How Marketing Leaders Stay Strategic Under Crushing Pressure, feat. Debbie Qaqish

Hi, this is strategycast, where smart marketers and bold business thinkers share the plays behind brand breakthroughs. I'm Lori Jones, president and CEO of avisec Communications. Today's leaders are expected to drive growth, move quickly, make smarter decisions and keep teams aligned in environments that rarely slow down. But when pressure becomes constant, even strong leaders can fall into reactive patterns that weaken prioritization, slow execution, create team misalignment, and ultimately impact revenue performance.

In today's episode, we're unpacking what pressure actually does to leadership performance. How it changes the way leaders think and make decisions, and why the ability to operate with clarity under pressure how has become a major competitive advantage. You'll walk away with practical ways to improve decision quality, strengthen team alignment and lead more intentionally in high stakes environments. Today's guest is Debbie Gaigesch, who specializes in helping leaders understand how pressure changes performance inside organizations.

Her work helps leaders improve decision making, strengthen team alignment, and operate with greater clarity and high pressure environments where business outcomes are shaped by the quality of marketing leadership. Welcome to the show. It is such a pleasure to be here. And wow.

I'd want to listen to this podcast. That stuff sounded like super, super interesting, Lori. Well, it's all about you, Debbie. That's what I love.

You have an amazing, amazing background. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, it's interesting. I'm a little bit of an amalgamation.

Probably a lot of people are once you get to a certain age and you've had a lot of different experiences. But I've had a thread that has run through every part of my career and that is transformation. I am not a person that wants to stay still. If you put me in the job where I have to come in and do the same thing every day, I think I would just not be able to breathe.

I am a huge change agent. I'm always looking for change, transformation, and going to the next idea, going to the next pinnacle of something is what has always characterized me. I like change. I like driving change.

I like transformation. The bigger the boulder, the better. If I don't have a mountain to climb, I'm not happy. And through all of that, the bottom line orientation for me has always been about driving revenue.

Whether I was a sales leader. I spent many years as a sales leader, carried a bag, a sales leader. And then of course in marketing, an entrepreneur for many years. I have one company, the Petowitz Group, which is my company since 2007, Jeff Petowitz.

And I do that and that's all about using marketing technology to Help marketing transform from pins and mugs to revenue. But now it's all about bringing positive psychology into a high pressure, always on world of marketing. Well, I tell you, high pressure is so true. And I think the pressure is there because of the constant change.

But also on the agency side, if you think about what we as marketers must really know about our clients, it's never ending. And then you take a look at all the different industries that we serve, we're constantly learning and growing and trying to stay up with a lot of the tech changes. Look at what AI has done over the last three years. So that puts us quite often in reaction mode as well, which we never like because we're really trying to stay ahead of trend and trying to establish what the client must be doing next without them really kind of mentioning it to us.

Right. So. So along with that, we're moving faster than ever. What's happening beneath the surface because of that pressure?

Let me answer that in two ways, Lori. I do want to, before I answer that specific question about what's happening underneath, you know, kind of what's the impact? I want to talk about, I really want people to realize, all of your listeners to realize we are at a very unique place, place in history. There has never been so much change and so much pressure pressure in corporate America as there is today.

And as you said, there are many factors affecting that. But this always on world that we're in, the AI, the constant change, all of those things are contributing, but it's at a toxic level the likes of which we've never seen. And one of the reasons it is at such a toxic level, our brains have not evolved as fast as our world has. We still operate with a lizard brain.

And a lizard brain means I'm going to fight, I'm going to flight or I'm going to freeze. And those are patterns that we see in leadership when they are under extreme pressure. So don't think you have to just pull yourself up by your, by your bootstraps. Know that there is a neurological working that is going on in your brain right now for how you are responding to that pressure.

So we've never been here before. This is the most unusual place we've ever been. And we keep saying that every time. But again, I is the factor that has put everything just completely over the top.

So I just want everybody to really step back and understand we're in the most unique pressure field environment that we've ever seen. Yeah, I agree. The impact that we're seeing on leaders is Severe. In a lot of cases, they're not prepared for this type of pressure.

For many years, we in corporate America and marketers we worked with, it was a big thing to do, Big change, big change. And then it would settle, you know, then you get the next big change, and then that would settle. And now it's, you know, it's just up like this. So when you're in that constant pressure situation, you know what leaders notice how they interpret information, the quality of their reactions.

