Tanya LaBuick: Forget What They Say

Lisa Laronde  0:00  
Tanya, welcome to the powerhouse project, a podcast celebrating remarkable women who inspire, innovate and leave a lasting impact. Today's guest is Tanya la buc, a globally certified project manager, leadership facilitator and certified business coach. Tanya is known for being a fair leader with a knack for building high performing teams. She's also hilarious and extremely down to earth. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Tanya LaBuick  0:28  
Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Lisa Laronde  0:30  
I actually saw you speak at the cavec conference in September in Niagara, and I remember you started with your number one rule, fuck what they think. So I thought maybe we could start with, what did you mean by that? Well, I,

Tanya LaBuick  0:43  
you know, it comes up a lot in my life, actually. And I just, I had a conversation with somebody yesterday about one of their kids who got cut from a sports team and and I always think about my life, and my life in sports, where all that kind of started. And, you know, getting cut from a team is just one person's opinion, and so fuck what they think, right? It doesn't mean it's the end of your career. It doesn't mean it's the end of the road for you. It's just a different decision point, right? And so I'm a firm believer that people are allowed to have their own opinions, and lots of opinions about me, I'm sure are out there, but I get to pick what I'm going to believe and who I'm going to believe, right? And I get to also prove them wrong. I think that's our opportunity as well. So yeah, just a chance to reconfigure your brain and refocus and, you know, you don't have to believe everything everybody says. I think

Lisa Laronde  1:31  
that's just so important, because I really hear that all the time, and I even say, you know, it's really important when I talk to some young women that you know you should be fired, because then you learn that really, it's not the end of the world. You can pick yourself up and, you know, maybe even you find a better or or an opportunity that's more in line with your career goals. So I think we, we really do believe all the negative things that people say about us, and sometimes I don't think we believe all the positive things that people say about us. So I think that's just awesome advice. So did you start in sports? Is that how your career started?

Tanya LaBuick  2:01  
Well, depends on how you look at it, I suppose. I started in project management, and that's really what kind of led me into sport and construction and a variety of other avenues. So I always think back like when I graduated from high school, even when I graduated from university, project management wasn't really a thing necessarily that existed, maybe outside of construction or even the IT industry at that point, because I graduated from university in 93 right? And like, even getting computers and emails and cell phones in the workplace was all very new. And so I was the social convener when I was in junior high school, and I coordinated sports tournaments, right? Which was, I look back now and I and I loved it, and it was something that I just kind of fell into easily, right in the coordination and logistics and stuff. And so I can see where that pattern started in my career, and then that just kind of fed through, you know, I graduated 93 my first, I call it, my first real job was 11 bucks an hour, and I was the project coordinator for the Brandon aboriginal youth conference. I live in Brandon, Manitoba. Yeah, I did as well at that time, and I was the sole employee, and there was a board, and I got the job, and they gave me the venue in three months, and I had to coordinate a conference. Holy cow. And so it was a great learning experience for me. I had fought very hard to get that job, so I was pleased to get it. And also at that time, you know, the the early 90s, work was not plentiful, so you you had to work when you could find work, right? And everything was very competitive, lots of contracts, lots of term positions, there wasn't full time working positions with pensions and all the things that my parents have had. So I really kind of had to find my own way, and I knew that when I did that, that that would open the door for other things if I did a good job there, because there'd be lots of exposure in the community. And then I just, you know, I got other jobs and didn't necessarily love them, and and the Canada games came to my town, so I applied, and was lucky enough to get on and that kind of really kind of launched me into high level sport coordination and work like that. So

Lisa Laronde  4:11  
did you have a business at that point in time, or you just applied as a to work there?

