Episode 43: Trust the Process: How to succeed as a first-time manager with Stephanie Herre (Leadership Coach, Sales Leader at Remote.com, Ex-Cisco and SAP)

Speaker A: Hey there. Welcome to another episode of Teams at Work. My name is Daria Gutnick and I'm the CEO and co founder of Bunch. I'm co hosting the show with Anthony Rio, who is also my co founder and our coo. We are on a mission to help anyone become a great leader. And together with our team, we're building an AI leadership coach to achieve exactly that. This podcast is for a new generation of leaders. Every episode we talk to an inspiring guest who is running a high performance team or a company to learn about their journey and what they do in their day to day to be an effective leader.

Speaker B: So no matter if you're leading a team already or simply interested in becoming more effective at work, you can build your leadership skills by investing as little as two minutes a day with our A.I. uh, leadership coach. If you're curious, take download it for free on the Apple App Store today by simply searching Bunch Leadership Coach. Your journey starts with a quick assessment of what kind of leader you are today. And then you will receive personalized daily leadership tips to help you grow faster into the leader you want to become tomorrow.

Speaker C: In this episode, I interview Stephanie Hera. Stephanie has had an incredible career in sales and business development. She worked at Cisco, SAP freshworks and is now a senior sales leader at Remote. She's also a leadership coach and we chat about how to make your first role as a manager successful. Hint, it's all about that 30, 60, 90 days plan. She explains exactly how to do it. She also walks me through how to ask better questions as a manager and of course shares her top five. And we also talk about why Stephanie believes we need more leadership and less management in the future. So tune in and enjoy.

Speaker D: Hello and welcome again to a new episode of, uh, Teams at Work Today. Here with me is Stephanie. Hi, Stephanie. It's so great to have you on the show.

Speaker E: Hi, Daria. Uh, I am so excited. Huge fans of what you're doing. Thank you for having me.

Speaker D: Super, super. Gladly. And I'm a little bit nervous because we always have these like prepped questions, of course, and Anthony and I are like splitting them and so on. And this time I thought we try something different. I have a few questions in mind, but it's a more organic conversation, so let's see where this takes us.

Speaker E: Oh yeah, that's just keeping me on my toes. Love it. Let's do it.

Speaker D: Same. So my first question actually obviously is a little bit about your journey. Take us through. How did you end up, um, actually becoming a coach and being a coach? Like, you came from a sales leadership career, basically, so you're a business leader, uh, leading building sales teams. But you're also a very, very passionate coach and an amazing contributor to our community. And so I'm all curious to hear how this transition happened.

Speaker E: Oh, my goodness, that's so, so sweet of you. Look, to be honest, it kind of happened by accident, accidentally on purpose. So let me start from the beginning. I jumped into my leadership career from being a, yeah, you know, senior account executive at SAP. And, you know, even though I was hitting all these targets, meeting fantastic global clients, something was missing. Daria. And I remember I asked myself a lot of questions and one of them was, okay, what are my intrinsic motivations? Like, what is it? Something inside me, I don't have that fire in my belly anymore. Just selling. What is it that's missing? And then I really had to dug deep. And it took a little bit of self reflection to realize that I get the biggest gratification in life helping other people. So whenever I have the opportunity to share something that I've learned and, you know, to see someone else apply that, that's where it really makes me tick and that's where I get my happiness. So that's why I then took the leap and I interviewed for my first BDR, uh, leadership role. I was successful. I used a 30, 60, 90 day business plan to structure myself. And you know what happened? It was just, uh, around a year ago, I was having a career conversation with one of my top performing salespeople. She is absolutely flying. She was considering a leadership career in her maybe mid to long term future. And you know, I sat down with her and I was like, right, these are some of the questions you need to ask yourself. So what are your intrinsic motivators? What will be your leadership style? Why do you want to become a leader? Uh, what impact you want to make? All these questions. I also started to guide her through, okay, what would be a 30, 60, 90 part? And she was just, she sat there, she was like, stephen, no one's ever done this with me before. I'm like, what do you mean? This is your standard career conversation. You know, this is what every manager should be doing with you, especially with, uh, a top performer yourself. She's like, no, no, I've never sat down and I've never reflected on, um, my values, my motivators, and, um, also my plan. And she's like, right, you have to spread the word. You have to go and help others. Like, everyone should know this. And I was like, okay, you Know what? Yes, I agree. That's my passion, to help others. And why not mentor as many aspiring leaders as possible in the world to make sure that they get off on the right foot for a change and they're not lost in the overwhelming chaos of being a new manager. They actually have a strategy and they understand the impact they want to make as a leader. And that's why I began my coaching journey.

Speaker D: So true. And we're so glad to have you. We need more people like you in this corner of the world for sure. Do you think we need more or less managers? Actually I'm hinting at this idea of with more automation and less and less administrative tasks and less and less coordination tasks supposedly that we'll all hopefully see improvements on through the progress of AI and so on. How much management do we actually really need?

