Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Hi everyone. I'm Dr. Diane Hamilton. Welcome to Leaders Playbook, a show about how to drive transformational impact in your organization. We talked with innovative leaders across multiple industries to hear about the best tools, resources, practices, and strategies to help you reach the top of your game. I can't wait to share our leaders' insights with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:35 Hello everyone. I am your host, Dr. Diane Hamilton. I am the C of tanera, and I also serve on the board of Advisors for Global Mentor Network. Thank you for joining us. Our guest today is Susan Haley. Susan is Vice President Global Talent Acquisition and Equity, diversity and Inclusion at OpenText. OpenText is the global leader in enterprise information management and ranked highest by Gartner Group for strategic vision and ability to execute in content services and business networks. Building on huge success in Canada, OpenText is positioned to help large global enterprises manage and transition into the cloud. Join me as we hear from Susan regarding global talent recruiting to improve D N I and engagement. Welcome Susan.
Speaker 2 00:01:19 Thank you Diane. Nice to be here.
Speaker 1 00:01:21 Oh, well I was really looking forward to it. And you're welcome. This is going to be a great discussion. We're gonna go in a few different directions here, and I, I think though it really helps to start the show with just a background on my guests because you guys work so hard to get to this level of success. So can you gimme your backstory?
Speaker 2 00:01:38 Sure. Gosh, I have been in this field now about 25 years, but I also made a career shift midway through my career. I had started out in marketing and sales in the tech industry. I, my first job was at I B M, I went to Berkeley, so I, my literally graduated in June and started in August with, with I B M and, you know, really had a, a lot of fun in the marketing and sales function. Lot of good success. And I, halfway through my career decided I really was much more interested in the people side than the product side, per se. So made the move into talent and had the opportunity to work for a, a leading executive search firm named a Egon Zender, where I really learned a lot about recruiting and executives and, and then from there have moved more into the corporate side, leading that function as well as all the rest of recruiting and equity, diversity and inclusion. But it's been primarily based in tech. I've had a couple forays out, but generally it's been in the tech industry.
Speaker 1 00:02:36 Well, you know, it's funny, as you said that, I think I graduated in August and started as a bar for IBM in August, <laugh> when I was back in the day ni they were selling, uh, system 36 s and 30 eights. Oh,
Speaker 2 00:02:47 Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:02:48 It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been
Speaker 2 00:02:49 A while. <laugh>.
Speaker 1 00:02:51 But I love tech and I love people. So I think you and I would could spend all night talking about our commonalities. And I think that, you know, when you talk about this background, you had, you, you mentioned your executive search and leadership experience and, and my sister actually is a recruiter and she worked in recruiting before she was in nurse recruiting. She talks about how different it is, and cuz I've said, why don't you create courses to do this? And, and recruiting's not the same in every industry. And that can be challenging when you're putting people in these global positions. And it's challenging, especially when they're working in different countries. And you, and I've talked to your, your people when you hire them, they're already in those countries, you're not moving them to other countries, but there's still a lot
Speaker 2 00:03:31 Of Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:03:31 Different challenges that go along with training in That's right. In foreign areas. So what kind of challenges do you face when you do that?
Speaker 2 00:03:38 Well, you know, every market is a little bit different. And when I say market, I mean geography for talent. So, you know, even Canada, you know, we're a Canadian based company, but that's a little bit different than the United States. And we have a big contingent of employees in India. So again, that's different. So I think, you know, it's really, I think it's being very sensitive to what is important in that culture in terms of what it takes to be successful in business and in creating value for the business. I mean, the nice thing that's universal is that, you know, we all try to create value in the same way, which is essentially making more money than we spend <laugh>. It's pretty simple, and that's true in every place that we operate. So, you know, but finding the people that can execute that goal in a particular function.
Speaker 2 00:04:27 So, you know, it's gonna be very different in professional services than it will be in engineering. And again, very different in sales than it will be in marketing for, and, and they are different sales and marketing. So, you know, I think the key is understanding what the job really is, what the level of expectation is on that role, and then assessing people with respect to their backgrounds and their experience and their accomplishments to really pick the best one or try to get the best one. Because sometimes you pick the best one and they, you know, we're still in a bit of a, well, certainly at the executive level and market where people have choices. So you may think, oh my gosh, we've found the right person. Well guess what? They may have three other options in front of them. So then it's like, okay, now what do we do? And, and how do we make this really attractive to that candidate? So, you know, you go from assessing and selecting and with certain roles and times of, you know, the economy, you're switching really quickly to how do I sell them on this opportunity?
