Catherine Blackmore GVP Customer Success Oracle Marketing Cloud: Strengths in Action #07
Welcome to the lucky seventh episode of the Strengths in Action podcast.
In this episode, I chat to Catherine Blackmore, GVP Customer Success at Oracle Marketing Cloud and learn:
- how to be a data-driven Customer Success leader
- how to drive complex organizational change at scale
- how to motivate, retain and inspire your top Customer Success talent
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Nils:
Welcome to the show. I’m joined here today with my guest, Catherine Blackmore, GVP of Customer Success at Oracle Marketing Cloud. Catherine, welcome!
Catherine:
Thank you, it’s so great to be talking to you and being part of your program here.
Nils:
Thanks, yeah. We’re super excited to have you on today. Maybe before we dig in you could tell us a little bit about Oracle Marketing Cloud. I would love to hear what you’re up to over there.
Catherine:
Absolutely. Oracle Marketing Cloud, actually the genesis was about three years ago when Eloqua actually became a part of Oracle. That was really our first product and first solution to really start and form Oracle Marketing Cloud. For those folks that are familiar with marketing technology, it’s a space that’s been [ripe 00:00:52] for disruption, innovation. I mean, there’s a lot of [spin 00:00:56] happening within the marketing space.
What Kevin Akeroyd, who’s our General Manager who works directly for Mark Hurd, our CEO of Oracle, you know, his vision was really around how do we actually develop the center of gravity for a marketer? Just like, if you will, you think about what other companies have done. Center of Gravity [for 00:01:19] either a sales leader or even a CIO. This is an area that was just [ripe 00:01:24] for that marketer to have one place to go to, in terms of being able to go to, really operate [and form 00:01:31] their, whether it’s, “I want to be able to have omni channel orchestration. I want to be able to do more than just send an email out. There’s so much innovation happening right now. When I think about now, that [was 00:01:43] the starting point, where we are right now, a number of different acquisitions later. Responsive, Compendium, BlueKai, now Maxymiser. Then, certainly we’ll be growing from there.
We truly have become the platform that’s centered around ad tech and [mar 00:02:01] tech. We call it mad tech. Really addressing the need of either a business to business or business to consumer marketer that’s trying to deliver that right message, to the right person, at the right time, at the right location.
If I’m thinking about, Nils, having a relationship with you, a digital relationship, I need to know that Nils actually lives in Bend, Oregon and he likes to buy certain things at this place, and he likes to consume content in this manner. What’s really amazing is that we have now the ability to understand you and be able to talk to you in a very personalized way. This kind of old notion, even ten years, where we would just spam you with a ton of content that wasn’t relevant, we’re now helping brands and helping companies really have personal relationships with their consumers. It’s leading to great advocacy, so you can go from not knowing even who you are, Nils, to actually, I know who you are and I want to invite you into my loyalty program.
It’s interesting to me, kind of very meta, if you will, that I’m working with a technology stack that in, certainly in many ways, more from a mass marketing perspective, but some of the themes are definitely included in what we think about in customer success around, again, being very personal with our customers and helping them get to a point of [advocacy 00:03:22] and nurturing along the way.
Nils:
That’s absolutely fascinating. You’ve got Oracle acquiring, starting with Eloqua, and then accelerating the growth of this marketing cloud through additional acquisitions. I can only imagine what was going on inside of the organization. You’ve been there for about a year. Tell us a little bit about what customer success was last year when you joined and what customer success is today.
Catherine:
Absolutely. You can imagine, [right, you’ve 00:03:53] got five different companies coming together, and it’s one thing to [align 00:03:58] product. Certainly that’s been a huge focus for us so that our customers can take advantage of one plus one equals five, because it’s integrated. If you think about the people side of it, and definitely for the people that are servicing our customers, when I arrived about a year ago that work had [yet 00:04:15] to be done. We’ve kind of left these teams alone, kind of keeping them in their silos, managing customers. That was a really, perhaps, good decision, just to move beyond operational integration, getting these teams a part of oracle.
