Get Smart 2013 Meet the Speaker: Stacy Armijo, SVP for Pierpont Communications

By Brittany Eck, Chief of Staff for State Representative Jason Villalba
Stacy Armijo is Senior Vice President and Austin General Manager for Pierpont Communications, the largest independent public relations firm in Texas. In addition to her role leading Pierpont’s Austin office, Stacy is currently Board Chair for the American Red Cross of Central Texas, a Trusted Advisor for Vistage International and is a Past President of the American Marketing Association’s Professional Chapters Council.

This Friday, Stacy will moderate the Get Smart 2013’s keynote panel, during which three well-known Austin entrepreneurs will share their lessons learned and victories that have earned these Austin leaders their success stories.  WCA caught up with Stacy last week to get her insights on why women should talk about failure and to give a sneak peek of the keynote presentation.

WCA: What are you most looking forward to in moderating the keynote panel at Get Smart 2013?
Stacy: I had a chance to have some conversation with some of our panelists in advance of Get Smart and it has been very interesting to hear what is similar and what is different about them. I was also excited by the positioning of the conference – the idea of failing forward. I’ve heard and very much agree with the quote, “Success is a lousy teacher” because most of the lessons I’ve had are from personal failures or hearing other people’s stories of failure, so it has been very interesting to hear from these panelists – people who we would all consider very successful – about their personal failures or, more accurately, how things didn’t work out as planned.

So whether it is a failure or not, the fact that the world didn’t arrive as you planned it and yet there is still possibly an even greater opportunity – that is pretty interesting. I am very excited to see what their interactions will be and what the “ah ha” moments will be for our audience.

WCA: Why is it important to talk about failure?
Stacy: Because success is a lousy teacher! I’ve gotten to know an organization called GirlStart recently and one of the things they talk about is the reason why more girls shy away from sciences, math and technology is because the scientific process involves a lot of failure. The theory behind the scientific process is you fail time and time again until you succeed. It is the idea that you have to accept something not working so many times until you have a breakthrough.

As women in particular – I know I can relate to this – we often pursue perfection. Until we feel fully confident that we can be successful in what we are doing and there is very little risk in the idea we put forward, or the initiative we are behind, or the career move we want to make, then we don’t have the confidence to do it. Therefore the idea of becoming comfortable with risk and failure as an opportunity for greater success is exciting.

WCA: What is one mistake that you’ve learned from?

Stacy: It is ironic that I am moderating this panel, because I have been put in positions of being a speaker, presenter, or moderator from early in my career and I would always leave the stage thinking about my performance, criticizing myself thinking I sounded like an idiot or believing what I said wasn’t important.
But every time I feel like I got a little better, I got a little more comfortable. So I didn’t let that regret keep me from getting up and making the next presentation. I really tried to embrace what I didn’t think I did well, either trying to find a way around it if I felt like it was something I didn’t think I was good at, or working on improving it.

WCA: Do you think fear of failure is a problem and how do we avoid letting it hold us back?
Stacy: Absolutely. Irrational fear of failure is a problem – thinking of all of the “what ifs” and poking holes in your ideas. When I spoke with Get Smart keynote panelist Ken Schiller (president and cofounder of K&N Management) he spoke of the idea of intelligent risk. He said, “I am a person who believes you have to take risk, but it needs to be intelligent risk” and he really made the distinction between going with your gut – an emotional decision, which he does not support – and an intelligent risk where you can say, “Here are the facts and the data for why I think this is a good bet and why I think we should go in this direction. Even though there is still a lot I may not know about it and it is still unpredictable, I am still going to take this risk.”

In addition, you should create a safety net that is appropriate, but sometimes you have to jump and expect the net to follow. Sometimes we have to have that amount of confidence and sometimes we have to be willing to walk away. If a situation is not going in a direction you want it to go and you know you need to be able to say a hard truth, it is knowing when to take the risk and when to walk away.

For more insights from Stacy Armijo and our keynote panelists, be sure to register for Get Smart 2013. Hurry! Registration ends this Wednesday, September 11!