Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (01:30):
I'm so excited about our guest this week. Mayor Cherie Wood is a lifelong resident of South Salt Lake, and is currently serving her third term as the city's mayor. She worked within the city offices for 16 years prior to running for mayor, beginning with processing payments at the front counter of the city's finance department, and working through additional positions up through assistant mayor.

Annalisa Holcombe (01:59):
She's the mother of three boys and attended college evenings and weekends to get her degree. She's our first elected official on the podcast. And today, we are talking about integrity. If you remove any reference to work, or school, or sports, or volunteerism, or church activity, what is your greatest accomplishment, or what are you most proud of yourself for as a human being?

Cherie Wood (02:34):
So thank you for giving time to think about this because it's probably the hardest question I've ever been asked in all my interviews, but it's one that I appreciate because it really made me stop and think. And I would have to go back to when I decided to run for mayor. I was told by a lot of individuals that, you shouldn't be doing that, you're not going to win, you can't win.

Cherie Wood (03:04):
Women need to be at home with their children, all of those different things and basically went into it with not much support from our sitting council members. And so I think I would just... I'm proud of myself for not being put in a box and taking a risk on myself. And because we all know that a lot of times, women feel like if we don't have all the requirements for a job, that we have no business putting in for it.

Cherie Wood (03:41):
And running for political office makes it super interesting because luckily, I've worked here at the city long enough to know what it should entail or what it should look like. But you really start second guessing yourself, you're like, am I really the best person for this job because I've had all these different people telling me that I should be at home, there's no way I can raise a family and be a mayor.

Cherie Wood (04:09):
And so basically, the greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. And so I live a lot of my life by taking challenges and taking it rather than, I guess, being put in a box, taking it as a challenge.

Annalisa Holcombe (04:35):
I love that so much. And I think there's something really important about what you said there because I just feel like even when you talked about women making sure we have every single qualification before we do something, but the courage that it takes to say, I'm the right person for this position and I'm going to go out there and tell you why.

Annalisa Holcombe (05:00):
I just wonder, will you... Maybe you could talk a little bit about it, and one of the first questions I wanted to ask you is, tell us a little bit about your city. You're the mayor, so what in the world makes somebody say, I want to be the mayor of this city. Can you tell us about why you're in love with your city and why this was so important to you to do?

Cherie Wood (05:22):
Yes. So when I think about that, I have to think clear back when I was growing up. My mom was the assistant to the mayor of South Salt Lake when we were growing up, And my best friend's dad was the mayor. And so I feel like-

Annalisa Holcombe (05:43):
The city government was in your blood from the beginning.

Cherie Wood (05:46):
Yes. Infused into my blood. In fact, when we would sleep over at their house, when I would sleep over at their house, Mayor Davis would put the city to sleep. And so we would sleep out on the trampoline. And if we were awake when he walked by to go get in his car, he's like, girls, do you want to go put the city to bed? And so we're like, yeah. We'd go to 7-Eleven, get a drink, and then we would just drive around the city, just drive around the city and make sure everything's all right. So-

Annalisa Holcombe (06:18):
And he did that every night?

Cherie Wood (06:20):
Well, I don't know every night, but-

Annalisa Holcombe (06:22):
Certainly, when you were there.

Cherie Wood (06:23):
I did it three or four times with them. So I feel like he did it often enough that I just thought it was cool that you care that much to just drive around and make sure everything's all right. So anyway, long story short, my mom really instilled in her kids, I'm the oldest of six, for public service. So I'm serving a municipal government as a mayor, I have a brother that's a police officer, I have a sister that's a firefighter, and I have a brother that is a water manager for municipal water. So, yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (07:04):
What do those other two doing? Come on.

Cherie Wood (07:08):
They followed the pathway of my dad and they're in sales. Sales or a public service.

Annalisa Holcombe (07:17):
That's awesome.

Cherie Wood (07:18):
Yeah. And I think just giving back, I've lived my entire life here in the city, so I've grown up here. My sons are fourth generation South Salt Lake residents. And so it's just like I bought my first and my second home here. And I just think we have so much potential as a community. And sometimes we get a bad rap that it was my goal to make sure that we had the best chance as a community to really shine and have our story be told, instead of the story that was always being told for us.