Speaker E: Uh, you know what, I'm so glad you asked that, Daria. Uh, we need less managers. We need far less managers. We need more leaders. We need less managers. We need more leaders. There's a big difference. Here's how I see it. As you so rightly said, we now have this disruptive technology that's burst into the world and is changing everybody's life at a rapid pace. We all know this technology has a very realistic potential to replace many of these core management tasks such as monitoring, reporting, forecasting, that kind of things. You know, you don't need a human to do that, in my view. And when you think of it this way, it's like there is a huge potential to replace. I know many of these so called manager roles, they are just going to be hindered, useless. And companies who want to, you know, reduce costs and think about efficiency, they might see this whole layer of management being completely irrelevant. Leaders, however, D will never go out of, uh, style because leadership means influencing other people in a positive way, in the way they couldn't have done so themselves. And it requires a whole host of skills. I call them super skills, I think the world calls them soft skills, I have no idea why. Such as emotional intelligence, active listening skills, including empathetic listening skills, communication skills, creativity, all these sorts of things so that you can really make an impact in other people's lives that is irreplaceable.

Speaker D: That also means that, and this is so in line with how we define leadership at Bunch and how we also think about the competition. The skills that we are helping leaders to learn through the interaction with the app and also through the content. So power to you and all. Agreed, of course. I wonder though that like it really changes this whole concept of leadership to a degree. Because we used to think, well, of course, like a manager doesn't equal a leader because they can maybe be like not so great at leadership and still be a manager. And then also there are other people in teams that step up and they don't have a functional management title, but they're actually leading the group in that situation because they're just doing the things that the group needs to do in order to move forward. So. All agreed? I wonder if we like distill that more or pull those two more apart. Whether, like, doesn't it become even more important that we all learn those skills? And related to this question, and I'm really curious about your perspective on it. Isn't it always almost like a, um, must do nowadays in order to actually pursue any career? Even if the career is nothing, has nothing to do with management and you actually stay in ic, stay a specialist and yeah, become like, known for your expertise in a specific field. Field without managing anyone.

Speaker E: As you so rightly said, Daria, uh, even as a subject matter expert, uh, in the team where people go to you, you know, you're the one who knows this stuff. You're the expert. Without people skills, without these human skills of communication, understanding and regulating, um, both your own, but other people's emotions, listening, asking questions like, without these skills, you're not going to go far in this, in the future world, in the future world of AI and this is a vastly underrated quality. I see like many companies out there, they don't even focus on any sort of soft skills training. There's a huge lack of coaching in this area. And that's kind of my mission. I, I want to help leaders focus on whole person growth. And that's why I say whole person growth, because it's not just, okay, here are the management roles. Just train this and you'll be fine. No, how do you train your communication skills? How do you become a better active listener? Uh, how do you handle difficult conversations? How do you develop your emotional intelligence? That stuff is critical and for the future and yeah, it's just not done enough right now.

Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. So how do you see the link between the challenges that your clients bring to you on a daily basis to you as a coach and these competencies or these power skills, I think we call them career skills. Same thing in the end. But yeah, how. What's the relationship between having or not having these competencies and then the challenges that we see on a daily basis

Speaker E: and we all know there is a Very distinct correlation. So the most commonly asked questions that I get and some of the things I'm helping my mentees and coaches with include things like, okay, how do you foster psychological safety in your team? How do you have uh, difficult conversations when you're trying to share constructive feedback or perhaps uh, it's a layoff situation approaching or you're firing someone? How do you have these conversations? How do I make my one on ones more effective? How do I make my coaching more effective? Now without these, as you said, like career competencies or these soft skills or these, you know, super skills like I call them, you will not get very far. You will then, um, what I see happen very often you become overwhelmed with your own emotions in that situation. So perhaps you as the leader you feel nervous, you feel anxious, uh, and if you're not able to firstly be aware of these emotions, understand them and then regulate them so that you're reacting in the sense of productivity and you're not sort of just like responding. Yeah, you know what I mean? You're going to struggle and uh, you're not going to deliver the message the way you intended and the person's not going to receive the message that you wanted to share. So without these skills you're going to, you're going to really struggle being an efficient leader.

Speaker D: It's super interesting because what we see when we look into the data of our users and we ask in the onboarding process, right, like we ask what is currently, what are the challenges that you struggle the most with and what are you trying to achieve? And it's just so mind blowing to see how many people actually struggle with like self management, time management. It's just a whirl of chaos for most of those leaders, managers, professionals, people that want to make an impact on their teams and careers. Like we're all stuck in this race of like endless meetings, endless follow ups, um, to do lists that we can't complete. What are your thoughts around like why this is such a huge challenge all of a sudden for all of us in the professional world. And I don't know whether that came after Covid. It kind of feels like it became more or worse, but I'm not sure myself. So curious to hear your reflections.