Tanya LaBuick  4:16  
I just applied. Applied. I applied 10 times, and I got one interview, and I placed second in the interview. And the only reason, well, I don't know if it's the only reason, what I was told, is that their mandate was to hire local and there wasn't enough of a point gap between myself and the person who placed above me, and they didn't live in Brandon. Wow. So I got the job, yeah. And it was life changing for me in tons of ways, right? It was, that was really my first kind of career role, lots of responsibility, you know, money, coordination. How

Unknown Speaker  4:50  
old were you then

Tanya LaBuick  4:50  
I was when I got hired. I got hired in 1995 so I was 20 just about 25 just shy of 25 and. So that's really when I kind of started in that. And then, you know, just went after it like crazy. And so what was your role with the games? So at the Canada games, my original role was Community Services Coordinator, I think, long time ago, Lisa. And so that's I did that, but then I did Community Relations Coordinator, that's what it was. But I also carried the media portfolio for a period of time before they hired somebody in to come and do that. They would have been too large for me, but, you know, locks, I had the mascot program.

Lisa Laronde  5:33  
Now, did you have experience to do it? Or did you just want to participate? Or, well, I

Tanya LaBuick  5:39  
love sports like you know, so I've always kind of loved that. I certainly have a passion for the Olympics. But I had worked very extensively in our community, so I did that, that Aboriginal youth conference, and then I did. I worked for the y and I did. I worked in a program called the stay in school program. So I worked in and out of the schools. I was the chapter lead for the society of depression and manic depression. I was part of the John Howard society, and I was a certified at a court mediator for victim offender conflict resolution. I ran different workshops that were days and days long, that were both in community, that we would bring inmates from our local jail into that and so I was heavily, heavily invested and involved in the community, so that, I think, with my project management experience and that it just was a natural fit for me to be able to take that on. But it was kind of a crazy portfolio in lots of ways. When I look back now, I think it was just kind of, they're like, We don't know where to put that. Let's put that in. You know that portfolio put that in there, like I had trademarking, I had mascots, I had the newsletter, I had our official song, which had to be in both languages, of which I do not speak French, I'll tell you that right now. And I had singers that did not speak French. So I had to find singers, you know, somebody, to coach them in French to be able to say it properly and sing it properly, then I had to find a production studio and like, Where the heck is that? And how do you record a song? And we made CDs, and I tell ya, so there is so much opportunity to learn in that job. It was crazy.

Lisa Laronde  7:14  
That's awesome. Now, did you start your business after that?

Tanya LaBuick  7:18  
You know what? I actually didn't start my business. So my consulting business, lab, Bucha and CO, I started after the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics. Prior to that, I was just an independent I just got hired on and traveled all over the world and did things, and I did a little bit of work, kind of like as a contractor, so to speak, and and, you know, did that one to one with organizations, but I started to form my business after the Salt Lake Olympics, and then I did a bunch of things trying to convince myself that I could fit into a regular type of job. You know, I tried government jobs. I mean, I tried lots of different things, and finally, just went, you know what, like you're just, you know, this is not fulfilling for me, and probably for the employer as well, right? Although I've always tried to do very good work, but I was bored, and I think they knew that, and lots of times they don't have enough work for folks like me who want to work like that, you know. So that's when I kind of started le Burke and CO, like, officially in 2014 like, really, like, named it and got a brand, and, you know, got incorporated. And, like, I really, kind of, I decided I was going to do it. So I did it. So now,

Lisa Laronde  8:27  
did you have people that advised you, or did you learn on your own? Or how did you just go about saying, Okay, this is what I need. I need insurance. I need to incorporate. I I need to market myself. Marketing

Tanya LaBuick  8:37  
comes pretty naturally to me, for, you know, what I've done in my history a lot, but certainly the incorporation, the taxation, you know, all those kinds of structural things when it comes to business. I've been blessed with some very, very good people in my life who just said, Hey, right, well, so now we're going to do this, and you need to do this, and here's the difference, and here's why to do it. And I was very much the decision maker, but I had a really strong group of people around me who would advise me, and I had some really good mentors in the sport arena, you know, that gave really great advice. And

Lisa Laronde  9:13  
I think we talk about that you need to find your community and the people that you trust, because really, the journeys, you know, it's lonely, and you can definitely, you know, go down the wrong path. I've talked to a lot of very successful CEOs, and they all say, you know, they've failed first, and they declare bankruptcy, and they had to crawl out of the hole to, you know, start all over again. And sometimes I think you look at people who are successful and you go, I want to be just like him or her, and they don't understand just how difficult that road was to get where you are.

