Alexis Roberts

I would have to say my resiliency. I lost my mom when I was a teenager and put myself through college, and I've moved across the country multiple times, so I was put in some very challenging positions. I've grown to appreciate how I step up to the challenges when then I put myself in new growth opportunities. I've just never given up. I've continued to push through and keep trying to be who I want to become, no matter what obstacles come my way. That ability to be resilient and keep moving forward and growing is what I attribute my success to.

Two things immediately come to mind. One is from a great mentor and good friend of mine many years ago, Becky- she taught me to anticipate. What that meant was when I get a question from a client, not just responding to that question, but anticipating what they're going to say back after you give them an answer. What's their next question going to be? How can you help them further along? It's not only anticipating, it's showing that you're hearing them, you're seeing it from their side, and you're partnering with them. The second piece of advice is to be a strategic leader and a true partner in providing guidance and best practice. This was given to me with an analogy of going to Home Depot and somebody tells you to go get gray paint. Well, there's a million different colors of gray paint and you're automatically going to feel overwhelmed. So instead of going to a client and just asking for a response, I provide them guidance on what we see in best practice, what I recommend that's most applicable for them and their organization. Do you agree, do you not agree? If you don't agree, then we'll talk about some alternatives. Otherwise it's just too overwhelming. I love the comparison and I think about it pretty much daily, of going to Home Depot and trying to pick out gray paint. I actually have a client right now that just recently requested that the other workstream leads operate their calls more like I do, and that is one of the reasons why they mentioned it.

I would really encourage embracing who you are and not dulling your shine just to remain in that professional space. That's one of the biggest things that I've seen, not just in my particular position, but even in the industry. We all just want to feel seen and heard, and your clients are no different. So don't lose sight of who you are and just being able to inject a little bit of your personality alongside of that professionalism and that support is going to really land. And just continue to find valuable additional skills that you can add. To me, that makes you just a bigger asset, a bigger value for the overall team and organization, and it has really paid off greatly for me.

I think the opportunity is real connection. It's so easy to lose real human understanding and connection in the business industry, so I love that I get to hone in on that. As far as challenges, I would say sometimes it's not getting wrapped around the wheel yourself and getting hung up on something, being a little bit more of the bigger picture, taking a breath. But also helping your clients not do that. The challenge sometimes is being reassuring without over-committing. I can't make guarantees or promises to my clients, for example, and I can provide an estimated due date, but it's not set in stone. It depends on a lot of other factors of an implementation project, so it's getting them to understand it's okay to be a little bit fluid, and that I'm there for them. I'm partnering with them, I'm not going to leave them hanging, so just being very reassuring sometimes can be a challenge, depending on the person.

I feel like it's constantly evolving, but I would say honesty or authenticity is massive for me. I always want people to feel like there's a comfortability when they're talking to me, that they can depend on me, so I would say reliability and dependability is something that comes to mind as well. I really value the idea of a legacy, but I think that's really broad but hardwork and ambition tie into this for me, I think that's important to just drive a purpose in life. And I value self-love and self-awareness. I don't think you can understand, fully appreciate or sometimes even support someone else (client, or cloved one) if you don't appreciate yourself with a level of awareness that grows over time. I think there's something beautiful in that, being able to meet someone where they are because you know where you are, if that makes sense. And trust. Trust is a big value for me.