Speaker E: It's so interesting you say that. I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I had a chat with a phenomenal coachee of mine. She is a senior uh, BDR leader, business development leader. And you know what her biggest pain is and what she's struggling with the most is what you said so the feeling of overwhelmed. She is simply overwhelmed. She's working fully, remotely. And I think you're right. Like, since Corona, since we're just thrust into this home office world now, maybe you're going into hybrid still, let's say, like, you spend a lot of time online. This is how you lead. If you're not intentional about the communication boundaries that you set both for yourself and with your teams and with your manager. So all these three components, you will drown. You will drown in endless meetings. You will not have a consistent lunch break. You will find yourself working after hours regularly. You will find yourself not being able to switch off in the evening. You will even find yourself doing work at the weekends because you were just stuck in meetings all day and you didn't get any of your things done. So, yeah, this is an epidemic. I would say this is something that everybody struggles with now and then, some more than others. But there are techniques that you can apply and enforce to help you with that.

Speaker D: Can you share some what has worked for you?

Speaker E: Of course, of course, of course.

Speaker D: Dying to know.

Speaker E: All right, so the first thing I say is, um, block simple things. Daria, really, it's block your calendar. So I know it sounds so, so simple. What does she mean, block your calendar? I mean, go into your calendar and block your lunch times. Block the times when you are offline. So call it deep work, call it do not disturb, call it exercise time, call it morning routine, call it picking up my kids from school, call it dinner time. Do not disturb, whatever feels comfortable for you, block it. And, um, not. Just don't just block it and leave it there and hope people respect it. Of course not. You then need to have the guts to communicate this and enforce this. Like, the first thing I do is I share this with my manager. Hey, look, please take a look at my calendar just for full transparency. These are the times where I'm available. These are the times I'm not available. Let me know if there's anything that, uh, you would like to discuss with me. Uh, it's important that we set our communication boundaries together. So this is the first conversation that I have. And guess what? It has never failed me. Especially if you do this early on second conversations with your team. So, hey, team, I blocked my calendar. Here are the times I'm always available for you. If you ping me there, I will be there. These are the times I will be slower to respond. And these are the times do not expect a response until the next day you say it. So matter of fact, you don't leave any room for questions or negotiation. And then, dhaya, you say, hey, team, I want you to do the same, please. Can you also block your calendars or share the times where you work the best, you're the most efficient, and the times that you'd rather you don't hear from anybody. Please share that with me. I want to respect that in return. And that's how you create this communication boundary in terms of just availability. Um, there are other things. So I have a huge pet peeve of meetings in general. I think that most meetings are completely inefficient, unnecessary, and, um, kills your productivity. I think I read a statistic, but I think it takes 20 minutes before the meeting and then 20 minutes after each meeting for you to somehow, like,

Speaker D: get up to speed.

Speaker E: Yeah, yeah, get up to speed and somehow get back to what you're doing. So if you think about how many meetings you have and then the impact of that buffer time on your productivity, you will be absolutely horrified. I was horrified. So I also try and help others on how to respectfully decline meetings that don't add any value. Because sometimes you're not the host of this meeting and, um, you join, let's say, every Monday, and you're like, oh, my gosh, now I'm going to sit through an hour and a half of this updates, meaning I'm not going to say anything. My camera's off and I've wasted an hour and a half of my time when actually I have this deadline that I have to somehow get done today. We've all been there. It's horrible. So what I've helped others to do and what I've seen work for myself is you just. You have to communicate with the host. Be like, hey, thank you for thinking of me to join this meeting. I appreciate the goals of this meeting. I see that this is important for you. However, by attending this meeting, I, um, am unfortunately not able to get X, Y and Z completed by the time it needs to be done. So you really, like, be specific. Hey, I need to get my coaching plans ready. I need to do this reporting. I need to get my forecast plan done, and this meeting is not allowing me to do that for this reason. I would absolutely love it if you can record this meeting or send me the meeting notes or objectives or action items that you require from me. I'll make sure to complete that before or after the meeting. It's up to you. But I will decline this meeting from now on based on this reason. Mm.

Speaker D: And what happens, I mean, this Sounds really good. And I think in many cases makes sense in reality, I think people push back on it, of course. Right. And then sometimes, probably for valid and in other times not so valid reasons. What. How do you, um, advise to kind of like, work through this with whoever the host is or the other stakeholders?

