Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:03 Hi everyone. I'm Thuy Vu.
Speaker 2 00:00:06 And I'm Dr. Diane Hamilton. Welcome to Leader's Playbook, a show about how to drive transformational impact in your organization.
Speaker 1 00:00:13 We talk with innovative thinkers across various sectors to hear about the best tools, resources, practices, and strategies to help you and your team reach the top of your game.
Speaker 2 00:00:25 So sit back and relax. We can't wait to share our leaders insights with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:34 Hey there, it's Thuy Vu, CEO of Global Mentor Network. Thank you for joining us. In this episode, we're focusing on a topic that's very close to my heart, connecting people to purpose. By now just about all of us really have heard of the great resignation. So many people are leaving their jobs because they don't feel a sense of purpose or meaning in their work. So how do you address that in an organization? It's something our two guests today think about constantly in their roles at Coupa Software. Jonathan Fear is VP of Coupa University and Sean Burns is the Global Head of Learning and Development at Coupa. Hey guys.
Speaker 3 00:01:13 Oh, hello Thuy. Nice to be here.
Speaker 4 00:01:15 Greeting.
Speaker 1 00:01:16 I just always love talking to you guys. You guys are not only knowledgeable, but fun. I'm really looking forward to this conversation and we'll get into the nitty gritty of, uh, finding purpose in your work in just a moment. But, you know, I'm just curious about your backgrounds. What got you interested in the whole field of learning and developing talent in the first place? Jonathan, why don't we start with you on that?
Speaker 3 00:01:40 Well, that goes, that goes way back, you know, my first jobs out of college, as a matter of fact, I was an application instructor, right? For desktop applications and, and I ended up really falling in love of watching the lights go on for learners, ended up managing a couple of offices here in the Bay Area, then joined a talent management company where we really focused on, you know, competency development and overall strategy. It relates to, to organizations and then was lucky enough to join Coupa, you know, roughly 11 years or so ago and continued that love of learning and helped scale the organization from, you know, just, just, uh, a handful of people to roughly 3,300 or so now. So definitely part of, part of my life-long...
Speaker 1 00:02:18 You really have been there from the beginning.
Speaker 3 00:02:20 Yeah. It's been a while. Yeah. I was, uh, lucky enough to be in the, kind of the first old broken down office. So some great, great stories come outta that as well.
Speaker 1 00:02:26 Yeah. And, and now you're a VP. Well, look at that.
Speaker 3 00:02:30 <laugh>
Speaker 1 00:02:31 What about you, Sean? How did you get interested in this line of work?
Speaker 4 00:02:34 Well, that, that broken down old office that Jonathan refers to is about two blocks from where I'm sitting right now at home. I, I used to walk by that office all the time, not knowing, uh, what was going on upstairs. So it's really nice to be part of the organization. Now I took a really circuitous route to getting here. I was in athletics, specifically, college athletics. I coached the tennis team at Santa Clara university right down near you for many years. And in the early days I wasn't getting enough out of that experience. I wanted to try something new and I went to get my MBA, and I went to Trinity college in Dublin Ireland. And while I was there, I kept trying to think, how do I transit what I did well, working with young athletes into a corporate environment. And I had a professor, who's an executive coach and she focused a lot on leadership.
Speaker 4 00:03:28 And I learned a lot from her. She inspired me and said, is this an area that you'd be interested in? And I said, for sure. So when I moved back to the states, I looked into executive coaching, several programs. I began that as a result of one of the programs, I met someone who ran a leadership development at Ford motor company and had me and a colleague come in and deliver coaching skills for leaders, classes, to managers at all levels at Ford. And one thing just led to another. I got other opportunities through that did work at ConAgra foods, John Deere Johnson and Johnson had a lot of really interesting experiences that ultimately led to me doing this similar work internally. And in 2006, early 2006, through the head of HR Ray Martinelli at I met Jonathan and we decided to partner on a few programs and that partnership just grew and grew. And eventually I joined the company a few years later and it's been very interesting. The company was less than 600 people. When I started doing work, we did a leadership excellence program. And as Jonathan mentions over 3000 people, it's been a, it's been a really fun ride,
Speaker 1 00:04:39 How wonderful to be at a company and be there as it goes through its growth stage and be a part of that. And it's clear from what you both have said that you have found your, your passion and your purpose and your work, you know, on the other hand, you know, we're living at a time now where many people are feeling disconnected from their work right now, and they're quitting their jobs. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 3 00:05:05 I think, Thuy, if we even begin with just, you know, the, the elephant in the room of COVID that the pandemic, how it's affected our global society, the stress that that's created, the physical and mental isolation that that's created, you know, it's, it's just this massive unknown and, and the, of that unknown has, has gone on far too long. And so when you have, you know, that amount of stress and the physical separation of work and family and friends, I think it really starts to impact that sense of community. And, and you start kind of reevaluating what's important, right? What's important to me as a person. It, it gave us that had opportunity to, to refocus and reenter and think about what is important to us. Sean, what do you think?
