According to Suzy Deering, we’re in a transformational leadership crisis. In this episode, we chat with the prolific CMO on what she’s learned about fostering trust at the helm of major brands like Ford, eBay and Verizon and why fear can paralyze change in organizations. We also break down the art and science of building and maintaining customer relationships in a recessionary environment and why marketers need to create a love language with chief technology and data officers.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Where I realized that I was at my best is
when I was challenged but not defeated. I was championed
because I had trust in the leader. I know that
I was at my best because I could be transparent
and vulnerable. That then led to empathy across the organization.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company. We're all
explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming
our lives and the way we do business at a
breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the greatest
business minds at strongest leaders who will share how they've
built companies from the ground up or transformed them from
the inside out. My bet is you'll pick up a
(00:48):
lesson or two along the way. It's all good. It
is a great pleasure for me today to welcome a
very very very good friend and someone that I've considered
a friend for more than twenty years, and that is
Susie Deering. Susie, I want to welcome you to Good
Company and really excited to be able to have a
(01:09):
chat with you. So welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, Michael, And I can't think of a better
name than good Company, because I like this company. We
keep there you go.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
And you know, Susie, you have a great, a great
way about you. And when somebody is your friend, you
actually refer to them as your friend. And I love
that because I consider you my friend. And we've been
through lots of stuff together, all the way back to
the early days at Disney in Celebration Florida, and then
finding our way at Home Depot and Verizon and Moxie
(01:43):
and eBay and Ford. My God, logos on your sheet
are some of the most important logos in the world, Susie,
and they've you know, you've got a unique experience because
you've been both client side, agency side, brand side. I
mean you you've played on almost every court and that
(02:06):
makes you an all around athlete, and I know that's
something important in the Deering family. It is, you know,
sports are very much at the heart of you. Georgia folks.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I know you live in Carolina, but I know you're
a dog.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I know that's through.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And through exactly. Susie. You've been truly an innovative force
in the media and marketing world for the better part
of this last twenty years. Can you give, you know,
our listeners a little bit of your background as you
perceive it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, first of all, again, thanks for having me on.
And you're right, Michael, you and I have have really
weathered a lot of interesting paths over the last several years.
And you know, part of what I'm really proud of is,
you know, I'm doing what I love. I'm doing what
I went to school for, went to the University of Georgia.
I knew I wanted to be in advertising marketing. I
(03:02):
knew that at the age of sixteen, I knew the
first company I wanted to work for was Disney.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I did that, and why was that.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Important was because I had such admiration for the brand
I believed in, you know, really what the Walt.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Disney companies stood for.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And I also knew that it was going to be
one of the best places for me to understand although
I knew it, but I didn't really fully appreciate it,
to understand the power of brand and the power of customer.
So I can't give a better place to start my story,
which was at Disney. I held several different roles while
I was there, But if I was going to summarize
(03:37):
my journey as you just went through it with the
logos and the companies. Really, I would summarize it with
I'm a collection of technology, data, content and entertainment with
a real, real force of commerce, so everything into transaction.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I remember when you were running Moxie the agency, yes
gauged by Fox, and Fox was one of your largest clients.
And I remember you and I partnering on that Digital
Day to bring digital marketing. And if you remember, Susie,
we brought this new fangled company called Facebook and YouTube
(04:17):
and I got to remember who from Facebook, but I
remember it was Adam Stewart from YouTube and Google who
joined us, and we were trying to educate twentieth century
Fox on how important digital marketing was to the motion
picture industry.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I mean, I'm thinking back and that's got to be fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen years ago you were talking about entertainment. And that's
why I look at you as being, you know, a utility.
I know baseball is important in the Daring family. I
look at you being a utility infielder. You can play
a lot of positions.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
And I think, Michael, you know what's interesting about that
is is that, as you know very well, how you
get to being able to play and be a player
that can truly play different positions is by understanding the
importance of who you know in the industry and where
you're willing to really get uncomfortable and learn and experience.
(05:13):
And you know, what I would say is that with
this combination of kind of having commerce, technology, content and
data and you know, and the entertainments out of it.
And just what you expressed is that's even more critical
now because unfortunately there's a lot of marketers out there,
you know, and their challenge because they haven't understood it's
a complex world to actually put that ecosystem together, which
(05:35):
is critical now. And so the role of a marketer
in a business. You are a business marketer. You aren't
just managing big money that's at risk or at stake
for the company. You're driving growth. I mean, you have
to be driving growth.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Well, Susie, it's so important you say that, and it's
so interesting. I was fortunate to moderate a panel for
Forbes last fall, and it was for the Forbes CMO Summit,
and the question that I was asked to appint on
and I was interviewed about was what does the CEO
not know about the role of the CMO. And I
(06:11):
found that to be such a compelling you know, lead topic,
sentence if you will, or question because a lot the
answer is a lot and you just use the word.
