Session #2 Recap – Building Trust & Networking and Negotiations

The Women in Cleantech and Sustainability (WCS) Mentorship Program held its second session for the group’s 9th cohort on February 27th, 2025. This program aims to help women professionals gain the necessary skills to advance or transition their careers in cleantech and sustainability. This is achieved through guidance, advice, and feedback from mentors with more career experience. However, the 1:1 interactions and group discussions also allow mentors to learn different perspectives, enabling their own parallel growth with mentees.

In contrast to the first session, where WCS Board Members were invited to share their mentorship experiences, the beginning of this session called for the participants to share their opinions on the prompts listed below. The objective of this exercise was to allow the group to easily visualize how others feel about the new climate landscape and what motivations they have to be in this community despite turbulent times. Mentimeter, the tool used for this opener, creates a word map using the responses from the participants and enlarges a word or phrase if used more than once. The word or phrase continues to grow if it is consistently inputted. 

What words come to mind when you think about how the new administration is shaping the future of climate action, cleantech, and your career?

What word or phrase reflects the confidence, insight, or action you’re taking from this program to shape your future in cleantech and sustainability?

Key Takeaways:

• Main 3 words for Prompt 1: Worry, Chaos, Disheartening
• Main 3 words for Prompt 2: Community, Support, Hope

The committee wanted to end this section on a lighter note because this program was created to establish community and provide support to one another. Luckily, these values align with how the mentors and mentees have been feeling, as shown by the responses above. 

This icebreaker set the stage for the rest of the session, which began with the introduction of Paula Schmidlin, this session’s guest speaker. 

Paula is an organization effectiveness and change consultant, which means she helps organizations work more effectively. Her expertise includes organization design, purpose and values alignment, culture development, leadership development, and team building. 

Additionally, she is a leadership coach who supports individuals making a career and/or life transition. This type of transformative work can start with the need to overcome an obstacle or improve performance and impact.  

LinkedIn Profile

Building Trust

Trust is foundational to building relationships and, as discussed later in the session, can aid networking and negotiations. This is the nature of business as it affects our organization’s culture and performance. Schmidlin then prompted the group to think about the question listed below. Using the chat feature, the 33 recorded responses are highlighted in the table below, with recurring answers noted numerically. 

What one word or phrase do you associate with trust?

Schmidlin continued her presentation by reviewing the trust model created and popularized by Stephen M. R. Covey. This model ultimately argues that trust accelerates results. The lack of trust slows momentum as it creates uncertainty. One of the notable frameworks from Covey is the “5 Waves of Trust.”

5 Waves of Trust:

• Self-Trust: Confidence in our own ability
• Relationship Trust: The trust we build with others based on credibility and behavior
• Organizational Trust: Trust in the processes and systems of an organization 
• Market Trust: The trust the market has in our brands
• Societal Trust: The trust society has in an organization’s impact and ethics  

In summary, trust plays a critical role in maintaining our relationships, sustaining reputations, doing business, and promoting social sustainability. These waves of trust can build upon one another. This framework further works into the next model, the “4 Cores of Credibility.” This structure forms the foundation of self-trust, followed by the trust we have in our personal and professional relationships. 

For this model, the tree represents the different aspects of trust in our lives and how they work together. The roots are defined as our character, who we are, and what anchors us and influences our actions. Intent is paired with the tree trunk, providing more structure and support. It channels what we’ve defined in our “roots,” affecting our actions and behaviors. 

At the top half, competence encompasses our capabilities and results. The capabilities “branches” are defined as our skills and experience, whereas the results “leaves” are the tangible outcomes we see of our actions.

Schmidlin went into more detail about these 4 core components and how they influence our personal brand and image. Regarding character and how we build that personal image of ourselves, integrity and intent are fundamental building blocks. Integrity stems from our honesty, consistency, and humility to stand by our own principles. Intent takes into consideration the motives or reasons behind your actions. The takeaway is that trust is built when people believe in your intentions and you’re not self-serving. 

1st breakout session prompts:

• Integrity: Of your top 3 personal values, identify a professional situation where your values were tested. What helps you stay true to your values when tested?
• Intent: Reflect on your primary motivation at work, and ask yourself what do others think my agenda is?

