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Serious Lady Business is the podcast where we dive into the serious—and sometimes not-so-serious—realities of being a female business owner. Host Leslie Youngblood keeps it real about entrepreneurship as we dive into the hard lessons no one warns you about to the surprising wins that make it all worth it. Tune in for honest conversations, unfiltered insights, and stories that prove you’re not in this alone.
Leslie Youngblood (00:00)
Welcome to Serious Lady Business. I'm Leslie Youngblood, your host, feminist and founder of Youngblood MMC, a marketing media and content agency. Today's guest is Delia Grenville, board chair, tech exec and founder of Slim Consulting. With a PhD in engineering and a background in workplace research, she spent her entire career leading transformation inside Fortune 100 companies. Now she helps leaders and teams build smarter strategies and healthier
more human workplaces. Welcome Delia.
Delia Grenville (00:31)
Thanks, Leslie. I'm so glad to be here.
Leslie Youngblood (00:34)
I am so excited to talk to you today about rewriting the rules and building metrics that actually reflect your power. I think, you know, we're going to dive into you have a talk show test when it comes to performance reviews. But I think it's so important for how women can create personal benchmarks that serve our values, not just corporate expectations. And I know you have so much expertise in this and I cannot wait to.
get out, pull all of that experience and knowledge out. But I would love for you to kind of start at the beginning and tell us a little bit more about your background and how you started SLIN and the types of clients that you work with today.
Delia Grenville (01:14)
Sure, so this isn't a career pivot for me. think I was kind of hardwired to do this work all along. I was the eldest sister. I was very consultative in an immigrant family. you know, I'm having a completely different experience from what my parents knew. And then I'm the first one out there in the family so that
you know, people are asking you how to do things or what to do things or your their test trial. And so that sort of pioneering spirit followed me through my entire career. Actually, we get a little awards and you little group awards for being the one willing to go first because, you know, I said it was sort of a habit for life. And it allowed me, you know, that point of view allowed me a lot of freedom because when you go first, don't, you know, you don't know what's going to happen anyway.
Leslie Youngblood (01:53)
Yes.
Delia Grenville (02:06)
So sometimes you learn from the lumps on your head, but everybody learns that way. ⁓ But you do take some risks. So I learned a lot about my risk tolerance in those positions. And I talking more about the essence of myself, because no matter what career or opportunity I was in, I felt that was the trait that sort of brought me to.
Leslie Youngblood (02:11)
Mm.
Delia Grenville (02:28)
why I solved the problem differently or why I met the CEO of this particular company or how I got to be known. And that's what I bring with me to my own business now after having a 25 year career in tech that was very successful. I'm now talking to tech leaders and startups and mid-level companies wanting that same kind of success.
and being able to see it from the listener's ear and being able to see it from a more holistic perspective and being able to see it from the things that I wish someone had told me that we can talk about more openly and more deeply now. So, SLIN's sort of an offshoot of wanting that freedom to sort of figure out and talk to people.
Leslie Youngblood (03:08)
Thank you.
Delia Grenville (03:20)
around the conversations and the cultures that lead tech decisions, and then making sure that we can enable them and implement them in a way that's good for the leader and good for the company. And of course, if those things are right, then it's good for the bottom line as well.
Leslie Youngblood (03:25)
Mmm.
Yeah, I love that. You shared recently, or shared previously, that you felt a pull to do this type of work. And what made this venture different than others that you tried and other projects that you worked on?
Delia Grenville (03:51)
that's a good question. Sometimes I forget what I tell people before. But I, you know, I spent my corporate career building systems and processes and but also integrating the human side of work. And I know it's hard. I think there's a deep bias in companies and businesses to see work as a product as a service as the thing that we're measuring in the bottom line. But
Leslie Youngblood (03:55)
you
That's it.
Delia Grenville (04:17)
I don't think I'm going to be wrong on this one. No matter how much AI they put in there, people are still doing the work, right? And elevating the people who do the work, I think makes your product, your service, your offering to the market better. And getting the opportunity to have clients who want to, you know, they're aligned with this idea and they want to talk about the trade-offs and they know that the benefit to the leaders improves the bottom line.
Leslie Youngblood (04:24)
I'm good.
Delia Grenville (04:45)
I think that really is the pull. That's why this venture seems to be working and this is why the feedback that I'm getting from my clients is sometimes to me just stunning and amazing, but it is because I think they're getting what they need.
Leslie Youngblood (04:57)
I'd love that.
Yes, 100%. When I think you come with such a unique perspective and background, being with the Fortune 500 companies and being in corporate and now having your own thing, right? And I think a lot of us can relate to that. I can relate to that, right? Like you, I think this agent stage just...
not working and then starting a business, right? Like we come from our experience, our other professional experiences. And I would love to hear in, you know, based on your experience, what's like one of the biggest myths that women need to unlearn about success in corporate life.
Delia Grenville (05:33)
Gosh, it's one, only one, only one, my goodness. We're gonna talk about this more later, so I think it's gonna be a good thread. But real leadership is often inconvenient. So figuring out where or how you are going to live with ruffling feathers is a big deal. And sometimes that is...
Leslie Youngblood (05:36)
know, right? There's so many.
