109: Panel: If I Knew Then, What I Know Now….

Charlotte Ward: 0:12

Hello and welcome back to episode 109 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today we have a panel session talking about If I Knew Then, what I know now. I would like to welcome back to the podcast today. Uh, a group of leaders who are all previous guests and all at different stages of their career to tell to help me out with this panel discussion where we talk about what we would tell ourselves in a former life, what we wish we had known earlier on in our career. So, my dear panelists, the question is if I knew then what I know now, what would what would we tell our former selves? And let let's I guess start with where where are you at now? What what are you up to? What stage of your careers are you at? How do you how do you feel you've kind of arrived at this point? Let's describe where we're at right now, begin there.

Matt Dale: 1:22

All right, I'll I'll start off because why not? Um so I'm Matt Dale. I've been uh the VP of support at Illuminate Education, a software company in Southern California for um, well, the VP of support is a recent-ish title, last couple years, but I've been growing in uh in my role um in running our support team as we grew from a small uh team of about three of us when we started to a little over 60 people all across the US, and we've even got some uh teammates in in other countries too. So um there's been a lot of growth over the last uh eight years as we've gone from that small scrappy startup to the more, I guess, mature uh organization, and a lot of things that I've I've learned along the way and um a lot of stuff that I wish I knew now, or I wish I knew then that I know now. So I'm excited for the topic today. But that's a little about me.

Charlotte Ward: 2:09

I always have to remind myself, like I have to double think that sentence. If I knew then what I know now, because the other way around would be really bad, right?

Matt Dale: 2:18

Right. You don't want to know now what you didn't knew. Well, because you kind of do know now what you do then, yeah. And I feel like there was a song that was something like if I wish I knew that what I knew then, I don't know. You have to dig that up for the intro or something like that, Charlotte.

Charlotte Ward: 2:30

I I think you need to write it and sing it for us, Matt.

Matt Dale: 2:33

All right, I'll I'll look it up, I'll do some research.

Charlotte Ward: 2:36

Awesome.

Matt Dale: 2:37

Rod Stewart. Did the recent version. Yep. There we go. Great, great. That's the perfect uh segue right there, you know, and and talking a little about more experience and support, you know, dive on in.

Charlotte Ward: 2:49

Greg, that was either some incredible Googling or a master, masterful knowledge of Rod Stewart's back catalog, right?

Greg Skirving: 2:57

Well, I uh my mind is a bit of a garbage heap of useless information, but apparently it came in handy this time. So yeah. So yeah, Greg Skirving, I'm actually currently uh between gigs, as it were, but uh, you know, many uh many years of experience leading teams on uh both the support uh uh implementation and uh on the sales side. And yeah, um, you know, many, many different things uh that uh have taken a long time that uh I wish I'd known, you know, years ago, a couple of things, you know, I I came upon recently. And uh I'm still learning. And you know, hopefully this uh this session will provide uh, you know, newer managers uh uh some potential potholes in the road that uh they can avoid.

Charlotte Ward: 3:52

Awesome. Natalie, what about you? Where where are you right now?

Natalie Petruch Trent: 3:56

Yeah, um, so I'm probably one of the newer leaders here. Um I am currently a senior technical account manager at Pandium. I've been with Pandum for um a little under a year. I came in as the sole customer success person and have been working on laying that foundation and growing the team, which has been a really exciting journey. Um, before this, I was managing a larger department, success department um in the entertainment tech industry. And then before that, a small onboarding team. Um it's definitely been a very interesting and unusual journey uh of leadership. And I think that's an important thing to let people know as well that it's not always a straight shot. Uh your leadership journey can be very windy and curvy, and that's entirely fine.

Charlotte Ward: 4:52

Very true, very true. Cool. Uh Simone, Simone, would you like to tell us a little about you?

Simone Secci: 5:00

Sure. Um Simone and I'm currently head of support at Doodle. Um I pretty much uh helped Doodle uh building the support team to the point where right now I am uh introducing um leads uh within the team. Um so uh I introduced, for example, the first customer success first, and I uh created a tier two uh team that wasn't there and pretty much just structured the whole team throughout my my journey with them, which has been like uh a little over two years. I've been in uh support leadership since 2014 and I've been in support for a long time. Um that we won't mention here. Uh, but yeah, I you know, since I'm uh about to train some uh new leads within my team, I wish that uh, I mean, I hope that with the with this conversation I can extract some uh good advice that I can then uh use in this uh in this path of training.

Charlotte Ward: 6:11

Yeah, and I think that's uh that's perhaps an interesting thing we can talk about um at some point during the next 45 minutes or so is actually leading other leaders because that's quite a specific um different, a specifically different skill set as well that you acquire as as you as you grow, isn't it? Craig, what about you?

Craig Stoss: 6:33

Oh yeah, I've been leading teams for about eight years now. Um, I I think I will support the nonlinear comment that Natalie made a lot. Um most of my teams are have been very international. In fact, my past couple of gigs have been building out international 24 by seven strategies for support departments. And so a lot of my experience is on the kind of global teams, remote teams, outsource teams, and uh and and focusing on on those types of strategies.

Charlotte Ward: 7:07

Awesome, cool. So so we're we're uh we we do have quite a varied set of journeys actually, and we and we are all at relatively different stages. Um I I I guess do do I need to introduce myself at this point and tell everyone where I am.

Matt Dale: 7:25

Definitely tell we we've been listening to you in the in the podcast. We don't necessarily know your story, Charlotte.

Charlotte Ward: 7:29

I'm just I'm I'm just a stranger.