Tanya LaBuick  9:42  
Oh, absolutely, you know, it's also, I think, for me, part of the lessons I've learned, and obviously nowhere close to being done learning anything, but it's respecting what I know about myself and what I feel about things and. And learning the difference between, holy shit that scares me to that's not a good fear, right? Like this is, this is a danger thing like this is a risk that doesn't feel comfortable, that could be, you know, injuring to my company, or whatever that is, versus, I'm just nervous and scared. Because scared is not bad, it's hard, right? And hard is not bad. It's just hard. So trying to figure that out in my own head as to, like, you know, what are those things I'm feeling around why is this causing me angst, right? And who are the people that I trust and can talk to that know me and know me well enough and know my work ethic and my dreams, and have seen my career history and things. And can really speak into that and go, Okay, you know, let's just reset for a second. You know, even now today, I have a couple of different business partners and, and equally, can, can offer that out to me as well. So I'm really lucky in that aspect, for sure. And I

Lisa Laronde  10:55  
think that's important that, you know, I think being nervous and scared is positive. I think that means, you know, you care about what you're doing and and I think you need to take risks. But I also like that you can have, you know, people that you trust to say this is probably not a path that you want to go down, or this is toxic, and you need to maybe pay attention a little bit more, because it's actually going to lead you down a path that you just don't want to go and that'll end up, you know, detrimental to everything. How did you get to the point that you could actually, you know, determine whether this was going to be a healthy one or not? Well, probably

Tanya LaBuick  11:27  
trial and error.

Lisa Laronde  11:31  
I wanted secret answer.

Tanya LaBuick  11:34  
There's been a few hiccups, no question along the way. The biggest mistakes I've made is when I really didn't trust myself to know what I wanted or what I wanted to do, and I made decisions based on what I believed other people wanted for me or the shooting. You know, don't should me right? Like you should do this and you should do that, like, based on things that weren't really honoring who I am as a person or where I really thought my energy would excel, you know. And so I think as you grow older and you have different experiences and different exposures, you either choose to get real with that or you don't, right. And for me, it just became very heavy to stop paying attention to those things within myself and and I don't always ask for advice. Probably I should lots of times when I don't and I'm a bit headstrong, have a bit of a wild spirit in lots of ways. I like risk. I really like calculated risk that I can think. But I'm okay to take a chance, right and think about those things, but I probably wouldn't like I own my own consulting business, and then I'm a partner in a couple of other businesses. I'm not the person that's going to mortgage my house and everything to start a business, right? Like I have a friend, he's 100% that he'll mortgage everything, and he's like, he believes in the idea, and away he goes, right? And he's found great success with that. But I'm not that kind of entrepreneur. I don't take those kinds of risks. Honestly, I would tell you, it's because I'm I'm a woman, and I've had to take care of myself, right? And I'm not willing to risk the very things that I've worked hard to bring comfort to my life and security, just for an idea, right? There's got to be a different way to do it.

Lisa Laronde  13:14  
I agree. I'm the same way. I love risk, but it has to be calculated, and I have to basically understand where we're going. What are the risks that are associated with that? How do we mitigate it? You know, what's the upside? What's the downside? So, and I think, think that's really important. What I do find I struggle with a little bit is when I'm trying to present ideas or a vision or a change in direction, that sometimes I don't feel like, depending on the room that I'm in, which is typically white men, I just feel like my voice isn't being heard, or that I have to actually, like, prove out my ideas. And that's to me is, you know, I think at this point it's just frustrating in my my career, in my life, that I'm going I know what I'm fucking doing. Like, at some point, you got to give me some credit for that. Do you experience some of that as well?

Tanya LaBuick  13:59  
Absolutely. Actually what I experienced the most because I'm a managing partner in two different construction organizations here in our town and and what I find the most is that my credibility is really not based on what I know or what I do or how I perform. My credibility is based on somebody else's credibility giving me the nod, yeah, that's what I find within even like my partners, you know, them giving me the nod to, you know, let me come in as a partner, was certainly part of that. But even around our boardroom table, you know, the other partner that works in our business is a male, right? And if I have an idea, you know, there's lots of situations where, you know the first answer is no, but if he like, goes, Oh yeah, okay, then everybody's in right and and I think that's that I've seen and felt often.