Delia Grenville (05:56)
quiet in some, louders in others. It might seem non-compliant. It might seem, you know, just people will feel it's unfamiliar. But I think for women to be strong leaders, we have to create that space where we're really leaning into our strengths as women. And that might not look like the playbook, right? It might not at all look like that. there's this show I was...
Leslie Youngblood (06:15)
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (06:23)
watching on Netflix, can never remember the names of these things, Kate Hudson's in it. And yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that she does as a woman, a woman, sorry, that ruffles feathers.
Leslie Youngblood (06:27)
running point. Running point. I loved it. Yeah, it was cute. It's cute.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because she takes over the NBA team, right, in Los Angeles and while her brother has to go and yeah, it's ruffling feathers and it's a unique experience. It was really cute. I enjoyed it. And I always like show about a female business leader and the trials and tribulations and the hijinks, you know, that ensue from it. But yeah, I think that is really unique, especially to women. And I think, yes, we have to unlearn that, especially when you're
Delia Grenville (06:56)
Yes.
Leslie Youngblood (07:06)
running
Delia Grenville (07:06)
you
Leslie Youngblood (07:06)
your own business because you should ruffle feathers because it's your perspective in your leadership and your vision and that can be such a trick right? Whether or not male female when you are a business leader and you have a vision it's singular to you and nobody else understands that that vision and how to bring it to life and so you have to convey that and it can be difficult and so do you find
When you work with male or female business owners, that's also something that you have to teach them to lean into as well.
Delia Grenville (07:37)
You were just right on the same train of thought, because I think sometimes we're not prepared to teach people that ruffling feathers is okay. We're not prepared to teach them that the new style of leadership is okay. We're not even cognizant that it is a teachable moment and that we own the lesson plan for it. speaking up for it is important. I was recently doing a 360 for
Leslie Youngblood (07:40)
Mm-hmm
Mmm.
I didn't know.
Delia Grenville (08:04)
VP of Engineering and the CISO was on, so the Chief Information Security Officer was one of the participants. We were all reviewing the feedback before presenting it to the particular leader. what he said, there was a point of feedback that said, well, you know, one of the things that the leader could improve was being more technical. And the CISO said,
she's a VP of engineering. Like I don't expect her to be more technical. And I said, you know what? I don't expect her to be too, but I often, said, want to let people know I often get this feedback when I prepare these documents for women. And I think it's important to address it because I never, I don't think I ever see it for men. And
Leslie Youngblood (08:30)
What?
you
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (08:53)
It's just an important thing to address because it's something that we have to overcome in the culture. It's not really something for the person to fix in that particular instance. It's the conversations that we were just talking about that will ruffle feathers. You know what? I don't have to be this technical. have to be strategic. You need to know the depth, but I need to be able to put the building blocks together. And as long as you can explain to me what I need to understand, I'm going to take it to the next level.
Leslie Youngblood (08:59)
Mm. Mm. Mm-hmm.
You
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (09:22)
with the CEO, my peers, the board, the industry, whatever. But we actually have to be able to tell those stories, right? Which also I think internally sometimes for women feels like ruffling feathers, right? The fact that we have to explain that, you know, can make us feel like, you know, are we, what are we doing wrong? Nothing. This is a system that we live in, but we just need to be prepared for it.
Leslie Youngblood (09:30)
day.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Right? Right?
Mm-hmm. I think that a lot of times we look, I mean, it makes perfect sense. We look externally for the answers, right? Like, ⁓ what's the playbook, right? Like, what's, I'm supposed to be this or that, but it's you still know inherently, I think we have the power inside us or we don't realize that, yeah, I have the technical knowledge. I need to fight for this. I need to be more proactive. I need to do X, Y, and Z. And it is, I do believe, I agree, like it's cultural. And so I think...
I think maybe we're getting better at it. What do you think, Delia? Or like, what can we do to get better at it at work and even in our everyday lives too with relationships?
Delia Grenville (10:23)
Yeah, I think the biggest thing I learned one time that really stuck with me and when I was becoming a coach or doing my coaching training back when I was working in corporate. Excuse me, a bit of a tickle in my throat. Is that.
They said in coaching, everyone is living their own life. we are actually eight billion people, how many people we are in the world right now, and we are living our own lives. We're having our own experiences. are like, you know, when they say you are actually just, you know, everyone's having their own experience. And so when you get that, then I think there's some grace and opening for getting that other people might not.
see the world exactly the way that you do. And it's everybody, it's your child, it's your mom, it's your best friend, it's everyone. And so it's worth it to find out what people think they're seeing and explain what you're experiencing.
Leslie Youngblood (11:06)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a really great point.
I think everyone listening should, yeah, make a note of that. What a beautiful... Yeah.
difficult for many thought there are 8 billion people in this world having 8 billion unique experiences and you are but one of those 8 billion so try to have some grace and understanding and openness and and proactiveness to share with them your perspective right and as that person on the other side they should be willing to listen to yes
Delia Grenville (11:47)
I'm going take this out because I just remembered I didn't take my allergy medicine.
Leslie Youngblood (11:50)
Of course. ⁓ shoot.
Yes, we definitely hope that. No problem. Is it funny? It sneaks up on you. Our bodies remind us, like, hello.
Delia Grenville (11:53)
My allergy medicine reminded me that I didn't take my allergy medicine.
I'm like, why am
I coughing like that? I was like, ooh, okay, you live in the graft-reducing state and you forgot to take your allergy medicine. I had it right beside me. I to do it right before. Okay, no worries.