Speaker 4 00:05:49 The pandemic has certainly impacted all of us. I worked for several years, two different stints, where I was external to companies and I would come in and do work and leave. And I didn't feel as connected to those organizations until engaging full time with Coupa. But I will say what I did have opportunities to do, I would go in and I would teach a class with 30 people, and I would be able to connect interpersonally with those people in a room. And when we take a break, we wouldn't shut our camera off. We'd go grab a cup of coffee or a muffin, or have a conversation. If I wasn't teaching a class, then I was doing one-on-one coaching. And some of that was over the phone, but a lot of it was going to someone's office and sitting down or going for a walk, going to grab coffee and having a chat. And we're not able to have that strong in person link. And I think a lot of us miss that.
Speaker 1 00:06:39 So you bring up such interesting points. I mean, I certainly feel that in my own line of work, I'm always telling my team, I feel there are days when I'm just frankly, in a funk. I miss people. I mean, there are certainly advantages to, to working at home and I have a teenage daughter, so that has freed me up to, you know, do and drop offs without as much stress as it used to be dealing with traffic, trying to get to the office on time. But given that though, and given the reality of where we are now, which is a lot of companies have already said that even when they go back to having people back in the office, it will be some pro probably some kind of hybrid system. So a large percentage of the workforce will still be working at home for some percentage of the time. What can be done about that? If we don't have the opportunity to be in person as much and interact in person as much and grab that muffin, as Sean says, after a meeting,
Speaker 3 00:07:36 The way that I would look at this tweet, it's a two who side of relationship it is with the employee. It is with the company. And you just said something really key, which is you've got a daughter at home and you enjoy that flexibility of being able to, you know, drive her to her events and, you know, drive her to school, whatever that might be. You know, when we evaluate that, you know, when people start talking about the hybrid workforce and whether or not it's in office or out of office, I, I think it's really beyond that. It's again, when, when individuals started to take a step back and say, what's really important to me, I think that work life integration, right, is that the flexibility to actually perform family activities during that traditional, you know, eight to five, nine to five Workday. And so it's really beyond just a scenario of do I drive into the office or not?
Speaker 3 00:08:20 It's more can the companies in, in the, in the sense of that reevaluation period, have the companies really taken an intentional approach to responding to the needs of the employees, right. Is to identify whether or not they are prepared. We as organizations are prepared to be flexible and adapt to those changing needs because they're, we're, we're learning so much throughout this period. And so, you know, I look at it in the sense of saying it's not necessarily just the employee who needs to try and identify how they build that connection, but also how can the company, just, as you said, you're talking with your employees on your, your group on a daily basis. What can the company do to really be adaptable, flexible, meet those needs, and then equip the organizational leaders of the organization to really help drive those connections over time.
Speaker 1 00:09:10 And if people are feeling disconnected, what are some questions they should be asked themselves, Sean, if they are feeling like, I don't know, I'm, I'm not, I've lost my sense of purpose at the organization. What questions should they be asking themselves in order to carve a path forward?