Speaker E: Yeah, you know what, it's rare, but to be honest, I've rarely received pushback from that. When you really go into detail and, um, especially if you really specify, okay, these are the three things from my day that will be compromised, and this is important to me. And, um, like, that's why I'm going to decline. I rarely get people push back. But if you do get pushback, ask more questions. Be like, okay, can you please elaborate? Like, why is it mandatory from your perspective, that I attend live? Because actually, for example, especially if you're introverted, you attend a meeting, you can't. You're not the one who's reacting to the meeting. You're thinking about it. You need time to process. And then your ideas come after the meeting. And so I also explain that, hey, to be honest, I'm not going to be the one who's like, giving you the ideas at the top of my head. I always need time to reflect. So if you want my answers and my ideas, actually, I need that time. So I would prefer to watch the recording or read the meeting notes, and then I can give you my comprehensive answer, and that's going to be more valuable for you. How does that sound? That's, um, my answer. It takes courage. It's. I know it's not easy to do that, especially if you're talking to someone who is more senior than you is a little bit intimidating. Perhaps you feel like they won't understand. But think of it this way. Either you respectfully decline a meeting like that, or you are the one suffering later when you are, uh, not able to have dinner with your partner or you can't pick up your kids from school because you're sitting there catching up on the work from the day. So it's all about what is more important to me. How can I prioritize my day that actually helps me succeed in life and at work.

Speaker D: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I think it's very important, what you just referenced as well, to keep in mind that in the end it's a dialogue and, like, asking questions and kind of also finding solutions together. So, um, even if it happens to be a meeting that whatever reason needs to be attended, life, whatever, there's going to be, like, just Making that explicit that there is a trade off and then deciding about this trade off together because most of the time you're not like the last in line. So to make it very clear, these are the things that cannot be accomplished. Like what do we do about that? Does that mean they get pushed? Does that mean they don't get done? Does that like kind of just basically putting it on the table together and like instead of sitting on this like bottlenecked. Oh my God, there is 180 to do's and I need to do all of them because on my plate, how can I like swap them on other people? Um, I think making it more of a shared task to understand what's more important and what can wait maybe like that I also hear that indirectly from what you're recomm. And I think that's also really, really important to just not sit on your like miserable 180 tasks because it's. They are not all equally important.

Speaker E: Yeah, that's so right. I couldn't agree more. Exactly. That it's a collaboration. And um, that's the thing. But you need guts and I know how scary that must feel. If you know this is like the VP and you know, he's, he's scheduling, it's usually a he. Apologies. He's scheduling this recurring meeting and you're just there. I don't know, you have to share like something for like 10 seconds and actually the whole rest of your time is just zoning out. It's not useful. You can have this collaborative conversation, this dialogue, and you'll be surprised, you'll really be surprised at the results you can get from that.

Speaker D: So before the conversation you've mentioned, I think when we were chatting about the podcast and we're kind of looking for topics and see what, what to dive into, you've mentioned that one of the things that you're really passionate about is the tool of questions and how managers and professionals at work can use questions to actually lead, to help resolve problems, to help groups move forward. Can you tell me more about that and also maybe tie that back into what we just discussed.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker D: Because it's about dialogue, it's about collaboration. Questions play a huge role. So let's unpack that a little. Tell me more why, um, you're passionate about it.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker E: Uh, you know, growing up as a child, I was actually very socially anxious and um, I hated their attention on me. Like it would really give me anxiety attacks to an extent. And I just hated to think that people are like staring at me and you Know I'm talking about myself. So a part of that has kind of stayed. And throughout the years I have developed a very good technique of asking good questions. And I've only really seen that the power of that, uh, that is actually a talent. As I started working in sales and now leadership. So my view is the world needs better question askers, not better talkers. And um, I always just thinking from a manager's perspective, also from a sales perspective, I always go into a dialogue assuming that I don't have all the information, I don't have the full picture no matter what. And uh, my goal is to learn as much as possible from this other person, to get this other person to open up as much as possible so that I can really understand and unpack. Okay, where did they stand? Um, how can I influence this person in the best way? And you can only do that through questions, not through talking. So in leadership, talking about collaboration, the way I approach every conversation, no matter if it's a, uh, difficult conversation or a one on one or a coaching, it's always through questions. So I'll give you an example. I like to start with asking permission with the person I'm talking to just to ensure that what I'm about to say is not threatening and it's going to be thoughtfully received. So thinking about like non violent communication techniques, for example, I say, hey, may I ask you something about that? Or can I give you some coaching or may I push back a bit on what you're saying? So these are permission based questions that I use all the time. Other important questions that uh, I think every single leader needs to have at the top of their mind is questions to encourage the other person to self reflect. So let's say Daya, I'm sitting with somebody who's been struggling with their performance and uh, you know, I can clearly see that it's a pattern and we really need to get to the bottom of things. So how I always start those conversations is, hey, look, in this conversation we're about to have, I want to make sure that you feel like you're being treated fairly. Okay, what is your perspective on how you've been performing the last six months? So I always kick off that conversation asking the other person what they think and how they feel. The reason I do that is going back to, hey, you don't have all the answers. What if there's something they haven't told you? For example, they're going through a traumatic personal event at the moment and that's hindering their performance. And um, and if I didn't ask that question, if I didn't give them permission to share, and I go in all guns blazing, like, hey, you're not, you're not doing good enough. Look at the data. How can we. No, if I didn't ask that, they would never, you know, never share that. And then I don't have the full picture. So always ask that. And then you give your input. It's like, yeah, I agree. Or actually, may I push back a bit on what you're saying? And then you continue. Another question is in terms of ending those conversations, I always ask, hey, what would you do differently next time? What would you do differently next time? And, um, what are your learnings? So I don't tell the other person, hey, this is what you need to do differently next time. Xyz no, if it's not coming from them, if you don't get that buy in and they're not self reflecting, this is not going to sink in. They will zone out. They are already in a state of shock that they are getting perhaps, uh-huh. Not so good feedback. And you know, this feels like a personal attack. They are in a fear state. And in a fear state, you're not gonna, it's just human nature. You're not gonna soak all the information in. Whereas if I make sure that attention's on the person and they are reflecting and they are thinking about their actions in their own words, this is how the information is retained. So that's just like, uh, in general, difficult conversations.