Leslie Youngblood (12:06)
I don't know.
my goodness, I love- okay,
no problem.
Delia Grenville (12:17)
So, where were we?
Leslie Youngblood (12:18)
Uh, we were talking about giving people grace because we're one of eight billion and understanding they have a different, they're experiencing life through their particular lens. But then to also be proactive and fight for your perspective too. And they should be equally willing to listen to that as well. Whether it's your mom, a spouse, a boss, right? A coworker, a politician, like all the things.
Delia Grenville (12:44)
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, you've got to be willing to share it. And I think as well, and I think a lot of times everyone just sort of circle back to the fourth grade, you know, you need to do a little public speaking. I'm, know, Delia Granville, blah, blah, blah. You know, I think that telling of yourself, your your younger self's autobiography was sort of a
a teachable moment for talking more directly about who you are as a human being. The thing is, we kind of get lulled into not, nor no one explicitly said to me, or maybe I never heard it before, because I was finally paying attention. I have no idea that this was a requirement all the time, because people don't know what you're going through. They just cannot read your mind. They haven't had your experiences. Even if you're in the same family, you know, all the siblings, ask them, you know, ask the siblings.
you know, what happened at Christmas, everyone will tell you a slightly different story based on their own experience. And I think that sort of gives you that human insight as a leader to realize that, you know, messages, as much as we try to make them easy to understand, they're not comprehended exactly the same for everyone based on their own experiences. And so that's why we do feel like we are ruffling feathers sometimes.
Leslie Youngblood (13:39)
Mm-hmm.
I don't know.
Delia Grenville (14:03)
but often it can be addressed with conversation and just following up and making sure that everyone's aligned and that the words that we're saying mean the same things to everyone as well. So no, I do not think that the female VP has to be more technical, but I do think it's important to understand why.
Leslie Youngblood (14:17)
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (14:29)
you need to go back in as the leader and have a conversation about that because you don't want that bias also growing within the company with junior employees, right? Because the fact that it's showing up there means it's also, you know, it's a bias that will show up with junior employees. And this how we get those issues, Leslie, where women don't get promoted as quickly, you know, because they're being held to a standard that we don't often address. And if we don't address from
Leslie Youngblood (14:38)
True, yeah.
Delia Grenville (14:57)
from a tone from the top perspective, then how do we expect to build a pipeline that we really want to?
Leslie Youngblood (15:04)
Yeah, I totally agree. I would love to talk specifically about an experience you had in the corporate space. feel like it's not necessarily similar to that, but it just represents the structures that are in place that make no sense sometimes, perhaps, maybe, is when you won an international award, but you weren't even on the email list. And so I would love to hear about that experience and then also how that helped reframe your sense of value and recognition too.
Delia Grenville (15:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So I don't think there's a lot of deep rehashing on this one. think what's important is, you know, a lot of times we don't know what spaces we're not in. ⁓ So everyone says have a seat at the table, but you have to know that there is a table or there is a space and a room that had this table. And if you don't even know that it's there, because sometimes these things are opaque to us, then that becomes, you know, a moment of
Leslie Youngblood (15:41)
Mmm.
Yeah. ⁓
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (15:58)
awakening and there's some people I have worked with some people I have a great friend that I've had since as a work colleague and now has been a lifelong friend we met as It was my summer internship and her full-time job and then eventually my full-time job and we were 21 and We've been you know, co-traveling through careers our whole lives and he's always been a person who's like aware I think of
what room she's not in. But if you're not sort of programmed like that, then you might miss that kind of opportunity. So for me, it was sort of like, wait, I've built things that have been generating millions of revenue. I've won the sword on the global stage, but internally, I'm not getting the clout that I need to, because my head's down, right? I'm doing my head's down work. And so that kind of taught me that, you know,
Leslie Youngblood (16:28)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (16:54)
Yes, your work can be celebrated, but also what are you doing to make sure that it's known internally? And we're not always doing those things. And when we are not doing it for ourselves, then the question is, who is capitalizing off of your brand? Because it's there now that those accomplishments are there.
Leslie Youngblood (17:11)
Mmm. Mmm. Mmm.
Delia Grenville (17:20)
And if you are not, if you're not connected, that's what that moment taught me. Then it also, I also started to realize, well, I am sort of leaving those accomplishments on the table and I'm sure other people are capitalizing them and putting them in their bucket to move ahead. And here I am with my heads down, just producing work. So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leslie Youngblood (17:41)
Mm-hmm. Right. Just winning awards, but not, but nobody knows.
And I'm better than that guy and nobody gets it. But I think that is so true to you because I mean, I think about.
Delia Grenville (17:48)
It's like the Aqua.
Leslie Youngblood (17:55)
like years ago I was part of a program and it was like an executive program, executive leader program and you had to redo your resume and they were like, okay, here's your accomplishment. And it was this and they took it and like made it like, ⁓ like all like shiny and like so much more in depth and like impactful. And I was like, my God, I did do that. But why didn't I realize that? Yeah. And then you see other people are like, wow, they're doing, they're doing that. Like, but you have
just as much achievements and accomplishments and depth as a person and a leader, but that person's harnessing it and putting it out there. But I think too, maybe as women, we kinda don't lean into that or we try to be shy or dim our shine and it makes me crazy. So I love, is that what you've seen as well?
