The Salesforce Career Show
The podcast dedicated to helping you HIRE, GET HIRED and SOAR HIGHER in the SALESFORCE ecosystem.
Enjoy these live recordings of The Salesforce Career Show from X Spaces and YouTube's JoshForce. A guest + AMA format hosted by Josh Matthews, founder of Salesforce Staffing, LLC, Joshforce and The Expand Exchange and Vanessa Grant, Dreamforce speaker, 9X certified BA, consultant and social media darling. Recordings are 3x per month.
The Salesforce Career Show
Manager-Employee Relationships: Shaping Career Trajectories
Martha Hardy, Director of CRM at Pape Group, and her daughter Mariah Hardy-Spence, Salesforce Marketing Ops Manager, offer a unique mother-daughter perspective on optimizing CRM use and refining marketing strategies. Tune in for an engaging conversation about their working relationship within the Salesforce ecosystem, shedding light on both the challenges and rewards. Vanessa Grant also shares her inspiring journey into solo consultancy, a leap sparked by an unexpected layoff, illustrating the boundless opportunities that can arise from unexpected setbacks.
Explore the nuances of manager-employee relationships and how they can shape career trajectories. Together with our guests, we tackle the art of taking ownership of your career, emphasizing the importance of self-advocacy, mentorship, and choosing growth-oriented workplaces. Mariah's transition into Salesforce consulting serves as an inspiring case study in aligning one's career with personal passions and remaining open to new possibilities. Personalized one-on-one meetings, setting both professional and personal goals, and understanding the importance of flexibility in team dynamics are just a few of the key topics we cover.
Our dialogue doesn't shy away from the complexities of office politics and the balancing act of professional growth amid challenging manager-employee dynamics. We touch on the often-overlooked benefits of treating certain roles as "paid grad school," offering a chance to learn and grow professionally. With thoughtful insights and compelling anecdotes, this episode provides strategies for navigating career development challenges, fostering positive workplace relationships, and building a supportive environment for growth. Join us for a thoughtful exploration into thriving within the Salesforce ecosystem.
And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce Career Show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant. Okay, dope.
Josh Matthews:Let's do this, guys. Welcome to the career show. Salesforce career show that is. It's going to stop that music for a minute, so welcome to the show, everybody. Today we will be exploring the differing viewpoints, objectives and the relationships between managers and their employees, and to accomplish this, we have a mother-daughter team to discuss this in detail. So not only are they currently working together right now, but they've done so with their own Salesforce consulting firm as well, not that long, you know.
Josh Matthews:Previous to this role, we have with us today, martha Hardy. Martha is the director of CRM at Pape Group, out of Oregon. Martha leads a team of 18 Salesforce experts across six divisions, ensuring optimized CRM use and best practices. She's got 15 years of experience and five certifications. She also co-founded a Salesforce consulting practice for SMBs and is an advocate for practical, efficient solutions. And then also with us is her offspring, mariah Hardy-Spence. Welcome Mariah. Mariah is the Salesforce Marketing Ops Manager at Pape Group. She specializes in, of all things, marketing Cloud. She's a recognized Salesforce Marketing Champion. She holds seven certifications. She recently spoke at Dreamforce, just like our illustrious Vanessa Grant. Here. She excels in process optimization, drawing on her experience managing a high-performing team over at Anheuser-Busch. So welcome both of you Go ahead and unmute and say hi.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Hello there. So excited to be on the show. Thanks so much for having us. Nice to meet you, Josh. Nice to meet you, Vanessa.
Josh Matthews:Thank you, Mariah.
Martha Hardy:Hello everybody, Thanks for having us, Josh and Vanessa, and I look forward to our conversation today.
Josh Matthews:We're going to launch right into that conversation as soon as we get a hello from Vanessa and just kind of cover a couple of cool topics real quick. So, vanessa, how's it going?
Vanessa Grant:Hey Josh, I am doing great Kind of post-Dreamforce the dust has settled and trying to kind of navigate my way through solo consultancy these days.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, so that's a big announcement for our audience that you actually finally made the decision on what you're going to be doing for your career for at least the next coming days, months, possibly years. Tell us about it.
Vanessa Grant:Well, when I announced on LinkedIn that I'd been laid off it's weird to say, but the response was rather remarkable and just a lot of opportunities presented themselves. Remarkable and just a lot of opportunities presented themselves. And I realized that you know as much as I don't. It's the self limiting beliefs and I've always said I didn't feel like I had an entrepreneurial bone in my body, but the opportunities presented themselves and I was like you know what? I could always go back and try and find a full time job. Let me give this a shot and see where it goes. And I'm doing that now and so far so good, just keeping busy.
Josh Matthews:Well, I'm really excited for you. I think a lot of our listening audience is excited for you because it's going to be, it's going to give you some really fresh perspectives on what many thousands of people in the ecosystem do, which is maybe not, maybe it's not a business, but they're, you know, independent consultant, let's say, and I think it's a great experience to do that. I still kind of moonlight doing that sort of stuff with business consulting on the side, just a little bit here and there, and it's fun. It's like, you know, I've got my company and then I got my own thing, you know, which is a lot of fun to have and it helps us to also exercise different parts of our brain when we get a chance to do that.
Josh Matthews:Now we had oh, I'm going to just tell everyone real quick I just posted a picture of me and Martha from dream force. So if you want to check it out, it's just go to at the Josh force here on X and you can see me and Martha kicking it in the sun, sunny sunshine of San Francisco back in September. So we had Vanessa and I had a chance to. Well, I guess it was just me, but I think I really would have only known her through. You Got to run into Gilda from Salesforce, who's director of product marketing, and she came, I'm afraid to even pronounce her last name. I'm afraid I'm going to botch it, is it Helena?
Vanessa Grant:I think that's about as close as I can get.
Josh Matthews:Okay, all right. So you know I said hi to Gilda over at Florida Dreamin' in Clearwater in between the hurricanes, like smack right in between them, for a few days, and you know she was a guest on our show when we ran it with Brandon about four weeks ago. It was really nice to have her there and I'd seen her but hadn't said hi at Dreamforce. Anyway, we got to talking and she said she really loves the show, loves that we're consistent with it, loves what we're bringing to the ecosystem with this program. And so you know what she did. She offered us an opportunity to give away some wonderful prizes to our listening audience, both to our live audience as well as to our listening audience from the podcast audience as well as to our listening audience from the podcast.
Josh Matthews:And so today we are going to announce a contest. We're not giving all the details of the contest yet, but I did. I think Vanessa and I both agreed it makes sense for us to tell you what we're going to be giving away and a little bit more about the dates. We'll tell you how to actually get entered into this contest for these awesome prizes. But, vanessa, why don't you take it from here? When are we going to be doing a drawing and what specifically are we going to be giving away?
Vanessa Grant:Well, we are going to have the luxury of giving away five Salesforce certifications, which is huge at this time. I think very few folks are able to give away certifications these days and I feel really fortunate that we've been seen and our work is being rewarded and that we can pass on those rewards to the folks that hopefully benefit from our show now, besides the content, maybe also with the certification that they can celebrate with us.
Josh Matthews:Absolutely.
Vanessa Grant:As far as the timing goes, I might have to look that up.
Josh Matthews:December 4th is going to be yeah, that's the date we're going to announce the winners and, again, we're going to tell everybody all about it on the next show, that's in two weeks from today, and we're going to tell you exactly how you can enter. You can actually enter multiple times and give yourself the best chance. We're giving away five vouchers for certifications valued at up to $400 per certification. So that's $2,000 of giveaway awesomeness, which I think is fantastic. It's very generous from Gilda, it's generous from Salesforce and, again, we do really appreciate the recognition.