Sometimes a chief marketing office today is called chief marketing
and Growth. Sometimes it's chief marketing and Products. Sometimes it's
chief marketing and communications. But but you know, each of
(06:33):
those words bring in a lot of meaning, growth being
the one that's certainly the largest. Obviously communications is important,
but growth, yes, that drives right to the center of
what marketing's about. You're not marketing for marketing's sake. You're
marketing to drive growth, to drive sales, to drive adoption,
to drive the rangement engagement.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
You know, yeah, and I think that, you know, I
think that's a really great question that was asked because
it's a completely different role and it needs to be
re expressed than what it was even ten years ago.
And a lot of marketers would say that is a
little intimidating because they know how to make advertising campaigns,
(07:14):
they know how to go to market, but then to
strategically take a step back and really look at a
fully integrated approach within your business, not just within the
marketing discipline, but how do you interact with the CFO
so that you can have the right relationship that you're
not just looked at as an expense line, that you
are looked at as that growth line. How do we
(07:35):
ensure that whatever your product is, with it it's a
physical product, if it's an experience, if it's a platform,
whatever that product is, you've got to have a very
different relationship with your product team than what Again, not
just to market it, but to help obviously grow it,
develop it, and influence it. You're also part of hr
because you've got to make sure from a talent perspective,
(07:57):
are you building the right brand externally that actually talent
wants to come to right and.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Most importantly now the makeup of that talent, the diversity
or diversity and inclusion in the right way, not just
to tick a box, but because marketing should be reflective,
as we all know of the larger community. And if
you want the larger community be reflected, you actually need
people who reflect it.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You can't want it and not actually be it. So
that is so important and I think never before has
it been more critical for this CMO or whatever you
want to call that, Chief Experience Offer, chief Growth officer,
whoever you want that role, that's sitting right at the
senior table. And it's absolutely more critical now that the
(08:45):
CEO and the CMO are strategically aligned because you're going
to influence so many different other partners around that table.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, and you've brought this up before and you just
talked about it with the CEO and the CMO, but
I also know you are very aware of the role
of the CTO and don't have talent, I mean technology
the CMO and the CTO, because you know you've heard
me say this one thousand times. Today, chief technology chief
(09:17):
information officers are making way more marketing decisions than ever before,
and the chief marketing officer are making more technology decisions
than ever before. So they need to speak. And you know,
there are two companies that I think reflected that early
Unilever and Coca Cola. When we did early digital journeys
with those two companies, they were the first ones to
(09:38):
bring their chief technology officer on a marketing journey yep.
And it was logical because we were going to Silicon
Valley and so you needed the tech side to marry
the marketing side, not only you know the rest of
those kind of marriages with CHRO and you know CFO.
What I found recently in this economic moment is we
(10:03):
at Media Link are getting many of the same assignments
that we would have gotten previously. But what's interesting is
the buyer is different. The buyer in some cases now
is the CFO. Yes, because it's not just marketing efficiency,
it's cost savings.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And it's interesting because when you say, I'll give you
examples of this, I believe wholeheartedly that one of the
most critical relationships for a marketer whatever you want to
call that, in a company is for your technology to
have the best and strongest relationship for your technology teams.
Because the other thing to remember is is that the
technology team, to your point you stated, sometimes has data
(10:43):
in there, sometimes they don't, right like they can be
separated in the organization. And this trifecta that I have
found is really where the heart comes into play, because
the customer truly is sitting in the intersection of all
of those and when you start looking at it through
the customer lens and not through your company lens, that's
when the game changes because the customer today, because of
(11:07):
how many intersection points they've had with so many different
brands who have gotten it really, really right in many
aspects and really wrong in others, their expectations are so
high as far as what the interaction from the brand
is going to be. And so you can look at
some of the best brands in the world right now
and they're struggling because where that customer is going to
(11:29):
interact with the brand can very often be disconnected. And
a lot of that is fingerpointing in the organization. So
if you don't if the marketing leader isn't isn't humble
enough to know that they need to have a very
different relationship with their technology officer again not to do
their job. And this has been where I think a
(11:50):
lot of that friction has come into play, is knowing
you've got to be able to I always.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Call it the love language.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
There needs to be a love language that you can
establish with your technology officer and your data officer so
that then the three come together on behalf of the customer.
Many companies right now, Michael, they don't get that, and
there's too much let's just face it. I've been in
a lot of these companies myself, where the silos and
the finger pointing and the fight for budget and the
(12:18):
fight for permission. You know, whatever the responsibility is is
where time is being spent. And that is a fatal
flaw and we're seeing that right now. COVID just highlighted it.
