David Novak 0:03 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. You know, I hate to break it to you, but you won't make it very far as a leader, unless you know how to summon courage. You see, leaders have to speak their minds. They got to get out of their comfort zone, they got to take risks and dream big, and all of that. It all takes courage and lots of it. That's why I'm so excited for you to hear from today's guest, Maritza Manteo, who has got to be one of the most courageous leaders I know. She's the former Deputy CEO and vice chairman of Deloitte. And she has blazed a trail is one of the most accomplished and admired women in corporate leadership. She believes we all have to summon courage. And when you can tap into it, you can dream bigger, learn more from failure, take charge of your own career, and so much more. So, here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours. Maritza Monty L.

You know, Maritza, you worked your way up from the bottom to become the Deputy CEO and vice chairman of Deloitte. You know, it's the largest accounting and consulting firm in the world with 180,000 people. I mean, that's quite a feat. But I have to ask you, you know, these sometimes these titles can be so confusing. What's a Deputy CEO do?

Maritza Montiel 1:43 

Well, it does all the stuff that the CEO doesn't really want to do. So I had many things that reported to me, if you would analogize it to the corporate world, it would be like our Chief Operating Officer, we had, obviously, inside operations and the managing of the business of Deloitte. And then we had obviously things that were external, and the external piece of it was led by someone else. And I basically lead with the day to day activities of the firm, including one of the most challenging things that reported to me was risk because that was the most challenging worldwide as well, because we had many conflicts around the world to navigate and deal with, but also internally, because that was the growth engine of the firm, but you had to figure out a way to manage the risk effectively, but I had a hotchpotch of things that reported to me. And so it was a great, great career and a great a great role for me.

David Novak 2:34 

And you had this incredible passion for leadership development. Was that a place where you could really drive that home?

Maritza Montiel 2:40 

Yes, that will that came with the development of the Deloitte University. And then from that, I talked to the den CEO to try to combine that into creating not just a university for learning and development, but creating a Leadership Center, and that we needed to revolutionize the way we look at leadership development in the firm. It was siloed in each of the businesses, and we needed to ensure that we were building leaders for the 21st century, and not looking at what we have done in the past, typically, kind of learn on your own, have a mentor, work with an outside coach, that isn't leadership, development, leadership development is really doing something entirely different to prepare our leaders for the future.

David Novak 3:19 

I have to tell you more, it's I have really enjoyed being on the Comcast board of directors with you. And one of the things that I've noticed is that you have a great knack of being able to step back and identify issues that need to be addressed. You know, how did you pick up that skill?

Maritza Montiel 3:36 

Well, well, first of all, I think you have to be intent fully in the room and in the meeting and listen to everyone's points of view. And the second thing I think is a lot of times people used to say to me, you often say the things that everyone is thinking but is afraid to speak up or say it and I think having the self confidence, having the insight to present your point of view or suggestion. But I think it starts with listening and understanding. Every day I learned something new from someone, even the people that you least expected in life you learn something from so I think it's all about intentful listening is what I would say,

David Novak 4:10 

before you left Deloitte, you wrote this book entitled, dare to be extra ordinary life lessons from women who take the lead. Tell us about it.

Maritza Montiel 4:21 

Well, I was a an unusual leader, you might say a lot of people would have said I was a minority twice on minority I was I was a woman, but I was a Hispanic and I didn't want to write a book about leadership. First of all, I used to tell everybody, there are more books on on leadership as there are on cooking. And I didn't want to write one more book. And I also didn't want to write a book about me. I wanted to write a book about the greatness of the women that helped build the Lloyd. So I said, I'm willing to do that if you allow me to handpick the women, which are featured in the book and allow them to have their voice be heard around leadership and their leadership lessons. And then the other thing that we did If I wanted it to be because the university was such a big part of me and my last few years at Deloitte, I wanted it to be among the books that were featured when you check into your room, there are all these books that the Lloyd partners have written, and I wanted the book to be there. So that anyone's curiosity who picks up because the title is there, it will be extraordinary would want to read it and read it from these great women that had great careers. And were great leaders.

David Novak 5:23 

You know, you came up in the auditing profession when there were virtually no women. I mean, you were a real trailblazer in many respects, what kind of obstacles did you face in that period of your career?

Maritza Montiel 5:33 

Well, first of all, I must tell you, looking back, there are times that I even surprised myself that I lived through it all. But I think adversity makes you stronger. So you can't blame anybody. For this. It was the times I was the the first woman, the first Hispanic, there were very few women in the profession at the time. So everything from working with men on teams, where I was the only woman or having to travel out of town with men, I mean, all these things were just things that we were sort of learning how to do and how to be. And it was a difficult transition as much for me as I think it was for the men that I was a part of, and trying to be a part of a team, when you're this person that people don't quite know what to do with is a real challenge. So I thought it was up to me to adapt and embrace. And one thing I learned, I will never forget this, my father always told me, you have to learn how to speak the language of men. So that meant to me, I had to read the sports section every single day. And so to this day, I still read the sports section every day. And it gave me a conversation or something to talk about with guys, because everybody is a sports fanatic. And so it gave me something to be able to converse with them about and learn the language and adapt, but I wouldn't change a bit of anything. It made me who I am today.