Josh Matthews:Now I think it makes sense to say if you are one of the winners of these and you blow it on a $75 certification, well, it feels a little bit like a waste, right, so they're worth up to $400. But if you use it on a $75 certification, well, you're blowing $325 right out the window. But it's totally up to you. So, whoever wins it, I imagine we're going to have five different winners. You can't win more than once, but we're going to have five different winners and you can spend it on the cert of your choice. You still have to earn the cert, okay, you still have to earn the cert, but at least these vouchers will help contribute greatly to reducing the cost of getting your next certification. All right, cool, anything else. Any quick updates before we launch into our topic of the day here Vanessa.
Vanessa Grant:Oh, no big news items lately as far as I can think of in the Salesforce ecosystem. So I think the big news is the voucher giveaway. That is the big news.
Josh Matthews:I've got some really small news, but I was equally as stoked. You know. Gilda said well, hey, josh, you know what do you want? You've got a hoodie, or you've got a hoodie already, right, I was like I don't have a hoodie. She's like why not? It's like I'm not certified, I'm not like a trailhead guy, I don't do it. She's like cut that out, you deserve a hoodie for all you do. And I was like oh, my God, that's so nice and I swear to God, no joke.
Josh Matthews:I almost cried because it felt you know, we've been doing this show. It's like I don't even know, is it four years now? It's a long. It's been a while. Yeah, the podcast not as long. But we've been doing this since COVID, right Since COVID came out, and I don't even remember what year that was, I think 2020. So we've been doing this for about three and a half, four and a half years I can't even remember anymore and it felt so awesome I've been.
Josh Matthews:You know, I first used Salesforce in 99. They were a client back in, oh 2000. I can't remember 1516 around that time. And then, you know, been running this company for just over six years. We celebrated six years this month and so I got my hoodie and it fits great. And then, you know, been running this company for just over six years. We celebrated six years this month and so I got my hoodie and it fits great and it looks awesome. It's a little bit warm to wear where I live, but I'm definitely going to be packing it on my next conference.
Josh Matthews:So thanks again to Gilda. If you're listening to this, you are an absolute gem and a star and we appreciate you so much. Thank you for your contributions here to the show. And with that we're going to go ahead and dive right in. So today we are talking about the different perspectives, the different viewpoints, objectives and relationship between managers and their employees. I'd like to start with Martha. The relationships between employees and employers can be awesome. They can be powerful connections. They can be career magnifiers right. They can career accelerators, and they can also ruin your life right. If that relationship is off, if it's a bad match or a bad personality or simply just personalities that don't gel, what do you do to protect yourself Pape Group, the whole team from potentially bringing someone on board that could disrupt that sort of facility between you and your employees?
Martha Hardy:Yeah. So I think the thing for me is I take time when I'm in the interview process. I ask non-technical questions, like most people do, I think, when they're in that process, but then I also try to find strengths within the person and their answers on those non-technical questions that can help support other team members where they may be struggling with something or not quite as strong, and so that's one thing that I do in my interviewing process to try to make sure that people will be able to come into the team and be a great team member and help solve the problems, you know, not just technical but within the team and the weaker points that we have.
Josh Matthews:Sure and look you know, most people who are managers or leaders in a space are. You know they're both a leader or manager, and they're also an employee. So how has being a manager informed or changed your behavior as an employee?
Martha Hardy:Well, that's a really good one. I think what I've learned over the time of being a manager I kind of came into this role as at one level where I was working in the team and then I, you know, elevated up to be the director, and I think what I've really taken into consideration is that feeling of being in the team and working with them and keeping that mindset that they are facing challenges. You know, some days it's technology, some day it's team members, sometimes it's outside of work, and I try to keep that in mind. When I'm, you know, approaching a situation or a project, whatever it might be, I'm taking those things into consideration and not just what I'm seeing in front of me for that project or that particular situation.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, that makes sense. And, Mariah, what's it like to work for your mom? I mean, that's an interesting dynamic that most of us, I think you know. If it's 19 and we're all working for our pops, you know, grocery store in Brooklyn, like it's a different thing. Or mom dad's printing press right, like it's not like that so much anymore in America. What's it like to work for your parent in a professional setting?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Absolutely, and I do want to clarify that I don't report directly to Martha. We would have a huge HR problem if that were the case. Pape Group is a family company, but that would be just an HR nightmare. But I do work within Martha's team. I work on the marketing automation team and my manager reports directly to Martha, and our work is very much driven by her as the director of CRM, and so for me, I love working with Martha. We had previously worked together at our consulting company, and Martha is a serial entrepreneur actually, and so I had always grown up around family businesses, so for me it's quite second nature. But Martha is the entire reason I got into the Salesforce ecosystem, so all of this really feels quite natural, to be honest, and that might be a unique perspective. Some other people might not thrive in that environment, but it's been great for me.
Josh Matthews:Sure, and just let's clarify real quick. So it's only about 2.50 in the afternoon in Oregon, where you guys are, and you shared with me a little bit earlier today that it's Martha until five o'clock and after that it's mom.
Vanessa Grant:Right, that's exactly what I was going to ask when did? It switch from mom to Martha.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yep, it's usually 4.30 or 5. So sometimes I will come down to the corporate office for work and we'll have our work day and it's Martha, and then after 5 pm, you know, we will go and get our nails done together and then it's mom and Mariah time and we have a very clear cut off of things that are talked about, aren't talked about, et cetera. So, and I think that's just years of practice again from having family businesses.
Josh Matthews:Do you ever slip up, though? Do you ever say mom or mommy in a meeting, just by accident?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:I did once say mom in a meeting and it threw me off. It threw me for the biggest loop. It had never happened before. So I don't know what had gone wrong in my morning, but we all recovered, it was fine.
Josh Matthews:There you go. There you go. Interesting Vanessa, did you have another question? I don't want to dominate.
Vanessa Grant:No, that was the question is when does it switch from Martha to mom?
Josh Matthews:Yeah, there we go Now. Mariah, you'd said something. You'd indicated that and I'll just quote you here that no one cares about your career as much as you do and that it's important to take some initiatives to ensure that you're doing your best to look out for yourself and for your career. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:My background before I got into the Salesforce ecosystem was in operations management for the world's largest brewer, anheuser-busch, and I managed truck drivers there, and what I learned about being an employee while I was a manager was that the employees who really stuck out to me were the truck drivers who would come and want to learn more. They would consciously make time to talk to me about what I was doing in the office because at some point they wanted to be an operations supervisor, they wanted to manage truck drivers, etc. And I always appreciated that because as a manager I had so much to do, I had so much on my plate and sometimes I wasn't very good at that sort of professional development for my employees, and I think that's an area where probably all managers can improve. Josh and Vanessa, I don't know if you agree with that or if you hear that often.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, what do you think, vanessa?
Vanessa Grant:I mean, I think it's true that the employee is the only one who's going to care the most. It is their responsibility at the end of the day.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, guys, look, get some autonomy, own your own crap right, figure it out. You're from the lucky club that doesn't ever really have to work Like no one's really gonna look out for your career the way that you do. And unfortunately, not enough people do look out for their career. They don't even know how. I mean, there's no class that I've ever heard of and it's been a long time since I've been in college, but I've never heard of, at least when I was coming up of a class that teaches you how to look out for your career, right, how to speak up for yourself, how to plan a trajectory.
