Today we’d like to introduce you to Nettie Sparkman.
Hi Nettie, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
If there is a takeaway I would like you to part with, it is that change and the unknown should be your partner, not your enemy. I am a firm believer that outlining personal and professional goals are beneficial, but detailed plans are a disservice to your happiness. Plans rarely go to plan, and when you pour yourself into such a detailed plan, it leads to disappointment when the plan changes even if you later find that the change of plans turns out to be one of the best things to happen to you.
When I was younger, I wanted to be a Marine. I went to Iowa State University and planned to join the ROTC program. I quickly learned that a heart condition bars you from joining the Marines. Change of plan. I had to find another passion. I changed my major six times: psychology, event management, business, marketing, dietetics, genetics. Change of plan each time. I planned on going to medical school to focus on in vitro genetic modification to cure genetic diseases. In those last few years of college, I stumbled upon a startup, Love Your Melon, that I could utilize as volunteer hours for my application to medical school. I poured myself into the startup and they offered me a job. I took it because I knew that the opportunity would only surface once while medical school was always possible. Change of plan. I stayed with the startup for six years, building its success with our team, where I focused primarily on sales and our philanthropic impact. I was then offered a job at a national nonprofit, Be The Match, to try my hand at corporate philanthropy, where I had the opportunity to work with some of the largest companies in the world to save lives. Out of nowhere, COVID hit, and I was laid off. Change of plan. I took a job at a food and beverage manufacturer leading sales supplying the largest retailers and grocers in the United States, but the leadership and culture weren’t a fit. Change of plan. We have caught up to the present day, where I am currently the VP of Revenue at a minority-owned and women-led branded merchandise agency called Foxtrot Marketing Group where I oversee Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, and our mission and impact.
At some point in all of this change, I learned to let go. I have outlined what personal success and happiness mean to me, but I have relinquished the need to plan every detail of that journey. Instead, I now put myself in positions of opportunity and weigh whether the opportunity will fit my overall outline. If so, I jump into that change and embrace it open-armed.
Time is a fickle thing. When you have the drive to succeed, the time to achieve that success can’t get to you fast enough, but one day you realize that each step of the way has been a form of success in one way or another. Your story represents precisely who you are at each point in your career, and it is a disserve to yourself not to embrace, appreciate, and leverage all of the change that comes with it. My advice? Slow down and appreciate where you are. Weigh your opportunities and walk into the unknown when your gut says so. Success will find you in its own way when you honor your own happiness.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While my journey has had its twists and turns, my leadership journey has challenged me the most. I have managed teams in every role I have been in. Throughout that journey, I have learned that good leaders live and die in how they work under pressure, deliver difficult information, and push through adversity. Leadership is not about making the easy choice; it’s about managing through the hard choices. The standards that you hold yourself and your team to directly correlate to how you are able to manage challenges when they arise.
During my time at the startup mentioned prior, I oversaw our philanthropic impact. Part of that impact was assigning college ambassadors dressed as superheroes to give a child battling cancer an unforgettable experience for one day. We found families through a form that they would submit on our website. I was wearing many hats at the time, we all were, and I forgot about the form for over six months in that chaos. Families submitted names, and nobody contacted them. By the time I realized my mistake, hundreds of families were on the list. I knew I could get fired for this, but I decided at that moment that if I was going to be fired, I needed to leave knowing that I did my best to right the wrong I had created. In a few hours, I built a solution called Superhero Season, where we paired up every family and child possible with college ambassadors. It was a six-figure mistake. I didn’t get fired, but my team watched me call every single family on that list to apologize and, if their child was still alive and able, delegate to my team to set up a Superhero Adventure. It was the most personally challenging mistake I have made as a leader, but it taught me to be vulnerable, brave, and honest.
If you are new to people leading or considering it as your next career advancement, the one thing I hope you will take away from this is to allow yourself to be vulnerable and to share that vulnerability with your team. We are all only human, and mistakes will happen. How you manage those mistakes will define you as a leader. Your greatest praise will come from some of your greatest hardships. When met with a challenge, embrace it rather than fight it, and let those around you in while you manage through it. Vulnerability is the best tool in your toolbox.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I practice servant leadership and building mission-driven teams. Servant leadership is a leadership philosophy in which the leader’s goal is to serve. Servant leaders take the traditional power leadership model and turn it upside down. This new hierarchy puts the people or employees, in a business context, at the very top and the leader at the bottom, charged with serving the employees above them. That’s because servant leaders possess a serve-first mindset, and they are focused on empowering and uplifting those who work for them. They serve instead of command, show humility instead of brandishing authority, and always look to enhance their staff members’ development in ways that unlock potential, creativity, and a sense of purpose.
I am, by far, most proud of what my teams have accomplished. When people feel empowered and supported, it is truly remarkable what they can achieve. My primary role is developing strategies that give my teams a north star to aim for and the guardrails to run within. I believe that my teams are a direct reflection of myself. When my teams succeed, I succeed. My ultimate goal is to leave people better than how I found them. I firmly believe that if people give me eight hours a day, five days a week, it is my job to make sure that their time spent with me is an overall net positive to their life.
Finally, rather than focusing on the transactional aspects of management, I actively seek to develop and align an employee’s sense of purpose with the company mission. Every person makes an impact, big or small, and all of that ladders up to one common goal. Every member of my team should know how their work makes a difference, and that collective difference is the total sum of the company’s mission. If everyone knows that, it gives work a higher purpose and ultimately leads to greater happiness. When I am able to achieve that and see my teams flourish, that is my greatest success.
How do you think about luck?
In my opinion, luck in the traditional sense does not exist. Instead, I believe that luck is a combination of hard work, surrounding yourself with the right people, and personal change management. Hard work will give you credibility, the right people will provide you with opportunities, and change management will help you capitalize on that opportunity.
The most significant moments of luck that have defined my professional tenure have come with a great deal of unknowns. To leverage moments of luck, you have to adjust your perspective on change. An opportunity could land in your lap, but those opportunities will never be actualized if you are not comfortable jumping into the unknown.
Think of the unknown like cliff diving. What do you feel when you arrive and look at the distance between you and the water? Nervous, anxious, scared? Instead of jumping off of the highest cliff first, start small. Take small moments of opportunity or change and say “yes.” Get used to the feeling of change between the moment you jump and when you hit the water. Now, move up to the next cliff and the next until you are at the highest cliff you can find. The only difference between these cliffs is the distance between you and the water but always remember that you can swim. You will always land in familiar territory. Now, what do you feel after you jump? Proud, exhilarated, excited? The unknown can last a minute or a month until you start swimming, but in the end, the jump will be worth it. Capitalizing on moments of luck is in your hands. Say “yes,” and jump.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
