GSD Podcast - Creating Rock Stars that Scale with Dan Ennis
Dan's formative experience was with technical enterprise contracts, and he learned about scale in the first place by trying to make low ARR happen.
Dan Ennis explains that the CSM has access to all the data and can identify if an account is over a certain threshold of risk.
Jeff and Dan discussed the importance of the customer success team focusing their time not just on metrics in general, but on the human validation component as well.
They also talked about making rock stars out of their team, focusing on making sure that they move to the next level regardless of their managers.
Additionally, it is important to have open transparent conversations and not just the, hey, what do you want to be doing in five years, but instead, what is it that you want to do as your next step?
Jeff and Dan also emphasized how crucial it is to be creative with what someone is enabled to do in their role and to help them develop that towards the management.
Listen here.
Transcript:
Jeff 01:14
So I'm gonna say this, I guess it started already. We're gonna roll that back and go from there. But I'm here with Dan Yunus, who I've known now, they're cool story. I think a lot of us when the pandemic first came on, we're just looking to talk to people like minded people. And we both were on the game rope game, grow routine. leadership meetings, I don't even know if it's split up into leadership at that point in time was like, Let's get together for an hour and a half and talk about CES, which was great. It was like you and Sheree and all these other people that that we that are great. And and Dan was one of those guys who I was just hit it off with I just always, always said the right things and everything. And then I found out kind of later that Dan was responsible for, you know, leading a team on the scale team for monday.com, which everybody loves. And, and now he pointed the example every time we hear scale, I'm like, you gotta go get Monday, talk to Dan, reach out to Dan and everything. So Dan, welcome. You know, and I want to first talk about when we're getting into some changes that we've seen over the last year and a half or so. But let's talk about how you came into the scale movement, the scale team. How many years have you been doing sort of regular ces within them the sort of kind of fell into your lap?
Dan Ennis 02:32
Yeah, absolutely. So for me, it's, it's really funny, when I look back at kind of that that customer success journey where were a lot of these these things, when I look back at moments in my career, it's where I'll notice that I was doing something before I knew there was a name for that thing. And then I wanted to jump into that. So my whole start with customer success in the first place was at a benefit administration company that had a software platform. So they were a service company. But I realized that our customers needed to enjoy using the platform if they wanted to have them be successful using our service side because their employees had to use it if they didn't like it. Oh, yeah, we weren't going to use it. And therefore they turn on the service side. But our company didn't view ourselves as SAS because we weren't, we were just the software wasn't the thing we were selling. Yeah. So I focused on that I didn't know that customer success was a thing. And then I heard about this whole thing called customer success. And I remember thinking like, Oh, so that's what I'm doing. I want to do that formally now. And so that's what led me to go from kind of informally doing customer success to doing kind of very truly traditional ces even though I've been doing that. So I did kind of what we would call traditional ces for for good six or seven years now. And then while doing that, though, towards the tail end of my time, there we began to work with certain significantly larger kind of national customers, where we primarily only dealt with home office for a lot of the more strategic commercial conversations, but the moving the needle was done at their individual office location level, who was using our product at the time. And so again, similarly I didn't know that there was a name for this called scale, but I remember thinking okay, I can't meet with all these people like I can't with my other customers, but I need them to be using it to be successful with this national person who I'm talking with because they they hear their office people and it all rolls up and the success there so that was how I began cutting my teeth on scale before knowing it was called that just trying to figure out ways to asynchronously through our platform through one too many emails through strategic recorded videos through fill in the blank just Yeah, ad hoc on my own, like this is what I have to do to make this account that on the surface is just one enterprise account. But in reality, more operated like that account was like a mini scale book of business like in a lot of ways just all the different air you know all the different offices and you can get that it's sometimes like when you've got a large company you know, I always say
Jeff 05:00
You like yummy brands, and you get KFC and then you get this and you know Taco Bell, it's just, you just, it's not just one account, it's a lot of different things that roll up into another.
Dan Ennis 05:09
Exactly. So that's when I began learning that and developing the practices of scale. And with others on my team, where I began to close a team lead on that, that particular team. So really helping kind of others on the team develop those same types of strategies account wasn't the only one because there's in the insurance broker space. And that's how a lot of insurance brokers are set up at a national level. And so we were I was helping others on the team develop those strategies. And so then I, you know, eventually I left that role for another CS role. And then when I came to join Monday, they were building out their, their scale segment. And so for me, it was exciting to be a part of that for two reasons. One, I love being a part of building and in all this, yes, teams have been a part of, I've been a part of building the teams through those inflection points of maturity. So helping build that team through that maturity point of specializing implementation, and then eventually account managers, and then things like that. And so the idea of being a part of building something was appealing, but it also blew my mind, because it was like, oh, there's a name for that thing I was doing again. So that's what this is. And so that's how I got involved there. And because my formative experience out the gate was with technically enterprise contracts, and using those scale skills that way, I already had in my brain from day one going into scale that this isn't just for the long tail of customers, because that wasn't how I learned about scale in the first place. Wasn't with low ARR is trying to make
Jeff 06:31
it happen, right? It's trying to no work 60 hours a week.
