How to Achieve Tremendous Business Results Without Compromising on Culture

Dr. Jim: [: 00:00:00

Some of us might assume that you couldn't achieve those results without creating a toxic environment. In many instances, that's probably an accurate assumption. That's not what this story is about. This is a conversation about how you achieve those results without turning your environment into a soul sucking hellscape.

This is a story of how startups and scale ups can achieve tremendous business results without compromising on culture. Today we have Samantha Rist joining us to share her story on building high performance teams. Even though she's a Liverpool football fan club, I think we should be well served by not holding that against her in this conversation.

monstrated success combining [: 00:01:00

She's a human capital thought leader. She's got a solid history and track record of attracting and retaining peak performing teams, leading innovative organizational transformations and acquisition integrations. Samantha, your Liverpool fan, but welcome to the show. Anyways,

Samantha Rist: Thank you, Dr. Jim. I appreciate it.

Dr. Jim: nice to have you on. And I'll keep the the soccer trash talking to a minimum. I don't think we've we've had a discussion like this. In the past and we'll get right into it in a few minutes, but before we dive in, I think it's important for you to add a little bit more context for the listeners and share a little bit more about your story that you feel is relevant for the audience to know about you.

ilfield services. So I spent [: 00:02:00

So it's not maybe the normal path to spend 21 and a half years in one company and then four years in the next and then be involved in a company that was acquired and then on to another startup. So a little bit different, maybe than the normal path. So that's informed a lot of my perspective.

Dr. Jim: I'd like to dig in a little bit there. You spent 20 years in the non startup environment, and then you've been in the startup environment since then. So when you look at that transition, what were the things that most surprised you about the transition in the startup world that you weren't expecting coming from a larger environment?

infrastructure, the L and D [: 00:03:00

And so I had assumed not having been on the other side. That those things would still exist. And I would say high quality managers or a lot of learning and development are not part of your average startup.

Dr. Jim: You're talking about pretty different resource availability in those two environments. If you're in a large established organization, we can say you have unlimited resources when you're in a startup environment that might not be the case unless you're one of the rare ones that happens to be extremely well funded.

How did you adjust to the differences in resource availability in the startup world? What were the things that you figured out that you needed to do to be successful in a quote unquote resource poor environment?

ell to the startup world was [: 00:04:00

And so when you're trained to be efficient, or maybe you're coming from a manufacturing environment where efficiency is king I would say efficiency is lacking when you come to a startup. And that's Most often a skill that isn't necessarily there and you have to build on that. So I think that's something I, I brought to the table.

Dr. Jim: Based on that particular element that you just talked about, it sounds like building efficiencies and process was the first order of priority, or was there something else that was higher up on the list?

, future state, which you're [: 00:05:00

Dr. Jim: You just said something that's pretty timely and that's, making sure that you're hiring for the future without. Over hiring. And we've seen recently in the news a lot of CEOs really butcher that process and we've seen this trend of mass layoffs due to over hiring.

So what were some of the things that you did to guard against that risk?

Samantha Rist: I've been around a long enough that I've been caught in that. And to the extent that when I can control it, I don't want to be part of an organization. I don't think anyone ever does it on purpose. But where you overhire and then have to pull back. And what I've tried to do is, especially in the HR function Be at the table to have conversations with you call it a strategic hiring plan, or you call it a strategic workforce plan is.

ook at the top of the funnel [: 00:06:00

It could be, my experience, data scientists to sales folks, depending on what you're doing, you've got those ratios of how many people it makes to get the equation from the beginning to the end. And you want to write down those equations, those ratios of. Roles and you want to stay true to that.

It could be even ratios of contractors to full time to allow some flexibility for what you think is going to be coming in the future, but it's making sure you bring the right people together. Cause especially in the startup, you can be very. And I think it's a natural evolution to say, okay, I'm going to get my function, my part of the business done.

n one spot trying to solve a [: 00:07:00

And I think that's 1 way where you're bringing every, it's a good way to bring everyone at the table and have everyone participate in that conversation to be mindful about that.

Dr. Jim: You said something that I wouldn't necessarily expect in a startup environment. So I'd like you to expand on this a little bit. You said one of the things that you have to do as a people leader is to try to get people out of their silos. So you have a true picture of where talent sits, what talent needs exist and how that can be properly deployed.

What were some of the things that you did to break down those silos? Within those startup organizations. So you have that true visibility because I think when you're working in a run fast and break stuff environment, that's probably not high on the list of priorities for those business leaders in those functions.

getting well, getting people [: 00:08:00

What either processes data? Competencies are required to do what you do and then to pass it to the next player and even just asking that question and asking people to comment on those ratios. What are the, what does the, what does marketing need to do for you to take something to market? It.

to have those conversations [: 00:09:00

Okay. I shouldn't ramp this up to 2 acts if my compatriot who needs to deliver something. Isn't able to do that. You see it a lot between product and engineering because sometimes that pendulum swings of, hey, product should be doing this or engineering should be doing this, but you've got resources in different pools and then you need to bring people together and say, okay, I realize this is current state and we did it 1 way.

