Leisa: Hello, I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson and welcome to another edition of Women Mean Business, where we’re going to take you up close and personal with extraordinary women doing extraordinary things. My guest today is Diane Scardino, Vice President of Operations of Texas Children’s Hospital here in Houston in the Texas Medical Center. Diane, welcome to Women Mean Business.

Diane: Thank you, Leisa. I’m glad to be here.

Leisa: You are so successful, and as you know I admire you so much (Diane: Thank you.). I would love to hear what you have to tell other women who want to achieve your success.

Diane: It’s ok if the road is not straight. In fact, embrace it. You know, I think especially with healthcare; talk about a dynamic industry.  I think you have to get comfortable with, it’s not going to be exactly how you planned it, but I think the other thing is, be ok with standing out. Know where your weaknesses are and just embrace them. Figure out how you can make them better. Have a lot of personal awareness and then just really own things that you want to own and stand out. Texas Children’s has been an amazing organization that I think we really just embrace that in people.

So, I’m a little biased in that I have that knowledge of how we do it in this organization, but I can seriously look back and say any time that I just kind of ran with something, said, ‘let me own it’ to a boss, and, you know, checked in and just embraced and moved forward and stood out with whatever it was, the organization really rewarded me with either more breadth, opportunity to build an expertise, and I think too often we kind of get in our heads exactly how it’s going to go and, you know, it never goes that way. It’s taking the time to just be comfortable with the winding road and learning on that winding road. Embrace it for what it is and know that every step is going to give you a little bit more expertise.

Leisa: Thank you very much.

Diane: You’re welcome.

Leisa: There you have it, extraordinary advice from an extraordinary woman.  I’m Leisa Holland-Nelson, President and Co-founder of ContentActive, Houston’s leading web and mobile technology firm. You can find me at contentactive.com or follow me on Twitter @lhnelson.  We’ll be back again next week with another edition of Women Mean Business.