Dan Ennis 06:37
Exactly. So that's what got me into scale. And more formally, and again, just like with CES in itself, learning more about the formal disciplines and jumping into that.
Jeff 06:49
I love it. I've never been the theory guy, right. Like, I had a classic interview at Microsoft back in like, oh six, where, you know, they're asking me, you know, the interview question I'll never forget, it was tell me how you would project manage backing out of your driveway? And I'm like, what? And so I'm like, Well, I probably you know, I get one of those mirrors and put it up on the telephone pole. So I can see cars coming in. And they they're like, you know how you answered that correctly. But you didn't know the theory terms on the project management stuff. And I'm like, by the way, at this point in time, like seven years in I'm like, I make shit happen, buddy, like, you know, like, in in the hiring manager actually told him the same thing. They're like, don't worry about it, like, we rather have you be we'd rather have a person who knows how to do it, versus knowing what the theory term is for it. So like that?
Dan Ennis 07:40
Well, and that's it. So that's what I was gonna say is, you take those things that you're doing naturally by elbow grease, and you figure it out by intuition that you figured out through hard work and learning on the on the job. But then you when you take theory and apply it to that rather than the other way around, you take what was already good. And you just launch it the theories accelerant at that point, that's how I look at it. That's how it's historically for my career. That's, that's what it's been. It's been I'm doing something and I realized, oh, there's a formal thing for this thing I've been doing, let me start to do that, which then launches what I was already doing just by nature,
Jeff 08:14
practices. My dirty secret is that I was always like that with playbooks. I always heard about playbooks and like, why was playbook and then actually saw what I'm like, oh, yeah, let's do the stuff all the time. Absolutely. sequence of things and list them out. And like, Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah.
Dan Ennis 08:30
So So that answers here. So going back, that's how I got into to scale that was late 2020, joined as a senior individual contributor, kind of one of the founding members of that team. Yep. And then the Euro kind of moved to managing that team here in the US, which has been just a incredible journey. And it was, right before I always joke, it was a good year before, like scale was like the in thing, because I feel like it was beginning of 2022 that I started to notice even more so this year, I know we've talked about this before, and it'll come up again later, even more. So this year in light of the current economic times. But the beginning of 2022, I feel like is when I started to notice a lot of other people talking about it. And it's been really fun to kind of be learning from others. But also having been from a practical perspective, we've just been ahead of the curve just by by trying to do it and get out there before it was reacting to something. And so it's been it's been a really fun journey. Now when
Jeff 09:23
you were like initially back in the day, just MacGyvering things and duct taping together and everything like just give everybody a little example of why you have all those automated systems and everything right? Like what were some of the things that you had, because I remember as a developer, I used to have to do this like writing a script to go fire an email off if this thing happened, or something like that.
Dan Ennis 09:43
Oh my goodness. Yeah. So it was we didn't even get as much as some some of that stuff tool wise what was even little things like for my for my team, because our tech stack was was relatively limited at the company at the role I was in at the time. So it was even things as little as As hay, save, like these templates as your email signature, so you just pick a new signature in your Outlook and you've got an email template that's there that you're then responding with, like the little like, hacky things to do like, and so because we didn't have a system that gave us easy access to templates, because of the just the tech stack we had, yeah, at the time, it was just look like, Hey, guys, just create this as a signature. The whole thing that signature is your is your template response. Like that do do schedule send, send a bunch of things out like with with the schedule, Send feature and Outlook, because we were West Coast based and our our customers were all across the country but so therefore kind of skewed more towards Central and Eastern, most of us had kind of the last couple hours of the day was the more heads down time. And so really always encouraging people even things like look like just take that last 30 minutes of the day and get get scheduled send for early the next morning like 150,000 emails, that's it like it because you're shooting the signature, you're just changing emails, that's all you're doing. Things like that, or doing freakin T's Excel. I haven't had to do these in ages, like mail merge is basic. That the personalized, because that's the tech stack we hadn't I had to figure it out. I was like, You know what, I don't have access to the like a fancy tool. So you know what I'm going to create what looks like personalized collateral for my customers by just doing an Excel mail merge. Why and using that into a massive Word document and print as a PDF and send that out in different ways. Like, those are the kinds of things that I was having to work with to try to move the move the needle, like asynchronously and one to many without this, like formal discipline or all the tech stack backing that goes with it. And I
Jeff 11:43
we were able to see any type of what was this working? Like? Were you able to, I'm curious on that like or was I hope somebody opens because you might not even be tracking opens at this point in time or anything like that.