Speaker D: So, so many good points. When you work with your mentees or coaches, how do you make sure that they transfer the things that they're going through with you, the realizations and those really, really good, actionable steps into reality? Like, how do you help them to actually make these changes in their day to day and in their behavior?

Speaker E: Yeah, you know what, that just goes back to, I think, one of the core principles of teaching and that is practice.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker E: I mean, every coach knows, like, if you're coaching a team, you know, you can tell them what to do, you can describe it. And so, um, but then if the team doesn't practice, then it's not going to sink in. So what I like to do is, uh, role plays. So we discuss a scenario just like we did, and then we role play it. And I know it sounds so simple. Role plays. It's not like, you know, it's not something genius, but it works so effectively. Dia. And that's, uh, when you can really put these techniques into practice. So it's like, okay, I am m a low, uh, performer in your team. I've been struggling in the last six months. Let's start the conversation. And then we go.

Speaker D: Interesting. And do you give them feedback after?

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker E: Uh, yes. Then we have again a collaborative conversation about it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker E: So it's like, hey, how did that feel for you? Start with your emotions because, you know, the more aware you are of the emotions that are arising in your body, the more you can then respond to every situation in your life because you can label that emotion and then you can approach it from, uh, an area of mindfulness and you're thoughtful about it. So I always start with how did that feel? Because then Diya, uh, you can brace yourself and say, okay, you know what? Before every difficult conversation, I'm going to feel nervous, I'm going to feel really anxious, I'm going to feel uncertain. And that's okay. I'm going to do it anyway. I know I'm going to do it anyway. And I don't need to fight these feelings. Let's go. And um, that helps me. That helps me. You know, every time I have a difficult conversation, I'm doing a presentation, I get nervous. I know that about myself and I say, hey, Steph, I can see, you know, you're nervous. You know, I can see the symptoms. The sweaty nose, your hands are shaking a little bit. It's fine. You will ace this anyway because you got this. You know what you're doing, you've practiced. Let's go.

Speaker D: Let's talk a little bit about your own learning journey and about your own kind of growth experiences on that journey. When you switched into management. So going away from your individual contributor track, taking responsibility for your first team, how was that for you and like, which parts were scary and how did you deal with those?

Speaker E: Oh, gosh, how was that for m me? Unbelievably challenging, Mind blowingly anxiety, uh, um, ridden. Because, you know, there's a lot on the line now. I realized I'm responsible for the lives of um. It was six other people. And for me at the time I knew how to do the job. As a BDR business development rep. I was about myself successfully. But I never led a team before. So I was like, okay, my mission is to help others. My leadership style is I want to make the best possible impact of all of these people in front of me. Without having a, uh, structured 30, 60, 90 plan that I created and I presented in my interview process. I would have been lost in the day to day management Tasks like, okay, what do you do in your week? One, make sure you introduce yourself to all stakeholders, get to know your team, structure your first one on ones, et cetera, et cetera. If I didn't have that written down that I could not possibly start to do the leadership stuff. Like, how do I really get to know deeply each and every person in my team? How do I understand their intrinsic motivators, where they want to go in their careers and then link that to their job now? Because you know what, Daya? Uh, I had an underperforming team on my hands, all right? I had the challenge of transforming a low performing team to a high performing team in another language because it was a region that I've never sold to before, the France and Southern Europe region. You know, I don't speak the language, I don't know the market. So I had a challenging team in terms of performance, a market that I had no clue about. But I knew one thing. I'm working with people and I need to influence these people. I need to get them excited towards one mission and I need to link what they're doing with where they want to go. And, um, by having this 36 in 90 plans, I didn't have to worry about, okay, this is when I do, this is when I do that. I can then just focus on getting to know the people on a very deep level, adapting my coaching and one on one styles with each of these people and then helping them be their best selves. So my advice to every brand new manager, have a 30, 60, 90 business plan. I know it sounds kind of old school and you're like, well, why? Like, let's see. But at least think about how will you structure your everyday management tasks for the next two, three months? It will help you tremendously.