Lisa Laronde  14:51  
So why do you think that is I just It happens all the time, but I'm not sure what the reason is for it, or how we change it. Well, I

Tanya LaBuick  14:59  
live in F. Fairly small. It's a city, but, you know, we're urban, but we're fairly small. And certainly in our brains, we are a small town still, you know, and so in the context of here, where I live, I think part of that is just evolution. Now, I just yesterday, actually shot a video I had nominated a colleague of mine for an award, and she won. So I I did like a little video for that. It's for a Community Service Award, and what the gentleman that did the video said to me is, there's a real theme of women in business in Brandon who win this award. That's who wins that award. So I said, now they're running their businesses, and they're doing all this stuff, and they're supporting the community and doing all this, right, yeah, so that's relatively new. And I asked him, actually, to go back and tell me when that started. And our chamber of commerce here, you know, for the first time in the history of the chamber, and it's 147 years old, it was three years ago that there was more women than men on the board, wow. But that took a concerted effort by the chamber and the board and the presidents to actually look for women who are in those positions. And the chamber is kind of a different board. You need to have enough time to be able to sit at that table and have those conversations. So you have to be at a point in your business where you can do that. I mean, if you're just starting out, or you're the sole person in your business, and you run a restaurant, you know, lunch hour meetings are not great for you, right? Yeah, so it has to be a certain point in your career. And I think Brandon's at a point now where we have quite a few women in leadership and in business, where we can, we can do that. But prior to that, I think very traditional roles, you know, the caregivers in the home, certainly the caregivers for the elderly. I see that often, and just a lot of the work and the businesses here were all run by men. So I think it's just still pretty new, which sounds crackers when you think I know, but I think it's still pretty new to have a woman's voice at the table? Yeah, I 100%

Lisa Laronde  17:03  
agree with you. I know we were talking about women on boards, and they were saying, part of the problem is, you know, to attract women to be able to attend some of the meetings, if they're holding them at eight o'clock in the morning, and you have young kids and you're trying to get them out for school or to daycare, or, you know, you're hosting them in the evenings, I think we need to actually start looking at if we want to attract women to some of these roles, and it's not a drastic change, it's just it didn't matter before. And now I think we actually just have to look at who do we want to attract? Because I think it's so so important to have a diversified voice at an executive level, at a board level, I think we just bring so much to the table. We just have to change the way that we do things. And it's interesting. I was elected to the Ontario road Builders Association board, and I think I'm the fourth woman ever to be on the board, then they've just actually elected somebody else, which is awesome. So now I think we're starting to see that change, which I'm surprised that at 2024 we're still having this conversation, but I've had a conversation, actually at the Cabot conference, of saying that now, not to be offensive, but the white men are going underground because it's not cool now. But so what do you think about that?

Tanya LaBuick  18:07  
Well, I have a hard time feeling bad for the white man, and I like, I live and work with a great deal of white men, and I have nothing against when I actually respect them, and I actually, you know, they're the grandfathers of where I live, right? They've really built the foundation of this city and the businesses and the culture all that kind of stuff. So have great respect for that. But I think what I've learned, and what I I believe to be true, is that you don't know your own privilege, right? And I know that because I don't know my own privilege. I'm sure things that have been easier for me than other people based on a variety of factors that I am unaware of. So you don't know your own privilege and equality feels like oppression to the privileged, right? Yeah, because they feel like you're taking something away from them. So the balance of that equation is difficult. And I, you know, I see that in running a business and having a staff and stuff trying to keep, you know, things fair. And people are like, but I earn more money for the business, and I'm like, right? But you can't do your job without these people. So, you know, although the value, necessarily, of the dollar that you bring in, you know, the ability to keep that dollar, or whatever that is, you know, that lays on the shoulders of many other people here, right? Yeah, I think what I'm seeing, or what I mean, I'm not a scientist, or any of those things, for sure, but definitely not a scientist. But it's the balancing of that, right? It's the balancing of that, that that white men are feeling very oppressed, and I think sometimes, you know, we go too far in the other way, right? And you think of a pendulum or whatever, right? Kind of, we do an over correction, and then it kind of comes back again. So we they might be experiencing some of that, and that might be really real for them, but I'm not a way, man, so I wouldn't have those front facing feelings necessarily,