Matt Dale: 7:31

I'm just uh you're just the MC, right? You just carry the conversation.

Charlotte Ward: 7:36

Yeah, just think of me as the person with no personality that's just here to help you all shine, right? Um yeah, I I'm I guess I can be as valid a part of this discussion as anyone else on this call. So I I I hope everyone at least listening to the podcast knows that I'm Charlotte Ward. And if they don't, then I am Charlotte Ward. Uh I have been in support for 25 years. I'm not too ashamed to admit that to admit that it's been that long, because it really has been slightly more than 25 years, if I'm honest. Um, and uh I've been leading support teams for 16 of those. Um and uh just well, maybe nearly 17, and actually certainly for the last 16, I've been remote leading support teams as well, which has been an interesting journey, seen quite a lot of change in that time. So shall we, having introduced ourselves much more thoroughly than we usually do, shall we uh shall we talk about day one? Because I think this is always an interesting, an interesting question. And I remember a couple of years ago, somebody said to me actually um that they were about to embark on a new role and and what advice did I have for them at that point? And I I got a bit better and ended up writing an article about it. And and and the article was somewhat inspiration for for this podcast panel, actually, but um that article was very much focused on day one. And uh my my distillation over the course of writing that article, my thing, my single piece of advice for day ones is that nothing is ever simple as simple as it seems at the start. And uh I and I went on to kind of elucidate on that a bit more, but that was my opening gambit for day one. Nothing is as simple as it seems the day you turn up. Um let's think about our our day ones, whether they were the the very first day you moved into a leadership position or or that you moved into a particular role and and uh found a particular set of challenges or made a particular discovery or had that Eureka moment on a day one. What what day what day ones can we talk about that uh might be of interest to our listeners right now?

Matt Dale: 9:54

So I I'd like to talk about two that I've I've experienced that have kind of two different takeaways. And the first one was kind of when our CEO of the small company at the time said, Hey, we need someone to run the support team. I think you're the person for it. Go ahead and do this. And it's like, okay. Um all right, I guess I'll do this. And there were some challenges that were kind of unique to that period. I knew the team pretty well because we'd all been working together, but because of that, knowing them really well, um, there were some challenges because they all saw me kind of as as the same as them. We were all working together, supporting the same product, and suddenly I'm the guy that's in charge of approving time off and kind of working to become less startupy and more kind of like a business with management and things like that. And so I think that experience, that day one is a is a very um it can be a challenging day one and kind of helping people see you in the new role. It's it's almost easier if you're able to come in and start fresh at a new company in a management role because you're not being judged and seen on on how you acted before. Um so that was kind of for me one of my kind of big day ones. And I don't have any like specific, oh my gosh, here's exactly what yet what you should do to fix it. For us, it was more of a process over the next probably six months where I um slowly showed them, hey, these are some of the things that I'm being asked to do. Here's what we need to do as a team together, and and kind of define that role um as a separate part of the team, even though I was still helping out in the queue, even though I was still you know answering phone calls and things like that, um, adding on some of the responsibilities and making that a little bit more visible without completely upsetting everybody's um feelings and all and all that stuff. So I think that's for me kind of the first kind of a day one. The other one that that comes to mind when we talk about day ones is is um our company's acquired a lot of other companies. Like I think we've done probably six or seven acquisitions over the last couple years. And so for me, I've had an opportunity to have a day one with these new teams who were a small team and they suddenly got gobbled up by this bigger company. And um I think of one in particular when I got to fly out to New York City to our to our office there, um, and I spent some serious time getting to know the folks that I was working with, helping them understand a little bit about myself, uh, and really kind of using that time so that everyone knows everybody else. Um it's it's really easy to say, hey, there's you know, there's our our our team lead or our VP or our director, whoever it is, but they don't really know who I am. And so when I'm in those situations, I think my biggest thing that I focus on is let's sit down and have a conversation. I'll I'll start the day with a hey, look, we're meeting as a team. Hi, I'm Matt. Here's a little bit about me, here's what we're gonna do today so everyone knows what to expect, and then break off and and and spend time with each person on the team. And in some cases, uh one of the guys was a was a temporary worker, he'd been working for three weeks. He's like, I have nothing to say, like I'm excited to be here, I'm glad to meet you, but I don't know anything about the product. And then we had another person that had been there for several years, uh, and I think we spent about two and a half hours together talking to, hey, what's working well? What are the things that we need to do better next, like as we as we come together as a new team? You know, what do I need to know about you? Here, let here let me tell you about myself and what what makes me tick as a person. And and um those are really, really rewarding, but they're also they can be really exhausting. So um that that's like an emotional long day and a really good day. So those are my two day ones as a as a leader and support, and maybe some of our listeners are are experiencing something like that uh right now.