Speaker D: So how did you start on the like 30, 60, 90 days plan? Like, did you have a template? Did you start with specific prompt questions like what's the, as the Germans say, baustein? Like, what's the modules that go into it? How do I begin?

Speaker E: Uh, how do you begin? Well, you know what, just to throw this in here, I actually created a udemy course, exactly talking you through how I did this. And I even threw in my original template that I used to get my first leadership role. So it's there.

Speaker D: Check it out, we'll definitely link that.

Speaker E: But what I did is, um, to be honest, I was. All right, here's the job description here. All the tasks that I expected of me. Um, here's what I also think a manager would do, especially a sales manager. Based on my experience of being an ic, I literally wrote down in the list here all my responsibilities are right. What makes sense to do when. And of course you have to use your own sales experience. Yeah. A little bit of common sense was that right? One on ones need to happen as soon as possible because I need to get to know my team as soon as possible. Okay. Team meetings. M. Yeah, I need to get that scheduled perhaps. Yeah, from week two onwards. Because we need to somehow, you know, talk, come together.

Speaker D: Rally the team.

Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. Rally the team. Right. When do I want to start, uh, looking at reports in more detail? Okay. That might be helpful in the first month so that I can understand how everyone is compared to, you know, the overall goals that we have. Yeah. So it's just a little bit of common sense. But first I had to write that huge list of what all the roles are. Uh, and then somehow structure in a way that I thought makes sense in sales. That's, uh, really it. Super cool.

Speaker A: That's really it.

Speaker D: Yeah, it is super cool. I mean, I agree with you. It's so straightforward. But sometimes I think we're just. Because of the overwhelmed boggledness that we just spoke about earlier, I think we just lose like the most common sense types of approaches. But I think I remember I've never done it this way. I think I probably should try that for like a quarter or so, like the quarter plan. But I think I used something similar in the past as well, which we called the chaos list. When you get like super overwhelmed, um, you have this like 180 tasks and they don't like fit all into one same unit or time interval. I think what I tried to do was something similar where I'm like, what is really to happen now this week? What can wait a few more days or weeks? What can be delegated altogether and what actually doesn't need to happen so often? Like what can we actually maybe we could reduce in terms of like, meetings, don't always need to be meetings, and so on and so on. I think it's just such a simple approach. But for some reason you always need someone to tell you, like, why don't you start with the list? I know it really is.

Speaker E: It's the oldest trick in the book diet. And you know what? I'm just thinking back to the overwhelmed conversation we had. That's what I advise as step one. I told this very senior, very talented BDR manager who was so overwhelmed working morning till evening, compromising her entire private life. I was like, right, this is what you're gonna do my homework for you. You're going to write down every single thing you do in a typical day. And I mean everything, just write it down. Because you'll be so shocked. It's like, wow, do I really do that? And if bonus, if you can put like, how long it takes you, and then you sit there and you're like, right, so six hours of my day, I'm in meetings. Half of those meetings are completely useless for me. Oh my gosh, if I had these three hours back, I can then do all of these things that I was planning to do on Saturday morning because I can't get it done. And just like that, uh, changes your whole perspective and empowers you.

Speaker D: Yeah, totally. I 100% agree. Let's talk AI a little bit. Uh, we've referenced it in the beginning. What do you think about what LLMs did for the world? And like, what do you expect to happen from here onward when it comes to growth? Education, but in particular, also management and coaching?

Speaker E: Oh my gosh. I think AI is both the greatest opportunity of our, uh, lifetime, dare I say.

Speaker D: I agree.

Speaker E: But also, also, yes, but also the scariest, let's say, breakthrough of our age. I'm glad that, uh, a lot of governments are looking into regulation now and there's a lot of discussion about, hey, how can we like, prevent all the really negative, scary things about AI? I don't need to go into that. But in terms of, let's just think about management and sales. I really think that in a few years the core management tasks will be obsolete. There will be no need for managers to spend hours doing monitoring, reporting, you know, repetitive written or analyzing tasks. This is no longer going to happen. So then you're left with all this time. It's like, okay, either the manager role is going to be obsolete, or you only keep those extremely competent leaders who actually influence people and they focus most of their time on coaching. And how do you coach this individual on your team or these individuals to be better in skills that, uh, I cannot support? So human skills, people skills, soft skills, what we discuss. And in sales in particular, I do see that, ah, for example, the business development role. For those of you who, um, don't know, this is the position where it's the first role in sales usually where you start your career and you are calling prospects and you're trying to hunt on social media and you're sending a bunch of emails each day and you're trying to just get some meetings booked to Generate some sort of pipeline, we call it. This whole function could be chopped off. I think it could be obsolete because we could have AI who basically organizes and automates our whole cadence. Uh, so in terms of sales, there's going to be a huge need for real advisory, real kind of deep technical knowledge, superior sales skills, where you're actually helping the buyer towards the end of their process, after all the knowledge, all the knowledge gathering has been done, then they might need a salesperson to guide them through the final steps. But it's going to change dramatically. So we all need to be prepared

