Kimuya_N

The coffee date before us had been long coming- since August of 2023, when Sarah and I found ourselves in a common breakout room during a people managers’ bootcamp. And while this little break was meant to identify and tackle our blind spots as people managers, we had instead dived (headfirst) into a conversation on toxic positivity.

The constant push in us  to maintain a positive mindset; no matter what. While optimism has its place, we both agreed that unrelenting positivity can be damaging. Because sometimes, teams don’t need silver linings or motivational mantras. They just need space to sit with the disappointment,  to name the failure or rant it out; and  to grieve what didn’t work out.

We could’ve gone on and on, but then we ran out of time. We promised to grab a cuppa’ coffee- ‘sometimes soon’. But like many good intentions, it ended there: as an open cheque for a coffee date, with no timestamp or urgency.

Until now.
Eighteen months later-finally, with the luxury of her in-person presence and no timezone differences to consider.

“Soo… that coffee cheque, cash it in now?” I asked. “Kindly but urgently,” I added, with the kind of tone we Kenyans reserve for those delicate moments of borrowing money: half-joking, half-serious… but mostly serious.

***

The deadline for the octopus of the project I was leading had been crunched by three full months, and was now  exactly 12 working days away. It hadn’t felt impossible, but delivering on time meant that everyone was currently operating on a critical path that was bordeline unbearable.

I was struggling. (Of course).

 See, as a Finance Business Partner, you occupy a uniquely privileged (and often precarious) position; where you’re dissecting numbers in their atomic form one moment, and distilling them into a single slide the next. You hold both the messy backend where things can, and often do, go wrong- and the pristine frontend, where time-sensitive, high-stakes decisions are made based on your output. And as the face of this project, (of translating sprawling annual plans into the language of numbers, then squeezing it all into a single slide), I had been thrust into the kind of org-wide spotlight I had always dreaded. Every delay, every decision, and every ounce of visible strain felt amplified. I was plugged into everything: evaluating shifting dependencies daily, negotiating with functional heads and country directors, persuading them to prioritise any blockers buried in their already overpacked calendars. And most painfully, standing at the epicentre of it all, where “this can’t be done” and “this has to be done” constantly collided.

Managing expectations in both directions became its own full-time job. And this, this– was the one part of the role I hated to the core. Communication. Trying to wrap brutal reality in softened language. Projecting calm while suppressing chaos. Swinging between leadership and execution. Being the buffer between urgency and impossibility.

And for all that, I needed this coffee date with a side of positivity. From the one person I knew could serve the side best, gloriously and in unapologetically toxic doses.

***

“So, how is it going?”  She asked in that unmistakably American fashion.

I have always found these American imprecisions oddly fascinating.  This uncanny ability to pick up a conversation like we know exactly what we are talking about. Like it’s a soft continuation from where we last left off. How is ‘what’ going? And yet, in my observation, this greeting, or icebreaker depending, is almost always met by surgical precision.

So, I camouflaged the cultural disconnect with practiced blurry flair.

“It’s quite intense,” I said, “but we’re almost there.”

I’d learned that quite was always a good dilute. And almost? A magic chip.

***

I had a lot to say, and I did. Starting with, “By the way, this pregnancy is making me a bit emotional, so don’t panic…”

Knowing full well that the lake I was about to cry had absolutely nothing to do with the pregnancy.

I went on to give my unpunctuated frustrations: of the constraints we were operating under, and the never  ending disruptions that demanded my attention. The countless moving pieces spinning wildly around a deadline that refused to budge. And how somehow, somewhere along the way, my once-deep love for communication and project management had twisted into my Achilles’ heel.

I had always thrived in my own quiet space, offering personalised, behind-the-scenes business partnership to my stakeholders. Quietly making things happen in the background and stepping up and stepping in at will—not because I had to, but because I chose to. No spotlight. No noise.

“And now? I HAVE to. I used to glide, but now I brace. And this forced visibility on me feels like a costume stitched from some else’s skin. So no, I don’t want the spotlight. But I’m learning to stand in it anyway. Ankles shaky, the cracks in my voice untamed, the ‘right’ words slipping away like water between my fingers – but still pushing. Not because I want to be seen, but because I won’t disappear. And, by the way, you know what? These rooms suffocate me. Just sitting among all these Ivy League profiles feels like a quiet assault on my confidence. I shrink. I question myself. What do I even have to offer here?”…

***

“Kim, we’re desperate to hear from you. Honestly, we worry when we don’t. Do you realize how overwhelming numbers are for most of us? And that’s where you come in. We need the full weight of your brilliance to guide us through this. Tell us what the numbers mean. Where we are. What’s next. Draw the roadmap. We’re all here to support you in this, we always have.

And, by the way, you know what? Intelligence isn’t the preserve of Ivy League profiles. If these rooms that stifle you are where your story must be written, then make sure they get the headline right. Will you?”

I looked at her radiant self sitting across the table  speaking in bold and beautiful sentences. The yellow in her spirit resting on her cheeks like sunlight through a window… And she went on and on, the warmth of her words thawing every little ice cube of imposter syndrome buried within me. Breathing life back into my self-efficacy, which had been hanging by its last thread.

And that changed the trajectory in magical ways. From the way I would show up henceforth, to how I perceived the inevitable huddles along the way, and the presence I carried to the very spaces that once unnerved  me. And when the time came to write my story-borne of the same rooms that once choked me- it wasn’t loud, or perfect. But it was real, and dressed in my own skin.
And finally, it felt like mine. Like somebody I knew.

So here’s to those who continue to thaw the ice of self-doubt within us. May we remember them, and may we be them when we can.  And if  you’re smiling  thinking of them now, pass this their way.