“Women in leadership,” “women in tech,” “Women’s History Month.” This framing positions women as outsiders, but the reality is that women have long been serving in tech and leadership, long before we had the words for it. Tune in with host Jennie Brooks as she sits down with mobility coach and Community Engagement Lead for Booz Allen’s Women’s Employee Community, Amie Price. Together, they explore what it’s been like for Amie to be an early adopter of remote work, the growth that is possible through affinity spaces, and how being “mobility curious” can be leveraged for greater flexibility, adaptability, and retention of talent, whoever they may be.
“Women in leadership,” “women in tech,” “Women’s History Month.” This framing positions women as outsiders, but the reality is that women have long been serving in tech and leadership, long before we had the words for it. Tune in with host Jennie Brooks as she sits down with mobility coach and Community Engagement Lead for Booz Allen’s Women’s Employee Community, Amie Price. Together, they explore what it’s been like for Amie to be an early adopter of remote work, the growth that is possible through affinity spaces, and how being “mobility curious” can be leveraged for greater flexibility, adaptability, and retention of talent, whoever they may be.
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together Podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with a diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Unstoppable Together Podcast. I'm your host, Jennie Brooks, and today, I'm excited to be joined by Amie Price. Amie splits her time between serving in a traditional client-facing role, and also, as a mobility coach supporting employees who are looking for their next role at Booz Allen. Overall, Amie's been with us for 22 years, with 10 of those years serving in a fully remote role, which I'm excited to ask you about today. Amie's also an outgoing co-chair of Booz Allen's Global Women's Business Resource Group or BRG. And in her free time, she works with corporate women as a leadership coach. Amie, welcome to the podcast.
Amie Price:
Thank you so much for having me, Jennie.
Jennie:
I'm really looking forward to this conversation. We're celebrating Women's History Month, everyone. As you may know, it was International Women's Day last Friday, March 8th. What you might not know is that one of the themes for Women's History Month this year is inspire inclusion. So, today, we're talking about inspiring inclusion, and we're going to talk about women in tech, and working remotely, and serving in leadership roles, supporting other women, and maybe some of the things you might not always think about. Amie, to start us off, I really want to pick your brain. It sounds like you were working in a remote role way before that was a thing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Amie:
I sure can. Thank you so much for that question. Yeah. I actually went back to the office full-time in January of 2020 after being a part-time and virtual worker.
Jennie:
Oh, no.
Amie:
I know. Right before a shutdown? I know. So, my decision to go part-time initially was because I was a military spouse, a part-time reservist, and a primary caregiver, and we were moving a lot. So, yeah, I was virtual before virtual was cool, I guess, or before it was really acceptable. And my clients and truly some of my colleagues had to be convinced that I could contribute virtually.
Jennie:
This would've been like 2010 timeframe, is that right? Yeah.
Amie:
Yes, ma'am. Actually, earlier than that. Probably 2005 is when I started moving, and we moved from Sunny Garden location spot to Sunny Garden location spot where we had no Booz Allen people, so I was a lone ship.
Jennie:
Okay, so you're a military spouse?
Amie:
Yes.
Jennie:
And how frequent were your moves roughly, just for folks who might not be totally familiar with the model?
Amie:
Sure. I moved four times in six years.
Jennie:
Yeah. Wow.
Amie:
And two of those moves were overseas, so once to Germany and once back. And thinking, because I had career managers who were very interested in clients for that matter, who were very interested in keeping me on the work, and I was able to contribute virtually, but I felt like I had to work really extra hard to continuously prove that I was worthy of that exception.
Jennie:
Can you share with us a little bit about... I have so many questions about this. Because there are still military spouses and there are also caregivers, often women, but not always women, caregivers who are now also coming in and out of remote roles, still moving around, but navigating the conversation, albeit might be different today versus when you were going through it all those years ago, I think there's still a number of things that people are trying to navigate in terms of the conversation or conversations, the roles, how do you deliver? Tell us a little bit about how you navigated those pieces.
Amie:
Back then, it was really hard. We didn't have the tools we have now, like Webex, and Teams, and Zoom. I had a telephone and email. And so, many times, I was the only one dialed into a call while everyone else was together. So, it was incredibly isolating and although we do have all those tools now, I think it's still very isolating for our geographically-separated employees. I think if you have no touch points, then you don't feel a part of a culture. So, we have to work really hard to reach to those teammates that are far from our hubs.