Dan Ennis 11:56
100% So thankfully, we had open tracking there. So that was good. That worked well. So the open tracking just because what I don't remember what add on we use there's something I've never I'd never heard of it I've never heard of since it worked. So you know what like, I mean that like ascribe to that companies like credit like good on that they found some scrappy to all the got the job done like that for that. And I appreciated that. So it was less the open rates and more. If there's one thing that we did have that we punched above our weight on it was the data we got, we didn't have access to BI tools like like Looker or anything like that for us on the CSM side. But our teams have developed really robust usage reporting that tied directly to every feature in there to like $1 value that they've done, like some really intense benchmark interesting, super well researched. So that it was where I what I lacked in the modularity that that I get maybe now with tools like Looker or any other more purpose built BI tools that I have a lot more modularity that I have control over and it's a bit more technical. What I had with that was simplicity and ease of use, I had I pop something in a puppy can afterward, you eyes or anything like that that was something that looked good. It was by definition meant to be able to be shared right away with the customer. Yeah. So with that, to that point, it was detailed enough that I knew what we had to do enough research to know which offices trended to which different components of the value there, because it would get that specific, it wouldn't just tell me the account level and tell me which offices under them. Were using it. So I can move the needle that way and told from usage data there, which is what we wanted to do, because I didn't want to base it on open rates and click through rates because transparently like perspective, that's exactly what I said on the book. Like I if they're opening everything and clicking on it, but there's no needle moving on the usage. Like I don't care like I'm not going to call that successful like
Jeff 13:45
wow, this is fascinating. I love it. Um, thanks for giving us that flashback in the history because I'm sure that's not how life is now what just doesn't know whether you have to name software because everybody it doesn't really matter. Well what are the types of systems that you're using? Let's let's do this. Let's talk about for somebody on your team average number of accounts that they're that they're managing over right now.
Dan Ennis 14:08
Yeah, so we've got kind of two two subsets within within my segment one that is slightly more human intervention based accounts. So those are about 200 accounts for that cohort. And then about between 550 and 600 for the even less human intervention accounts where that one is purely you're basing on all of the indicators and inputs it let us know when to insert Justin time customer success with those
Jeff 14:36
and so there's there's never any this is let's dive into this for a quick second because this always pops up yeah I always call it's like light touch almost no touch but there is like oh my god press the press the Shift button like it's we've seen some trends going down we need to we you know they're not in they're not. I'm sure you've got some sequences that are firing off even at that point in time. But there's a certain thing with like cameras We have a three touch segment three touch sequence, they didn't open up any of these, we need somebody to jump in on. Exactly right worth worth putting a body on it at that point in time.
Dan Ennis 15:11
Absolutely. And that's what we've seen. So they we've got in the that's like the beauty of it is so few of those at a time require the human intervention that one person can have their name attached to that many accounts. And on the surface, it sounds like oh, my gosh, that's so many. That's how does one person do that? They don't have to talk to all those accounts. They're not doing that the vast majority of it is asynchronous one to many, it's that they're doing developing content, leaving office hours, all these things evolve the one to one, but they absolutely have the ability to and so few accounts, like percentage wise, it's still in the big enough to fill someone's time. Absolutely. Very good. But I mean, like, but percentage wise, it's so small that actually require that intervention, then at that point, because the other stuff is doing what it's supposed to, for that segment,
Jeff 16:00
let's dive into the deeper stuff fascinates me in Sure. People, they're still listening that fascinates them as well, too. I get asked all these questions a lot. So when it is time for that person to jump in on that account? Did they get a trigger in your CSP? or did somebody in data ops CSRS come over and say, Here's five customers, you need to reach out? I've seen both models work. I'm just curious sort of what you've what you've got going on?