When I arrived it was now becoming, actually, a pain point and a detriment to our teams and our customers that we were so siloed. I started talking to early [conversational 00:04:41] customers and they were telling me, “Look, Catherine, I think this is great. This vision is fantastic. However, I’m worried about my relationship with your team because I’m now talking to potentially five people in order to understand what I’ve purchased and I don’t want that. Help me make it simple, help me reduce the complexity, help me just talk to one person and that one person understands my business needs and how I’m thinking about my pain points, my business goals and how Oracle Marketing Cloud can help me.”
When I think about the people side of it, our teams were so knowledgeable about the individual point [solutions 00:05:17], they really couldn’t think about, holistically, what we were trying to accomplish with our customers. That was definitely a barrier. Culturally we were still hanging on to the old ways that we had been [in 00:05:29] start up and it was starting to become a problem with how we actually worked together because our customers were demanding it.
Nils:
Okay, so you came in and you talked with a lot of the customers. While they agreed with the vision was wonderful, why Oracle put all these great companies together, the reality was they were concerned with being disjointed and having too many people to talk to. On the internal side everybody was still so focused on just their individual products.
Catherine:
That’s exactly right.
Nils:
Yeah, so just at a high level, take me through the evolution of how, if you’re in an environment like this where there are multiple different constituents. This might even be departments within an organization or different products within an organization, not even different companies. How do you attempt to align these teams to all speak the same language, to deliver a consistent experience and ultimately exceed what the customer is hoping and their expectations?
Catherine:
Absolutely. One of the things that I think for any individual, and I think it’s a unique challenge because not every company has necessarily achieved this level of complexity. I think for those that would want to learn and know how to start to approach the problem, I think it’s also really important to avoid the traps. Walking in the door you can imagine the internal escalations and the customer escalations that were really, quite frankly, stemming from this structure. I think the tendency, especially for those of us that have been in customer success a long time, is to jump in in the middle of a particular problem and help that leader, help that [CSO 00:07:02] firefight and solve. Really, I knew that would not help us get to where we needed to go.
In many ways I needed to pull back from the situation and think about, strategically, how are we going to align this organization? What would be, in essence, the framework, if you will, that would help us align everyone? Having to almost kind of put more of a consultant hat on. Go by leader, by region and, quite frankly, my starting point wasn’t even my team. I am one of three leaders around the globe for Oracle Marketing Cloud. I certainly represent most of our customers but I have counterparts in London and Australia and we had to align first. Because I knew as we became more of a global presence, for me just to drive an initiative in North America or South America wasn’t enough. I needed to actually make sure that we were consistent around the globe, so if I have a global customer they would have the same experience, the same mandate by customer success as they would experience with what my team would be representing.
Nils:
Okay, so not only aligning the individuals to what they needed to do but also the leadership counterparts was critical. One of the key things I heard you say there was avoiding the traps, and that being the escalations and current fires that are going on. Even as an executive coming in, there are a million fires to put out but, if I hear you correctly, what you’re saying is that that wasn’t the right place to focus. The focus was not on fixing issues. The focus was on taking a step back, looking at everything from a framework level and aligning leadership first. Then being able to tell the story to the individuals and align that. Is that correct?
Catherine:
That’s exactly right, and thankfully I had great fortune of walking in the door and having amazing leaders leading these teams. It’s harder, I think, [if 00:08:59] those teams didn’t have those strong, capable leaders. It was very clear at the beginning, building that relationship and having them understand my role and explaining that my focus this first year has to be internal and it has to be around bringing these teams together. Here’s how we’re going to go do that work, but what it is going to require is for you to continue to be the face and the ultimate point of escalation, if you will, [for our 00:09:26] customer. Because my organization also delivers revenue for the company. We actually have quotas on some of our teams, and so they’re going to have to own that number. Certainly, I have to be involved in that but perhaps year one, less so than I will year two and beyond, if that makes sense.
Nils:
What was the response when you were communicating this with these leaders? Often times, when you coming in, especially with your background and expertise, I imagine there was a lot of excitement. Like, “Oh, sweet. We get to work with, Catherine’s [awesome 00:09:56], she’s world [inaudible 00:09:57] so much about this space and going to help us fix all this stuff.” Then you come in and you say, “Hold on, guys. The most important place for me to focus is not on the individual things that you each have going on. I trust that you have to keep pushing this forward.”