Lisa Laronde  19:56  
right? We put all of our employees through equity 101, training, and that's really. Where I learned what you just said, you know, I came from a place of privilege, and I didn't really understand that. I was a woman in construction, a woman in leadership. Nobody was giving me any respect. My journey was very difficult. People were trying to get me fired. But then, I'm a white woman. My first language is English. I came from a middle class family, although my father was an immigrant to the country, you know, we lived in northern Ontario. But then I'm like, Oh, look at how privileged I am. And if you take now a black woman in my situation, I have way more advantages than she does. So I agree with you. Don't we don't know what it's like to walk in each other's footsteps, because I just heard actually, Coors Light has disbanded their dei committee now, and I'm hearing a lot of that about sustainability. And yeah, di which is my favorite beer. I'm very sad because I can't drink it anymore. Do you think we're starting to change now? Do you think that people are looking at dei now is as not a profitable way to do business, that it's a cost center or an overhead?

Tanya LaBuick  20:52  
That's a very good question. So we're small, we don't have dei departments. I mean, I think if you look at it, you could consider that it's just becoming more ingrained in the culture of business and what we do. So you don't need departments like that then, right? Because it is just part of how businesses are run. Yeah, that's true. So I think, I mean, maybe, you know, that's the positive aspect of it. I also think it's like anything. It was a bit of a trend. It hit the market everybody, and everybody was having conferences and calls and new positions, and you're the CEO of this, and you're this. And I think we have a tendency to just jump on all these bandwagons and do these things and go, Well, hang on a second. Do we actually need a department? Do we, you know, is this fall into something else? Where does it make good sense? So I think it's just really the evolution of any kind of new ideas, how we it's just how we manage it, which just seems to be full force, you know,

Lisa Laronde  21:44  
you know, it's so true. And I really feel like di is a journey. It's, it's no destination, and I think it's, it's how you implement it into your organization. And I know I talk a lot about it, because it's obviously, you know, women in leadership and women in construction and skilled trades is very, very important to me, very passionate about it. And I talk a lot about, you know, I hear, you know, I just hire the best person for the job, and I go, I understand that, but you have to also understand that women are not applying for the jobs, and so you wouldn't know that you have the best person for the job if they don't actually ever apply for it, and if you don't have representation. Because that's what we're struggling with a little bit in in the road construction, is we don't have a lot of women field workers. Where do you go after that? You know, do you become a four person? Do you become a superintendent? Are those available to you? But we are starting to see all women crews. Now, I think things are starting to change. I'm hoping,

Tanya LaBuick  22:33  
and I think also, again, with the privilege and the biases and the things that come into that you're probably not taking into, not you, but anybody who's reading resumes and stuff, you're not taking into consideration that you're weeding people out based on biases that you have, that you're completely unaware of. Yeah, right. You don't even know, you know, I've heard in the construction industry, well, we can't hire her. She's too pretty. You can't put her in the field, you know. And I don't think that's a sexist remark, as much as that is a concern for that, that female in the field, you know, having worked in the field, and what they experienced, their cognizant of what that could do. So I think comments like that, which again, comes back to how we look instead of what we provide and what we can do, you know. So there, I think there's just a really long road. I also think with dei that people could, you know, it's like, feminism, right? People were like, well, what is that? Yeah, women want more things. So I'm like, Well, I don't think it's quite that simple, you know. So I think the same thing with Dei. It took off, it had all this, this heat behind it. But I think probably people don't exactly know what it's supposed to do in an organization, you know, what is it exactly about, and what's the benefits that you see from it? So kind of drilling it down a

Lisa Laronde  23:43  
little bit well, and they're saying, I read the there's a McKinsey report out there that says if you have women on your executive team, you're 20% more profitable than those companies that don't have a woman on your executive team. And they're saying now, if you don't have a diversified, not necessarily executive team, but senior leadership team, that it's actually more costly. So I think that that's interesting. And I say, you know, it's about just having different opinions and different ways that people think. Because if you're, if we're all like minded, and it's the same thing, if we're all, you know, white women sitting in a room making decisions, we're all going to agree with one another. But if you put in these different perspectives, it's just things you haven't thought about. And I just think it's better to have people challenge your some of your assumptions that you just didn't think it's like, driving the same route to work every single day, and then someone says, Hey, this is a faster route. You're like, Oh, I just didn't know. No,

