Christine L Zane

When I was little, my dad would say 'Don't worry about what everybody else is doing, focus on what you're doing,' and I never realized until maybe 5 years ago how much impact that had. It really kept me focused on learning, constantly learning. I realized when I took out my journals that every single journal I've had, since the age of eleven, all throughout my life, whatever happened to me, the first sentence was 'what I learned was...' and I didn't even know I was doing this until I reflected back in my late thirties. So living life as a student and learning, and allowing even the smallest thing to the largest thing to be an opportunity for growth and learning. Losing my mom when I was young also shaped me. I became a motherless daughter and became a little more fearless because your life could be taken at any moment, and it really helped me lean into getting myself more educated. When my career started at AT&T and I was young, we were the group that took the world from print to digital, and I just leaned into it and learned as much as possible, all along the way, never stopping, continuously being educated.

I had two great mentors, one early on and one mid-career. My first mentor taught me how to ask questions. The more questions you ask revolving around how to solve whatever the problem may be, whether it's to sell more, to market more, or problem-solve customers' frustrations, just ask more questions and listen, actively listen, and then collaborate. Don't drive the conversation with ego, if that makes sense. Then mid-career, I had a mentor and she said, 'Don't let them change you.' So I have lived by those two mentors' advice, just staying true to wanting to do good. I've turned a lot of my pain into wanting to do good, and not being afraid to say 'I don't know, but let me look into that.' I've made it really my intention to speak with purpose. I'm not the person in the room that's talking the most. I've lived a lot of corporate life in addition to my volunteer work, which is very different, but just listen and be thoughtful and realize that every interaction is a chance to have a good impact. And it's okay to apologize. In my current role, I work with a lot of frustrated small business owners, and just owning your failure as a company goes a long way, or your personal failures and using it as a growth experience.

I have a daughter and I have a whole bunch of nieces, and I tell them all the time, honestly, professionally, don't reveal too much. Listen and observe more than you reveal. Not that you can't live in yourself and be yourself, but you have to work your way up to that. When you're first starting, be open to learning from those around you, especially elders. Find yourself a mentor and voice your concerns privately, never publicly in front of a group. Just be aware of your surroundings. I learned all of that very young because I started at AT&T at a young age.

My customers have really struggled with the economy post-COVID. During COVID, a lot of people bought RVs, boats, lawn mowers, ATVs, UTVs, and all sorts of non-essential items, and everyone had new everything. It was a very small gap in time when it was easy to sell. Now with interest rates, the economy, the tariffs, the debt, everyone has the new thing, interests have changed and some of them are really struggling. That's where I get a lot of customers that hit my desk as a client care manager, where we really try to strategize how to organize their information online so it makes sense and easily accessible to customers, how to think about what we were doing post-COVID, and how to use AI now and make sure that they're showing up in AI. The economy is a real struggle, and of course that affects our company as a whole with sales. We've also gone through a lot of acquisition and mergers recently. Our operations and sales organization have restructured and hired some new folks. It hasn't been a long enough time for those folks to be in these roles to have a great effect, but I think having people from outside the industry will give our company a better perspective on some of the key things I believe that we're missing.

I just did a values exercise for grad school not too long ago, and the three that come to mind for me are peace, joy, and love. I feel like I've lived through other values, but I have moved through them to live in a truth where I can lead with love, even when it's at work, because I want my customers and co-workers to do good, I want my children and family to do good, I want my husband to do good. Leading by love really brings peace and joy to me because it gives me the opportunity to be in truth and to speak truth in a kind, gracious way. Those are my 3 values, and they are all equal to living in truth.