Speaker 1 00:05:27 You made so many good points there. And it reminded me when I worked for AstraZeneca when I was in sales, they put me on this marketing team where I had to go back and look at all their flyers and things before they were coming out, all their, their marketing information and they had me go test it on the doctors in the field to see what they thought of it. And I think it's really good to get that cross pollination of experience within different areas of the company. Like you said, marketing is not the same thing as sales marketing comes up with, um, you know, the marketing campaigns of what they're gonna say and, and the salespeople deliver it. And that if they don't necessarily always work together, should they work together more like that? I mean, do companies cross pollinate like that and what do you guys do
Speaker 2 00:06:07 There? I mean, I think very effective companies cross pollinate when you find dysfunction, it's usually because they aren't connecting. And you know, at the end of the day, we're all people and we all have opinions. And so, you know, if it's not working between sales and marketing, it's, you know, the answer's probably in the middle between one group not doing what they need to do and the other group not telling them what they need to do. So working through that is really important and making sure that, you know, you don't end up in these silos of, of functions because you can't run an organization that way. And you know, if you need marketing, if you think marketing is important for your business and it's gonna drive value, then it needs to be something that really supports your sales efforts and vice versa. So when your salespeople are out there learning things, they don't sort of not communicate, hey, you know, you, like you said, you know, we use this flyer.
Speaker 2 00:07:00 If I'm the salesperson and my my client, you know, my doctor, my customer didn't understand it or you know, told me they never read these things. You know, that would be really important information for the marketer to go, wow, well then why are we doing this? And maybe we need to do this differently. And so it's, you know, really gathering because you know, at the end of the day, we're just solving a lot of problems, but if we don't know what the problems are, then we're gonna go off and solve the wrong problems. So it's important to know what the right problems are that are gonna make your business stronger, make your functions stronger, and hopefully, you know, make you more money.
Speaker 1 00:07:34 And it's so true. And as you talked about silos, I, I actually, I have my students read the silo effect quite often and know some of my courses because we tend to not think outside of our cubicle and our silos and, and some of the best answers we get are from looking into other areas. Even other companies and other industries are really helpful. I think a lot of companies are dealing with a lot of cultural awareness training with their employees because we get so used to what way we've done it and how we'd like it. And you, you mentioned, uh, India for example, having a different culture than maybe another country for, I'm curious, what cultural differences have you seen in India that are different from what you have in Canada and how do you go about training there?
Speaker 2 00:08:17 Well, one thing that, and again, I have the lens of recruiting and you know, talent development, but here's a really interesting, I think this is interesting in the talent selection and recruiting area. So in India, when you get a job offer, let's just say you get a job offer, you have, I think it's either two months or three months, you know, so you don't leave right away, you know, it's this sort of period of time and so you've accepted the offer, you got a new offer, you're gonna leave your company, you told your company you're gonna leave. Well, what happens is they have <laugh>, they have these websites, and you may know this Diane, they have these websites where you can go find another job in that three period, that three month period. And so, you know, if I'm the recruiter for a company and I, oh yay, I got Diane and she's gonna start in three months, life is great.
Speaker 2 00:09:03 Well guess what? You know, Diane can put her resume literally on a website that says, you know, notice period.com, which I actually think is the name of a website in India. Another person like me from another company can say, Hey, Diane's on the market, I'm gonna go after her and I'll pay her $5 more than, you know, Susan was gonna pay her. So you end up with this dropout rate, we, we literally measure it. It's a dropout rate on candidates because they say yes, but then 50% of the time they don't show up or 22% or whatever, you know, so you really, you know, you just never, you can sort of never rest that you solve the problem of building your teams in India because you're gonna have this leaky candidate pipeline basically because other companies are gonna, so it's a very competitive market. We don't have that in the United States. It's sort of, we're even in Canada. Like it's sort of bad form to re to re you know, reneg is the word reneg on an offer. So that is just not the case in India. And you know, they don't, it's just not a problem. So
Speaker 1 00:10:05 Do you strategically plan for that and and try to win them back more money?
Speaker 2 00:10:10 Well, money is one thing, but also effort. So, you know, you try to really spend time up front like finding the people that are perfect fits for your company, the culture that they're looking for, the kind of experience and work that you do. And it, so, so you spend a lot more, you should spend more time up front. You could throw money at the problem a lot of companies do. And if they have high gross margins, great, they can do it. But if, you know, let's, I mean if you're kind of mindful of your costs, you live with that or you or you do come back and you know what the rate is. So if it's 50% then you know you have to hire at a higher rate upfront because you're gonna lose 50% of them. You really look at these numbers and then you plan your recruiting strategy accordingly to get you to the final number you're trying to reach.
Speaker 1 00:10:57 Does that limit you on your D N I efforts? Like you have to get who you can get and that you can't be as culturally diverse?