What was the reaction like and was there any tension between the leaders and you in maintaining that barrier and that balance between the strategic stuff you had to do at the framework level versus the day-to-day fires that were happening that your leaders needed help with?
Catherine:
Yeah, it was definitely, [perhaps 00:10:27], a little different than what they expected, but I think they understood the charter and the mandate. I was actually also very thrilled to know that they were ready to change too. It wasn’t like I had to sell them on the idea that we needed to become one team. I think they were all ready to do that, so that as also another net benefit is that they wanted to change. Explaining, “Here’s how we’re going to go do this. I need to align globally. We are going to build a framework around how we’re going to all align and then you, leader, are going to be participating.”
It turns out, that was the other thing too, very, very important trap not to get into. Things to avoid but also things to do, is get [this 00:11:07] stage of when you’re trying to drive true organizational design around bringing teams together, having them involved in that process also helps them understand why I was having to focus on the internal work. Because they could see it, they had a front row seat to how complex change management really is. It’s not as simple as me just saying, “Okay, guys, here’s the framework. Now I need everybody to just go do it.” I think they participated in the process.
Nils:
Yeah, if it were only that simple, right? That’s really incredible leadership lessons there of, one, staying out of the day-to-day minutia that is going on, especially if you’re first coming into an organization, and two, if you’re really driving organizational change you’ve got to have your leadership involved in the change process so they understand what’s really going on.
Catherine:
That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right.
Nils:
If we take a step back from your work at Oracle right now, I would love to hear about the themes in your career. This is an incredible place for customer success and leadership, and I know you’re building just an amazing CS organization where people can start from the very beginning of their career and have opportunities to grow in customer success through the whole ranks. I’m curious about kind of the themes in your career and, ultimately, I want to get to the heart of how did you get where you are today? Maybe we could just, high-level, talk about some of the things you really excel at. That would be a great place to start.
Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely. Maybe [to 00:12:42] frame that would be good. Some folks know my upbringing, if you will, within my career. It’s probably not a usual track, which I think is also, I think some of my strengths because I didn’t come from probably a traditional path within technology. It allows me probably to think about things a little differently. I would say the themes are I graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Communications, Advertising and Psychology, which is kind of a mouthful. What’s interesting to me is how, all of us that go to college, how would I actually use my degree? What I find interesting, and unless I was in medical school or in law, I think sometimes it’s interesting to see how things we learn weave their way in to our careers. I would definitely say everything that I have been exposed to within my formal education has found its way and a place within the things that I’ve done.
Right out of college, Nils, I started in consumer packaged goods, which, again, is not traditional. I was recruited by Nestle in a management development program and my first job was really around being this business analyst for our Western region. To me, this is kind of the other theme, analytics. I’ve got this communication, advertising background, having a sense of what mass marketing and mass advertising [themes 00:14:10], and communication vehicles and all of that.
Behind me now, education-wise, now I’ve jumped into [CPG 00:14:17], which is an interesting application of what I learned. Learning that channel and learning how we were helping our retail customers be successful with our product was really an effort of analytics, and an effort of a time period where the control of that industry had shifted to the retailer. They were dominant in controlling the messaging to customers, the brand presence, if you will, and as a manufacturer, we had to really get in and work with our customers around, my customers were our channel around how they were going to represent our brands.
We took a data-driven approach to helping them understand how they could succeed with our brands. It helped us upsell, it helped us retain, and so you can kind of see some of these words I’m using had presented itself into what I ended up doing in technology. My success in consumer packaged goods was all around helping our channel be hyper successful. My last job was leading a large team around our Costco retail business for the Kellogg’s company. I had big responsibility in North America coordinating lots of resources, helping us [inaudible 00:15:40] supply chain to front-line folks selling. It was marketing, developing new products for Costco, and it was definitely a thrilling opportunity and challenge.