Speaker 4 00:09:28 If that purpose is in part driven by connection, it's really important that people think about how did I find connection at work? What, what did I value about the way we interacted previously and try to replicate that work with their manager to say, how, how can we, if it's having a team meeting once a week in person to the degree that you can, you know, unless unless people are in different locations, if it's meeting for a dinner or a couple times a month to say, Hey, let's just have a personal check in and see how things are going. But the truth is we were also able now to have a little bit more flexibility in terms of connecting outside of work. So I can coach a team after school because I have a little bit more flexibility. I, I don't, um, I, frankly I didn't have a commute. My commute was five minutes anyway, but <laugh>, uh, so
Speaker 1 00:10:22 Truth comes
Speaker 4 00:10:22 Out. Coach. I coach an athletics team after work some days, and I wouldn't have been able to do that. If I were tethered to the desk in the office, I had a friend who I grew up with, texted me at noon today and said, want to go to lunch? I shouldn't say this in front of Jonathan, but I, I might have done that on a, on a particular day. And so I have an opportunity to connect at a human level with my family in a different way, because I'm at home. I have an opportunity to connect socially in a different way if I'm given some of that flexibility. So we have to figure out how do we find those outlets that work best for us, even if it's not exactly the way it looked two and a half years ago.
Speaker 3 00:11:01 It's interesting that you bring that up, Sean, because the, when you say, Hey, look, you shouldn't tell me that you were gonna go have long. No, absolutely. Right. That, that is the authentic conversation should we should be having with, between employer and employee, right. With, with the participants of this organization that we're driving, because your purpose part of your purpose, because I know you, right. Part of your purpose is family is friends. And, and it's very important to support that and not shut that down, right? Absolutely. You go to lunch and joy, have a good time come back. Re-energize right. <laugh> I mean, that, that is, is really the, the, the focus is trying to truly raise that level of EQ if you will, within the organization. So leaders are prepared to be able to understand and have empathy for what drives somebody, what their purpose is. It may not be exclusively at the office.
Speaker 1 00:11:51 Well, all right, Jonathan and Sean look out for that lunch invitation from me coming shortly, you know, Coupa is a tech company. It produces software that helps businesses to manage their spending. And if you will, excuse me for saying so that can sound pretty dry. Well, how do you help people find their purpose at Coupa to instill a sense of higher purpose, a mean in their work that goes beyond, you know, the tech elements of spending management.
Speaker 3 00:12:18 Wow. There's a number of ways in that, you know, I just to start with, I think that, you know, employees really want more than just a paycheck for their employers, if you think about kind of the, the meaning of purpose. And I think McKenzie just came out with a report recently tweet that said roughly 7% or so of employees find their purpose at work. And, you know, what, what does that mean? If you think about purpose it's that they wanna be challenged, that they wanna, they wanna be authentic. They want leaders to do what they say and say what they do. And most of all, really they wanna learn and grow. And so, you know, we can start with just that kind of concept of, you know, Coupa, for example, is a place for personal professional development. We really look at the employee first to help drive their per personal professional expression. And so, you know, during this time particularly, and I think we're really proud to say that I think we've, we've done in the last two years, roughly a thousand promotions internally. So, you know, allowing people, that platform for, for personal development is, is big.
Speaker 1 00:13:14 That's terrific. That's a lot of promotions.
Speaker 3 00:13:17 Yeah. It's pretty good. Right. I mean, it's, we really do believe that, you know, from promotions from within it's, you know, employees are our greatest asset, but more so to your point, which is sure that we are a business spend management organization, but there's some really cool things when you peel back that on your, in a little bit, because we allow, if you think about, you know, one of our big pushes right now is sustainable business spend management. Any anybody can go out there and, and spend money, but, you know, are we doing it in a, in a really intelligent way? Can we, you know, help reduce the, the Delta between customers, good intentions and maybe meaningful actions with, of things like, you know, our ability to operationalize their corporate purpose, or I'm sorry to operationalize their corporate purpose to, you know, embed considerations like sustainability and diversity within their purchasing decisions and even within their supplier landscape.
Speaker 1 00:14:10 Can you, like, what would be an example of how you would frame the thinking about that to have purpose in supply decisions? Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:14:20 So we, uh, we just released our, our, our ESG report recently, and we speak specifically around our supplier diversity portal. So as CUPA from the CUPA community customer community, customers can take a look at and analyze whether or not these suppliers, uh, that they're purchasing from are of a diverse standpoint. Are they adhering to, or lack modern slavery standards? You know, is it a, you know, do we have the right gender balance for our suppliers? Uh, and so this is all completely transparent. So you can take a look and say, Hey, how am I spending my money as an organization? And am I spending it in the right places? Am I supporting the right things? So, you know, everybody has their mission statement and, you know, I think everybody has the best of intention, but can you take a really intentional approach to how that is, how that's applied within your own spend management process?