And I think we're at one of the biggest resets
in our industry to where marketing, technology and data have
got to come together in whatever shape or form that
(12:39):
looks like inside companies.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Well, and you know, that's a great segue for me, Susie,
into another topic I wanted to talk about. It's bringing
together the discipline and the data and all of that
that we generally ascribe to performance marketing and marriys it
with that which we should always be aligning for brand marketing.
(13:02):
So why not call it brand performance?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Let's say you, Susie Dearing. I know this is something
you and I have talked about, but I'm curious your
view on that. Is it happening and do you think
it's the right thing to happen in the market to
bring the two disciplines together more.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yes, And I think that actually you see right now
where they've been splintered. And then again it happens with
many companies that have been so focused from a performance
perspective that they forgot that actually the brand is all encompassing.
And so when you think of budgets, the very first
place that budgets would get cut is the non performing budgets.
(13:41):
And the non performing that use air quotes was brand.
And you know, I always struggled with that because your
brand is everything. Your brand is your company purpose. It's
how you function and act internally, it's how you show
up externally. And now in an environment where your customers
can take your voice faster than half of the companies
(14:02):
can actually act. And so if you don't understand the
importance of maintaining the true integrity and the story of
which you really want to pursue customers with, then the
customers are going to take that on and they're going
to take it over. Therefore, the performance side of your
business is going to suffer, you know. And I think
that what you've seen happen is this close the sale mentality.
(14:25):
It's always existed, It's always been out there that closed
the sale mentality. I would hear in conversation, you know,
at various companies. I was at, well, what's the call
to action? You'd be like, the call to action is
I want people to fall in love and trust and
believe in our brand. That's the call to action. Well, no,
what's it going to deliver me from a sales standpoint,
You're like, well, it's going to deliver. It's just in
(14:47):
this instant right now. It's informing and helping encourage the sale.
And so what you're seeing is in a digital world
that all happens, you know, instantaneously, if there is if
you want to fish and you want to make sure
that you have a what I would refer to very often,
you know, you're filling the pond with new customers so
(15:07):
that when you do get to the performance side of it,
there's actually customers there that want to bite. We've separated
for so long right now, the ponds are drying up
because we haven't been able to really draw customers in
to actually be able to then.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Get to the sale.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And we're not talking months anymore like that used to
be in the old days. There, you know, when we
started having conversations.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You had it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
It's hours.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Now Now you'd have to do awareness and consideration, setting
and everything else. You can have awareness, consideration, and consideration
fail within seconds.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, no, no, Susie. It's funny because in the dot
com boom, when people would come to me early on
and say, Michael, we're going public on the nastack. We
need to build a brand in thirty days. I used
to kind of smile and go, you don't build a
brand in thirty days. Today you can build a brand
in thirty seconds.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
I mean seconds.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I hate to say it, but it's funny. And you
talked about the pond. I do have to digress and
tell a funny story when we moved my family moved
to California in the early fifties. Oh my god, we
crossed the plains in the Conastoga it felt like it
must have been. But there was a place here in
La called the Sportsman's Lodge and they had a little
pond where you could go fishing. And my dad took
(16:19):
one of my sisters and I to go fishing in
this pond. I was five years old maybe, and we
just kept catching fish. Yeah, And my dad was so impressed.
And then he realized they were stoking the thing and
you couldn't fail, and they were charging you by the
pound a fish that you caught. My dad said, throw
those fish back. We couldn't eat those fish. But you know,
(16:40):
you talk about that, it just made me think of
filling the pond. And here I thought I was, you know,
Moby Dick.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I thought I was like a grass and you were like, man,
this is my new profession.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah. No, Then I found out they were stocking the
pond with fish, so it was they were hungry fish too.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But it's the same thing if you think, you know
and that the unlike fish, customers can decide to jump
out of that pond quick and so, you know, is
it something we should be heightenedly aware of. It's absolutely
critical to the success of businesses that these things come
together and you don't ever look at them separated. The
(17:19):
biggest challenge with that is, and you're watching it right
now with when you know companies get under pressure, where
do they go cut costs? They're going to go cut
cost in building the brand. Where do they see the
long term suffering and cutting the budget out of the brand.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, now that being said, I chatted to Mark Pritchard
even a year ago as we were we were somewhere
at a conference and I was interviewing Mark. I shouldn't
say somewhere. It was actually in France, I remember, and
as we were looking at the economic storm clouds that
seem to be forming, and you know, even now we
still look at them as forming. We don't know if
they've actually erupted. Although here in California the rain has
(17:56):
yess me that the storm clouds are real, because we've
had more rain than ever and I've lived here a
long time, maybe one of the rainiest seasons we've ever had.
But I said to Mark, how do you look at
that from a Procter and Gamble perspective? And Mark said,
and he was clear to say, don't let the media
people think we're doubling our investment. But this is the
time we quote double down, because this is when we
(18:18):
realize we can gain more market share. So the really
astute marketers understand the place to cut and the time
to cut isn't necessarily now. This is when you can
gain market share and you know, get ahead of the pack.