Being on the West coast, there’s this itch to get into technology. If I were to kind of cut to tech, I was actually recruited by the co-founder of a company called Jigsaw. I think [you folks 00:16:05] may know that I spent a number of years at Jigsaw helping develop the customer success program there, leading that team and then participating in our acquisition. Salesforce acquired us a number of years after I had been with the company. Then, certainly spending some time at Salesforce. What was interesting about it was how I was recruited based on this account management, analytics, marketing background working in consumer packaged goods to really think about applying those business fundamental skills towards a new way of servicing customers.
It’s so early, as you know, Nils, ten years ago, gosh, we really weren’t all that mobile. Because why join [inaudible 00:16:48]? I think iPhone was just launched that year or the before. Apps weren’t really the things yet. LinkedIn, people weren’t connecting on LinkedIn. I mean it just a very different time and yet what we were finding as a business, because it was a cloud business and cloud was so new, we were starting to lose customers. Customers were certainly needing a lot more help that we had thought they did by selling to them, and Sales truly wasn’t able to manage these escalations or even relationships and Support wasn’t either.
Very organically, our CEO and co-founder was finding that he didn’t have the team to do it and he was looking at Salesforce as their model. You know, maybe Salesforce has figured out something here with this customer success thing. We should investigate. I was really hired to go do that based on my CPG background.
Nils:
That’s really interesting, and this comes up frequently when I speak with people outside of the customer success discipline today but they are being pulled and have an interest in joining customer success. Here we have an example of one of the thought leaders and best CS leaders out there in the cloud business, in [SAS 00:17:59], in customer success, that didn’t come from customer success. It’s only been around for a little while. Now, you said you were recruited based on the account management, analytics, CPG background. What advice would you give someone who’s looking to transition into customer success, either in an individual or even in a management or leadership role, if they’ve never traditionally been in a CSM role or CS organization, but they have, maybe, skills along the lines of what you’re describing that you’ve acquired in CPG?
Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely, because I think that now, thankfully, for the profession, for everyone considering a career in customer success, there is enough written, there is enough out there in terms of training, there is enough out there in terms of just general content that you can start to really understand what [top 00:18:48] leaders are doing and how would I actually put things into buckets in terms of skills and strengths. Because it is different. I think that that is also, I’ve seen folks get into customer success because it’s growing, presents a great career opportunity but perhaps it doesn’t actually align to what I really like to do.
I think it’s important to do your homework first. I think the things that I knew about myself that was great alignment is that I knew while I have an aspect of sales and marketing in my background, ultimately, what really drives and motivates me is helping my customers achieve business value and it’s that long-term, long-game approach. That is very different than sales, and in some cases it’s also very different than services. Because sometimes in services we find that folks are project-based. You know, it’s on to the next. There’s an ending point. When you manage a relationship there is no ending point, you don’t want there to be an ending point. It’s kind of understanding, knowing that that’s something that I just love to do, I never want to see my customers leave my portfolio. I just don’t have the sense of ending. It’s always changing, always iterating, always new aspects of what I need to help my customers with. I knew that would be one [strength 00:20:01].
I think the other that’s absolutely [evolving 00:20:03], because it’s not just about loving your customers to death and being at the ready to service them. I think that that also can be either a trap or something, I think, that we, as a profession, has evolved beyond. Being data-driven, understanding analytics, I think especially as a leader having really strong financial acumen is now becoming really, really important. In order to have that seat at the table that I know that leaders are now achieving, which is fantastic, you have to know how to engage your CSO and your CEO on the metrics, on why you should hire that next CSM, what your team is returning in terms of their investments, what does it take in terms of an investment to get [the 00:20:49] customer to success, what does our most successful customer look like.
You have to be very analytical, I think, to be able to succeed in this job at a leader level. I think as a CSM there are plenty of opportunities to demonstrate that to build skills around that before you take that manager job.
Nils:
That’s really wonderful advice. For those of you out there listening, looking to get into customer success, there’s a tremendous amount of information out there about what the best leaders are doing, but you better check for alignment first. Do you really want to be driving long-term relationships, helping people achieve value? Does that really get you up in the morning? Not having an endpoint, that’s really a critical piece. If you have that plus a strong financial acumen, that’s some of the key characteristics, as Catherine said, that are required of CS leaders today.