Speaker 2 00:11:06 Yeah, that's a really good question. Yes and no. I think the yes, part of it is of course, you know, maybe you had really focused on bringing women in, let's say, and you know, guess what? You know, 50% aren't making it through the process. But the no part is that upfront you can be more mindful of who you're going after. So for example, there are lots, not lots, but there are many schools in India that are for women only. They're women engineering schools or they're women focused schools. So you could spend a lot of time cultivating the relationship with that school, get to know the, the school, the school gets to know you as a company and you, so you spend that time upfront with a source of talent that is compatible with you and you invest upfront so that when they do, when we make an offer to those folks, they're like, oh, I know all about OpenText. They're a great company I'm in. And sometimes, you know, money isn't the only lever, obviously, you know, I mean, I'm sure all of us have had jobs where we made some money and we hated what we were doing. So, you know, I, we can really sell, I always like to sell the quality of the job and what you're looking for right now in your career. And again, if, if you cultivate these relations, and it could be with women's organizations, so, so the, it's a yes and no to your
Speaker 1 00:12:22 Question. How much does word of mouth have to do with it getting more people? Like if you do, it
Speaker 2 00:12:28 Helps, you know, I mean, yeah. And there are things like Glassdoor and, and comparably and you know, all these different sites where, you know, anybody can go and say what they wanna say or you know, in your own network you can say what you wanna say about either the experience of that company working there, the interview experience. I mean there's this thing called the theory of weak ties. You may have heard of this where you don't get jobs from the people that you know really well. You usually get connected to somebody that somebody else knows and then it's their brother-in-law's sister that has a job. And that's where, so it's this theory of weak ties. So it is good to have it out there if you're looking for a job because it does help that people, cuz generally people really like to help if they can.
Speaker 1 00:13:11 Yeah, I'm actually teaching class right now where I'm having them develop their LinkedIn profile in one of the assignments and I said, it's not necessarily the connection you have, it might be somebody that they are connected to. So don't always be too quick to say no to checking people out to see whether you wanna connect with them. And it's, it's just, you never know what I, some of the boards I serve on simply because somebody's brother or whatever cousin brother-in-law, you know, and they've led to some great things and I love that point, you know, and I was thinking about some of the other content that we teach in some of the courses and one of the things I include is an interview I did with Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments and when I interviewed him it was not about finance, which is probably through him, I'm sure he is expecting it to be all financial questions. I was asking him about interviewing and how well he felt he can judge people in the interview process. And he said, you know, it's just so hard because you, you talk to him for such a short amount of time and they'll tell, you know, it's not about what they can do, it's what they will do. So I love that, but how do you know if people are will dos or can do people?
Speaker 2 00:14:18 Yeah, or or say they do <laugh>, right people
Speaker 1 00:14:21 They do. Yeah. That's a better,
Speaker 2 00:14:23 Yeah, I mean honestly that's the heart of recruiting and you know, there's a couple key questions that I always ask. You know, one is why are you, why are you making a move right now? Why are we talking, you know, cuz generally there're people that are employed and they're, you know, generally they have a job. So I always try to understand what's motivating them to have a conversation about a potential job. The second part though is, and this is really behavioral interviewing 1 0 1, but basically, you know, tell me about a time when you faced X, Y, Z problem. Tell me what you did and tell me what the result was. And I take a lot of notes on that because the way people tell that story is really revealing generally. And I usually go very quiet at that point and I try not to talk a lot in an interview.
Speaker 2 00:15:13 You know, you learn a lot when you're quiet and I like to talk, so I have to really manage myself. But then the second part of that is that once I kind of get that, then when we do reference checking we can do some validation. Did that really happen? And, and then I have the notes and you know, hey they, you know, apparently you went through this at that time and you know, so and so said they did this and that. You know, and you can tell right away when, when references will say, oh my gosh, they saved us thank, you know, thank oh my gosh, you know, or yeah, they were part of the team, you know,
Speaker 1 00:15:46 <laugh> big difference.
Speaker 2 00:15:48 Yeah, it's a big difference.
Speaker 1 00:15:49 What are you looking for in that kind of scenario? Are you looking for them to have solved very difficult challenges or the way they've solved the challenges or the way their, their perception is of the challenges?
Speaker 2 00:16:03 The first two, the perception of the challenges is not that interesting to me. I can judge, I mean I, as an interviewer I'll judge if it was a heart problem or not, but I think for them, I think it's equally, you know, did they solve it and how did they do it? And again, here's another revealing thing. If it's I I I I I that's really different than we, we, we, and, and you know, and it's, and that's kind of the nuance to it because generally you do solve these problems in teams and then the question is, well what was your role on the team? You know, were you the note taker or were you the project manager or were you the person who went to the executives with the recommendation? You know, what role did you play? And you know, and then what was the outcome? And actually I personally, even if the outcome is like, gosh, we didn't even make it, we didn't get it through, they didn't approve it, I'm usually kind of okay with that cuz I really wanna understand what their role was and how, and cuz you know, look, you don't win 'em all in business and sometimes I'm actually impressed with someone who would give me a an example like that because it says a lot about, you know, what they learned too in the process.
