So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People

In this episode, Megan Senese and Jennifer Ramsey sit down with William Washington III, Global CFO of Baker McKenzie, who oversees more than $3 billion in revenue across 75+ offices worldwide. William’s path to the C-suite was anything but traditional. He shares his story and the twists and turns that led him to ultimately overseeing thousands of professionals at one of the world’s largest law firms.

William shares how resilience, setting boundaries, and staying authentic shaped his leadership. He explains why wellbeing practices like walking meetings, fitness, and meditation are game changers, and why focusing on people (not just the work) transformed his career. This conversation is a must-listen for anyone curious about leadership, career growth, and what it really takes to become a law firm CFO.

Learn more about our guest: 
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Creators and Guests

Host
Jennifer Ramsey
Host
Megan Senese

What is So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People?

Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People. Where we explore behind-the-scenes of work, law, life, and everything in between. We're your hosts, business development and legal marketing coaches, Jennifer Ramsey and Megan Senese, and we're here to showcase the human side of the legal world, from marketing and consulting to the very real struggles of balancing work with being human. This isn’t your typical, dry legal show. We're bringing you real stories, candid conversations, and smart insights that remind you that outside of being a lawyer or legal marketer - what makes you human? So whether you’re navigating billable hours or breaking glass ceilings in a woman-owned legal practice, this legal podcast is for you. Stay human. Stay inspired. Namaste (or whatever keeps you human). 

William Washington III: [00:00:00] First of all, the world needs the next generation of leaders. I am not going to sit in a seat forever. One of the lessons I learned is that the world needs all of us. Lean into your strengths. Lean into your vulnerability and your authenticity. You'll find that those are your superpowers, and if you're in the right place, if you're planted in the right place and you continue to do the thing you need to do in order to develop, there isn't a one size fits all cookie cutter for a leader. There just isn’t.
Megan Senese: Welcome to So Much To Say: A Legal Podcast For People, where we dive into the beautiful chaos of work life and everything in between. Outside of being a lawyer or a legal marketer, we wanna know what makes you human. And with that, let's get started. We are super, super excited to finally have our guests on.
He is a busy, busy man, and we are so thankful and appreciative that you're making time for us today. Let's get into it.
Jennifer Ramsey: So it is [00:01:00] really our great honor and pleasure to welcome William Washington III to our podcast today. William is the global CFO of Baker McKenzie, where he's been since 2022. He oversees.
More than $3 billion in revenue across 75 plus offices spanning over 45 countries. So one of the biggest law firms in the world, if not the biggest law firm in the world, leading a team of over 1400 people. He also serves on the firm's executive and financial committees among others. Before that, William held leadership roles at two other AmLaw 100 firms, and worked in consulting and financial services, including at Accenture.
Fannie Mae, he holds degrees in finance, business and law firm management and is a certified manager of quality and a Lean six Sigma master black belt. I had to really say that time we tease that out, right? Yeah.[00:02:00]
So today we are gonna chat about areas that don't always make LinkedIn posts and plug for William. William, if you are not following him on LinkedIn, please do so. Yeah, his posts are. Beautifully written and authentic, the grit, the lessons, and the human behind the title. So William, with that, welcome.
William Washington III: Thank you.
Thank you for having me. And I always love hearing introductions where you talk about degrees and jobs you've had and how much revenue the place makes. Um, but I always like to start off by saying I'm the father of four and a husband to my wife, and that's the primary job that I do in addition to managing my dog Apollo and.
Taking him out for frequent, uh, bathroom breaks. We'll just call them, you know, that's my core job.
Megan Senese: I had written a post about. We're just gonna get right into it. William, I had written a post about executive presence. How ridiculous it felt and how I've been working on executive presence and coaching people, but also I have to pick up my dog's poop.
And so like [00:03:00] that, like, like really the two opposites of like, on either end of the spectrum. So I appreciate you, you know, sharing, sharing that.
Jennifer Ramsey: We, we had, Megan and I had the distinct honor to chat with William pre podcast. So we had a pre-game and prepped and. That was, I can't remember when that was, but we learned a lot about you, William, and your story, that beyond, you know, like you said, the revenue numbers and the countries and the continents.