Annalisa Holcombe (07:54):
Some of our listeners, I think of course, we'll get listeners who are some of your constituents, but I'll also have listeners who don't live in Utah, who don't know anything about the City of South Salt Lake. So tell me about the city, just the broad overview.

Cherie Wood (08:09):
Yeah. So we are located in the middle of the valley, seven and a half square miles. Our daytime population fluctuates to about 80,000 people, but our nighttime population is right around 25,000. And so we have a lot of people that come here to work or pass through here to get to work. So our community is so diverse. We have so many... I think we have 13% of our population are refugees.

Annalisa Holcombe (08:43):
Well, is that the most in community in the state?

Cherie Wood (08:47):
I think it is the most in the state. I know the only community that got close with Clearfield at a point in time, but we've had refugees that come right off the plane. They're in one of our community housing, residential housing, and then as they go through the system and become citizens, they then choose to purchase homes and live in South Salt Lake, which is super exciting. So our community is so diverse and it's so fun to watch. I have so many people make comments about the fact that they love South Salt Lake so much because of its diversity and just embracing that.

Annalisa Holcombe (09:31):
I absolutely understand and agree with that. I've had chances to work with South Salt Lake in different ways and have loved it every time, including even like some of the ways that I've been able to partake of the great food you have because of the incredible diversity.

Cherie Wood (09:52):
We do have the best Asian food, the Afghan Kitchen's really good. Yeah, we have really good food here. Thai food, ugh. Makes me hungry now.

Annalisa Holcombe (10:08):
So I'm also interested in how you decide... So I was thinking about this, that you probably, if we were going to talk about your identity, you are lots of different things from a community builder to a leader, to a boss, to a mom, to being a female leader. And I'm interested in, how has it been for you to bring those different types of identities to make yourself whole, how do those play into the role of what we see or what we might identify as what we think a leader or a mayor is supposed to be?

Cherie Wood (10:48):
Which is interesting to have this conversation right now with the political climate as it is, but I think that that's why integrity is so important these days is because every action, every decision you make, if you go through it, a decision making process of why you're doing it and asking some important questions and to get positive outcomes, it's super interesting right now. Because in the political world, people just don't trust politicians and I joke about it when somebody calls me a politician, I say, I'm not a politician. And the minute I become a politician is the minute that I need to leave this position-

Annalisa Holcombe (11:43):
So interesting.

Cherie Wood (11:42):
... Because our community needs a leader and a community builder, not a politician.

Annalisa Holcombe (11:52):
Wow. Wouldn't be amazing if all of our community leaders were able to think that way. What if the United States Senate could actually think that way?

Cherie Wood (12:03):
We would be getting some stuff done.

Annalisa Holcombe (12:05):
We would, it would be amazing. So I want to talk about, as you mentioned, we're talking about integrity today and as I've told you, I particularly chose you to talk about integrity because I think that integrity is central to what we expect from people who are in community leadership positions, and I think that it's one of the reasons when we worry as community members, that the people that lead us may not have integrity, that we lose trust in all of our governmental entities, right?

Annalisa Holcombe (12:43):
It's this cycle, and so specifically with you, but also because I've had opportunity to speak with you. And I really do believe out of any community leader that I've met, and I'm lucky enough to have met many, that you do put integrity first. And I'm really interested in trying to like really dive into what that might mean and how to put it to work.

Annalisa Holcombe (13:07):
So one of the first questions I have is, I was reading Brené Brown, who has identified what she believes integrity is. And she says that the definition for her integrity is choosing courage over comfort, choosing what's right over what's fun, fast or easy. And I wonder, what does that mean to you in your work as an elected official? And are there any examples that you might have of how that could have shown up for you, that whole courage over comfort, or right over easy?

Cherie Wood (13:41):
Yes. And it's actually how we met, it's through our promise South Salt Lake. Municipal government is streets and water and sewer and garbage and sidewalks and curb and gutter and recycling, and your water sewer, those types of things, and-

Annalisa Holcombe (14:03):
Police officers, probably. Cherie Wood (14:04):
Yeah, public safety, those types of things. That's what people think about first. And when I ran in 2009, I spent a lot of time in people's front rooms, and I did a lot of listening because I know how I feel about this community, but I really wanted to know what other people's concerns, their perspectives were. And after five, six months of talking to a lot of people, you come to find out that the concerns kind of were around our public schools.

Annalisa Holcombe (14:42):
Huh.

