Motivational Speech by Sheryl Sandberg: Harvard Business School Class Day Speech (2012)


In her speech to the Harvard Business School class of 2012, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg deconstructed the idea of the “career as a ladder.”

For Sandberg, a career is about finding opportunities where you can make an impact, not about chasing titles and planning out a meticulous path. “If I had mapped out my career when I was sitting where you are, I would have missed my career,” she commented. What’s more, Sandberg eschews the traditional wisdom of keeping emotions out of the workplace. For Sandberg, you need to care not only about what you’re working on, but also who you’re working with


Sheryl Sandberg: Harvard Business School Class Day Speech (2012)

Transcripts of the Video:

0:00
please join me in welcoming sheryl
0:01
sandberg thank you Thank You Katherine
0:11
it’s an honor to be here today to
0:14
address HBS’s distinguished faculty
0:16
proud parents patient guests and most
0:20
importantly the class of 2012
0:23
today was supposed to be a day of
0:26
unbridled celebration and I know that’s
0:28
no longer true I join all of you in
0:31
grieving for your classmate Nate I know
0:33
there are no words that make something
0:35
like this better
0:37
although laden with sadness today still
0:41
marks a distinct and impressive
0:42
achievement for this class so please
0:45
everyone join me in giving our warmest
0:47
congratulations to the class of 2012
1:00
when the wonderful Dean Nuria invited me
1:03
to speak here today I thought come talk
1:05
to a group of people way younger and
1:07
colder than I am I could do that I do
1:10
that every day at Facebook and I like
1:14
being surrounded by young people except
1:16
when they say to me what was it like
1:18
being in college without the internet or
1:21
worse Cheryl can you come here we need
1:24
to see what old people are going to
1:25
think of this feature
1:26
oh I’m not joking it’s a special
1:30
privilege for me to be here this month
1:32
when I was a student here 17 years ago I
1:35
studied social marketing with Professor
1:37
cash Reagan and one of the many examples
1:40
cash used to explain the concept of
1:42
social marketing was the lack of organ
1:45
donors in this country which kills 18
1:48
people every single day earlier this
1:50
month
1:51
Facebook’s Facebook launched a tool to
1:53
support organ donations something that
1:56
stems directly from Cash’s work cash
1:58
wherever you are here were all grateful
2:00
for your dedication so it wasn’t really
2:10
that long ago when I was sitting where
2:12
you are but the world has changed an
2:15
awful lot my section section be tried to
2:19
have HBS’s first online class we had to
2:23
use an AOL chat room and dial-up service
2:25
your parents can explain to you later
2:28
what dial-up service is
2:30
we had to pass out a list of our screen
2:32
names because it was unthinkable to put
2:35
your real name on the Internet and it
2:38
never worked it kept crashing and
2:39
kicking all of us off because the world
2:42
just wasn’t set up for 90 people to
2:45
communicate at once online for a few
2:48
brief moments though we glimpsed the
2:50
future a future where technology would
2:54
power who we are and connect us to our
2:57
real colleagues our real family our real
3:00
friends it used to be that in order to
3:04
reach more people than you could talk to
3:06
you in a day you had to be rich and
3:08
famous and powerful be a celebrity a
3:11
politician a CEO but that’s not true
3:14
today
3:15
now ordinary people have voice not just
3:18
those of us lucky enough to go to HBS
3:21
but anyone with access to Facebook to
3:24
Twitter to a mobile phone
3:26
this is disrupting traditional power
3:29
structures and leveling traditional
3:31
hierarchy voice and power are shifting
3:34
from institutions to individuals from
3:37
the historically powerless to the
3:40
historic historically powerful to the
3:42
historically powerless and all of this
3:45
is happening so much faster than I could
3:47
have ever imagined when I was sitting
3:49
where you are today and Mark Zuckerberg
3:51
was 11 years old as the world becomes
3:57
more connected and less hierarchical
3:59
traditional career paths or shifting as
4:02
well in 2001 after working in the
4:05
government I moved out to Silicon Valley
4:08
to try to find a job my timing wasn’t
4:11
really that good the bubble had crashed
4:13
small companies were closing big
4:15
companies were laying people off one