They tend to go towards safe answers versus harder answers. It really has a total impact on how they show up as a leader every day. And they show up affects how their team shows up. Absolutely.

And that effect affects strategy at the end of the day, because we get into that reactionary mode. What advice do you have for leaders regarding how to break through that and make sure that they're keeping their eye on the ball when it comes to the strategic direction that's been established or the pivots that need to be made because of it. I think there is a huge education underway in corporate America right now. A long way to answer that question.

If you'll remember, we had this thing called this wellness move that we had because we recognize that our employees were under a lot of stress at work. So we had these wellness rooms and those kinds of things. But that is not what we need right now. You know, what we need right now is to understand that by helping our employees thrive, that is our new performance strategy.

Because we've changed process, we changed orgs, we've brought in new technology, we've done all those things. So the only way to really respond to this is to learn how to thrive and to use that as a true performance strategy. And so, practically speaking, I think the first thing that you have to do is, number one, understand that there are new skills that you can learn that will help you with this. That's what this whole movement is going into corporate America right now.

But number two, the number one thing you need to do immediately is get some space, right? You just need some space between where you are. You're just in this whirlwind right now, and you need to just step back and you need to get some space, and you need to ask yourself, you know, how do I want to show up? What is it that I really need to do?

What is my purpose? How can I make an impact, the kind of impact that I want to make? So I think the number one thing when you're there is just to get some distance. And also sometimes you can talk to a friend or a coach or whatever.

Right. But you can't, you just can't keep showing up every day and not, not making any changes. You simply can't do that. How do you have the conversation with upper management, you know, with boards that are creating a lot of the pressure too, and how do you ultimately manage them?

And so that the marketing team is less pressure filled, I think. And again, this is one of my bylines is CMOs need to stand up. Yeah. And be leaders.

Right. And if you are a CMO and your team is drowning and pressure and constant change, you need, number one, you need to be able to have that board level, that executive level conversation. But number two, you also need to bring solutions. Right.

So for example, what we're seeing right now is billions of dollars. Billions. And there's a big growth factor there too of corporate America spending money on training. That has to do with resilience, open mindset, emotional intelligence, all, all of those things.

And the reason that spending has, is becoming so large and growing so quickly is because companies are realizing that you can't ask a team to perform at their best level if they're not thriving, if they're always in this kind of lockdown mode. And we have a lot of studies that show if you have a team that thrives, then you're going to have better performance. And that's why I say that I really think that thriving is really our new performance strategy. And so just go to your board, have the discussion, talk about the facts, show them the behaviors, give them case studies around organizations that have adopted these practices that help people thrive at work.

And then it's an education, right? It is an education. And I will also say this, I mean, sometimes, unfortunately, the older you are in business, the more you want to do the same thing you did before. And we're talking about a brand new way to take a look at how to drive business performance.

A lot of people might say, oh, Debbie, this is just a bunch of woo woo. No, it's not. It's fact. It's proven.

It's science. And again, companies like Google, Disney, Microsoft, they all have these initiatives in their organizations right now because they understand they have to help their people learn how to perform. And always on pressure, constant change world. Because that is not changing.

You know, it's interesting and I think, you know, marketers listening today have to be experiencing this, you know, with their own teams. There's, you know, those of us who have been at this a very long time. And then there are the neophytes who are just learning about the business world, they're fresh out of college, they're so important to the team in so many different ways. But case in point, one of my very young, very talented team members, I was in a one to one with her a couple weeks ago and she mentioned that she felt several quite often walking into the office that she was walking on eggshells.

And I really had to reverse engineer and probe a little bit further to understand what she meant by that because eggshells to me immediately meant it was a negative environment. And we've got anything but that. But what it was was the pressure filled environment that we're talking about right now. So when she walks down the hall and I'm in my office, you know, there's always a wave and a high and you know something, I make a point now to get up, I'm a hugger, I'll give her a hug in the morning.

And to me the difference between a quick wave and a hug was a quick wave was walking on eggshells to her versus the hug. And it's, you know, and that to me it is pressure filled. And I think marketing and sales more than any other department feels that. I mean it's, you know, it's dependent upon the industry, of course, but in our case, in marketing's case, it's very much that way.

So I think listening to those clues are as managers are equally as important to creating an environment where one, the team member felt safe that she could bring that up. But number two, the self reflection on leadership to say, okay, what can we, what little things can we be doing to make sure that the pressure filled environment is more adaptable to people. That is absolutely, positively true. And the phrase psychological safety is huge these days.