Delia Grenville (18:41)
Yeah,
well, I think personality, I mean, because I'm talking about my friend, personality has something to do with it. Experience has something to do with it. Birth order in the family, culture in the family of origin, culture of your entire, where you come from in the world. All these things sort of make a play into how you show up and what you value to be important. Also your brain chemistry, which we'll talk about later.
Leslie Youngblood (18:43)
Mmm. Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (19:07)
All these things factor into it. And that's why I like working with executives now at this level, because we can have those conversations. I could say, you know what I think, as a Gen Z say, this is a you problem. It's not a them problem. So let's see what we can do about this. But there are remedies, right? There are practices. There are things that people just don't know to know. ⁓ so if you're listening to this and you are not a woman, you know,
Leslie Youngblood (19:14)
And then.
Yeah, you're right. It's your problem.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (19:34)
These things I see happening to my male clients as well, right? Both men and women, I think women, you we've been socialized just because of our longevity in the workplace, being a bit shorter and having that glass ceiling to feel like, really internalize this as something that's happening to us. No, it's happening to everybody. Everybody is not representing their...
their accomplishments and their goals as much as they can, except for the people who are. It's an even distribution of men and women, except for, we talk about it more in women, than men tend to have more of a societal cover, where they don't have to disclose that part where they didn't know that they weren't wrapping themselves really properly. And no one will expect them to, right? So I think there's the, I think that's...
Leslie Youngblood (20:06)
week.
Mmm.
Yeah.
Delia Grenville (20:25)
the real difference that we, you we're more exposed and we tend to be more conversational and more, you know, willing to share the hard knocks because it's part of the narrative of women in business culturally, right? And if that narrative changes, and I think things, you know, how women would see a moment like, I didn't represent myself, not as a personal.
Leslie Youngblood (20:26)
Hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (20:51)
failure, but more of like, I didn't know and now I need a course, let me go to master class. Because that's all it should be, right? It shouldn't be a personal failing or a ding in any way.
Leslie Youngblood (20:56)
Right.
Right.
Yeah, for sure. Now I would love for you to talk about your talk show test when it comes to performance surveys. Tell us about that and why it's a better alternative for evaluating someone's leadership or impact, Delia.
Delia Grenville (21:06)
Mmm.
My policy is I'm not going to write anything about you on paper that I would not say on the internet or on a talk show. Like I'm just not right. So, and you should know what I'm going to say about you beforehand, right? Cause what I'm trying to do as a leader is not sorry. Have to write anything.
Leslie Youngblood (21:18)
Yeah.
Delia Grenville (21:32)
that is not, that is imbalanced or not honest or harsh, that I wouldn't have said publicly to, mean, publicly in between me and the person beforehand. Like I wouldn't have said allow, that's the word I was looking for, that I wouldn't have said allow to you beforehand. ⁓ And I think a lot of managers do not read those reviews. Like if they had to read them in front of their own moms,
Leslie Youngblood (21:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (21:55)
and they knew that their mom was watching the show that they were on, would they give that person that review? No, they would not. I mean, they would choose their words far more carefully. And I think that is something that we don't think about. remember I had a very difficult employee and increasingly difficult. And I knew that they were an employee that needed to be managed. And I was working through that process with them.
Leslie Youngblood (22:05)
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (22:24)
And then when they got their review, they said, I wasn't expecting such a not favorable balance review. And I was just sort of like, what, do you think I was going to go there to like, fashion out with you? Like, no, this is, you know, the work that you are doing that's to be, you know, that is being accomplished. I mean, I didn't trigger code anything, but it was written in such a way that
Leslie Youngblood (22:38)
Thank you.
Mm-hmm. ⁓
Delia Grenville (22:53)
even the difficult employee was kind of stunned. Right? And I think that's the way it should be. And it didn't mean that there wasn't more work to be done, but it wasn't, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't my, my, what's it called? Sometimes you get it and it feels like it's a page from their hash and slash diary. Like, is this a, that's exactly it.
Leslie Youngblood (22:56)
Hmm. Yeah.
Thank
The burn book. It's a performance review, not a burn book, people. ⁓
Delia Grenville (23:20)
Oh, you go, yes, that is exactly, you read that, you're like, wait, what? You know, it shouldn't be like that. And I really loved that that particular employee had that wait and wait experience, but it was the other way around. And I think it was an eye opener for them too, because they were not taking the constructed feedback as constructive.
They were very defensive and I knew, you know, in the backyards, you could always tell they're lining up HR and all of those kinds of things. And I knew that they probably planned to go with their burn book review, but they got the review and they were like, wait, what? But the other way around, right? This is the truth of where we are, but it wasn't in a way to, I think you have to write it, the talk show test, it's not a way to diminish or demean the person.
Leslie Youngblood (23:41)
Mm.
Shit!
Delia Grenville (24:06)
if that's the kind of talk show that you want to be on. Like I've seen some of those talk shows. We know what we're talking about. At least if you came up with me when talk shows were coming up in the eighties and nineties, they thought like more and more ridiculous. you know, exactly. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's a talk show you would be proud of. How about that?
Leslie Youngblood (24:14)
Yeah, Not Jerry Springer talk show test more like overall Kelly Clarkson, maybe
Yes.