David Novak 6:48 

I've heard you share that you've been overlooked for promotions and assignments, because you were a woman? Will you share one of those stories with us? And how did you handle it?

Maritza Montiel 6:59 

I believe in destiny entirely. And I believe that everything happens for a reason. And yes, early on in my career, it was always about you wanted to be on the on the clients that there were the best clients. And you could learn from and you wanted to work for the people that were the leaders in the office. And the reality was, I didn't have those chances. And so I had to figure out how to pivot and how I could create a brand. For me, that would enable me to be successful in that environment. So I ended up going on engagements that no one wanted to be on. And they didn't want to be on not because there was anything wrong with this client or this company, because there were just tough, it require you to work a lot of hours, it required you to be in an industry that perhaps was not as sexy as some of the other ones. And so I had to learn how to reinvent myself. And I ended up volunteering for one of those. And actually, I met the first person who became my dear mentor, Leon Meshech. And I learned so much from him. So I it was Godsent that I was destined to do that. And looking back, I think it's what helped me grow and develop into the person that I became,

David Novak 8:04 

has there ever been a time when you felt like you've been held back?

Maritza Montiel 8:08 

Well, it was actually I talked about this in the book, it's the one three syndrome. So we had two evaluations every six months, you would get your evaluation on your performance. And it was one being the highest and five being the worst. And my current performance was always a one. So I never complained about that. But then you had an evaluation on your long term performance, and it was always at three. And that meant it was on the side. And so it used to frustrate me, David to know. And then I finally asked the person who was providing me this feedback. I said, Well, who makes this decision, I want to talk to him directly. And he told me who it was. And I said, I'm going to go over there and I'm going to speak directly with him. So I made an appointment, I go into his office, and I challenged him and I say what is it you think I have to do to earn the unlimited potential rating. And he looked at me and he gave me this look of Maritza, we, quite frankly, don't know what to do with you. There's not been anyone else like you. And so I left saying I think you're wrong about my potential. And I'm going to prove to you that you're wrong. If you'll be patient enough with me to let me provide you that proof. And I did it. You know, in the long term, I did become partner and it was a great career. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

David Novak 9:28 

You know, the CEO of Deloitte described you as a natural builder, and you don't build a firm with mottos. How do you build a firm?

Maritza Montiel 9:37 

Well, it starts with any leader I think leads anything you have to have a strong sense of what you're trying to accomplish and understand that it's not really about you. It's really about the team. And you know, we had many challenges like any other business, but I remember talking to the CEO when he asked me to move to Washington DC to lead what was then the region he talked to me about the possible ability, the art of the possible what it could be like if we could create a federal business at Deloitte and provide services to the federal government, and he had a white paper on this topic, and he said, take a look at it and tell me what you think we can do. And so I think it's the largest professional services industry in the world. And you know, we were not a player in it. And so I put together at his request a strategy with other people to help lead this. And I remember going to the Board of Directors, it was my first encounter going to the board of directors to do a presentation. And when we were done, I left the room and there was another managing partner at time he runs out, and he's tell says to me, Maritza, this will never work. We've tried doing this, and it will never work? Well, it did. We are one of the largest provider of professional services to the government federal practice today. And it's a growing business. And it's one of the reasons why the Lloyd has grown so fast over the last few years. And I'm proud of that. It just requires a lot of tenacity, and sometimes believing in yourself when others quite frankly, aren't there yet.

David Novak 11:01 

So you build a business from scratch that Deloitte had never been in? How did you do it, though? I mean, you know, how did you really make that happen? And how did you get other people to believe?

Maritza Montiel 11:11 

Well, the first thing that I did is and I encourage all leaders to think about this is I went out, and I tried to recruit the very best partner that I could to help lead it. I didn't know anything about consulting. And I certainly didn't do anything about doing business in the federal government. So I recruited a partner at the time who was consulting partner, because most of the business that we did with the federal government was consulting, and recruited an individual who didn't want to do it. Because of the risk involved. He had a great job in the consulting business, why should I leave what I'm doing to go do this. And so sometimes, your number one job as a leader is to recruit people, right? Spend a lot of time you're only as good as the people you surround yourself with. And we embarked on trying to recruit other people to make sure that we have the right people facing off against the client and the opportunity. So we did it by recruiting one partner at a time getting focused on I remember, the Department of Homeland Security was just just formed at the time that we were building our federal practice, it became one of the biggest clients that we had in the firm, because there were new, we were new, and we brought commercial best practices to the government. And that's something that was unique about us in providing services to them. So it's a great story of a lot of people that were a part of it.

David Novak 12:23 

You build that business in Washington up, once you had the success, how do you keep the pressure on to build on it? You know, how do you fight complacency?