We learned about you as a person and your journey to the present day from one yogi to another. And so I, I'd love for you to share your journey with us and our listeners, because it's true. It's a wonderful, beautiful, fascinating story and I would love to hear it in your words.
William Washington III: Yeah. And, and, uh, I love the pre-gaming part.
Like, we were getting ready for a big event and now, now [00:04:00] showtime, so we gotta show up. So first of all, thank you for even asking me and inviting me to be on a show. Um, and thank you to those who are listening to the show today, because, you know, that's how, that's how we share the message. Um, by being an audience and being and participating in the process.
And you know, I tell people when they look at my career, they tend to look at LinkedIn and they go, oh, I see you went from analyst to manager to director to CFO. And they go, I wanna be just like you. You know, can you tell me what your secret is? And I say when you look at it like that, it looks like a ladder.
Like someone just climbs a couple rungs and you get to the top and voila, it all happened. Um, but when I think about my journey, I often tell people it's not something I read in a book. It's not something I heard on the radio. It's not something I saw on a TV show. I lived it. It's a part of me. It's who I am and my journey is not so unique.
It just has pieces of everyone else's journey in it. You know, and, [00:05:00] and for me, it starts back like most people in my childhood, which was a non-traditional childhood, being raised in a divorced home in a family that didn't have much money. You know, I tell people my early schooling, although I was identified as gifted and talented, that didn't manifest itself right away in terms of, in terms of grades.
Afterwards, I had some choices on whether to do homework. Um, you know, so it was a little bit bumpy. Early on in my life, I was really dealing with a lot of things. Cultural and, and, uh, family difficulties. So I say I dropped out of high school. I dropped out of college at one point. You know, I was raised by a single parent.
I became a single parent. Um, and I lost some siblings at an early age to both murder and to suicide. And all of those things were just before I even started my career, you know, and then even after starting my career, even though the journey looks very typical. You know, I faced a lot of problems throughout my [00:06:00] career in terms of, um, not understanding how my skill sets matched up with the needs of every job I was in working to get to the next level.
You know, I remember striving to get to manager and director and, uh, I tell people I remember the day I decided I wanted to go from manager and di to director, and that I was qualified and ready. And yeah, it didn't happen for another six years after that particular date. Um, and it was the same with every other title and, uh, every other opportunity.
You know, I really had to work hard and be resilient and push through some hard things. But that's why I think it's important that we embrace those stories from our early childhood and our life, because those are stories that make me who I am, both as a worker and as a leader.
Megan Senese: It's so, it's so powerful to hear you say that and, and we're, we're so thankful that you're open and honest, particularly since you have said you're an introvert.
Right? And so every time we hear, I hear introverts as you think of someone who's private. [00:07:00] Which just means you might need to like, have more time alone to decompress and, and things like that. And so I, we, I feel like it's a gift that you're sharing with us and, and now our audience and, and how those early moments, usually people are trying to kind of run away from those, right?
Like, I'm, I'm gonna be the opposite of that. I don't want anyone to know those things and that. It comes up quite a bit in a lot of our work now with our individual lawyers where maybe they're first gen and they're like, I don't want anyone to know that I don't fit the traditional mold, if you will. And it's really, I think it's really important that other people get to hear successful people like you share.
Like, oh no, no, no. Like I don't fit the traditional mold either, and here's how you can also still be successful. So I love, I love that we're getting to share that. Share that story.
William Washington III: I love that you have a podcast that tries to reveal and open up about those stories because I know when I was on my journey, I thought everybody's life was buttoned up and perfect, and, and they'd only followed a traditional path.
And so one of the reasons as an introvert, I speak about my [00:08:00] story is because I just feel like we need to help each other. We need to give back from our experiences, and I think the world and our businesses will be a better place. When people start embracing the things that make them who they are, and if I can do one thing while I'm in this role and sitting in this seat is I'm going to give back to others who may identify with my story in whatever way.
Whether they're a single parent, whether they're struggling in school, whether they had a non-traditional path, because I think that they are opening themselves up to the opportunity to hear what it means to be resilient and to, and to be your authentic self. Will help us to bring more of those people into leadership positions, so then that can recycle itself over again.
