“The Mayflower project represents, I would say, the best of IBM…but not just the best technology, the best of our people.”

Jaena Kim
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

I’m Jaena Kim, Longitude Fellow from the University of Ottawa. Today’s episode features highlights from a conversation I shared with Carrie Bendzsa, the US Markets and Regional Communications Leader for IBM Americas.

Carrie is also a shipmate of the Mayflower Autonomous Ship’s IBM Marketing and Communications crew, aka The Mayflower, which we explored for our Imagination series to learn about the roles of individuals and their experiences that brought it to fruition.

As a law student, I was especially interested to hear about the communications-related logistics and teamwork behind launching a project as innovative and unpredictable as the Mayflower. But first, we started our conversation with how Carrie discovered her interest in English and journalism.

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Carrie Bendzsa
I always liked telling stories growing up, and writing. I couldn’t get enough of reading and writing. I got interested in journalism as a career option back in high school, really. I thought that would be a lot of fun, writing stories, going around the world. So I went to Carleton for journalism, did a double major in journalism and English. And when I came out, I ended up getting a job in public relations and communications with Corel Corporation. The PR managers who worked at Corel at that time, no one wanted to write press releases, so I ended up writing all the press releases for a year for everybody in the department. And I really got to know the company and work with the executives and the communications team. And it was fun. That sort of started my corporate comms career.

Jaena
Yeah, I see, just doing a quick Google search of your name, you’re always affiliated with- when IBM needs a spokesperson, I find that you’re always on the press release. Or there’s always something that you say, and it’s always so incredibly worded. And I wonder if in part, it comes from your journalism degree.

Carrie
I think that journalism degree really helped in communications. At Carleton especially, I mean, fantastic journalism program. They gave us the skills, I think, initially, to synthesize content, and get the content prepared in a way that a publication would want to see it. And that has helped on the reverse side, being in communications, understanding what journalists are looking for and their needs, and in trying to kind of meet in the middle with the corporate statements we do provide or the corporate materials we do provide, because at the end they’re trying to do a job and create a story. And I maybe have an old fashioned view of communications, but part of my view about communications is it’s our job to help them shape that story.

Jaena
Would you mind telling us a bit about your role as manager of US external communication? What are some of the responsibilities and what do you do on a day-to-day basis?

Carrie
Some of the responsibilities on a day to day would include a lot of reading and observing what’s going on in the market. Seeing if something is becoming an issue in one area or another, whether we want to pitch something there, whether we don’t. Reaching out to journalists, having coffee chats with journalists, working with my team, putting plans in place, looking ahead at the next couple of months, what campaign work we’ve got. IBM communications focuses on five different communications campaigns. All of our activity falls under AI, hybrid cloud, business growth, good tech, which would include our skills development and education initiatives, and then quantum innovation. I take a look at the materials that come from the corporate teams, and then see what would apply into our area of the market, which is US markets and regional communications. So we take a slice of the US where our top clients are headquartered in, where the largest number of our employees live and work as well, and we focus on those areas. So we pitch journalists, we write op eds, the whole gamut of external communication.

Jaena
How do you approach challenges or conflicts that arise within your team, because I can’t imagine it’s easy leading a big group of people.

Carrie
It isn’t, you know, everybody thinks they want to become a manager. And then they realize once they become a manager that it actually is tough. It requires work and investment in people. And it requires someone to actually care about the people you work with and want to help them grow and achieve success in their careers as well.

I became a manager at a very early age back in my career, I think I was 26 when I managed my first team. I was younger than everybody on the team that I managed. And that was, you know, when you’re 26 that’s… I felt awkward. There was a little bit of imposter syndrome there. You know, how can I at 26 manage people who are older than me. And I think just by being myself and being authentic and really genuinely interested in the people that I work with has helped along the way.

In terms of challenges, I’m a fairly laid back person. I really focus with my team on empowerment, because that’s how I like to work, making sure they’re empowered, they have what they need to do their jobs, and they can easily do their jobs. And having a fun environment too, from a team perspective. That said, there’s always challenges, whether that’s on the personnel side or whether that’s on the business side. And I learned a long time ago not to make too much of a fuss about challenges. You just have to step back, put yourself in someone else’s shoes, be willing to learn and to listen and to find a common solution to the challenge, and sometimes challenges become opportunities along the way. You can usually twist them and lead to a positive outcome.

