Working While Female: Turning Barriers into Power with Dr. Michelle Flemmings

Melissa (: 00:00

Burnout to All Out fam, I am so excited for you all to get a chance to hear from the cream of the crop. These are our Burnout to All Out Elevate 360 mastermind clients who've been in my mastermind, high level mastermind all year this year. And we do a summit once a year.

with our mastermind clients to debut their zone of genius. What is incredible is that these clients all embody a 360 degree approach to business. They all contribute in one way, shape or fashion as subject matter experts that contribute to the pillars of Elevate 360, which is truly that we believe that bodies build businesses and that we have to have business strategy and legacy strategy as well.

And so what is really cool about these clients is that through a series of a couple of days of a summit, they were able to highlight and bring value and educate in their fields, whether it was around self leadership, leadership in business, business strategies, energetics and mindset and or legacy and how we take what we're doing and make our money.

work harder than we did for it to create impact and legacy over time. And so they really embody all that represents the 360 degree approach to business and the burnout to all out through line of our mastermind. So over the next couple of episodes, you are gonna hear from all of these experts. You're gonna get the details to their work in the notes section.

And hopefully you're inspired as well as to what is possible for you as an entrepreneur and scaling your businesses the way these incredible human beings have. So hope you enjoy the series. So let's get started with our next featured speaker. So excited for you all.

Melissa (: 02:06

to hear from Dr. Michelle Fleming today. I wanna give you the formal bio before we get into our actual interview. So Dr. Michelle Fleming is a health tech advisor, founder and executive coach who spent over 30 years transforming healthcare through technology and leadership as an emergency medicine physician and former chief medical officer at Cerner and Oracle Health.

After leading game changing initiatives at these industry titans, she made the bold decision to choose herself and launch Working While Female, a platform that bridges the gap between invisibility and becoming impossible to ignore in the workplace for women in male dominated industries. Through her executive coaching practice, she transforms women's

can I into yes, I did that, helping recent clients secure promotions and commands rooms and stages where they were once overlooked. And it has been a pleasure to be working with you as you stepped away and said goodbye to corporate America and have stepped fully into your power and your calling. And you know, Michelle, beautiful segue here is I don't know.

if you were on when we kicked off with Erin or even Carrie, but there seems to be an undercurrent and a through line with all three of you. And that is that all three of you have had beautiful, highly successful, high performance careers that took you on a journey to where you are today in your calling. It could almost feel like we're coming in on our third presenter who's actually exited corporate and...

is a strategic leadership coach now and think that we're like bashing corporate, because everybody's like, see you later corporate. But the reality is there's an immense level of gratitude for the journey that brought us through corporate to allow us to be the impactful leaders that we are today. With that, really excited to kick off with you today. I know today you're gonna be talking to us about going from invisible to undeniable.

Melissa (: 04:26

And I know that you are just, you know, an executive presence and you are in the strategic leadership realm for women. So let's just start with one of your like top topics that I love hearing you talk about. And that's being the best kept secret and like how we can stop being the best kept secret and become visible as women leaders in corporate. So I'm going to turn it over to you to just, let's just jump right in.

Thank you, Melissa. And I will tell you, thank you also for the not corporate bashing, because you're absolutely right. The journey started there. And it's almost like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. There were things that she needed to realize along the road, people she needed to meet, information she needed to get to realize that she had the power all along to go and be adventurous and to do better. And what's interesting in corporate is, and any job, is that it is the ecosystem.

that owns the rules and the guidelines, the standard operating procedures. And as women are conditioned even from we're just little, you're adorable. You little girls should be seen and not heard, all of those things. And I'm a child of the 60s. So imagine that as well being a woman of color in the South. I remember the whites only days in the pool and my mom trying to explain to me in the most PC way, honey, I know there's really nobody in there, but you also can't go.

