E1: How to Overcome Challenges and Build a High-Performance Team with Dan Churches | VP ColorTokens, Transmit Security & Tibco

Welcome to the SwitchGears Podcast. This is your host, Priy Saka, and today I'm joined by Dan Churches, Regional Vice President of Transmit Security. Dan is the RVP at Transmit Security, which is known for the largest Series A funding round ever announced by a cybersecurity company. At a whopping $543 million, the highest valuations for a bootstrapped firm. Dan is also one of the most well-rounded leaders that I know, having worked for IBM, NTT Global, TIBCO, and Verizon Enterprise Services. He has lived, worked, and delivered programs in England, Germany, India, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. And he's had an early career in learning and development, delivering programs like Situational Leadership by Ken Blanchard and many other world-renowned leadership programs. So, Dan, welcome to the show today.

Thank you for that generous introduction. And I'm very happy to be here. Looking forward to the chat.

So, first question, Dan, at a personal level, what is the biggest challenge you've had to overcome in this terrific career that you've had over the years? Just walk me through it.

Okay. It was interesting as I was preparing for our chat today and then you asked me to consider personal challenges. There are any number you could pick, right? And I tried to unpack things and go down to the core of what was I dealing with in my own personal journey that would allow me or that helped me enjoy some of the success I've had over the years. And where I landed was My being dyslexic. It's not severe as some, but I do, I still get my Bs and Ds mixed up and my left and rights mixed up. So dyslexia is what it is. When you have it, you don't know of it as a challenge or an issue. It just is what it is. But what happens, of course, is as a young person, you develop adaptation skills. And my adaptation skills were all visually orientated. I was all about show me and I'll do it because I couldn't read it off a page. So, I became very visually oriented. And of course, as my professional career began to unfold and I understood what I really needed to do to be successful, I had to really— that self-assessment, self-awareness, I had to lean into what I knew to be my weaknesses. Right. And I really had to correct that trajectory. If I was going to be successful, I needed to be able to Construct a well-rounded email or a well-rounded proposal or document, and it had to be thorough and it had to be comprehensive and it had to be proper grammar and structure. I still think that's relevant today. I strongly believe that if you can properly construct a proposal, even an email, it becomes your personal differentiator.

Yes.

When communicating with people. And in this, in our field of sales, when there's very little that sometimes differentiates you from your competition, it might not be your product. So it could come down to you. And every little distinction is a plus.

You mentioned awareness. And I think that's really powerful because awareness is the first step in actually making change towards the goal you want to achieve.

You reach out to books and to mentors and coaches to try to get gain insights and understand what is the structure of success, what is the framework of success. And I did so in my early years reading Anthony Robbins, right? Walking over hot coals and all that kind of stuff, right?

Sure.

So, I leaned into those kinds of self-help books around your career and career visions and career aspiration. And one of the threads in all of those books is self-awareness. And if you're pursuing self-realization, you have to own it. And so it was clear to me early on, it was no longer valid to point my finger out to the world and say, I'd be a lot happier if you would just change according to my desires. It was very clear that change occurred where I had to own it, try to walk with it, try not to be too hard on myself as I stumbled and ironed it all out. But the real message is you have to own it. And when I say own it, human nature is we self-assess all the time anyways. We're our worst own critics, right? We're always judging ourselves. And so, that self-awareness was just to do so what you do naturally, authentically, to do perhaps with a little bit of a framework, to understand with a framework it can have its application in your career and, of course, in your personal life. So, the two start to blend.

Yeah.

And so, you use that framework to navigate, basically. And in time, you learn to be nice to yourself when you are a little rough on the edges, but you find your way. And then, after you work and walk that journey a little bit, you also find that, you know what, everybody around you is doing their best as well to figure out their path.

Yeah.

So, you start to go out to that next layer in the onion and you recognize, wow, I guess they're just like me, but in their own version. You try to think yourselves into their path, into what they're trying to achieve, and you get this connection somehow, and you share those achievements with people around you, and therefore you all move together as a— it takes a village thought.

That's incredible.

Yeah. And so, it's a work in progress. I can talk about it. It sounds eloquent, but trust me, I'm still working on it on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Ask some of my friends and some of my family. They go, gee, sounds like that. Really? So, yeah, that's just being honest.

I love the fact that with what you shared, you actually then went on in an early career in learning and development, delivering programs, which is terrific. And I was just amazed when I saw Situational Leadership by Ken Blanchard, because that was a program that I went through as a sales leader at a Fortune 100 company. And that was quite transformational, both in terms of architecting my growth individually, my personal, as well as team growth, the people that I was trying to help. So can you give us an overview of what is Situational Leadership and tell me how have you applied it in your career?