Cherie Wood (14:43):
And the thought is, well, how does municipal government get involved and have anything to do with that? Our school system, our school districts, right? Are over that. And I had this opportunity to go back to Harlem Children's Zone as a United Way board member in 2010, October, 2010. So I'd taken office in January, 2010, October, and Harlem going through Harlem Children's Zone, and it had been up and running for 20 years and it was run by a nonprofit.

Cherie Wood (15:17):
So it wasn't from a municipal perspective, but what they were able to accomplish for the youth of Harlem, I mean, yes, it had taken 20 years, but just being able to see that, and maybe, I don't know, getting freedom to think that maybe municipal government could find some kind of role in providing the support system around our youth.

Cherie Wood (15:45):
So coming back from that trip, just brainstorming and chatting with some very intelligent, wonderful, passionate people, we started thinking of a city-wide system of after-schools, afterschool programs for our youth. We went to our school districts and just said, we'd really like to partner and provide after-school programs for our youth.

Cherie Wood (16:21):
And as any problem or sorry, any initiative starts up, it's usually small. So we just had one afterschool program and it's grown now to 14 neighborhood centers, half of which are inside our schools and the rest are in just city facilities in neighborhoods where kids are.

Cherie Wood (16:48):
And so our goal was, our three promises are, every child has opportunity to go to college and graduate. Second is that every child deserves a safe, clean home and neighborhood. And the third promise is that, everybody has the opportunity to be healthy and prosper. And so as we thought about those goals and what we could do, we announced the initiative, Promise South Salt Lake.

Cherie Wood (17:19):
And then two years after that, I started thinking, what we saw in Harlem was 20 years old. And I don't know if I can, or if I will be mayor for 20 years, but I really feel passionately that this is something special that our community needs for 20 years to really start making a difference in our community. And so I institutionalized it by making it a city department because I wanted it. So like we have a department of-

Annalisa Holcombe (17:51):
Public safety.

Cherie Wood (17:53):
Yeah. Public safety, public works, we have a department of Promise South Salt Lake.

Annalisa Holcombe (17:59):
How hard was that to make that happen?

Cherie Wood (18:02):
It was hard only to try to jump off the cliff because it was a lot of promises that we were making and I don't make promises. I feel like I personally made those promises to all the kids of our community and to our families. And so, I really felt like I was taking a big leap of faith and really hoping that, just because I felt our community needed it so badly, I was just really hoping that it would work.

Annalisa Holcombe (18:40):
And how did it go during the process?

Cherie Wood (18:42):
So I had people come up and say, so you want every child to go to college, what about trade school? And I said, we'd leave college open, we believe anything after high school is, anything to help them support their families, be productive citizens, that's what college is.

Annalisa Holcombe (19:05):
I remember having a conversation with you once and it was about that. It was about that passion, I think it might even go back to the difference between community leaders and politicians because creating a city system that in the rest of the country we rely on nonprofits to do is a really big thing. And I wonder how much your authenticity and integrity as a mom played into the way that you were thinking about kids in your city?

Cherie Wood (19:40):
Yeah. Actually, that was kind of a blessing in disguise as I was raising my sons here, each situation that I would have with them, it really caught my attention, made me take a couple steps back and say, I've lived here my whole entire life, I have an amazing, very broad support system here, I speak the language, and I know the systems that are existing and I just thought, we're so diverse.

Cherie Wood (20:18):
How are those moms feeling when they run into these issues? How can we better help them navigate these systems to help their children, because they want to help their children just as much as I wanted to help my children. And so I think every time that we needed to look to expand Promise, or the next big step, I was going through a personal situation with one of my children, but would be like a struggle to get them.

Cherie Wood (20:55):
Like one was to get my youngest into preschool, just getting him into preschool, he was on waiting lists everywhere. And so I thought, wow, if we don't have enough preschool slots here for our kids, there's so much benefit for our kids to start off in preschool to get where they need to be for their kindergarten readiness. And so...

Annalisa Holcombe (21:23):
You as the mayor have your kid on waiting lists, what is it like to be the new immigrant mom who doesn't speak English and is trying to figure it out?

Cherie Wood (21:33):
Yeah. Which I would never say, I'm the mayor, why is my kid on the list. But yeah, no, I felt that way. I thought, wow, it's rough out here. And so we worked with some different partners, and we were able to get enough slots for every child that was preschool age a slot in either a Head Start or our granite district preschool classes.