4:18
woman CEO looked at me and said we would
4:20
never even think about hiring someone
4:23
like you after a while I had a few
4:26
offers and I had to make a decision so
4:28
what did I do
4:29
I’m MBA trained I made a spreadsheet and
4:32
I listed my jobs in the columns and the
4:35
things that my criteria in the road
4:37
and compared the companies and the
4:39
missions and the roles one of the jobs
4:43
on that sheet was to become Google’s
4:45
first business unit general manager
4:47
which sounds good now but at the time no
4:51
one thought consumer Internet companies
4:52
could ever make money I was not sure
4:57
that there was actually a job there at
4:59
all Google had no business unit so what
5:02
was there to generally manage and the
5:06
job was several levels lower than jobs I
5:08
was being offered at other companies so
5:11
I sat down with Eric Schmidt who had
5:13
just become the CEO and I showed in my
5:14
spreadsheet and I said this job meets
5:17
none of my criteria he put his hand on
5:20
my sheet and he looked at me and he said
5:22
don’t be an idiot
5:23
excellent career advice and then he said
5:30
get on a rocket ship when companies are
5:34
growing quickly and they’re having a lot
5:35
of impact careers take care of
5:37
themselves and when companies aren’t
5:39
growing quickly or the missions don’t
5:41
matter as much
5:42
that’s when stagnation and politics come
5:44
in if you’re offered a seat on a rocket
5:47
ship
5:47
don’t ask what seat just get on about
5:51
six and a half years later when I was
5:53
leaving Google I took that advice to
5:55
heart I was offered CEO jobs at a bunch
5:58
of companies but I went to Facebook as
6:00
CEO at the time people said why are you
6:04
going to work for 23 year olds the
6:08
traditional metaphor for careers is a
6:10
ladder but I no longer think that
6:13
metaphor holds it doesn’t make sense in
6:15
a less hierarchical world when I was
6:18
first at Facebook a woman named Laurie
6:20
Koller in 1997 graduate of HBS was
6:24
working in marketing at eBay and I knew
6:26
her kind of socially and she called me
6:28
and she said I want to think about you
6:30
know talk to you about coming to work
6:32
with you at Facebook so I thought about
6:34
calling you and telling you all the
6:36
things I’m good at and all
6:37
things I’d like to do but I figured that
6:40
everyone’s doing that so instead I want
6:42
to know what’s your biggest problem and
6:44
how can I solve it my jaw hit the floor
6:48
I’ve hired thousands of people up to
6:50
that point in my career but no one had
6:52
ever said anything like that and I had
6:54
never said anything like that job
6:56
searches are always about the job
6:58
searcher but not in Laurie’s case I said
7:02
you’re hired my biggest problem is
7:04
recruiting and you can solve it so
7:07
Laurie changed fields into something she
7:09
never thought she’d do went down a level
7:11
to start in a new field and has since
7:14
been promoted and runs all of the people
7:16
operations at Facebook and is doing an
7:18
extraordinary job having amazing impact
7:20
Laurie has a great metaphor for careers
7:23
she says they’re not a ladder they’re a
7:26
jungle gym as you start your poached a
7:30
post HBS career look for opportunities
7:34
look for growth look for impact look for
7:38
mission move sideways move down move on
7:41
move off build your skills not your
7:45
resume evaluate what you can do not the
7:49
title they’re going to give you do real
7:52
work take a sales quota align roll an
7:56
OPS
7:57
don’t plan too much and don’t expect a
8:01
direct climb if I had mapped out my
8:04
career when I was sitting where you are
8:05
I would have missed my career you are
8:09
entering a different business world than
8:11
I entered mine was just starting to get
8:15
connected yours is hyper connected mine
8:18
was competitive yours is way more
8:19
competitive my moved quickly yours moves
8:23
even more quickly as traditional
8:26
structures are breaking down leadership
8:28
has to evolve as well from hierarchy to
8:31
shared responsibility from command and
8:34
control to listening and guiding you’ve
8:38
been trained by this great institution
8:40
not just to be part of these trends but
8:43
lead as you lead in this new world you
8:47
will not be able to rely on who you are
8:49
or the degree you hold you’ll have to
8:52
rely on what you know your strengths
8:54
will not come from your place on some
8:56
org chart your strengths will come from
8:59