Speaker 1 00:17:09 It definitely does. And I, I guess what I was getting at with perception was do they sometimes perceive problem as a big deal that they solve when it's like a nothing little thing to you or do they, you know what I'm saying? Yes.
Speaker 2 00:17:21 That's why I said I'll be the judge of whether it was a big deal or not <laugh> well and, and with respect to what I'm looking for, you know, maybe it's a small little problem and maybe I think it's a small little problem and maybe I think, wow, if they solved that small little problem, that's a huge problem at my company or the company I'm recruiting for and vice versa, they may think, wow, you know, I solved this amazing thing. And I'm like, well yeah, and, and maybe it, it's amazing but it has no relevance to what we're trying to get done. There is so much, in my opinion, there's so much nuance and art to this as much as there is science and you know, you can take all the notes, well you can, you know, have 20 people interview them and have a conversation with 20 people and come to whatever conclusion.
Speaker 2 00:18:08 And I do believe in panel interviews by the way. I believe getting different perspectives is really important cuz you know, Nobo, none of us see everything. None of us see all the edges. But you know, in the interest of time and when we have to do things quickly, you know, then sometimes, you know, not all of, I mean every organization would like to do things perfectly, but you don't always have the luxury of time. So in that case then it's important to have enough people in the process that have had experience doing this so that you minimize the mistakes you make and you will make hiring mistakes. Everybody. Like if anybody says they've never made a hiring mistake, I I just don't believe them because, you know, we're not perfect.
Speaker 1 00:18:45 Well, you know, as you're talking about the panel interviews, I, I teach a lot of, uh, personality type of stuff and so in the marketing classes and the sales classes and different things that I teach, we often refer to panel interviews and what the challenges are. And I think from an employee perspective it's interesting because you try to reach the interviewer in their way, they prefer to be given information. So if you're like a high data person, as I'm talking to Susan, I'm gonna give all this data, right? But maybe as you're talking to Diane, she's this extrovert that wants you to be super chatty, super, you know, so I find panel interviews really very interesting to see how a person's flexibility is. Do you find when you do panel interviews that people change their personality, the way they deliver the content based on reading the other people? Or do you think they just give it the same way all the way across the board most of the time?
Speaker 2 00:19:35 Well, you know, that's a great question. I think, well I know because when we do our debriefs, we're looking for the commonality. We we're not looking for, well they answered this question that way and then they answer. I mean, in fact it would sort of be a negative if they were like not authentic about who they are, if you know what I'm saying. And so I think, you know, we're looking probably more for people that were authentically answering the question the way that they would answer the question. And I don't mean regardless of who's interviewing them, but you know, that sort of shows to me at least some integrity I guess you could say or you know, telling the truth to some extent. But you could also, you know, and, and and, and you may find that in a panel interview, the person that's really focused on the data may come back and go, you know, they really didn't give me enough data and make me feel comfortable.
Speaker 2 00:20:27 And that's an important data point, no pun intended. But that's an important thing to understand. If the job requires that. Now if the job doesn't require that as much and it is more the extroverted piece, like a sales job, let's say perhaps, you know, I would great point, you know, totally make sense. But for this particular job we're gonna go go towards the more the, you know, the, the skill that's, that shows their extroversion and that shows their ability to connect with people. And so it, again, it really depends on the job and on top of that, it depends on the job in the context of the company. Because the company, every company is different, every culture is different. And you know, somebody can be incredibly successful at, you know, a b ABC company and then they go to x, y, Z companies, same job or roughly same job and they, it doesn't work cuz they don't have perhaps all the support systems. So context matters a lot.
Speaker 1 00:21:21 It does. And I, I've had some companies, they're so clear with their culture, they've made me memorize it or another company, I have no idea what what they expect. Here's your desk and here's the phone. Right? And, and it may took take me a while to, to learn what it is. Usually if they just show you a desk on a phone, you kind of know what it is, it's not good. But you know, there's, there's a lot that goes in into this whole interviewing, finding diverse people, finding the right people. And I was thinking about this as I was coming up with what I was wanting to talk to you about today. And I remember a few people I thought were really good candidates, interviewed for my pharmaceutical company for where I worked, which I worked in the past. And they happened to come in at a time when they were using these remote camera crews to go in and have them just be the the interviewer kind of thing.