It's huge, especially across generations. The number one thing that can impact a culture honestly is if your employees do not feel safe that they can raise their hand and ask a question and you, you're totally 100% with it, right? And this issue of Cy and I was just talking to somebody the other day about this and I said, look, there's two things here. You have a toxic company environment.

You, I don't care what you do in marketing, it's just going to flow over into marketing. So as a leader, select a company where you don't have that kind of toxicity. And then as you just said, Lori, then you want to do everything you can to bring forward your authentic self as a leader and be real with people. Because in this age of AI, that connection is more Important than ever before.

Yeah, I could not agree more. What specifically? Switching gears here for a minute. What specifically happens to decision making quality when we are constantly under pressure out the door?

Yeah, I want to do a meme around what happens to what's happening in your brain, you know, that affects decision quality. And again, it goes back to the lizard brain discussion. When you are in under pressure, you get into a constant freeze flight, fight mode. And what happens is, is that your whole system and your brain is just shutting down.

So your thinking just narrows like this. Okay. So the reason your decision making goes down is because you no longer have full access to your prefrontal cortex. And that's where just good decisions are made.

Right. And so when that happens, you make bad decisions, you make decisions that are too quick, you make the safer decision. And not only that, here's the other thing. If you go back to what you notice changes, how you interpret information changes, how quickly you react, changes, and all of that affects the decisions that you need to make.

And as leaders, that's one of the most important things that we do every day, is make decision decisions. So if our decision making ability is being compromised every single day because of constant change and pressure, then we really cannot bring everything to the team, to ourselves and to the organization that we need to bring. Yeah, well, and it affects innovation. And that is half of the battle with marketers is really staying innovative and distinct and different to create the trust that is so important today.

There is a great methodology and a great book, great leader. Her name is Carla Johnson. She wrote Rethink Innovation and clearing the Brain is half of the battle. And what we do, walking into a creative session or a strategy session with this pressure on our shoulders does nobody any good.

And what she talks about, the main methodology here is, you know, go out for 20 minutes outside the office, walk around, what do you see, what do you hear, what do you taste, what do you smell? And then look at it deeper. So for instance, if you are looking at a tree, don't just see the tree, see the bark and then see the lines between the bark. And then ultimately see that little, you know, ladybug that is right there between, between that or with a leaf, you don't see the green leaf, you see the veins within it.

And that that methodology helps to clear your brain in such a way that when you go into, all it's doing is taking pressure away. Right, right, right. Yeah. And that what you just described is a mindfulness practice.

Right. So again, when we're under pressure, we're zoom. We're like this, you know, and just as you said, going out, taking a look at that tree, focusing on that tree and really taking the time to look at it begins to reset what's happening in your brain. It is a neurological impact.

Like, like, like breathing is just like, you know, taking deep breaths are right. And so that is a mindfulness practice that puts you back into the present. It takes you back into the moment and it clears your brain. So again then you widen your thinking and you're right.

When you're under a lot of pressure, you could only make the next decision. It is very difficult to think strategically and in the future because you're so mired in the mess that you're in right now. That's a great thing. And bias also forms.

You know, if we're slammed and someone comes in and asks about something, I would tend to say no more quickly than really thinking about what it is that they're asking about. You know, maybe some sound redirection or something like that. How do you minimize that bias in the moment of a real high pressure situation? Well, you just give us a good example and I'm going to be giving you an asset called the leadership reset asset.

And it's got like four, four little exercises that you can do at your desk that kind of helps you do that. And we're going to start with breathing. I know people think breathing is a bunch of woo woo. It is not.

Breathing is the only tool that you have in your arsenal that can immediately reset your brain. It's like, it's like when you're in that pressure situation and all your systems that you need to think and make good decisions, they've just been cut off. Right? It's like that go button.

It's just do not pass go. Don't collect $200. Breathing is the number one thing that can reset your paranormal. I mean your, your, your, your nervous system to get calm so, so you can breathe.

Right. Doing a mindfulness practice that you just described is another great way to do that. And then another quick thing that you can do is you can just take a piece of paper and say and draw down the line, what do I think is true right now or what is really true right now? It's just a very, very quick exercise.

And again, putting pen to paper has a lot of power to bring you back into that moment and to kind of help you de stress and understand where you really are so that you can take action on it. Because that's the thing when we're under pressure, we feel helpless. We feel like no matter what we're going to do, it's going to be wrong. So this gives you a sense of control around the situation by kind of taking a look at it that way and doing a quick analysis of what's true and what is not true.