Natalie Petruch Trent: 13:15

Yeah. Um I would say I would say similarly, um, I have two interesting day one experiences. Um, I'll keep them short and sweet. Uh, I would say the first is a little bit um of an edge case when it comes to a leadership or management position, and that's when you're coming in to basically build a support team where there is nothing there. Um so it doesn't necessarily or might not necessarily feel like a leadership position because you're the only one, but you need to be thinking about the future and what you're doing there and how you're laying the foundation so people can follow you, and so you can manage and help people growing forward. Uh so I think that's that's just an interesting thing to think about and that some people in that position might just be thinking about how can I do things most efficiently, what process works for me. Um and you need to be thinking about laying down those roots and how they can be repeatable by someone who isn't you, or also what other members of the team have to look at if you're you know hit by a bus. I I love falling back to the old uh bus rule. Um, and then the other side of that is as well is you don't have to create all these processes right away. I think that's another trap that people fall into, um, wanting to just document and put in place very firm processes to uh mitigate uh issues from the get-go. Um but sometimes when you are working with a smaller startup company, uh processes at an early age can be more of a hindrance than helpful. Uh so I think that's just one thing to think about that I've definitely definitely felt and been in. And then on the other side, um coming into a leadership position for a small, medium-sized team. Um, as I said, I'm probably one of the newer leaders in this group. Um, and for me, that was really intimidating because there were members of my team who had significantly more years of experience than I did. Um, and I think that a lot of people have felt a little bit of that imposture syndrome as well. Um, so that was definitely something that was a little bit scary for me coming into that role and something that uh I had to talk down to myself internally, but also um rather than being afraid of the situation, uh use it to your advantage. Talk to the people who have been there longer than you, who have been working at that company and in this industry for longer than you, and see what you can learn from them. And then also you were hired for a reason. You're going to be able to add perspective and skills that um the people who have been in this industry for you know 20 years might not necessarily be aware of. Um, and also, interestingly enough, uh that position was a had a very volatile customer base with some very aggressive instances that came up, came up regarding um illegal behavior and pornography and minors. Um so that was also something that uh I wasn't necessarily prepared for in that leadership position. Um, but when you're the person at the top of the chain, no matter how crazy something can be, uh you have to be the one to handle it. So I think that's also just another kind of piece of advice that um you need to be prepared for the unexpected as best that you can. Uh and just keep in mind um that you're doing your best, uh, stay calm, stay relaxed, even if you have to hop on the phone with um the FBI equivalent in Canada.

Charlotte Ward: 17:14

I I well, I mean, talk about baptism by fire for a start. I mean that's that's a heck of a start to a role. Um, but I I think both what you said around your first story, um just trying to do everything at once is it you know, I'm always tempted by that, but I think everything that uh everything else you said, and going back to um the point I made earlier about day ones, which is that nothing is as simple as it seems at the start, I do think it's a mistake to try and um put everything in place at the start. But I think if you can accelerate your understanding and frankly uncovering of all of the kind of, you know, the like the rotten wood floorboards underneath the carpets or whatever, right? That you you do yourself uh a huge favor if you can uncover as much as possible as quickly as possible, good or bad, right? If you can give it some shape as quickly as possible, because that allows you that information allows you to prioritize what you actually need to do first instead of doing all the things first. It's actually it really targets your efforts much more, I think.

Natalie Petruch Trent: 18:31

Exactly. It's like um making your to-do list and tackling the rotten floorboards one at a time.

Charlotte Ward: 18:37

Yeah.

Matt Dale: 18:38

Well, I think to that point, it's important to remember too what stage the business is at and where you're at kind of in your career. And so where you're at as a startup, where there's one person on the team or a very small team, is very different than coming into a team that has 40 or 50 people or a team that's looking to scale, like Craig's talking about, you know, 24 by seven coverage and things like that. There's there's some very different scenarios that you're in. And so when you're in that phase, be ready for the next phase, be aware of where the company's going, where your team needs to go to be there to support that. But also, it's easy to get too far ahead of yourself, too. So finding that balance between, you know, having everything perfect, um, which is gonna kill you, and and and not having enough for the next step that's gonna be coming in a couple weeks. So you know, know where you're at.

Charlotte Ward: 19:22

Definitely. Let's um let's think about how imperfect things can get then. Um let's move on to talk about our our our mistakes, the mistakes of our past.

Simone Secci: 19:36

Uh yeah, I can think of something right away. So I think the when I started as as a as a leader, I was kind of in a situation where I was brought in because there was a crisis situation, an emergency, and then it was sort of like we're drowning in tickets, please fix it. Uh, and so that was kind of like how I was brought in, and then I was brought in to bring us. Many people as they were necessary to fix this mess without any understanding of, for example, how to do forecasting for a team at the time. I barely know how to do it now. Thinking about like many years ago, I definitely do not know how to calculate that at all. And that brings me to my point, which was like figure out the measuring right away. I'm kind of like in a period of professionally where like I'm obsessed with data and I'm always like referencing and talking about it. And I just did um a presentation to the whole company a couple of days ago about support data. And really one big mistake for me was speaking a language that was not uh you know data-based. It was not statistical, it was not numerical when I had to justify choices that we were making, I had to figure out how to solve a problem. And I'm I'm just, you know, I've realized in the last two years how much easier it has been to get my point across, to get what I need, uh you know, being backed by some solid understanding of how to put together, a visualization of data, measuring of data. Um, and and that's all I would say that that's definitely something that I wish that I got to with like some years uh of advance.

Greg Skirving: 21:29

Yeah, I've got one uh that uh actually I just learned this in the past couple of years. I solidified it in the past couple of years. Um you know, early on in my career, and I know we've all been on uh uh groups, projects, you're implementing a system or you're doing business requirements or working on a process, and everybody's got their own opinion. And meetings go on forever, and and you know, every somebody wants this feature or this pro this feature or this process to do this, and we gotta add that. And and it's tough to get two people to agree on something, let alone six or seven. So I always wanted to make sure early on it had to be perfect and it had to have everything I needed and the people that I represented. And uh, and then I realized that, well, in practice, what I'd end up doing is is agreeing to stuff and then you know, staying within the framework but interpreting uh uh that process or that's using that system uh within the spirit, but not necessarily as rigorously as the uh the process dictated. And and like I said, it literally dawned on me just a few years ago you you you need a process, you need to document some of these things, because if you don't, it's just it's a free-for-all. But it doesn't need to be absolutely 100% perfect, you know, if if if if we're good managers and we we encourage people to make good decisions that achieve objectives um and maybe be a little creative with the process, far more important than wasting cycles and getting upset that that you know what you've worked on collectively didn't turn out exactly the way you wanted it to.