Dan Ennis 16:25
Yeah. So right now we are we do not currently use a CSP at this point in time, exploring it got definitely, you know, something that we likely at some point will have, we've been able to use a combo of Salesforce or none day. And because we just don't lean into our own tool, and our BI tools that we haven't needed to develop the separate yet, or lean into that. So I share that to say so it's not being like a trigger through that we have is but it's also not just their data ops, like proactively telling them. So what we've done is our data biz ops team has developed really great models based on and they've iterated it. And so where we've landed at now, that's been really helpful predictive, is not where we started know that this is the end state, after a lot of iteration, we arrived at a report that does a really good job at giving a risk score on like a one to five for zero to five, zero, of course, because developers are involved. And and these accounts like for these thresholds to make sense, like zero, so it's like five, because it's five different categories that could flag yes or no on what it is. And so that's why it's zero to five, it could have nothing in any of those categories. And so, in updates monthly, because we understand that these things take time to move the needle. And we don't want people just constantly like looking at it every single week. So their workflow is they'll go in at the beginning of the month, because at the beginning of every month, they can go they'll see the accounts, this is what I want to focus on trying to get a hold of this month for those accounts. So that way, it's so it's a nice balance of, well, it's not quite as helpful as the, hey, here's this right away just in time, like exactly. But I've also haven't operated in that model. It's also nice, because they're not constantly having to jump at a new thing that's coming up, right, it gives them a really like controlled workflow of I'm gonna go in at the beginning of the month, identify the accounts and do everything I need to do from there research, try to get a hold of fill in the blank. And on those same on the other time that there can be human intervention is we have a mechanism for our sales team, our account management team to request someone get on an account. And it's either could be because, hey, we understand that data does a good job at telling most of the story of risk. But if AM's are talking with an account that they're trying to expand, and they hear them saying that they're actually talking to a competitor, and we would have no way to know that with the data, that's a great thing that they can flag say, Hey, someone needs to get on this. And that's human validation, or we've got an expansion off, but man, they're just a little frustrated with this one use case their data looks good. But if they get over this hump, they're not at risk. But they get over this hump, we're really sure we can close an expansion so that we've got a great mechanisms to bring in the human element that we know data doesn't catch everything. Yeah, but it catches most of it. So they can request it from the human side on the account management team or on the other side of it, they can we find that the once a month. So it sounds
Jeff 19:19
like to me and tell me if I'm wrong here. It's kind of like they're on a monthly basis, reviewing trends and trying to push the trend in the in the right direction.
Dan Ennis 19:29
That's a great way to describe it, I would say so they're looking and it gives a because this report what I love about it is it gives the it does kind of give them three things want to give them the 03 values and what they're where they're at at a risk level on those categories. We've identified if they're over a certain threshold of that the overall account is at risk because the CSM has access to all the data, whether it's just what level of risk they currently are, and we've identified if they're over x threshold of risk, they are at risk the account that considered the account is at risk, not just this area is and then It also provides over the last six months, how many months was this account at risk, because we want to give them that. So we know we don't want just a point in time. So we want to give them everything they need to prioritize, hey, this account is technically at risk, but just barely, and they haven't been at risk at all before. So I'm gonna focus on these other accounts that are higher level of risk, and I've been at risk for four months, right? And so they those kinds of things. So
Jeff 20:23
it's fascinating, where I always get caught up and inside my own head on some of this is the high touch model of, you know, sales sold the deal. And, you know, they're they, you know, the these three outcomes from your software, right? And then you as the CSM is always making sure that they're driving on those three outcomes, and they're seeing the value and you're like, Hey, look at your usage. Look at this and look at that. How are you systematically doing that without having that, you know, high touch and EBR, QBR? And things like that? Yeah, so
Dan Ennis 20:59
I would say on the on that kind of, with the two segments, we approach it differently with the two sub segments. So on that, on that lowest touch segment, if I'm pretty sure we haven't yet cracked the code on how to tie directly to those. Thanks for being honest. Appreciate it. I know I'd rather not like on you know, we nailed it. Yeah, exactly. And then we talked at such a high level that it's clear to anybody who knows what they're talking about, like, didn't say anything right there. So I'm gonna be honest on that part of it, right. Like we've we put on our slogan
Jeff 21:30
to you David Epperly. I don't know if you know, David, you guys shouldn't be but he's, he's like a CES ops like Ninja guy. I know. He listened. So there's so funny.