Maritza Montiel 12:33 

Being an immigrant and starting out with almost nothing, I think there's this little thing inside of you that always says, You better worry about what's behind you, because there's always a storm lurking out there. And as a business, I think the number one job of a leader is to invent the future and whatever that future is. And with disruption these days, David, when you and I started out disruption took years, but nowadays, it just happens overnight. And I always said, let's focus on what our strengths are, let's focus on what we're going to do. And let's figure out, I always thought that it was important to understand what the competition is doing. But that you had to bring something of value that was unique in order to grow the business and sustain it. And so we spent a lot of time understanding the client, the changes what was, you know, like I mentioned, Homeland Security, what we're going to be the other areas of growth. But we had a relentless focus on the things and the clients and the things that we wanted to achieve as an organization. And we ended up actually acquiring the assets of very points, federal business in bankruptcy. And that was a big, big, big, bold thing. professional services firms have no real market value, because the people leave with no assets people leave every day. And so that was pretty bold, that we were able to execute that. And that was part of what fueled the growth in the federal business. So we knew long term what it took. We knew we knew we'd have to get bigger and we knew we had to go in areas that we were not in.

David Novak 14:02 

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You know, the CEO that described you as a builder earlier, and he also said that you made him believe in himself before He really had that belief and that you were there for him as a coach, can you give us an example of how you did that with him,

Maritza Montiel 15:07 

if you're going to be effective and successful, you need to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you. And there were a lot of people that I surround myself there were a lot smarter than me. And he was one of them. I thought he was at any given room, the smartest guy in the room, but he just needed a little help. And any little little help on his, how he showed up as a leader, his his presence, and also he was a highly introverted individual, and he needed to come out and be a little more assertive. So I decided I would mentor him. And it was a great relationship for many, many years. I believed in him when others did not, I pounded on the table for his success. I remember, there were two individuals that were up for partner that year, and he was going to get deferred. And the other guy was going to get promoted. And I remember telling my boss at the time, this guy that you are deferring will be the CEO of Deloitte one day, not the other guy you're promoting. I think you're making a big mistake. And you know, it turned out to be true.

David Novak 16:13 

You got the last laugh there.

Maritza Montiel 16:15 

I did. I did. I

David Novak 16:16 

did. You know, tell us a story. Maritza from your childhood that drove you to be the kind of leader you are today.

Maritza Montiel 16:24 

I think you always have to have a sense of humor in life, and I was a middle child. So, you know, I had my sister that to look up to, and my younger brother, and I always took like, overly serious, that was not a strength of mine. And this is gonna sound terrible. But one day, we lived in a house that had a lot of termites. And I went to use the toilet, and the entire toilet went down with me in it. And the lesson in life was, when I cried out for help, my family was laughing so hard, no one could pull me out. And it wasn't until I laughed at myself, that I couldn't get out of the hole that I was in. So I don't know about the graphic of this. But it was a learning lesson about how to take life in stride, and how to ease up a little bit and not to be too hard on myself and others. So what comes to mind, David,

David Novak 17:15 

that's a great story. You talked about being CEO of your own career, give us an example of when you put that concept into action.

Maritza Montiel 17:25 

Well, I was asked to relocate to the central Atlantic region at the time, which is headquartered in Washington, DC. And my husband was had a very successful career in Miami and I was talked into going there and helping lead the practice included this white paper on the federal practice, and my husband was wasn't going to move, but he was very supportive of me doing this. And I would commute back and forth. And I remember sitting down with the CEO, sort of talking about what we were going to do in the region. And I broke the news to him that, you know, I wasn't going to move. And of course, we have never had an office managing partner that didn't live in the geography that they were leading. So he said to me, but go ahead and negotiate this with your direct report, who was the guy that had the job in that region prior to me getting promoted. And I remember talking to him about the same challenge that I would be there Monday through Friday, but that my husband wouldn't call him and I would commute and he would come up every other week, and we would work it out. And he said, It's impossible. That's never gonna work. You represent a community and you have to live there. And I looked at him and I said, Okay, let me make sure I understand. I am the eighth leader of the region, and we're last in the marketplace and all my predecessors lived in the community. So why is living in the community necessary, since that didn't seem to make a difference for the eight other guys that preceded me? So I made a deal with him. I said, let me try it for two years. And if I'm not successful, you can fire me. And so the rest is history, as they say,

David Novak 18:56 

that takes courage. And you talk about two kinds of courage. One is making the best of the way things are, and the other is believing in yourself when no one else does. We talk a little bit more about that. And I imagine knowing you that you got a good story at how you arrived at each one of those points.

Maritza Montiel 19:15 

If you don't believe in yourself, it's kind of hard to have others that you expect that others would believe in you. I just had a sense of, I feel sorry for whomever challenges me that I can't do something because it's, it's the fuel that gives me the motivation to try to prove you wrong. And so I thrive in chaos. I thrive in adversity. I'm not scared of anything. I have failed many times. And I've learned from that, but I believe that there are no such things as huge problems. There are just lots of little problems that put together are big. And so if you view a challenge as an opportunity, and you don't view the gigantic thing as a problem, but you view it as everything is solvable, and you surround your Self with the right team to face off against that challenge that you can be successful. So Courage comes in many different ways. Some people are afraid in the moment, but then run to it and sees it and are successful. Other people sort of raised their hand and they say, Let me have the ball coach, I'll go take care of this. But everyone has courage. It's just that sometimes I think, fear of failure paralyzes people. And so I always say to people believe in yourself, make sure you have a plan of what it is you want to accomplish. And you know, dare to dream, one of the things I always when I had my one on one sessions with my leaders, I would always end the sessions with, tell me what your dream is. And it's sort of caught people off guard at the beginning. But the next time we met, they came prepared to talk about that dream, it didn't have to be they would ask me, well, about what and I will say, well, they're not my dreams, they're your dreams. That's what I want to know. And so it forces people to think about the art of the possible and it forces you to think about, you know, if you spend two weeks planning your vacation, but you don't spend more than a day thinking about your future, it's kind of not the right balance in life. And I had lots of greens. And so it's amazing how if you dream, a lot of times they do come true. And it gives you the energy and the confidence to want to do more.