Josh Matthews:Now there are people you know. There are people in the US and around the world. Sometimes their whole career life is already planned out for them, you know, and like they, by their parents. Depends on the culture that you're coming from. Sometimes it's like, nope, you're going to be a lawyer. Nope, you're going to be a doctor. Nope, you're going to be an engineer or anything like that.
Josh Matthews:But oftentimes you just kind of fall into it because of two things One, proximity to the careers, just like you with your mom, right, or with Martha, and then also with just the sort of genetic disposition towards being able to have a certain level, a certain high level of competency within a specific role, right? So, as an example, I'm not a psychologist. My mother is Mother's a psychologist. I'm not, but I study human behavior. It's part of my job, you know, and I think my interest in that and my exploration in human behavior and reading facial expressions and tone and burn, tempo and all of that stuff helps me to do a better job.
Josh Matthews:So it's not falling too far away from the tree but it's still right in there and that's a genetic disposition. So if you're in that situation, it's great. You get the support of your parents, get the support of your family. Some folks don't have folks to look after them. Other folks have folks, but those folks aren't looking after them. And so ultimately the responsibility lies on the individual right To take ownership of what they're going to do with their life and map it out. And when you don't, you know, when you don't know where you're going, you just might get there.
Vanessa Grant:And I think there is a, you know, a certain it's up to you as the employee to advocate for yourself within your organization if you are looking to move in certain directions or need support in certain directions. It's for me, I kind of think of it as like one of the things that you can use as leverage to keep you. It's not always going to be just salary. Maybe there's mentorship, maybe there's time that you can spend working in the Department of Shadowing, like also being vocal about what your career goals are, and hopefully you're working with a manager that cares enough about maybe giving you some slack in that regard to try and explore new things and see where you might have skills or help build up those skills, especially if they'd be valuable for the organization as well. I mean, I think that you ultimately have to be responsible, but trying to but be vocal about it.
Josh Matthews:So just give it to yourself.
Josh Matthews:And you can also be responsible. You know, one of the ways you can be responsible is by selecting opportunities at companies that do invest in their employees, right, like one of my clients, mike Vukovic, over at Wise Wolves, they really care about their employees. They do it at Galvin, they do it at remember we had our friends Jimmy and Drew from Flock came on. They talked a lot about what they do for their employees and helping to map out where their career goes. And if it leads them off-prem, you know into another role, that's okay. You know it's still a good relationship. They're still going to invest in their employees, so I think that's a really excellent point. So, mariah, how have you sort of looked after and managed your own career then? Absolutely.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:So while I was an operations manager, I realized that I really did not want to be in a warehouse 24-7. And I knew that I had to sort of take a page out of the book of those drivers who I really admired, who would come to me and try to learn how to be an operations manager, how to move up in the company. I had to take a page out of their book and start to search. Okay, how can I advocate for myself more if I want to change careers, if I want to learn more, if I want to do something different? So that led me to talking to just a bunch of different people to figure out what's out there. I think that we get maybe pigeonholed. If we go to college for a specific major or we get a specific certification in something we tend to think there's only one career or only one way to make money, and there's really not. There's so many different opportunities. And, of course, one of the people I started talking to was my mom, martha Hardy, who had founded a Salesforce consulting company.
Josh Matthews:Momtha Hardy, you can do that, momtha Hardy, I like it.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Momtha Hardy, yeah, and she had said you know, in your current job you are solving these really big problems and you love solving problems, you love business operations, you love making businesses better and improving things. And did you know that you can do the same thing through the use of technology and it's called Salesforce? And I said tell me more. And so that was really my first big step, and sort of advocating for my own career was just trying to collect more information, right, Not feeling like, okay, well, now I'm just stuck in this one swim lane that I've chosen and now I'm going to be here for 40 years. That's just not the reality of today's economy, especially so that was really. The first step was gathering more information.
Josh Matthews:And then, martha, for you. You know what is it like for you as a leader and as a manager when someone comes, when you have an employee, and they come to you and say, hey, I'm really interested in growing my career, can you help me? I mean, how much more time, energy, mentorship do those folks get over, say and I don't want to call anyone on your team average, but let's just say, tip, the more typical employee who's kind of doing their job, of keeping to themselves. What's that experience like for you?
Martha Hardy:So I have regular check-ins, one-on-ones every other week with my team members and I try to talk about goals. I bring up the conversation around goals. Some people are, yes, please, I want to set goals, I'm going to crush them. I have this roadmap for myself, like you talk about, josh. Some people are driven with that. Others we set smaller goals, but I still like them to get into the habit of setting some sort of a goal, just so that then they can see improvement over time that they're with me at the organization. I will find other members that sometimes I encourage them because I'm planning for a new role. I need to expand our team. I've expanded our team over the past four years and so I will find characteristics that I think would benefit that new role that I need and then help mentor the person and get them trained to be able to step into that role once I post it and so what kinds of characteristics though?
Josh Matthews:I hope you don't mind drilling down on that a little bit, because I think listeners want to know like, well, what do you mean? Like, can I demonstrate certain characteristics so I can, you know, broaden my horizons or grow in my role?
Martha Hardy:Yeah. So when I think about so, I have a DevOps role that I recently created and with that role I was nurturing characteristics around process, right, they're very strict on the process. If I'm working with them and something goes out of sequence, I can tell that it has not really stopped them, but paused them, Right. So then I'm like, okay, they are very process driven. They understand you need to have one, two, three and it needs to go exactly in that sequence and they are going to do that every time. And so those are the things that I look at. It's kind of depending on the role and almost like the behaviors related to the role.
Martha Hardy:So, when I had to have a role that needs to be able to work welly not welly, that's not really a technical word but be effective, working across teams, and to be able to manage difficult situations. Then I'm looking for a specific skill set that has presented that they can address difficult conversations across teams when there are dotted lines, because there's a lot of dotted lines in our organization. So I'm looking for that. You know kind of that politician mentality of I can reach across the aisle and we can have conversations and make progress.
Vanessa Grant:So a couple of questions I have for you, just because stuff that I've struggled with when I've managed teams. So when you have these weekly check-ins with folks, do you use the same format for the meetings for every person? Like, is the same template that you'd use and, if so, like what are the things? What are your agenda items that usually cover in these meetings besides the goals?
Martha Hardy:Yeah, that's a good question. So I don't use the same template for everybody. I tried that at the beginning and some people didn't respond well to that same approach and so I worked with each individual I'm meeting with and we have our own way that we come into our one-on-ones. Some of them are more relaxed and you know we start with, you know, maybe a 10 minute conversation about lifespan or something personal, and then we kind of get into project updates. Some people only kind of want to stick to the project updates. They don't really want a lot of chit chat and then they want to be able to go and you know, if we can give time back, if I can give them 10 minutes back, they're like that's great. Go, and you know, if we can give time back, if I can give them 10 minutes back, they're like that's great.
Vanessa Grant:So I think it just is kind of an individual approach I've taken and that's what I've found to be most effective. Now, do you have separate meetings on their I guess, the career goal aspects or how they're doing in their particular roles, and how often do you have those meetings, or is that just kind of?
Martha Hardy:incorporated in the weekly. It kind of depends on the person again, but we do yearly evaluations and so during that yearly review I set goals in there, a trial basically, and we have a software that manages that and I set the goals in there that I'd like to see for them professionally in the next year, and then I've also helped. Sometimes it's a personal goal and so I don't call those out, of course, in the interview or in the review process, but we do check in on those and I've had a couple of team members that have appreciated that I, you know, I've noticed something out in their outside, outside of work space, and then we've worked on a few things there. So I've kind of become a mentor in a way, not just that manager.