Speaker 4 00:15:09 Andwe, I'm not gonna get defensive about you calling us boring or dry or whatever you say. No,
Speaker 1 00:15:15 <laugh>, I, I, I said, I said, it can sound, no, I do not all the time. Just sometimes maybe
Speaker 4 00:15:20 What, how, how the world, he be in a conversation with Jonathan and me and think boring and dry. But we just, in the past few months we started the employee engagement team or sorry, employee experience team kicked off a Cuba chat series. So we've had several chats that have been really interesting on, on a variety of topics. One was during pride, L G B T themed one was around suicide. We just had one on Chinese new year. And few weeks ago, one of our team members did a chat. He was in the military, he was in the air force for 25 years and just retired from the air force and joined our team. And he did a chat about the relationship between leadership and the military and leadership in corporate. And then maybe further on that spectrum as leadership at CUPA. And he, he opened up his presentation with a slide that had a picture of a young girl, eating food, a, a doctor and a nurse working on a patient, and then a plain full of what looked like refugees.
Speaker 4 00:16:26 And he said, people's impression in the military is we are involved in war and we fight our mission is much broader than that. We feed people who are hungry. We go to foreign lands and provide medical care to groups of people who can't afford that. We fly refugees out of country like Afghanistan when they're in danger. And he said, so then he did his present when he closed his presentation. He said, I wanna go back to that original slide. And you all need to know working here at Coupa. We play a role in each one of those pictures that I shared. We play a role in the suppliers for the military who are able to have those other missions that go beyond just so it was a really good illustration of how we can view purpose in our work as well. We all produce an aspect of Cooper's ultimate product or service that enables other people to do good things as well.
Speaker 1 00:17:29 Thank you for sharing that, that is such an insightful concrete example of how, how you can connect the dots for people, because I think sometimes it can sort of be hard to, to find that, you know, to connect to those dots and put all the pieces of the puzzle together yourself. So it's, it's great that you shared that example with us in terms of how you can start to think about the work that you do and what is the greater impact in society. And so let's expand this a little further. So that was an example, CUPA chats, you just mentioned, are there other tools or strategies or programs that you in place to assist with this to help employees find their sense of purpose?
Speaker 3 00:18:14 Yeah, shoot. There's, there's quite a few. I mean, we, we just listed two there off the top, but just to, to check off a few, uh, we would be, you know, our employee resource groups, because, you know, depending on what type of, you know, we have a women's resource group, we have a black resource group, we have an LGBTQ plus resource group. And, and certainly there's a lot of purpose driven on that. And a lot of education as those groups begin to host chats and begin to host events and allow us to create this environment that, you know, people are feeling in terms of purpose connected, they're feeling passionate. They're, they're, they're feeling cared for. You know, we have a, an arm of our business, which is cup of care as a complete volunteer or volunteerism and donation or group, which is, you know, every, there is a, a large amount of money that's put aside on, on an annual basis to contribute back into charitable organizations. And for that matter, we're encouraged, heavily encouraged to take advantage of volunteer time off. So you, you hear about paid time off or vacation, whatever it might be. Well, we also do a VTO or a volunteer time off. So, you know, really having those kinda frameworks to help out, I think are really important
Speaker 1 00:19:22 With the volunteer time off. How much time do you give people?
Speaker 3 00:19:24 Geez, Sean, you've, you've, you're running the onboarding sessions, I believe. Is it
Speaker 4 00:19:29 16 hours? So two, four days.
Speaker 3 00:19:32 Yep.
Speaker 1 00:19:32 That's really nice. And that's, and that's, and you don't, people don't have to use their vacation time for that that's giving back and the company encourages that and, and gives people the time to do that.
Speaker 3 00:19:42 Yeah. Yeah. And we'll do company matches at times, right? Where we'll have, you know, particular giving event where the employees are, you know, you can choose the, the charity that you wanna don't two, and then the company will match those donations. So it's definitely part of our culture baked in.