building trust and earning respect
9:01
you’re going to need talent and skill
9:03
and imagination and vision but more than
9:06
anything else you’re going to need the
9:09
ability to communicate authentically to
9:12
speak so that you inspire the people
9:14
around you
9:15
and to listen so that you continue to
9:18
learn each and every day on the job if
9:21
you watch young children you’ll
9:23
immediately notice how honest they are
9:25
my friend Betsy in my section a few
9:28
years after Business School was pregnant
9:30
with her second child and her first
9:33
child Sam was about five and he looked
9:35
at her and said mommy where’s the baby
9:37
and she said well the baby’s in my tummy
9:39
and he said really aren’t the baby’s
9:41
arms and your arms and she said no the
9:43
baby’s in my tummy really are the baby’s
9:47
legs in your legs no whole babies in my
9:50
tummy and he said mommy then what is
9:53
growing in your butt
10:01
as adults we are never this honest and
10:05
that is not a bad thing I have born two
10:08
children the last thing I needed were
10:10
those comments which obviously could
10:12
have been made but it’s not always a
10:14
good thing either because all of us and
10:16
especially leaders need to speak and
10:20
hear the truth the workplace is an
10:23
especially difficult place for anyone to
10:26
tell the truth because no matter how
10:28
flat we want our organizations to be all
10:31
organizations have some form of
10:33
hierarchy and what that means is that
10:35
one person’s performance is assessed by
10:37
someone else’s perception this is not a
10:40
setup for honesty think about how people
10:43
speak in the typical workforce rather
10:46
than say I disagree with our expansion
10:48
strategy or better yet this seems truly
10:51
stupid they say well I think there are
10:54
many good reasons why we’re entering
10:56
this new line of business and I’m
10:58
certain the management team has done a
10:59
thorough ROI analysis I’m not sure we
11:02
fully considered the downstream effects
11:04
of taking this step forward at this time
11:06
as we would say it Facebook or on the
11:09
Internet three letters WTF
11:14
truth is better served by using simple
11:17
language last year mark decided to learn
11:19
Chinese and as part of studying he would
11:22
spend an hour or so each week with some
11:25
of our employees who are native Chinese
11:26
speakers one day one of them was trying
11:29
to tell him something about his/her
11:31
manager so she said this long sentence
11:34
and he said simpler please and then she
11:36
said it again he said no no I still
11:38
don’t understand simpler please and so
11:41
on and so on
11:41
finally in sheer exasperation she bursts
11:44
out my manager is bad simple and clear
11:49
and super important for him to know
11:53
people rarely speak this clearly in the
11:56
workforce or in life and as you get more
11:59
senior not only
12:01
people speak less clearly to you but
12:03
they’ll overreact to small things you
12:05
say when I joined Facebook one of the
12:08
things I had to do was build a business
12:10
side of the company put some systems
12:12
into place but I wanted to do it without
12:14
destroying the culture that made
12:16
Facebook great and so one of the things
12:18
I tried to do was encourage people not
12:20
to do formal PowerPoint presentations
12:23
for meetings with me and I would say
12:25
things like don’t do PowerPoint
12:27
presentations for meetings with me why
12:29
don’t you come in with a list of what
12:30
you want to discuss but everyone ignored
12:32
me they kept doing their PowerPoint
12:34
presentations meeting after meeting
12:36
month after month
12:38
so that two years in I said okay I hate
12:40
rules but I have a rule no more
12:42
PowerPoint in my meetings and I mean it
12:44
no more so about a month later I went
12:49
out and I was about to speak to our
12:50
global sales comp team on a big stage
12:52
and someone came up to me and said
12:53
before you get on that stage you really
12:55
should know everyone’s pretty upset
12:56
about the no PowerPoint with clients
12:58
thing and I said what no PowerPoint with
13:01
clients thing they said you know you
13:03
made a rule no PowerPoint so I got on
13:06
the stage and said one and many no
13:08
PowerPoint with me but to more
13:10
importantly next time you hear something
13:12
that’s really stupid don’t adhere to it
13:15
fight it or ignore it even if you think
13:17
it’s coming from your mark a good leader
13:21