Vanessa Grant:And the last thought I had on this and another one that I kind of have struggled with. You know, when you have a busy Salesforce team, there's so much doing that needs to happen as far as project work that it is almost challenging sometimes to allot the time to have those one-on-ones weekly. How do you find that balance when there you know if there's a project on fire or if there's a lot of pressure to get things done, like how sacred are those one-on-ones compared to the day-to-day work that you have to accomplish?
Martha Hardy:That's another good question. I try to keep the one-on-ones, unless there's some you know, some reason why I need to move it. And then if I move it, I try to keep it within that same week. If I'm not able to keep our one-on-one, I always do a you know a team's check-in and email and ask the question you know, is there something pressing that you need my help with or an update you need to give me? I'm sorry, I have to, you know, cancel our one-on-one for these two weeks. If there's, you know, something comes up, I will fit you in, and that's kind of the way that I've approached that. Usually the members, the team members that I'm working with, they, if they see that there's you know I'm very busy or something is you know they're mindful that my time is under a crunch they'll reach out to me and say, hey, I don't really have anything this week. I can give you time back and I appreciate that too.
Josh Matthews:That's very good. I think she muted her thing, but I think that's very, you know, a responsible way to approach it. I know Steven could let you know if he was speaking right now. I would say yeah, Josh rarely keeps his Friday meetings with me. We have so many, you know. We're talking mostly every day, right, so we can cover a lot of this stuff. But I'm a big fan of the weekly or the bi weekly meeting and, with some forgiveness, right, Like you skip one out of the month, like it's not the end of the world, you know. So you can be flexible and then just communicate via email or Slack or, you know, whatever. As you mentioned, Martha, you know what's most pressing.
Josh Matthews:I'd like to explore for a moment, if we can, a little bit about the way employees perceive managers versus and managers, you know, perceive employees because it's a real thing, right, it's a real thing and you can think of it almost in terms of like being a student in school, high school, middle school, grade school, you know, and your teacher's the boss.
Josh Matthews:So we start with that relationship pretty early and we're indoctrinated into this experience that this person's older than us Generally.
Josh Matthews:It's not necessarily the case in the working world, but as a, you know, student teacher relationship.
Josh Matthews:You know this person's older, they're taller than us, they're bigger than us, and so and we spend years and years 10, 12, well, I guess 13 years, which can include kindergarten in this kind of environment, and then we go in to the workplace, where there should be more deference, and so those kids who had deference for their teachers tend to exhibit deference to their managers, and the kids that don't in school tend not to in adulthood managers and the kids that don't in school tend not to in adulthood and their lives suffer greatly because they are practically unemployable when there's not deference for the people who've been there longer and have been and have the answers right. So it's a but as we mature and as we age, I believe our relationships with our managers really change. You know, change in a very big way. Is that something? I'll just open it up to both of you or anyone who's the speaker right now to let us know how have relationships changed, either with your employees, as you've gained more experience, or with your employers or your managers, as you've matured as well?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:managers as you've matured as well. I've been lucky to have very good managers in my career thus far, so I've always had great relationships with them. My managers have always looked out for my career development, for my well-being, for my health. I think I've gotten very lucky there. I will say one thing that I noticed being a manager and I was a very young manager in my former career, before technology but one thing that really stuck with me is that when you become a manager, you become part of the them. If a company has the perception of them versus us, right If them is the corporation if them as the management.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Once you become a manager, you're now part of the them, and how you approach that is very important. A lot of that has to do with the company culture. You know how you're going to be perceived by your employees. You know if they like working for the company, if they don't like it, what decisions the company's making as a whole. But it's a very tricky thing transition to make. It can be very challenging, especially if you're going from a peer-to-peer relationship to then becoming a manager. So there's really no easy way to navigate it. And it does change. It does change your relationships.
Josh Matthews:It sure does, and it does take time. I interviewed a fellow today who spoke about this specifically. He was talking about how challenging it was when he got a promotion and now he was still sort of a player coach. I mean he's still doing the same job as his employees. Steven's had a role like that in a prior life.
Josh Matthews:I've had a role like that in a prior life where all of a sudden, these people that you're hanging out with and kicking it and getting drinks with, or going to the movies with or having over to your house, and all of a sudden they're reporting to you.
Josh Matthews:And this is why it can be. You know it's important to have positive, influential relationships within the workplace, but if your goal is to grow your career within that specific and you are super chummy, just like one of the chummiest chumpsters ever it's going to be a massive and very difficult transition into leadership and a lot of times you might not even feel like you're very supported by those people that you believe you have a strong, positive, friendly relationship with or even close friendship with. So to go from, you know, being best buddies with someone and then all of a sudden they're reporting to you, it doesn't survive the way that relationship doesn't survive in the same way that you or they may want to, and it can be difficult to feel like you're being supported if there's any jealousy or animosity or someone feeling like they were passed over and you got the promotion. Did you ever experience that, Mariah?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yes, and most of my management experience again draws from my career prior to technology, so you know it's a different industry within operations.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, but it doesn't matter. Like it's work is work, it's okay.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yeah, I did have a situation where I was an operations supervisor and there were a few people who wanted the job. That came open when, when my manager left, I had a great manager at Anheuser-Busch. His name was Don Shout out Don, I know he's not listening, but he was just incredible and he left. His senior operations manager position opened up and it was me and a couple of other operations supervisors who were out of the Pacific Northwest branches and a couple of the other branches from the US and we all kind of wanted this job and I wound up getting the job and it really changed my relationship with some of the other ops supervisors out of the other branches and that was really difficult because, you know, these were people who previously we were you know, we were chummy, we would go to St Louis together for work trips and it did just sort of change the dynamic and I had to step into a role where I was, you know, responsible for a multimillion dollar budget.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:I was responsible for 50 different but I was going to gain something else and it wouldn't be a direct one-to-one trade-off. It's not like, oh, I lost something bad, I got something good. No, I lost something good, but I also got something else. Good, but they're going to be very different and that was a really difficult transition, but it is part of your career path. It is just sort of what happens.
Josh Matthews:It is what happens. It is what happens and it's you know. I think it's worth mentioning. This is a very excellent reason not to talk smack about people in the workplace, right? Don't be a sewer rat. Don't dish the dirt, so to speak, if you want to grow in your career, because the last thing that you want is to get that promotion. You beat out your friend and then your friend turns on you and starts badmouthing Now, this has not happened to me, but it starts badmouthing. Now you're in a position of power. Maybe they're trying to sink you, keep you from getting that job, or maybe they're trying to build resistance to you.
Josh Matthews:This happens, right, there are politics in the workplace and they are multifaceted and they're different in each company, but they fall into a general group of versions of politics, and so you just don't want to get involved in that. Don't give anyone leverage negative leverage on you when you start a new job. Just don't do it. It's bad form and it can inhibit your career. I mean, this is what TV shows are made of, right? Something bad from the past comes back to bite you. I mean, that's a normal theme. You know that's probably one of Shakespeare's 16 general plots, right? So just kind of keep your nose clean when you jump into a new job. So I'd like to ask you, martha, what are some of the, what are some of the things that you've noticed have helped Like for the employees that you have? What are some things that some of your employees are doing that help them to stand out in your eyes, that you know it grows. It grows your esteem for them when they do blank, when they do X, y, z. What would some of those things be?
Martha Hardy:I think the key is communication. If they are communicating either with me or with the members of the projects that they're working on, and they are communicating in a cadence that is appropriate and, you know, not in a manner that is, I guess, not kind and not negative and different things like that Positive, friendly open.
