know it exists, you're not going to be able to build popularity for it.

So it's difficult because you're dealing with a media industry, that itself values certain sport, a male sport over a female sport, you need to actually get in there and make women's sport as available as men's so that people start falling in love with it, and they create that, you have that connection with it. So it's a difficult challenge, it's a huge one, but I think it's one that we can start looking at the sports, where it's been successfully done like in tennis.

Like you have a superstar like Serena or her sister Venus, and you see that they sell-out the stadium, just as much as a Djokovic or an Andy Murray does. That's good, like we start seeing that equivalence, and that creates a value out there. But we have to see what they did they do, what environment, what created that environment, and how did that happen, and start looking at how we could do that in another sport, as well.

Speaker 11:

Did you ever have any fear that leaving these executive roles could hinder your success in the field, specifically because you were a female stepping down, and taking a risk on other positions that might not pan out as well as the last one?

Kirstine S.:

Like I think any job change I've made has been about, "What is the world doing right now? And where can I best use my skills?" If we get too caught up in a title, or a ... They kind of, formal structure around a job, as opposed to what you can do in that job, and the kind of impact you can have, I think that's, you're selling yourself short. Like we shouldn't be so worried about titles, we shouldn't be so worried about the kind of respect you're going to get, or whatever that, where your parking spot is, or like those kinds of things that you worry about.

And I have to admit, that except for the last change, I have always known which job I'm going to before I leave the job I'm in. Like I've always been headhunted, or called, or like whatever it is, I've always gone through a process of, "I know what that next job is going to be when I've announced I'm leaving the job that I'm in." That was the bird in the hand thing to me, so even though it might look risky in making those changes, I always knew what was next. This time was the first time I didn't know what was next.

Ralph Lean:

On behalf of Toronto Met, I want to thank Kirstine. It was a terrific-

Kirstine S.:

Thank you.

Steven Murphy:

Like Nobody's Business is a presentation of Toronto Metropolitan University's Ted Rogers School of Management. For more information about TRSM, visit ryerson.ca/tedrogersschool. I'm Dr. Steven Murphy, thank you for listening.