Kellie Fitzgerald, managing director of retail at Google, took the stage at the WWD x FN x Beauty Inc Women in Power forum to talk about disruption and how executives can use it to define their leadership. Fitzgerald — who has held leadership positions at Google’s employee resource group, which focuses on retention, progression and advancement of women executives — said shopping and searching have been transformed by disruption.
But how can disruption empower women to be better leaders?
Fitzgerald cited a recent AlixPartners report about its “disruption index.” For the first time, the firm viewed disruption through the lens of gender. They were able to explore leadership responses to disruption, and they came to the conclusion that women have higher expectations. “We want more and we want to have a higher desirability for change,” she explained. “We also have a little bit less fear about it. So, they found that female leaders are 13 percent less likely to worry about losing their jobs due to change or disruption. Second, women see more opportunities in disruption. They see it as a chance to really change the status quo and rewrite the rules. They see what can be gained versus what can be lost. Third, when faced with disruption, women seek more support and collaboration.”
To put this all into context, Fitzgerald shared how disruption shaped her own leadership style. She said while working at Google in Milan, she’d meet with Italian brands and retailers. “I lived in a tiny old apartment with my husband and two sons,” Fitzgerald said. “The whole experience was delightfully disruptive, but it inspired me even more so to return here and commit to disrupting things that are unsavory or even just mediocre.”
Fitzgerald admitted that in her work and personal life, she’s “a bit of a word nerd, so I took three of my favorite Italian words and organized my commitment to disruption.”
“The first word is allora, and it is this delightful little word,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s used as a filler word, but what it essentially means is, ‘but wait, there’s more.’ I immediately noticed when we arrived that my family and I were more curious and more present when we were taken out of our familiar settings, routines and primary language.”
She then showed a picture of her sons learning about the maps of Milan “that are pressed into the top of the pedestrian dividers, something we would’ve definitely buzzed right by In our normal day-to-day life,” Fitzgerald said adding that she wants “to disrupt distraction and multitasking. To pause, notice things, ask questions and just get a little bit more from the story for retail.”
Fitzgerald then said she toured that original Prada store and its current assortment. She said a store associate helped her prepare for the visit. “Not only did he help me prepare for my meeting, grow my admiration for this heritage brand, he also sold me this skirt,” she said adding that she wants to inspire retailers and brands “to disrupt the current model of sales associates in the U.S. to improve the in-store experiences, the brand affinity and the loyalty that can be gained through these most amazing human resources.”
It is a way of creating a “but wait, there’s more” aura in the shopping experience.
Her second word was basta, which means enough or stop it. “I used it a lot with my boys personally. I was really struck by how in a country that has such an abundance of amazing food and drink and art and fashion, the Italians know when to stop — and they do so with confidence. I don’t know about you, but my autopilot mode had become eating at my desk, taking coffee to go shoving in one more meeting or email or errand. And working in Italy showed me that this was insane and unnecessary. My colleagues in Italy don’t eat at their desk ever. Not even a banana. Their workday was busy and productive, but they knew when to stop and say enough. So, I want to disrupt this silly habit of trying to make every single minute of the day productive for retail.”
The final Italian word that Fitzgerald said she loves is passeggiata.
“Passeggiata is an evening stroll that’s taken just for the sake of walking, connecting, socializing,” she said. “There’s no destination or goal. You just go out and walk. And as you can imagine, I don’t do very many things without a purpose, a goal, a KPI or a destination, and neither does Google. I work somewhere where we set goals and measure everything. But interestingly enough, my work abroad stint did not have a specific goal or KPI, which initially felt odd to me.”
In retrospect, though, Fitzgerald said that disabling a goal or destination, “enabled discovery and connection that was well beyond what I could have predicted.”