Martha Hardy:Yeah, positive, friendly but professional. Like I said, we have a lot of dotted lines, so we're working across organizations within our organization, and so I think that's one of the things across organizations within our organization, and so I think that's one of the things Are they able to communicate in a way that is effective and are they able to get people to see their point of view? A lot of times, it's us telling you know, or recommending best practices, and so can they communicate that best practice and the need to follow what we're asking in an effective way and keep relationships, not burn bridges.
Josh Matthews:Sure, and what about you, mariah, from an employee standpoint? I understand you're a leader as well, but from an employee standpoint, what are some strategies that you've employed to ensure a positive relationship between you and your immediate manager?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:So Martha had said that there are annual reviews that she does with her direct reports and something that I love to do is actually to do quarterly reviews with my manager. And these aren't official reviews per se, but I love to set up a quarterly check in with my manager to make sure that we're covering any career development that I need. But it also opens up another line of communication, like Martha had mentioned it just it opens up that line between me and my manager even more. So I know that if there's something that's going to be on my mind for a project, maybe in the next six months, okay I can just add that to my running agenda for our next quarterly check-in. You know it's another touch point that I can have with my manager to check those things off the list that are in the back of my mind.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:So that's something that I love to do. It's another way to advocate for my career. I can come to those check-ins with some of my accomplishments, some of the things that I want to do. I always come with an area I can improve. I think it's really important. If you're going to send your boss a list of your accomplishments, you should probably have one or two areas you can improve as well.
Josh Matthews:Sure they're all perfect. Well, it takes the bullet out of the gun which we talk about a lot on here.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So yeah, those quarterly check ins for me are really great from a communication standpoint and a career development standpoint.
Josh Matthews:I think it's impressive to just you know when I have an employee that says, hey, I would really like it, if you know, four times a year I could have a special meeting with you and talk about my career, not talk about the deals we've got going on, the people I'm interviewing, the clients that we're serving. Just leave all of that off the table and talk about how am I doing, what should I be doing differently, how can I get better, what's next in line for me and where can I invest my time so that I'm better for this role right now and more prepared for the role that's going to come next. That's powerful, right? Because it's showing accountability, which is practically my favorite word in the English language accountability, and it shows pro. You know, proaction, proactivity, what is the word? What would you say Shows pro? What is it? Anyone?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:An aptitude for planning.
Josh Matthews:How about that? There you go, I like that, okay. Aptitude for planning Okay. Thank you, mariah, for rescuing me from my word salad Very much appreciated Okay. So, Mariah, you had actually talked or made mention that some jobs can be like a form of paid grad school and I love that, but I wanted you you know some of our audience may have heard us talk a little bit about that in the past, but could you just kind of elaborate on that a little bit?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Absolutely. This is a term that I heard from a YouTuber, actually Michelle Carre. She does these great YouTube videos where she does impressive stunts or she trains like a boxer for a week, et cetera, and I heard her use this term because she had talked about getting into YouTube. It's really an on the job skill set, right, you can't really go to grad school to become a YouTuber. And even if you could, it would probably be money not well spent because things are changing so quickly.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:And when I heard her say this, I sort of had this light bulb go off about my career in technology and how I could probably use my job as paid grad school so I could learn as much as I could. I could soak up a lot of knowledge, I could network and meet a ton of people and be paid while I did it, whereas other people maybe, who go to grad school for a different type of career and you know they probably need to go to grad school for that career For example, if they want to go, you know, teach history or something like that, okay, they probably need to go to grad school.
Josh Matthews:But for me perform surgery maybe right.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yes, Build a bridge. I I forgot about doctors.
Josh Matthews:Build bridges for people, things like that. My husband's an engineer.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:I should have known that there you go.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yeah. So this concept of paid grad school I think is very relevant for the technology industry. And if you take that initiative to set up these quarterly check-ins with your manager, ask for specific projects that you want to work on, things that you're interested in, Ask if you can go to your local Chamber of Commerce business lunch each month, you know, and if your employer will pay for that, maybe one business month, excuse me, business lunch a month. There we go. There's your paid grad school, there's your network that you would have gotten from attending a university. So there's a lot of opportunity out there.
Josh Matthews:There sure is, and I think, particularly for people who are transitioning careers, breaking into a new industry. For example, maybe they were whatever? An insurance adjuster and now they're going to be a Salesforce administrator or consultant right, it's different, it's just not the same thing. They're both professional gigs, but, let's face it, you know they don't have experience yet and sometimes they'll have to accept an offer from a company that's willing to take a chance on them. That's less than what they've been earning and that can feel painful, especially if they're just going to go into debt by accepting this role. But it's often not always, but often a necessary step, and that's something I share with folks. You know, fairly frequently it's just a different version of what you've just shared, which is look, you know, you go do this. Yeah, you're going to get paid 30 grand less than what you're used to, right, but that's only going to be for a year and a half or whatever. It is right. So you would go spend that on a year of you know getting you know for one year of an MBA program right, an affordable MBA program that would be. And so you've got to think about what is this investment like? And, yeah, I'm going to take less, but that value is just deposits in the bank of your future, right? Because pretty soon now you're going to start making more and more.
Josh Matthews:I mean, it happened with me. I was making I think I was making 90 grand at a job. I was an internal recruiter for a multi-billion dollar electronics company and I left and I took a job for 55 grand. Now I had a brand new baby. It was tight. It was difficult to accept such a reduction in my compensation. And then you know whatever the next year I think I made you know about the same that I'd made in my other role. And then the following year I made twice in one year what I'd made, you know, two years previously. So more than covered it, right. And then it just goes up from there, right? So you've got to look at these things, particularly now.
Josh Matthews:I'm talking about commission stuff and you know sales stuff, where there's less of a cap on how much you can earn, but it applies whether it's, you know, a commission role or not a commission role, right, you're just going to get those raises. But sometimes, yeah, you got to pay for grad school by accepting a job that will give you experience and opportunity and mentorship in exchange for less money. So, martha, what about for you? I really am interested in what kind of advice you give to people. Or actually, better yet, let's focus on this Confidence right? Because you made mention that, the importance of confidence for employees. How do you help build confidence in your employees?
Martha Hardy:I think I start building confidence by giving them small tasks. I know that they can build upon and so say you know it's, I need you to do X and I need you to do it at this cadence, and then they can complete that. And then it's like okay, well, now I want you to lead this meeting for me and I need you to prepare like this. And so I start with small tasks and have them build upon that. And then you know, if I'm listening to them and I hear them say something, you know, I don't think I can do that. I just don't get it, I just don't understand that.
Martha Hardy:Then I'll reach out at another time, just with them, and say, hey, let's figure out how to make it to where you do feel like you can handle that, or you got that under your belt so that you don't feel like you're not confident. Um, because a lot of times we're working all, we're a virtual team mostly, and so we're on virtual. You know web calls and all that together. And so I want everybody to feel confident. And I do have meetings where I tell everybody I want you on camera, but then I do have meetings where they don't have to be on camera, because some people aren't comfortable on camera, right? So I try to figure out how to help people build their confidence where I can and it's usually it's usually on the side to where people don't even know that I'm doing it.