Charlotte Ward: 23:10

I think also sorry, Craig, I I was just gonna just chip in on Greg's final point there, which was that you know the the other thing to bear in mind about capturing some of this stuff in in document form is that doesn't mean it's set in stone and actually getting something documented in an imperfect or as is kind of state is better than waiting until it is perfect or finalized to document it. Because if you capture it as it is, as imperfect, as imperfect as it might be, you can at least iterate it. And the documentation then kind of writes itself as you discuss those improvements anyway.

Craig Stoss: 23:53

I I was going to extend on Greg's point too, that another common thing that I think I made as an early leader is focusing on solutions up front as opposed to the problem. And and something that I've definitely learned from that mistake is you know, quite often, you know, new leaders uh are very eager to show their that they're going to be good at this job, they're going to you know drive value. And so they they start to you know think about these great new processes or new tools or or or whatever it might be that's gonna change the fabric of the team and drive better CSAT and whatever it might be. Um when really you need to can you need to make sure that you understand the problem. And and when you're talking to different stakeholders, and Greg said about convincing six people, if you go into a room and say, here's a problem I've identified, and four of those six people don't even understand the problem, then there's no point in really talking about a solution yet. You know, you're not you're not at that point. So that that I think is a big mistake. Um I think the other one that that I've learned over the years is um you know, leaders by their very nature tend to want to lead or or own conversations or or be kind of the person that you know owns the room in in some ways. And and one thing that I think I've learned is you know, think about a one-on-one meeting, is I I ask, as opposed to me booking the meeting and me setting the agenda, I ask my team to do that um now. And I and I think that what that does is it gives them the empowerment to think that's of it as their meeting and not not my meeting as a leader. And I and again, I think that's a mistake that I made early on of well, I'm booking a one-on-one that's in and it's and and I'm owning this meeting and I'm talking first. And um whereas I I really do feel that the better approach is to to to flip that on its head and say, no, you own this meeting and I'm you know, I'm giving you some of my time because I want to have these conversations, but you you tell me what you want to talk about and you talk first. And if I have points, if we have time, I'll I'll save them for the end.

Natalie Petruch Trent: 26:00

Yeah, and then I think uh just jumping off of what both Greg and Craig were saying is um I think also saying no. As Craig was saying, uh as a leader, you always want to say yes, you always want to please everyone. Um, but there may be circumstances where you just need to say, no, this isn't a good idea for my team, for my employees. Here's the data or reasons why, but nope, I'm not gonna do this.

Charlotte Ward: 26:29

Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um I think I think actually the the saying no is kind of important in terms of managing up as well, you know, as a as a leader. As you said, you know, no, I'm not gonna do this, and no, we are not gonna do this. This isn't the right time, or this isn't the the direction I actually want to take this team in. Um, particularly as you get more more experienced, I think as a leader, you become more confident because you've you do get to a point where frankly you've seen not all of it before, you but you've definitely seen a lot of it before. And I think you you kind of have much more of a gut instinct for what you know is a good idea and what is just not going to be worth investing even any kind of investigation time in it at certain points because uh people who don't come from a support background will still feel like they have some brilliant ideas for how support should should do X, Y, or Z, right? And I think that um it's okay to say, yeah, that's not gonna work. That's just not where I see this team going. That's not how we want to do things, that's not part of my strategy, we don't have the tools or the processes or the you know the data or whatever to support that, even if it's just yet. Um, or frankly, that's just a really bad idea because I've seen it fail four other times. So so let's um let's think about the things we did right then. So so we've we've all done some questionable things, right? Um but but again, like we we all learned lessons as we go through through uh support and we spend time in support and leading teams in support. Now now uh looking at where at where you are now, what were the biggest successes? What were the the biggest achievements that you had? What actually did you get really right?

Simone Secci: 28:25

I have uh also that I can I can think of uh just because I think I have um achieved a level of like um um you know safety and in in acknowledging uh things that I've done right um through the feedback that I got from people because I'm unable to uh in a similar way, you know, with the idea of the imposter syndrome, like I had a lot of that, like going through all steps of the of my career. Um so I just learned how to rely on the the opinion of the people that worked in my team. You know, if they would have, if they were not like leaving the team, if they were you know uh leaving good feedback, then I learned to acknowledge that and say, okay, I did this right. Um and I think the one thing that I can say for sure is I was very concerned at the beginning of this path in leadership about a lot of like the human aspect of it, the management aspects of it, how to deal with people, how to manage people, and and for reasons completely unrelated to uh management itself, the and and and and professional reasons, I was like actually not having difficulties in that at all. Like, for example, I don't know, managing people that were older than me, that I'm more experienced than me, and things like that. But uh just being a person that because of like my culture or upbringing, sort of have to talk my way through life. This is sort of like, you know, uh uh I think of like the place where I'm from. Um, but uh also yeah, just being candid with people. Uh I never try to sell them like uh the whatever specific value that like uh a certain company thought they were they were the values that we you should bring up, but just um like um you know like I was said before, uh like I said before, uh listen to people and and like also understanding how to get them to really talk about what they what was biding them, what what what was the issue, uh and and adapting uh a style um and having different styles and different approaches with different people, like understanding what works with one person doesn't work with another, there's no school of thought, there's no management style, there's no like course that you can take that will teach you, okay, use this, and then you know how to manage to manage people. Maybe some big corporations can think that that works, it doesn't. Um, so you know, just uh I think this uh understand having a human approach to to management, understanding this, uh relating to every single person as a single person and adopting what works with them. I think and and being candid and honest in the approach, like this is what we need to do, this is who I am, I'm not selling you anything. Uh you know, I'm not getting you to buy into anything. Like uh we need to do some honest work together, we need to make this team work together, and and you know that's how we're gonna do it.