David Novak 21:22 

What are some of the big dreams you had in your life and career,

Maritza Montiel 21:25 

to put them either number one was to just get a job, I'm here, you know, you have to understand how poor we were, my mother raised three kids on her own because my father died of a heart attack very young. You know, we lived very modestly, I went to a community college, on a grant and a scholarship. And then I got fortunate enough to be able to get into the University of Miami on a grant and a scholarship, I had to work full time and go to school full time, and maintain a GPA so I could get tuition for the next semester. So life has been hard. So for me, the number one degree was getting a job. The number two three was, I used to observe out the window. And when I was in college, all these kids with their fancy cars. And I said one day, I'm going to get a Corvette. And so that was my second dream, because the last day of college, the beat up Mustang that I had was stolen, so I literally went to work my first day on a bus, okay. And, and said they had the safe money to buy a car so I could get to and from work. So I rode the bus to work for two weeks before I could have enough money to buy a car. My dreams weren't huge. And then I had a dream of becoming a partner. And you understand there's just nobody else like me, there were no women, there was no Hispanics, you think about the population of Miami now, but it wasn't anything like that. It started with that it started with the tenacity to kind of hang in there and just go for the moon and I was able to achieve it. You know,

David Novak 22:55 

read so you've talked about self confidence a little bit? You seem to be so self assured, so self confident? Was this something that was just in your DNA? Or did you have some cataclysmic moment where you realized, hey, you know, I've got this, I can do this?

Maritza Montiel 23:12 

Well, David, I think I got it from my mother that no matter what the challenge in life is, I can persevere. I don't know how I got it. But um, sometimes it's a plus. And sometimes it's not. But that's what that's who I am David,

David Novak 23:26 

you have great phrases, whatever it is that you say life has no rewind button. That's right. You know, give us an example of how you coach someone to recognize that fact.

Maritza Montiel 23:36 

The majority of my time later on as as a leader, I was spent really motivating and helping people I had a passion for observing leaders and what makes them successful. And sometimes you need someone that can observe you from a different angle and a different point of view, to provide you the insights that you need to realize how much better you could be if only you did these two or three things differently. And I know I had a coach later in my career at Deloitte, I had never had one before. And I learned so much from him. And the most amazing thing that I learned from him is how others perceive you. And how no matter how many times you think it's one way it's always something else. It's the opposite. And so I I try to instill in people, this notion that you can do anything you set your mind to do, and everyone in life has God given gifts. It's up to you to figure out how to exploit those and how to take the weaknesses and make them irrelevant how to take your strengths and exploit them. And so I'm a believer in people I love seeing when people succeed like you. And I just admire those that kind of like have been revolutionary people in the world and study and read up on them. I think it's fascinating.

David Novak 24:57 

You know, I've never heard this phrase before. Are women up? Does this your phrase? You know? Yeah, love it. Yeah. And what do you mean by womaning? Up,

Maritza Montiel 25:07 

this woman up concept came about because we elect our leaders in the firm, by the way. So it's, there's no one is anointed, but a lot of the partners would come to me, particularly the men partners, and they had a clear speech, like a campaign speech on why they should be the CEO. And the women would come in and they would be well, I don't know, maybe it was just sort of like, such a difference. I think we as women tend to give ourselves permission to whine more than men, men have no patience for that. So I would always say to them, after listening to them, I would say, you know, you got a woman up, you got to just realize that no one wants to hear this, if you want to do that, you just have to go for it. But you're going to have to fight your way through it. And so it was a way of making sure that feeling sorry for yourself was not a good thing. And that you needed to move on with life and have the courage to do it. You're obviously

David Novak 26:05 

a really bold leader. I mean, you take risks, you're a rule breaker, how do you get others to take risks,

Maritza Montiel 26:12 

people want to follow people that inspire them to want to go to a different place that's better, and that they're a big part of that puzzle. So I just think it's it's really, really important as a leader that you know, that you are the mirror to the soul of the enterprise that you lead. And that when you walk in a room, you are this person that people look up to, and encourage them to take the journey with you, or create more importantly, a journey of their own. I believe having a plan, I love your book, I thought it was a fantastic read on how to be your own coach. I encourage people to buy the book and read it because I learned a lot from it. So it's just one day at a time, David, but courage dreaming, know what you want to do. I love Elon Musk. Someone asked me the other day, if you could have dinner with someone who would it be? I think he's one of the most interesting people, I wouldn't want to be on his board. But I think he's one of the most interesting people to lead a company. Can you imagine what that would be like? But I think you know, he's, you know, people that invent the future are people to be admired. And so I encourage everyone that there's a future out there for you to build, just figure out how you're going to create it.

David Novak 27:23 

I gotta ask you this because you are such a risk taker. And you admire Elon Musk, you know it you just said you wouldn't want to be on his board. Is that really the truth? Or you just say that? If he calls you up, you wouldn't be you wouldn't be enticed.