Josh Matthews:Got it. Can we talk about this camera thing, vanessa? Do you remember we had like a go ahead and unmute? Vanessa, do you remember we had like a long convo about this? But I'm always happy to revisit it because to me I think that people when they're on a meeting, if they were going to be at the office and the meeting was going to be in person, I believe that they should have their camera on right, because the verbal communication, like we miss so much on verbal community, you know, outside of verbal communication, when we're missing facial expression, tone, you know breathing, we can't tell if someone's well or not, if they're feeling good, if they're feeling sick, like we can't tell that stuff. But your opinion was that it's gets really old, especially after like eight hours on a camera where you're just going to watch your death.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, I mean, I think they've done studies like Zoom. Fatigue is like a thing. So for me, I think it really depends on what, like what are you trying to get out of it? So like if it's a discovery meeting. I think it's really beneficial to have cameras on, because you know when they're talking about the pain points, you can see the pain in their eyes. You can see if, when you're trying to speak about a business process that they just told you about and you're trying to get validation, you can see if maybe they give you a little bit of an eyebrow at a certain point and maybe you missed a step. Or you missed a step.
Vanessa Grant:That's the kind of stuff where okay, camera I think really important. I think when you're having those quarterly meetings with the folks that you manage about how they're tracking and how they're tracking towards their goals and how you can support them, they can see the empathy in your face if you have your camera on. I also think, like you know, do we need cameras on for a daily stand up? Probably not, you know. Do we need? Do we need cameras on for I don't know, like it depends on on the meeting.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, if you're screen sharing for an hour like who cares, right, like a problem with a Jira board like is it?
Vanessa Grant:does it really make a difference? So so that's where I try to be. I try to be upfront about which meetings I want cameras for in the agenda, just so everybody's prepared, cause it's also rough when you're like, okay, everybody turn your cameras on and like all of a sudden you know I think I was having this conversation earlier in the week that there's a lot of women that work remote now that we all have our trustee. You know kind of looks fancy cardigan draped behind our chair and our trustee just have to throw on lipstick and our trustee scrunchie. So if we have to look presentable in like a minute flat, we probably could. But I think a little bit of notice is helpful so that it you know people understand what the expectations are going into the meeting.
Josh Matthews:Sure yeah.
Vanessa Grant:But I think in general, having a default of put on your camera if you want to, is you know is a little bit kinder.
Josh Matthews:Definitely.
Josh Matthews:Might make sense your camera, if you want to is, you know, is a little bit kinder, definitely. Yeah, hey, mariah. What do employees typically get wrong about management? Like when they think of managers and management. Let's say someone's not a manager Anyone who's in middle management gets it but let's say someone's you know, you don't even have to be entry level, you can be a, you know, like a senior DBA or something like that and not a manager. Right, but what do employees often get wrong? In other words, what are they complaining about their managers? That just kind of proves that they don't know what's going on. Does that make sense?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:That does make sense, I think. Circling back to the career development aspect, I think it's misunderstood when a manager does not necessarily have that as their highest priority. An employee might think, oh, my manager doesn't care about me, they don't care about my career development, I'm going nowhere in my job, et cetera. And in reality your manager has so much going on in their job, they have so much on their plate. They probably have multiple executives who are giving them different directions to run with projects.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, definitely in IT, yeah.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yes, especially in the CRM world, because you're working between IT sales marketing etc.
Josh Matthews:All of it.
Mariah Hardy-Spence:Yes, your manager has sometimes very serious HR things that are coming up, whether that's with their other employees or training they need to do, mandates, dates. If you're in an industry that is very dangerous or serious for example, when I was in warehousing your manager has important things like people's lives that they're worried about. They're worried about safety violations, etc. And so if you're thinking that, oh, my manager does not care about my development, they don't care about me. Usually it's just that they're so busy they have not had the time to reach out and schedule that quarterly check in or to ask if you wanted to go to that training next year, etc. And so if you can just sort of wrap your head around, their plate is full. And if I can just take this one small thing off their plate, take it on the mind and instead feel empowered by that, that I get to be in control of my career development and this is what I'm going to do about it. It makes things so much better. It will really improve the relationship.
Josh Matthews:That is absolutely fantastic advice, mariah, and I think it's very poignant. The tech world lost somewhere around 530,000 employees in the last two years. Serious stuff. Half a million people lost their jobs in tech, and it's monumental and what that means. It doesn't necessarily mean that there's less work, right. It might for some companies. A lot of companies went out of business, but for some now it's just the same.
Josh Matthews:Amount of work is falling on fewer shoulders, right, and it seems like that's a perfect recipe to let go of things that aren't pressing, like what is Steven going to do in two years, or what is Sheba going to do in three years, or what's Mike going to? You know, concentrate on six months from now for something that might help him in five years. Right, that long-term stuff. It just gets wiped right off the desk and into the box and then chucked in the closet and hopefully someone cracks it open again someday during better times. But it's a real thing and I think a lot of people are experiencing that right now.
Josh Matthews:So what can someone do when they are feeling that way? I mean, you've already highlighted a number of different things, right, like take responsibility, look for where responsibility has been abdicated and assume the responsibility for it. You know, what can we really do to have a better relationship with a manager? And I'll tell you the number one reason why people leave a job. The number one reason is they don't like their boss. Okay, that's a fact. So how can we, as employees, if we don't like our boss, what can we do about it? And, martha, I'm going to ask you a reverse of that question, that question from a manager's perspective here. But I'm kind of curious what can? Because, mariah, look, you've had I'm assuming you've had employees, or at least coworkers and peers, and you get along with your boss, fine, I think you probably get along with everybody. But you're looking across the cube farm and seeing someone who just hasn't figured it out. What advice would you give to those people who just can't seem to get along or lack respect for their immediate supervisor?
Mariah Hardy-Spence:That is such a difficult question to answer.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, it's hard. If you need a minute, it's fine. Let's open up the floor. Reed, feel free to pipe up. Peter, if you're on right now, feel free to pipe up Vanessa you're asking how to deal with a manager that you don't like. Yeah, yeah. What should someone do about it?
Vanessa Grant:I think I'm with Farai. It's a tough one. I mean generally, I think it's. You know, maybe there's like a mental decision tree on how long have you been at the job, how, what are the politics, how big is the company, how good is the opportunity, how good is the market? There's a lot of questions, I think, involved lateral, or better then do that, but that's the nuclear option.
Josh Matthews:I mean like, what can we, what can someone do before that? I mean I've got some thoughts but I wanted to open it to the floor.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, I mean, I'd love to hear yours. I have not successfully managed to change any managers and go wow, things are going really terribly.
Josh Matthews:And now they're going super well, because I did X, y and Z, no idea, sure, yeah, no, fair enough. Well, look, I've had some pretty pretty bad managers in my life, not very good ones, people that I absolutely couldn't stand and did not respect, but still had to find a way to get along with them, and sometimes I was able to do that and sometimes I wasn't able to do that. But I think this is about you just apply the same rules for wanting a successful relationship with anyone, whether it's your you know husband, wife or romantic partner, whether it's for a parent or with your child, right or or with your friends, and that is to first seek to understand and then to be understood, right. So you've got to ask yourself and this is hard because these are emotional things I don't like that person, and you may know why. Oh, he always does this, or she always says this, or she interrupts me, or I don't get time on the meeting floor to share my ideas. They shoot my ideas down all the time, whatever it is, they always smile and say hi to everybody, and when they see me, they don't smile at all. There are all these little physical cues that we can pick up that makes us feel like we're not liked. And when we feel like we're not liked, we're probably not going to like that person very much. And, by the way, there are a lot of terrible managers. There are literally millions of horrible managers in America. Millions of them people, millions of terrible, rotten, crappy shouldn't be a leader managers in the world. And it's a problem, right, and usually it starts with hiring.
