24 Time to stop f *king around and invest in your people!

Now, the last speaker of the day is actually someone that Daniel and Thomas, you told me that the next speaker might actually be one of the few people who are funnier and has more energy than you guys. Yeah, we'll see about that. We'll see. But what is for sure is that he has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and growth leadership roles as some of the greatest global tech companies in the world. And, and best of all, he's all about the power of the human. And he's here to show us the undeniable impact of prioritizing employee development, satisfaction and empowerment can have on your organization's success. So quite simply, it's time for you all to stop fucking around and invest in your people. Please welcome. I didn't come up with that title. Please welcome the Chief Business and Product Officer at Sensei, Robin Daniels.

All right, end of the day, how y' all feeling? Good day? Come on, a little bit of energy. Come on. Okay. Well, on February 1, 2000, I bought a one way ticket from Copenhagen to California. I'm a nerd. I wanted to be with all the other nerds of the world. And at that point in time, I just thought, that's my tribe. I wanted to go there. And I ended up spending over 20 years in California. Not everything I did, unfortunately turned to gold, but luckily over that long time Spanish, I had a few wins. I was early days at Salesforce, growing them to over a billion dollars in revenue. I was at Box when we took them public. Then I went to LinkedIn for a while, then went to WeWork, which was an epic shit show if any of you have seen the movie. Then I took another company public in 2021, and for the last couple of years, I've been spending my time as an advisor to fast growth companies around the world. Until I joined Sensei last summer. And who's Sensai you might be wondering? Well, we used to be called LMS365, but we actually changed the name of our company last week. So many of you might not have heard this new name, but that's our new name. And we're all about human success. We're all about investing in people. Because when I think about the red thread in my life, the reason why I've been successful really comes down to two things. Number one, so many people along the way have invested in me, have believed in me, have taken a chance on me, and really shown me a path to be successful. And looking out at all of you leaders, captains of industry, I'm sure That you are where you are today because many people have believed in you, have invested in you. And the second reason I've been successful is because of the people around me hiring the right people, figuring out how to motivate them to do the best work of their lives. And that's really what motivates me and what keeps me engaged. This is not something I woke up and thought about just recently from joining this company. I've been talking about this incessantly for years. If any of you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see that I talk about this all the time. Here I am about five years ago as the CMO at WeWork, talking about how to hire and motivate the right people. And the reason I'm so passionate about this is because no matter when you look at the data, it's not good. The data always kind of says the same thing. Two out of three people want to quit their jobs and not engaged. Or we know that employees would stay longer if you invest in their career. We also know that if you have a good manager and they invest in you, you can be much more effective. We also know that, of course, if you actually invest in your employees and give them the right skills and motivation, they will also do better work. And the thing is, this Data is from 2023. You know what? In 2022, it was probably about the same 2021 was probably about the same 2020, probably. It hasn't really changed much. And it drives me absolutely crazy because the thing that makes your company special are the people in your company. And it's an honor and a privilege to be a leader. I really feel that so many people want to be in the positions that you all are. I hear this all the time. The number one question I get as a leader is how do I get promoted? How do I become a leader? So I know that this is what's on top of mind for so many people. And if we're not taking our responsibility serious to invest in our people, we're failing them. So every year we see the same trends over and over again. Yet we know that if we actually solve this, it has huge benefits for the organization. For example, employees who are motivated, who show up every day in an environment that kind of sparks their soul, and they bring more innovative ideas to an organization. What is an organization? What is a company? It's basically a group of people trying to solve challenges. Sometimes those are small, daily things that you're trying to solve for. Sometimes they're existential. We need to do this here or we're going to not be around next year. We're going to launch into a new market. A company is just a group of people trying to solve challenges. And if you want those challenges to be solved in the most innovative way, way possible, you got to provide an environment for your employees to be able to do that. The other thing is, we also know that employees who have figured this out and have figured out how to actually provide an environment that sparks the soul of their people and gives them a path and a purpose, those companies are also more profitable. So I would argue that we're witnessing a people revolution right now, and it's up to us to really usher in a new era. The first era of focusing on people is really around taking care of their basic needs. Kind of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The first level was just making sure they get paid, they take their vacation, they get their benefits and all that stuff. But I think we realized many, many years ago that that was not really enough to provide that spark of inspiration, that environment, that kind of connection where people can show up every day to do the best work of their life. So we thought, huh, let's change this, let's change this to focus on people and culture. And if we change the title, maybe that will change things. And if we provide foosball and ping pong and kombucha on tap and so on, trust me, I was the CMO at rework. I know that this kind of stuff, it really worked. And it did help because at least we weren't going into a soulless office that just kind of like was so uninspiring. So it helped, it brought us together. But we also realized that it not really addressing the root cause of what's really causing this discontent, this unhappiness in the world that we see from all our employees. And so I would argue that we have to usher in a new era, an era that we call human success. You can call whatever you want, people success, employees success, I don't really care. But it's really about focusing on the human and what they need to be successful. Making sure that they have everything in their power, the right skills, knowledge, motivation, so they can be successful every single day. So they continuously move, move towards their goals in life, whatever that goal is. It's a very individual thing. Sometimes you want more responsibility, more title, more pay, you want to move to a different part of the business. Whatever it is, it's your job as a leader to provide that environment so they can move towards their goals. Because I can guarantee you, when that happens, they will show up every day and do better work than you ever imagined. And so don't take my word for it. One of the best entrepreneurs of all time said this many years ago. Richard Branson, kind of an OG when it comes to founding companies, right? We all know Richard Branson, divergent companies. And he said, clients or customers or members or users, whatever you want to use, do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of your customers, your clients. And it's such an often forgotten thing because we're chasing growth and profitability and, you know, endless cycles of making sure that we're just selling more and more and more. And that's, of course, mega important. Your company's not going to be around if you don't have those things. But all of these things are outcomes. If you provide an environment where people can be productive and happy and ultimately successful. So how did we get here? Well, I believe we got here because for the longest time, we've been chasing the wrong thing. We have been so obsessed with outcomes or goals that that's the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter how you get there, as long as you get to the goal. And what happens, organizations become political. You start seeing strife between teams, people wanting to be very territorial, people being demotivated because there's not really clarity around who has the ball or what you're trying to achieve and so on. And so I believe that the old formula for success is broken. The old formula basically said that outcome is everything. Outcome. What's an outcome?

