A Bridge To Mentorship & Beyond

Rachel Cossar: And welcome to another episode of conversations in the future of work. I am your host, Rachel Cossar, and I am thrilled to focus on a really important topic today with a phenomenal woman and friend, Ebony Beckwith. Welcome. Hi. It’s so good to have you. Would you mind just sharing a little bit about yourself, you know, your your your past lives and and what you’re focusing on now with our audience? Sure. 

Ebony Beckwith: I have been in corporate America for over twenty years, and now I’ve transitioned to owning my own business, a consulting firm. And, really, what I do is I speak about the part of success that no one hands you the playbook for. How to navigate change, how to lead with intention, and how to thrive inside of complex systems. And, really, what I feel my work helps people do is it really helps them see around corners, to help them see what’s really going on beneath the surface of leadership, culture, and career growth so they can stop hoping and really start moving with clarity. And I feel it’s the work that I was born to do. That’s amazing. Awesome. 

Rachel Cossar: There’s so much in that that I’m excited to expand on. So, I think why don’t we start pretty high level? Because you have some powerful stories from your own journey in terms of, you know, seeking mentorship and advice and seeing it really turn into ROI and impact real impact. So what are some of the ways that, you know, you you have seen and experienced, mentorship and advisory services really work? Yeah. 

Ebony Beckwith: So I think mentorship, first of all, isn’t just about advice. It’s about for the mentor, it’s about pattern recognition. And a great mentor helps you see what’s coming around the corner before you actually hit it. That’s very important. But to make that relationship meaningful, the mentee has to show up with some clarity. So some questions I find really helpful for my mentees are, like, what are you working towards? What are you struggling with? What kind of support What actually help you move that needle? And if we’re talking about advisory services, especially for founders or, you know, new executives, impact starts with trust and access. You don’t just want somebody who’s smart on paper. You want someone who understands your context and someone who can help you really zoom out. Someone who’s not just solving today’s issue, but who’s helping build the capacity to solve tomorrow’s issue for you. I should also point out, Rachel, going back to this, ment mentor mentee relationship that I don’t expect my mentees to give anything back to me, which is not to say that I’m not learning or taking anything away from my time with them because I totally am. But I want them to know that the time that I give them is about them. And the real gift is watching them grow and knowing that one day, they’ll turn around and lift someone else up. Yeah. So it’s so interesting. 

Rachel Cossar: I I have, like, a spin off question from this based on my own experience with with mentors, and also as a mentor. But I love that you mentioned that there’s both, like, a responsibility on the side of the mentor, but also on the mentee. The mentee needs to kinda show up with concrete things they’re trying to solve for. Mhmm. But at the same time, you don’t know what you don’t know. And sometimes you, like, are looking to a mentor to kind of almost help you formalize, like, what it is you’re trying to work on. I don’t know if that makes sense. No. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah. 

Ebony Beckwith: Like, that’s something that I’ve struggled with with mentors in the past. 

Rachel Cossar: Sometimes, like, you show up as a mentee, and then the mentor is like, so, like, how can I help you? And you’re like, oh my god. I don’t even know where to start. You know? Those are sometimes the best. 

Ebony Beckwith: And I mean, I’ve been mentored. I’ve I’m I mentor others, and I know what I’ve been in that proverbial kind of hot seat. It feels super uncomfortable because I’m a mess, and I really I feel like I’m a mess, and I don’t know where I’m going and what I should be asking. But really good mentors can help tease that out. Right? Yeah. And they can ask those questions because, again, they’re helping you see around those those corners. They’ve been there. They’ve done that. They’ve been in that same seat that we’ve been that we’re in right now. And so they can help draw out, like, where are you going? What do you wanna do? How they how you can use them best? So I think one of the the best ways to, you know, approach it if you’re feeling like that is to maybe find someone who you can be a mess with, you know, to be vulnerable with maybe as a different way to to say it. Someone where you don’t feel like you have to posture and come with all the answers. No. And just let your, you know, kind of let your hair down and be real and know that they’re they’re there to help you, not for, you know, for you to be perfect. Right. Absolutely. 