Cherie Wood (22:11):
And so that was just a huge win, but by the time you get it done, my son was already like in first grade, but no, so it was like, it's just eyeopening because it's the things that I don't know that I would have been able to jump off the cliff as far as I did not knowing that the need was so great and seeing it personally.

Annalisa Holcombe (22:41):
I love that. And I wanted to also ask you about your commitments. They're freaking brave. I just think, and I remember having the conversation with you about that commitment that I'll always remember. And at the time I remember that you knew the number of kids who are 18 and under in your city. I was like, what?

Annalisa Holcombe (23:07):
I'd never talked to a mayor that knows how many kids are 18 and under and would say, and every single one of them is entitled to post-secondary education, every single one. And I remember asking you about that. I don't remember if you remember this story, but why didn't you say 90% of them? There's no organization that says a hundred percent of anything and makes a promise that way. So can you talk about what led you to say that?

Cherie Wood (23:38):
Yes. So it was very important as we were putting the promises into words that we use every child, every person. We know that if we are in a classroom of 10 kids that we say we want 60% of you to go to college, 90% of them think that you're referring to the, not them right there in the 40%, not the 60%.

Annalisa Holcombe (24:09):
Yeah.

Cherie Wood (24:10):
And so it was interesting. As we were launching Promise, every opportunity we had to talk to different departments or you have used city council that we... So these are outgoing, stellar youth that are community services in their blood. And we went and told them this, that our three promises and they were taken back. And one said, even me?

Annalisa Holcombe (24:46):
Aww.

Cherie Wood (24:48):
And I thought, oh my gosh, especially you, right? No, every single one of you. If it is your desire to do this, we are going to make sure there are people here that will help you get there. So yeah. Yeah. Every child, every child, every person, and those are our promises is because we don't want you to be thinking that they're in some percentage that we're not always thinking about.

Annalisa Holcombe (25:22):
I love that so much. And it makes me feel a little weepy to have a kid say to you like, even me? Like, I matter that much?

Cherie Wood (25:30):
Yeah. Yeah. That's shocking.

Annalisa Holcombe (25:32):
Yeah. And important, really important. I was thinking about the language of integrity, and I don't know if you would define it differently than how Brene Brown does, but I'm interested in how you think about integrity in your daily life, whether it's in your elected position or just with your friends or with your kids or whatever. What does integrity mean to you?

Cherie Wood (26:02):
So I think Brene Brown does a great example and that's why would bring up Promise South Salt Lake because it was very courageous to do that. It wasn't comfortable, and there were some really uncomfortable conversations when we were starting up Promise, and just scary. It was scary because there was so much at risk, I felt like in our community, if we didn't get something up and going. So I just-

Annalisa Holcombe (26:35):
And there was probably personal risk that if didn't work, you were out probably.

Cherie Wood (26:40):
Yes. Well, there's always personal risk, we wouldn't have to run for reelection every four years. But Promise grew to be so many solutions to community issues, that it's hard to do a 32nd elevator speech for mic, because every time we've identified an issue in our community, we sit down with our promise staff and just say, okay, how can we address this community issue?

Annalisa Holcombe (27:09):
What are some examples?

Cherie Wood (27:10):
So like mental health, we had a high suicide rate at a point in time. And so that was really stressful. And we felt like if there is something that we can do, we absolutely wanted to do it. I don't see integrity being any different as a mom, I feel like it's very important that I'm teaching my children integrity in all that they do. 'I think the reason why integrity is so important and to me it seems easy in this position is that I know why I make decisions. I know what information I had when I made that decision, and my goal is always to better the community with that decision.

Annalisa Holcombe (28:11):
If this conversation has caught your attention and you want to join in on conversations like this, check out our website at connectioncollaborative.com. Welcome back. You are listening to 92,000 Hours. Today, we are talking to Mayor Cherie Wood. You've said something to me about having people around you who can play devil's advocate or tell you to your face like, no you're wrong or, or whatever. Yeah. Can you talk about how important that is to remain in integrity? Or do you have any examples?

Cherie Wood (29:03):
Yeah, so there's value to that and I've often... Some of my closest staff, we go through sometimes a banter on an issue. We go back and forth and I think perspectives are so valuable. And that's one thing is, I have been here 27 years, but as I've seen other mayors work, that everybody's perspective wasn't always welcome.