It's goal.

Basically only thing that matters is your goal. I think what really matters is, is this. And it's a new formula for success that I propose to you that is a new covenant between you and all your employees. And it goes a little something like input plus output equals outcome. You might be wondering, what does that mean? Well, let me explain to you what that means. So the new formula for success is really around making sure that the inputs and what is an input? It's the values that you all have on your walls. I've worked for many companies where it says gsd, trust, authenticity, diversity, all these things. It's making sure that the values that you have, you actually live up to them. And these are things, the inputs that you can control 100%. The way that you show up every day for your team, the way that you motivate your team, the way you invest in your team, you can control this 100% doesn't mean it's easy. I have a 17 year old son. He's a great kid. Sometimes he's an asshole. And if he's an asshole to me in the morning before I go to work, do you think it's going to affect my day? Sure. But it doesn't change the fact that when I show up at work and walk in that door with my team, my mindset, the way I show up with my energy and conviction and excitement is in my control. It's not easy, but it's still in our control. It doesn't change the fact that we control that the next thing is output. What does that mean? Well, outputs are the things that you and your teams work on. Maybe it's a new marketing plan, maybe it's a new sales motion, maybe it's a new HR plan. Whatever it is, is it great? Is it best in class? Are we proud of what we're putting out there? All these different things. You know what, I would also venture to say that we control this 100% as well. Doesn't mean it's always easy. And sometimes we put out stuff that's very mediocre. I've been there many times in my career when I've worked run big global marketing organizations. But it doesn't change the fact that we also control this 100%. But then what about outcomes? Do you control outcomes 100%? I would probably say if you believe that, you're probably a little full of it. I have never met anybody in my career who controls outcomes 100%. But this here is not an application of not having goals or outcome focused kind of things for your teams. What it means basically is the more you control the inputs and the more you control the outputs, the more likely you are to hit your goals. Let me explain. Let's say your goal Is to hit 10 million in ARR at the end of the year. If you show up with a shitty attitude, not really the right team members, lots of infighting and the stuff you're putting out there is not very good. Do you think you're going to hit your 10 million in ARR? Probably not. You're going to be way off. But if you show up with the right attitude, the right plans, the right courage and conviction, the right stuff that you're putting out there, Are you going to hit the 10 million? Maybe, maybe not. But you're certainly going to be a lot closer because you're controlling the variables that you control. And so when you think about this new formula for success, I think the first part really keeps people motivated because you're holding people accountable to the values that we all say that we hold so dear, the way that people show up every single day. The second thing is you. If you actually hold people accountable for output, it keeps people aiming high. Is this best in class? Are we proud of this? What will people think about it? And the last one drives accountability. But again, you can't always control the outcome. I mean, so many times in my career I've put out an amazing marketing campaign or program or something only for something to happen in the world. Oh shit, a competitor came out with something that was better, or suddenly there's a war that started that takes all the focus away from this and nobody cares. So you can't really control that, but you can control the other variables. And so I propose that the new formula for success looks something like this and you can kind of change the variables around. But until you start actually measuring and rewarding people based on input and output, I don't know if we're ever going to get out of this rut where people feel a little demotivated. Am I fighting for the right thing? Does the team care about me? Is there a path for me here? And so on. Is it just kind of like growth and revenue at all costs and so on? Again, super important. We wouldn't be here without those things. But those to me are outcomes of you actually providing an environment that is super inspiring. One of the OGs when it comes to motivation, Dale Carnegie said this. People work for money, but go the extra mile for recognition, praise and rewards. This is a little older, so I would probably include belonging here as well. There's certainly a lot of data that shows when people feel a sense of belonging and engagement, they also go the extra mile because you feel like you're part of something that people care about you. And the Holy Trinity really around making this happen centers around three core things, three core characteristics. They're around learning and growth and performance and kind of engagement. And the reason why these here are so important. So for the last two years before I joined Sensei as the Chief Business Officer, I spent