Speaker 4 00:19:57 We also do programs around culture. So Jonathan just participated this morning in one of our kick start programs for kick start programs are four sessions that happen in north America happen weekly in other countries. They, they happen every other week. We just have bigger numbers in north America right now, but the, all the new newly hired team members get in a group. And they'll talk about certain things, how to be successful at Coupa, how to be part of the Coupa village. They talk about how to be, how to define your success Coupa's brand and how they articulate their, their brand and our brand. And today was meet the leaders. So they have an opportunity to meet the leaders and just hear about their experience, ina, what information about their parts of the organization. So that that's one where we really emphasize culture. We have the Coupa Core program, which is three 90 minute sessions where we spend time in each of those sessions, discretely talking about one of our core values.
Speaker 4 00:21:05 So in, in week one, they talk about ensure customer success and they make that value real for those individuals. They talk about who is your customer? How do you make your customer successful? In week two, we talk specifically about focus on results and do exercise to get people to think it's not this wonderful notion on the wall. It's a, a practical way for me to think about how I focus my time. And then our third core value is strive for excellence. So we have a 90 minute session where people do exercise and think about how they can get better, how they can make processes better. So that's a focus on our culture. We do that with mentor programs and coaching program. And interestingly, I, I think you'd find this particularly interesting in our coaching sessions over the course of the past year, we have found that the focus on meaning and purpose is so much greater. They spent so much more time talking about that than say a year ago and way more than a two years ago.
Speaker 1 00:22:08 Isn't that interesting?
Speaker 4 00:22:09 It is interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:22:11 Why do you think that is higher now than a year ago or two years ago when the pandemic first hit?
Speaker 4 00:22:18 I just think when, when there's such a, a massive disruption in how we operate and how we interact, people just need to explore and make sense of that for themselves and try to find answers. I know I was at Santa Clara university. I was coaching college tennis and really enjoying it. It was a terrific experience, nine 11 hit. And I reevaluated what was important to me and what I was getting out of my experience. And I made a shift in people reevaluate. What's important during times like this such disruption, they have to rethink things.
Speaker 1 00:22:53 Sean can, can I do a deeper dive on that? Cause I think that's really interesting. And I think that's a story that maybe a lot of people can relate to. I don't
Speaker 4 00:23:02 Wes,
Speaker 1 00:23:07 What that made you reassess what you were doing as a tennis coach and made you want to shift your focus professionally?
Speaker 4 00:23:17 So what I realized was coaching college tennis at Santa Clara, which I really enjoyed was my entire life. I had just a laser focus in that air. And every evening I was recruiting till 9:00 PM at night, every weekend, I was either taking team members to tournaments or going in recruiting at tournaments. So my whole life was there. And when nine 11 hit, I thought you never know, and do I want more outta life? And I realized I do. I, I loved what I was doing. I loved the guys on the team, but I needed to expand my life, expand my horizons and, and frankly be able to retire at some point.
Speaker 1 00:23:59 Hmm. That's a great illustration. Thank you. Was, and then I, and I rudely interrupted, so I apologize, but you were about to make another point. Did you wanna go ahead and make that or
Speaker 4 00:24:10 19 years ago when I left Santa Clara, I would certainly have remembered what I was about to say. <laugh>, there's no way I'm gonna be able to get back to that. <laugh> I'll maybe I'll remember later
Speaker 3 00:24:21 If I could jump in real quick because Sean, I think you said something that was, was pretty critical there and, and tweet your first, the, the question effectively was, you know, what, what kind of strategy or frameworks do you have in place to support that, you know, to, to give Sean a nod here? I mean, one of the things is that we, as a leadership team really need to appreciate and, and invest in our managers, right? Because the managers matter, we have a concept of an upside down org chart at Coupa. And so you think about a traditional org chart with the CEO at the top and you know, everything kind of funnels out from there. Well, if you visualize that 180 degrees and upside down with that CEO at the bottom, the, the leadership team at the bottom and, uh, the branches going up leaves coming out, being the individual contributors, I just described a tree ultimately.
Speaker 3 00:25:06 And so the way that we look at our approach is that managers have to support the success of those people that, that work with them, right? And we don't say that, Hey, we manage somebody, we support them. So the managers and Sean has an entire six month manager development program around how managers need to, to understand that ethos us, and really appreciate the fact that they are responsible for making their branches stronger for, for making their leaves greener for making that tree healthier. Part of that certainly is purpose is to sit and understand from the team that they're supporting, how best they can support their growth, how best they can support their work life integration, how best they can support their wellbeing. Right. I mean, that is something that we have to keep top of mind in a day to day, uh, activity.