Megan Senese: Yeah. Yes, yes. I think what's so interesting, and I don't know if it's my attitude and how I was being buttoned up, and I talk about this quite a bit on, on the show about how my experience in big law, but the more, the further away I get from being in. My corporate life, the more people are [00:09:00] sharing with us and sharing with me, and that there's really is I, I don't know why we're all still hanging onto this prescribed thought of everyone being buttoned up because I keep meeting more and more people who are not right, who are like, oh no, I didn't follow that path.
So one of the things that you also mentioned in the prep and. I don't know if you have anything to say. I just wanted to raise it with people I think ask you a lot, like why finance? Right? Do you just like love money, like love numbers or like love? Um, is that how your brain works? And, and I think you said something kind of interesting during our prep.
And I thought maybe if you're, if you're comfortable sharing it, I'd love to hear how you wound up in finance.
William Washington III: You know, like I said, I was, I was on a different path altogether, you know, where I was working in retail. Um, I tell people I had a job during the day at what is now CVS and a job at night at Athlete Foot because I loved it.
Having new tennis shoes, which I still love having new tennis shoes. Mm mm-hmm. But if you ever see me, I almost always have on, on new tennis shoes or [00:10:00] else I throw them away. And, you know, working jobs and being a single parent, I tried every path that was possible to make money without getting my degree.
And at some point when I was working in the mail room of a law firm, I realized that, you know, I wasn't gonna be successful raising my child. And having the success that I wanted outta life unless I went back to university. So I went back to university and I really, again, it seems so painful, like how could I not know what to major in in college, you know?
But really I had almost zero guidance. I didn't know anything about engineering degrees or, you know, I knew the classes we took in school, math, science, English, and whatever majors were a whole different thing. But I did know one thing that I needed money and I needed to make money. You know, I was on food stamps, I didn't have enough money to pay for daycare.
I didn't have enough money to feed my child, didn't have enough money to put a coat on his space [00:11:00] and uh, I said, you know, I think I need to understand how money works in this world. And so I picked the only major I knew that dealt with money, which was finance, you know, and, and it turned out to, uh, uh, be somewhat of a calling, I would say, in my life.
Megan Senese: Hmm. Yeah. I love that. Follow, follow your, follow your curiosity, wanting to know more about something. Um, I, I didn't know you worked at CVSI also worked at CVS
Jennifer Ramsey: Well, and I'm dying. I'm dying. What, what shoes are you wearing today, William? I, I,
William Washington III: I, I'm at work, so I don't have one, you know, pair of my new white tennis shoes, but later today.
Jennifer Ramsey: So William, you've, you've been public about the lessons you've learned also in protecting your wellbeing and that it took you a long time to establish better boundaries, which I know, I think is something that will resonate with a lot everyone, if not all of our listeners here, including the Megan and me.
Alice, if, if you could change one [00:12:00] thing about the legal profession to better support a professional's wellbeing, what would it be and how would you go about making that change?
William Washington III: That's a great question, and first of all, I love, love, love my boundaries. You know, I find it to be a superpower. I find that it makes me a better worker, a better father, a better husband, a better human being to others.
I'm able to deal with so much adversity when it comes up because of. My state of mind and a state of my wellbeing that, you know, setting my boundaries, which was probably difficult at first, has had a reinforcing impact on my life in terms of my production and what I'm able to do at work. You know, and, and I think that, you know, when I say setting boundaries for people who don't know, you know, it's about knowing how to carve out time in your workday.
For yourself and whatever that may be. Whether it's reading, whether it's coffee, whether it's smoke breaks, [00:13:00] which I don't encourage, but for me it's, it's recharging, you know, because of the introvert part of my personality or characteristics that I need time alone and I need to box it off so that when I do have to be in a team environment, which I also.
Enjoy as part of producing at work. I don't, I don't. I love being on a team and us rowing in the same direction, but in order for me to contribute to that team, I have to be fully energized and bring my full brain physical capacity, mental, emotional, et cetera. And I often find that I'm one of the calmest people in the room.