Rachel Cossar: And was there do you remember, like, the moment where you realized that you could also mentor someone else? Like, I I sometimes I I find that people can get stuck in, like, this. Like, oh, I need a mentor. I need like, I I’m I need help. I need help. And then you almost forget that or you don’t realize that you actually now, at some point, have a wealth of knowledge that someone else could benefit from, and you kind of, like, can shift into yourself being a a mentor. Do you remember, like, that moment for you? I don’t remember that moment. 

Ebony Beckwith: I have been mentoring and, you know, helping others for a really long time. One of my first volunteer job was, was a kind of like a mentor position, for a girls, organization. And I was a journal session leader slash mentor. And and it’s nice when people, you know, wanna seek your advice. Right? And as I moved into the professional world, it became like a thing. Mentoring was a thing, and I loved it. And anybody who knows me from my Salesforce days knows that I dubbed myself the unofficial CMO and not chief marketing officer, but that’s the chief mentoring officer. And I honestly think that more companies should have, like, programs like that or positions like that unofficially, maybe. But, but people who are really invested in seeing helping and seeing others grow because when you have that at companies, you can scale. Right? It’s not a soft and squishy thing. It’s how you scale and grow impact, knowledge, community, and so many things that, organizations are looking for. Right. Absolutely. 

Rachel Cossar: And, that kind of brings us to this next question, kind of moving into the work that you’re doing now with framework in your consulting firm. Like, how has what what’s that transition been like going from, like, corporate America to running your own consulting firm? Well, it’s been both liberating and clarifying. 

Ebony Beckwith: You know, when you’re leading inside of a large global organization, it teaches you how to operate at scale, how to lead through complexity, manage high stakes dynamics, drive alignment across fast moving teams, and, you know, competing priorities. Like, the list goes on and on and on. You learn so much on someone else’s dime. And that experience sharpened my instincts and really stretched me as a leader in ways that I am just deeply grateful for. But when you’re running your own shop, there is just nowhere to hide. Every decision comes back to you. You are not just setting the strategy. You are the strategy. And for me, the hardest part isn’t the business mechanics because I’ve I love that. It’s the part that comes very naturally to me. Yeah. Business strategy, operations, that is my love language, at least my work love language. Yes. It’s for me, it’s managing my energy and my focus. I mean, I’ve had to be so much more intentional about intentional about how I spend my time, who I partner with, how I create more clarity for others when I’m still charting the path. Right? And honestly, Rachel, sometimes I cannot sleep at night, not because I’m stressed, but because I am so excited and I just cannot shut my mind off. I’ll have an idea for a keynote, a product I wanna test, or a new way to serve a client. And that kind of creative freedom is super energizing for someone like me. Yeah. That’s awesome. 

Rachel Cossar: So did you did you find that in, like, the first period after leaving your, like, nine to five that you, like, all of a sudden just, like, had no structure that you had to be able to create that? Yes. From going from a very structured Yes. I knew what I was doing every day of the week. I knew which days are staff meetings. 

Ebony Beckwith: You know, my bosses staff meetings were at my staff meetings. And when I was, you know, when I was having lunch, I mean, it was so there was so much structure. And really, I created that structure because from my teams, we had a rhythm of the business. That’s what we we built so that we could handle the surprises. You know, so from going from all that structure to, you know, working from home and building my own company, I had to I had to purposely build structure back in after a while. I mean, I loved being, you know, on the structure. And then I was like, okay. Wait. This is isn’t working for me. Now for others, that might work. It just didn’t work for me, and I’ve had to, you know, put the calendar back together and, you know, act like I did before, and build the processes and the systems that work for me. Totally. Yeah. I remember. 

Rachel Cossar: So when I used to dance with the Boston Ballet, and I retired in 02/2016. And, like, I will never forget that feeling of, like, the total evaporation of not not only, like, structure, but, like, for me at the time, orientation. You know, I just had had everything so focused on one goal for my entire life. And then all of a sudden, it had, like, went out the window, and I was just, like, in a vacuum. You know? Yeah. And, like It’s like it’s like a roller coaster ride. Right? At first, it was like, woo. It’s like Yes. Fun and exciting. 