Well, and I love that advice and that strategy because especially when you're dealing with a difficult employee or direct report, whether you're the business owner, whether you're a director, manager, et cetera, you, I've been there before, we're like, how do I, where do I start? What do I say? How do I marry the good and the bad? Right? And so to just kind of use that as...
that inspiration, that starting point, like you can to just, yes, if I was going to be reading this aloud on a talk show on Good Morning America, what would I say about this person and be constructive, but still be truthful? Doesn't mean you have to lie, but like, how do you be truthful and honest in, was it like a?
Delia Grenville (25:05)
None.
Leslie Youngblood (25:09)
constructive, right? Like in a way that's going to reach them and that's respectful of that other person as well. And so, yeah, it's not a burn book, but you don't have to be a burn book to make a point or to be constructive with somebody. And so I think that's just so fantastic and a fantastic way of thinking about.
Delia Grenville (25:19)
No.
Leslie Youngblood (25:28)
constructive criticism in a way or employee feedback. And as a business owner or a director, you should expect that too and want it to come from those direct reports as well. It's a two-way street that we're on,
Delia Grenville (25:40)
Yeah,
think, and I think if you set the tone, to, you set the tone, because I don't know what this employee's previous experiences were, but I had a suspicion after I saw some of the behaviors. It was, you know, it was eye opening because even in that tension, I saw they had to, they realized they had to play the game a little bit differently. Like, you know, it wasn't, yeah, because I, just wasn't, it wasn't the place where I was going to lead from.
Leslie Youngblood (25:43)
Mm.
you
Mmm. ⁓
Yeah, I get that. What's a metric that you use now in your business that's personal and maybe different than what others do, but is still equally powerful, Delia?
Delia Grenville (26:17)
Yeah, I think it's like I don't know a name for it and I didn't have time to go through Bernays book, Brené Brown's book with all the names in it. know, like Courage of the Heart or something where she like defines all the leadership names. So I'm going to give you sort of a flash, an edition of things. A little bit of joy, a little bit of positive feedback, a little bit of connection. It's a bit of a bundle. I I tend to pay attention.
Leslie Youngblood (26:36)
Love it.
Delia Grenville (26:44)
to moments that I heard like in conversations and places where I felt energized or I felt that the person I was working with felt energized, places where we were defeated. I like it when clients say, I never thought about it that way before. I think that's an important sort of metric.
And you know, we're talking tough things like, you sometimes and you can sort of bump into people's defensiveness. But when you have people who are like saying, you know what, I never thought about it like that before, or, you know, give me a week to sort of wrap my head around what you're saying to me. Those are things that I think are really positive metrics.
Leslie Youngblood (27:11)
Mmm.
Yeah, I think that's great. What do you help clients or how do you help clients and even yourself break out of that exceeds expectations mindset? I think we've all seen that on a performance review or on whether we're giving it out or receiving it or hoped it was checked for me.
Delia Grenville (27:44)
Yeah, yeah,
gosh, yeah. I'm glad we're talking about this, because I can see now a lot of things that everyone, when you're listening, just take a pause at this particular one and take a deep breath and sort of like let your life flash before your eyes. Because you sort of, when you look at it in retrospect, you sort of realize, my gosh, there's a lot of...
burnout mentality sort of baked in to how this is all set up, right? And we gotta really ask ourselves, whose expectations? Even with the talk show host kind of thing, I think that's what helps you understand, like Emma, as you said, Jerry Springer, no hurt to Jerry Springer, he had his audience, right? And people kept coming back, but is that the show you want or do you want it?
Leslie Youngblood (28:31)
Right.
Delia Grenville (28:38)
Are you only gonna be in a certain channel, so that 2 a.m. for repeats, know? Because there's just so many beeps going through. Are you a burn book? Do you want people to be able to talk about your work when you are, how do they talk about your work when you're not there or when you, you know, those kinds of things. I think that helps us deconstruct what exceeds expectations means. Because I, you you've seen those people who sort of elbow their way through, a lot of people who also,
Leslie Youngblood (28:59)
Mm.
Delia Grenville (29:05)
You know, they talk a lot of chat about other folks in order to get themselves ahead. You know, so we really have to sort of balance what exceeds expectations means in terms of what you value in performance.
Leslie Youngblood (29:16)
Mmm.
Yeah, I think that's so true. it's why do we trap ourselves, maybe like looking at more for employees where I felt like if I don't get that exceeds expectations, then ⁓ I'm going to feel so bad or I have to get that, you know, I have to get that.
Number five, right? I can remember there used to be like one, two, three, four, five and like, right? I want it to be, I'll be fives or I'll just die. It's like, what are you doing? Like for, like for what in a way, but like it was almost like robotic in that sense of like, just check the boxes. But what does that really mean? Like you said, like what type of, does exceeding expectations really even mean? Right? Like, so there's just so many more better ways to.
Delia Grenville (29:39)
Yes.
Yeah.
Leslie Youngblood (30:01)
assess your journey, your professional growth and your professional experience as well as people that you work with and like where they are and where they're coming from and anybody listening the next time you see that at like a shop review you're gonna be like want to rip it up because that's what I would want to do if I I would never use that now.