Catherine, I’m curious. Through this time of going from CPG through into tech and then from one leadership role to the next to the next, all the way up to Oracle Marketing Cloud and a couple hundred people in your organization, can you tell me a little about your philosophy around personal development and maybe some examples of some of the things you’ve done over time that have helped you get to the next step in your career?
Catherine:
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, even just to not even focus on me. If I were to focus on overall. Organizational development is just, again, a must-have and plays such a central role in any leader, not even in customer success. [When 00:22:20] I think about now, especially with a very large organization, obviously I want my customers to be successful but at scale I can’t talk to every single customer, there’s just no way I can do that. I can perhaps talk to them digitally, but to truly expect that they are going to have the right conversation with my folks, that means my people have to be a great proxy for me. The only way to do that is to make sure that my team is properly enabled and developed.
I think there’s a lot of articles written, I know I’ve sent out a few links to folks so that they can see thinking around this, but to me, if we do not have employee success we will not have customer success. Truly. I think you can get by for awhile. You’ve got folks that don’t ultimately know their say job super, super well. Especially when you’re small, and I’ve been there. I’ve been the first person hired in success. You can be that front line to your customers but at some point that model is going to break, and I think that part in transitioning is knowing that it’s time to actually invest in personal development. It’s time to invest in organizational development.
Thankfully in my organization, we’re large enough to where we actually have folks dedicated to do this, which is fantastic. I know now every leader has that luxury, but I think having a plan of how I’m going to do that is going to help you scale, [it’s helped 00:23:42] me scale. Not to make it more complex than it needs to be, but I think it really needs to be role-based. Because I think what folks sometimes get wrapped around the axle around is they believe that they’re ready for that next role. I need that promotion, I need that [comp 00:24:06] change, I need to advance faster. I think that’s great and I think we all want folks in our organization that are high-potential employees that are going to grab that next rung. At the same time, knowing what your needs of your organization are, I think the way that, as a leader, you can connect the dots for your employees is really think about the competency that you’re trying to develop around the role. Then we can get into how we’d even define the role so there’s [great 00:24:34] alignment around that.
Having competency that you can then coach your people around, and then actually develop this individual development plan so that it’s well-aligned to what you want them focused on. To either have skills that they could be developing on their own time or even things that you are investing in as a company, to put everybody through a certain training, or accreditation, or certification program. All of that has to be considered, put into a plan. I think that a trap would be, “Well, we’ll kind of train people here. It’s ongoing.” It should link to how I have conversations with my people, my one-on-ones to my formal reviews, so that it sets the right expectation and that it also would ensure that you’re going to properly train people, develop them, and then that ultimately leads to great customer success because people really know how to service customers properly.
Nils:
That’s awesome. I love what you said there. You said, “If you don’t have employee success you will not have customer success.” Simply put. If you’re not investing in personal and organization development it will eventually run its course and you will encounter some problems. You mentioned there that early stage it’s always harder to do this and there’s a lot more things going on. Maybe less budget and less attention to this, because there’s a million things to get right. Curious, what stage do you think where that ends up running its course? Where you can no longer operate efficiently like that and really have driven employees, and where the change needs, leaders need to seriously think about and make. Is it team size? Is it company size? Any parameters around how you think about that?
Catherine:
Yeah, I think in this age it’s so competitive. I’m sure every leader that I’ve talked to talks about the need to hire folks, folks that potentially are leaving because there’s great opportunities elsewhere. I think it’s never too early to get started in building out what your enablement and personal development plan needs to look like for your people. Even if you haven’t even hired people yet. I look back on my career of when I’ve been that first person hired. I think now that I’ve had more time and grade in terms of managing teams, I would actually look back and say, “Gosh, five years ago, ten years ago, I really I wish I would’ve put this on par with just the strategy around customer success.” Because I probably took on more than I needed to. I probably had to do a lot more work than I needed to. I probably was having difficulty scaling myself because I wasn’t investing as much in personal development. Even if I didn’t have budget for it.