But now as we're evolving, we want to do it a different way. So we need to redraw the lines.

Dr. Jim: Real good stuff. Samantha, I appreciate you sharing that. I think that context is is really solid and it's going to inform the rest of the conversation.

out adding headcount. So I'm [: 00:10:00

So share with us a little bit about that story and how that's informed your experience in terms of how you build a great team.

Samantha Rist: You can't do it in every business. So for the particular business I was part of then it was a software business and it was software sales and we were transitioning. From enterprise, pure enterprise sales to software as a service sale. It was two enterprises, by the way. But really licensure sales to SAS, cause it was quite a while ago.

ption of let's work as smart [: 00:11:00

And put in an organizational design and processes that allow us, to scale effectively. And we did that by creating what I call central operations. We brought together groups of individuals, around the globe. Who had specialties, either a single competency or multi competency. And then we put into process folks that were literally with customers looking in the eye to distill requirements and pass that work to a group of individuals who could really work efficiently.

wanted and needed, and then [: 00:12:00

Dr. Jim: So when you're looking at that transformation, so you had a technology transformation, then you had a bit of a transformation on the org design front. How did you set the stage from an org design perspective? To pull it off successfully. What was the process that you went through to make sure that these resources, your people were deployed in the right way.

Samantha Rist: We explained it. We rolled it out. We had a communication cascade and said, Hey, we fundamentally, this is a touchstone of what we provide to our customers. They want solutions. They want to lift more hydrocarbons out of the ground effectively and efficiently. We can help them solve those problems.

liaising directly with those [: 00:13:00

And by the way, we have lots of opportunity for everyone. And so let's work with the team at large in order to slot people into the right seats. And we had everyone, in essence, participate, because it really was all hands on deck on how to double the revenue without doubling the headcount.

And then we put that formal structure and explained how it would work again. You always have to balance, you don't want it to be processed, heavy, but, you put in these things. Because the processes are beholden to the business. You're not beholden to the processes. And so you open it up to say, Hey, is this working?

ble versus non billable? And [: 00:14:00

Dr. Jim: So I want to expand on that last. Piece that you mentioned, it helps to get people on board. And the reason why it caught my attention is that oftentimes when you have these big initiatives that are announced and they're communicated from the executive level down, there tends to be resistance and even some confusion, the further away from the C suite that you get.

So walk us through what you did to make sure, at least mitigate that didn't happen at the individual contributor level, at the manager level, and maybe even at the director level to make sure that you don't lose momentum on the shift of initiatives.

owner and said, Hey, I want [: 00:15:00

And I fought really hard to say, no, there needs to be a level of ownership. So I worked at that level and said, okay. You need to tell me what they are. Tell me what they can be in future. And I need you to own it. And then I need you to cascade and create ownership down within the level. And so that was probably the first 3 months of the process.

And then I actually physically went to probably 20 percent of the locations and sat with individuals and said, this is what we explained what we were doing, why we were doing it. Now I need to say, I need to calibrate. Is it happening? So you tell me, is it working or is it not working?

And so then we were able to do a retune. And so I think the, and the data proved it out, right? You showed people, Hey, this is actually successful. Is it working for you? Is it not working for you? And then we could retune the system again.

like there was a lot of Some [: 00:16:00

Samantha Rist: There wasn't pushback. There was a lot of pressure. It was a larger organization. To dictate from the top as to what those would be. And I was there to say, we won't get ownership unless we put ownership into the hands of the geography. So we need to give each of the geographies 3 months to look at their current states.

in startups, you usually sit [: 00:17:00

I need you to figure out what your metrics are. Current state, future state, you help own what those are going to be. So that you can have a bottom up rather than a top down state of being. And I think the bottom up is a much better way to get ownership, which is, Hey, you signed up for the number cause you thought it was realistic.

You can push people to say, Hey, I need you to be more aggressive. But I have found that's a, that's a. More effective way for continued ownership when people have personally participated in figuring out what their numbers are and will be.

Dr. Jim: It's interesting that you draw the distinction between a top down versus a bottom up approach. And I agree with you. And thanks for that clarification. The more collaborative that you can make an environment, the better off you're going to be in terms of your initiative gaining momentum. One of the things that I'm curious about is now having put in that bottom up approach.

nd developing that ownership [: 00:18:00

Samantha Rist: And I think that's where the coaching comes into play where it's very easy to have blinders on. And you say, Hey let me give you my list of 10 questions, whatever it may be. Did you think about this? Did you think about that? Did you think about, these other 10 things that you look upstream?