Dan Ennis 21:38
That's I'm saying it's like the like look like on that one. We haven't cracked the crack the code on that yet, we've got some that we can tie to outcomes. But we also know just that the nature of how Mondays used like it's a little harder to track that one a synchronously without getting at least some level of human validation on what they're what they're looking to get. And we've got some access to what that is. Because if they if they have gone through our onboarding, because depending on There's any number of factors where an account can be a smaller one, but if paid to have a higher level of onboarding, there's any number of things that could go into it. Long story short, we tried to validate that a little bit where we can, but also, when the CSM reaches out, that's where they go first though, is what the person is trying to accomplish when that CSM worked with them. So then we can a have just notated in our CRM, we've got the human validation on, this is what they're working on now. And we can track towards that in the future. And be that's what they focus their time on, not just on metrics in general, they try to focus their time towards that. So it does have the human validation component still, but it's not the overtime, high touch way. But it is done like look, we acknowledge, I can't just look at their data and say great, they're accomplishing the exact outcome they said to accomplish in this this case, just without talking to them have cracked that code, or CSM doesn't just reach out and say, Hey, like we want to get your usage up, like because that doesn't mean anything to a customer. So we know better than to position it that way we go for, Hey, what did you want to accomplish with Monday? What are you trying to get done? Right? How are you feeling? You're trying to accomplish that? And like, how can we help you better do that I'm oversimplifying, they do a way better job at the positioning. But that's at a high level what it is like how do we make sure that you're being successful with what you want to accomplish with Monday in a time bound way, not reaching out as I'm your CSM. But hey, I'm reaching out as a resource from the customer success team because they're reaching out to them, because we don't want to
Jeff 23:30
interview me instrumented that into the tech process tech coach process where that would be like a, you know, choose from one of these four options of the things that you're trying to do. Or we're getting to surveying a little bit, which I just wanted to touch a little bit but not too much on. But yeah,
Dan Ennis 23:44
so now yeah, now you're exploring that because you're trying to think of how we could capture that. And that's one of the things that we're that we're exploring when when it comes time to potentially do a CSP? Is that kind of thing to get that a little better? Because right now, we wouldn't have an easy way of doing something with that. Yeah, if we did it now. Right? So that's why we haven't yet because it's the I one of the reasons I love my boss was big shout out to her on this call Kim Landau is when I come with these ideas, oh, my God, there's something we should do. And I've got these great ideas, because she kind of leads the globally globally leads a team of managing the team here in the US. She is so good about finding the times to say either like yes, that's great. Like here, like I'm empowering. You go for it. But she's also really good at stopping with the question. Okay, so what would we do with that? Like? I can, no, because, hey, that sounds nice in a vacuum, but everything is opportunity cost. If we did that. What would we do with it? Because it does have the cost of time aside to make this actionable? Right? Yeah, absolutely. So I can't thank her enough because I get excited. Like I'm gonna call it's trying to sound exciting. So to your point, like something like that is something we've talked about, and her response to that, Hey, that sounds fantastic. But what would we do with it? Like how would we use that operationalize that right now? And you know what, you're right. We don't have a way yet. So keep that in our back pocket for when we do and we took that as one of the criteria that we're when we're evaluating what we're going to do You for tsp down the line and things like that. So
Jeff 25:03
to tag on to that, I'm just curious. It's popped up a lot in the last few weeks, but any type of NPS see CSAT. Serving? Well, it's tough to see Setzer, yeah.
Dan Ennis 25:15
Yeah, that's we do do we do both. So we want to be able to understand so CSAT perspective for the accounts that have that, um, slightly higher touch with our, with our CSM, after those strategic touch points that they have that are a bit more scheduled. They they get, I guess, he says, Hey, helpful as the CSM, then we want to understand Next we want to understand where the customer's perception is of the service. Because we want to make sure we're tweaking it to consistently we want it to be helpful for the customers. And so we want to make sure that the service level is fine tuned to what they need. And it's at a different cadence, we've got a whole different kind of logic baked into it, for those that are at that even lower touch. But the ideas are CSAT on the customer success side is meant to say, hey, we know we want to measure the impact from a business perspective. But we also want to be cognizant of the customer perception of the impact from from the customer success team. And then we do also the NPS we're aware of we don't don't necessarily super action on that yet, because they're like, I mean, like everybody's
Jeff 26:14
Yeah, did you did you see? Greg gains from Chernobyl?
Dan Ennis 26:20
I was gonna say Yeah, it's amazing the direct correlation on and I think I mean, it ties to, and Jen young somebody else, I'll give a good shout out. I always talk about it the idea, you know, with NPS having been built as a b2c metric. So I
Jeff 26:34
mean, I was b2c addictive back in the day. So it was it was crucial. Like it was like this good housekeeping seal of approval that you needed.