Tanya LaBuick  24:33  
I agree with you. I mean, I tell our team all the time, I don't need a team of pitchers. Yeah, you know, that's everybody can pitch. That's great. But who's playing the rest of the positions? Right? Like, I don't positions right? Like, I don't need pitchers, and I think, you know, I just have had a very blessed career. You know, when I worked for the Olympics, certainly, and even other higher levels events in sport, diversity was just absolutely part of us, because there's. People from all different countries and stuff. So it was just kind of part of the fabric of what we were doing, although, depending on the country you're working in it, you know, a dominant quantity of those folks, right? Which makes sense too, yeah. So I think it was never a thing for me, in a lot of ways, because, like everybody, we were just all there to do one thing. And you know, everybody worked towards that thing, that event, or whatever the thing was that we were doing right and and so I think I probably not, I'm blind to it, but probably have just accepted things along the way because of it's just, I mean, it's just what we did, right? Yeah,

Lisa Laronde  25:36  
how do you think women have different strengths that they would bring to the leadership?

Tanya LaBuick  25:39  
Oh, absolutely. I can tell you that we think differently. I have three male partners, and, yeah, I think completely differently than they do. It's quite funny sometimes, like, something will come up, and I'm on the very other side of that conversation, right? And I mean, I think you could unpack that three ways from Sunday in terms of, you know, socialization and, like, where I lived, and all that kind of, I mean, I think there's lots of influences, right? But at the end of the thing, I just think we're wired very differently, and that's not a bad thing. You know, I'm far more analytical, but that's probably my personality versus my gender. You know, one of the things I do notice for sure is, if we're going to hire somebody, I'm always at a lower salary. Is where I've started that person, right in my brain, I go, Well, I think this, and they're always like, at least, at least five to 10 grand higher, yeah. And what I came to understand with my journey with them is that that's because that's what I would have gotten paid, yes, right? So they would consider me low balling them, but I wasn't low balling them. I thought I was paying them fairly, because that's what I would have been paid. Yeah, right. And so when I figured that out, I was like, Okay, well, one, I gotta ask for more money. And two, right? Like, that's a bias that I have in hiring, right? And so have to really kind of consider that in the market. And you know, anytime we hired people, I would look at, kind of what the the going rate in the market was, but I never thought about it gender wise, and women will take less. We like to work like the jobs. We're like, that's fine.

Lisa Laronde  27:07  
I'll do it. Yeah, and that's worldwide. They're saying now it's not only gender based, but it's because it's also job title. So you're doing the same work as, like, say, a director, but you don't, you still hold a manager title, so you're making the right salary for your job grade, but you're actually doing the job of a director. So it is interesting how we're starting to at least identify some of the inconsistencies and start to change them. Or the other thing is, is to talk about it like we are, and empower women to find out what you're worth. That's what's really, really important, and then go back to your manager and say, Hey, for this job, I can make X amount of money

Tanya LaBuick  27:39  
and be willing to walk away, yeah, if they won't give it to you, that's the hard thing, right? I

Lisa Laronde  27:44  
know, yeah, I

Tanya LaBuick  27:45  
think we don't ask for more money. You know, we take what we're given, because that is how the world has been set up, right? It's really been developed and orchestrated and put together, certainly, my world, by white men. And so they built it for, like, I don't think for us. And so we kind of got grandfathered in, in some ways, let in the door, you know, all those things we had to earn and ask for and stuff like, I mean, it wasn't even a crime to rape your wife in Canada until like 1986 for heaven's sake. Like crazy, you know, you know those so those things, I think that has a, just a an evolutionary timeline for us to really be equal. I mean, if you look at the Middle East and that, you know now they have to be all covered. They can't speak, they can't walk alone on the street, they can't read, they can't write, they can't go to school. So the idea that it can't all be taken away is just a fallacy. So we have to continue to have the conversations, and continue to even be brave enough to have those hard conversations with the people that you know were asking for more money or whatever. Like, I've been underpaid, I can't tell you how many times, because I had no and no way of knowing. Like, how was I going to know?