Speaker 1 00:25:56 Yeah. And I really love that tree example. Some people also call that the servant leadership model, right? The, the CEOs down at the bottom of the pyramid, the inverted pyramid, and supporting everybody up above as you go up the pyramid. So these are the things that have worked well. Have you tried anything in this area that, uh, has not worked out very well? And what did you learn from those experiences? What advice would you have for others who are trying to start these types of programs in their organizations?
Speaker 4 00:26:23 So one thing you'll find I could is we do not make mistakes.
Speaker 1 00:26:28 What an amazing company,
Speaker 4 00:26:30 We have plenty, plenty to learn from. And, and one, interestingly, not to overdo the pandemic theme, but we had a really good plan when we would acquire companies. We've acquired several companies over the past several years, and we had a routine, a plan that really worked our executives. Several executives would go on the day of the acquisition and meet the team and get them excited about COA. Talk about our culture, talk about the benefits that they're gonna receive, the opportunity they're gonna have. Then we would leave a member or two from our team on site just to be there for two weeks and then someone else for the next two weeks to be a resource and to engage. And so they, they had a human who they could interact with. Then a couple weeks later, we would show up with a team from the university and a group.
Speaker 4 00:27:25 We call the connectors and a couple of executive sponsors. And we would do a full day event about Cuba and our core values. It was very much like our, our current 9, 3 90 minute sessions, but it was a full day and people would really dive in and try to understand what the company was all about with the cultural, all about the ask questions. And they interacted with us as human beings, and we gr gained some credibility as a company, but also human credibility as well and human connection. And so that worked great when we were able to engage physically in person, once the, the pandemic hit, we've acquired a few companies and we have not been able to do any of those in-person events. And we haven't figured out, we hadn't figured out how to translate that in a virtual world. So we had a couple acquisitions when we were really struggled to build that connection and credibility that you didn't just get acquired by this big ogre, a company who doesn't care about you at all, and who only is here to make money.
Speaker 4 00:28:30 You got acquired by this company who cares about you and wants Cooper to be a, your platform for personal and professional growth. So we learned a few ways to do that more effectively. And part of that is more effective communications, a more robust boarding program and virtualize that core program that we talked about earlier, and to have a buddy program where individuals connect with a buddy at COA who helps them navigate the organization. So we weren't prepared for acquiring a couple company virtually, and we learned a lot that way. Jonathan, I don't know if you have any thoughts about those struggles and the, the learning.
Speaker 3 00:29:11 Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed it on the head. Sean is that we had a, a real good framework for the in person acquisitions. And I think our biggest takeaway frankly, was overcommunicate, overcommunicate, overcommunicate, because we know that as somebody goes through an acquisition, there is a, a massive on a change management that they're going through. And that initial bit of just denial, whether I don't even understand what's happening here. You know, as Sean said, we left components behind, we set up a framework for those people to slowly digest and begin to integrate and understand the support network that they have at Coupa. When we did it virtually, we tried to deliver the same message, but because we didn't have that constant presence that was there, what we realized is we needed to reiterate the message and bring executives back in and bring leadership back in. Because even though we may have covered it in a web meeting that may not have been with their mind was at the time, their mind may have been elsewhere. The dog may have been barking, but they would've been worried about whether or not they were gonna get their next paycheck. Uh, and so really trying to understand and appreciate what those individual needs were, is helping us to reframe how we would do it again if we had to do it virtually.
Speaker 1 00:30:18 And when you say overcommunicate, did you mean via email or more, you know, virtual sessions with executives? What did you do?
Speaker 4 00:30:26 I'll answer one of those. And Jonathan, you may have some, some other ones as well. One thing that we weren't as effective doing remotely is over communicating about how this new group, how this new organization, how this new product or service fits into Coupa strategically, and as an organization and culturally, we need to spend more time really helping them understand this is how Coupa works. This is how you fit in, and this is how we're gonna integrate. And to be transparent to say, we made this acquisition, we were only able to do this amount of research. Now that we've been together for a month or for six weeks. And we've looked under the hood, we see they're the, we made some assumptions that were incorrect and here are some synergies that we're now aware of that are gonna make this connection even better, but really doing that at, at the executive level to help people understand where do I fit in? And in this new place I chose to apply for a job at this company. Now I'm working for this company without any choice. Why am I here? And I need to feel good about it.