Speaker 1 00:22:09 They were, there wasn't even somebody from the company, it was just somebody holding the camera and saying, Susan, what do you think about this? And they would just ask him the question but they didn't ha they had no other interest in the company but they're than filming it. So basically the people interviewing ha who the interviewees had to look at the camera and just talk to, they don't know who their other, who's at the other end, but they're just answering questions. And I saw a lot of really good people not make it in that, you know, they probably would've if under normal circumstances. So now that we're in a virtual hiring, virtual things, there's still people now at the other end you can see people. But is there an impact by that? Is it making it better? Is it making it worse or does it have no impact?
Speaker 2 00:22:51 I think it makes it better. I really think it makes it better now, I think the example you gave is somewhat impersonal and I think that would be really kind of tough. But there are tools now. I mean we use a tool called HireVue where you can record your answers to standard questions and it's probably better for more entry level positions. But I think also the population now is, and especially millennials and and Gen Zs, I mean they're just so accustomed to being on a camera that it isn't that, you know, it's not as uncomfortable as it might have been, you know, with prior generations. So I think, you know, I would say that in the past though, before Covid v I mean I did all my interviews by phone, it was very rare to do a, you know, a Zoom or a a, a Skype at later stages in the process. Yes, but not right up front. But now that's really what we do and I think, I think it's a platform we're gonna have forever honestly. And even if we are all, all back in the office someday, which I don't actually think will happen. I think it's always gonna, I do, I just think we're gonna be hybrid for a long time. These are tools that give you so much information right away that, you know, over the phone you don't always get, I will say so I dunno if that answers your question, but No,
Speaker 1 00:24:01 It does. And I wonder if we'll get to a 3D soon because I remember going to see Michael Jackson's show in, in Vegas and they
Speaker 2 00:24:08 Had well avatars. Yeah, yeah. Honestly we, I think, I actually think that's gonna happen. I really do. I really think that's gonna happen. I mean the technology will happen now how it gets adopted and, but I actually think it will happen.
Speaker 1 00:24:23 You know, it's so interesting to look at this from both sides though, from the interviewee and the interviewer. And I think that when you're, you, you already gave great examples from India and how you to get people and how the complications are with the 50% dropping. But are there specific questions that you change based on the different areas? It could be the same job in Canada and the same job in India, but do you ask different questions or change anything based on just the culture of the area to make it fit better? Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:24:56 Maybe. I don't think so. Now I'm gonna really focus here probably more on executive candidates in those locations. So the challenges are different. So yes, the questions would be, you know, if it's an executive in Canada versus an executive in India, by definition they're gonna be different business challenges that they need to, you know, lead or change. I mean I think where it really, where the questioning is different is what is the problem that we need this executive to solve. And so as we know like if there's an opening, it can be a new job. Like it can be a brand new job that gosh we need a X, Y, Z because this is a new area. We don't understand. The kind of questions I would ask somebody for that role are really different than the questions I would ask somebody who's coming in to fix a broken a broken process.
Speaker 2 00:25:44 Because they're just different, they're different business challenges. So you know, somebody that's coming in for something new, I'm looking for their, their entrepreneurialism, their ability to look at a greenfield and get excited about it. And you know, anytime they've taken a chance on something that wasn't really clear, uh, nobody knew if it could be successful, you know, those would be those kind of questions. If it's something where it's a broken process, I'm really looking for their leadership skills, I am looking for where have they fixed something? Where have they taken a broken brand and reestablished it if you will, where have they taken a team that's just completely not working and rebuilt the team? How did they do that and did they end up with a group that the rest of the company looked at went, oh my gosh, you know, that was not working two years ago and now it's like the highest performing group in the company. Somebody that can do that. Those are the kind of, the kind of questions I would ask would be, you know, tell me more. You know, and that's one of my favorite questions. Questions. <laugh>, tell me more.
Speaker 1 00:26:46 It's great cause you get people to expand and sometimes they think they've said enough, but they may have a lot more to say. And as you're saying that it, you know, some of the classes I teach on ethics, we get into, if you have a branch say in India or you have a branch in Canada or you have, whose code of ethics do you use?
Speaker 2 00:27:06 Very good question. Yeah, it's a very, very good question, <laugh>. And you know, this is where being flexible matters because you know, and sometimes you don't have a choice. Sometimes it's the legislation in like, you know, data privacy in Europe, like we don't have a choice and it's at a much higher level than we would maybe do in the United States or maybe some other country. But on the ethics side or the integrity side, you know, I think, I think you do have to, if you're c e O, you really have to get to a place of what, what matters to you or what you think should matter to the rest of the company. And if it's a complex multinational company, you know, like anything, there are certain things that I think are true, you know, and integrity is an interesting one because you know, in some countries, you know,
Speaker 1 00:27:54 It's subjective.