I'm one of the people with the most energy, generally, if I've had a chance to recharge. And so those boundaries are super important and I do it through multiple ways. Whether it's, you know, not attending all the work dinners and functions, whether it's blocking off time on my calendar to recharge or whether it's saying no to something that's really just not a priority and the legal industry and [00:14:00] most professional services set say to say.
As part of their strategy that their people are their most important resource, right? Our clients and our people. Our clients and our people. You hear it over and over again, you know, but, but we don't do enough to make sure our people are able to. To get what they need in order to protect their wellbeing.
You know, we tend to box people in and tell them, you know, you need to be at the dinners. In order to build relationships, you need to work long hours no matter what in order to be promoted, you know? And if the legal industry could change one thing, it would be understanding that if your people are your greatest resource.
Your people are diverse. They come from multiple backgrounds, they have multiple life experiences. They have multiple things that are happening inside of them. We need to make space for that, right? By, you know, being, making it safe for people to [00:15:00] share what the, what areas of their life they want to protect.
Or boundaries they wanna set and then create natural ways for that to happen. You know, I'll give one key example. I have some meetings coming up, uh, next week in Rome. And because we're going to Rome and we're trying to get it in in two days, everyone's like, we need to be there at 7:00 AM in the morning and work till eight o'clock at night.
And it's not just us, it's the people that work in the office that need to open the office up in order for all of us, for our small group, to be there. All the other workers have to come in. And I told my assistant, I said, tell it's summertime in Italy. Tell them to come into the office on their normal schedule, and if we need to meet at 7:00 AM then tell the people I'm meeting with that we will do a walk around the building.
At 7:00 AM we can walk and talk about whatever agenda items [00:16:00] we can cover without needing a room and a whiteboard and all those other things, you know, because that creates the opportunity to open the office later. Creates the opportunity to start our meeting earlier in a healthy, functional way. And you know, it keeps me from sitting in a room.
Burning out like a candle flickering down till I'm down to my last little stub. At the end of the day, I'm happy to work as long as anyone else. I work 12 hours a day too, but it has to also fit within keeping with my wellbeing. Yeah,
Jennifer Ramsey: and you can grab a great little cappuccino on the way too. I've had some of
William Washington III: my best meetings, matter of fact, with this group, which I'm excited to meet with.
Uh, one of the best meetings I ever had was when we had our lunch break and we walked over to get some, some type of sausages or something, I can't remember. We were in a sausage place and we talked about, started talking about family, got to know each other personally, and ended up talking about work and some of the more important things that we were, we [00:17:00] had to cover.
Jennifer Ramsey: Right. That's where the good stuff comes in. You can learn more about the personal side of the people who you're meeting with, and I think that solidifies relationships even more. Key takeaway. Yeah,
Megan Senese: I, I'll have to see if I can find what I'm gonna say. 'cause it's gonna be very, like I read it someplace sometime one time in someplace, so it's gonna be a real factual base here.
But what I remember or what I recall from the article was the fact that people with walking meetings, the fact that you weren't faced on actually helped diffuse the situation a little bit, brings down the intensity. And then people are just obviously feeling better when you're moving your body. And so there they had all of these benefits.
To why a walking meeting was, was better, particularly if it was a very intense conversation, which isn't what you're talking about here, but people felt that they let their guards down more because you weren't directly staring at someone. Even in a virtual setting, you're actually way more in people's personal space because our faces are so giant in, in the, in the [00:18:00] screen.
Listen, lemme
William Washington III: lean into that key takeaway part because someone listening to this is like, well, you know, how do I do that? Like, oh my gosh, that's so hard. You don't have to go back to your next meeting and insist that you have a walking meeting. Go back and make the recommendation. Yeah, to say, Hey, maybe next time when we have this meeting, we could do a walking meeting.
You know, I heard it on a podcast. I think it's a great idea. Just throw it out in the universe. Doesn't have to come back right away. Just put it out there as an idea and you'd be surprised how many people take you up on it at a later date.
Megan Senese: Yeah, you don't even have to leave the building. You could just walk the hallway in circles.
Right? Like you don't even have to leave. Do you, do you think it's easier for people to respect your boundaries now because you have the CFO title?
William Washington III: I think that the people who hear me and appreciate the message, appreciate the message.
Megan Senese: Hmm.