Speaker 1 00:31:35 That's a great illustration. Thank you. You know, as we talk about purpose here, I know that sometimes the word purpose can seem to be too lofty, and it doesn't necessarily resonate with everybody. Same for the word values, right? Sometimes that just goes over people's heads. What do you do in those instances? How do you reframe the conversation so that it is more effective so that it does resonate?
Speaker 3 00:32:01 Yeah, it's, it's funny. I, I, I was just listening to, uh, a speaker earlier this week who was, you know, talking about values and how everybody has their values and mentioned that Enron actually had one of their values, I think was integrity. I had to go on, I had to go on, you know, and search it on. I'm like, wow.
Speaker 1 00:32:19 Talk about not living your values. Right.
Speaker 3 00:32:21 Right. And, and so that's is that, you know, every company has values, everybody's got their mission statement written on the wall, whatever it may be, it's the successful teams that truly internalize those. Right. And they bind around. And that's, that's what we talk about, you know, over and over again, in company meetings and all hands meetings, even, even to the board, Rob will talk about the core values and how those three values that Coupa has bind us. Rob
Speaker 4 00:32:48 Is your CEO.
Speaker 3 00:32:48 Yeah. Rob our CEO. Sorry. Thank you for that. You know, that's, that's what binds us together. The culture evolves. It gets better. We've got, you know, differences of geography, of department, differences of background, differences of ideology. All of these differences are celebrated, but it's the core values. Those three things that bind us together as an organization. And like you said, they can be really, really lofty, right. It's like, okay, geez. How do you, how do you take this and see how it's applied within an organization? And our core values are really simple, right? There's just three of them. There are three words of peace. It's ensure customer success strive for excellence and, uh, focus on results, right? I mean, those are our three core values and it's very easy then for us to take a look and translate those values into actual behaviors that can be demonstrated daily.
Speaker 3 00:33:36 So it's not just words on the wall, but something that's truly embedded within the organization, you know, and everything that we do from, you know, the Sean was talking about our core workshop, where we examine the core values in depth. You know, as employees on board, we go through each one and we talk about those core values, how we see them in action and you know, where they might be interpreted incorrectly and where they can go wrong. You know, our performance reviews are, are a hundred percent based on our core values. In fact, it's just three, three questions, which is how did you, you know, how did you demonstrate these core values? You know, we we've got company awards that are best based on our core values. So it really is something that we constantly remind ourselves of. We say that those are the non-negotiables being part of, of Coupa, that you have to really be able to embody those core values.
Speaker 3 00:34:21 And I would say that if you look at just, you know, in fact, as an example, as I would interview candidates, when candidates say, Hey, I hear a lot about your core values on the, you know, website. I will encourage them to put anybody that they speak to from Coupa on the spot and say name your three core values. They gotta be able to do it off the top of their head, right. They gotta be able to talk in depth about what each one means to them and, and how they, uh, appreciate and embody those. So, you know, it's lofty aspiration, but it's something that we've done a very good job. I think of, of taking the foundational building blocks or elements of those core values and said, this is how we do it at Coupa. This is how we use and embody these core values.
Speaker 4 00:35:00 We also break down those values into what we call key threads and differentiators. And there are threads that are weaved throughout the organization to hopefully differentiate us from other organizations. And those are really practical, like account of authenticity, say what you mean bias for action. Don't just sit around and think about stuff, make a move, take steps, stay at, not be a victim, but recognize what you can do to impact a certain situation or Coupa village. So we have practical concepts that while, while values may look a little bit different in Basel, Switzerland, from how they look in Pune or how they look in San Mateo, we need to have a biased fraction, no matter where we sit, we need to be authentic, no matter what office we go to, or don't, we need to be aware of the CUPA village and be a, a valuable member of that community, no matter where we sit. So making it really PR for people helps them make sense of that.
Speaker 1 00:36:00 And Sean, do you adjust the lingo that you use as well with people in your conversations with them about purpose and values? If they, if those terms don't resonate with you, do you substitute it with something else?