Speaker 2 00:27:55 There's some very interesting practices and we know about some of those companies that have gotten themselves in trouble because they went with whatever the customer of the country was and it was against the law in Canada or the United States. So you have to get pretty clear about what you're willing to do to get business and what you're not willing to do to get business. But in terms of just basic leadership and management of people, I really do believe it. I, maybe I'll be proven wrong someday, but I really believe that every person is just looking for someone that they can, as an employee looking for someone they can learn from everybody. Not everybody, but 99% of people wanna do the right thing. And it's unfortunately in HR we have to deal with the 1% that don't sometimes, right?
Speaker 1 00:28:42 But
Speaker 2 00:28:43 I come into this thinking, you know what, everybody has, you know, a pretty pure focus. I mean, you know, we wanna make money, but you know, we're not gonna cut co or shave corners of, you know, safety for example. Now some companies might, but I think that would be a c e o decision. Like at what level do you decide it's okay to do that? And you know, pg and e I don't think I'm speaking outta school, but pg and e in the United or in uh, California has dealt with this and, and they made, I mean it's well documented, but they made decisions not to do maintenance on certain big pieces of their infrastructure. And you know, we saw what has happened, San Bruno and other horrible things. Now that was a decision. So they made the decision to, you know, cut costs. Now there's cutting costs that don't hurt people and then there's cutting costs that can hurt people. So I think, you know, I don't know, I'm kind of riffing here a little bit and I apologize, but, but I think it's really important when you're running a global company to know where you stand on what I would call the basics. But they are, you know, fundamental kind of basics around integrity or, you know, treating people with respect or collaboration or you know, so so things like that become, I think very important.
Speaker 1 00:29:56 Yes. And a lot of that requires curiosity, which of course I love, you know, to, to collaborate. You have to ask all these questions. And some of the case studies I include in some of my courses about some companies that maybe could have done a better job of asking questions like Subway found out the hard way that a lot of countries weren't crazy about sandwiches as much as <laugh> they're in the United States. So do you do any kind of testing of the areas in which you expand or how your products will do in other countries or, or cultural quotient of any kind of, you know, that kinda Yeah,
Speaker 2 00:30:29 It's a good, you know, I don't have that much experience on the consumer side of things because you know, on the business side, especially business software, I mean, yeah, there are certain nuances perhaps, you know, taxes or accounting, what have you. But generally our customers need more or less the same kinds of things to run their businesses cuz we're selling to businesses and whether the business is in Germany or in South Africa or Malaysia or whatever, I mean, they're businesses I think on the consumer side that I'm just not really the best person to answer that
Speaker 1 00:31:02 <laugh>. No, that's, it's really good because, you know, it's interesting though, you know, cuz there's just so many factors that each company deals with in, in different ways. You mentioned some of the countries you dealt with in India, India and Germany and different things. And now with uh, everything's being so virtual, we're not meeting in person. Maybe in the past everybody would fly into one same time zone and now we're trying to deal with all these different time zones and different challenges. How are you guys dealing with that and what's, what's your biggest challenges with not being able to travel during all this or,
Speaker 2 00:31:33 Yeah, I mean the plus side is not having to travel for business for a one hour meeting because that's just, I think we've all learned that's a complete waste of time. We don't need to do that anymore. And that's a fantastic thing because it's expensive and it's wear and tear on everybody, you know, and there's a lot of dead time in, you know, at the front end and the back end of those trips. The downside though is that, you know, I, at least during Covid for sure, and even now, you know, we do a lot of 6:00 AM calls, you know, I do a lot of calls with India at six and by the way, that's nothing compared to my friends in India cuz they're doing that call at nine o'clock at night. So, you know, we're global, but the time zones are still the time zone.
Speaker 2 00:32:11 So it actually has kind of mixed up the day. So a regular nine to five, at least in the world we live in with a global kind of workforce and customer set, you know, you're working, you're working many different hours now, which in some ways lends itself to hybrid so much better because you know, if I have to get on a call at 5:00 AM I'm not gonna get a shower and do my hair and be ready at five. I'm just not, I mean, and and nor nor would I expect any of my employees to do that frankly. So I think it has really, you know, look, but if I can do a call from five six, six to seven seven, I mean by nine o'clock I could do four calls. Now I do have my hair in a ponytail and you know, I might not have much makeup on, but boy did I get a lot done instead of waking up at four, now I'm exhausted. I get to the office at five.
Speaker 1 00:33:02 That's a huge thing with me, you know, because I do a lot of virtual, either the show or or my consulting and different things and I, I've noticed that I get a lot of men I'll go, well can we just meet for an hour? And they get up and they go like this, their hair's done, they go,
Speaker 2 00:33:17 So guys, honestly, it's so much easier, you know what I mean? It's so much easier. But the other good news though for women is that, okay, you do this but you know, like I have yoga pants on right now, <laugh>, so
Speaker 1 00:33:30 I always wonder what happened to the pants industry out there. I think I asked, asked one of those, they sold clothes.