recognizes that most people won’t feel
13:23
comfortable challenging Authority so it
13:25
falls upon authority to encourage them
13:28
to question it’s easy to say that you’re
13:31
going to encourage feedback but it’s
13:33
hard to do because unfortunately it
13:35
doesn’t always come in the format we
13:37
want to hear it when I first started at
13:40
Google I had a team of four people and
13:42
it was really important to me that I
13:44
interview everyone who was on my team it
13:46
felt like being part of my team meant I
13:48
had to know you when the team had gotten
13:50
to about a hundred people I realized it
13:52
was taking longer to schedule my
13:54
interviews so one day in my meeting of
13:57
just my direct reports I said maybe I
13:59
should stop interviewing fully expecting
14:01
them to jump in and say oh no your
14:03
interviews are a critical part of the
14:05
process they applauded
14:08
and then they fell all over themselves
14:11
explaining that I was you know the
14:12
bottleneck of all time I was embarrassed
14:16
and then I was angry and I spent a few
14:19
hours just quietly fuming why didn’t
14:21
they tell me I was a bottle net why did
14:23
they let me go on slowing them down and
14:26
then I realized that if they hadn’t told
14:28
me that was my fault
14:29
I hadn’t been open enough told them I
14:32
wanted that feedback and I would have to
14:36
change that going forward when you’re
14:39
the leader it is really hard to get good
14:41
feedback and honest feedback no matter
14:43
how many times you ask for it
14:44
one trick I’ve discovered is I try to
14:47
speak really openly about the things I’m
14:49
mad at because that gives people
14:51
permission to agree with me which is a
14:53
lot easier than pointing it out in the
14:55
first place so to take one of many
14:58
possible examples when things were
15:00
unresolved I can get a tad anxious
15:03
really when anything is unresolved I get
15:06
a lot H s I’m quite certain no one has
15:08
ever accused me of being too calm
15:11
so I speak about it openly and that
15:13
gives people permission to tell me when
15:15
it’s happening but if I never said
15:17
anything would anyone who work at face
15:19
works at face book walk up to me and say
15:21
and say hey Cheryl calm down you’re
15:24
driving us all nuts I don’t think so
15:28
as you graduate today ask yourselves how
15:32
will you lead will you use simple and
15:35
clear language will you seek out honest
15:38
feedback when you get honest feedback
15:40
will you react with anger or with
15:42
gratitude as we strive to be more
15:46
authentic in our communication we should
15:49
also strive to be more authentic in a
15:51
broader sense I talk a lot about
15:54
bringing your whole self to work
15:55
something I believe in very deeply
15:58
motivation comes from
16:00
on things we care about but it also
16:03
comes from working with people we care
16:05
about and in order to care about someone
16:08
you have to know them you have to know
16:10
what they love and hate what they feel
16:12
not just what they think if you want to
16:16
win hearts and minds you have to lead
16:18
with your heart as well as your mind I
16:20
don’t believe we have a professional
16:23
self for Mondays through Fridays and a
16:25
real self for the rest of the time that
16:28
kind of division probably never worked
16:30
but in today’s world of real voice and
16:33
authentic voice it makes even less sense
16:36
I’ve cried at work I’ve told people I’ve
16:40
cried at work and this got reported in
16:41
the press as sheryl sandberg cried on
16:44
mark zuckerberg shoulder which is not
16:46
exactly what happened i talked about my
16:50
hopes and fears and i asked people about
16:52
theirs
16:53
I try to be myself honest about my
16:56
strengths and weaknesses and I encourage
16:58
others to do the same it is all
17:01
professional and it is all personal all
17:05
at the very same time as part of
17:10
bringing my whole self to work I
17:11
recently started speaking up about the
17:14
challenges women face in the workforce
17:15
something I only had the courage to do
17:18
in the last few years before this I did
17:21
my career like everyone else does it I
17:23
never told anyone I was a girl
17:26
don’t tell I left the lights on when I
17:30
went home to do something for my kids I
17:33
locked my office door and pumped milk
17:35
for my babies while I was on conference
17:37
calls and people would say what is that
17:39
sound I’d say what sound I hear a beep