Ebony Beckwith: And then I was like, oh my gosh. I’m scared. I’m terrified. 

Rachel Cossar: Yes. Totally. Yeah. And, like, the realization too that, like, if you’re gonna strike out on your own, it’s it’s up to you. Like, you have to define so much more than what you had to define when you were under, like, an umbrella of an organization. You know? Even though, like, it’s all very different, but, like, that one thing, I think people don’t talk about as much, the, like, disappearance of structure almost that you have to if you’re, like you said, if you’re someone who does need structure to kind of feel grounded, you, yeah, you have to kinda, like, build that from the ground up if once you strike out on your own. That’s right. Yeah. So this is a little bit of a convoluted question, but I think we can we can we can get there. There are a number of things that you talk about. Right? And, when it comes to workplace workplace culture and understanding workplace culture, like, where does, how do you, like, define the successes of that or work towards specific successes? And then where does operational excellence come in to either support that or, you know, help define some of that? Like, can you talk about those three those three elements and how they all work together? Sure. 

Ebony Beckwith: I’m gonna take a step back and go back to what I said in my opening. So I believe that there’s the handbook you get when you join a company, right? Your employee handbook, right? And then there’s the one that you have to decode for yourself. And that second one is where the real power lives because the success of any organization isn’t just about the talent or output. It’s about understanding how systems actually work, how decisions are made, what gets rewarded, what doesn’t, how influence flows, and then what’s not being said out loud. So when I talk about decoding workplace culture, I’m talking about the ability to read the room, understand those power dynamics, and then move with intention inside of complex work systems. And that’s a skill that I believe anyone can be taught. Mhmm. So when we then switch to operational excellence, it’s often framed in terms of systems and execution, and rightfully so, because that’s a piece of it. But in my experience, the best run teams aren’t just efficient. They are super aligned. And that alignment only happens when people understand the culture they’re operating in and how to navigate it. So those couple of things go together for me. And then we talk about seeing around corners. I’ve said it a lot today. Seeing around corners is about anticipating what’s coming before it hits your desk. Right? Yeah. So whether you’re a founder or an executive or leading a team, your job is to spot patterns, connect dots, make decisions before things break in a bad way. And that ability, that ability to decode and anticipate is a foundation of every strong leader I’ve ever worked with. Right. Right. 

Rachel Cossar: And do you think like, how much of the work that you have done previously in your work within within corporations was kind of spent? Like, do you think it’s possible to have that unwritten playbook be written, or is it mostly, like, a series of questions? Like, we how can people think about that? I think it’s both. 

Ebony Beckwith: You know, I’ll go back to my Salesforce days. You know, Marc Benioff is an an amazing example of a leader who when I talked about the, you know, that ability to, you know, spot patterns, to be hyper aligned. He had a system for it. At Salesforce, it was called the v two mom vision, values, methods, obstacles, and metrics. The entire company was aligned around it. Mhmm. You know, so I think, you know, there are things that you can do as a as an organization, as a CEO, as a leadership team to get folks on the same page and to start building a great culture. I also think back and I shared this story recently, you know, what at a at a place I spoke. And I remember my Salesforce onboarding, which is now going on, what, fifteen, sixteen years ago. And there were a 117 of us in, this room, conference huge conference room, and we were from all over the world. And we weren’t just being taught the systems, you know, use, you know, Zoom for meetings and Workday to enter your time, you know, we were taught culture and leaders from all over the organization came in and were like, we’re greeted us. We’re so happy to meet you. They spent time with us. We volunteered at the end. We went out for dinner. And so I think that there are I mean, and I never forget, like, 117 people in that class. We were from all over the world. We had an amazing instructor. I can still recall his name. I can still recall some of the leaders who came in and speak spoke to us. We had it was just it was top notch. Yeah. And so when I think about, you know, my onboarding experience, which led into, you know, my first day. It was like my first week at Salesforce. Right? It stuck it stuck with me all these many years later, and I feel like that is building the foundation of what I’m talking about. So I do think that it can be not maybe not written down per se, but it can be transmitted and coded, you know, codified in a way that is scalable. Right. Yeah. 