It's similar in corporate is that there are these barriers, these invisible workplace barriers. the, the scare is if I touch that, if I go past that, what's going to happen. So what we do instead is we figure how can we accommodate. And that makes us shrink back. What the key is, is to either have something happen that forces you to get past that fear, or you look within and say, you know, I'm kind of tired of complaining about.

not having this or not being bigger, not being better, not being able to do something and just going for it. How I started is I started speaking up. I had a lot to say when I got home to my husband and he's like, baby, I love you, but half of what you say, I no longer understand. You're speaking tech speak. And what I decided to do is that, I mean, it was a company of hundreds of thousands of people. And when you looked around, there were maybe 16 women of color who were VPs.

Michelle (: 06:46

So I started speaking out, started speaking with them. So how can we use what platform we do have to get more visible? And we started having our own group sessions. We started mentoring each other, coaching each other. No, you don't end your sentence on a higher note like this, because if you do, it makes you sound like you're asking a question. So how do we do our presence? How do we do our continence? How do we step in and be bold without also ending up being seen as aggressive, too ambitious, or

My case, the one that I love the moniker is the angry black woman. I told my husband, I think I need a medal for all the times that I've been labeled that. But sometimes you just got to go, you know, it's time. It's picking your battle. So some women, especially in healthcare, it's women's health that's under attack. How can we stand up for ourselves and say, no, this is not satisfactory? Sometimes it's our kids, maybe it's in the PTA and saying, no, my kid needs to have art.

and music and gym. And yeah, my little girl wants to play soccer and she's good enough to be on the boys team. So it all depends on what is your inspiration that lets you speak up. But I think it's not, but, and I think it's imperative that we find something because if we're silenced, my dad used to say, silence means consent. So what you are is actually complicit in the erosion of your presence, but also of your power in that organization and potentially in your industry.

That's so powerful, so powerful. you know, there's, there's elements of this that really resonate with me as well, just being a young female leader and being the only female at the table. You know, I've talked, I'll continue to talk a little bit about this, but you know, climbing the corporate ladder.

and being, it was so many layers. was female, it was half the age of a lot of the people in the room and the only one with small children, right? And there was kind of like the dancing on eggshells, trying not to be misperceived or perceived the wrong way and kind of overstep.

Melissa (: 08:48

So this is really interesting. Silence means consent, right? So powerful, so powerful. So going from, so we talk a little bit about, you know, not being the best kept secret. How would you, how would we get a little bit further into not just voice, but talent, right? Like, how do we, can we double down on this a little bit more about talent and expertise and like your voice at the table?

and not coming across or being perceived as bossy or bitchy, you know, like I hate to call it that, but it's like having the truth. You're you're right. were really direct, it was like, you know, he's confident. And again, I'm not, you know, I love my husband and I love the men I've worked with, but you know, there's this, there's the projection that like, if a woman is really confident and she really speaks her mind,

My girl.

Melissa (: 09:47

She is categorized as bitchy versus the man who's confident and direct. So like how do we navigate that?

Well, Melissa, I know, you know, what I've been doing now for about the past year and change on LinkedIn is stirring that pot and bringing those truths to the surface. One of my recent ones was about exactly that. The fact that you can pitch and it is your best, best pitch. Somebody else grabs it. You got crickets. They get the VP spot. If you come down and you say, no, no, no, no, no, no, hold up, wait a minute. And you call them out. You have now stepped on the wrong toes. If they Joe.

jump on the table and start doing acrobatics. Bold leadership. my goodness, this is life changing. Let's fund this. Let's give it the green light. Not fair, but it is the stereotypes. I do, and actually I'm given the webinar in September 6th at noon Eastern. I'll have the QR code later for those interested, but there are so many little things that you can do that starting even tomorrow, even this afternoon if you're listening now.