Dan Ennis 26:44
And it may and it was it was vital for b2c because, because it's asking a very b2c question. And so in a b2b environment, it's a helpful data point to have and be aware of, especially when we're like talking to people so we can understand their perception of the product going into a conversation with them, or their team's general perception. So it's something that we action in that way more than like, it triggers a big thing, because it doesn't necessarily so. But we do have that we're aware of it that he's that one we just are more aware of. So we can we can see where where customer perception is. And then of course, there's always that the support really, yeah,
Jeff 27:16
let me just tie the knot. For people who haven't seen it. I'll put a link to it in the podcast notes. But Greg Gaines charts, basically said that whether people say yes or no is not the indicator of churn or renewal, is whether they actually responded to the survey. Whether it shows that they're actually engaged or not. Was it was a leading indicator, I should say. So yeah,
Dan Ennis 27:36
it's a it's very similar to the logic around number of support tickets.
Jeff 27:41
Exactly. Everybody thinks to be up high support every Oh, no, everything's blowing up. It's like no, you have a ton of people use
Dan Ennis 27:47
means that they're very engaged. Exactly the customers that do occasionally sure if it's one persistent, massive bug that they've never been able to solve. It's been a showstopper. Sure, that might that's, that's a that's a leading indicator of risk. But General, high support usage actually correlates to engaged customers, because they can they're trying,
Jeff 28:08
what is the worst thing if you if you're like, I always tie things back to relationships with people, what's the worst thing if they just ignore you, right? Love and Hate at the same emotions on different scales. But ignorance is just like they want nothing to do with you. So they're trying to use your product and they're like, ask grow, and it doesn't matter to them, it doesn't matter to them if it gets fixed or not. So awesome. So Dan, let's let's take a quick I think we did a really good job on the in, there's some other stuff I can point to on the look at my notes here on the on the on the scale stuff. But when we were chatting, there was another topic that I think we can relate back to to these teams, which is making rock stars out of your team, you now run a large team, and you have a big focus on making sure that these people regardless of their managers are not sort of move to the next level. And you w definitely use the term I want to make rockstars out of my people. So I wanted to get into what are some of the things that you're doing with your people that maybe not other people are doing to to get your team to the next level?
Dan Ennis 29:12
Yeah, so I would say there's a there's a few different things there that are that are really helpful, I would say. First is it cannot be stated enough like having those open conversations around what someone's goals are, I think that assumptions in the the manager, you know, team member relationship go a really long way at damaging that whether it's from the team member assuming that the manager knows what their goals are or a manager assuming those same goals. Having those open conversations is incredibly impactful because it enables me as a manager to to be able to then point them in the right direction to be able to point them to development opportunities that tied to their long term goals. So the first part is trying to having open transparent conversations and not just the, hey, what do you want to be doing? And like five years, not that kind of vague question, but we try to break it down into Hey, what is it that you want to do as your next step? And it's funny because a team can vouch for this. Anytime anybody has ever said to management, the first question I asked is walk me through why, because I want to make sure that it's not just the only development path that I think of, and I don't want to plateau in my career. So I'm gonna say that because I'm already a senior individual contributor. So I guess manager is what I want to do. Because we all know, like, you and I have joked about that, that's a quickest way to set somebody up for not the worst. I mean, reason,
Jeff 30:38
I remember back in the Developer Days, and I think it's really prevalent in developers, where it's where it's sort of like you're the best developer. So now, here's five people that report to you, in my thing, and I don't see this as much in CS, but I used to always say, Does anybody remember when Michael Jordan was a coach? It was a disastrous, and because he's like, I don't know why you guys just can't and then I'll go dunk on everybody. Like, why can't you just go do that? Right. And they, you know, it's that whole you what, you know, so much of, there's a term for this, which I forget, it's got like the word fallacy or something in it, but like, here's our theory lacking here, but like, you know, a concept so well, but you can't explain it to people. And you just assume that everybody naturally knows that thing. Because it became it was so easy for you, or they just really worked really hard on it. So yeah,
Dan Ennis 31:28
exactly. So, and there have been times when the answer has been because of all the right reasons. And so I want to help them develop towards that towards the management. But it is just to do that first initial making sure that like, because I want to help them understand it, there's other horizons as well for ways to develop in. So first off is that secondly, from my end, it's really being being creative with, with what someone is enabled to do in their role. So starting with luck, like, here's the table stakes, to KPIs and things you need to be doing for this role, because you are this role, that is your job right now, beyond that, like, look, here's different things you can do to add value that within reason, and I always preface it with look like I never want you to feel like you're taking an advantage of by a company by doing more I was like, so any of this, you don't want to do like, leave it on the table. But if you're looking to grow into this area, here are things that you could do that are like, peripheral to your day to day that are things that would enable you to do that. So things like I have someone who wants to grow in in programs and so like the program side, so I have allowed them to own really developing centralizing like a lot of the program stuff that we do. So it's not technically I don't position, but working with