Rachel Cossar: That’s a really interesting thing, I think, for our audience to consider, you know, depending on the size also of the company, in question. Right? Like, what’s appropriate? And, also, I think some things probably must start to because there’s always a time when you’re small and the culture is actually just the relationship between the few people who work together. Yeah. Right? And then once that does expand, you have to ask the questions of, like, what what how do we wanna package this and and almost, like, bottle it up and then teach it. Right? If it is something that’s really working and that’s really indicative of the of where we work. Right? 

Ebony Beckwith: If it’s something that’s meaningful for you or something you want or something you want to keep or something you want to do in the future, I definitely think you you know founders, CEOs, leadership teams need to think about that and think about how do you preserve that. Even if it’s a small team, you know, one to five, you know, 15 to 20, you know, if it’s that you take everybody out to dinner, you know, on their first day or take them a coffee or you do something within their first week, or you have them read a certain book or I had homework for Salesforce. I mean, I was like, no girlfriends. I cannot go, you know, to wherever we’re gonna go this weekend. I need to do my homework. I need to show up prepared. I was excited. I got you know, I can remember all the stuff I got and my, like, welcome package. I was so pleased to start, and I feel like that’s just the feeling you want your think about the feeling and the experience you want your employees to have. That is half the battle of the unwritten rules. And then you have someone tell people, even if it’s like a, you know, one to 20 size, person company, you know, here’s how we do things. Here’s how decisions are made officially and unofficially. There’s the meeting and then there’s the Slack thread. You know? So just opening up that, like, those layers of visibility to people, I think is really helpful. Yeah. Yeah. It’s very inspiring. 

Rachel Cossar: We’re, we’re in a, like, our early growth stage now at virtual sapiens. And so I’m, like, like, nerding out overall these things, like, gloomy things on the calendar. Like, you know, it’s really funny. And it also you know, you have to think about, like, as companies are also still, you know, trying to understand their balance between remote, in person. You know, what does that look like? And then how does that also how do you support that from from this perspective as well? Mhmm. Right? So it’s all very like, to me, the this is kind of the fun part of running a company is getting to think about the human aspect and how humans relate and and all that within the work that we do on a daily basis. That’s right. So the last question, I I think, is really interesting because, you know, I I’d love to hear, like, how how you define and what you refer to as as framework or as a framework, and how how is the notion of one relevant to operational and personal workplace success? Okay. 

Ebony Beckwith: So let me just first talk about kind of where framework came from. So framework came from, just years of watching brilliant people really just stall out on their careers, not because they lacked talent, but because they didn’t have this playbook that we’re just talking about. They didn’t know how to decode what was really happening, what was going on around them. And after spending these years inside of these high performing teams, I realized that what was missing for people wasn’t effort. It was just the clarity that we were talking about. So that’s where framework was born. I wanted to create something that made the invisible rules visible and then a way for people and organizations to understand all those things that we talked about earlier. And then the name for framework is very intentional because a framework gives you a structure without limiting your flexibility. Right? And it’s a tool for alignment, for knowing what matters, for what to focus on, and how to move a purpose. Because whether you’re, you know, whether you’re scaling a company or navigating your own career, you need something that grounds you when things get really chaotic, and that’s what a strong framework does. So when people ask me, like, what is framework really about? I tell them it’s not about handing, you know, people all the answers because that’s not really what I’m here for. Most people have most of the answers they need. Yeah. It’s about giving you a tools toolset to navigate the complexity complexity, to move really strategically, and to lead with impact no matter your title or your industry. I feel like you can do this regardless of all any of those things. That, makes a ton of sense. 

Rachel Cossar: And how I’m just actually curious. Something else is coming up for me now as as you kind of share these definitions. But where does, like, where do you see kind of mentorship you’ve described? You’ve described advisory, like, advisory services and support. And then, like, where does coaching like, where does coaching come in to it for you, and how is it different from what we’ve already discussed? 