This afternoon, you can show up differently in that meeting room. First off, and it's a silly thing, but get there just five minutes early, even if it's a Zoom call. Make certain you're wearing something like this, bright color. Be seen, be seen, be magnetic. If it's in a literal room, if it's in a real room, when you go in, sit slightly left of the door that you entered through. Here's the hint. This is beautiful and ridiculous. Most languages we read from left to right. When we scan rooms, when we enter,

We look forward first, but then we tend to go left to right. So it forces them as they see you, as they walk in, you're right there. First time they see you. Second time they see you is as they go left to come back right. And now they have to choose to take you into account when they also choose their seat. So you've been seen twice at least, possibly three times. They know that you're there. They know that you're there ahead of them. I also love...

Michelle (: 11:43

taking my notes because that means that I respect this time enough and I have something to say and damn it, you're gonna hear it. Yeah, so that's number one is your positioning. Number two, even before you walk in the room, prepare. And yeah, we all look at our data. Yeah, we all have our notes. Something we fail to do though, is we fail to talk to our mentors to give the pitch ones over to see if they can add anything to it. The other thing though, and this is the really bold spot is find a naysayer.

Somebody who always says, this isn't going to work. Never happened. Never will reason being they've been there. They have reasons and insights that you may not as to why you're going to fail even before you open your mouth to speak, get the clues from them. And then if you really want to double down, thank you for your time. I hope you're going to be there. And I would really appreciate as I go through this, that you support what you feel comfortable supporting, because once they speak up, the whole room goes, wait a minute, Bob.

agrees with her, instant cred, instant cred. The other one being bold and also not being smacked in the face for it is holding onto the expertise of someone else. So say Charlie, I know it's a shame, but unfortunately almost all the EVPs where I was were guys. So say it's Charlie who came up with something at the board meeting that the board was like, yes, bravo, bravo. You can refer back to that in this meeting and say, and for those of you who are on the call may remember that Bob said such and such statistic.

I'd like to build on that point. What we neglected to speak about was A, B, and C. It shows that you've done your homework. It shows that you give a damn. It shows that you will have insights that they need to know about and that they need to tap you to see what else is going on between your ears because there's value that you have that they haven't figured out yet. And just that one little drip of curiosity is enough to bring you from being the bitch, like we said, to being the...

damn, maybe she does know more and perhaps I should go have a one-on-one with her. It's amazing how that shifts that dialogue.

Melissa (: 13:44

So good, yes, everybody's saying in the chat, this is so good, Michelle. Yeah, and if you wanna keep your video off, you're welcome to, we can hear you. So this is really helpful when it comes to kind of showing up as a female, direct, but with thought and not coming across as the bitch, right? Let's talk about interrupting, right? So the art of interrupting in a boardroom, right? Where you have...

you know, so we've talked about like gaining the respect when we're speaking up, but where it's important to interrupt, where it's important to interject. And I know that you're just such an expert in navigating the boardroom, which is why I keep asking, you know, some more questions in this space. what, talk to us a little bit about interruptions and really reclaiming our voice when it comes to being in the boardroom.

Totally. I'm a middle child. have big boy cousins that are like the size of Samoans. So I am mano a mano from I was a kid. My first concussion, their fault, because I insisted on playing with them. So I insisted on interrupting what they were doing. In the boardroom, the key is to be able to read the power structure. So you go in, you may be manager, director. Most all of the others are VPs. The person who organized the meeting, who is calling the meeting in the very beginning,

may not be the person by the middle by the time you're ready to pitch who actually owns the room. So look for that. Look for that. One of the things that really never fails to piss me off is the person who's like, you're just starting the meeting. And even before you call it to order, go, would you mind if I share a few slides? And they just turn it on before anybody can say, yes, they've hijacked your meeting. In the case of getting interrupted, I say one of two things, depending on where my brain is. Sometimes it's the simple.

The same thing that Kamala said, I'm speaking here. The other one, if you really want to hit them as I appreciate your patience, the floor is mine now done. Claim it. The floor is mine now. Who does the floor belong to? It belongs to Michelle. Why? Cause she said it. If they continue on say, pardon me, but perhaps you didn't understand the floor is mine. I'm going to continue my points each time you correct. And each time you maintain your countenance and you're cool when you do it.