with this individual to to develop those things and freeing her to say, hey, what do you need? And having those conversations that, hey, this is what you want to develop? And this is the table stakes that you will you have to get done? What do you need to be able to do those two things, if that's what you're wanting to do? Yeah, and being able to have those open conversations with people I think really empowers them when they when they hear a others creative ways to think about my role. And that my manager really is trying to say, I want to back you in this, how can I help with that. And then beyond that, I joke that like being a part of the broader customer success, community and networking that I that I'm in is a big benefit. I love being able to point my team outside this because I'm not the only person who can develop people in certain ways. Immediately in the role isn't the only way to develop in certain ways. So I love being able to point people like even outside to say, Hey, I've talked to so and so love to make a connection if you're open to that because they do XYZ that you're trying to do absolutely can point you in the direction that they've developed in so those are a couple of the things but really it also boils down to I am like very type A organized and so we really like rack Dougherty, really proud track religiously, what is it that you're wanting to like accomplish as your goals? And then how are we making sure that your the things you're doing that are extracurricular, so to speak, are mapping to those because I don't want you to be busy for the sake of being busy, absolutely can't map these things that you're wanting to do these extracurriculars back to those goals, I'm probably going to recommend Hey, unless there's a really big business need to do it. Probably wouldn't recommend that because it doesn't go with the story you're trying to tell of your development here because I really love helping people do that. And then lastly has been really just helping people think through what I've had to do in my own career plenty of times which is the mindset shift of coaching through to the idea of like your career is a marathon not a sprint. And so the development things you do right now might not immediately mean a new title change and do this and especially when we're in 2023 where everybody's like with that kind of thing, but it's more to point to those those areas and say doing this is still an investment in you. Yeah, as long as you're not feeling taken advantage of which you are the barometer for that. I will trust your Got on that was what I always try to give them that carte blanche like you're the one who gets to own that. And I will never push beyond that. But as much as you're willing to these things are an investment in you in the long they are,
Jeff 35:10
they are compounding events. Exactly. And I will say, I use this on in different podcasts, but as a veteran of the three wars, and that's as an investment term, like some of the old school investors, the the 2001 like.com, bubble, the 2008. And now the current situation, calling those the three wars these days, and all three of them, well, not this current one, but like, you know, in the past two, I, it was one of those things where it was like, Look, the to me, conversations with me, for my manager were like, you know, no raise, maybe not even a title change. But if you can just do this, I can guarantee when the time is right, it'll pay off. So if you have a good open and trusting relationship with your manager, absolutely. And maybe I'm yield some Cuban cigars back from England one time, which helped out too, but whatever, you know,
Dan Ennis 36:03
that's a story for another day
Jeff 36:07
that we'll talk about that one in San Francisco. But listen to the thing that's come through the most of everything for it's amazing that you had said type A so you don't mind me saying it. But you never seen burned out by the stuff. Whenever we talk, you're just super excited, because I know some people who do a lot of what you do and type A and they're just like I've aged 10 years and the last two and things like that. You just have this passion for it and it comes through and I know we can go on for like another hour and talk about this stuff. But we're going to be gracious with your time. So this is this is an amazing on both of the sort of large subjects that we covered here. So I'm going to turn it over to something that's a little lighter remove work because we always just talk about working everything. What is something that you want to look back at the end of this year and say you got done that is non work related?
Dan Ennis 37:02
Oh, man,
Jeff 37:03
this is a surprise question. I did not.
Dan Ennis 37:05
I did not I love it. No, no, no, I love this. I I love this is I'm gonna give there are two. I'm gonna give it a it's gonna be two or three quick, quick. First two are quick as the third one's a little longer. Quick Hits are one
Jeff 37:26
classic. Like here's here's three bullet points here. We're gonna go
Dan Ennis 37:30
out even. Yeah, exactly. So one I want to follow through on something I did last year, which is like a my reading goal which was It was basically it was it was to a month was the goal. And I started super strong. And I was like, three a month for the first like three months and the
Jeff 37:47
cover to cover because that's because like like the Gladwell books. I've always been like, here's the concept here. Do you understand the concept? Great. Here's 15 more chapters on the same concept be like
Dan Ennis 38:01
That's why exactly. And I'm but that's exactly actually funny enough. That's part of how my strategy this year. That's it's funny. You mentioned that exact thing. So the same goal 24 for the year, right. So I'm saying two months, really, it's just 24 for the year. But one of the things that allowed me to be more successful at that so far this year, is I don't even remember the book it was but there's something in January that I picked up that was exactly like that, that by the third chapter, I realized I got all that I am going to get out of this book. Yeah. So rather than either feel like I was cheating by counting it, or slowing down by reading by forcing myself to read through this thing that felt like a slog. It was a great book. The book was not as long but it was it felt like a slog because I get the thing. I just was willing to say great, I got all I'm getting out of this book, next book, and I tore through that next one. Yeah, so it was new. And so sure, I didn't count that book. But I've given myself permission to have gotten enough.