Cherie Wood (29:30):
And I think we do a huge disservice to our community or to our organization when you're not allowing certain perspectives because you're not really solving problems, the problem as a whole. So one kind of a funny example that just happened this last week. I was at coffee with a cop and we were all introducing ourselves.

Cherie Wood (29:52):
And the resident was introducing herself and her name and then she said, and I'm the thorn in everybody's side. I'm the one that complains about everything, I'm the one that bugs everybody, and went on. And after she got done speaking and I said, you know what? I think you are so valuable. You are not a thorn in any of our sides. Your concerns and your perspective is valuable.

Cherie Wood (30:28):
We need to have that at the table when we're making decisions, we need to think about things from every different way as we're making these big community decisions. So that was kind of just a fun, recent one that I was like, well, you're not the thorn that you think you are, you're added value to our conversations, for sure.

Annalisa Holcombe (30:50):
I love that. I have this group of... I used to work with a group facilitated coaching group and we would talk about things, and one of them was, sometimes I think we're talking about integrity when we don't even realize that we're talking about integrity. We can talk around it and not realize that that's what it is.

Annalisa Holcombe (31:10):
And I remember in this group one day, someone was talking about like, I really need help because I used to love my job so much and lately it just doesn't feel right. And I don't know what it is, but I just don't feel good about my job. And it took us a while to drill down, and then we realized that this person was talking about, something had changed at work, that now he was out of integrity, just being there, just working there.

Annalisa Holcombe (31:39):
There was something about the way that his work had gone before and the way that it was changing direction or the culture had changed that he hadn't realized that he personally, it might be okay for other people, but now he was out of integrity by being in that environment.

Cherie Wood (31:57):
Yes.

Annalisa Holcombe (31:57):
Isn't that interesting?

Cherie Wood (31:58):
Yeah. It's super interesting. And that's what I think what I was trying to touch on about, every team player needs to understand why, and we need to understand if it puts them out of integrity, why?

Annalisa Holcombe (32:14):
Yeah.

Cherie Wood (32:15):
Because again, maybe this new culture, this pivot, or this solution is just not the right way. And I think we dance around integrity so much because it's made up of being honest and helping others and keeping promises and generating trust and so many different things. And so you might be talking about helping others, or generating trust, but when you really start talking about it, it's all of those things that make up integrity.

Annalisa Holcombe (32:49):
I totally agree. I totally agree. In fact, one of my questions was I was like, can we live in our integrity if we haven't fully understood our own values? I wonder if that's possible. If I don't know what my values are, will I know if I am living in integrity or because I think integrity is more than just keeping a promise. It's more about being true to who you are.

Cherie Wood (33:19):
Yes.

Annalisa Holcombe (33:20):
Wow.

Cherie Wood (33:21):
Yes. And I've often said this is that after I make this big decision or take this action, I need to be able to go home and still have my children's respect and I need to be able to sleep at night. So that's how I would say, it's like your self check, right? It's like-

Annalisa Holcombe (33:41):
Yeah.

Cherie Wood (33:42):
... No, if I do this, am I going to be able to go home and sleep at night? Is it being true to who I am and my intentions in this situation.

Annalisa Holcombe (33:55):
You mentioned something earlier about generating trust and I also have this quote from you that I have from in the past where you said something like, the worst thing you can do is assume or pretend to know what people need. And I'm interested in that real act of honestly listening, but also seeking out opportunities to listen, and how important that is to trust, which then is also part of integrity. So I feel like that's all really, really related.

Cherie Wood (34:28):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (34:28):
Can you talk a little bit about that, what that means for you, that whole act of listening in terms of leadership?

Cherie Wood (34:34):
Yeah. So, again, yeah, I do think it's a big mistake to think that I know what every buddy's struggle is in our community. I know what mine are. And I like to see if others are sharing those, but sometimes just seeking input from others, you find out that they're dealing with this other big thing and you're like, oh wow, that's interesting. We need to see what we can do to address that.

Cherie Wood (35:06):
So, yeah, I think it's so important to listen, but I think just as important as listening is following up and doing something, and that's how you generate trust is people start trusting that they can be open and honest with you and share their perspective. It'll be respected and some sort of action will be taken to improve if possible, because there are some things we, you know - municipal government - cannot solve unfortunately.