Quotes from the 1st breakout session:

• Grace Ling (Mentee) 
  • “My values are collaboration and transparency.”
  • (recounting a situation that arose) “There was a group meeting with counsel members and VPs…I had wanted clarification on feedback I’d received, but it rubbed someone the wrong way. I was immediately shut down and told to stay in my lane. I tried to understand the perspective of where this person was coming from and decided to schedule a 1:1 to communicate what went wrong. In the end, I realized we couldn’t meet eye-to-eye on values but worked to stay cordial with each other.”
• Denise Lewis (Mentee)
  • “I had a situation in my past where I was reviewing data, and I found an issue that impacted customers. Digging deeper into it, I found that it impacted thousands of accounts, so I brought the issue up to my coworkers. I felt like they tried to downplay the issue but because I have a need to do what’s right, I knew this was a big issue. Even though it would involve bringing other people, like legal and risk, to get involved with the situation, I couldn’t let it go. I had to bring the issue up to my manager and their manager so the issue would be resolved. This really tested my integrity, but I knew deep down that I had to do what was right for the customers.”
• Clementina Martninez (Mentor)
  • “We need to be, in a very tactful way, unapologetic with who we are as women. Softness is okay, and so is empathy. I know that in this political atmosphere that we’re in right now, I think that’s going to be tested. As women, especially in the cleantech industry, we need to stand up for women. As a minority and woman of color, I find myself in that space where I’ve needed to stand up for other women whose voices don’t get heard. We need to stick together and lean on each other. It’s okay to be soft; soft is strength.”

Schmidlin continued the conversation by connecting back to the four cores of credibility model. Similar to integrity and intent, which are fundamental to showcasing your character, capabilities, and results, showcase your competence. Our capabilities are everything that we have that we can offer to others in terms of our skills, talents, knowledge, and more. Results are the actual outcomes you achieve. These ideas come into play, especially when you need to clarify expectations for work or if you need to take accountability when mistakes happen. 

Networking and The Power of Strategic Communications

Networking is about building meaningful relationships that drive career and business success. It’s relevant to everything we do, so there’s a need to build trust beforehand. There are several different reasons why we need to network, but ultimately, it opens doors to new opportunities, accelerates career growth, and strengthens your personal brand. Understanding these components of trust that Schmidlin discussed helps you build credibility. 

Networking effectively means prioritizing quality over quantity to create stronger, more valuable relationships. Be authentic and approach networking with a mindset of giving rather than only receiving. Networking isn’t only about meeting people; it’s about nurturing relationships. 

With trust and building a network of people, you gain a sense of confidence where you can be open and honest when sharing with others. This applies similarly to the best practices of negotiation. You want to be prepared, build that rapport, and have those positive relationships so that you go into those discussions with good intentions. 

2nd breakout session prompts:

• Capabilities: What is one learning or ”aha” moment you had today?
• Results: What is one trust building behavior you’ll start doing and one trust damaging behavior you’ll stop doing?

Quotes from the 2nd breakout session:

• Claire Fraisl (Mentor)
  • “For me, the icebreaker was my ‘aha’ moment because I was grateful for the acknowledgment of what’s happening (in climate) on a larger scale.”
  • “I appreciate that it was brought up, and it’s helpful to be surrounded by a group of women who also feel that uncertainty.” 
• Amanda Brodbaek (Mentor)
  • “My ‘aha’ moment has been that everyone here is learning, not just the mentees. It has been a good reminder, and nice to know that you’re not alone.”
• Stephanie Hartsig (Mentee)
  • “We left on a great note with Paula (Guest Speaker) on how we need to emit the word ‘should’ from our vocabulary. Either you need to do something or want to do something. She’s suggesting that it implies a judgment on some standard or always worrying about judgment. My ‘aha’ moment was that I need to focus more on what I want and need rather than focusing on the ‘shoulds’ of life.”
  • “I’ve just been really inspired by all the conversations I’ve had with the other members today. It really reminded me of how important these sessions are because I’m feeling validated in so many instances, and I don’t feel so alone all the time.”

As the session came to an end, the participants were reminded of actions to take within their mentorship pairs regarding networking and negotiations. We’re almost halfway through the mentorship program timeline, and we hope the WCS community continues to share our excitement about seeing this cohort of hardworking women grow. Stay tuned for more updates!

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