Jeff 38:52
I the same way. And I think the Gladwell book was the like the one on the 10,000 hours. Here's hockey players playing 10,000 hours, and then he was like, and then there's this pilot 10,000 When I go look now I'm not that smart, but my dimly lit light bulb is going off saying if you do something a lot of something you're gonna have expertise on. As a note on that literally last weekend I found this app or it was recommended to me where if you I think it's called headway where that you go through all these question and answers things and it serves up the best content from these books or whatever. So I got like, two chapters from atomic habits, nother chapter from this other book and I can it will also play the audio for me when I'm walking my dogs and everything. So I love that. So that's number one is
Dan Ennis 39:39
amazing. The books second one similar category, but slightly more fun. So by the end of last year, I had built out my list of like a backlog of movies that I had just never seen either ones that were recent releases that I missed or just the list of shame movies that are like how did I never see this movie? That or just have all done
Jeff 40:00
Always great to help ya. So you hold on to that data you love to shock people with like, yeah, for me, it's Titanic. I've never seen it and you can't I'm like, never seen it. I'm not gonna go see it.
Dan Ennis 40:12
Yep, I feel that for sure. And so that's it. So that was me going through the movie backlog, because I'm someone who enjoys movies a lot. And if I'm gonna like, like, just did a lot on my phone for like an hour and a half, I'd much rather have watched a movie like it's just much more enjoyable, I get way more out that way more fulfilling. But then the third is really looking for by the end of the day, I'll be really stoked if we can have found a new like a new volunteer opportunity for our family to connect in because our so we've been my wife was on the board of this incredible, really local, like volunteer group and she was on the board, women lead, but we loved it because the whole family can be a part of helping with it that really served like the minority immigrant marginalized community like oh, wow, in our community, and we love being a part of it, whether it's their tutoring, you know, things for vulnerable New moms, like a lot of incredible Yeah, it really wound down during the pandemic, because of like, they were all like it was a high in person. That was their whole everything was what they did was these in person things. So naturally wound down a bit during the pandemic, and made the like difficult decision to say look like we like it's not going to ramp back up the same way. So we're probably just going to put this one on pause. And so I think it was absolutely the right call for that org at that time, especially because the person, the lady who actually led it just took it to the next level I got involved in her local city government is now on there. That's great, because that's just her personality. And I'm not surprised at all. And she's a rockstar at that and a role model. But that part aside, it left us going into this year, like my wife and I talked okay, we want to find another one. Because we really for us, it's a huge value that our girls grow up knowing, like a that they can make a difference. That's super empowering for them. Yeah, be that like their responsibility. Our responsibility isn't just to our own family and to ourselves. Like that's super crucial to us, and like a really core value for us. And so we loved about that other org was that it was something that the kids could come to, they could be a part of like helping and what little ways. And so for us, that's our challenge this year is we can easily find something that my wife or I could do like that would be no brainer kids. Brilliant. Yeah, exactly. Like that will be easy, quote unquote, did to find that opportunity. But we really want something that we can bring them into. So that's our goal this year. I love it. Oh
Jeff 42:22
my god. And now I'm going through some shame because we don't do anything like that. But it's
Dan Ennis 42:27
never going away, man. Like
Jeff 42:33
it's amazing. And I think everybody listening is just probably like, Oh, my God, Dan is a great guy. So. So thank you so much. I like we're like pushing the button. I know we'd be asked for a little bit upfront. So I'm gonna hit stop and one second, we'll make sure we'll get all your contact stuff and drop it into the, into the post and everything like that. Dan, will I'll see you in, in May and at Pulse at the end. I'll tell them more details on that in the beginning, but to say yeah, let me Well, that's fine. So if anybody has gotten to this point, if they're going to pulse in May, I will be there as well. Playing in a cover band, doing some hits with some other CS leaders, which would be really fun. So we'll have more details on that too.