Cherie Wood (35:38):
So, yeah, I think I'm always very aware when we ask employees what they need, that we follow up with some kind of improvement, or plan for improvement. You keep asking questions of people and asking for their perspectives and they're willing to share it and then you don't do anything. I think that's offensive to people and that's how you lose trust really quick.

Annalisa Holcombe (36:12):
Yeah. What are some of the ways that you can... Do you ever have to explain to people like, I heard you, I saw that, but now we can't do it, and then here's why. Do you do that too?

Cherie Wood (36:22):
Yeah. So I think in Promise South Salt Lake, because the work that we do, a lot of the work we do in Promise South Salt Lake is close to what nonprofits do, but because we're municipal government and they're taxpayer dollars, we have laws we have to follow. And so there's certain things that we can't do that maybe a nonprofit could do. And so sometimes those conversations are this way, but we follow up with, we have a partner that can help us do this. And then we reach out to that partner to see if we can send that family or these individuals there to get the help that they're requesting.

Annalisa Holcombe (37:08):
Tell me about how you make decisions with your kids as part of that, I get a lot of questions from our listeners. We did a session on priorities and Sylvia Castro spoke and she talked about how everything... She really thinks differently about how she prioritizes her life after she had a child. And I'm really interested in how you prioritize having a full life when you have such an important job.

Cherie Wood (37:45):
Yeah. Everything changes after you have children. When I started, when I was first elected, I had a two-year-old, a nine-year-old and an 11-year-old. And I had been forced to have that conversation about how I was going to prioritize this big job and my role as a mom to three boys, as I was campaigning because so many people said, you're not going to be a good mom if you... You can't do this job good And you can't be a good mom, you can't do both. So you're just going to have to figure out. And so-

Annalisa Holcombe (38:30):
They were like, which one is more important to you?

Cherie Wood (38:32):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (38:33):
... Might be like right in the question without them saying-

Cherie Wood (38:36):
Oh yeah, it was there. It was there. But I did feel strongly about, what better as a mom to be in a situation where I could also impact the community that my kids are growing up in and make changes for them in a larger way, as well as being an example and helping them as they grow up.

Cherie Wood (39:03):
But yeah, they're my number one priority and honestly, I don't think I would be the mayor that I am if I didn't have them and didn't have the experiences with them and the desire to want to help them be their best, would it trickle over into Promise and really caring about all the children in our community.

Annalisa Holcombe (39:29):
That's really-

Cherie Wood (39:29):
It forces you to think a different way.

Annalisa Holcombe (39:32):
Yeah, that's really good. And I think it's an incredible lesson for were our listeners about, when we, as women are thinking about our roles and what we can do in our lives, to be able to think in some ways about both our femininity and also our motherhood as kind of a leadership superpower.

Cherie Wood (39:53):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Exactly. And even though I had a two-year-old and he was a full on red blooded two-year-old firecracker, I took him everywhere with me and I just thought, I am a mom, I am a mom first and I'm a mayor, second. And I'm going to prove to you that I'm going to be a very effective mayor because I'm a mom. And some of the best stories include-

Annalisa Holcombe (40:22):
Your campaign trail?

Cherie Wood (40:24):
Yeah. Include my son, because he's just super fun.

Annalisa Holcombe (40:31):
I'm sure he probably said things or did things that you were not expecting during meetings.

Cherie Wood (40:35):
Yeah. Well, I wouldn't take him to like work, but one time I was speaking at the 4th of July and I don't think he really understood that I was the mayor, but he watched SpongeBob and SpongeBob had a mayor all of a sudden. So he was mayor, he was thinking about those things and they announced that Cherie Wood, mayor of South Salt Lake was going to get up and speak after somebody sings. And so, right there, top of his lungs and he is sitting up there with me, he says, mom, you're male? And I said, I was like, yeah, bud. He's like, that's so freaking awesome mom.

Annalisa Holcombe (41:26):
Hope somebody has a recording of that somewhere.

Cherie Wood (41:28):
Oh yeah. So he just says it like it is out of the mouth of babes and it was fun to be there as he was realizing that I was mayor and that was kind of a big job.

Annalisa Holcombe (41:45):
I love it. And how important is it for your kids to then see you as, I just love that he's like, okay, so you're just mom, and now I realize, even though you're sitting on a stage at the 4th of July, he's like, oh wait, this is a big job you have. Somehow you pulled it off so far that he didn't realize that you were the mayor.