For a long time, I was far from the hub. I started in San Antonio, and then, started all that moving I talked about, and landed here in the DC area. And gosh, what a difference. I think communicating with our teammates and our leadership, what we're going through is important, and then, doing the good work. I did the good work, but I hid all the background messiness. And I think now, it's important to bring what is happening in our lives in an appropriate way to our leadership. Let them know what's going on, let them know what motivates us, let them know what challenges us, and then, work through that together because that part about delivering excellent client service, I did that the whole time.
Jennie:
Going back to there are plenty of online courses that are really great that touch on the latest technology trends, the innovation sector, specific capabilities, really, there's a lot out there to choose from to just keep building your technical acumen. And I have never been shy about calling some of the functional experts into the room and being humble enough to just ask really elementary questions.
Amie:
Awesome.
Jennie:
A number of my own mentors in my career, certainly recently, have also been with the specific objective of, hey, help me build my technical acumen in this or that technology or capability and just getting on the phone with them and talking through use cases or what the trends are, what we see out there. So, there's a number of ways to, I think, keep that active for people to consider. I wanted to also go back to something you said around mobility. Tell us a little bit about the conversations you have today with people or leaders, women in particular, around mobility. What are you hearing and what's working well that people might want to know about?
Amie:
Sure. I think there's two ways to think about mobility. We work in a consulting firm, so there are times that we are required to change what we're doing, that our rules change contracts end, and that is one form of mobility where we become part of the talent pipeline. One of the things that I'm doing in my market is working with teammates that have found themselves in those positions, hopefully, with a little bit of lead time, to really help them find what's next, what their next role is here at Booz Allen? And then, the other part of that is what one of my colleagues calls mobility curious. You're not required to leave your position, however. You're interested in doing something different, growing your role or stretching into a new field.
And this has been very interesting too because I think it used to be at Booz Allen, and I've been around for a thousand years, so I feel like I can speak to used to be very well, it used to be that your principal or your people leaders picked you up and put you in a role, and then, when that role ended, they picked you up, and they put you in another role. And the firm is really going away from that. They're really trying to put people in the driver's seat of their careers, and that can be exciting, and that can be daunting.
So, what we're trying to do is really support those people while they're looking, whether they're in that talent pipeline bench scenario or whether they're just looking for their next role, supporting them in that journey, and also, supporting their people leaders. It can be very stressful for career managers or job leaders to have someone that's suddenly losing their position, and they want to help but they don't know how to, and things have changed. So, that's my role is to really help break that down, manageable steps, one foot in front of the other, and help people find that next exciting role at our firm because they can walk. They can walk with their feet
Jennie:
Hopefully, what people are also grabbing is the idea that there's adaptability, there's flexibility. It's not sort of a standard model that one has to fit into, but rather, they can find themselves in a number of varying models and stories, if you will, or journeys much like your own. This idea that, I think, there has to be sort of perfection, sort of this standard, you go back to when you were working remote work remotely before it was even a thing. Just the idea of breaking that mold of everyone has to be in the room to provide a contribution or to have a valued contribution.
So, we talk about the idea of perfectionism, and I think when we talk about our business resource groups or employee affinity groups in particular, those really, increasingly in my view, it's not just a place to go have a nice conversation and engage with people, engage with other women across a firm. Increasingly, this really can be a space for us to trial different models, to share some of these emerging trends or things we're hearing. How are we talking, the mobility curious? That's a new one. I'm picking that up today. I'm carrying that forward. I had not heard that before. Tell us a little bit about that role within the BRG, and what we can find there, and some of what you're seeing in that space in those conversations.
Amie:
Absolutely. This topic really resonates with me because as I mentioned, for some time, I shied away from certain roles because I did not see myself as the perfect fit. I really underestimated myself, I think.
Jennie:
Very common, right? Very common. You're not alone.
Amie:
Yes. And I think not only did I underestimate myself, but I allowed my colleagues to underestimate me a little bit. And I think I take that a bit as my own. I was part-
Jennie:
That's a lesson learned, hey-
Amie:
It was a lesson learned. And part of it was, I'll just be frank, I was working part-time, and at the time, the way to make that next step was proposal work, and proposal work just didn't work for me as a primary caregiver. And living in Germany, I was already working zany hours with my Texas client. So, I think I just didn't see myself as that perfect leader, and we just can't allow that to happen. Each of us were hired not to be some robot consultant that wears the same thing, and does the same thing, and says the same thing. We are hired for what we bring to the team. And as leaders, I think we need to model the idea that the whole self is welcome, and we need to talk about what those challenges are that I suggested earlier, and use our individual voice, and speak up, and share our stories. Because if we don't come to the table authentically, then no one will know us and be able to use all the wonderful things that we bring to bear.