Maritza Montiel 27:38 

I admire his genius tremendously. But it would be hard to work with someone who is just so out there and different from a governance point of view that as board members, I think we would all be scratching our head all the time. I'm perfectly happy with the boards that I'm on and the CEOs that lead them. They're all great. They're all great.

David Novak 27:56 

You talk about unwritten scorecards as well, what do you mean by an unwritten scorecard?

Maritza Montiel 28:02 

You know, David, you talk about yourself how private time in the airplanes when you were all alone was the best time. And I had to educate myself on how to ensure that I had time to think every day. And it takes a lot of discipline to do that. And I would often feel like I was working 12 hours a day and not accomplishing the things that I wanted. And then I realized with retrospect, that I was spending a lot of time doing things that were not adding value. It's funny how your calendar gets full of people that are feeling challenged, performance wise, and you're not spending a lot of time with the high achievers, the people that are creating the value in the business. And I wanted to change that. And I also wanted to spend more time with clients. It's all about the clients. And it's all about the marketplace. So it requires a great deal of discipline to take charge of your career, and it starts with your calendar. I hated the fact that everybody could see what you were doing and not doing. And I couldn't figure out a way to get rid of that, by the way at Deloitte. Maybe other companies have figured out how to do that. But I had the best assistant in the world to help me do that. But it was a challenge for me, I must admit,

David Novak 29:10 

why did you want to get rid of the calendar itself?

Maritza Montiel 29:13 

Because I think by people going on your Outlook calendar and seeing that you have space, they send an invite, and it's just real easy for your assistant to accept. And so I didn't want to get rid of the calendar because the calendar is your discipline, but I was spending time doing things that were the priority for other people, but not necessarily the priority of what was going to make us cumulatively successful. And not spending enough time on the outside and spending too much time on the inside. And sometimes spending an inordinate amount of time helping people that were struggling in their jobs and not enough time with the ones that are going to feed the future of the firm. And so you have to find a balance to all that but I did not paint the calendar. I just hated how you could get filled up a lot. Yeah We'll be back

David Novak 30:03 

with the rest of my conversation with Maritza Monty L in just a moment. But first I want to tell you about another incredible trailblazing woman, Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, and like Maritza, she is so intentional about building others up so they can succeed to

Indra Nooyi 30:22 

mentoring and developing other people. To me, that is the single most important thing. And I just calculated in the last six years in PepsiCo, I gave the world I think, nine CEOs, but three CFOs, and three CHR OHS and three CMOS. So I look at that as perhaps one of the biggest accomplishments because we develop those leaders.

David Novak 30:44 

When I talk to Indra, she shared so much practical wisdom for how leaders can elevate others go back and listen to my entire conversation with Indra, episode nine here on how leaders lead.

You mentioned this early you headed up the team that oversaw the learning and development strategy for Deloitte University. Tell us about that experience and how you think you really broke new ground, you visit a lot of different places. What did you do that was really different at Deloitte,

Maritza Montiel 31:20 

it was really world class, I spent six months going out and talking to GE and IBM, and how others developed leaders, universities, etc. And I learned when I went to GE, that Jack Welch had this theory that the functions are the businesses don't own the people that he owns the people when he was CEO, and he merely rents them to the businesses. And you know, at Deloitte, we were so siloed, in everything that we did from a learning and development. And so the first barrier was convincing everybody that leadership is a skill that is, across the universe, no matter what business you're leading, whether it's tax consulting, or audit, that this is a skill that needed to be developed as a collective Deloitte, as opposed to individually, each of our businesses have their own version of leadership development. And at the end, when you get to be CEO of Deloitte, you lead all those businesses. So you need to learn how to run a consulting business as much as the consultant needs to understand how to maybe not lead an audit business because of the regulatory environment and restrictions. But you need to understand how to walk in the shoes of an audit partner if you're going to lead that business. And so, it took a lot of effort. It was like herding the cats, to convince them to have one platform for leadership development. And the other thing that I had to do is because we pride ourselves in solving all the world's biggest problems is I had to come back to them with here's what I've learned from the outside, that would give me credibility. Because after all, this was not I wasn't an expert on leadership development, I'd never done it as just something I had the passion to do. So it was one intervention or interaction at the time with each of those leaders who lead the functions, to convince them to do something different. And today, it's what we do at one of the many things we do at Deloitte University. And it was a great journey to get that going.

David Novak 33:13 

How did you boil down the essence of leadership?

Maritza Montiel 33:19 

Is there's many colors in the rainbow. The definition to that, David, I think it's different for different people. I've often said that, you know, companies don't fail, but people who lead them fail. And I also believe that there is a skill match. For every situation, for example, I believe CEOs that are greater doing turnarounds sometimes are not the best to lead in a high growth environment. And then vice versa. Those that are board dreamers and, you know, focus on where to in the future are probably not the best at doing a turnaround. So I think that's why there's so many books written on leadership, because the definition is endless. And it comes in different sizes. And now we have lots of women that are part of the definition of leaders. And you could see how many people are non US born leaders that are leading Fortune companies. And so I think it's comes in many different ways and many different attributes. And I think you have to match the circumstance to the individual.