I'll tell you that I came to learning and training programs because I have a degree in education. And my mom was a teacher and my sister's a And so, I grew up in a family of teachers. And so, I fall into training IT people. And so, I'm scouring the web and before the web, I'm buying books and reading front-to-back books. And Situational Leadership was one where I landed, which just locked in for me, right? The quadrants, where are you in the quadrant and how are you navigating through the quadrants? And then when you move into leadership and, and management, it's where your staff are in those quadrants. And how do you, in understanding their, where they are, how can you then help them map out their own path to success, to be successful and to align it to whatever goals that they have? And that's been one of my go-tos whenever I take a new role with an organization, there's people in place and I need to assess the landscape, situational leadership is one of my first go-tos.

So for those who don't know what the 4 quadrants are, Dan, could you give us a real quick overview?

Oh, you're going to catch me out like that, are you?

Okay.

So number 1 is you don't know what you don't know. Number 2 is what you don't know. Number 3 is you know it all and you're, you're slamming away and going hard. And number 4 is You are self-sufficient. You don't need a lot of touch. And 4 is an interesting quadrant that I always keep an eye on because 4 is the quadrant where you need to make that highly successful, knowledgeable individual, make sure that they're, they understand the premier role they can play in the team and make sure they don't take a step too far away from the team and become what sometimes people call that loose cannon out there that's navigating their own progress. I think for me in my career, It's been predominantly helping people land in quadrant 1, understanding the things that they don't know about, quickly moving into productivity, that is quadrant 2, where they have a grasp of your product, your go-to-market, your customer conversation, your differentiators, so that they're getting productive in quadrant 2. And the journey to quadrant 3, where they're self-sufficient, is an interesting one. It takes a little bit longer for new starters. You might have inherited people who are on that journey from 2 to 3. And for me, it's just an understanding of getting to, getting your staff to that level of self-sufficiency and how you can incentivize them to do, help them understand their path and to be successful. And so that you can see as many of your players in quadrant 3 as possible.

That's incredible. Is that okay?

Did I, I didn't go into all the vernacular that defines—

No.

Situational leadership. I should have probably cracked open some of my dusty books here before I— apologies if I didn't do it justice.

No, you did a great job because That is the same situation we go through every time we either step into a new role. Everyone who comes into a new role doesn't know what they don't know. And to have a leader who understands the 4 quadrants, I think, is really powerful. So tell me, in terms of your career, you've been a corporate trainer and delivered great programs. You then moved into enterprise selling and have sold into some of the largest organizations. And now you lead teams and have been leading teams for quite some time.

Yeah.

So how has this helped and shaped your career?

One of the things that I've always done in my leadership roles is to, to share my philosophy around building skill sets with my teams and to share them like, this is why I'm explaining this to you, or this is why we're going to try to navigate it like this, so that they have insights into the framework or the methodology. I actually use that as part of my coaching methodology with my teams and having my staff understand their path to success, what their aspirations are. And if they have a vision, what's the groundwork that you're going to lay down to allow you to achieve that goal? I want them to have that same insight or mindfulness that I draw on, because I believe that's the primary skillset that will see them through to their success for the remainder of their years. It's not good enough to do it mindlessly on autopilot. It's better to have an understanding of a methodology that aligns to your territory plan or your quarterly plan, a framework that allows you to bring people on board, allows you to get your other team members like your SEs or your outbound call people or your partners and even your clients. You get them to buy into the vision and do their part to fulfill that vision. And so that's why I keep leaning into these words framework and foundation and structure, because I try to unpack that for my teams as I coach them to aspire towards their goals.

My question is, what happens when you have team members where people need to go from being a C or a B to an A? Because it's often a combination of a number of factors. So how do you help connect with that vision and take the actions that they need to move from a place of underperformance to 110%?

Yeah, good question. I have a real philosophy where I've landed over the years around what 110% is. And again, I try to unpack that with my team so that they trust that everybody shows up to work and you hired them and you brought them into your business and your culture and they are ready to give you 110%. I just start from there. And now it's on me as a leader to help them be successful. And trusting that they show up with 110% attitude, what can I do to help them, you know, actualize that? So again, it is that transparency around methodology and structure. It's not only, you know, your territory plans and your planning on your target and your execution and your QBRs and all that. But I think where I really have crafted my philosophy around this is that I have them understand what are their personal goals, what's their success, their vision. And I have them understand that the 110% that we're trying to build on here at Attitude is to fulfill their vision, their goals. And it's the idea that If you understand how you structure that pursuit in your role, that will probably be the greatest skill or attribute you will carry with you throughout your career because it will transfer with you to whatever role you go to. And in your current role is your best opportunity right now to craft that skill, to hone that skill, to come to know yourself that you know how to map out what 110 looks like. And you know how to execute on 110, and you know what that execution feels like emotionally. And when you do that mindfully, then that becomes what you bring to the next role. When you get your staff to align their career goals to their personal goals, you— it's easier to get that 110% out of them. When I structure it this way, but then they also know that I'm leaning into them. I'm helping them as they lift their weekly sales cadence and how they're doing their hygiene in salesforce.com. I'm leaning into them and helping them Construct well-constructed proposals. So I play my part, or I shield them from the business and all the noise that can rain down on staff and all the distractions. I'm leaning in to try to help them be and succeed and be the best so that they see that we're in it together. Then I do really— actually, I do get the 110%. They show up to work ready to see what 110 feels like on that day, in that week, in that month. And in that quarter.