So, I think employee communities like the BRG are so important for trying on those firm-wide leadership roles, both from a technology lens and an identity lens. Like if we encourage our employees to come to those forums as they are right now and try new things, and it's okay if it doesn't work out, we're here to collaborate, be creative, we together, I feel like by doing that, we're inspiring that equity and inclusion in the workplace, and showing that it really works. And I credit the Women's BRG for empowering me to lean into some of my own skills. Ironically, how I ended up at the BRG was that over the years, leaders in my pyramid would send people, mostly women, to me to mentor that were looking to find a better work-life harmony.
And one of those women is the one that put me in for the role of co-chair. So, it's like the thing that I shied away from, if I just leaned into it, brought me this amazing leadership role where I've really been able to expand on my role as a coach and empathetic listener, showing up for my teammates. And that's meant the world to me. I really have to give a shout-out to the BRGs and the way that they are set up, and the access that we have to leaders. And leaders really want to hear what we have to say. They care about these employee communities. And then, my co-chairs, Vasanti and Laura, they are just two of my favorite humans. And we don't just work together at the BRG, we're now friends and we look to each other for support. So, all of the women I've worked with, they're diverse, and smart, and funny, and strong, and we come together to do amazing things. And whether the event that we throw has seven people or 400 people, it mattered to those seven people. It matters. And that's what we're trying to do.
Jennie:
I love that. Is there anything that you're hearing from the BRG conversations that we haven't touched on today? Is there a key theme that you're hearing out of that work or the coach work that you do particularly for women that you want to acknowledge?
Amie:
I do think that there is a sense, and maybe always has been in our firm, that all the exciting things happen in the Washington area. And I think one of the things that all of the BRGs are working with, and the Women's BRG and as an employee community, we're the biggest just by nature of our definition, but all of our employees are spread out globally. So, I think inclusion is tough. The first part of inclusion is being welcomed into a community. Here you are, come as you are, empowering them to ask for what they need, helping when they ask for it. But the other side of that is be able to see yourself as part of leadership for that community or even a member of that community if you live in Bend, Oregon, or like I did, Ramstein, Germany. So, really finding a way to reach to those employees and making sure we don't lose them, might be the wrong term, but that we don't forget about them.
If we bring them into this firm, they now are ours to take care of, and we need to make sure that we're doing that. And the employee committees are just one way to do that. TXGs are a wonderful way for people to really flex their technology muscles. And I think there's lots of other ways to do it. It's just we can't not do it. We can't leave people out in geographies or singletons out wherever they live and not pay attention to the fact that they're not included. And sure, we can include them virtually, but we still have to find them to include them virtually. And some people don't go on events.bah.com like I do every day.
Jennie:
Right. I think that's great, speaking from San Diego, California.
Amie:
Right. Right!
Jennie:
There is a lot of that experience is local. It's where you live, and it's the office you go into, or it's that team that you're working with in that location. So, I think you're right. So much of the conversation does tie back to a certain location and can all play a role in that wherever we are, for sure.
Amie:
I see a lot of that with the bench, teammates, employees on the bench because if you are on the bench here in DC, then you can go to a networking event, you can attend something, a coffee with your team. But if you are in a small town in Tennessee, you don't have that. So, one of the things we try to do is link people. We hire you for a career, not just for a particular job.
Jennie:
Awesome. For anyone listening who is curious about mobility or is wanting to sort of break through concerns around perfectionism, or growing your technical acumen, or thinking about mobility, or engaging while working remotely or in a hybrid model, come see Amie in the BRG. They're waiting to-
Amie:
Absolutely. We're here for you. We are here for you.
Jennie:
Amie, this has been a really great conversation. At the end of every podcast, we give our guests some free space to share their final thoughts. What would you like to leave us with today?
Amie:
Yes. I suppose it is do one thing every day that centers you. I always tell my teenagers the two things I want them to grow up to be is kind and grateful. And I'm actually talking about them being kind and grateful to others. But I do think every day, we should take time to be kind and grateful to ourselves. Take a little time to practice what matters most to you. Work will always be there, but, breathe. Hug your dog. Go to CrossFit, read a poem, play a video game. Whatever it is that just helps you take that moment and find your calm. You deserve that time. And then, be grateful for what you bring to the table because we do need you, and you belong here, and we hired you for a reason. And I have so much gratitude for my time at Booz Allen, and the BRG has a thousand percent changed the way I see myself at this firm. So, be grateful for what you bring to the table.
Jennie:
Love that. Thank you, Amie. Great final thoughts.
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