How to roll with the punches | Jennifer Albrecht | TDSU Ep. 42

(0:00 - 2:22)

There's so many layers to this onion that often stinks like an onion too, right? But sometimes we have to learn to not resist the onion, to work with the onion, to turn the onion into this beautiful dish, and so- Boy, I'll tell you, I'm gonna have some trouble picking a hook for this show. And so- You guys, I think I'm just gonna stick with- Let me cook! Let me- I don't want to! I don't want to! He's making a blooming onion over there! Let him cook! All right, well, here we go, guys. What's up, Lifers? And welcome to The Daily Standup with Lifetime Value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day.

I got my man JP here. JP, do you want to say hi? And we've got Rob here. Rob, do you want to say hi? What's up, everybody? Just a reminder, not everybody is watching video, JP, so now they don't even know if you're here.

Hey, y'all! And we've got Jennifer here. Jennifer, do you want to say hi? Hello! Thank you so much for being here, Jennifer. My name is Dillon, and I am your host.

Jennifer, can you please introduce yourself? I would be happy to. I'm Jennifer Albrecht. I'm a customer success and revenue leader in enterprise SaaS solutions.

I got my roots in organizational change management consulting around technology initiatives, so I've seen and worked through and led through a lot of change, and that's a little bit about what I'm excited to talk about today. But let me first say up front that I'm pretty confident I'm not cool enough to be here with you all, so I appreciate you making an exception on my behalf. That's the first time in my life I've been cool.

Thank you. You're welcome. You're too kind.

You're too kind. I do appreciate it. Butter us up, and maybe we'll give you an extra couple of minutes.

I just want you to like me. Maybe we get two topics in instead of one. Change management is interesting, and I'm glad you alluded to that.

I hope that that is the topic you're going to talk about today because it's one that's near and dear to my heart. So why don't you hit us with it? Our question is, what's on your mind when it comes to customer success? What's on my mind is a spin on that. It's change resilience and customer success.

(2:22 - 2:40)

Not exactly change management, which I would love to talk about on another occasion because I've got a lot of perspective there, too, and I think it's really important. I think that change management is actually what we do every day in customer success. That's what we're trained to do and hopefully enjoy doing with our customers, helping them adopt change, whatever kind of change that is.

(2:40 - 4:22)

I think it's also hard to turn those skill sets on ourselves and bolster our own change resilience. We're facing a lot of significant change in CS and post-sales right now. I think about the change, just to give a little bit more context behind that, I think about that change from a couple of different altitudes, three different altitudes.

The first is at the market level. Just from a macroeconomic perspective, things are quite different right now, particularly if you're in tech. There's a lot of pressure, for lack of a better word, to make sure that you're aligning to revenue and showing value if you're in post-sales and maybe taking on revenue responsibility.

That's kind of like at the macro level. That's impacting all of us. At the org level, there's a lot of consolidation happening, maybe consolidation of companies with mergers and acquisitions or consolidation of teams.

That brings on change, structural change, cultural change, and there's some things to contend with there. The third kind of altitude is for every one of us individually, regardless of role, there's role changes that are happening. Some of them are significant.

Sometimes responsibilities are expanding. Sometimes responsibilities are getting more narrow. Sometimes new team members are coming on with responsibilities that may or may not have been yours previously.

I think it's not a matter of if you'll experience any of those, it's a matter of when and how many at the same time or how many in quick succession. I think a lot about the change recovery that needs to go with that and compressing our recovery cycles. How do we get more quickly as individuals and as teams back to that steady state and hopefully incrementally better so that we're ready to take on the next thing? I think resiliency is the perfect word there.

(4:23 - 4:43)

Number one tip for being more resilient. What's your number one tip? Ooh, number one. I have to choose from some of my favourites.

Well, I can't narrow it down to one, but I'll give you, if I can have an exception, I'll give you two. I think of it in two lanes. One is resilience in the workplace, resilience within the function of our company or our team.

(4:44 - 7:21)

Then the second track is resilience within ourselves. Top thing for resilience in the workplace. I think it has to do with creating a great culture around feedback.

Sometimes that culture starts with us, if that's not already existing in your particular workplace, but being willing to seek feedback, being willing to action really constructive feedback and being a positive and constructive participant in providing feedback. Maybe you're getting direction that like, hey, all of these things are our number one priorities. Well, that's impossible.

Rather than taking on kind of a pushback mentality, it's more of like a probe back. How do I ask really good questions to get at the heart of this so I can be really narrow in how I focus so that I'm executing in alignment? That's kind of the one thing from a workplace perspective. The one thing from an individual perspective, I would say kind of getting out of yourself and finding a way to give back.