But that being said, with a recession kind of on
the horizon or you know, seemingly yet consumer spending is
(18:40):
not slowing down at a certain level. Consumer spending is
as strong as I've ever seen it. You know, as
a marketer, how would you be looking at that and
what are the trends that you're seeing.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I think in certain segments of the customer base we're
seeing no slowdown. In fact, you're seeing in some regards,
you know, to your point, a pent up demand, you know,
for certain industries. Right, so again you know a similar situation.
I was going into the book, you know, summer vacation,
and I'm shocked because in Italy right now, I almost
can't find the places that I want to go to.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
I can't find the right availability. And that was floring.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But then when you look at it, you go, well,
there's been built up demand because people are now really
truly trying to get back into travel and so forth.
But let's be very clear, there is a very large,
large population of art in the United States and even
more so in Europe right now that the recession is
hitting day in and day out, and it is hitting
(19:37):
very specific industries. If you start to look at where
price you know, has obviously just become so inflated on
daily goods like grocery and CpG type of categories, you're
going to start to see an influx so QSR restaurants
versus those midstream type of restaurants. If you just go
back and kind of look at it in any kind
of you know, economic situation where there was you know,
(19:59):
pressure put back on to the you know in the
early two thousands, you know, when there was pressure on consumers.
So it's there, Michael, It's just it's a little bit
more I would say strategic and surgical in nature because
of where it's hitting. So again to the point that
Mark Pritchard made, if you're P and G, you're looking
in saying, we definitely have to double down because they're
(20:20):
going to be fighting on both on price and on
you know, the consumer heart because people are really going
to have to make tough choices. So I think that
now more than ever, marketers have to actually do what
they were trained to do, which is become specialists and
really understand the customer and understand which customer they're talking
to it at, which where are they in that stage
(20:42):
you know from an economic standpoint that you know is
going to influence their marketing efforts. But what cannot be sacrificed,
whether it's at the high end on you know, a
high end side that we've just been talking about, or
even you know, on your daily consumables and so forth.
The brand has got to be it has to be
healthier because you have to make sure that you're doubling
(21:03):
down to ensure that that true intention span of the
customer is there. So it's a really I think for
the first time and all of the study that I've
kind of looked at and everything, I've not seen as
being this kind of interesting economic situation because there is
such a variety of impact that's happening. And then you've
(21:25):
never seen before where a consumer or customer is even
more vocal than ever than we see today. How this
plays out over the next I think, you know, fourteen
months is going to be a lesson that all of
us are going.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
To learn from.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I want to kind of, you know, do the future question.
We're seeing so much change occurring right now. Content has
become so important. I came up with ten words that
began with the letter T or the letter C or
go t's and c's. Let me give you the T
words first, and these are conversation starters. You can pick
(22:03):
any one or two of these to talk about. The
T words are trust, transparency, talent, technology, and transformation. I
would submit there's no marketer on the planet who isn't
focused on one or many of those te words. And
the S words are content, commerce, culture, curation, creativity, and community.
(22:28):
When I landed on these ten words, Susie, I realized
I landed on something that really touched all the all
the areas that are you know that our industries collectively
are focused on them. Talk about those words, pick them.
How do you respond to those words?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I a one hundred percent agree with you that they're
all interconnected and they are absolutely critical to any conversation
that's taking place because it goes back to where our
conversations started earlier, especially from a marketing perspective, where marketing
sits as as kind of the hub, you know, in
the organization, because it has to spoke out any one
(23:08):
of these areas, whether it's content, it's you know, commerce, communications,
or to your point, the technology that may be helping
enable it. They're all interconnected. And I think the way
that I look at it as an ecosystem, and the
ecosystem has to feed each other, right like it has
to be able to constantly be in movement and motion.
What I think that I would pull out that we
(23:30):
lack that helps us and cut some of these so
I may break them down a little bit differently. I
take the two that you started with on the T side,
trust and transparency, and transparency is lacking in most of
our leadership in any organization today. I'd add an E.
I know it doesn't fit within your construct, but I'd
(23:52):
add the E of empathy because if we just went
through one of the biggest crisis management exercise and it
was non discriminating, right like, it hit across every industry,
across every person, regardless the title and anything else.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
And what I.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
See right now is that we have a breakdown in
we're in a crisis mood, candidly of what's a renewed
sense of leadership and this renewed sense of leadership and
what it takes to create transformation, what it takes to
actually transcend or to build out and take brave steps
(24:31):
in technology so that it can enable communication, so it
can enable content, so it can enable commerce. Those two
things that you started with, trust and transparency, and I
would add the E of empathy are at the heart
of what leaders need to start to really hone in
on and not just give lip service. Because I look
(24:55):
at the next generation, and the next generation is right now,
your children, my children who are looking and saying, hold
on a second. I don't want to just be you know,
in the grind of it every day.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I want to make an impact.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I want to come in and I want to create
change with an organization. I want to I want to
go work for companies who want to be part of
my fulfillment as much as I want to be part
of the fulfillment of the good of the of the business.