Like you said, Nils, I think that there are, again, enough now available to us to actually send folks to workshops, think about material that I could have my team read, have a stretch assignment for one of your CSMs. “You’re first person hired. One of the jobs that I’m going to ask you to do is help us think about how we’re going to train the team. What are the things that are missing?” Next person in, “What did we miss?” There’s lots of things I think you can do to be [scrappy 00:27:31] until you have formal budgets. Because I would even say, in the large orgs I have [today 00:27:36], as much as I could say we’re adequately funded, there’s things that fall short. We still have folks that are raising their hand to do stretch assignments and helping contribute to our knowledge base, helping train people.
Nils:
CS leaders out there, it’s never too early to build out an enablement plan, even if you don’t have any members on the customer success team today. The key benefit, I heard you say, coming out of that is that it can greatly alleviate what the leader has to focus on and it may not be a particular strength of yours but somebody on the team can absolutely take one of those stretch assignments and run. Even if you don’t need to bring in any expertise, no training formally, per se, but giving people an example of what to do on a project and helping them, coach them and develop them along the way can go a huge ways towards relieving the work that you have, plus investing in their development.
Catherine:
Yeah, and I would say I think it’s going to become more of a competitive [inaudible 00:28:33] in terms of keeping your people. Also, a cultural imperative. I think that folks are probably now knowing that there are teams and leaders that think about this first and foremost. If you don’t have a great plan for professional development and how you’re thinking about investing in your people, I think it’s going to become more [around 00:28:50] your top CSM candidates, top leader candidates, for that matter, might take a job elsewhere because another leader has contemplated how they’re going to develop their people.
Nils:
Yeah, totally agree. That definitely rings true with some of the conversations that I’ve had with leaders. Some of the most forward-thinking ones have actually brought in L&D, leadership and development, dedicated resources into their CS orgs to make this continuous flow. Really wonderful the attention that you spend on that at Oracle and, again, the reinforcement to the CS leadership out there is you better get to work on these development plans for your employees because if you don’t develop them somebody else will.
Catherine:
That’s exactly right.
Nils:
Good. Catherine, just a fun, broad question. What makes you unique?
Catherine:
That is a fun, broad question. I would say it’s maybe probably the hardest question you’re going to probably ask me because I think I spend so much time talking about what we are doing or what I’ve done in the past in terms of driving customer success and certainly trying to really think about cutting edge, always putting the pressure on myself because I think my opportunity and responsibility is not to stay stagnant. It’s to keep thinking about ways we can innovate around our profession, what we need to do for our customers, our technology that we need as well as just in general, keep moving customer success forward.
Knowing you were going to ask me this question, Nils, I actually took a second to think about it. I think the thing that I will answer is, I’m a big fan of StrengthsFinders. I know you are too. Because I think it’s something that, it’s a great strategy to leverage if you’re like me, and I don’t sometimes think about this. You need to, because sometimes I think we innately know that, “Gosh, I’m in this job that just doesn’t really align, doesn’t feel right.” We talked earlier about whether or not customer success is the right role for everybody. Even aspects of customer success, it can be either the company and how they’re thinking about applying customer success. It could be many, many situations. I think it’s important to know your strengths and I know that there’s a lot of material out there to say you should really embrace it rather than just focus on things you aren’t doing well and just try to get better at them.
Knowing that, I think what makes me unique is certainly my combination of my strengths. When I most recently took StrengthsFinders, and I kind of did a [inaudible 00:31:31] check and even asked folks around if they thought that this rang true, I think everybody, including my husband, said, “Oh, yes, this is definitely you.” Ideation is number one, and I think, Nils, I shared some of this, maybe. I [don’t think there 00:31:43] was any surprise by that. I think the fact that constantly thinking about innovation, new ideas, ways to keep pushing things forward, definitely is something that motivates me, is a strength of mine. Probably no surprise as to why I found myself so attracted to the space of customer success, [being 00:32:00] so [nascent 00:32:01].