William Washington III: And those, that's my tribe right there. And, and [00:19:00] you talked earlier about posting on LinkedIn about sharing this message.
I found my tribe in every part of the, the, the firm and every part of other organizations I get calls from husbands from. From executive committee members, from staff members. I mean, I get random bylines in an email like, William, can you approve this HR form? And oh, by the way, I read your LinkedIn post, or I saw your talk at such and such.
And so I think people, I think people who appreciate the message, appreciate the message, and I think there's a bigger population of that in, in that than most people expect. And so again, we've all had leaders who have strong personalities, who are like, it's my way or no way. And I'm not suggesting that someone go up there and tell them, you gotta do it this way.
I think that you'd just be surprised that people are receptive. Do they receive it? Because I'm this global CFO, it just depends, you know? Mm-hmm. [00:20:00] My team, of course, people that report to me, they don't have a choice. Know. Sure. But again. They actually appreciate it. Yeah. And they, they, they look, look, look, I'll say the number of times I get messages from people on my team that says, William, since you've been here, X, Y, and Z, you know, and what I said, someone just said it to me an hour ago, and what I said to them is.
It's not just that I delivered the message, it's that you bought in and that you're doing it like you're willing to do it. You guys are willing to do it even when I'm not in the room, which tells me even more. And so whether I'm the global CFO saying it to my direct reports, or I'm the global CFO and I'm just a member of the executive committee, I say the message the same way and it gets received in whatever way it's going to be received.
And leadership can come from anywhere. I'll use a story as an anecdote. Imagine two parents sitting in a car driving, dealing with a difficult issue, maybe arguing a little bit, and a kid in the back [00:21:00] goes, Hey, why don't we stop for ice cream? You know? And one of 'em looks at the other and they're like, wow, what a great idea.
You know, it diffuses the moment they all go and get ice cream and suddenly that little young child has come up with an idea that actually helps everyone to like lower the temperature of the room. Good ideas can come from anywhere, in any situation, even in the most challenging situations.
Megan Senese: And who
Jennifer Ramsey: Doesn't like ice cream?
And let you know. Before we go to the next question, just pausing on this que while we're on the topic of wellbeing, because this is something I love to find commonalities with people and, and William with you. I know that you are a big fitness buff in Yogi, and I just love to hear a little bit about that facet of your life and how that plays into you as a person and, and how is your yoga practice going?
William Washington III: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. So, I'm actually, you [00:22:00] know, a person who just believes in moving your body in whatever shape, form, or fashion, whether it's running, whether it's yoga, whether it's weightlifting, um. It's good and healthy, and it's, again, worked for me, you know, may not be for everyone.
Um, I could state some people in my family who may not work out as much as I do. Um, but, uh, I've had a practice of getting up at 5:00 AM in the morning. And getting to the gym and working out or doing yoga or going for a run. And what I found is that it's just a principle I live by, right? Like my goal is to be the first one in the gym, you know?
And I don't know why I have that goal. It just feels good to walk into a hotel gym and no one else in a whole hotel is in there yet. You know, and when I'm done with the workout, I have a feeling of accomplishment that I just [00:23:00] don't feel, I feel like it starts every day off in the best possible way. Like it really doesn't matter what happens the rest of the day.
I've already knocked out one of the hardest things we do as human beings, at least getting up the working out part is easy, but getting up going can be hard, you know? And I recently read a book and shared a book with all my kids and my family. Uh, a book called The 5:00 AM Club, where they reemphasize the importance of the practice and what it does, um, from a discipline perspective, from a mental perspective, from a physical perspective, obviously, that I think shares all the messages in a way that, that to me, uh, uh, just, I couldn't put it any more eloquently, but.
When I look at it, a lot of it was born off of someone that I saw, a mentor I had. His name was Claude Wade, you know, and Claude would make sure he was up first working out in the office, first preparing, uh, mentally for the day ahead. And by the [00:24:00] time 9:00 AM rolls around, you know, everyone else is playing catch up.
So, you know, and, and, and my daughter asked me a good question, you know, as she was trying to adopt this habit. This is my daughter who's. 25 now. She texted me on Saturday morning. She's living in Austin, Texas, and she said, dad, do I have to get up at 5:00 AM on a Saturday? And I said, you don't have to, but I am.