David Novak 34:20 

One of your principles of leadership I know is to get your fingernails dirty. What do you mean by that?

Maritza Montiel 34:26 

Well, like I said to you, at the beginning, I figured out the best way for me to get noticed was to volunteer for the jobs that nobody else wanted to do. Whatever had to be done, whether it had to go make coffee for the team or you know, we had to order food and go get it. It didn't matter what had to be done. I you know, one of my pet peeves is for people who say not my job. That's not a quick way to impress me if that's your attitude in life, I believe that teamwork requires each and every one of us to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever that is, and be there for each other. So Getting your fingernails dirty is part of that.

David Novak 35:02 

And you use the Maslow's hierarchy of needs for solving problems, you know, explain that that's, you know, you're pretty down to earth. Now you're getting up there?

Maritza Montiel 35:11 

Well, you know, I always felt I never understood why we had all those classes in my community college on humanities and things that you've later on. I don't know why you're even there. But I never have forgotten Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Because when I talked about earlier about gigantic problems and solving transformational challenges, when I took over Deloitte University that I succeeded someone and we had issues. And when I first arrived there, for my first team meeting, you know that we had a PMO. And there were 1000 pages. And this was over engineer like consultants over engineer everything. And I said, Look, we have to open by this date. And there was some financial reasons why we had to open by the state. And I use the Maslow's hierarchy of need example, I said, everybody, remember that from your classes in college, you probably were asleep through them. But I was I was not asleep to this when I've always never forgotten. I said, here's what's going to happen. They wanted Deloitte University, the elevators got to work, the toilets got to flush, the technology has to work, we have to have hot water, and we have to be able to feed 800 people at once. Everything else is day two. So we got to focus on the Day One problem we got to solve, and all this other stuff, and you know, the wallpaper and the way, you know, the this and that, that, you know, you gotta get to day one, right? So we try to make the gigantic issue of the problem into the lowest level denominator of what it means what needs to happen. And I think it gave people a focus and it allowed people to say, in fact, it became the Maritza that said Maritza, they to problem not a Maritza, they want problem. And so there was a lot of money at stake, because we were going to get a lot of tax credits for opening up on time, and there were contractor incentives, it will all kinds of things. And we had made a big deal out of opening day, and I wasn't going to be the one that would call a CEO and say, Well, you know, we we had a bit of a setback, because we're worried about the wallpaper, it's gonna be a good conversation,

David Novak 37:09 

you have a real ability to tell it like it is. I mean, you have no problem, it seems like standing up and speaking your your mind. And I'm sure you've had people who've worked for you that disappointed you that did not meet your high expectations. Can you talk about one of those times and how you go about handling it?

Maritza Montiel 37:29 

Yeah, it's happened to I think all of us, I mean, it's just part of life. I think as leaders, sometimes we hang on to people too long, I learned that lesson. And it's funny, you can see it when other people do it. But when it's you, you don't see it. Sometimes the best advice that you can give someone and the best action you can take is to suggest to them that maybe they're they're not fit for the career that they're in, and they should go do something else on the outside. And I cannot tell you how many countless people that I know of that left the employed, it just wasn't for them. And they've turned out to be great CEO somewhere else, or they turn out to create new businesses. So you know, it's as important that you help people understand what their gifts are, and how they could best succeed, even if it's not at the place that you're in. But listen, tough conversations like that are always hard. I mean, I have a hard like everybody else doesn't. It's hard. It's one of the hardest things I think as a leader, you have to do.

David Novak 38:26 

You mentioned advice, what would be the three best pieces of advice that you've ever received?

Maritza Montiel 38:31 

Well, Leon Meshech, my mentor, was famous for telling me hang in there. I didn't understand what he meant. Back then when he said this, but whenever I would ask him, Why is this happening to me? And he would often say, because you're a girl. And it didn't connect the dots for me until much later on in life. And I also had to learn to basically say, You know what, that's just genetically how I was born, and figure out a way to not make it my problem. There will be people that would say, whatever about you. It's not about them. It's really about you, and no one can make you feel inferior unless you give him permission. And I think it was Leon's way of telling me that, you know, life's gonna be a little tough for you, girl. And that was Leone's way of telling me to woman up. And so that was I thought, great, great, great advice.

David Novak 39:24 

Your mother, what was the best advice your mother gave you?

Maritza Montiel 39:27 

My mother was, I'll tell you there was not a problem in life that she didn't face that she didn't think she could be successful at and never give up is one of her mantras that I learned from her.

David Novak 39:37 

One of the bits of advice that you write about in the book was that who you work for is more important than the job. How did you learn that?

Maritza Montiel 39:46 

Well, I had that advice given to me by a partner by the name of Pete Jensen. And he was a tough guy to work for many people used to tell me I got along with him wonderfully. I kind of knew what was important to him and I never had an issue. And I had an opportunity to do something in the firm. And I went and had dinner with him and asked him, What do you think? And I had my doubts about it for lots of different reasons. It was a great upward mobility move by any measure, right? So I was intrigued by it. And he looked at me and he said, you know, who you work for is more important than the job. And I said to him, Okay, I'll think about that. And I didn't do it. Because I didn't think that it was a right, that leader was the right best option for me to go and up work for him. So I think it was a great career move. And I thank him for the advice that was invaluable.