Ebony Beckwith: So mentoring and coaching I mean, for me, coaching is something you pay someone to do. Mentoring is something you don’t pay someone to do. Those are really the differences. And, and so in in coaching, you probably have a formal structured agreement and you have, you know, really set objectives. Now for me, if you’re being mentored by me, you know, you always get homework. You’re gonna have things to answer to. So, I don’t know. But for most, mentoring, it’s it’s funny. It may not be as formal, may not be as structured unless you’re at a company that has a formal mentoring program, which is wonderful. Or you’re saying with to your mentor or mentee, you know, we’re gonna meet quarterly. We’re gonna, you know, have these objectives, which I think is also really amazing. 

Rachel Cossar: So sometimes it can look very similar depending on who your coach and mentees are. 

Ebony Beckwith: I’ve had mentees who were like, I wanna meet with you like this, this, this, this, and this, and they’ve got it all together. And those are the ones I love. Yes. And then there are others who, you know, are like, I don’t know. Help me. Yes. Totally. Right. I love those two. Yes. That’s totally. Yeah. That’s so funny. No. 

Rachel Cossar: I just asked because, yeah, I think there’s, like, a lot of interesting dialogue going on right now between, like, what is, like, what is especially as we see AI come into the space, you know, and we see some people using AI as a coach. Right? Or you know? And and so defining those spaces and different types of support is interesting, because I think you also see it a lot even within, like, the coaching space. Like, what is coaching and what is therapy? Like Mhmm. Right? There are all these, like, different buckets where different types of relationships kind of fall. 

Ebony Beckwith: And I think they’re all gonna start to we’re gonna see it all start to bleed together. And I think that they can all play together really nicely. I do think, I mean, AI is amazing and what it the power of what it can do to help us and get us started. But I do think that you you, you know, if I’m a founder, if I’m a CEO, if I’m a, you know, someone in my career who wants to move forward, I do want someone who’s been there, done that, and who can really help me see around corners and help me, experience and navigate through kind of the complexity of work, and not not just AI alone. I think AI is really powerful, but I I really do wanna turn to a person and say, okay. I’m going through situation x. Yeah. What are your thoughts? Totally. Yeah. 

Rachel Cossar: Yeah. No. I I agree. I think that that, like, there are some things that AI does really well that AI can do better than humans, especially when it comes to just, like, on demand access to, like, like, scaling certain thing. But then but the human layer of, relationship and experience, I think, is, especially in these spaces, so important. And especially when you’re trying to really discover your own authentic voice, it can be helpful to have a human to kinda help help you figure that out sometimes. Mhmm. You know? And then the empathy. 

Ebony Beckwith: And then when you’re, you know, when you’re dealing with, you know, successes and messes, you know, sharing the joy and then maybe picking you up after you’ve maybe had a disappointment, you know, it can be really great to go to a mentor or a coach, for a pep talk or, you know, some cheerleading when you need it. Totally. 

Rachel Cossar: Ebony, anything else you would like to share with our audience, whether whether our audience is thinking about doing some mentorship or or maybe there are people in the audience who are looking for some mentorship? I would say go for it either way. 

Ebony Beckwith: I I think, you know, no one no one succeeds in isolation. Everyone needs help and everyone has something they can offer. So regardless of where you are in your career, you know, you have you have the time and energy to give back more than we probably think you do, even if it’s to to check on someone, to say someone’s name inside of a meeting, to advocate for someone, who may not be in the room that you’re in, you know, pick a person and, you know, you know, decide you’re gonna speak their name in a room or pick a person and reach out and ask them how they’re doing. And I think that’ll that’ll go a long way. If everybody just did that once a quarter, we’d be we’d be so much further along. Yeah. Absolutely. Awesome. 

Rachel Cossar: Thank you so much, Ebony, for taking your time and and sharing all this with us. It’s been really interesting. What’s the best way if people wanna follow more of your work, what what’s the best way for them to do so? 

Ebony Beckwith: They can check out my website, leadershipframework.com. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much. 

Rachel Cossar: And, of course, as always, thanks to our audience for tuning in. We’ll see you next time.