You know, you know, and, and it just goes back to, you know, we all get to make choices in life.
Jennifer Ramsey: Right.
William Washington III: You know, and for me, getting up early, starting to exercise has been fruitful in many, many ways.
Jennifer Ramsey: Yep. I, I'm with you. I love that. I love being in a hotel, gym in the morning with no one else there and thinking about, thinking of all those people still sleeping, and here I am getting my workout in.
It's just, it's such a good feeling. It's
William Washington III: a great feeling. Um, do
Jennifer Ramsey: is meditation, is meditation part of your just outta curiosity?
William Washington III: Absolutely. I mean, meditation to me [00:25:00] is key. Um, I do two things. I'm not so structured that I try to say I do everything every day, but part of my goal every day is to wake up and, and.
Read the Bible and or meditate, you know, because I believe that if I don't read the Bible and or meditate, I'll wake up and start spinning about things. And so it just gives me confidence and, and gives me, uh, mental thoughts. That helped me move about the day. Um, and you know, it's good that we have apps on our phones now.
I use the Peloton app and you know, I can go to sleep to the sleep meditation and wake up to the daily meditation and it takes a whole whopping 10 minutes.
Megan Senese: Yes, you're And loves Peloton. She loves it. Yeah.
William Washington III: You know, and look and look. How does that help the average person? Look, we all deal with life and some really, really tough things.
The truth is a lot of us get spun up over things that really just aren't that challenging.
Megan Senese: Yep. You
William Washington III: [00:26:00] know, and they're just part of life, you know? Yes. And about an hour ago, that same daughter I was just mentioning, called me. She's getting ready to move from Austin to DC. She had just packed up her whole apartment, shipped it off with the movers, and she had nothing in her apartment, and she's ready to catch her flight.
And her cat crawls into a hole in a wall, like back in a hole
Jennifer Ramsey: and
William Washington III: will not come out.
Jennifer Ramsey: Oh,
William Washington III: right. You know, and it's probably falling asleep because of the medicine. She gave it for the flight, you know? And the apartment. The apartment people wouldn't come, the animal shelter people wouldn't come. And she couldn't reach back there far enough to get it.
And she goes, dad, oh my gosh, this feels like everything's falling apart. And because I'm in the state, I'm in, I was like, everything is not falling apart. We have our arms and our legs and our brain, and we're really smart people. We can change a flight at any minute. We can stay in a hotel. We can do a lot of different things.
I can give you a hundred options that are still available and on the table and her level went down to there. My, and that thing, that [00:27:00] same story plays out when I walk out here and somebody tells me one of our employees just stole, you know, X millions of dollars or something, which happens. Not here, baker McKenzie, but other places, you know, you know, someone has to, someone has to be emotionally and physically and mentally ready to deal with life and, and the challenges that come up in work.
Jennifer Ramsey: We are works in progress. If we are nothing else. Progress,
William Washington III: not perfection.
Jennifer Ramsey: Yes, exactly. So William, now talking about your team too, because I'm really interested in the answer to this. So you do see it, we've talked about your role and, and your team and you oversee thousands of people across the globe. How do you lead at scale and still make people feel seen?
William Washington III: I sometimes struggle to make it. People see, feel seen in my own home, which only has three or four people at any given time. [00:28:00] And it is definitely difficult for any leader who leads a hard, large organization to make everyone feel seen and make everyone feel important. But just because it's hard doesn't mean you shouldn't try each and every day in order to make people feel seen.
And the first thing is, I honestly have a mantra inside me. That says one of the most important people on my team is a person who's just started their first job ever with Baker McKenzie in the finance department, because I remember what that was like to be 21, 22 years old and to look up to the top because that almost set the tone for everything else, you know?
And if you don't have a good leader at the top, if you don't have someone that you feel cares about you at the bottom. I think it'll be hard to get productivity throughout the organization. So some of the key things that I do that I think are super important is, one, is I [00:29:00] make sure that I tell my team.