And what they're not willing to do is just go
work for people who want to beat them down. They
want to go work for people who want to you know,
(25:31):
really champion and support them. They want people who are
going to be true leaders and have empathy and be
very transparent and be you know, create a trust. If
I look back, and I've had, you know, the opportunity
over the last several years to kind of take a
step back and look at my leadership because you know,
I felt like that we were in transition, especially because
(25:52):
I've been brought in into so many organizations to be
a transformational leader.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, you've you've grabbed a few hair balls in your career.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I did. I definitely did.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And you know, and when I've looked at and thought
I had not been at my best, I broke it down.
And where I realized that I was at my best
is when I was challenged but not defeated. I was,
you know, championed because I had trust in the leader.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
I know that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I was at my best best because I could be
transparent and vulnerable. That then led to empathy, you know,
across the organization. And I think that that again is
we're lacking that in many many ways.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Well and also, you know what, there's another word that
I would throw in their empowerment.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I've always subscribed to an old fashioned philosophy, which is
you can't give somebody responsibility without giving them the authority.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And you know, if you make an old fashioned tea
chart like we all grew up with, you know, you
make a car chart of pros and cons.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
When I do that, when I look at an opportunity,
I always say, here's here's the challenge. And do I
in fact have the authority to carry out that challenge?
Because if I don't, I shouldn't be given the you know,
the challenge, because I won't be able to satisfy it.
I won't be able to deliver on the responsibility you're
asking me to undertake if I don't have the appropriate
(27:19):
lever or authority. That's always what I say, kind of
tongue in cheek. Is the greatest cause of heart attacks
and ulcers in business is responsibility without authority because just
frustrated them, because you can't pull the lever to make
stuff happen. You know, Susie, you've worked in large corporations
where sometimes that is a challenge and is an impediment
(27:39):
to success. You know, you're responsible, but you don't have
the authority.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Well, it's even it's authority. It's also you know, very
often in some of the positions that I've been in,
it's been I have accountability without the responsibility.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
And you know that has always been all.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
That, Yeah, accountability or responsibility without.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Authority, authority, and you know, so I now I've been
It's been good in some regards because the power of
influence is critical and so at an early age, candidly
Disney was the first place that taught this was the
power of influence and how did you influence with an
organization even if you didn't have the ultimate of responsibility
(28:22):
that was that was really important. The challenge is is
that we can't get because of all the things that
we just talked about, the importance of technology, the importance
of changing business models, like some of the things that
got us where we are today. I learned this at Moxie.
What made Moxi super healthy was not what was going
(28:42):
to make Moxie, you know, really successful in the long run.
And that was a challenge because everybody was like, wait
a second. I was like, no, well, where are we're
going to go? We can't get there the same way
that we got to the stage.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, and look, we've experienced that at Media Link as
Media Link has continued to change, and Susie, you've yeah
great supporter and been there since the very beginning, even before,
and you know that we've continued to morph ourselves because
I talked about that with my executive leadership team this
morning about how this part of the business is still there,
the basic kind of underpinnings, but look at all the
(29:17):
you know, all the shoots that have grown off of
that and the expertise we've developed but you can't lose
sight of what what brought you together at the beginning
and gave us relevance and importance, you know in the
marketplace at the beginning. You know who said it best.
I think it's Satia inn Nodela, who you know in
my book where I ever to write a book? Managing
(29:39):
this I would say has been one of the great
CEOs of this generation. You think of Microsoft, not just
judging it by stock value, but certainly on stock value,
it's been extraordinary. But he reimagined a company in such
a meaningful way. And I think it was he who
coined the expression. We know this from auto race and
(30:00):
you know, change the tires while the car is moving,
but he said it more articulate, in a more articulate fashion.
He said his challenge was to perform while you transform.