I think that that helps build up our resilience in a lot of different ways. Whether that's giving back to a community, whether that's your local community or a virtual community, finding someone to mentor, helping your neighbor. Whatever that is, just kind of get out of your own space.

Those are the top two that come to mind. What do you all think? What would you add to that? I love it when the guest takes control, and I don't mean that facetiously at all, because otherwise I'm constantly asked. I feel like every single episode I say, hey, JP, what do you think about that? It's exhausting to be in the driver's seat, but you're good.

I'm going to throw the ball to JP first. JP, I want to hear what you think about all that. Yeah.

I would say the analogy that came to mind when you were talking, especially when you talk about getting out of yourself, I thought about that movie Ghost. I feel like the company's high-level strategies are like Patrick Swayze, and I'm Demi Moore. I'm the tactical hand, and my clay needs to stay wet.

I think this is why people have a problem with change management. They allow that clay to dry. Now they have an idea of what this is supposed to be.

Whenever we get that wheel going, that wheel, things are constantly changing, right? I need to keep my clay wet so that when I get those strategies, I allow them sort of come with me like Patrick Swayze and guide my hands to those great outcomes, if I can put it in a couple sentences. That's what I would say. I love it.

You got me malleable. JP, I have a question for you. JP, I feel like you might know this.

Have you heard the term wu-wei before? Yes, I have. Yep. Any of you guys heard the term wu-wei? No, this is new.

(7:21 - 8:07)

No. If I'm quoting it correctly, it's a phrase from the Tao that basically means not resisting. Often, we resist change, right? It's interesting.

I really like what you said, Jennifer. You mentioned the different layers. That was really helpful to hear the different layers between the market level, the org level, the role level.

I would add to that. There's the personal level, and then there's the customer level, right? We got all this change going on, and then a lot of us have other people to think about, too. There's so many layers to this onion that often stinks like an onion, too, right? Sometimes, we have to learn to not resist the onion, to work with the onion, to turn the onion into this beautiful dish.

(8:08 - 8:17)

Boy, I'll tell you, I'm going to have some trouble picking a hook for this show. I think I'm just going to stick with Jennifer. Let me cook.

(8:18 - 10:35)

I don't want to. I don't want to. So, what I'm trying to say is that, look, this is a true confession for me personally.

Every morning, I try to meditate or listen to something that reminds me to be curious. That's my big thing lately, is I'm trying to remind myself to be curious. Specifically, I notice that when change happens, I get extremely grumpy.

I want to resort to the ways that I've done things, and here I am claiming that I'm helping organizations with change management, and I'm not doing a good job representing that myself. I feel like a hypocrite at times. So, what I'm trying to do—yeah, go ahead.

Don't have kids. I know. Trust me.

I'm saying this. When you were telling me yesterday, Dillon, you're—I'm looking at— Just be kind to yourself, Rob. Be kind to yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Have some grace. Have some grace.

Finish it up, Rob. I'm going to wrap it up. I'm going to wrap up this onion.

At every company I've been at, I try not only for myself, but I try to build the whole culture and the whole team around this question of what can I do to not just be resilient to change, but also embrace change, take charge of change, enjoy change, be excited by change. When I feel that anxiety or that frustration come with change, find a positive equivalent. Find the excitement, the curiosity that comes with that in me.

Even if it's only just 1% of my being, try to really focus on that to embrace the change. I think you just got to be really comfortable with you might not be right. You may not be the reason we get upset with change is because we think we've got the perfect recipe.

We think whatever we're doing is the way it should be. We've got to be open to other people's opinions, maybe trumping ours. That doesn't make you lesser.

It doesn't make you less in control necessarily. In fact, your ability to be open to that puts you in more control, I would think. Jennifer, do you have any closing thoughts about what we said? Well, not surprisingly, the conversation went in a direction I never could have predicted.

I love when I get surprised. That was a lot of fun. Now I know what movie I need to rewatch this weekend.

(10:35 - 10:54)

Now I have to research Dao Wei. I'm going to start incorporating that. To just build on what you were saying, I think another thing I try to remind myself and others when I have the opportunity to is, hey, it's not personal.

We're not the hero in every story. There's bigger things happening. I think having a broader perspective always is helpful.

(10:56 - 11:01)

That's a great way to end it. That's our time, Jennifer. Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention and for sharing your thoughts here.

(11:01 - 11:57)

We'd love to have you back. There'll be a round two about change management in general. Until that time, we've got to say goodbye for now.

Thanks. Thanks all. Hey folks, it's Dillon here.

Thank you for tuning in as always. Now I've got a favor to ask of you. If you've made it this far, hopefully it means you like what we're doing with our program.

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