How important they are. Same thing I do at home when I text my daughters every single day and tell 'em I love 'em. I text my team or message my team all the time and tell them how much I appreciate 'em. The other thing that I do that's very, very important is I start off every meeting and I almost to a tee, it's almost every meeting.
Stopping people from starting with the agenda. Here's what we're doing today. We're all here. We have William, the CFO here, so we don't wanna waste his time, so we're gonna get No, no, no, no. You're not wasting my time. Stop. How are you doing? How's your family doing? Tell me about your vacation. Matter of fact, let's go around the screen and I'd like everyone to share something to let me know how you're doing.
And they know I will take, if it's an hour long meeting, I don't care if it takes us 55 minutes to go through. I don't rush it. I am serious about wanting to know what's happening in their life. I make sure I [00:30:00] listen intently. And if there are agenda items that are so important, we can get that out via email.
We can, we can find another way to cover that. And again, it's easy to do with my direct reports, but I've done it in our executive committee meetings. You know, and you wanna see some people squirm. They're like, they're like, what do you mean we, you, I mean, and these are people who are getting ready to have a six to eight hour meeting to talk about difficult topics around the budget or around investments around and, and you don't wanna see where people are before you start those two, because if someone's in a ba, if someone's cat is stuck in the wall or.
If someone's in a meeting while their daughter's cat is stuck in a wall and they're the daughter's texting 'em, crying, you know, you can believe you're not going to get the best of that person in terms of the solution to some of your biggest challenges at work. So I really, I can't do anything by myself.
My team is super [00:31:00] important. Their lives are super important to them. Thus, their lives are super important to me. Now, I will tell you one of the hardest, two of the hardest things I've ever had to deal with in my career was one, I did have someone say to me one time, and she wasn't my direct report, she, she was a direct reports, direct report, and she was applying to, uh, for a job to be my direct report.
And during that interview process, she says. You know what, William, you talk a lot about things on your LinkedIn posts about caring about people and caring about the team, and I don't see it. And that felt like a dagger to my heart, right? Like my first response was, you don't even report to me, like you report to my direct report report.
Like, like what? Like how? And I really couldn't figure out how to solve the problem. Um, but the reality was I just needed to try. She was saying something that she was experiencing and that [00:32:00] was her real feeling. And, uh, she had, she had to try that, that was one specific instance where I had to take my own medicine.
Right. You know, and another time was when I was trying to make it from director to CFO and I hired an executive coach, and the executive coach did a 360. And during the 360, the basic, basic gist of the feedback, and this is hard to say, right. This is me trying to help someone else by being vulnerable. But it's hard.
It's hard for me to say this to a public audience, but the feedback I got in that 360 basically said, William doesn't have integrity and he doesn't have authenticity. All he cares about is getting the work done. And at the time that feedback hit me because I thought. I teach Sunday school. I'm a father of four.
I'm the best, I have more integrity than them. That was the way my mind was thinking. But the truth was, at [00:33:00] that time, I did start every meeting with the agenda. I did feel like I was the director they wanted me to be. I need to make sure the team gets the job done. And so I would start every meeting like, who's done what?
What do we get done? What do we need? You know? And that was when I stopped doing that. I started getting different feedback on my 360. I started getting a more productive team and I was quickly, not slowly, quickly promoted from director to CFO. Um, and it is just, it is amazing when you focus on the people.
You get the elevation when you focus on the work. You get the work done, but you don't always get people wanting to follow you.
Jennifer Ramsey: Oh, that's interesting. That's a, yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. A very valuable
Megan Senese: lesson, lesson learned, and we appreciate you, we appreciate you sharing that, that moment.
And it also kind of ties into, you know, the piece of advice you wish you had gotten earlier on, [00:34:00] but I, I don't know if you just answered it, but I don't know if, if that would be your same response, you know, focusing on the people. It's kind of been the thread throughout.
William Washington III: Yeah. Look, first of all, the world needs the next generation of leaders.
I am not going to sit in a seat forever. A lot of times people feel like they're, they are working for a lost cause. Like, like, you know, like the firm only cares about this person or that person and you know, they don't need me or I'm not the one, you know? And I would say that one of the lessons I learned is that the world needs all of us.