Speaker 2 00:33:38 You know, I, I've had way more calls in my ponytail than I would be proud of. But
Speaker 1 00:33:43 Yeah, I think we're good to not care as much about that kind of stuff. I, you just can't and still do business. But you know, you're dealing with so many generations that we're talking about having a diverse workplace. We've have more generations than we've ever had. And I remember trying to forecast what was gonna happen. Uh, I think it was 15 years ago or 10 years ago, whenever I gave a talk for Forbes, we were talking about the future of the workplace and all these generations, what's gonna happen? And it was all talking about, well when boomers retire, whether millennials will do this or that, but boomers aren't retiring like we thought and how are you keeping boomers interested in this, you know, in some of this heavy duty, high tech stuff. And maybe they weren't, you know, so much raised
Speaker 2 00:34:26 For it. Well the world has moved this way and you know, you and I both worked at IBM as our first job outta college. So, you know, and I'm, I am squarely a boomer, but I think it's mindset and it really is an age, it is mindset. So if a boomer did not move or did not work in the tech business and kind of resists whatever email or whatever it is they're resisting, that is kind of the lingua franca now of work and a business cuz business is about being efficient and using technology to be efficient. Now again, I have a, obviously that lens coming from a software company, but if someone isn't really willing to, you know, learn back to curiosity, I think they're gonna be at a disadvantage and, and maybe, you know, it's not for them. And I think, you know, you think about people, like I think about people in their eighties and nineties and whatever who are just as relevant today as they were back in the day, but also they kept up and they've kept up with the changes and, and so like, I mean I talk about avatars, like I don't play video games.
Speaker 2 00:35:29 I don't love the idea that I'll be an avatar someday assuming I'm still working. But the reality is that's probably what's gonna happen. So I should kind of of get my head around it and figure that out if in fact I wanna stay in the game and stay engaged and be relevant. Because that's the other thing about different generations and I've always worked with different generations and I still do, I mean I have all kinds of ages and stages on my teams and I think it's being interested in what their challenges are and also listening to them about what are the things that are gonna make us more relevant and more efficient perhaps. You know, and I mean I I I love technology from the perspective of making organizations more efficient. I always have, I think it's one of the things I have loved about this industry and I still love it frankly. But I also think though that for boomers that can't, you know, maybe just, yeah, look, maybe they didn't have the opportunity in the kinds of places they worked, I get that. But if it's a requirement of being able to do the work or you know, be in the organization culturally, then you make a choice. You know,
Speaker 1 00:36:34 It's the avatar conversation. I kinda, I don't really mind that. I kind of think it as like Dorian gray picture that's aging in a closet somewhere. <laugh>, you look the same forever. But as far as the boomers not going along with whatever the new thing is, they're probably not gonna try to go to work for a company that's a high tech company if that's not their thing. But we're seeing even the lower tech companies, I, I remember in pharmaceutical sales when we used to write our notes in handwritten notebooks and then they came out with these handheld computers and the whole place just freaked out. I mean it was just like, this is the worst thing that could have ever happened to them. And it did take longer at the beginning to do it on the computers because nobody knew what they were doing. And I loved it cause I loved tech, but I'd say 99% hated it. But I mean, can you imagine writing anything? And when I watched old X-files and I got all those files behind 'em in the file drawers, I'm like, how did you ever find <laugh> anything? So we, we do need to advance and get into this. Well,
Speaker 2 00:37:34 And you make a good point about change, change management too because even, you know, I mean I can think of experiences where we've put in new systems and I'm like, oh no, this is gonna be such a, that resistance, we're gonna get even my own resistance. Like I already know how to do it this way, it's easier to do it this way, now you're asking me to do four more things. So we are human, we don't like change, especially when we've mastered something and we love being, you know, we love being good at things. That gets into another topic, which I think is,
Speaker 1 00:38:03 Oh but I love it topic,
Speaker 2 00:38:04 It's change management and how do you lead groups through change and you know, who's the cheerleader on the team that, you know, sometimes everybody gets sick of, but you need someone that's really positive about this change and what the benefits are gonna be. And then you get the project manager who makes sure everybody stays on track and, and you really do try to minimize the naysayers, you know, you know the little ones like, ah, this is never gonna work. It's never gonna work. You
Speaker 1 00:38:26 Know. Well I'm glad you said that. Sometimes you feel that way because it validates my research and curiosity because one of the things I found that inhibits people from curiosity is technology. And it's the things like what you're saying that even if you're great, like we love it, you can find it as a headache. I, we just had one point, oh we really do we need 2.0, do we really need to, what whatever goes on in your head creates this assumption and that can lead to people's,
Speaker 2 00:38:50 Well, it always feels like extra work when you have to get your main work done and now you're adding in all this, you know, change if you will just make it change to make it simple and like, wow, this is gonna take me longer to get my work done. And at the end of the day it won't generally, I mean unless it's terrible system <laugh>, but generally it won't. But going through that process, it's extra work and it feels, you know, like I think generally people like to master things. People like to be good at things and once you're good at something, anything that makes you not good at it when you're learning something else is uncomfortable.