Charlotte Ward: 31:38

Yeah, you're right. That there is no course, although, of course, people could take time to listen, listen to such podcasts as this where they can get everything they need in one panel, right? Um human approach. Human approach, really efficient learning experience. Um, thanks, Simone. That's great. Uh Greg.

Greg Skirving: 31:59

Yeah, no, I was gonna say uh Simone, so you don't subscribe to the beatings will continue until morale improves, then so that's uh good for you. Um and uh sort of on that note, and I think I I you know every manager I've spoken with uh uh has gone through this. I think you don't know how to manage people um when you first start. Um, you know, I think you know, uh a lot of people they well I'm the manager and and they have that, you know, they've got to manage, and and I'm your mother, and I said so. And and you're just and and everybody kind of reaches a point where it says manager on your business card, but you you you make the turn to being um uh coach and mentor. And uh, you know, I think Craig talked about that in terms of of booking the meetings. And and you know, the more you can um um I don't know, I don't even like the word empower because that suggests that I have the power to give it to you. I think I think you know, people do their jobs, they make thousands of decisions a day. I've got my own decisions to make. How can I make the decisions of 13 other people, 15 other people on my team? And and once you hit that point, it's almost it's it's it's uh it's enlightening. And then you you you manage differently, you support people, and uh, you know, you you stop telling them. And it's like Newton's third law. The harder you push, the harder they're gonna push back. So you still need to manage and and and course direct with various people. But uh like I said, most managers I've spoken with that have done it for uh a long time will reach that point, stop managing and start mentoring and coaching.

Craig Stoss: 33:39

Um I think the biggest thing that I did, right, was um take take chances. You know, I think that uh one thing that, you know, I wish I knew then what I know now was that uh careers don't have to be super linear and um taking chances is part of that. You know, I've left a job because I got offered an incredible opportunity. I've been laid off from a job, uh, you know, and I had to reassess where I wanted to go. Um I I quit a job because the the culture and leadership was not a great fit for me. You know, all of these things are part of establishing who you are and what you want to do. And I think that people uh don't often um jump at some of those opportunities because of imposter syndrome, because because of some uh misplaced loyalty to their company. I had a former lead that reported to me who came to me, you know, he asked to take me out to lunch one day. And he he sat, we sat down at lunch and he said, he said, Craig, there's this opportunity in in Germany to lead a team. Uh this is we're based in Canada. He said, you know, do you think it's something I should go for? You know, and he was a young guy with a young family, and and I had previously lived in Europe too. And so it was kind of like, yes, you know, like this is this is an opportunity of a lifetime to go and learn, you know, support in a different culture, um, lead a completely different team of people you don't necessarily know that well. Um, luckily he spoke German already, so so he didn't have to worry about the language barrier as much. But um, it was just something where it was a no-brainer to take that risk and and at the very least, you know, he would get some experience and come back and and you know, be back in Canada. You know, so um I I I think that I don't regret any decision I've made, as much as some of them did cause me pain, long working hours. Um, you know, it's also not nice to be uh laid off or or be in a position where you have to quit a job, but all of those things were learning experiences that that probably made me a stronger leader uh today.

Matt Dale: 35:42

So I think when I kind of think back about what I did right and and kind of mistakes that I've made, um initially I had one of my mistakes was um not delegating, like knowing feeling like I had to be the person that had the keys to the kingdom. And if if I controlled it, then they wouldn't have to come to me and my position and my job would have value. Um as I've gotten more experienced in my management and leadership, I realized that it's actually much better if I can let go, the more things I can let go, the more things I can delegate to people who are you know starting in a different place in their career and growing, the more effective we are as a team. So if I can replicate myself across the whole team or three or four people in the team, if I'm not the only person that runs our Zendesk instance, but I've got two or three others that I can rely on, suddenly I'm not the bottleneck when we get busy and when things are going, you know, as as we're growing. And so um, so I've I've been really um happy and and pleasantly surprised when I started letting go and delegating. Because I'm I'm a perfectionist, I want it done my way or it's not good enough. And that that's 100% wrong thinking, and that's terrible, and that's immature as a manager. If you're thinking about that stuff, like check yourself and go, this is better at if we if we get it done at 80%, that's so much better than if we only get a few things done at 100% because I'm the only one that can do it. So I think that was kind of like one of my big mindset shifts as a leader was moving from I've got to control it all to I need to delegate as much as I can and empower my people so they can grow and they can do really cool stuff. Um and that kind of ties into the second part, which I think is the training and replacement idea, which you know basically um if you're not preparing other leaders in the company to grow with the role, then if you leave or if something changes and the company grows, you're not gonna have people that can step into key roles. And over the course of you know the last eight years, we found ourselves in situations where leaders have moved on to different roles and suddenly we're like, oh, we weren't preparing a new bench that was having someone or a couple people that were ready to take on that mental leadership. And as a result, the team suffered. We we got through it, but um but it would be much better if we could say, hey, we're we're investing in all these people, and the ones that are want to move into different directions on other parts of the company, that's awesome. But but if they want to stay here, we want to make sure that they're ready to uh take on that leadership. And the way that you do that is is obviously through that delegation, both from my level to my director ports, but now as we're a multi-level company, like to their director ports too, so that they're able to kind of pass that on. So I need to model that good behavior and then you know when when crisis happens or someone gets that job offer uh to work in Germany and have an awesome experience and they take it, we're not left going, oh my gosh, how are we going to survive as a team because this key individual's gone?