Michelle (: 16:03

It makes them look like the impudent toddler that needs a timeout. And if their people don't call them on it, that tells you a whole lot. That tells you a whole lot. Typically there will be one person, and I've found in my experience, that it's usually a woman who just gets fed up and says, you know, Kyle, sit down, shut up, let her finish her point. The other thing that you can do is the allies that you have that are gonna be in the meeting, say, I'm sick and tired of Kyle and his interruptions.

I try to shut him down. He nonetheless keeps speaking. Can you do me a favor? If he seems like he's trying to grab it again, can you back me up? And typically they will. Typically they will. And I found that that is a magnificent way to, yes, STFU, you got it. It's a great way to put those boundaries out there and say, I'm no stinkin' bargain. My mom used to tell me that. She's like, you're little, you're a black kid.

You got a big mouth on you. got to make certain that people don't think that you're an easy bargain, that you're an easy hit. So you got to know how to fight. You got to know how to say what you got to say and then get back out of the convo before you ruin it for yourself. Yeah. I that helped.

this so much Michelle. think this is resonating with a lot of people. Really just some some high value. I'm not a bargain.

Not a bargain, baby.

Melissa (: 17:22

Well, let's, I mean, let's move on to, you know, one of these key topics around choosing yourself, you know, from corporate executive to entrepreneur. And maybe we can get into a little bit of this discussion too, is like, you've made the pivot. You've made the pivot from, you know, high power career in corporate America, three decades, you know, highly credentialed as a physician as well. Talk to us a little bit about choosing yourself.

Choosing, I mean, this is like a through line from everyone who has spoken today, right? And how you can choose yourself as you're navigating, you know, whether you're an executive or an entrepreneur, like what does that look like for you?

Unfortunately, I'm very stubborn and I think that part of it is my immigrant roots. My folks are Jamaican and my mom was from the Maroon tribe, which is still an independent tribe up in the mountains of Jamaica. The highways go around Maroon town on purpose. And it took me a while to realize that I was so determined to continue to have the voice, to be the one that everybody listened to all the time, that I was actually making myself miserable.

How so? happened is, when it was interesting when Cerner.bought by Oracle, Oracle made all sorts of pronouncements about how we're going to change healthcare. And they hired a whole bunch of docs. Over time, what happened is they started to let go of the docs. started to let go of the nurses. They started to let go all the clinicians and all the conversations became much more transactional. And me, I'm holding onto the past. It should still be about that person on the other side of the bed rail who's having their worst day.

and whose family is thinking they're gonna lose them or, my goodness, how are we gonna pay for this? All of that. And the more I spoke in those terms as a clinician and trying to keep that oath, even in this digital age, the more I was getting shut down. And I thought, you know, Michelle, you're doing one-to-one here. You've lost the ability now that they have changed their way of delivery of doing a one-to-millions. So you need to do something else.

Michelle (: 19:21

And then you came through my feed. think S I R I I'm not even gonna call her name because she's gonna start listening. I think she heard me one day just putting out a straight bitch vest in here in my office. And she's like, girl, you need something. And it was your post about Bye Bye Corporate. And I thought, wow, the timing is perfect. And I started at that point in time to just say, okay, I have X number of months that I have to finish off my projects. have one more vesting that happens here. I want to finish out the year.

so that I'm retiring and I was close to age, I was about six months away from age at the time. And I also wanted to complete the year because it's a silly secret, but whole years look so much better on your resume than do half years. So if you can get to five years, one month, as opposed to four years, seven months, five years, one month matters a whole lot more. Silly that four months matters, but that's how the algorithms read it. So I did all of that research and then I just started planning my exit.

And it wasn't like a quiet quit. was, I'm still going to do my job, but I'm going to reach out in other ways. And what choosing me was for me is all of the stuff that I wish that I had been able to just walk across the boardroom and sit with a young lady and say, okay, we're going to have a do-over. This is how you need to present that. So they listened to you the first time, or this is how you shut down your Kyle because he's obviously disrespecting you. And it's not by mistake.