And I use the word transformation. We all know how
important it is to be continually transforming models and people
and strategy. That's right, But you have to perform while
(30:20):
you're transforming.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, And it's interesting because I've spent a lot of
time looking particularly at the work he's done, you know,
with Microsoft, because it's been phenomenal. He also had clarity
of what their real strategy and vision was, and he's
stuck to it. Whereas I think that again because leaders,
and I don't mean just CEOs when I say leaders,
(30:43):
it's leaders at various different levels within organizations. What I
see happening right now is there's so much fear. And
a little fear is good. A lot of fear is paralyzing,
And you know, it's interesting. I'm just do a really
side note. You know, my faith is very important to
me and I had the blessing several years ago to
(31:04):
spend a year studying the word fear and was mind
blowing because at first I thought, how could we talk
about this word so verse, so long? And it was
really quite interesting because it was when I walked away
from a realized as a leader, I was like, Wow,
if we create fear inside organizations of you know, teams
(31:24):
that feel paralyzed, you'll never be able to transform, You'll
never be able to think differently. We talk about diversity
and inclusion, diversity of thinking, you know, yet we put
fear inside organizations to prohibit that. So we talk we
want one thing, but yet our actions take on something
completely different.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Well, you know, I'll tell you my grandmother taught me
something which I've said and I've lived my life by,
which was, don't read people's lips, watch their feet, don't
listen to what they say, watch what they do. And
you said something to me, Susie Dearing, which I have stolen,
but I've given you credit. You told me this on
a conversation maybe six or eight weeks ago. You said
(32:05):
something and I'm going to get it wrong, but I've
been paraphrasing it, something about you're not interested in talking
about the things you're going to do, but you're interested
in doing the things you're going to talk about. And
I've adopted that and I've given you credit. But it's
such an important statement about life and about business. Yeah,
everybody can blab off about what they're going to do,
(32:27):
Just don't do that. Just go do the things that
then you can blab about. That's exactly as articulate as you.
But it's really landed with me and resonated, and I
don't remember the context of why you said it, but
it just triggered something in my mind, which is that's
becoming a watchword for media link in the marketplace. So
I thank you for that. But you know, if you
(32:47):
want to kind of end on that note, Susie, give
me the genesis of that thinking.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well, where that came from, Michael was because so often
we talk about the things that we really want to
see happen, that we don't really see it happen. And
so I've watched this in organizations that say they want
to transform, and yet until it starts to happen, and
then all of a sudden, they turn around and they're like, well,
that's not how we do it. And it creates this fear,
It creates this resentment, It creates this oh my heaven,
(33:14):
you know, I'm going to be I'm going to be
forgotten because I don't know how to do that thing,
and so you don't feel fulfilled. And it's a really
really challenging situation for any company, regardless of where you
are in health. You could be one hundred and twenty
years old, or you could be ten years old.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
As a business.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But what I've realized is here's something and there'll probably
people who don't agree with me. You know, as children,
we were taught when you have children, you always want
them to be inquisitive, always asking questions. There's a point
in time where you need to have answers, and there
is a point in time where you need to know
what the action is. And that's where it's stemmed from,
(33:54):
because if you just talk about it, it doesn't take place.
You've got to be able to actually envision what you
want the outcomes to be and see the outcomes happen
and know how to get there.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
And so and I think that we have.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
We're sitting in again this massive reset right now where
we're going to see how many people really can get
to that answer and understand. You know, the right questions
are the right actions to take. But we're not going
to see the same outcome.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, Sadly we're not. Susie Dearing. I want to thank
you personally for twenty plus years of friendship and a
really inspired conversation.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Thank you, Michael, and you know I love you dearly.
So I appreciate our friendship and look, thanks for the
opportunity to come have this good conversation and great company together.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I'm Michael Cassen. Thanks for listening to Good Company.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
A Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio Special. Thanks
to Lena Peterson, chief Brand Officer and Managing Director of
Media Link for her vision I'm good company. And to
Jen Sealing, vice president Marketing Communications of Media Link for programming,
amazing talent and content
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Where I realized that I was at my best is
when I was challenged but not defeated. I was championed
because I had trust in the leader. I know that
I was at my best because I could be transparent
and vulnerable. That then led to empathy across the organization.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company. We're all
explore how marketing, media, entertainment and tech are intersecting, transforming
our lives and the way we do business at a
breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the greatest
business minds at strongest leaders who will share how they've
built companies from the ground up or transformed them from
the inside out. My bet is you'll pick up a
(00:48):
lesson or two along the way. It's all good. It
is a great pleasure for me today to welcome a
very very very good friend and someone that I've considered
a friend for more than twenty years, and that is
Susie Deering. Susie, I want to welcome you to Good
Company and really excited to be able to have a
(01:09):
chat with you. So welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Thank you, Michael, And I can't think of a better
name than good Company, because I like this company. We
keep there you go.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
And you know, Susie, you have a great, a great
way about you. And when somebody is your friend, you
actually refer to them as your friend. And I love
that because I consider you my friend. And we've been
through lots of stuff together, all the way back to
the early days at Disney in Celebration Florida, and then
finding our way at Home Depot and Verizon and Moxie
(01:43):
and eBay and Ford. My God, logos on your sheet
are some of the most important logos in the world, Susie,
and they've you know, you've got a unique experience because
you've been both client side, agency side, brand side. I
mean you you've played on almost every court and that
(02:06):
makes you an all around athlete, and I know that's
something important in the Deering family. It is, you know,
sports are very much at the heart of you. Georgia folks.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
I know you live in Carolina, but I know you're
a dog.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I know that's through.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
And through exactly. Susie. You've been truly an innovative force
in the media and marketing world for the better part
of this last twenty years. Can you give, you know,
our listeners a little bit of your background as you
perceive it.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well, first of all, again, thanks for having me on.