Speaker D: and let's translate that into actual skills. So if we're thinking about people at work, professionals that are working in those fields today, what is still required for that? Like, human intervention at the end of the journey, when you speak about, like, they still need a salesperson then to kind of go through it with them. Like, how can. If I'm in the shoes of that professional in the future? And like, the first couple of coordination tasks and stalking tasks and things like this have been already done by my AI assistants of several kinds. Like, what skills do I actually need to train so that I can be, like, ready for the future and make

Speaker E: a difference for the customers? For sure. Like the art of persuasion. For sure. So how can you influence other, um, people to, uh, go into the direction that is best for them or that you want? That is something that is irreplaceable, Also emotional intelligence again. So how can you adapt to the other person? How can you make the other person feel reassured, heard and understood so that they trust you enough and they feel safe enough to proceed with you in whatever direction you want? I'm trying to keep this general, not just sales. This is where I think people will, time and time again look for other people, not AI. It's that trust, that feeling of trust that, hey, I want to speak to another human being who gets me, who gets me, who understands what I want, um, and will help me get to the right answer. Yeah. And of course, you know, all of this stuff you've done your. Yeah, as you said, you have your assistant, you have all this bunch of. Bunch of knowledge. You got it? But, uh, you just need the extra step of reassurance. And that's where the people aspect comes in. And the better you are at, uh, understanding other people's emotions, the better you are at persuasion, at listening, really trying to understand what is the other person trying to tell you here. Reading between the lines, asking good questions to get you one step closer to where you want to be without all of that, it's game over again. Yeah, I, uh, keep repeating myself.

Speaker D: I think it's all good. It's really, it is the same point. Right. But I think for some reason it's still hard to believe sometimes. Like when we think about, you know, talking about like, GPT engineering and other like, futuristic skills and competencies, we see like, in the engineering field to pop up. I think we kind of all know communication is really, really crucial and key. Right. Like, I don't think anyone would ever oppose this, but when you break it down into commitment to particular training budgets, developing those skills, committing the time of your management and leadership to train that with your teams and so on, that's when it becomes super interesting because then we're not ready to, to do that always. And we are prioritizing the kind of like, more tangible and hard fact. So it's an interesting, um, human phenomenon that on a high level we do get it. But like, when it comes to paying the price, we sometimes ready and sometimes less.

Speaker E: Oh, it's honestly, it's tragic, but it's funny as well. Like, it's an impending doom. We all see it coming, but it's like, no, it's all right right now. You know, we can, we'll figure it out, we'll figure it out. But no, it's inevitable. And you know the biggest thing about communication, I always ask, hey, what do you think is the most important part of communication? Listening. Listening. The better people are active listening, empathetic listening, especially if you're a manager. So being able to label what you see the other person experiencing and say that back to them without judging, without putting your own experience in the picture. Yeah. That is. I can't even explain how much that has transformed conversations I've had with my team members, coaches, everybody. Interact with your spouse, your friend, every single person you talk to on a daily basis. If you make the other person feel heard and understood, that's the most important thing. Yeah. And I think that, uh, it's just simply undervalued.

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. And it's also so hard to do that actually with LLMs. Like, I think we came a long way, uh, having conversational AI, which made a huge difference to humans. And they weren't kind of ready to, to interact as much with conversational AI in the past because it wasn't like that developed. But now LLMs are more sophisticated so people trust it a bit more. But when it comes to exactly this point that you just referenced, like, how do I mirror back what I Just understood. And how do I display empathy? Basically, it's hard for humans. So it's trainable and you can develop it and everyone can do it, but it requires effort and kind of development work. We are trying to do the same thing for our AI assisted agent that is part of our team that is helping to field 247 hours kind of questions from our users, which our human team can't fully span yet when it comes to coverage of time zones, et cetera. And that's been the hardest thing to actually help Bungee understand, how to mirror back effectively and so on. It's been the biggest challenge, actually.

Speaker E: Interesting, you see, but it's also unsurprising because I think that this is something that you can't replace. And, you know, those of us out there who are highly sensitive, those of us out there who, um, yeah, are introverted, you actually have an advantage because you're better listeners in general. You're better listeners. Yeah. You think more than you speak. You really, like, you're so deliberate before you. You say something. Whereas extroverts, you tend to just jump and you talk, you know, as soon as a thought pops into your head. So that's also a big advantage that I see emerging. And I'm particularly passionate in empowering and helping more introverted people so really, like, understand their superpower and then use that in their leadership roles and so on. I think that's highly undervalued and underappreciated as well.