Jaena
So you’re also part of the ProMare Mayflower Autonomous Ship project. There would be no ship without the technical crew of scientists, engineers, programmers, but without marketing communications, the world certainly wouldn’t know about the Mayflower as well we do. Especially I think the Uncharted episodes, they were so cinematic, it was like watching a mini Netflix episode, but also so informative, and learning not only about the technology, but the struggles and the success. Would you mind telling us how you got involved with the Mayflower project and what your role is?

Carrie
Sure. This is interesting because about two years ago- and this ties into my regional role. A part of what I do on the regional side is I look into the region’s places, like Atlanta, or Austin, Raleigh, and look for local stories that we can tie into. I was doing that. And I was looking at some content that our systems university had put in place in Atlanta. So I was going through the agenda of this systems university and there was this session on Mayflower Autonomous Ship, and I stopped at that. Well, that’s neat. So I went into the section, pulled it out. And at the time, IBM had just started getting involved with the group from a very focused area of our business, our systems team and hardware team were involved. So I started talking with the project lead, who was in France, and we got to talking. We got connected to the ProMare team, and built out a narrative or overview in our content and corporate storytelling team because I thought this story had a lot of potential. And the corporate team picked it up. And then the UK team, we had a chief storyteller, Jonathan Batty, over with UK team, he picked up the project and started to frame it out as we went along. So the Mayflower project represents, I would say, the best of IBM, because along the way  it has grown from what was maybe perceived as a system story. Now it’s an AI story. It’s a weather company story. It’s an edge computing story, and it showcases the best of our technology. But not just the best technology, the best of our people. Because what started as something that that might have been maybe just UK-US actually has people working on it from Poland, from Canada, from all around the world. There’s this group of people we have come together with who are like minded and passionate about the project and have built it that way.

Jaena
Did you have any interest or prior knowledge about ocean research? Or were you just like, I see potential, and it was just the right time at the right place?

Carrie
The right time at the right place. I saw the potential for the story to be more than it was, and to tell the story early. At first when I brought it up, we were met with a bit of resistance, I have to say, because people said, Well, let’s just wait till the ship makes its voyage. And then we’ll talk about it when it’s successful. But luckily, my colleague Jonathan was very like-minded and saw the potential and started to build a story from what this could be, the steps along the way and whatnot. So we both had the same thinking that this could be much more than just that “oh yes, we made the voyage” story, and added in research projects and all the different connections. The research team has just been fantastic. I think there’s great potential to do some real good for the world through the research that’s going to come out of this ship.

Jaena
That’s very exciting. So I’m currently a first year law student at the University of Ottawa. And I come from a music background, so I’m not really knowledgeable on the law yet, but it is my aim to learn, and a passion of mine is environmental law. And so the Mayflower project really resonates with me in terms of what it can do. So it really sounds like you kind of took a chance. You heard about the Mayflower, you saw its potential. And if you were met with resistance, you know, you still believed in that potential. And I think that’s really remarkable to hear, because a lot of people, including myself, nowadays are very risk-averse. If we don’t see something definitive, we tend to hesitate away from it. So is that something you draw from your past personal experience? Is this some philosophy you have for yourself?

Carrie
I think one of our executives said along the way—and I believe this—you learn from failure, right?  Some of the best learnings along the way come from failure. And if I think back about my life, some of my best life learning has come from where I failed, and then gotten up. And that’s how you build resilience, right? You get back on your feet, and you learn, and you adjust, and you keep moving forward. And this project was kind of like that as well. It was worth taking the risk. And there’s an attitude at IBM, with the people who got involved in the project, that the risk was worthwhile, that we could always overcome the risk by learning from a failure or a setback each step of the way. So that kind of spirit of innovation, I think really helped move the project along.

Jaena
I love that you mentioned innovation because I know you were the two-time recipient of the IBM Marketing and Communications Forward-Thinker award. So I think it’s safe to assume you know a little something about innovative thinking and good leadership practices. What is your approach to effective management? I know we talked briefly about, you let things become learning opportunities. But do you have any leadership philosophies that you truly believe in, that you’d like to share with up and coming professionals?

Carrie
I’ve been working really hard, I think, on the management side, to become a more inclusive leader. I think along the way, I recognize myself, in my early years of management, I had this idea about management that it was hard for me to trust people. So I would just do it myself and take on more work. And then as you grow and progress, you learn that you have to be able to trust your team, and empower them. And part of that empowering comes from delegating, and giving them things so they can feel like everyone’s contributing to the whole. So that’s kind of grown, I think, from back in the very early days of management. And you learn along the way that success doesn’t come from individuals, it does come from teams. I played sports, a lot of team sports, in high school and then beyond high school. And I have a set of girlfriends that still get together now who I played volleyball with for 20 years. From all being that connective tissue on a team sport team, you can take that same philosophy into the business world. And that is what makes a successful team is everybody’s doing their part. And you pull on everybody’s strengths. And everybody has different strengths that can contribute to that equation, and then progress together. And if you can get that right on a team, then you can do wonderful things.