Cherie Wood (42:06):
Yeah. One time we were driving down the street and he saw a South Salt Lake police officer, and he goes, mom, those are cops? And I said, yeah, buddy, those are my cops. So yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (42:16):
I love that so much. That's awesome. So I was also interested, and this may or may not be appropriate, so we'll decide as we talk about it. But I do think that this, and I don't mean so much to talk of gender, but I do think that it has something to do with leadership and I've not had an opportunity to interview someone in a citywide role like this who is also female.

Annalisa Holcombe (42:44):
And I also know that you have a lot of women who are in your cabinet, and I'm interested in how that plays out for you and what that it's like. And I specifically, and we can take this out, but there's like the whole joke of, the SNL quote about, they use a different word for women and they use a different word for stuff, but it's Tina Fe saying, women get stuff done, she just uses different language than that.

Cherie Wood (43:19):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (43:19):
So talk to me about, was that purposeful or did just these women rise through the ranks, so talk to me about what it's like to be on a leadership team that has many women on it.

Cherie Wood (43:31):
Yeah. So that is probably, short of Promise South Salt Lake. I think that that's probably the other thing that I'm really proud about is when I took office, I am the first female mayor in South Salt Lake, but we had seven males that were the city council. And I only had one department head that was female. So I'd go into these cabinet meetings and that there'd be me and another woman.

Cherie Wood (44:08):
And so as opportunities have come, we have now about 50% of our staff, our department heads are female. And that's something that I'm very proud about. I think that they add so much to the conversation and we now, as city council, we have five female council members and two male council members. And so-

Annalisa Holcombe (44:32):
Wow.

Cherie Wood (44:33):
Yeah.

Annalisa Holcombe (44:34):
That's great.

Cherie Wood (44:35):
Some of these female, some of these women, I have gone to them and said, you really need to think about running. We really need some different perspectives on the council. We just need more conversation, we need to understand. Somebody was telling me that, when women are in leadership positions, they share their knowledge, they share it with the upcoming generation, they share it with everyone. And then males don't so much share it.

Cherie Wood (45:10):
And again, I don't know if that's true, but I always like put it to the test when I see a situation, do I feel that, and even if I don't, I take it as a personal challenge to make sure that I am sharing all that I know with young women that maybe I've never even thought of doing something like running for political office or working in a municipal government type role. So yeah, we have great conversations and I think that's one thing that's been fun to see flip.

Annalisa Holcombe (45:53):
One of the things I think about with regard to women in leadership and I've studied and I've thought about it a lot and it's this whole, the relational aspect of women, that women over time, and I read this book that I loved called disappearing acts that is about how over time, we've even called them soft skills, which is in some ways hilarious,

Annalisa Holcombe (46:19):
Because the ability to communicate well and to bring people along and to make sure that people know how to be part of a team and all that stuff that we now know are like the most important leadership skills, we ended up calling them soft skills because as we studied leadership, we were studying male leadership in companies since the thirties through now.

Annalisa Holcombe (46:42):
And the same... And there are important leadership skills that those men brought, but there were also just as important leadership skills that we ended up calling soft skills that we didn't count as much because over time, it was probably their assistance and their wives that were doing all that work.

Annalisa Holcombe (47:01):
And I'm really just kind of interested in, as we think about women of becoming more in more and more roles, we have a woman vice president, that's great. But how do we emphasize that these soft skills are leadership skills and how do you see any of those relational aspects play out in your role as a leader?

Cherie Wood (47:28):
So we meet as mayors throughout the county once a month, it's called Conference of Mayors. And there's a handful, this was like six years ago or something when we were really... Promise was expanding and male mayors would bring these problems. And that's kind of what we'd do. We'd get together and talk about our communities issues and potential solutions. And I can't remember what the problem was, but I thought, oh my goodness, I can totally apply the mission of Promise South Salt Lake to that solution for this mayor.

Cherie Wood (48:07):
And I attempted to do so. And I remember when I got done, I felt like they just pat me on the back and it's like, oh, Mayor Wood, she's just always thinking about the kids instead of taking it as a legit potential solution to an issue he brought to the table. And so I just kind of felt, all right, so-

Annalisa Holcombe (48:28):
You got patted on your head to go over here and you're like, look at this solution.