Natalie Petruch Trent: 38:20

Um and kind of tying into what Matt said, um, but also going back to uh a lot of what was said about um empowering your the people uh empowering your employees. Um I feel like I'm being the negative Nancy here, but I feel like one thing that I did right was learning that the customers is not always right. Um and I what I say that is, or the reason why I say that is because at one of my um past uh positions, I came to learn that none of the employees felt that they were able to do anything if they were being mistreated by the customers, uh, because there was such a culture at that company that the customers always write. Um and I think that that's something that I did right by telling and talking to my team and letting them know that even though you're working as a support person, you are still very much a person that deserves to be respected. And you have a right as a human to set boundaries and limits of how you will and will not be talked to talked to. And if someone is continuously talking to you in a negative way, you have a right to bring that up to us and for them to be dealt with in a certain manner. Um, so I just think that ties into a lot of checking in with your team, seeing how they're doing, remembering that you're working with people and not a uh group of robots.

Charlotte Ward: 40:06

Yeah, very true, very true. Uh I you know, Matt, I'm I'm completely with you. I'm such a perfectionist and I really do yeah, just it's really hard to step away from stuff and say, you know what, I I've got to trust you to go and do it. Um and and and something that uh many of us have touched on in terms of either mistakes or or what we've got right is is bringing people on to you know helping people to succeed and and and you know moving to that kind of potential leadership role that you you'll create through growth or or other other changes in the organization. But it's great actually if you give people that opportunity to like if you're willing to let go of those reins a little bit, right?

Matt Dale: 40:58

One thing on that too, I think it can be very stressful for the people who report to you when you suddenly go from I'm a control freak and everything is mine to hey I'm giving this to you because it puts them in a situation where they feel they have to do it exactly like you would do it. One of the things that my um my team and I've kind of worked on is is this idea of like give me a 70% version of that. Like let's say we're working on a project or presentation to maybe to the senior leadership in the company. I don't have time to do it I'm not the right person to do it because I don't have the keys to the the kingdom on our reporting in Zendesk but but you know I'm working with my director who does say hey here's kind of what we're thinking about can can you get me something like this in the next would two days be a reasonable amount of time here's here's what here's what I think success looks like but don't stress we're not worried about the final perfect product can we just pull some information together we can sit down and have a conversation and what that allows them to do is kind of pull everything together without paralyzing them going I've got to get this perfect A plus presentation because I know it's going to be seen by you know my boss's boss and and and all that and they can go cool like I can do 70% like we can we can get this and then then the two of us can sit down together we can work on it and I can give a little bit of insight on hey here's where we might want to work on this or that. And in reality the 70% is usually close to 85 or 90% and we can give it a little polish and then move along but but the idea of setting those folks up for success not just going hey I'm holding you to this really high standard because you know that I'm a person that has a really high standard but saying hey this is we're in this together let's do this together I'm here for you know that's much more successful and I've seen a lot better results than that than than when I first started which was like let's let's do it this way well this isn't good enough it's like no that's that's not going to help them be successful.

Charlotte Ward: 42:37

So yeah it's definitely being there more as a a sounding board like uh I'll give you a framework of what I want um and you know I will I might check particular particularly as you let go of those reins like you said if if people are a little bit freaked out by the big request where you suddenly say hey can you just get me this and then give them nothing nothing to go on um at least giving them the reassurance that you you'll check in with them but make that reassurance right make that a check-in rather than a check up um and I think that um if you say you know we can check in as you said that kind of 70% thing let's check in at a certain point whether that's time based or whether you know you get so far along and we'll have a little check-in and see if it's in the right direction that that builds confidence definitely I was going to say yeah no I was just gonna say uh very quickly Charlotte and Matt you used the term perfectionist I I fall into that category but I prefer the term recovering perfectionist thanks for pointing that out and being the perfectionist so that we can uh you know aim for that high standard we did it you know what they say about recovering perfectionists it is is the ex-perfectionists are just the one the the worst non-perfectionists right or something to that effect I think anyway let's move on let's move on oh Simone Simone do you want to jump in yeah one thing I wanted to say in regard to delegating I think that one thing that connects um the the path of like somebody that you're bringing into leadership from the moment that you start training them as an agent is one key skill that like is going to be the one of the most important things as they are leaders which is time management.