David Novak 40:42 

You know, that's more courage that you have there. You know, your favorite metaphor for women in business comes from golf, as I understand it, tell us about it.

Maritza Montiel 40:50 

I try to explain in the book for people that have never played golf, the three different teas for golf, and that the women can't drive the ball as fast. And so you tee off from what the color is red UTR, from the red tees, the men from the white tees. And then golfers like David Novak, you do it from the blues, right? It's a way of balancing the playing field when you're competing with men. And then there's the handicap, lots of way of balancing the field. In business, there are no red tees. Not only are you playing against your competitors and the marketplace, and everyone has to hit the ball from the same place and try to hit it as far and try to still achieve a par or achieve a birdie if possible. But there are no advantages just because you're a girl. And there are no advantages just because you're a long hitter or short trader, it just is life.

David Novak 41:45 

Yeah, I love that, you know, what's your vision, where it's for women in business,

Maritza Montiel 41:50 

there's not a job I think women in the world can't do. And so my hope is that I think mentorship and being able to have role models is so important that I just wish that there were more women in leadership roles that little girls growing up can look up to and say to themselves, I could be like her one day. And so I'm a huge fan of cheering women on. I believe that you're smarter when you have diversity of thought and opinion in the room. And I think for organizations that haven't figured out how to do that yet, are at a huge disadvantage. But I think the world has changed from when I started in business. David, when I started in business, I remember there was a club in the building that I worked at, and I was I was a manager and we had clients that flew in. And we wanted to go to the club that was there the luncheon club that was there in the building and went in, and I was there with five other men and we knew that women were not allowed in the club. But I had a person I worked with at the time. He said, Well, it's torrential rain. Maritza, don't worry, don't let us say we can sit in that room over there. And they said, No, because you're a girl. And we left a room, it was torrential rain. And I never forgot that as long as I waited a long time. And one day, I became the partner in charge of recruiting. And we used to have all these events at that club. And they finally allowed women to go there. And I said, when you know, they lost all the the oil business. So the guy that ran the club came to see me. And he said, Why? Why did you take our business away? It was very, very, very good business for them. I said, Because you wouldn't allow me in a launch many years ago. But I'll tell you what I tell you what we do, if you agree to admit to other women into the club, and you know, not charging for the entry fee will go back to having events at the City Club. It was the City Club. And he did, by the way, and we went back to doing events there. But I got a little bit something out of him back. But I you know, the world has changed for women. Those things don't exist anymore. But I went I went through all that. Yeah, it was not any fun.

David Novak 44:08 

What's the challenge you give to both men and women, when it comes to work in together?

Maritza Montiel 44:13 

seek to understand, we make a lot of rebuttable assumptions about things that women can and cannot do. We do have the challenge of raising the family. And if you have elderly parents, and you worry about them, and you're the caretaker, you're the CEO of the home, and you have to be sometimes the CEO on the outside as well. It's very hard. But you know, in today's world, I think men share a lot of that responsibility. And men are trying to be the best parents that they can as well. I think seek to understand try to figure out what it feels like to be in their world and vice versa. Try to figure out how to work with people of diverse backgrounds. I think culture is a big one too, David. I know when I went to DC I had to really come to the US Miami had a as a mixed culture. We do everything late. Time is less important to us. I remember going going to DC and the meetings would start on time. And I was like, wow, you know, Miami, you kind of start the meetings when everybody gets there. And it's okay. Because we were all Latinos and you know, the Americans become Latinised. And they get there late to you know, it's, it's a whole different worlds. So I think culture is terribly, terribly important. And the world is so much smaller these days than it used to be. You know,

David Novak 45:24 

Mirta everybody has an epic fail. Mine I've talked about many times was Crystal Pepsi, a great idea poorly executed, I must say, and it was totally my idea. So I take ownership of it. Do you have an epic fail?

Maritza Montiel 45:38 

Oh, my goodness, yes, at a very young age, after I made partner, I was given the responsibility to lead the audit practice in the Miami office, greater Miami office. And it was right after the savings and loan failures. And we did about in Florida, almost 80% of the savings alone. So it was a huge financial crisis for us. And we were facing challenges we had never faced in our entire lives. And so we had this off site meeting. And I took the trouble of figuring out the size, the tent, the sneaker size of each one of our partners, and buying Nike sneakers. And the theme of the meeting was just do it. Well, first of all, when they got their sneakers, they were all like mesmerized, opening them up, and they couldn't figure out how to connect that just do it to the sneakers. And we figuring out that we had to grow and we could do it. It fell so flat. I can't tell you. It was like it was like my worst nightmare. And to this day, I have never forgotten it. So whatever it is you do in life. Sometimes people just aren't ready to listen to that message and quite frankly Maritza a pair of sneakers wasn't going to fix that. So you know, it's like I you not only did you read the environment wrong, but you read the the room wrong. Everybody went out and and had a nice pair of sneakers. But it really didn't accomplish a whole lot. And as a leader, my first coming out meeting, I wanted to put it back over my head and just leave. So that was that was yeah, that was my epic failure date. And it was at a very young age. It was a lot of humble pie back then. And you remember that when? My goodness I will I to this day, if I see a pair of Nike sneakers, I will buy one.