Speaker 4 00:36:13 What, what we do instead is we help people make sense of those values for themselves. So we say, what does a bias fraction look like for you? I can tell you what it looks like for me. What does it look like for, for you authenticity in the fifth floor where some of the execs are in San Mateo versus Pune India, authenticity looks really, really different. One place is gonna be a lot more direct than the other place is, but what does authenticity look like for you? How can you be authentic and feel safe in this environment? So we have conversations like that in those sessions to help people make sense of each of those ideas for themselves.
Speaker 1 00:36:54 Do you reframe the question as well, instead of maybe asking, what is your purpose or what is the purpose you feel here? Do you use, I think you had said to me that, you know, sometimes you just say, what impact do you want to have at this organization? And that seems to be a better word for, for some,
Speaker 4 00:37:09 For sure. Yeah. Not, not quite as lofty. I was mentioning to Jonathan yesterday, the day before we had one of our teammates in here, we were gonna have a really big team encounter for four days where really big for us, there were eight or nine people who are gonna all be together in San Mateo, out of everyone. There are only two of us who weren't impacted by COVID either ourselves or family members. So only two of us ended up here in San Mateo, one person flew, but we had three dinners together where that was one of the questions that I had. What impact do you want to have here at Coupa? What impact did you have in your previous organization? How can you change that? How do you wanna replicate that? How do you wanna be different when you leave this organization and having those conversations really create a stronger connection between us, but also help me as the person who manages, supports that individual to know how to do that better.
Speaker 1 00:38:03 And I know you both have mentioned San Mateo, and for those who are listening, who are per, perhaps outside of California, San Mateo is in California, it's a city, uh, in the San Francisco bay area. And that's where Coupa is, uh, located. Headquartered. What I find really interesting at Coupa is that you approach this, not only from the perspective of what benefits the company as a whole, but there's also really great focus on what benefits, the individual. You have a whole session for employees on defining their success, even going so far as to help them enhance their linked in profiles. Why is this so important to COA?
Speaker 3 00:38:41 We had mentioned Rob our CEO earlier, and, and, and this is again, something that really comes from the bottom of the tree, which is, if we take a look, what, what are we looking to achieve in of the employees? When we say that this is a place for their personal and professional expression, is that if they can be a better, a stronger person, when they leave the organization, then they came, then we've done our job, right? So it's, it's, it's something where it's not just, Hey, look, I want to feed this person information because it's gonna help do, you know, X, Y, and Z is, uh, you know, if you look at even something like the, the program that we rolled out, which is the colors program that Sean was mentioning earlier, you know, that is something where if we can help somebody have conversations with their friends and family and loved ones and, and be able to help create some empathy.
Speaker 3 00:39:31 And, you know, you look at the, the cultural quotient and the emotional programs that we roll out. I mean, these are things that we hope benefit the individual themselves, because we have this concept at Coupa that says that none of us are as smart as all of us. And so all of us together, and that ultimately is where this concept of what we call the Coupa village comes together, because we say, look, it really takes a village to be success takes of every single villager has a rule to play in the success of the village. So we have to make sure that everybody has those opportunities to grow and get better, because if they can focus on themselves and, and do good for themselves, then they're gonna come back more centered and be able to really drive a lot of results in their day to day actions at work.
Speaker 1 00:40:15 Sean, you get the last word here.
Speaker 4 00:40:17 That was good timing by me.
Speaker 1 00:40:20 <laugh>
Speaker 4 00:40:21 Jonathan mentioned in his last comment in previously about emotional intelligence and the number one most important component of emotional intelligence is self-awareness. And we wanna have a really emotionally intelligent workforce. So part of that, helping people define their success starts with helping them understand who they are. Jonathan talked about the colors program. So helping them understand what their preferences are, what their tendencies are, helping 'em understand what the, their strengths are, capture those on your LinkedIn profile, all your accomplishments and your strengths, help them understand where their gaps are, is really, really important. And if we can help them be more clear about who they are, what they're great at, what they need to improve, they're gonna be much more successful at Coupa and more successful going forward as well. It's not just a philanthropic thing where we say we want to support you and help you get better. We benefit as an organization as well.
Speaker 1 00:41:19 Well stated this has been a meaningful and purposeful conversation on this very topic. So thank you. Both Sean Burns and Jonathan fear of Coupa software, always a delight to talk to you guys. I always learned so much. So thank you for being part of leaders, playbook, our pleasure. Thanks.
Speaker 5 00:41:37 And thank you, Thuy.
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