And you're right, Michael, you and I have have really
weathered a lot of interesting paths over the last several years.
And you know, part of what I'm really proud of is,
you know, I'm doing what I love. I'm doing what
I went to school for, went to the University of Georgia.
I knew I wanted to be in advertising marketing. I
(03:02):
knew that at the age of sixteen, I knew the
first company I wanted to work for was Disney.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
I did that, and why was that.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Important was because I had such admiration for the brand
I believed in, you know, really what the Walt.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Disney companies stood for.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
And I also knew that it was going to be
one of the best places for me to understand although
I knew it, but I didn't really fully appreciate it,
to understand the power of brand and the power of customer.
So I can't give a better place to start my story,
which was at Disney. I held several different roles while
I was there, But if I was going to summarize
(03:37):
my journey as you just went through it with the
logos and the companies. Really, I would summarize it with
I'm a collection of technology, data, content and entertainment with
a real, real force of commerce, so everything into transaction.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I remember when you were running Moxie the agency, yes
gauged by Fox, and Fox was one of your largest clients.
And I remember you and I partnering on that Digital
Day to bring digital marketing. And if you remember, Susie,
we brought this new fangled company called Facebook and YouTube
(04:17):
and I got to remember who from Facebook, but I
remember it was Adam Stewart from YouTube and Google who
joined us, and we were trying to educate twentieth century
Fox on how important digital marketing was to the motion
picture industry.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
I mean, I'm thinking back and that's got to be fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen years ago you were talking about entertainment. And that's
why I look at you as being, you know, a utility.
I know baseball is important in the Daring family. I
look at you being a utility infielder. You can play
a lot of positions.
Speaker 4 (04:52):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
And I think, Michael, you know what's interesting about that
is is that, as you know very well, how you
get to being able to play and be a player
that can truly play different positions is by understanding the
importance of who you know in the industry and where
you're willing to really get uncomfortable and learn and experience.
(05:13):
And you know, what I would say is that with
this combination of kind of having commerce, technology, content and
data and you know, and the entertainments out of it.
And just what you expressed is that's even more critical
now because unfortunately there's a lot of marketers out there,
you know, and their challenge because they haven't understood it's
a complex world to actually put that ecosystem together, which
(05:35):
is critical now. And so the role of a marketer
in a business. You are a business marketer. You aren't
just managing big money that's at risk or at stake
for the company. You're driving growth. I mean, you have
to be driving growth.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Well, Susie, it's so important you say that, and it's
so interesting. I was fortunate to moderate a panel for
Forbes last fall, and it was for the Forbes CMO Summit,
and the question that I was asked to appint on
and I was interviewed about was what does the CEO
not know about the role of the CMO. And I
(06:11):
found that to be such a compelling you know, lead topic,
sentence if you will, or question because a lot the
answer is a lot and you just use the word.
Sometimes a chief marketing office today is called chief marketing
and Growth. Sometimes it's chief marketing and Products. Sometimes it's
chief marketing and communications. But but you know, each of
(06:33):
those words bring in a lot of meaning, growth being
the one that's certainly the largest. Obviously communications is important,
but growth, yes, that drives right to the center of
what marketing's about. You're not marketing for marketing's sake. You're
marketing to drive growth, to drive sales, to drive adoption,
to drive the rangement engagement.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
You know, yeah, and I think that, you know, I
think that's a really great question that was asked because
it's a completely different role and it needs to be
re expressed than what it was even ten years ago.
And a lot of marketers would say that is a
little intimidating because they know how to make advertising campaigns,
(07:14):
they know how to go to market, but then to
strategically take a step back and really look at a
fully integrated approach within your business, not just within the
marketing discipline, but how do you interact with the CFO
so that you can have the right relationship that you're
not just looked at as an expense line, that you
are looked at as that growth line. How do we
(07:35):
ensure that whatever your product is, with it it's a
physical product, if it's an experience, if it's a platform,
whatever that product is, you've got to have a very
different relationship with your product team than what Again, not
just to market it, but to help obviously grow it,
develop it, and influence it. You're also part of hr
because you've got to make sure from a talent perspective,
(07:57):
are you building the right brand externally that actually talent
wants to come to right and.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Most importantly now the makeup of that talent, the diversity
or diversity and inclusion in the right way, not just
to tick a box, but because marketing should be reflective,
as we all know of the larger community. And if
you want the larger community be reflected, you actually need
people who reflect it.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
You got it.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
You can't want it and not actually be it. So
that is so important and I think never before has
it been more critical for this CMO or whatever you
want to call that, Chief Experience Offer, chief Growth officer,
whoever you want that role, that's sitting right at the
senior table. And it's absolutely more critical now that the
(08:45):
CEO and the CMO are strategically aligned because you're going
to influence so many different other partners around that table.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yeah, and you've brought this up before and you just
talked about it with the CEO and the CMO, but
I also know you are very aware of the role
of the CTO and don't have talent, I mean technology
the CMO and the CTO, because you know you've heard
me say this one thousand times. Today, chief technology chief
(09:17):
information officers are making way more marketing decisions than ever before,
and the chief marketing officer are making more technology decisions
than ever before. So they need to speak. And you know,
there are two companies that I think reflected that early
Unilever and Coca Cola. When we did early digital journeys
with those two companies, they were the first ones to
(09:38):
bring their chief technology officer on a marketing journey yep.