time with CEOs all across the world asking me basically one thing. One thing they all wanted to know is how do I create high performing teams? What do we do? And so I worked on this model for a while and it really came down to, wow, if you have people who are continuously learning new skills, because we know skills get outdated. I used to work at LinkedIn and we used to put out a lot of data around learning because we had a learning product at that point in time. And one of the data points that always stuck in my head was that within five years, 90% of all the skills that you have are outdated. Not irrelevant, just outdated. And I think it's true of my career the way I did marketing 10 years ago, five years ago, it's not really relevant to how you actually do it in a modern capacity. So learning is really important. Engagement is super important. Those people who show up with energy, excitement, conviction, motivation for other people, those are dream team members. They are such value adds to your team because they lift everybody else up. And performance, of course, again, coming back to what all these CEOs were asking me is like, how do we create a high performing culture where we know that we're hitting our goals and going towards our goals? Well, you got to have clarity around what your goals are in the first place. But measuring people and teams and of course the company on the right goals keeps people motivated because you know you're working towards a path of something. And so at the intersection of these different things, learning, engagement, performance, you find something really interesting. When you have an employee who is learning really well and also deeply engaged, what you find is a model team member. It's the kind of person that everybody always looks to like, I want that person on my team, the person who shows up with that energy and excitement, but continuously learning new skills and staying fresh. When you have an employee who is also performing really well and learning a lot of new skills, you're optimizing outcomes today, but also in the future because we know they're staying fresh with their skills. And finally, when you have an employee who's performing really well and deeply engaged, it just drives such future potential. I can tell you I've hired hundreds of people. I can always point to those people and say, that person's going to go far because they're showing up every day with that energy and conviction and they're crushing their goals. Because the inverse of this is also true. The inverse is very true as well. If you have an employee who is learning and performing but not engaged, what do you think is going to happen? The moment something better comes along, that employee is going to leave. And if you have an employee who's learning and engaged but they're not performing, is that success for you? If you're not hitting your goals? Of course not. You still have to hit your goals. It's not an application of not hitting your goals. And finally, if you have an employee who is engaged and performing, but not really learning. Are they really going to stay relevant for where your company is going? Think about how fast your companies are growing and how they're changing. The way they are today versus where they're going in a year or two years can be completely different. You have to stay relevant. But this last one, the one on engagement, is so important. The new generation of workers that you all have coming into your companies, they want to be treated very differently. They want the nurture and the care and the investment in them. We see that. I did a poll on LinkedIn where I asked, how often do you want to talk to your manager? And you can see here, maybe it's skewed. And I wouldn't hardly say this is a scientific study, but it certainly shows that monthly or weekly is when you have to have conversations with your team members. Are you happy? Are you hitting your goals? What can I do for you? And so on. This is what keeps people motivated, engaged, and makes them feel like they're part of something bigger than themselves. So to wrap up here, I want to make a pact with all of you that really, this is all about humans. Let's make sure that we put humans first. I don't want to stand here again next year and be like, oh, the data shows the same thing. We can make a difference. This is my life mission. I hope it's all your mission. I hope you're here because you believe that leadership is an honor and a privilege and we can make a difference. Put people first. Make sure you're motivating them and giving them every opportunity you can to be successful. And if you don't believe me, believe this guy who I know that you all know. Start with why. Simon Sinek, he said this. 100% of customers are people. 100% of employees are people. If you don't understand people, you don't understand business. It's really as simple as that. There's a lot of epic companies here, and I hope you all have epic success. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Robin. Thank you. And thank you so much for being an ambassador for such an important topic and for bringing humanity out there. I think that it is so much common sense and now backed by all this data as well. And yet we're not there yet. And you say it yourself that there's frustration around this. What is it going to take to see that shift when we actually finally.