David Novak 47:31 

Right. So this has been such a fun conversation and I want to have some more fun with you with my lightning round of questions. So are you ready for this?

Unknown Speaker 47:39 

I am ready, David. Okay.

David Novak 47:41 

What would be three words others would use to describe you.

Maritza Montiel 47:44 

Tenacious. Courage. enthusiastic.

David Novak 47:51 

What's your biggest pet peeve?

Maritza Montiel 47:53 

People whine?

David Novak 47:55 

Who's your favorite female leader and why?

Maritza Montiel 47:58 

Margaret Thatcher, tremendous courage and adversity took on everything she went to war reinvented the economy in the UK at a time when it was floundering. Just a great role model.

David Novak 48:10 

Who's your favorite male leader and why?

Maritza Montiel 48:13 

I love leaders that walk in the room and immediately they're a magnet for making everybody else feel better. And so I won't name an individual. But that quality is something that you have, and I think it's a gift.

David Novak 48:28 

Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. What's something only a Cuban would know about Cuba?

Maritza Montiel 48:35 

They're the most beautiful beaches in the world.

David Novak 48:38 

Absolutely. favorite thing to do in Miami?

Maritza Montiel 48:41 

Go out on a Friday night, watch the Miami Heat and have dinner and gabbiano prior to go in there.

David Novak 48:49 

If you turn on the radio in your car, what would we hear? CNBC? Your true blue all the way?

Maritza Montiel 48:55 

Yeah, I have to say that right.

David Novak 49:00 

What's something about you? Maritza, that few people would know?

Maritza Montiel 49:03 

I rode motorcycles.

David Novak 49:05 

does not surprise me at all. That's the end of the lightning round. I got just three more questions here. let you off the hook here. What advice can you give to people to balance family and work based on your experience?

Maritza Montiel 49:19 

Remember, we talked about the challenge of my calendar beforehand, I had every important appointment in my life that I had to be at that was family oriented. And nothing could change that. It didn't matter what it was. That was cast in stone that always came first. So the best piece of advice is, get organized around those things because they do really, really, really matter to those people. And it's important to you.

David Novak 49:45 

What's one piece of advice where it's a you'd give to aspiring leaders, you had to pick just one thing,

Maritza Montiel 49:51 

to have the courage to go after your dreams to have the courage to speak up to have the courage to share what's on your mind. Rate, brilliant mind with people in the room. Don't be afraid to have a minority position on something. What's important is to be heard. And I think having the courage to take risks without risk. And without failure, you'll never learn anything. I learned more from my failures and my successes. And the important thing is not that you fail, the important thing is how you come back up. And what how you apply yourself to the future from that failure. And I learned a lot more from failure than I did from anything else in life. So have the courage, have the courage to fail, you'll learn a lot,

David Novak 50:33 

and you really are a subject matter expert on this. And I keep coming back to this, I'm gonna wrap it up with this last question. What's your vision for women in the workplace going forward?

Maritza Montiel 50:44 

I think the top 20 companies in the Fortune, the majority of them will be women led. And I don't think that's too far in the distant future. I'm excited to see the level of women in the workplace today that are in the C suite already. And so if you think about succession over the next 10 years, I think you'll see that materialize.

David Novak 51:05 

What do you think women have that makes them exceptionally good CEOs that a man may not have?

Maritza Montiel 51:11 

I think in general, women tend to be more empathetic than men. Not always. But it's almost like a universal trait that we have. And I think, as a leader, you need a dose of empathy towards others to be successful.

David Novak 51:25 

I agree and Versa, let me tell you something, you are one empathetic leader, I see you in action. And you do put yourself in other people's shoes, you walk the talk on everything that we've talked about in this conversation. And you talked about having role models, you know, the one thing I will tell you is I have my daughter, Ashley, and she runs our family foundation, and I'm definitely going to have her listen to this podcast, because she can learn a lot from you. So thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Maritza Montiel 51:55 

Thank you, David, thank you so much.

David Novak 52:05 

Well, I don't know about you, but talking to Maritza just inspires me so much. She obviously is not afraid of taking risks, and speaking her mind. And I love what she said about being the CEO of your own career. You've got to have the vision to dream big for yourself, and then the courage to actually go for it. So I want you to apply that advice this week. Ask yourself the question that Maritza always asked her leaders during one on one sessions, tell me what your dream is. Answering that question is going to force you to think about what's really possible for your life and career. It's time to take those big, audacious dreams that have been kind of floating around in your head and actually put them into use, and it's time for you to ask the people you lead that very same question. So they can do that very same thing. It's going to take courage, but hey, listen to Maritza. Everybody's got courage within they just need to summon it. And I know great things are gonna happen when you tap into yours. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is the great leaders know how to summon courage. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Jim Weber CEO Brooks running a feisty competitive his taking on the likes of Nike in the world of shoes.

Speaker 1 53:26 

I think if you're not the lead brand, the platform in the category, you're a niche brand. You're you know, focus is required, you know, I'd rather win at something and dominate it, be known for it, get credit for it, try to create a successful, profitable business behind it. Then be eight things to lots of different people, and be in all surrounding the category.

David Novak 53:47 

Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the very best leader you can be