17:42
oh there’s a fire truck really right
17:44
outside my office but the lack of
17:47
progress progress we’ve made in the past
17:49
decade has convinced me that we need to
17:51
start talking about this I graduated
17:54
from HBS in 1995 and I thought it was
17:58
completely clear that by the time
18:00
someone from my year was invited to
18:02
speak at this podium we would have
18:04
achieved equality in the workforce but
18:07
women at the top c-level jobs is stuck
18:09
at 15 or 16 percent and has not moved in
18:13
a decade not even close to 50 percent
18:16
and worse no longer growing we need to
18:20
acknowledge openly that gender remains
18:23
an issue at the highest levels of
18:24
leadership the promise of equality is
18:28
not equality we need to start talking
18:32
about this we need to start talking
18:34
about how women underestimate their
18:36
abilities compared to men and for women
18:38
but not men success and likability are
18:41
negatively correlated that means that as
18:43
a woman is more successful in your
18:45
workplaces she will be less liked this
18:48
means that women need a different form
18:50
of management and mentorship a different
18:53
form of sponsorship and encouragement
18:55
and some protection in some ways more
18:58
than men and there aren’t enough senior
19:00
women out there to do it so it calls
19:03
upon the men who are graduating today
19:05
just as much or more as the women not
19:07
just to talk about gender but to help
19:10
these women succeed when they hear a
19:13
woman is really great at her job but not
19:15
light take a deep breath and ask why we
19:19
need to start talking openly about the
19:21
flexibility all of us need to have both
19:24
a job and a life a couple weeks ago in
19:27
an interview I said that I leave the
19:29
office at 5:30 to have dinner with my
19:30
children and I was shocked at the press
19:33
coverage one of my friends says she
19:36
wasn’t sure I could get more headlines
19:37
if I had murdered someone with an axe I
19:40
told her I wasn’t really interested in
19:42
trying that
19:43
but this showed me that this is an
19:46
unresolved issue for all of us for men
19:48
and women otherwise why would everyone
19:50
write so much about it and maybe most
19:53
importantly we need to start talking
19:56
about how fewer women than men even from
19:59
places like HBS most likely even in this
20:02
class aspire to the very top jobs we
20:07
will not close the leadership gap until
20:09
we close the professional ambition gap
20:12
we need more women not just to sit at
20:15
the table but as President Obama said a
20:18
few weeks ago at Barnard to take their
20:20
rightful seats at the head of the table
20:23
one of the reasons I was so excited to
20:25
be here today is that Dean nuria told me
20:28
that this year is the 50th 50th
20:31
anniversary of letting women into this
20:33
class your Dean is so passionate about
20:36
getting more women into leadership
20:37
positions and he told me he wanted to
20:39
see me to speak this year for that
20:41
reason I met a woman from that first
20:44
class once she told me that when they
20:46
first came in the first class of women
20:48
they took a men’s room and converted it
20:50
to a woman’s room made sense but they
20:52
left the urinals in she thought the
20:55
message was super clear we’re not sure
20:57
this whole girl thing is going to work
20:58
out and in case it doesn’t we won’t have
21:01
to reinstall the urinals the urinals are
21:05
long gone let’s make sure that no one
21:08
ever misses them as you and your
21:12
classmates spread out across the globe
21:13
and walk across the stage tomorrow I
21:16
wish for you four things first that you
21:20
keep in touch via Facebook this is
21:22
critical
21:24
to your future success and we’re public
21:27
now so can you click on an ad or two
21:29
while you’re there to that you make the
21:35
effort to speak as well as seek the
21:38
truth 3 that you remain true to and open
21:44
about your authentic self and for most
21:48
deeply that your generation accomplishes
21:52
what mine has failed to do give us a
21:55
world or have our homes or run by men
21:57
and half our institutions are run by
21:59
women I’m pretty sure that would be a
22:02
better world I join everyone here in
22:05
offering my most sincere congratulations
22:07
to the class of 2012 with your authentic
22:11
selves give yourselves a huge round of
22:14
applause

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