The insight and wisdom that you've just given me, 110% is not an outcome. It's a mindset. It's a way of working, which then creates the cadence and the execution that happens, which will then lead to 110%. And the other thing that I would highlight is that you said that is a skill that is developed. It is a pattern of behaviors, thoughts, actions that And I think that thinking about intrinsic development rather than waiting on extrinsic factors can be a massive shift for someone to go from a place of something that you said earlier. And I love the word ownership is you could blame the territory, you could blame the customers, you could blame everything else.

Global financial meltdown, you can blame it.

Right. But what you can control is what happens within your head and what you Let's move on to the last few years. More than ever, there has been so much change and uncertainty. How do you help your team members navigate the change and uncertainty? It could be macroeconomic, but it's also micro in terms of new direction, new plans, new go-to-market strategy, new territories. How do you take people from Uncertain and anxious to certain and actioning towards the directions that they need to head in?

You know what I think? And it's a silly old phrase, but it's so appropriate. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right? And so, you fall back on the fundamentals because they're still going to work despite all the noise. The fundamentals work. But then, bring it down to incremental gains. And celebrate the incremental gains and make sure that it's understood that the incremental gains are the right momentum for the next targeted goal, but make it manageable one bite at a time. And in making it manageable, you're setting up a pattern of success, and that can be any number of things. It doesn't actually have to be having made that number that month. It can be that your incremental gains are reflected in the fact of you had an outbound call campaign that you launched. And so your AEs together with your SDRs mapped out your outbound phones, your outbound emails, your sequences. You understood your strategy, you targeted your industries, you targeted your individuals and your contacts. And so you executed on a strategy and a plan. Those are incremental gains. And the great benefit from that might come 6 or 8 or 9 months later, but you're doing things that are all fundamental, all recognizable, and absolutely appropriate to sales activity and weekly sales activity and hygiene and such. So define your success in incremental increments and then execute.

Fantastic. That is brilliant. You could have an amazing year and you get thrown into a new year. You could have an amazing role and you get into a new role. So it is a new never-ending series of uncertain situations. And what I'm taking away from what you've said there is that when you break it down into smaller milestones and focus on what individually you can control or what individuals can contribute to bringing in, you mentioned the SDRs, the SEs, that's how you control your way out of a situation one step at a time.

That's it.

I got into selling in the '90s and I had an incredible coach like yourself who had a big belief in learning and development and coaching and mentoring. And he taught me a simple principle. If you look after the numbers, we'll look after you.

Yeah. True that. Fill that pipeline. Fill that pipeline in. Get it in there.

And so, my motto was to make every day my masterpiece.

Oh, lovely. Wow.

All I have is today.

So were you doing Picassos every day or Salvador Dalís every day? Blocks and cubes or— yeah, yeah, never mind.

Well, my Picasso was a list of 12 blocks in an hour where I had to make calls and strike out each block. And every time I had a connect, it was a circle around it. And if it was a voicemail, it was a strikeout.

Yeah.

And I had to manage myself by the hour, stay on task and get that done.

I still do outbound with our team here and I'm terrible at it. God, it's embarrassing. But I still do it because they need to laugh just so that they can understand, oh, that's the low mark. Churches is the low mark. Now they know where they're operating at. So it's, but yeah, we do it together. We do outbound blitz calls together. We do it on Zoom. So we have all the windows open, like the Brady Bunch, and we leave the mic open and if someone gets a pickup, we all go quiet and we listen to our colleague try to get the booking and such. So it's hilarious and it's exciting and it's fun when we get the bookings. And yeah, so it's, you're out on a ledge when you know your colleagues have shut up and they're listening to you on the phone going, all right, okay, thank you for taking the time. So.

That's incredible. And that's a consistent trend that I'm seeing with leaders who are in it to win it with the rest of the team.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a little scary, but I'll tell you what, I probably celebrate loudest and most embarrassingly when I get the bookings and I go, boom, baby, look what I can do. And they're like, just shut up, Dan, just keep moving. So it's ridiculous, but it's a lot of fun. It works.

Fantastic. Dan, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your stories, your journey, and just really what is working as well as what It's not working because at the end of the day, we're all in a similar situation working towards something and just overcoming obstacles across the way. So I appreciate you so much. Thank you for joining us today.

Pri, thank you for the invitation and giving me a chance to share with you. I love the work you do. I love what Switch is doing. Switch Gears is going to be an interesting project. I think it's a wonderful piece of work you've taken on here. I wish you all the best.

Thank you so much.

Cheers, mate.