Delia Grenville (30:20)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's, it's, um, you know, a lot of times I would speak to interns and stuff and I was just like, Hey, you know what, or first few early employees or even senior employees, I go, I think that biggest challenge and I, my practice when I talk with leaders and stuff, we talk a lot about, about a lot about what words mean. And, um,
Leslie Youngblood (30:41)
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (30:42)
I think that fact that they call these things employee grades are really, it's really confusing to people because we're used to doing like a grade a year or skipping a grade. And if you fail a grade, then that would be bad because we have an academic mindset about it, like a school, but where else do you use grades? And here a grade doesn't mean that at all. Like a grade is just a grouping, right? And so these, so that's why I think we feel like.
Leslie Youngblood (30:51)
Yeah. ⁓
Mm-hmm. Right.
No.
Delia Grenville (31:08)
We need to get the A in order to be good in the grade because we learned that at school, but it's not school, it's work. And these grades don't have the same meaning, although they really confuse us by using the same words and then all of our behaviors around that. Some of it, I think, is leveraged to the system's advantage because they kind of want to, striving, striving, striving. But then you got to have to sort of contemplate it as a human being. Like, what does this grade mean? So the first thing is like,
Leslie Youngblood (31:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (31:36)
you're not gonna get through, you're not gonna be an employee grade three to grade 10 in seven years. That's how it works, right? So, right? You're not gonna be, if the entry level is one, two, three or whatever it is, and then grade 10 gets you whatever, then there's some super grade up there, 15, the EBP, you're not gonna get through that in 15 years, and you may not get through any of it. And I think one manager told us quite frankly, she said,
Leslie Youngblood (31:42)
Right. True.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (32:03)
A lot of people here retire, grade eight is in the company that I was in, a terminal grade. Now, hearing those words, terminal, like I only hear that when it's like cancer. But that's an HR kind of terming for, know, a terminology for it, is a terminal grade where your career is, and now those are some sweet six-figure salaries with some beautiful bonuses and some lovely stock options.
Leslie Youngblood (32:13)
I'm gonna go.
Yeah, what does that mean?
Delia Grenville (32:32)
some great, you know, well renowned industry achievements and all of those kinds of things. But you hear that based on what you've learned as a student and you're like a terminal grade. Could you imagine if someone told you that grade six, you know, being the first year of middle school was a terminal grade and people were happy with that?
Leslie Youngblood (32:44)
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Middle school does feel
terminal. Middle school can be very, feel very terminal. I would never want to go back there.
Delia Grenville (32:58)
Exactly.
You know, so exactly. So I think that's the translation. So in my practice, we talk a lot about, what do the words mean to you? And ⁓ it's incredibly enlightening to people. Like when you probe a little bit, they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I didn't even know I was carrying this thought along with me. Is that what's driving me or what people are misinterpreting or it's causing dissonance in relationships or whatever?
Leslie Youngblood (33:18)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, fascinating. I kind of want to pivot now a tiny bit. We're talking about the thinking of, you know, what the all the things that we do and we're striving and we're optimizing ourselves, I think specifically for women. And we touched on this previously in previous conversations, Delia, with ADHD in women and that sense of being optimized for a shit storm. Naturally, we are, but.
Delia Grenville (33:46)
I don't know.
Leslie Youngblood (33:51)
How do we balance that superpower with self-care when it comes to that?
Delia Grenville (33:56)
Yeah,
yeah. So I have so much to say about this, as you know, when we were talking earlier, because I want women to really pay attention. If you have an ADHD, ADHD child, a sibling, a parent, it's possible that you're navigating it too, even if you've never been diagnosed, because Leslie, in the 70s, when they started to, I met someone the other day who,
who was born in the 60s, who was on Ritalin in the 70s as a boy. I never heard of anyone having that kind of treatment in a girl because the studies weren't there. They didn't do the longitudinal study for women until the 2000s. So you can imagine most of gen X and millennials are not diagnosed women with ADHD. But here's the kicker. So many of the ADHD coping strategies
Leslie Youngblood (34:25)
Wow.
Delia Grenville (34:47)
look like corporate gold stars. So staying hyper organized, over preparing, running multiple scenarios in your head, that gets labeled as disciplined or dependable in a business woman. But it's you coping with a different working brain that over time is gonna put you on the fast track to burnout.
Leslie Youngblood (35:09)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's my it's mind-blowing really I mean you it's so much more talked about now and thank goodness that we are and our kids now today are getting the care that they need but Especially as women and as a parent you look maybe as pawn like with the kids like I'm so glad but then you don't even realize you may be Have you might have that too, but you just think I'm a multitasker And I'm a mom and I'm working and I got to do all the things and it's like
Hello? Look in the mirror! Something's connecting the dots there for you. I know we talked about this before. Yeah. How could you know?
Delia Grenville (35:42)
Well, you don't know because how could you know, right? We didn't
know it was like, we didn't even know it was a thing. Like so many of these things that you look up, like I looked up for my son and I was just sort of like, I forget where my stuff is too. Is it, well, I've been, was taught to internalize it, like me not being responsible. So I like make sure I put my keys in the right place and you know, which are all the treat, all the remedies that are the behavioral that you need to change, but it would be great to know.
Leslie Youngblood (35:48)
and
Wait, what? You're right, right?
Right?
You did.
Delia Grenville (36:11)
because that's the sort of secret power, secret sauce to her, the part that sort of unlocks is that it's not a you personally thing that it's happened to. This is just a thing that you have to navigate through life. And so it's not that Leslie is a forgetful person. It's that Leslie is in a syndrome that drives forgetfulness. Okay, I'm still a good person.