Cherie Wood (48:33):
Yeah. And then I fixed that by the next time I hosted Conference of Mayors, and it was years later and different makeup of mayors. But I had them all come here and I did a Promise South Salt Lake tour with them and they just could not stop. They're like Mayor Wood, this is the most amazing thing we've ever seen.

Cherie Wood (48:54):
I had one say, you probably don't have the issues of trust with your police officers like some of our other communities because of this program. And I thought, yeah, we probably don't. I don't feel like we have the shoes, I'm not going to put up a wall saying, can't be there, whatever, but it was funny that their tune had completely changed after they had a visual of what it was and the success that we were seeing from it as a community.

Annalisa Holcombe (49:29):
Do you have any advice for people who are, for example that, how can our listeners... Do you have any advice about what it would be like to just be themselves authentically, to be like, yes, I'm the mom, yep, here's my kid, yes, I'm going to put children first, or yes, I also can put police safety first. I can do all those things at the same time. Do you have any advice on either what we can tell our young women about how we could potentially mentor them coming up, or second, how could we help each other?

Cherie Wood (50:08):
No, I think that's a good question. Actually, I feel like we're seeing the pendulum swing, because I think women that are around my age, we've had to do a dance to get where we're at. And I think that with some of these younger professional females that I have even on my staff, I see them coming in with their authentic self, and the confidence that I don't feel like I had when I was their age.

Cherie Wood (50:39):
And so I'm so happy to see that pendulum swinging back to where they feel like there's room for them to be their authentic self and that's actually of so much value to whatever position they're in or whatever group they're leading. But yeah, I've spent time thinking about that and thinking about my path, and it being different and that sometimes your authentic self isn't really something you can talk about in all rooms, or let it out in all rooms. And so now I'm in a position that I can, and I do feel like it is my responsibility to make it so other women can, so that they feel comfortable in doing that.

Annalisa Holcombe (51:29):
I love it, but that's a way for us to see our own path and that we might belong in positions of power as well.

Cherie Wood (51:36):
Yeah. And once you get there, you absolutely need to help other women get there. I don't know if... I'm sure I've told you this because we've had lots of conversations, but it took a man telling me I should run for mayor. I honestly had never thought about running for office, but it took the mayor previous to me. I was his chief of staff. He brought me in his office and he said, you should run for mayor.

Cherie Wood (52:03):
And I thought, people are mean, politics suck. I don't want to do this, I see what you go through. But honestly, by him planting that seed, to that minute, I had never thought about running for office. And then I thought, well, why not? If I just trust my instinct and my passion for this community, I could do this, all my institutional knowledge for 17 years at South Salt Lake, all things South Salt Lake.

Cherie Wood (52:30):
But I've told women in groups of young women when I've had the opportunity to speak to them, I've said, if I have to be the person that plants that seed, run for office, do something big and scary. If you feel like you need permission or a jab to do it, to push you off the cliff, then let me be that person because you definitely should be thinking big like that.

Annalisa Holcombe (52:55):
Thank you so much for doing this with me today.

Cherie Wood (52:59):
It was so fun.

Annalisa Holcombe (52:59):
I have looked forward to it for such a long time. And I know that you don't have to spend your time doing stuff like this, you don't have to spend an afternoon with me doing this. You have lots of really big, important things to do, but I also think it goes to your integrity, that you are willing to talk to anybody about who you are and about what you're passionate about. And I'm super grateful.

Cherie Wood (53:23):
Thank you. You are super fun to chat with.

Annalisa Holcombe (53:28):
I am so grateful to Mayor Wood for her openness and introspection. You can learn more about Mayor Wood and her city on their website at www.sslc.com. And you can find her on Twitter and Facebook as well. Next week, we will be joined by Brody Leven. Brody is a professional adventure skier who has found a way to turn that into an actual profession. And we will be talking about authenticity.

Annalisa Holcombe (54:20):
As always, thank you for listening to 92,000 Hours. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate your support. If you're interested in integrating the personal and professional through authentic conversation, just like you heard on our episode today, please check out our work at connection collaborative.

Annalisa Holcombe (54:40):
You can find us at connection.collaborative.com or send me an email at annalisa@connectioncollaborative.com. Thank you and see you next week on 92,000 Hours. 92,000 Hours is made possible by Connection Collaborative. This episode was produced and edited by Brianna Steggell. Lexie Banks is our marketing director and I'm your host, Annalisa Holcombe.