Josh Matthews:But let's say someone is listening to this program and they're in that situation right now. What I would have you do is the following. Number one I would ask yourself to really think what is this person's responsibilities? You know, what are they you mentioned earlier, like hey, they could be really busy. They're thinking about people's safety. They're thinking about you know, they're reporting to five different executives, like how much pressure are they under? And, by the way, you might not like your manager because you think they're lazy, right, that's a possibility too. You think that they're making twice as much as you, but they're working half as hard, and that, guess what is kind of how it goes sometimes. Right, it just is. So first try and understand what's the situation and then try and focus on what specifically is like. What was the moment? I chose not to like this person Because it's a choice. Right, the feeling isn't a choice, but then the decision to let that feeling drive your behavior around that individual, that is a choice. Does that make sense, guys?
Josh Matthews:That does make sense, yeah, so because you can be like yeah, I don't like this person. And when I don't like someone, we fall into certain patterns of behavior. Around people that we don't like, we're not gonna smile at them, we're gonna avoid eye contact, we're going to try to avoid meetings, we'll deprioritize the tasks that they've requested of us. For people that we like more, I mean, it's just, this is normal natural social organization, right. Some Rene Descartes stuff, some social contracts, this is like basic human behavior things, right. But then once we, when we can figure out, it's like oh, I didn't like them because I so-and-so told me that they did this and they screwed over my friend. It might not have anything to do with you, it could be hearsay, right, and you might trust the person that you heard it from, and maybe there's some credibility to it. But maybe there's not. You know, we don't know what their motives are for spreading false things or amplifying things that aren't necessarily that big a deal, right, like, I'll be like oh, I heard Zooey Deschanel is really hard to work with. Now, I think she's a jerk. Like that's stupid. I'm sure she's not a jerk, that's just silly stuff. So what makes you really not like someone? Figure out what was the turning point in your decision. And then, how much are you allowing that behavior to rule you? Here's the other thing what if there was some stupid little thing and then you just stopped performing for that person? Or they've asked you multiple times to get something done, or to do a habit or change a habit, and you don't like them for it because it feels like your mom or your dad come down on you. You know, I know I said I take the garbage out, leave it alone. Mom, you know, like and you can get these kinds of very immature emotional responses that are on autopilot, right that you just start behaving like a child, like a hurt, spoiled child Maybe not spoiled, but like a hurt or injured child, right? And so you've got to figure that out.
Josh Matthews:And then I would encourage people to do two things. The first thing I would recommend you do is be amazing at your job, despite your boss. Do an incredible job. They ask something of you. Do it, do it fast, do it right away. Become invaluable to them. Right, they will. It will change. It will change.
Josh Matthews:And then you gotta ask yourself like do I talk too much? Do I look like I'm goofing off in the office too much compared to other people. Are my numbers down right? That's your fault, that's not their fault, that's your fault.
Josh Matthews:People don't like taking responsibility for their misdeeds. They don't like to do it. How many people walk into a police station every single day of the year and say I did it, it was me? A lot of people do that. Not. A lot of people call someone up and say, hey, you know what? I think that I've been not a very nice employee to have. I think that I've been pouty and grumpy and that's probably made me not the best person to be hanging around or wanting to spend time with. And then that makes me feel like I'm being kind of cast to the wayside and like I'm unimportant here in this business. And I want to tell you I'm really sorry. This has been going on in my life, that's been going on in my life and so on and so forth, and I'd like a do-over. So that's an option there too. We've got Reed, who just unmuted. Welcome Reed.
Reed Marquand:I agree with what you said, but also with what Vanessa said, and there's too many situations to try to give like a blanket answer to, I would think. But let's say you're having difficulty with a reasonable person, or you know someone you don't know all that well or what have you. I think some of it is just finding some common ground that maybe is outside of work. That doesn't mean you have to go to, you know a nuggets game or what have you. You know sort of thing. But just try and you know whether. Can I ask you to lunch? Can I talk about how I can work things better for you? You know, don't fall on your sword or anything like that, but make it a bit more about you helping them instead of bringing a problem to them, saying you know this isn't working out or we don't get along together. Don't be that forthright, just be like hey, I'd like to talk about how perhaps I can work with you better, sort of thing.
Reed Marquand:Yeah, there you go Kind of thoughts on that or your own, but I feel like instead of saying flat out, hey, there's a problem and we need to solve it, or go the nuclear option or any of those things, maybe approach it outside of the core items you're working on, outside of core personality between the two of you, just see what kind of common ground you can build from.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, that's really. It's a really good recommendation, reid, and I would say it depends. I've had employees. Look, I wasn't always the best manager, I just wasn't. And you know, when I look back at my first handful of years in a leadership role, I was really proud of a lot of things I did. I grew a number one division in a big company and we kicked ass. We had a lot of fun doing it.
Josh Matthews:But there were some people, some employees, that I'd hired that didn't really gel with my style, and that's on me. I didn't screen them enough. I didn't figure out who's going to adapt to my style of management so that I don't have to feel like I'm wearing, you know, 10 different costumes throughout the day. I mean, you still have to. Martha made a really good point. You know you've got to sort of cater to the individual, but the individuals have to cater. They all have to cater to the manager's style, right?
Josh Matthews:And if you don't fit with a manager's style and it's too much work, if it pulls you too much out of your natural mode of behaving and operating as an individual, as the individual that you are, it's not going to be, it's not going to end with ideal results, it might not end in disaster, but it's probably not going to end in a promotion, right? It's probably not going to end in a promotion, right? It's probably not going to end with like career acceleration and lifelong camaraderie. And I can tell you that I've had at least a couple people come to me and tell me hey, josh, I need to talk to you. When you said this in this meeting, I felt like you threw me under the bus. Or when you laughed about blah, blah, blah it actually hurt my feelings and here's why. Or I felt like you threw me under the bus. Or when you laughed about blah, blah, blah.
Reed Marquand:It actually hurt my feelings and here's why.
Josh Matthews:Or I felt like I had a. Really I spent a lot of time on this idea and I felt like you shot it down before I'd even finished explaining it. My listening skills were not on par 20 years ago with what they are now. It took me time and a lot of self-examination and ugly, ugly shit to have to think about.
Josh Matthews:Nobody likes to do it because it hurts, it doesn't feel good to think not nice things about yourself and, in particular, it's even worse when you think about how you may have you know, without intention hurt someone's feelings right or made them feel like they weren't accepted, like that's a painful experience for an individual to go through. But it's really fucking important that you've got to do it, particularly if you're a manager, so that you can have the kind of team that you want and people feel like they can come to you. And I think that's a big thing as a manager and I want to ask you about this, martha, after I'm done with my mini diatribe of hijacking this show. But you know, creating an environment where people can feel that, no matter what, they can speak to you I feel like I've always been able to do that but that they can feel like they can come and tell you what's on their mind. I think is critical. Martha, what do you think?
Martha Hardy:I agree with a lot of what you're saying, josh. After I have a turnover on the team either it's expected or unexpected I always do some self-reflection on could I have done anything different in that situation or to prevent that situation. I understand what you're saying about the team needs to be able to evolve into the manager style, because I have actually seen that I have a member I think of and they were very structured. They're used to more of a structured manager, maybe more of almost like a micromanager.
Martha Hardy:And so it took me a little bit, took me about three months to be able to effectively work with that member when they joined the team, because that's not my style. You're a professional, I'm a professional, I've hired you to do a job. I expect you to be able to do your job. I shouldn't have to give you a list of everything to do every week, right? So so I do. I do see that point, and they have come to the place where we can work effectively together now.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, that's terrific. I'm glad that you were able to. I'm glad that you have that as a practice. It really is. It's like people do it when they leave jobs what did I do well, what didn't I do well? You can go check out, go to Josh Force on YouTube. One word and it's the I lost my job. You know, like I lost my job, what am I going to do now? Episode that's two part, but part one talks a little bit about that. Part one or part two, I can't remember. Watch them all, Watch all of the videos.