Jaena
Great storytelling is very crucial, obviously, to catching the attention of readers, especially nowadays, when everything is so readily available online. I guess in terms of creativity, do you believe it’s innate, or it can be learned? And my second follow up question to that is how important do you think creativity is for the modern professional and students of today?

Carrie
I think creativity is critically important. And we need to actually build it in our schedules, because everybody’s busy and things are coming at you 24/7, which doesn’t leave a lot of time just to step back and take the thinking time that’s required to be creative. So you’ve got to give yourself that right. And if you can’t give yourself that, then build it into your schedule. I’m a big fan of what they call deep thinking and deep work without distraction, so that each day you carve out a portion of your schedule where you can actually get into something without having text messages and social media or emails, and put that all aside and actually go deep on a project or an initiative, I think you get better work that way. And the same with creativity. You’ve got to just allow yourself the space and the time to let your mind go and bring new thoughts, and meet with different people, and bring in different ideas to projects as well.

Jaena
Do you do any specific exercises that help nurture that creativity? I know you mentioned meeting new people.

Carrie
Meeting new people is a big part of it. Learning from people with different points of views is huge, right? Because you know, I’ve got my set of experiences, but if you can bring three or four other people together with a whole different set of experiences, it’s even better. You get to a better outcome. I like doing design thinking and going through the design thinking process and using that as kind of a backstop for a new project initiation or whatnot. I use sometimes tools like Mural, where you can do a whole bunch of sticky notes and just do mind mapping, and kind of think visually how things could come together. But usually the best creativity is when you can get a larger number of people contributing, and getting those thoughts together. It’s important to realize that I’m an introvert at heart, so I’m not the best in brainstorming sessions, yet everyone immediately goes to brainstorming, I think when you think, oh, let’s creatively brainstorm on something, that doesn’t always work for me. And as a manager, I have to be conscious, too, that the people on my team may be introverts, their best ideas may not come out in a brainstorming session like that. So we have to give everybody opportunity to contribute in whatever way they’re most comfortable with. And sometimes that means allowing for more time, so that those ideas can surface and people can bring them forward.

Jaena
That’s very surprising that you identify as an introvert at heart because, well, one, I would not be able to tell, but two, I feel like even my own personal experiences with the best managers were the ones that self identified as introverts. And so was there anything that you worked on conscientiously to break out of that shy shell and be able to partake and speak up?

Carrie
For me, I have to schedule time to give myself breaks, thinking breaks if you will. I have some days where I have back-to-back meetings, 14 meetings a day. I can’t have too many days like that. Consciously, I have to fix my schedule to address that and to make sure I always have enough energy to bring. Early on in my career, I used to get the constructive feedback that I was too quiet, because my voice is rather quiet. I won’t be the most aggressive person at the table in any room. I much prefer the kind of the smaller conversation, smaller group interaction. So I have had to work on that, and come to the table and make sure I actively participate and let my voice be heard. So that’s something I’ve worked on throughout, just to say something when you’ve got something to say and don’t hold back.

Jaena
Is there anything else that you would like to share with us or anything that you deem would be helpful?

Carrie
I think from my perspective, the key to success has always been being collaborative, being curious, and loving learning. Learning about new things, new people, new projects, new initiatives. I think if younger professionals can embrace that sense of continuous learning that they will be really successful in the workplace, in any workplace. It’s just that,  never lose the sense of curiosity. That’s critical for success.

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Jaena
Are you a young professional or postsecondary student that can relate to my worries of being the most perfect version of myself at all times? I’ve been tempted to invent time travel to jump forward into the future and bypass the journey getting there. That’s why I’m grateful Carrie highlighted for us today the importance of learning from failure. Getting back up when you fall down is more important than focusing on never falling down in the first place. The more we get back up, we’ll build resilience, grit—and both are invaluable tools to have on the pathways to one’s personal definition of success. Don’t forget to draw inspiration and learn from the people around you as Carrie reminds us too, and the power of collaboration. You can look to the Mayflower Autonomous Ship for exemplary teamwork.

I’ll definitely be taking Carrie’s sage advice with me into the hallways of law school.

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