Did you look downstream? And I think that's where the development of managers comes into play. Cause you don't, especially in startups, people get battlefield promotions, right? They aspire to take more responsibility. But making that switch from independent contributor to manager, sometime it's rife with challenges.

ou might have to help retool [: 00:19:00

And oftentimes one on one tell me the things, tell me the thought process you went through to get this information. And then you can really dial in of our people pulling anecdotal information, or are they able to pull data from systems? Because I says, we think in startups, you don't have as much data as you want to make informed decisions.

Dr. Jim: One of the things that you mentioned in that answer that caught my attention was the concept of a battlefield promotion, and it reflects what typically happens in a lot of organizations when you're talking about the employee life cycle and how people get promoted into that first leadership or manager position.

nce they finally assume that [: 00:20:00

Samantha Rist: Conceptually a battlefield promotion is you do it in a rush. So I would say you don't always have the time. And you're contemplating it's a builder by. And what you're saying is, Hey, I'm going to build, I'm going to choose from within, I'm going to take this individual that's already in seats and I'm going to give them an opportunity for more responsibility.

As opposed to buy, which is, Hey, I'm going to look outside the organization and bring someone in. And when you're blowing and going really quickly, it's okay I'm only looking within. And so I think part of what the organization should do is really ask. Okay. Do I have. The competencies available internally, or should I look outside and maybe I do both.

t only the best for you, but [: 00:21:00

And possibly higher over you if you're really in a scale position. But we don't we want to give you this opportunity. So you need to prep someone, not that you're trying, we're waiting for you to fail. We want the best, but you need to prepare that individual in the organization that if you need to change tack that it's not going to come as a huge surprise.

To that person, it's not a threat, but sometimes the business is moving so quickly that you might have to hire another person above or possibly put that person in an independent contributor, but at least they have the opportunity to try something and expand their skill set.

yers of the organization for [: 00:22:00

And I think that's a fair conversation that you mentioned, Hey, this is something that we want to give you the opportunity for, but it might not work out or it might look differently six months from now. I think the other part of the conversation that needs to be brought into the discussion is. should be a critical practice of managers, of of asking their people what do you want the next thing in your career arc to look like?

What do you want to be doing? What do you like doing about your current role? What would the next role look like? And I don't think that happens as much as it should, which leads to a lot of managers being pushed into those roles where maybe that's not their best seat. I appreciate you mapping out that particular journey. I want to actually. Take it to the next level. We've talked about, what happened, why it was important, all of that sort of stuff.

at were the big foundational [: 00:23:00

Samantha Rist: organizational design. It's very easy, to let things be organic and that's okay. But there needs to be calibration at regular stages to ask yourself, is it working? How are we going to scale? I'll go back to the statement I said before, these ratios that everyone knows. I've never talked to a sales executive who hasn't said, this is how I open the funnel.

This is how I close business or a customer success individual that says, Hey, if I want to expand, these are the ratios and the set of skills that I need. And if you sit down and ask those questions, and then put the disparate parts together to start to break down those silos, it's not a complicated math problem to figure out how many heads of what skills to use.

Where do I need

Dr. Jim: [: 00:24:00

What are the two or three things that are critical in pulling off this sort of transformation, this sort of initiative that you feel the listener needs to take away with

Samantha Rist: My touchstone when I contemplate growth, is I think of it in a formula format, cause I'm an engineer by background. And I think of growth as a function of. Market, which you don't always get to decide you don't always have control over technology, which your company is either has or building a business model and pricing.

ransparency and scalability. [: 00:25:00

Do you have the data need to come up with the metrics? Do you have those ratios to understand how you're going to grow the business? Do you have the business processes? Are they documented? Are they clear? And then the scalability portion, I think, in terms of people, which is, do I have the right people at the right time with the right competencies at the right cost in the right locations and that really is that element of the strategic workforce plan.

And so when you tie all that together, it's a great way to bring folks around that table to have those discussions.

Dr. Jim: Great stuff, Samantha. If folks want to continue the conversation, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Samantha Rist: They can find me on LinkedIn.

Dr. Jim: I really appreciate you hanging out with us. I think there is a lot more to this conversation than what we just even talked about. But even in this short conversation, there were things that stood out to me that I think is important for the listeners .

f, what I gathered from your [: 00:26:00

And I think what you talked about in terms of getting those managers and those leaders at the front lines of the organization to own the initiative and define what success looks like so that we can action and iterate from there. I think that's really powerful and should be something that a lot of the listeners to this conversation are keeping in their back pocket when they're trying to figure out how do they pull this off?

Liverpool fandom against you [: 00:27:00

If you like the discussion or want to join our community, make sure you check out www. engagerocket. co slash HR impact. Tune in next time where we'll have another leader joining us and sharing with us the game changing insights that helped them build a high performing team.