Speaker D: I'm so glad you say that because I think we've used to live in this, like, time of extroverts, and we moved into this period of introverts now with, like, more remote work and written communication and skills that are requiring a bit more, like, deeper thought and not necessarily the, like, on the spot, immediate verbal response, which we've known from, like, old work environments or old work contexts. Whoever was the loudest, who was, like the most entertaining, dominated the room. And I think as we transitioned into different work environments, we actually see the strengths of more introverted people more. We require them more, we need them more. So it's really interesting that you say that.

Speaker E: Yeah, thanks for recognizing that. You know, I think it's a responsibility of every single leader to actually, um, firstly understand your own personality type, but also take the time to understand your team's personality type, because don't expect your introverts to be the first person to speak up in a meeting. But then don't use that against them. You know, it's, it's. I See this so often where the manager assumes, okay, the person who's speaking up the most, they have the best ideas. Thank you. And then all of you don't have any ideas and you didn't contribute. And this is just. It hurts me, actually hurts me because usually the introverts have the best ideas because they're thinking about it. And then afterwards, once they've processed it, they can then share in a, perhaps a written way or in a one on one setting. They're more comfortable in that and they can share some really powerful game changing idea if you give them the chance. And again, it's knowing yourself as a manager and then also respecting your team's personality types and not biasing extroverts, for example. And this again is self reflection. And yeah, you know, you can do this as a team bonding activity. You can all take a free 16 personalities or Myers Briggs test online and then come back together and present each other's personality types. I've uh, done this so many times, it's always a hit.

Speaker D: So cool. It's a good idea. Before we close off, my favorite question that we always ask our guests. When you go back in time and you would have the opportunity to time travel and give yourself advice that you now know, but you haven't back then, what would it be?

Speaker E: What would I tell the younger me? I would tell a younger me to trust the process and um, enjoy the journey. I'm extremely impatient. This is one of the things that um, I'm um, working on a lot with meditation and so on. And now I just want the result as soon as possible. It's like, hey, I'm putting in all this effort, like I want the results now. Where are the results? But now when I look back it's like, oh my goodness, Steph, that is, you're in it. That moment is where you're learning and that's what you'll take. It's not about just the results, it's the whole process. So bad. And second dire is to ask for help more again, you know, being self sufficient and feeling uh, like I have something to prove to the world as. Yeah, for me, you know, as a woman, a woman of color, coming from a poor background, starting off my career in sales, I was working with a bunch of like, I don't know, white males 10 years older than me. And I was like, right, you know what, I made it. I'm sitting at the same table as you and now I want to prove myself. But asking for help is not a sign of weakness. So that's why I also tell younger, uh, staff ask for help because people usually want to help other people. And, um, it's not a sign of weakness, the sign of strength to show that you don't know yet.

Speaker D: It's so wise and so true because you often feel like, oh, but if I ask, I'm like a burden to these people. And maybe it's like, oh, my God, they have so many things to do and now they also need to do this one thing for me or whatever. But in the end, they actually like doing it because it helps to feed their own identity. Maybe they want to be helpful. Maybe they never had the opportunity to actually help anyone and they're just, like, stuck in their own thing. So we often forget this point that it's actually much more about them when they help you than it is about you. And it's not all only like an altruistic thing.

Speaker E: Yeah. Easily forgotten. So those are the two things. And, um, I still remind myself of that every day.

Speaker D: Thank you so much. Those are really, really good hints and very, very sound advice, which I agree. I think it's never old, like, uh, it's a postage on your screen material. And thank you so much for reminding us of, of both of those things. Steph, it's been an incredible pleasure. I can't believe how we've been here for like 49 minutes. What I feel like. I know. I feel like this has been like a 15 minute conversation. We're getting like a second coffee now.

Speaker E: Yeah, A little ta. A teacher, you know, talking to a bridge. True.

Speaker D: I'm a coffee addict. I like, just. I completely forget everything else that exists in the drinks universe. But it's been really, really inspiring and so many good tips as well. Thank you for sharing all the, like, coaching advice and actionable steps we can take. And yeah, so many posts. It's generated in my head around, like, what to keep in mind.

Speaker E: Thank you for this opportunity. I absolutely loved our chat. This has been a pleasure. Thank you so much. I cannot wait to talk to you again soon, hopefully.

Speaker D: Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to teams at work. Let us know what your thoughts are on today's episode. You can find us on Twitter at Daria gutnick and, um, nthony a rio or simply follow bunch@ bunchhq. And don't forget, subscribe if you like the episode because we always have interesting guests who join us and share valuable knowledge as well as actionable advice.

Speaker B: Yeah, we're looking forward to hearing from you. Please do get in touch at the beginning of the show. We did mention that we're building an AI Leadership coach that helps you level up as a leader in just two minutes a day. Check us out on the Apple App Store and simply search Bunch leadership coach to find it, try it out, and let us know what you think.

Speaker A: And that's a wrap. We are your hosts, Daria Gutnick and Anthony Rio, and we're excited to speak

Speaker D: with you all soon.

Speaker A: Till next time.