Get takes to do the work? It's as simple as that. Being a leader is an honor and a privilege. It's a lot of work but it requires more work, it requires you to lean in. It's so easy honestly. And I've been there myself honest times when I fail, when I've had people leave my team, it hurts deeply like these sprock stars because I have focused on the wrong thing. Of course you, you have projects you need to fundraise, you need to sell to customers, your product needs to work. All this stuff super important but you still have to do the work on motivating your employees, figuring out what drives them. Only when you truly understand, I think the motivation of somebody because everyone's unique and different in what they want in life, can you truly form a cohesive team that drives towards common outcomes.

And there's talk now about that we are entering the mental health economy or the mental health pandemic and a lot of people actually you know, their brains are just not working that well anymore and that should be of interest to any employer and any team. So do you see that perhaps that there is a different demand from a new generation of workers coming into the work market that are sort of used to putting words to this and can demand something else from their leaders?

I saw the most mind blowing statistic the other day. I was reading an article, it said that 81% of Gen Z believe that they can write self help novels. And I was like first I'm like what the, what the fuck? Like really like you know, I'm in my mid-40s, I'm like I don't have the confidence to go out and write a self help and tell other people but I think to come back to your questions because there's such an acceptance that it's okay to seek out help and ask for help and create a community around you that is very open around sharing both the good but also the struggles you're going through. I feel like we live in a time where that's accepted and it's much easier actually having a support network around you. Even going to your manager and saying hey I'm struggling things. No manager nowadays unless they're real asshole is going to go scold that employee. Going to go I'm sorry, how can I help you? Right? So I think it's an acceptance and we have to nurture that environment. That's how we're going to get the best out of people.

And maybe that would be a tricky way to just get.

If it was easy everybody would do it right?

So and I would love for you to be back next year but I don't want you to say that we're still at the same spot, so let's make that a deal.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.