Simone Secci: 44:28

So one thing that I hear the most from people is I don't have the time to do such and such when they start doing more than one thing, right? I can't do some read up on the support resources that you share with me because this takes too much time. I don't know um when you know to do it I don't know when to stop doing this and do this that kind of thing. So I think time management is a key skill like starting from the moment that you manage a queue so I'm a I'm a slowverse. I don't type fast I come from a culture that is like notorious for relaxing you know so my idea is always like work um smarter not harder. So I sit down with people and and we look at the big picture so how can we I don't know uh reorganize the you so that you work faster uh get some stuff out put some stuff together like how can you approach this in in a more structured way so that like it it optimizes your time and then you up you apply that method to to everything right and so then when I'm looking at somebody's performance in the beginning and I'm trying to help them out aside from just giving them a dual or or anything like that um and try to get them to understand one piece of advice that uh one of my earliest mentors shared with me that was like I really appreciate your um commitment to help people out and and like your your empathy but you have to see the big picture which is we need to help the biggest amount of people out there. And as we do that um you know because if you spend 20 30 minutes on this one person uh there's somebody else that needs help that is waiting. So always like take that into consideration right and so that's the same thing with like time management of uh of skills um sorry time management of of um um things tasks that you have that you that you have to do right how do you how do you manage them effectively like look at the big picture um I know that and then I know that you would like to to make this perfect by some you know you know you have to understand when to stop and move on and dedicate time to this other thing. And so I think that that's like that's going to be one thing that really makes the difference in your ability to to teach that to people.

Charlotte Ward: 46:49

Yeah that that time management skill comes down to a real sense of being able to prioritize things as well right the this constant I don't have time actually um only goes so far because otherwise you're you're stuck on kind of a hamster wheel of doing the same stuff that fills your day all the time anyway. So let let's move on then to our advice column. The last question is for particularly I guess for for new support leaders but I'm sure that any listeners out there at in any stage of their career are about to get some uh some golden nuggets of wisdom from this panel as as I ask you all for your one piece of advice for other support leaders out there. And I'm gonna come to you first Greg.

Greg Skirving: 47:45

Thank you. Yeah so my piece of advice is make your own mistakes um you know you're gonna make mistakes and and that's good you know failure is uh is uh success practice um but if you believe it do it you know don't listen to somebody else I've been caught on that one a couple of times myself if you believe it go ahead and do it and if it's a mistake at least it was yours.

Charlotte Ward: 48:15

Yeah yeah I love that failure is success practice I'm sure I must have used my favorite other word about failure on this podcast at some point in the in this year um but that um failure where you put a lot of effort in and you get it almost right isn't failure it's a fucks it's like it's it's nearly success that's that's my favorite that's my favorite I love it yeah I love that it's F-U C C E S S in case you were wondering yeah yeah yeah um so so has anyone else got another piece of advice they'd like to share sure I'll I'll jump in here um I think we've kind of touched on it I've heard a few people mention it um but just speaking to a new leader um I would say that just about everyone I talk to um as as a leader who you you might look up and say hey that person's got so much experience doing this or that whatever it is we all deal with the imposter syndrome like the feeling like that we we aren't worthy of of what we've been asked to do that we don't know what we're talking about that we don't know what we're doing um and I just would encourage you like at least for myself that's a very real that's somebody deal with every day um in fact I'm I'm really stuck on a project at work right now because I don't know how to do it and I don't feel like I can do it and I'm gonna get through it and I'll have it done tomorrow morning because it's due tomorrow morning but um if you're feeling that feeling maybe for the first time or maybe that's something you struggled with I just would encourage you like push on through that you are hired for a specific reason.

Matt Dale: 49:52

There are resources like this great podcast there's other people in the larger support community there's people in your life that you can look up to who are mentors share with them where you're at share those feelings. Maybe that's maybe that's your boss at work if that's a safe person to talk to maybe that's you know someone else but work through those feelings and know that we all feel that way and you don't have to have all your stuff together to be a good leader. You have to be a good listener you have to you know work at it you have to have some excesses or or whatever that is some failures but um that's how you get better and so don't don't be paralyzed or don't take a new role don't miss out on taking a new role because you're worried that you're not qualified or you're not the right person. So yeah don't let that that imposter syndrome get you down.

Charlotte Ward: 50:36

Yeah yeah I couldn't agree more and uh and just to your point about mentors Matt I think it's also worth bearing in mind that mentors don't even have to come from the support community right we that I actually get some of my best help and most valuable advice from a friend of mine who doesn't work in support and while I don't share numbers that are specific to my to any organization that I'm working with or anything sometimes I do I do run things past him like I've got this kind of thing I'm thinking like I want to frame it like this what do you think of that let's just bounce that around but what do you think like if the presentation takes shape like this is that a thing you know and these just these kind of more general conversations that you can have with people who actually have other like they don't have all the inside knowledge that we have necessarily they they're not inside our heads in the same way that everyone else in our organization certainly isn't inside our heads so try it like it's almost like if you can explain it to someone else then then you've probably got it mostly right.

Matt Dale: 51:44

Well and and if they don't have the same experience that diversity in opinion or or from their particular viewpoint they may see something you don't you don't see too. So I I think finding a mentor or mentors in your life and again not necessarily in your particular vertical field um and again my my dad is one of my mentors like I talk to him on the phone a lot and he and I have a great relationship but he knows what's going on in my work world and he can I can ask things of him and he can kind of go back and forth. And I've got a a former professor that's a mentor and I've got a good buddy who we're kind of mentors for each other at different stages. Sometimes I'm mentoring him sometimes he's mentoring me and having people in your lives is really important. So yeah 100% on on all that just don't get caught up in the you've got to do this on your own and and you're not good enough because we all feel that way and and you can get through it.

Natalie Petruch Trent: 52:33

Yeah absolutely Natalie yeah um so this is a little bit cliche and ties into what other people were saying but I would say really just focus on your communication um specifically there's a communication um practice I guess um that I personally find really really enlightening and really interesting um the communication compass if you haven't heard of it I highly recommend checking it out but basically it breaks down everyone into fundamentally four different communication styles um and it's definitely worth reading about it maybe doing a team building exercise because it really makes you think about how different people process and receive information. I think that's something that's definitely really necessary to be aware of is that it's not necessarily that you're saying a incorrect thing or that what you're saying is wrong. It's how you're delivering messages and how you're communicating things and that the way you deliver a message to one person on your team may have to be entirely different than the way that you're communicating that same message to another person because everyone's different.