Startups, and even being a part of Oracle, which you could say, “Gosh, a large company. How would that align with someone that has a strength of ideation?” Oracle, especially Oracle Marketing Cloud, is going through such a unique time right now because we are forming this team for the first time. In Oracle as a whole it’s a great, exciting time to be there, because cloud is now becoming a reality as Oracle’s been acquiring companies, like the ones that form the Oracle Marketing Cloud, where we need to be thinking things differently. [Participating 00:32:31] in those work [streams 00:32:32] are incredibly thrilling.
Also for me, it’s not just ideation but also another strength of mine is strategic. How is this, in combination, helping us achieve our business and financial goals? Then because I have this high sense of getting stuff done, I think we all know this, especially in startups, you’re just constantly needing to do the job of three people and getting a lot of stuff done in a short period of time, activator is another strength of mine. Those three strengths in combination has really fueled a lot of the work we’ve done this last year at Oracle Marketing Cloud. Certainly [done 00:33:03] a ton of things that I’ve been able to accomplish within customer success at all of my startups and companies I’ve been a part of.
Nils:
That’s wonderful detail on the ideation, strategic, activator. What they mean to you and how you put them into practice. I’m curious if you could give me an example of, after digging into the strengths and understanding where you are most talented to focus, and enjoy the most work, an example of something that was perhaps on your plate that didn’t align with your strengths. This is a common thing in the leadership side. We have to do lots, quote unquote, have to do lots of stuff. There are certain things, as you were mentioning, that didn’t align with these strengths. Can you give me an example over the last year of something and how did you go about solving that? Maybe leveraging the strengths of someone else on your team or in some other fashion.
Catherine:
Absolutely. I think there’s a couple of things that I know [in 00:34:00] myself, in surrounding myself with folks that can be that complement, that complements where perhaps you know, this is the stuff I don’t particularly like, it’s not necessarily my top strengths, and so having them kind of complete that picture has been so helpful. For example, as it relates to a lot of the key initiatives and strategic work we’ve done this year, obviously you can imagine a very thrilling time to participate in putting a framework together, aligning everybody to that framework and then starting to roll that out.
One thing I know that I needed to have around me is someone that’s almost putting on the breaks a little bit as well, because I will have a high desire to want to get stuff out the door fast, because I don’t like sitting still. There is this aspect when you’re in a very large company, you can’t necessarily go as quickly as a startup with 15, 20 people. You have to contemplate change management a bit more nuanced and detailed than maybe someone like me would like. That patience of thinking about, slowing up a little bit, making sure that we’ve really thought through every aspect. It’s good tension because there’s also this aspect of where I would put pressure on [folks 00:35:17] around me that are kind of slowing things up, and really grinding out the details and say, “Is that good enough? Is that good enough?” We don’t want good enough to be the casualty of trying to do everything perfect or great. That’s been good tension.
Then I think the other this is just, again, I know not every leader has this. I certainly am the beneficiary of having an amazing executive assistant who’s helping me make sure that I have the details around keeping my one-on-ones, making sure that the things that I can drive consistently for my team are happening, because knowing myself, I’m going to be flying fast. I need to get a lot of work done and having someone ensuring that the day-to-day, perhaps things to me that might just be less critical but so important to the org, to make sure that they’re happening. They’re kind of keeping all of that coming so that I can stay in my strength space. That’s been fantastic for me.
Nils:
There you have it. That complement of how Catherine uses ideation, strategic and activator specifically to thrive in this leadership position, but complements those strengths with other members of her team. From her EA to the management layer, where they are able to take on some of the other pieces that may not fit her strengths very well. There you have a perfect example of strengths-based leadership and how powerful that can be when everyone’s aligned with what they’re naturally talented to do.
Catherine:
Most definitely. Again, if you haven’t looked into this I highly recommend it. It’s been great for the team. Actually, too, Nils, it’s helped us identify who’s missing from the picture as well when we think about whether it’s the profile of my leadership team, the profile of key work streams. It helps you identify, perhaps, areas of a gap that might get you if you don’t have somebody that represents that, so it’s been a great dialogue to have. Not just for myself but with my team in general.
Nils:
Yeah, that’s absolutely fantastic. If you’re wondering out there what this is, just search for StrengthsFinder assessment. There’s a StrengthsFinder 2.0 book out there as well as this was all done through the Gallup organization, which you can find online. Today you have a lot of initiatives going on, a lot of different directions from the people development to the strategy to driving massive organizational change inside of Oracle. I’m curious, where do you get the most satisfaction out of your work today?
Catherine:
I would say the people, first and foremost, because that has been my focus. I would say my customer’s second, in a way, again based on what we just talked about, about with a large organization I have to have my folks be my proxy. Seeing my customers succeed because of my people is amazing. That is just, it presents that complete picture of we’re doing it right. We’ve got the right things, we’re enabling our people, the right strategy. It’s just that ultimate confirmation.
A couple examples this year. We ended up almost beta-testing, if you will, this structure with some of our key accounts, just to make sure that we got the structure right. Took this opportunity to ensure, whether we’ve got the right customer charter, right mandate. We’re contemplating training our people, we’re aligning around what this role of customer success really is for Oracle Marketing Cloud, and then we’re putting people in that role to represent the customer holistically. To see these folks start to embrace the role and giving feedback that they’re excited about it, this is the alignment that they’ve been waiting for, what we’re delivering to them in terms of training is helping them. Then to see how that then has translated into a customer that went, perhaps from a red state because it was a little disjointed, to now, them …
Nils:
Go ahead …
Catherine:
It’s again that conversation that I’m having with my customers, seeing the work that we’re doing strategically flowing all the way through from my people being super excited about the work they’re doing. Feeling incredibly enabled and successful in what they’re doing. Then see that translate into our customers now, being more successful with [our 00:39:43] products, having a better experience with the team. To me that’s what I find so motivating and professionally rewarding.
Nils:
That’s wonderful. It all starts with the people. People first and take care of them. Reminded of [Erv Keller’s 00:39:56] saying at Southwest, “If you take care of your people, they’ll take care of your customers.” I love that. [crosstalk 00:40:02] quote.
Catherine:
That’s right.
Nils:
Last question here. If you could change something about yourself, what would it be and why?
Catherine:
Another really hard question. I would say, one of the things I could say I’m working on, as much as I would say I’m pretty good at compartmentalizing the crazy, frenetic pace we run at in technology and then having really good balance. I think sometimes that’s hard to do. I think sometimes I wish I had an off button, [I think maybe 00:40:33] some of us did, just to be able, I admire people that truly can just step away, and completely unplug and relax. Be really, really chilled out outside of work. I think that’s something that I’m working on. I’m really working on, and you can ask my family. I’m working on this.
I think it’s that drive, that competitive drive, that just we’re not done, whether it’s with our people or our customers, it’s hard to turn that off. It’s just hard to get out of that mode. Especially when you just see what we have to do and, again, that competitive drive I have with myself about I have to be always ten steps ahead of the competition. I need to be ten steps ahead of the competition in terms of them potentially recruiting my people or my customers, and I want my customers and my people to get the best out of what I know we can develop. You know, I think that that’s fantastic, but if there’s one thing I could change is just the ability to sometimes be able to put it on the shelf, and just walk away and just have a moment that you can actually experience outside of it.
Nils:
That’s wonderful. That kind of a peaceful place to regroup and come back even more refreshed. One thing to change, create the off button.
Catherine:
Yeah. Maybe the cloning ability too. I think there’s many of us that would love to see that happen. Because maybe that would help me have the off button, if I knew that there was a second me out there that was able to do the other things I wish I could do.
Nils:
Then you just run two shifts and you’re always good. Always covered 24/7.
Catherine:
That’s exactly right. That’s right.
Nils:
Awesome. Catherine, it’s been such a pleasure to dig into all these areas with you. Really love the work you’re doing at Oracle Marketing Cloud and leading customer success, driving massive organizational change and creating an environment where people can literally go from the very beginning of their career all the way up through senior leadership within an environment where you are focused on the development of your people first and foremost. Because you know that if you do that you will make your customers successful. Just absolutely love your approach to leadership and management, and really appreciate your time today, so thank you.
Catherine:
Well, thank you so much. Great to talk with you, as always. Thanks for including me in the program.
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