He's trying to take your job. need to see this. You need to stop having the blinders on those rose colored glasses. You need to take them off because they are jeopardizing your survival as a professional in this field. And those who are listening who are in tech, especially know that it's not even dog eat dog. mean, Norm with his, it's dog eat dog world and I'm wearing milk bone underwear. It's worse than that. I mean, there's blood in the water and it's always red.

water that you're swimming in. So you got to be careful in there. And a lot of young ladies, the youngsters coming in now, these future leaders are getting dismissed almost the first time they opened their mouths. And I just couldn't sit there and stand for that to happen anymore. So that's why working while female came up, because it is, it's the crime that we're guilty of. We're guilty of working while female being bold enough to speak up and say enough is enough.

Melissa (: 21:42

So powerful. And I love this that again, it's just the through line of like your journey, your experience, and then really finding your voice. And it's almost as if not to put words in your mouth, but just kind of witnessing this for you. It's like by fully stepping out, you're able to fully speak to publicly, like be a voice for publicly, especially in LinkedIn, what your ideal client, you know,

females, especially females who are a minority, you're able to be a voice and speak for them without a filter because you're no longer employed, right? Would you agree with that?

I love how you call be filterless. Thank you. It's, it's, it's interesting. I think I've had a rusty filter for a while. I finally threw it out when I decided I was going to retire and it's game on my video. The other day was all about dudes wake up. They just fired a bunch of people and two weeks later now they're going, no pay raises and no, you're not getting a promotion. So if you're not the person who's helping the PNL go to the positive.

You better watch out or you're to have a red line through your name. You know, so I'm trying to be as frank as possible and get into people's feeds and hopefully be the voice that they hear someday that they go back and go, wait a minute, let me sit to the left of center. Let me walk around because what I have to say is going to take me more than a minute. If you have to speak and say something and you're on the agenda and it's like going to take you three minutes, stand up, start taking in real estate, walk the room a little bit.

As you walk the room and you make eye contact, again, especially as a female, they know you're not afraid. They know you're not going to fall off your heels. They also know that you're not afraid to look them in the eye. And that's something that we fail to do. And unfortunately on zoom now, we can't, we just really can't, we kind of do, but we really just can't get that one-on-one ICU, do you see me going? And that makes it even more critical for women to really use what they can.

Melissa (: 23:48

Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, and it's just I got I have goosebumps thinking about it. It's, you know, one of my core words that I dropped in when Carrie was asking about, you know, the keywords for us is impact. Right. And I think about the impact that you are making by

you know, the empowerment and the movement that you're making to raise the visibility and voice at the table in corporate. It's a calling, right? It's an absolute calling and just incredibly powerful. So I know that we're kind of running up on time here and Michelle, I know you have your own specific workshop coming up. How can folks...

connect with you and if things resonated with them, like, why don't we talk a little bit about what's going on in September for you?

Wait, if I may share my screen, I've got a QR code. Yes. Awesome. So the first way to connect with me is I'm on LinkedIn. on, I'm under Michelle Fleming's MD and it's working while female. And then I also have in there my Calendly, but this is something that Melissa and I talked about. I think it's imperative that if you have something that you would like to continue to discuss and walk through your personal strategy, your personal situation, I am happy.

to sit there with you and say, let's go. Let's do three things in a mini action plan that can get you from that corner of the room to being the person that when you walk in, go, Melissa has something to say. Melissa's ready. Take the room, own the command and just own your expertise. Our expertise gets questioned way too often in spite of the fact that the speaker before me has all the experience in HR.

Michelle (: 25:32

HR hires you and puts you in front of these folks because of your expertise, because of your credentials. And then strategically and systematically, they get disqualified and you're continuing every day to go back and say, no, I really am a doctor. While salespeople are telling you, let me teach you about healthcare, how it really works. And then the other one that I have is I have a webinar coming up, as I mentioned on September the 6th, it's at noon Eastern.