Lisa Laronde  28:48  
And you know what happened to me was when I got a raise, the men that were in similar positions all got the same money as I do it, but I had the bigger division. I never I never understood it. I was like, Okay, wait a minute. But I still think that this was a VP who started, he got hired more than what I was making. So I said to my thank you every single day because, because you couldn't make more money, because you reported to me. So every time you got a bump, I got a bump, it worked out quite well for me. But it's interesting. When you look at that like it really none of that makes any sense. What's the worst that can happen? They just say, No, yeah, why not go out there and ask? I talk at Big talk now, but I never did ask for more money. Yeah,

Tanya LaBuick  29:22  
I have now, but I think it's a confidence thing. I think it's we don't believe that our work is worth that. And I think for me, certainly not knowing the market like I had no idea what would be paid, and my market was contractual rate, so it was, you know, come and go, come and go and but also didn't value the skills that I had gained throughout the time to be able to ask for more. Yeah, so, yeah, finding good counsel on that too. I also, I mean, we don't complain the same, you know, I know. And we do things because we think, well, that's, that's the right thing to do, and that's what I would do in that situation, and that's what I would. Expect someone to do for me. I think we do that a lot, but that's not really how it works.

Lisa Laronde  30:05  
So I know, and I just, I think, you know, when you apply for a job, I just think I'm gonna get paid fairly for the work that I'm doing. I didn't think that I needed to say, hey, you know what? I can make this money over here. So why aren't you paying me the same amount of money? So just find out what you're worth. And those are very easy conversations now I think, to have, and you can even, you know, if you have an HR department, start there, just saying, jobs at this level, you know, doing this kind of work, make this amount of money. So, so where do

Tanya LaBuick  30:29  
you go to find out that that amount, like, where would you go? Would you go to salary surveys? Would you

Lisa Laronde  30:35  
for me, personally, I tell people just go on to indeed, they now, legally, you have to post job grades everywhere. Now, the other thing that it does for you is, I think it gives you that confidence that you're marketable. Because there's nothing worse than being in a situation where you know, I always say, anybody in my organization, you're going to know that you're going to be fired. Because we should have had multiple conversations up until that point. You can tell, and I like what you said earlier, is you know you want to work in an organization or with people that you know support your core values, and if it's sometimes, there's a change, there's a change in leadership. You don't like the direction. I'd say, hey, you know, this isn't the place to work. We shouldn't have to get to the point that we're saying that you're blindsided, that you don't you think that you're doing a good job, and we don't think that you're doing a good job. That shocks me, that we have those conversations. You should know that things are not going well.

Tanya LaBuick  31:20  
Yeah, I agree with you. I think you should know, and I think your lack of knowing is maybe your lack of ability to be honest with yourself doesn't make them any easier. But again, hard, it's not bad, it's just hard, right? So we have to separate what that is. You know, hard isn't necessarily bad, it's just hard.

Lisa Laronde  31:36  
I agree. I'm going to use that actually. We always like to end our podcast with the same question as, what advice would you give your younger self? That's

Tanya LaBuick  31:44  
a great question. It's hard to look back and think about what I would have told myself then, because I do believe that it's a bit of a network. Your path, right? And so, yeah, you might get off the path one way, but you get back on at another point. And yeah, and so I'm grateful for where I am today and everything. But I think what I would, I would tell her, is, don't believe that you aren't normal, because you don't want to have the things that other people have that look like you and come from the same place you come from. You don't have to subscribe to what their normal is. For them, you go find your own.

Lisa Laronde  32:28  
I love that. Tonya, thank you so much for sharing your incredible story with our listeners today, and I'll always remember rule number one,

Tanya LaBuick  32:35  
fuck what they think it's a good rule. Thank you, Lisa. It's been a pleasure. You

Lisa Laronde  32:39  
can learn more about today's guests in the show notes, and if you know a woman in leadership or the skilled trades, please send in a voicemail or a message on the website at the powerhouse project.com follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And thank you so much for listening. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai