Kia Puhm from Kia CX Consulting: Strengths in Action #05
Welcome to the fifth episode of the Strengths in Action podcast.
In this episode, I chat to Kia Puhm from Kia CX Consulting and learn:
- how Kia’s engineering background helped her become a Customer Experience expert
- how Kia segmented an enormous customer base at Eloqua… and drove massive organizational innovation
- where Kia has excelled and struggled in her career
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Nils:
Welcome to the show! I’m joined this week by my guest, Kia Puhm, founder of Kia CX Consulting. Kia, welcome. How you doing?
Kia:
Good. Thanks, Nils. How are you?
Nils:
Doing wonderful. First off, love to hear a little bit about what Kia CX Consulting is and how you got into the consulting business.
Kia:
Yeah. Well, Kia CX helps companies accelerate their business growth through customer experience innovation. Looking at using methodology that encompasses the experience and tools that I’ve built over 21 years of experience building and leading customer experience organizations in software companies. How do software companies scale organizations and how they become customer-centric in helping grow and helping them help their customers is what I do.
Nils:
That customer-centric piece and the CX part. You’ve led CX organizations. You’re talking customer-centric. For someone who’s not familiar at all with CX itself as a function, how would you describe that?
Kia:
Oh, wow. That’s a great question.
Nils:
In two sentences.
Kia:
I don’t know if that can be. It’s basically understanding your customers, and using the cues from what they’re trying to achieve, and marrying what your product can do to add value, and aligning the business operations around that.
Nils:
Perfect. That makes tons of sense. See, you could do that easily. You started this consulting firm just a few months ago. Tell us about why is now the right time for you to be consulting? What drove you to start this firm? We’re going to dig into your career and other things. You’ve had some very senior level positions at a lot of wonderful companies so why consulting and why now?
Kia:
Yeah, great question. I guess I’ve always wanted to start my own business since I was a little kid. I used to instead of playing with Barbies and dolls like my sister did, I would play shop, and I would have little pieces of paper that would pretend to be credit cards, and have a cash register. I also loved Monopoly. I pretended to be a banker.
Nils:
That’s awesome.
Kia:
I always wanted that. I think I just didn’t ever have the wherewithal or I guess I thought that being and entrepreneur meant a whole bunch of different things that maybe I didn’t have all those skill sets for. I went into industry and just continually built upon my experience.
The reason now is I’ve been in the software business 21 years and I have amassed a bunch of knowledge and the experience and tools that I have used consistently throughout my career that I’ve noticed work. Right now, the moment for customer success it’s burgeoning. It’s such a new industry.
It’s new and it’s not, but it is quite new with how you scale, and this description economy, and all the changes that are happening in the market, and all the disruption that are happening. Understanding and knowing about your customers and how to tie that to business operations has never been more important.
The time is ripe for basically being in the space of consulting to help companies because there’s such a big need. For me, it was also right in terms of all the experience that I had and the confidence to go out and start it.
Nils:
That’s really wonderful. I commend you on having that confidence. Going from, I love the visual image of you playing shop with the little paper credit cards when you were a little kid. Maybe having some associations with entrepreneurship that held you back from doing something on your own, but you gained tremendous experience throughout your career and now it’s the time to put that into play.
I’m curious. One more thing before we dig into your background here is, “What does entrepreneurship mean to you today?”
Kia:
Oh, wow. That’s a great question because I think what I would have answered about 20 years ago was building up a business, and having a business plan, and mapping everything out, and working to the plan, and earning some sort of revenue. I think now an entrepreneur in the environment of digital, and social, and content marketing, and all the disruption that’s going on, it feels like more people than not are entrepreneurs.
They’re doing something out there to disseminate knowledge, help out companies, figuring out how they operate in this new world. I don’t know if I’d be able to define entrepreneurship as tightly as I would have maybe 20 years ago. I think it’s finding a way to marry your experiences, your skills, your passions, and going out there and helping customers. Either other enterprises, business, and customers get value out of what you can offer.
Nils:
That sums it up very nicely. Finding a way to marry your experiences and your passions to help bring value to other people. Simple. That’s perfect. Awesome. Thank you. Okay, so let’s wind back the clock a little bit and talk about how you got this wonderful set of experience that you have. Take me back to graduation or in college even what was it that you studied? How did you know you were interested in that field? What did you start doing as soon as you got out of school?
Kia:
Yeah. I studied computer engineering at the University of Toronto. I went into engineering because I loved maths and sciences. I was really strong at that in school and I find that’s a theme in terms of I love to solve problems and challenges. I think I was just naturally drawn there.
I have to admit, my father was an engineer, so that of course had influences. Actually in a previous life, I was a world-class swimmer. Relevant to the situation is, I was traveling with the national team. I was the national champion, et cetera. I was so busy swimming in high school when you had to decide what to choose, I was swimming and going to competitions, so I just quickly filled out the form and my dad said, “Maths and sciences would be good for engineering.”
I chose that. I looked at kinesiology potentially et cetera, but I wanted to do something more grandiose that I thought this all through, but I didn’t. I like maths and sciences. It seemed to fit. I was too busy swimming, so I didn’t put a lot of thought into my college or university choice. That’s where I got started into software, obviously.
Nils:
That worked out in that case where it wasn’t a totally off the wall, totally wrong thing for you, it might have been good for your dad kind of scenario. “No, actually he knew me very well,” obviously and that actually worked perfectly because that has charted the course for the rest of your career, right?
Kia:
Yeah, actually. Very much so. I have to admit, I’m sure a lot of the listeners might relate to this is sometimes you wonder still even, “What do I want to be when I grow up?” You sometimes wonder, “Was that the right choice?” I guess I’ll never know the answer because I only chose this path, but what I do know unequivocally is that the learnings that I got in university, how to problem solve, how to disseminate a problem, how to go about doing that. I enjoyed it.
It was very much aligned with how I think and what I do and it has served me very well. I can’t at all complain. I think it was an amazing undergraduate degree to have because it offers so much flexibility, but also I graduated in the mid-90’s when the internet was just taking off, et cetera, and there was a lot of opportunities. From a career perspective, it was at the right time. The right place, the right time.
Nils:
I think that’s a key thing in looking back is not so much always the path, and the roles, or the titles that we’ve held, but really more about the things that were engaging to us. The things that were fun. The things that you wanted to continuously learn. If you can stay close to those, as it sounds like you have, the roles take care of themselves, but you’re focused on the skills, not necessarily the title. Is that right?
Kia:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s very true.
Nils:
Cool. Okay, post-school, where did you start working? Did you go straight to work on the engineering side or did you get into some other fields? What happened?
Kia:
In engineering, between second and third year, I had a opportunity to do a cooperative term so I did sixteen months straight. Took a break in between second and third year. I worked at IBM Manufacturing and what that offered me was sixteen months they actually treated us as if we had been newly graduated students.
We got into those projects and we were treated just like a full-time employee, which was obviously very beneficial being a student. There I started off in this CORE lab Custom Oriented Rapid Engineering. A prototype lab, but it was very customer-focused, so I guess that was my first foray into the customer aspect.
When I graduated, naturally I then joined there again. It ended up becoming Celestica. It spun off from IBM. I wrote software, so I was responsible for the data collection system that basically took all the data as things were being manufactured. It was responsible for all the bar coding, et cetera. All the information as it was being produced. It had to be up 24/7. I had to be on-call. That was all the first foray in making sure that these are business critical operations and how do you support that? How do you make sure you keep your customers happy?
Nils:
Wow. What a first job both in school and out of school. On the front lines with customers, writing software, and then supporting it at the same time. That’s got to keep you pretty honest.
Kia:
Yeah, it did. Although, sometimes at 3 in the morning the answer might have been, “Reboot the software,” and it seemed to work. Yeah, it does keep you honest and I think what it does and maybe this is part of what’s drilled into my efficiency. I’m always looking to solve customer problems at the root because I didn’t want to continually be burdened with solving those problems over and over again.
Sometimes people think you’re just so maniacal about this altruistic means of being very customer focused, but I also have this ulterior motive of wanting to solve the problems from the root. I guess where I led from was I got an opportunity to go and live and work in Europe with Day Software.
I was coding, and they were looking for people, and I had always wanted to live and work in Europe. I had traveled with the national team many times for the World Cup circuit, but that was always at the pool, so I wanted to actually go live there for a while. I jumped at that opportunity and I left Celestica to go there.
Nils:
Hang on one second there. Always curious about inflection points in everyone’s career. Can you share a little bit. You had an incredible experience at IBM both when you were still in school, and then Celestica when you were out of school. Things were going good. Aside from the opportunity to go work abroad, were you looking for another opportunity? What was the trigger point that you said, “I need to go and do something different. I can’t just keep doing this same thing over and over?”
Kia:
That’s a great question. I had a lot of opportunity. I kept moving around. What happened was I was one of four chosen to work as a facilitator, an internal facilitator with Mackenzie and Company. The plant manager had actually brought in Mackenzie and was looking to scale. This was just before Celestica had IPO’d.
They were looking to grow and scale very quickly with the same amount of resources, et cetera. Without adding to the capital expenditures. They brought in Mackenzie and Company to do their TOP or Total Operational Performance. I was one of the facilitators to join an internal team that would systematically go through the organization and look at how you could operationalize and improve efficiency.
I think that’s also then started to marry solving customer problems with that efficiency part that I always look at and how you scale organizations. That was great and it was a 9 month stint. We went through all the different business units and they were going to have somebody go and do that in their European organization. I really wanted to do that. There was a colleague of mine who was selected to go do that.
I think that put the bug in my head about going to live and work in Europe. I was obviously disappointed when I didn’t get it and that project was wrapping up. For me, that was so exciting. That whole new opportunity, I actually first started to veer away from the technical aspect for a bit. I used it to get back into Day Software, but I wanted something in addition to the manufacturing environment.
What happened was at the same time simultaneously sometimes what serendipitously happens is I met somebody that had been working at Day Software in Europe and was here doing some courses in the masters and PhD programs at UFT. I met him through my friends and he knew that people were looking. “You’re female,” It was at a Christmas party, “You drink beer, as you program. Would you like to live in Europe?” I said, “Yes, I’d love to.”
Nils:
It’s a great journey. They signed you up right on the spot. Yeah, fortuitous things happen when put out to the universe and think about what it is we want next just like you did with seeing your friend take that opportunity, and sure enough, that came and landed right on your lap.
Kia:
Yeah, exactly. I met all the criteria, so I thought, “Why not?” I had always wanted to. That’s how I made that jump.
Nils:
Got it. How many years did you spend in Europe then?
Kia:
I was there for almost eight years. Then I was with Day Software for almost another three years after helping build up the North America operations when I came back because we really were looking to expand there. Eleven years, just under twelve years with Day Software total.
Nils:
The time with Day, I know you said you got a little bit more away from the technical side. Did you really focus more on the efficiency, and the process, and the scaling, and that side?
Kia:
Yeah. That’s where I think I was employee number 41 at Day when I joined and it was they had pivoted from a marketing/media agency. Actually, they were still that to some extent when I joined. They had a software product which was their enterprise content management platform that the CTO, one of the founders, happened to build just so that he didn’t have to keep repeating building up websites.
We were doing a lot of website design. We weren’t a software company. We weren’t selling that. We were just doing that in terms of in addition to our professional services. When we pivoted to software, we needed to build up professional services. Education, support, partner services, and then eventually working with OEM and other equipment manufacturers, to white label our software.
We were small and we were growing rapidly. Every time we needed to build up these operations, I naturally loved the new challenges and then actually eventually customer successes, I believe it was called customer satisfaction at the time. I loved the challenge of doing something new and building and then figuring out how to scale that.
That was my main theme at Day was I kept … We didn’t know how to do it. We had no blueprint for doing it. Let’s get started and try that out. I would just raise my hand and we’d build it up. That is where I got a lot obviously. I call it the school of hard knocks of MBA. The real time learning of how do you build up all these elements of a software company that are needed to help enterprise customers or partners use your software. Learn it, use it, adopt it.
Nils:
In that school of hard knocks that you went to, tell me a little bit about a low point. I know you love to solve problems. I know you love efficiency and there is no doubt as you were scaling like crazy, plenty of problems to solve.
Talk to me about the downside of that. It sounds wonderful. “It was always engaging and fun.” That’s what you mostly talk about. I want to know about the downside. Where did you struggle in that environment and what was really hard and how did you overcome it?
Kia:
Yeah. I guess one of the first hard struggles was when I was made a manager and I was made the director of partner services and started to build that up. It was right after the Dot Com bubble burst and things were slowing down.
We actually had to let a lot of people go. We were starting to shrink. We’d grown, IPO’d. I always talk about the 11th hour just before the Dot Com burst. We had to start letting people go and so one of my first things I had to do was fire somebody.
Nils:
Was this the first time you had been a manager?
Kia:
Yeah.
Nils:
Oh, so the first time you were promoted to manager. You get a great title, director, and then one of the first things you had to do was let people go.
Kia:
I had no management training. This is a small company. I hadn’t had any previous management training before. It was awful. I felt horrible because these were also friends at Day Software. It was really also because I was an ex-pat. It was my family away from home. It was painful for me to do. It was hard to do, and I also didn’t necessarily have the skill sets to do it.
One of the things about being an engineer is I can focus very much. I had to do it swimming in the pool for swimming hours at a time by myself when I solve a problem, I sometimes might be that crazy professor that might not communicate well, might not be … Not that I’m not empathetic, not that I’m not appreciative. I’ll be very direct in my communications. That can be very difficult in very difficult situations as well.
Nils:
Absolutely.
Kia:
That was hard. We had to take a look. We kept shrinking and shrinking to the point where we actually looked at we couldn’t scale down any further. We were just so lean that it would be cutting into the bone so to speak.
Nils:
How did you get through the challenging time of one) being promoted first time to manager and two) having to do something you had no training with and maybe not naturally talented to fully understand the context of the situation? What were some of the things that you did or people you talked to? How did you get through that incredibly difficult time?
Kia:
Yeah, was being a smaller software company, it’s not like they had big formal HR processes and people to look over. It really was teamwork. We really did talk these things through. We helped each other. It was a team effort in figuring things out, so one of the things, there was three of us on the management team that were leading the group. In the end, one thing we had to do is we just didn’t want to fire anyone.
We had to make a really tough decision and we thought, “Well, should we go out to everybody and ask would they be willing to take a salary cut?” A reduction in pay, that can be very difficult too. How do you go and ask about that? That could maybe scare employees, have them leave. That can have all sorts of ramifications. You have to figure out how to do that very carefully.
We talked about that. Weren’t sure what to do, but we actually thought it would be the right thing because we thought that as a team it would be worse for everybody as a whole if we had to let one person go because the morale and we were a team and it was clear that we should stick together. We then thought that the three of us should take a bigger pay cut and ask for a smaller pay cut from everybody else just to prove that we were in it with everybody and that we would take more of a hit.
We presented that, and then in terms of making it through, even the company at one point there was some help through the government. They had these programs for seasonal workers et cetera. We were able to somehow apply for that, we looked at time sharing, on how we worked. We were down to the pennies and trying to figure out I wish I had some better management directive or a path that we followed.
was, “Get shit done. Work together, be really open and transparent, and treat everybody fairly and with respect, and still focus on the vision.” We all believed still that we had a product we could make go forward and keep helping those customers because they were paying the bills.
Nils:
Amazing how even that simplified version of getting shit done, being open and transparent, trusting one another, how far that can go in that environment.
Kia:
Oh, yeah. I think without that, what do companies have? It truly makes all the difference. I think that’s a testament. Day didn’t have the best sales engine. I don’t want to say sales folks, because we had awesome sales folks, but just our approach we were that product-focused company. That engineering focused company.
We were focused. We had an amazing product, but that whole marketing engine and that sales engine to keep us going we had to learn and evolve. We survived based on our teamwork, and the product, and trying to do right by the customer as cheesy as that sounds.
Nils:
No, not cheesy. It’s true. It’s not cheesy, but it’s true. It’s only cheesy, but true. Let’s fast forward to Eloqua. Where you joined Eloqua and tell us a little bit about the state where Eloqua was at that time, what you were brought in to do, and then what you did do there and how that transpired.
Kia:
Yeah. I was found through recruiters to join Eloqua because of this VP of Customer Satisfaction role that I had at Day. I had that experience at Day and the end of 2006, the beginning of 2007. Very early on before customer success even existed in that role. Probably one of the first in the industry out there to do that.
That was when Eloqua saw that I had that background in terms of support, professional service, all the post-sales, and had that customer satisfaction angle. The concept of retaining customers and protecting that revenue, and generating additional revenue. Upsale and cross-sale opportunities for that.
Eloqua had been doing a fabulous job growing year over year, doubling its growth. It was very customer-focused. Customers loved Eloqua. We did everything and anything for them. What was happening was that the scaling model was breaking. The hero concept that these customer success heroes that were saving accounts, but it was done because bodies were added on there versus, “Okay, how do you start to get more specific and focused on what they’re going to do with their customer throughout their journey?”
They actually engaged third party consultants to do a voice of the customer and voice of the industry report. They went out and interviewed many of their customers and found out what they did and didn’t like about currently what Eloqua was doing. They also bench-marked themselves against [inaudible 00:28:20] software companies to see where they were falling behind or how they measured up against that. I remember having determined that [inaudible 00:28:30] was starting to become an issue. As you know, as you start to scale, [inaudible 00:28:36] becomes an issue.
We needed to address that and we needed someone to lead this corporate initiative of innovating the customer experience. They put together a big initiative, started to look at it at every single angle, and needed someone to lead that charge and then also build and lead that customer experience organization. That’s where I was brought in by the chief revenue officer, who was at present my boss, Alex Shootman and he had me take a look at every sort of angle. We started to segment our customer base. We started to not be all things to every single customer the same.
Nils:
Up to that point, was there any segmentation in the Eloqua customer base?
Kia:
No. Up until that point, there hadn’t. Right. They were looking at segmentation was [inaudible 00:29:35] and that was one of the recommendations that came out of the report. We started to look at, “How do you over the accounts in those segmented models? How can you give everybody an amazing customer experience, but you don’t have to service everyone in the same way to get that experience?”
Through that segmentation, we started to look at what would the account coverage model look like on accounts. We started to look at role clarity. We started to look at what that customer journey would look like to try to get better insights into that. We looked at our customer success programs, and offerings, and how could we align better with what the customer needs were. Those are some of the things. It was quite a comprehensive program.
Nils:
How many customers were you dealing with or did Eloqua have at the time at which you came in and this became increasingly important and why they brought you in?
Kia:
There were 1,200 customers at that time.
Nils:
1,200. That’s really interesting anecdotal data point. That 1,200 customers were all being serviced in the same way and the company was still growing, and growing, and growing, but I order to get to the next level, they were going to have to segment defining account coverage, defining role clarity, defining customer journey for each of these people, and that’s really what you were doing.
Kia:
Exactly. We get very much more operational. Some more standardized processes for how you would service the customers and how do roles come in and out of accounts. One of the things that came out of that voice of the customer report was, “We love you guys. You’re amazing and when we need help, there might be 10 people that jump on and help us, but we actually don’t know who to go to. Who’s our main point of contact? Who should be contacted?”
Sometimes it might be like crickets chirping. We might get something and nobody’s on there, so we need to reach out, and then when we do reach out, and the squeaky wheel, then you guys come on with full force. Things like that, we had to start learning instead of waiting for the customer to come to us, how could we proactively understand where they were, when would they have challenges and problems? How can we jump in and help them?
I think a lot of that has to do with how you’re set up through your operations and your processes to understand that, delineate roles and responsibilities, assign people accountability for the customer at certain points in time in their journey.
Nils:
If you could give advice to either a CEO or a VP of CS out there who’s dealing with let’s call it maybe not 1,200 customers. Let’s call it something lower. They’re in the 150, 200, 300, 400 even range. That’s a lot of customers. If you could give them one piece of advice for what they should look at if they start getting that itch of, “Oh man, everybody’s saying this. We’ve got to do something, guys.” What would you tell them to do? To look at, to think about. What’s the highest impact place that they can initially dig into?
Kia:
I would say the customer journey hands down. I’ll explain that if that’s okay.
Nils:
Please. Yes.
Kia:
This was the big aha moment. One of the things that we did, we did look at customer’s journeys. We started mapping it. We started talking about it. It wasn’t until in hindsight at the very end when Alex and I did a look back in time of what went right and what went wrong. The biggest thing I had was we were defining and putting things together based on what we believe the customer needed and wanted. With all the right intentions and based on our understanding of what customers did, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the customer journey from their perspective.
I use this analogy maybe because also my athletic background, but because Eloqua was defining the market at the beginning and digital marketers didn’t necessarily know what this was and needed help to do this work with the use of the technology we had a whole bunch of people that were digital marketers. They loved it. They were excited. They really wanted to help the customers, and they wanted to teach them everything. It was like they were world-class athletes and they wanted to train all the customers to Olympic athletes and win goal medals, but actually when you get to the mas market, there’s people who just want to go to the gym three times a week to be healthy and have a great lifestyle.
If you try to make them do a thousand sit ups when they only want to do five sit ups, you actually might have to leave that gym and just go somewhere else because they might not want to do that. In essence, we almost were trying to use that same approach of everybody must want to do everything with Eloqua and completely build a funnel and do everything that the product would allow for. We were actually fatiguing customers and over-servicing them because we were having these elaborate success programs. We had them do homework on top of their regular day jobs, et cetera.
The biggest thing was, “Wow. No wonder we were losing customers,” as well because those that actually had bigger priorities to do at their company, this wasn’t the number one initiative for them. They weren’t aligned to what their objectives were. Understanding the customer journey gives you a lot of insight into what are they trying to do? Are they trying to be that world-class athlete or are they trying to be a recreational athlete?
As you know, a coach will train those athletes very differently. Well, a customer success team can support those customers very differently based on their objectives. Once you know that, you can start being a lot more focused with your operations and how you help them do it. Achieve those goals.
Nils:
That’s really interesting. Did that play into your segmentation of how those customers, the ones who want to be world-class, they’ve got a whole different program versus the people who just want to go to the gym three times a week. They get a separate program. Did that work into there?
Kia:
Yeah, absolutely. What we did was we looked at what were the resources they needed? What were the skill sets that were needed? Maybe they didn’t need to learn as much about a certain aspect of the product. Maybe they needed, so we might have had instead of technical detailed resources or marketing experts, we might have had more account managers that could sell the value proposition of the product to those accounts.
They might have answered questions differently. They might not have wanted just technical level details because the customer actually didn’t need a technical answer to solve their problem. It helped us look at it from the customer’s perspective and approach how we answered and how we serviced slightly differently. Overall, we tried to keep to that one high level journey. It’s just that the level of depth of detail might have changed depending on the segment and the customer.
Nils:
When in the engagement with the customer either pre-sale, during in the sales process, or post-sale did you discover their wants and needs. They want to be world-class or do they want to just be a recreational? How did you go about placing that answer that you knew the right resources to provide?
Kia:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Obviously I’d love to say that we got perfect information from the sales. They made perfectly clear everything into sales [inaudible 00:37:53], and we knew exactly why they bought.
Nils:
Like a machine.
Kia:
Yeah. Obviously, we didn’t have that, just as much as it’s a challenge elsewhere as well, but we did try to do as much as we could. We also started to introduce things like a welcome call to level 7 customers. We have what we called a success coach program.
What we did was we assigned a success coach to an account for the first twelve weeks or sixteen weeks of them starting and I would be a person that once a week would meet up with them and help them on things that they were having with the product. It wasn’t technically really per se. It obviously wasn’t totally abstracted from it, but we talked about their business challenges they were having and how they can have the product solve that.
On the very first meeting, we would discuss what were their objectives and what were they trying to achieve. What were they trying to do with their marketing programs. That because we had a lot of experience dealing with customers, you could quickly recognize in speaking with them, “Okay, this person wants to go all the way. This is an Olympic athlete.” It’s clear from what you’ve talked to with that person. Then we can start to tailor the program and we would adjust accordingly based on what was needed for them, so we right sized it and right paced it.
Nils:
Got it. Cool. That was an awesome deep dive on just a little tiny piece of what what you did at Eloqua. To sum it up, the customer journey being absolutely critical and not just from the company’s perspective. From the customer’s perspective so that the company can then align the right resources, attention, level of detail to that customer in order to get them to where they want to go as opposed to just dictating that everybody’s got to be a world-class athlete because we’re experts and everybody wants to be experts, right?
Kia:
Right. Exactly. Perfect.
Nils:
Got it. Cool. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about we dug into the career piece a little bit. We talked about the background we’re doing today. I’m curious about the themes. High-level. Taking on the 50,000 foot view. Where have you excelled and two) where have you struggled throughout your career?
Kia:
Yeah. Again, we talked about that. That problem solving, that disseminating. I have a capacity to take a large amount of data that might be seemingly disparate and pull it together to see where the discrepancies are. What’s not fitting in the bigger picture.
Using that example of Eloqua, we had all these elements [inaudible 00:40:46] come in and support everything, but there was that piece missing of why is not all flowing seamlessly and got to that journey of that as we’re doing it. Pulling the data together and figuring out a strategy to get to the end goal is something that I’ve excelled at.
It’s because of that problem solving and being ale to sort a lot of information and so that disseminated into this concept of where I want to go with this strategy and then on the execution part. I think that focus, even in kindergarten my report cards stated that I could focus on something for a long time.
Nils:
That’s awesome.
Kia:
There’s all these common themes in everyone’s life, right?
Nils:
That’s what I’m curious about. You’ve continuously focused on those themes throughout, which has enabled you to grow, and evolve, and hold some very high-profile roles in some very large companies.
Kia:
Yeah. Exactly. That focus has enabled me to execute all that strategy. Sometimes people are strategists, some people are good executors. I have that mix of both because of that problem solving approach and that execution. Then whenever there’s problems and challenges, I think that engineering mindset is to approach problems in very different ways.
I am persistent and I don’t give up. If there isn’t one solution, I look at various different angles, and I can see it from a very different perspective. One time a gentleman a Day Software goes, “Here you just don’t. You hit a wall with a problem, you just go around it in a different way. Until you get a solution. It’s very interesting to watch.” That’s been a common theme of what I excel in it was promised the more value that they they come, it’s almost the more exciting it gets for me.
On the struggling side, it definitely has been the communication. I can get so focused in what the strategy is and I can be so disciplined and have this work ethic to go that I lose sight of the fact that everybody might not think that same way. They might not be there right beside me and want to have that coffee time chat at the water cooler.
Nils:
You’re already 500 miles down the road saying, “Catch up.”
Kia:
Right. Where is everybody? That obviously is such a key skill when you’re leading people. That has been my Achilles heel if you will throughout this. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in terms of my direct approach. I find interestingly, it was easier for me in Europe because they are much more blunt and direct and so North America I find I have more challenges here.
There’s that difference, but truly learn how to have one on ones with people to understand and appreciate that people they have a life outside work as well. They don’t focus like I do on one part of the day. They mix and blend it which I think is a very healthy approach and I’ve tried to adopt that. To us, that’s been the direct struggle.
Nils:
On that Achilles heel, first, what’s been the impact of that? What was really the impact of not taking the time to be as close or making sure that everybody’s with you or building a close relationship, having one on ones? What was the impact of that and the second part of that is was there a pivotal moment when that first came into mind where you said something happened and you took a step back and recognized immediately that you had completely forgotten to bring other people along with you? Was there a project, or meeting, or anything that happened where you were like, “Oh my gosh, wow. How did that go so far off the path here?”
Kia:
Right. I think with anything in life, there was definitely higher moments where the reactions you could see, it’s more like with age it builds up and then you start to notice the trends. I think with age comes more self-awareness too. As yous tart to repeatedly notice, “Oh, wait. I’ve been misunderstood again?” or “Why did somebody react that way?” You start to notice trends and work with the coaches and so we worked on that element on how I could appreciate that better.
Nils:
Hang on there, so you had hired coaches, a professional coach, to come in and help understand where your strengths and where you might be struggling then you work specifically with that coach on how to address those particular challenges.
Kia:
Yeah. I had a coach at Eloqua that I worked with and actually I still work with her today actually. It was on communication in general. It’s not just the one on one and the people behind it. Also how could I communicate? That’s also upwards as well and/or to complete organization. Another thing I think that’s stupid. I don’t do that and I see this also this trend with engineers is we’ll just start working on a problem, we don’t necessarily market what we’re talking about communicating regularly et cetera.
That’s one of the things Alex would constantly talk to me about at Eloqua. Would say, “Let the rest of the organization know what’s going on right now.” “Well, it was busy. Why do they need to know about it?” Actually it’s a really good point that I would think I would be in it day in and day out so it didn’t seem very exciting to me so I wasn’t about to start tooting my own horn to everybody so I thought, “Why do I need to talk about it?”
Then I just start to realize, “Actually, it’s new to everybody and these things are really interesting.” I think that’s also disconnected. Not necessarily just the ones with people, but what people want to hear and appreciating that things that might seem very simple to you are not important to discuss are actually quite important.
Nils:
It was really wonderfully said. It was really fascinating and really appreciate the intent to one) work on and develop one of those challenging parts that you notice patterns over time, which again plays to your strengths because that was a challenge.
That was a problem. I know you’re going to be putting that [inaudible 00:47:58] to work and now one of the solutions is work with a coach. Work with a coach, bring this to awareness. Get more awareness. I can solve problems differently and get everybody along together.
Kia:
That’s awesome. I never though about that, but you’re right.
Nils:
The subconscious is the most powerful thing you have access to and yours is working overtime during those times so that’s really cool. I’m curious about your philosophy around personal development. How have you approached this throughout your career and how have you approached this today as a consultant when you worked for yourself. What do you think about this?
Kia:
I guess growing up in all these software companies, I wasn’t exposed to a lot of programs per se. Formalized HR programs that were developed. I didn’t have anything mapped out or it’s not like I worked with my managers ever to figure out what I was going to do next, for me, my philosophy is just because it’s what I live. It’s also my experience. I don’t know which.
It’s one and the same I guess, but it’s really to own your development. I have basically done it by hands-on learning. Whenever there was something new that needed to be done, I was the first one to raise my hand and say, “I’d love to do that because I was interested in something new and exciting. I always wanted something new to solve, so I took it upon myself to continually look for ways to develop them and things that I wanted to do that were also very useful to the company, right?
I knew that I had value by focusing on something that was that win-win situation. I just took on personal development myself and being very independent and went forward with that. I guess later on when I thought, “Maybe I should seek out a coach to help on some of those other aspects.” I went and did that and had the support of my boss, and went forward that way.
I do think thatin general, people truly need to own it and you need to figure out because it’s only you that knows you the best. There’s no one else that can tell you, but people certainly can help you and tell you what you’re strong at and were are your blind spots, and what you could look at, and how here’s opportunities that could match to those, but what do you enjoy doing? What do you think about? What’s inside your head that nobody else knows is you’re only privy to.
Because you’re a complete person, to marry all that together, you’re in the best position to develop that, and so to understand what it is that you need and then seek out the help and guidance from people that you think could be there to help and guide you is basically the protecting.
Nils:
Awesome. That was wonderful. Yeah, own it. Own your own development. Don’t let anyone else own it for you because as Kia said, “Nobody knows you like you do.”
Kia:
Yeah.
Nils:
That’s still applies to your parents’ dream. That still applies to your spouses. That still applies to your children. It applies across the board. There’s only one chief and it’s you, so just own it.
Kia:
That’s right.
Nils:
What makes you unique?
Kia:
There’s only one of me. I guess that’s what makes you unique, right? Again, I really do think that I can take large pieces of data. I can break it down. I can problem solve. The combination of that persistence, the drive, that competitive spirit doing the swimming, my excitement at solving challenges. What makes me unique and the experiences that I build upon with that personality all that makes me who I am and where I’ve got to today.
Nils:
Awesome. Love it. I ask that question because I like to give people an opportunity to voice what only they know. Everybody is unique 100%. One of my previous guests said that what makes him unique and everybody unique is that sum of all the experiences that they’ve had and no two people ever have the same experiences.
The same roles, same title, doesn’t matter, right? You just said it perfectly right there and so that’s just a great way to remember the uniqueness that is inside of everyone and to always appreciate, and accept, and hold that up high. That there is nobody else like you out there. Period.
Kia:
Right. Wow, that’s great. Well, you’re so unique at what you do, because you bring up the best of people in that summary from people.
Nils:
Thank you. My number one most dominant strength in the strength finder assessment which I pretty much live my whole life by is maximizer. That means to me that I see strengths in other people oftentimes before they see it in themselves. How I am naturally wired and how I am talented it is what I am put on this earth to do. I look at my work all the time with my clients and my day to day, my coaching, and anybody I come into contact with, and I view the world from my most dominant strength because that is how I’m wired and that’s where I have the most fun too.
Kia:
That’s awesome. That’s perfect. That’s great. What a gift? That’s such a gift to be able to do that too because you’re using your gift and you’re showing people their gifts. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Nils:
I like the way you said that. The gift that keeps on giving. Absolutely. Where do you get the most satisfaction in your work and they were getting picked on just the consulting piece? It’s a lot different being an operator than it is being a consultant.
As you’ve transitioned and gotten into this consulting role where you’re involved but it’s a little different because you’re not necessarily one of the team, a part of the organization as much as we try. Where do you get the most satisfaction in your work today?
Kia:
I guess another reason why I started my company is because I love the strategy and that problem solving problem [inaudible 00:54:23]. The execution, although enjoyable, it is for me more enjoyable to look at a business, and assess it, and understand how I could provide value to have help with the company with their strategy and scale and we’re all looking at the things that they’re doing.
Being able to do that, not just for one company and then do it for a couple years at a time and building up that execution component and watching it. I can now go out to a lot of companies and do it all at once and have that problem solving and that input and taking that information and then figure out how to put a plan in place or operations imposing solutions and doing it even in a multiple scale map.
Whereas if you’re doing it with one company now doing it at multiple companies at a time. I just love that. I was on Friday all day at one of my customers and just had all day interview sessions just getting that information and then talking about some of the challenges and what can be done I’m just getting more and more excited as the day went on.
Nils:
Good. Well I can hear it in your voice too and when you’re describing being on-site in interviews all day, with a client, on a Friday that takes a lot of energy, but you’re just exploding with energy right now so I can see how aligned you are with that, which is wonderful. What are you most talented to do? We talked about the strategy a bunch and execution, but if you break it down to what you are most talented to do, what would you say?
Kia:
Are we talking about in the work context or just in general?
Nils:
Just in general. Yeah.
Kia:
I think I can drive change in a really meaningful ways. I can help people with whatever sort of help they might be looking for and offer solutions, offer help to assist them. I’m very pragmatic, open-minded in my approach so no judging. I can find solutions very quickly so I have solutions to offer. Then I can get really excited about win win situations and helping people.
People that can feel that excited and there’s that alignment, so my open-mindedness, the logic, the pragmatic. I love win-win solutions. I love when everybody can win something. Make no mistake about it, I also like to win and touch the wall first, but I think that there’s a journey and I also always didn’t touch the wall first.
Again, I had a really good relationships with my fiercest competitors. I think there’s ways just that win-win concept and solving something. Motivating people when I’m really passionate about something and working on something, and seeing how I can organize that. I think I’m pretty talented to do that.
Nils:
Wonderful. Thank you. Coming up on our last question here. If you could change something about yourself, just one thing, what would it be and why?
Kia:
I’d say to communicate effortlessly and to not be misunderstood.
Nils:
Well, well said. You’ve given this one a little thought before. That’s come up twice.
Kia:
Yeah, and why? I think I don’t fit the norms. I was swimming with the men because I was faster that time so I was in that lane and I wasn’t with the girls. I was in engineering, so I was one of the few in a male-dominated industry. I was in software. I’ve been one of the only female execs on all the various [inaudible 00:58:37] teams I’m on. I am an aunt, but I don’t have children. I’m not married.
I’ve always done things differently. I think also a presence, and I have ideas, and I might be that engineering crazy scientist and be very straightforward. All of that together, people can’t peg me in one way. If I communicate in a certain way and they’ve got different impressions, I can be very quickly misunderstood, because I don’t fit into all the norms people typically look for.
All the cues that people look for to fit in. When my communication might not be the first strength for me, and then I don’t fit all those norms and might not fit in where people expect, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities for me to be misunderstood. Sometimes what I says is, “I just want it to be understood and not have to re-explain it or re-communicate something.”
Nils:
Fascinating. Awesome. Well, Kia, thank you so much for your wonderful insights and your background, and your career, and your consulting business. Just very thankful to get to know you and count you as a friend, and a colleague in the consulting space and customer success and really appreciate you being on the show. Thank you.
Kia:
Thanks, Nils so much, I really appreciate the time as well and it’s been a lot of fun.
Nils:
My pleasure. All right. Take care.
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