It's gonna be 45 minutes where we're gonna go deeper into some of these things, but even more so into really owning and commanding the room. More about presence, more about speaking up, and then other things that you can do in the workplace that don't necessarily require you to be in a meeting, to stand your ground and to establish the boundaries around you where you are. No bargain, but you turn from being an invisible expert to being sought after.

expertise and that's vitally important. We're going to talk about what it takes to have your communication be magnetic so that it lands right the first time and it changes minds. We're going to talk about the leadership skills whereby you can read that room and understand where the power shifts are but then also understand is it time for you to pitch or is it time to adjust your pitch or is it time to hold on to it and maybe discuss offline with the person who now owns the next steps and deliverables.

all of those things, because a lot of those are what when you don't understand, get you stuck. And it's time for us to not keep posting about how we feel stuck. We shouldn't be stuck. We always have the power.

Yes, we have the power and Michelle has the tools, right? I love this so much. So just as a reminder, if you're streaming live with us or you've just joined us, you can meet Michelle virtually in Circle, in the Circle community. If what she's sharing with you is resonating, we need to make sure you're registered for the summit.

Melissa (: 27:31

can get into our private community. And I know that Michelle, we have a graphic and a post of you and your topic going up in circle right now. Obviously you can scan the QR codes as well and book strategy, know, book your session, book the workshop with Michelle, but also know that for the next two weeks, you can jump into the circle community and get into a dialogue with her in inside of circle. So Michelle, my final question is we round out is

How have you embodied the 360 approach to life and business in Elevate 360 Mastermind? mean, you are a living, walking, talking, breathing example.

Melissa, Melissa, I was thinking about this when you asked the last speaker and how I envision it. We are, we are little magnets around us. We have a force field. We attract, we deflect. In my 360, what's so amazing for me is I have the view in front of me. I have the view beside me, but what I try my best never to fail to do is to look behind and see where I've been, what I've learned from.

What has served me and what no longer serves me. And a conversation I had not too long ago with myself, I talked to the moon a lot. I'm a cancerian. So I talked to the moon and when the lion's gate was open, I had a long discussion with the universe. And I said, you know, universe, I'm having trouble here. I want to let go of certain things. And one of the things that I realized I needed to let go of is the person that I used to be. Speed has done her duty and she has gotten me this far. And what she's trying to do is push me to.

hold the hand of that person I'm becoming, you know? For those of you who are into acrobatics, it's like that microsecond when you've let go of one trapeze and you're watching the other one come into view. I'm in suspended animation now and I'm looking for that new one and I'm about to grab it. I'm excited to see what's on the other side. And I invite you guys to join me. Let's go into those strategy sessions, bold. Let's talk about the big, the small, the stuff you don't think matters that may well matter and get you to a point where you sit there and go, know, guys,

Michelle (: 29:28

The floor is mine and it just comes out.

So good. Michelle, love this so much. Thank you so much for your insight and your knowledge today. And I just love I actually what you're sharing about the trapeze. I talk a lot about, you know, getting on the ship that set sail and like there's no land in either direction is kind of like the trapeze moment, right? You don't see land in either direction and you just have to move forward with faith. This new calling this new direction and that the stepping stones are laid in front of you. You know, so good.

Well, Michelle, thank you so much for your insights today. Again, you guys can register with her, also get into circle and connect with her along with the rest of our speakers. So thank you, thank you. I hope you found this episode as inspirational and kick ass as I enjoyed interviewing with it. If you love this and you resonated with it, please reach out, reach out to the speakers.

Thank you so much.

Melissa (: 30:28

Their information is in the notes. Feel free to reach out to us. And as always, if you're curious about mentorship and support and business coaching under the Burnout to All Out umbrella, go to burnouttoallout.co and check out what we have going on in the business mentorship world today, including business coaching and retreats that are live and experiential and take a 360 degree approach to business. We can't wait to see you on the other side wherever we collide.