And by the way, listeners, we're going to have the tool that Debbie just mentioned as a part of the show notes so that you can download it there. What types of bias typically come out in the situation that I just described? The type of bias that comes out is making short term safe decisions because you can only see so far and you're not thinking strategically so you're just going to make the next decision. And for a leader, that is the kiss of death.

This is not what leaders do. Leaders should always be making the strategic decision. They should be thinking in the future. They should be thinking about what's best for the team, what's best for the business, you know, what do we need here?

And so I think the bias really has everything to do with just making these short term decisions that don't move you forward. That is one of the key biases that I see. Yeah, you're just like a wealth of information today, Debbie. I think we could learned about this in our pre show as well.

We could talk for hours actually. We did, yeah. But nonetheless, I want to dive into now. We've talked about so many different, you know, what the problem is, what the pressure is, how we can speak with the boards, how we can help our younger teams, tools to use.

Let's talk a little bit about the business impact of reactive leadership. You know, when we're making decisions like this all day, I think that's when people tend to believe that gut reaction is the right move. And I think there's a lot to be said for gut reaction, especially when you've been in business for a very, very long time or you know, outside of business. If you're in a situation walking down an alley and that feeling that you get of, of this may not be a safe environment.

I think all those situations are very, very good. But when you are constantly making decisions so quickly without a lot of forethought or insight or the strategy reflection that is needed, it absolutely can affect outcomes. Talk to us a little bit more about that. Two things.

If you are a marketing leader and you're making these short term decisions because you were compromised, because you can't think in a constant stress situation, you are going to be viewed by the board and executive team as oh, the marketing team, they execute stuff. So number one, you are folding right into that narrative. And I think that for. If you want to be that execution CMO and some CMOs do.

However, I would say this, the days of the execution CMO are nearing an end because AI is going to be doing all of your execution. Right. And once AI is doing all of your execution, then what will you be doing? Right.

Then what will you be doing? And then when we think about outcomes, and I love the word that you used at the beginning of the show, you were talking about clarity. If you can show up to work every day with clarity, with purpose, that is intentional and not be reactive, performance will improve. Yeah, period.

No doubt about it. And I know that many marketers are just feel like they're in a almost a no win situation because of things that are going on. But at some point you have to stop the madness and you have to change something. And that change starts with you and your intentionality and how you need to be a strategic partner to the organization.

So our listeners, we're almost to the end of the show today. What can they start doing right now immediately to get out of this survival mode? Download the asset. It's so easy.

It's like four little exercises at your desk. The other thing that I would do is maybe inform yourself a little bit around how pressure affects you at work. Some of the things that we're talking about that you need to do to get out of those pressure cooker situations, they're not difficult, they're habits, they're small things that you can do. And for example, the mindfulness example that you provided, that is one of the most incredible, powerful things that you can absolutely do.

And I think that understanding how you're regulating your emotions, also I think that you can take the time to try to start reframing things because again, when we get in that pressure cooker situation, everything becomes a negative. And so what we need to do is to begin to what we call cognitive reframing. Let's reframe the situation. Okay, here's where I am right now.

Here's what's going on. What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? So just flip the script in your mind.

So those are just a few things that you can do. Well, just a few things I think are going to make a tremendous impact on our listeners today. Debbie, what a gift to have you. We don't necessarily get into psychology behind what we do.

We're always talking about the psychology of the people, of the impact that we're trying to make with buyers out there. So this has been just an incredible gift today. What is the best way for our audience to get in contact with you? Dr.

Debbie at GrowthFactor US I would love to chat with you and learn more about what's happening in your organization and how we might help. Well, I tell you, you've been a real gift, not only to our listeners, but a gift to me as well. I feel like I've got a new friend in the world. Same Lori at Avocet, we often say that growth follows trust.

And trust starts long before a customer makes a purchase each. It begins with how leaders show up, make decisions, and create clarity when pressure is high. When teams trust their leaders, organizations move faster, align better, and execute with confidence. In today's conversation, I'm going to.

Sorry, guys, you've got to start that over. If today's conversation resonated with you, remember this strategic leadership isn't about eliminating pressure. It's about building the trust foundation that allows people and organizations to perform at their best, even when the stakes are highest. Thanks for listening to strategycast today.

And Debbie, like I said, you've been an absolute guest. My pleasure. I enjoyed it so much. Thank you, Lori.