Leslie Youngblood (36:24)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (36:38)
I'm doing my best, I'm gonna work along, work around this extra little hurdle that I have.
Leslie Youngblood (36:38)
I heard.
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
For sure. Do you have any other advice for women whose inner voice says, do more, even when they've clearly done enough?
Delia Grenville (36:51)
Yeah.
The ask is really to sit quietly with yourself and try to figure out where that's coming from, right? Because a lot of times it's a habit and we don't know where the habit itself is coming from. A lot of times it's the way that, you know, it's again, the 8 billion people having different experiences. You know, some of us need to...
Leslie Youngblood (36:57)
Hmm.
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (37:16)
to feel achievement is, we feel that achievement is a way for people to see our value and to recognize us, you know, so, or we could leverage our achievement in some ways. And then some of us are just filling a hole that just needs to, know, that's there and that we don't even know that needs to be there. So do more, but ask yourself, what is the more that I'm doing and why? I think is the big question, right?
Leslie Youngblood (37:22)
I'm leaving. ⁓
Mm.
Right.
Delia Grenville (37:42)
Because do more what for why? And then when you start sort of breaking that down for several days, like I told myself to do more here, but why? And what did I miss when I was doing more? Because sometimes, often, it's a trade-off, right? You're doing more emails, but you're missing more TV time with your family. And one thing I've learned about emails is sometimes,
Leslie Youngblood (37:54)
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (38:07)
They're like a stew. It's good for them to sit a little while before responding. Because sometimes they just sort of boil down. Like, you know some of those things you put in the stew and you know you put them in there, but go looking for the cloves. You can't find them there. Boil down into somewhere, right? Sometimes the email does that as well. Or somebody else comes along and answers it. You're like, ooh, I would have put that. I would have given myself more work.
Leslie Youngblood (38:11)
Yeah? Yes!
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Delia Grenville (38:34)
Or now that I see the
bigger picture, I have a different answer. So I think that do more response could be greeted with, ⁓ maybe I can let this do a little bit and see what it bubbles up.
Leslie Youngblood (38:37)
year.
Yeah,
I think that, yeah, that I think is a great transition to the next question is when you're sitting there thinking, do more, where is that coming from? And maybe you've had enough and it's like the Truman show, right? And you are like, I need to get off this set. Like I'm done playing this character, this role. Like what does it take to see that edge of the set and actually walk off Delia?
Delia Grenville (39:09)
You gotta trust your intuition on that one. I mean, I think that's what we saw in the movie, right? Like you start to understand that, wait, wait, wait, wait. You know, well, finally.
Leslie Youngblood (39:14)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (39:21)
That movie is the one where he really starts to think that eight billion people living their own different life thing is like, it's being sort of enacted. like, wait a minute, is this just happening to me? ⁓ Let me check this out. And then he sort of runs some trials to see, you know, how contrived it is.
Leslie Youngblood (39:31)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (39:42)
And I think a lot of times we are going through life in that way. The other movie I think is also Groundhog Day. Like test yourself out on that one too. Like how many times am I just repeating the same thing over trying to get to a right that it's in my head, it's right, right? I mean, that's not the plot of the movie, but that sort of needing to go back through the thing with multiple times to sort of understand, wait a minute, why am I opting for this? Maybe I'm just opting for the familiar.
Leslie Youngblood (39:49)
I know it.
Delia Grenville (40:10)
And that, cause that feels safe to me. And I'm not really pushing the boundaries to see, you know, what else is out there and how this can be, you know, lived my way. So you asked me a little bit about the ruffling of the feathers. think that this is a place where, you know, that sort of feeling that you're at the set's edge often feels like ruffling feathers and people don't want to do it because of that.
Leslie Youngblood (40:13)
Mm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. What? Yeah.
and who didn't.
Right, or like you're also by doing that disturbing their Groundhog Day, right? Like their pretty perfect box, right? And so they get, it's not that they're mad at you, it's like you're disturbing their set, right? Because we're all interconnected and a lot of people I think.
Delia Grenville (40:44)
Mm-hmm.
Leslie Youngblood (40:56)
can't see that or don't want to see that. They don't want to be pushed to the edge or to a different set or to change their thinking. And especially as a leader, as a visionary, as somebody that's driving for something, that's going to happen, right? Because everybody is different, right? There's going to be people in the world who...
don't ever want to start a business, who don't want to be a director or lead a company, and they just want to have a great life and do their work and go home. And that's amazing. then you're going to have the others that are completely different. And we all have to figure it out in a beautiful way.
Delia Grenville (41:29)
Yeah, I think that thing
is the common connecting point to what you're saying is that they all want to live a great life and go home. And I think the CEO wants to live a great life and go home. I think the prime minister of the country wants to live a great life and go home. I think the aesthetician at the cosmetic counter wants to live a great life and go home.
I think that the service workers want to live a great life and go home. I think that's something that's really unifying amongst us. And I think we don't talk enough about that, about how to operationalize that for everyone's life. Because I think no one's tombstone ever says, sorry to be stark folks, but let's just fast forward to the end. But it never says like, wow, he was the best.
Leslie Youngblood (42:12)
Yeah.