You know, when I was coming up in my career, I definitely felt challenged by the person on my left and right. This person speaks better. This person does Excel spreadsheets better. This person has a better relationship with the boss. It can feel really icky when you're in the midst of it. Right. You know?
But at the end of the day, because I now have the ability to [00:35:00] look back and connect the dots, I can see that. It was exactly those things that I was working on and developing and growing and, you know, the authenticity, the, the teamwork, the collaboration, the, the understanding that different people have different needs, you know, that really made me a better leader than, than maybe the person to my left and right who could do spreadsheets better, but couldn't.
I couldn't get along with people or whatever, whatever their own shortcomings may have been, um, or whatever my strengths may have been. But lean into your strengths. Lean, lean into your vulnerability and your authenticity. You know, you'll find that those are your superpowers. And if you're in the right place, if you're planted in the right place, and you continue to do the things you need to do in order to develop.
And when I look out into my workforce. And I think about all the strengths and weaknesses across my direct reports. You know, they all have the [00:36:00] ability to rise up to the level if they focus on their unique strengths and weaknesses and develop, uh, along whatever line that they were built. There isn't a one size fits all cookie cutter for a.
There just isn't, you know, I mean, and I, I applaud, I love the visible manifestations of what we see when there's a, there's a different leader, you know? Um, I, I use the example of a basketball analogy for people that are NBA and A US and, and other things. Be careful when you work for a global organization, don't always use NBA American basketball references, but I'm gonna use it here today.
Where the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most storied franchises in history, the most valuable franchise in history, worth billions of dollars with the NBA's best player ever. I mean, one of them, he's not the, I take that back. Michael Jordan's the best player ever, one of the best players ever. And LeBron James hires JJ [00:37:00] Reddick to be their head coach.
JJ Reddick's never been a head coach. JJ Reddick didn't come up in the organization and wasn't on the assistant coach path or whatever, whatever. And why did he become the head coach? Because whatever he was doing in his own life to develop himself and to share his wisdom and knowledge, he was an announcer, was what the team felt like they needed in order to raise that next.
So leaders can come from anywhere. You just have to lean into your authentic self, be vulnerable, um, ask for advice. I do tell this to the next generation leader. Find someone on LinkedIn because we have that tool now available who's in a position that you wanna be in and march back what they've done and follow their steps.
And don't be afraid to reach out to them to ask them for guidance on how they got from where they were to where they're now.
Jennifer Ramsey: Excellent advice. Mic drop. This was such a wonderful, wonderful conversation, William. [00:38:00] Thank you. So much for sharing about your journey, about your leadership and how you view it.
It's just about the, you know, the human experience that we're all living in together, and we're all just trying to do the best that we can do. And so I, we really, really appreciate you spending part of your day with us and our listeners. And I feel inspired. I love it when we have these inspired conversations.
It's very inspiring, so thank you.
William Washington III: Well, I am excited about sharing the message. Um, like you said earlier, if people want to connect with me on LinkedIn, follow my story or ask me questions, I'm, I always try to make myself available. Um, I tell people until I don't have a breath. I probably accept too many invitations to speak to people, either one-on-one or in groups.
But what else are we gonna do with this one life we have? We don't use at least a good portion of it to give back to others. And when I give back to others, when I have the opportunity to give back to others. [00:39:00] I get back 10 times as much as I put out. And, and you're right, it can be uplifting and it is a, it's a, it's a, uh, reinforcing concept that reinforces itself.
Megan Senese: That's why we love this so much. We love our podcast so much because we get to spread all the goodness. This is the best part of our job. So, with that, Jen, please take us out.
Jennifer Ramsey: Yes. Well, and, and William, if, if, and when you ever come to San Diego, you. You must come to my yoga studio and be my guest. I would love nothing more.
Um, so that we can close out our podcast and our practices today by saying stay human, stay inspired, and namaste. Thank you all for listening in today, and thank you, William.
Megan Senese: This episode was brought to you by stage. That's us, a woman-owned business development and marketing boutique focused on relationships, revenue, and growth for individual lawyers, legal marketers, and law firms.
In addition to wanting to know what makes you human, we also wanna know [00:40:00] what podcast guests do you want us to have on? What topics are top of mind for you? Let us know. Email us at info at www.stage.guide.