Josh Matthews:But that self-examination is really critical and guess what people? You can do it before you go into a job. Right, you can go in to get a new role and then you can just pause and just sit there for like an hour, a cup of coffee and your morning cigar or whatever you're doing, and the scratch pad or your Evernote or whatever it is, and just start hammering out what did I do well and what do I want to keep doing well, and where did I fall short? In my responsibilities, in my communication, in my fortitude Did I have? Was my skin too thin? Do I need to work on that? Do I need to toughen up? Is my skin too thick? Do I need to soften up a little bit around others? How do I want to be when I walk in on day one at this new company? Maybe I know one person over there, Maybe I know no one.
Josh Matthews:This is personal reinvention time. Every time you swap jobs, you really get to determine okay, I made these mistakes in the past. These are the ones that I'm committed and focused on not doing again. Here is my contingency plan. If I'm feeling frustrated, instead of opening my mouth and demonstrating dissent in a meeting in a public way, for instance, maybe I will keep my mouth shut, even though that hurts and feels painful it's an anathema to my typical personality and behavioral style and then I can sleep on it, which is something you might not do Now. You sleep on it and then you can figure out. Does it still bother you the next day? Maybe you just played the political game, my friend, Congratulations. You kept your mouth shut, because that's half the freaking game. Half the game of the political game is keeping your mouth shut, and the other half is speaking up when you might not want to. That's politics, right there in an office, I think. What do you guys think? What are politics like in an office? What are the things that happen?
Martha Hardy:politically. I think you're right on with that. I think you're spot on. Actually, it's knowing when to say something and knowing when to stay quiet. Yeah, that's what I've learned yeah, exactly yeah.
Josh Matthews:It's always that staying quiet part that I've had to learn, you and me both.
Vanessa Grant:I'm, I've been, I've run into that not heck. I think I've probably even run into it on this on the show occasionally. I think it also and with with martha and mariah I'd be curious to like consulting sometimes can be. I don't know, maybe you have a different perspective.
Vanessa Grant:I guess in my experience over the years and with a lot of folks that I've spoken to in the ecosystem like consulting feels very, in certain ways, across the board not just in Salesforce but just in general to me, and so I know sometimes I struggle not speaking up and asking why we aren't doing things differently.
Vanessa Grant:But I think maybe that's also the business analyst in me is, you know, when so many consultancies, I think, spend more time trying to figure out how to make a PowerPoint presentation for executives that's going to be read once sexy and spend thousands on it, you, the client, spend thousands on it as opposed to focusing on delivering value and things like that. And these are across the board. It's just the way that consulting has been done for decades and that's the kind of stuff where I find myself particularly struggling to not try and change things from the inside and try to get folks to do things differently. But I also feel like, oh, if you question why things are being done, because they've always been done that way that you could also not, you know, seem like you're not a good cultural fit.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, fall in line, vanessa. What are you doing? Keep that mouth shut? I mean, what a terrible feeling that is, though, right, you know we do get punished for opening our mouths people like you and me, right?
Josh Matthews:I remember I was working at a very large company and I had a middle manager title, and I did some research on all the employees. I had a ranking of 1,000 employees at this company and all of their production. Now, this was not my job on all the employees. I had a ranking of a thousand employees at this company and all of their production. Now, this was not my job, right, but I wanted to look at this because I'd realized that people who have more than three years of experience tend not to stay with this company. We had insane amounts of turnover. It was terrible and I wanted to fix it, not just for my team, but I wanted to fix it for the whole company. So I ran an analysis on how many people are producing how much after how many years, and then I looked at whether or not there were any programs for helping people who are valued employees and high producers to stay beyond three years, and I brought it to the powers that be a couple of them.
Josh Matthews:I presented all of my findings and I was basically told to shut my mouth in a really nice way. That's not your job. We have other people that are doing that. I was like, are they? And then I'm like, oh, are they? But are they? Because I'm looking at the stats here. I haven't heard of any initiatives. I don't see anything Like what are you guys doing? They didn't like that and a month later they took $100,000 of revenue per month off of my books and wanted to kick me off of my top client and then knock me down Like it was just. It was so stupid I'm not saying that's why all that stuff happened right, but it wasn't received well.
Josh Matthews:Now, when I came back to this company some years later, they'd fixed a lot of that problem right and I doubt it had anything to do with me and my findings and running it up the food chain. But it took them years and then they figured out. It's like, oh, these people just want a better title, they don't even need more money, they just want to be called a vice president, associate vice president, and that'll keep them, keep someone there for another 18 to 24 months. That kind of stuff. Bullshit stuff, you know. But they figured it out, but it was painful. I got my teeth kicked in for that and all I was trying to do was save them money, reduce turnover and deliver better, better results to our clients. So you know it's like know your audience, know when to speak up and who, where you have allies and where you don't like it's politics is a real thing. You know, martha, have you ever had to do? You have any stories of having to play the political game that you feel comfortable sharing in an open forum like this?
Martha Hardy:I think. I think for me, the challenge has been building the bridges. So, you know, previously there was the Salesforce was previous to my coming on here at Pat Bay Group and there were other people that had parts in the choosing, the implementation, those types of things, other partners that had worked on it, and so I came in and really worked hard to build bridges and earn trust. I think that was one of the biggest things that I had to deal with the politics of you know something prior to my time, but that still affected me in my role, and so I really worked on building bridges and helping each one of the operating companies, our divisions, build up their team members that work within the CRM ecosystem as well, and so that would be kind of what I would say is, you know, dealing with that piece of it and understanding and owning that it was there, it was not because of me, but it's still something that I have to deal with and struggle through. Sure.
Josh Matthews:Yeah Well, thank you for sharing that. Guys, we're coming up to the top of the hour.
Josh Matthews:It's a 90 minute program and we're just about there. Before we say our goodbyes, just a couple of quick notes in case you jumped into this show a little bit late. One, vanessa and I are giving away five vouchers for Salesforce certifications and we're going to announce the rules of that contest on our next program, which is in two weeks that is, the 6th of November, so we may or may not know who's the president by then. Hopefully you cast a vote for someone that you really think is going to do an awesome job and I hope you vote well. The other thing is we have a number of open positions, some new roles that we'd like to announce right now Engineering Manager of Platform and QA Automation. Salesforce Engineering. Manager of Product Development for an ISV and a Salesforce engineering tech lead. We also have a Salesforce nonprofit consultant job. We almost always you probably have heard this constantly we are constantly filling these roles because one of our clients and partners is constantly growing. So if you're an NPSP or a nonprofit cloud professional who's a consultant or anywhere in the nonprofit world, we'd love to hear from you, specifically Steven Greger, and you can reach him, steven, at thesalesforcerecruitercom. So stay tuned in two weeks and for now.
Josh Matthews:Can't thank Martha and Mariah enough. Dynamic duo mother-daughter team over from Pape Group. You guys have been fantastic guests, provided a lot of helpful insights. So thank you so much for being on the show today and thank you, vanessa. Great questions, great insights today. Appreciate Reed for piping up here on this show as well, and we're going to have a show with Reed here fairly soon. Got to get that recalendared. So let's just say our farewells, move on and wish everybody a great week. Thanks guys.