Delia Grenville (42:18)
you know, whatever he was at his work, you know, it always says beloved father, know, supportive husband, or, you know, it says, treasured mother or wonderful sister, those are the things that we want to, that's what we're aspiring to. And I think sometimes we get off of our game with that. And when we get off of our game with that, then that's when we, like all the other questions that you asked before, that's when it all gets to be tricky and sort of,
Leslie Youngblood (42:22)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
you
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (42:46)
holding
ourselves to the of the talk show standard and the litmus test of I'm listening to the eulogy of my life. How am I showing up and asking those tough questions? I think that's what gets us to the place that you were saying, like living our own lives and being happy with them and being able to go home.
Leslie Youngblood (42:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, for sure. What's a belief or rule that you've discarded, Delia?
Delia Grenville (43:16)
Oh
gosh, I have so many. I remember you asked that question. was like, which one should I pick? I don't know. It's just sort of like.
Leslie Youngblood (43:21)
Thank
Delia Grenville (43:24)
I think anything that sort of makes us feel.
attached to the scarcity mindset. And there's so many of these little mantras that I mean, I encourage people to sort of catch themselves at them. There are just too many of them for me to sort of single them out. know, anywhere from, I think you have, I have imposter syndrome to, oh, women have to work twice as hard to get half as far. like I mean, there's just, sometimes I listen.
Leslie Youngblood (43:33)
you
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (43:54)
to myself and others and I'm like, well, why do we even wake up? mean, because we actually repeat these little things, attitudes, platitudes. They're so normalized in the culture to help keep us in the scarcity mindset. So I'm just sort of like totally into busting scarcity mindset triggers. Right, like I'm never gonna get this done.
Leslie Youngblood (44:01)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (44:17)
Well, maybe in the timeline that you want or yes, exactly. Yeah. Or maybe it isn't your time. Or maybe it's not something you're supposed to do. There's all these other ways to look at this. don't be feeling like time is the only metric here. Because that's what I think the scarcity is like.
Leslie Youngblood (44:20)
I don't have the time. You don't want to make the time, right? And... Ooh!
Delia Grenville (44:41)
These little sayings sometimes may focus you so much on one vector or one point of view that you totally are not looking at all the other places where there's spaces to go up or down. And sometimes, sometimes the actual word for you is the first thing you have to teach a puppy in training. Leave it. If this is not for you, leave it.
Leslie Youngblood (44:46)
Mm.
Yeah.
Bye!
You can
leave that.
Delia Grenville (45:08)
When you said to do more and your brain needs to say, leave it.
Leslie Youngblood (45:11)
Wow.
Right,
and there's no, like there's that, like what a beautiful, simple thing, like, and don't be attached to it, just leave it and go on to the next, just leave it, just go. It's that simple and that hard, but like truly at the end of the day, I mean, right, just leave it. And with anything like, right, that's not serving you or doesn't feel right and true to you, whether that's in life or in business, and it is so difficult to remember that, but that is so important.
love it. Well Delia, thank you so much for joining us today. Before we wrap up, I would love for you to share where people can stay connected with you and find you in SLIN Consulting.
Delia Grenville (45:49)
Sure, if you want to stay connected with me, please go to my website. It's actually my name, so www.deliagremble.com. You can also listen to my podcast, which is called To Live List. It's good, I know, because I was the finalist in the American Writer of Awards for podcasts last year, so yay. I don't have a lot of episodes, but the episodes I have put together
Leslie Youngblood (46:10)
Amazing!
Delia Grenville (46:17)
is really a repository that I use often with my clients. So it's sort of like if you want to get sort of the coaching mindset and some of these conversations, I think it's a great place to go to listen as I talk to some amazing women. All of them, guess so far, just like yours have been women and I think the conversations have been wonderful.
Leslie Youngblood (46:21)
Mmm.
Delia Grenville (46:37)
You can also check me out on LinkedIn. I do respond to my DMs and I'm not, I also have a TikTok page which I would encourage anyone who's wanting to build themselves up in turn with workplace respect and figuring out how to get out of tough environments. I've dedicated sort of my TikTok page to those kinds of conversations and videos and that kind of thing.
I have another website you can also go to which is called workplacerespect.com. And again, that's sort of, know that there's a contingent of folks out there speaking to some of the things that you and I just spoke about today, Leslie, where they're just sort of like not in the place of trying to figure out how to say leave it for themselves yet, and they need to figure that out. And I wanted to make sure there was an entry level conversation to some of those kinds of experiences.
Leslie Youngblood (47:18)
No, no, No, no.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Delia Grenville (47:29)
And ⁓
as most of us are also going through, know, transformation to getting to experiences that are more us being ourselves. hopefully I something for everybody in those spaces. And I'd love to hear from you.
Leslie Youngblood (47:38)
Yeah. ⁓
Perfect. And we'll also drop those links in the show notes too. So everybody listening will be able to stay connected with Delia. Thank you so much for joining us today, Delia. Fantastic conversation. I know I got so much out of it. I'm gonna think about what I can leave it later today too, cause I know there's something. And everybody listening.
Delia Grenville (47:56)
Exactly! I know, right? Those puppies,
teach us so much!
Leslie Youngblood (48:03)
Yes, I love puppies, but they never leave it. So yes, I'll
take my own advice to those cute little puppies. And thank you everybody listening for joining us. We'll be back again soon with another Serious Lady business. Cheers, Delia.
Delia Grenville (48:15)
Thanks Leslie.