Craig Stoss: 53:54

So that would definitely be my piece of advice like I said communication compass check it out it definitely changed my life mine's actually an extension of that I I was my I was going to start with consume information, you know, read articles, listen to Charlotte's podcast, you know, on listen to people talk about this stuff to to boost your you know your your mind like learn perspectives but but taking on from what Natalie said I was asked recently what uh what the best leadership book I ever read was and I said you know I don't think it's so much about leadership books. It's more about reading about people and the mind and how people take in information and and want to be talked to and so I read a lot of books like about psychology and and uh and uh you know things that uh free economics is another one that you wouldn't think is a leadership book but it talks a lot about thinking about different patterns and thinking about you know uh concepts outside of the box of the traditional you know traditional way you might think about it and and those books uh really really do help you because you how allows you to communicate to different people differently and recognize patterns of behavior and and and people who fall into you know the kind of the the mental traps that we all fall into even when we're aware of uh predictably irrational was another book that was the same thing where not only are we making irrational decisions every day but we're doing so in a predictable way which is just bonkers because we're if we know them how how can we we continue to be irrational? So um yeah I I read I read you know there's about five or six blogs I read I listen to podcasts. I love having these conversations with with the you know great leaders because it it it shares different perspectives because ultimately um every person in every company in every situation is going to be unique.

Simone Secci: 55:47

And so if you can bring a toolbox of of 30 different perspectives into a company um you know you're you're definitely have a lot more value to offer yeah 100% um what Craig said to begin with you know uh this is probably one of my favorite things anybody had said about support you know the relationship with psychology this is something I read from a database years ago and he presented how he was talking about difficult um conversation specifically and and he presented uh how the work of like customer support is very similar to the work that he does in in a lot of ways and like understanding clues understanding language that people have like and that kind of thing so that's like very very important for people um but uh you know in in the let's say that something that goes along the way of communication and one piece of advice that I have for people is um visibility make your team visible not just like you already visible you're you're the head of the team or the lead or whatever you have a degree of visibility make them visible um when you have a chance to speak in public about the team let them know who these people that work in the team are what they're doing what accomplishments um you know they made because they are not as as good as you are in their position of making that visible to the rest of the company so it's your duty to them to do so uh explaining uh what contribution they they are making to to the company to to the goals of the companies uh of the companies that you're working for um and put them in touch with like the the stakeholders that they need to um I think if you're a leader you already understand uh that that it's a lot of politics involved you are are talking with stakeholders you're making a lot of compromises are as as Greg was saying before you know like it's this idea is like that didn't turn out the way I want it but like this is like an everyday thing you want this much and then you get that much and then you make a compromise you move on you make another deal with with with someone else and you and you move along but you you also have to to uh represent your team and in terms of like putting them in contact with whoever is gonna help them be successful in their in their test um so visibility very important help your team be invisible and and be earned.

Charlotte Ward: 59:19

Yeah I couldn't agree more and I would extend that slightly actually Simone I uh I recorded a podcast with Mike Redboard uh one of my other guests some time ago and we were talking about generating revenue in sport but I he made a really interesting comment um and I think it follows on nicely from your your um ideal of like constantly talking about the achievements and and bringing your team into focus whenever you get the opportunity because I think that one thing I've noticed with um support people with individual contributors is when when you're stuck in the day-to-day quite a lot particularly when you have lost touch with or maybe never had touch with your the importance of your place in an organization, the importance of what you do in an organization. I think it's easy just as an individual contributor just to sit there and do the day-to-day and lose touch with actually the influence that you can have and the the opportunity the opportunities for growth that could be there if only you had that visibility and and the the the understanding of the value that you bring that goes with that visibility. And and Mike Redboard said something to me quite some time ago which really stuck with me he said that as a leader really the very best thing you can do is make every conversation that is with your team or about your team relate to growth. And I think that I think that's really interesting. He's he said something like, I'm trying to recall his exact words, but it was something like if if you talk about your team in a way that is anything less than building a like a an increasing perception of their value and then and and anything other than um coming from a place of potential and growth, that will you know that will come out of your mouth in every conversation, that will seep out of your pause every time you spend time with people. And that is how your team will be perceived. So what you should always do is try and frame conversations about and with your team from a place of growth and potential, because they will start to feel it then as well. And then they will be uh, you know, effectively. I know uh Greg didn't like this phrase, but they will effectively be sort of empowered and certainly uplifted and certainly begin to see the potential in what they do and the value of what they do. Um, and actually, I think that gives greater confidence to have those conversations that you were talking about, Simone, you know, like with with other stakeholders in the organization, which doesn't necessarily happen naturally from a place in support.

Simone Secci: 1:01:17

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Charlotte Ward: 1:01:21

Okay, well, I think I it this has been uh a huge dollop of food for thought again. Another wonderful panel. Um, thank you so much for everyone for um edit this. Um thank you so much, everyone. Thank you so much for taking part. Thank you so much for spending time with me. Um I am going to have another listen to this and digest. It's there's just been so much to take in, so many different perspectives. And I think looking back, it's it's it's nice to know as varied as our journeys have been. We've probably all kind of had the same kind of experiences one way or another as well, for better or worse. And uh, and here we are learning from each other, and I hope helping other people out there as well. So thanks very much. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one zero nine for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.