Speaker 1 00:39:25 Right. But you know, I think if people understand and that you've had a picture painted for them of why they're doing something, I think it makes all the difference and
Speaker 2 00:39:35 It does.
Speaker 1 00:39:35 Absolutely. So when you're training people, h how much do you tie into the overall goals, what they do all day and what it, how this change interacts with what we're trying to do? Do you find that people get that, okay, I get it now, light go off in their
Speaker 2 00:39:49 <laugh>? Yeah, I mean they do. I mean generally people do and, and even if they don't, you know, most people, you know, they need their job, they want their job and they're gonna, you know, hopefully just put it to the side while they're going through that process.
Speaker 1 00:40:04 Yeah, well I, I think, you know, when as we're looking at all these aspects of creating a diverse workplace and dealing with different cultures and hiring the best people, I just want to see if you have a last thing you'd like to add about what's your biggest challenge that you see coming up this year in any of those areas? Is there one particular thing you want people to, hey, this is what I've found or this is what we made a mistake I learned from or you know, is there some story you wanna share that I haven't asked you about?
Speaker 2 00:40:33 Oh that's such a good question cuz there's so many different ways I could go with that. I think, you know, rather than have a universal truth, cuz I'm sure there are some I could share, but I actually think it's really important to, again, context, you know, we're in a very, very uncertain time as an economy right now or as a world even. And I think that at least in tech, some of the go-go stuff pre Covid, O V I D and even during Covid, frankly a lot of companies did incredibly well during Covid as, I mean we did as a company, but I think now with the war in Ukraine and inflation and just incredible uncertainty out there that we have not seen before, we haven't seen inflation in a long time. And most executives, most CEOs have never dealt with inflation. That's today current state, they're all Gen Xers prac, you know, or some baby boomers, but they were baby boomers, they were in high schools during the inflation of the seventies.
Speaker 2 00:41:26 So, you know, a lot of people haven't dealt with this. So I think going forward I am usually a pretty, pretty bullish person and pretty optimistic, but I'm kind of cautious right now. And I also think companies need to be a lot more mindful about their, both their hiring and also a lot more scrutinizing of their executives. Because I think the skills that got these companies to where they are today with the executives that they have, are gonna need people that are, they're gonna need some different skills at the most senior levels to navigate through this time.
Speaker 1 00:42:02 Such as,
Speaker 2 00:42:03 I think probably more, I dunno what the right word is, <laugh> a little bit more of an account, an accountant mindset, a finance mindset. But this is the hardest part. How do you take more of a, we have to kind of ranch, we have to, we have to be more careful, but still keep people motivated and still keep people motivated about the future. So I think it's gonna be leaders that, you know, maybe more military people will come up the rank or will be running companies because they've seen, you know, they've been through metaphorically, they've been through battle, they've been through rough times. So you have to be able to sort of navigate during this very, very tricky time back to, and you know, again, economic cycles go up and down, but we're definitely in the downer. You know, we're more in the down and weirdly so because we still have such a high demand for labor, I just think it's gonna take people who are really multi-dimensional, not just left brain thinkers, not just right brain. It's gonna take people that are much more integrated in the way they think about problems.
Speaker 1 00:43:06 It'll be interesting to see what part charisma plays as well because that comes up quite a bit. But that would be a whole nother discussion and that's
Speaker 2 00:43:15 A whole nother discussion. Cause Charisma's actually, I think a key that goes a long way, frankly, <laugh>. Yes,
Speaker 1 00:43:21 It does. But I, I really enjoyed this discussion, Susan. This was so helpful. I think so many people can learn so much from you about talent acquisition, equity diversion, inclusion, and all the things that you're doing at OpenTech. So thank you so much for being on the show today.
Speaker 2 00:43:36 My pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:43:37 You're welcome.
Speaker 3 00:43:44 We always love to hear from you. If you have any questions or comments, head over to gmn.net and say hello. That's where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter. Be sure to follow Global Mentor Network on Twitter and LinkedIn and don't forget to head over to wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe for more tips to elevate your impact. While you're at it, leave a rating and comment. It helps us to keep improving the podcast for you. See you next time for another episode of Leaders' Playbook.