And it was logical because we were going to Silicon
Valley and so you needed the tech side to marry
the marketing side, not only you know the rest of
those kind of marriages with CHRO and you know CFO.
What I found recently in this economic moment is we
(10:03):
at Media Link are getting many of the same assignments
that we would have gotten previously. But what's interesting is
the buyer is different. The buyer in some cases now
is the CFO. Yes, because it's not just marketing efficiency,
it's cost savings.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
And it's interesting because when you say, I'll give you
examples of this, I believe wholeheartedly that one of the
most critical relationships for a marketer whatever you want to
call that, in a company is for your technology to
have the best and strongest relationship for your technology teams.
Because the other thing to remember is is that the
technology team, to your point you stated, sometimes has data
(10:43):
in there, sometimes they don't, right like they can be
separated in the organization. And this trifecta that I have
found is really where the heart comes into play, because
the customer truly is sitting in the intersection of all
of those and when you start looking at it through
the customer lens and not through your company lens, that's
when the game changes because the customer today, because of
(11:07):
how many intersection points they've had with so many different
brands who have gotten it really, really right in many
aspects and really wrong in others, their expectations are so
high as far as what the interaction from the brand
is going to be. And so you can look at
some of the best brands in the world right now
and they're struggling because where that customer is going to
(11:29):
interact with the brand can very often be disconnected. And
a lot of that is fingerpointing in the organization. So
if you don't if the marketing leader isn't isn't humble
enough to know that they need to have a very
different relationship with their technology officer again not to do
their job. And this has been where I think a
(11:50):
lot of that friction has come into play, is knowing
you've got to be able to I always.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Call it the love language.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
There needs to be a love language that you can
establish with your technology officer and your data officer so
that then the three come together on behalf of the customer.
Many companies right now, Michael, they don't get that, and
there's too much let's just face it. I've been in
a lot of these companies myself, where the silos and
the finger pointing and the fight for budget and the
(12:18):
fight for permission. You know, whatever the responsibility is is
where time is being spent. And that is a fatal
flaw and we're seeing that right now. COVID just highlighted it.
And I think we're at one of the biggest resets
in our industry to where marketing, technology and data have
got to come together in whatever shape or form that
(12:39):
looks like inside companies.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Well, and you know, that's a great segue for me, Susie,
into another topic I wanted to talk about. It's bringing
together the discipline and the data and all of that
that we generally ascribe to performance marketing and marriys it
with that which we should always be aligning for brand marketing.
(13:02):
So why not call it brand performance?
Speaker 4 (13:04):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Let's say you, Susie Dearing. I know this is something
you and I have talked about, but I'm curious your
view on that. Is it happening and do you think
it's the right thing to happen in the market to
bring the two disciplines together more.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yes, And I think that actually you see right now
where they've been splintered. And then again it happens with
many companies that have been so focused from a performance
perspective that they forgot that actually the brand is all encompassing.
And so when you think of budgets, the very first
place that budgets would get cut is the non performing budgets.
(13:41):
And the non performing that use air quotes was brand.
And you know, I always struggled with that because your
brand is everything. Your brand is your company purpose. It's
how you function and act internally, it's how you show
up externally. And now in an environment where your customers
can take your voice faster than half of the companies
(14:02):
can actually act. And so if you don't understand the
importance of maintaining the true integrity and the story of
which you really want to pursue customers with, then the
customers are going to take that on and they're going
to take it over. Therefore, the performance side of your
business is going to suffer, you know. And I think
that what you've seen happen is this close the sale mentality.
(14:25):
It's always existed, It's always been out there that closed
the sale mentality. I would hear in conversation, you know,
at various companies. I was at, well, what's the call
to action? You'd be like, the call to action is
I want people to fall in love and trust and
believe in our brand. That's the call to action. Well, no,
what's it going to deliver me from a sales standpoint,
You're like, well, it's going to deliver. It's just in
(14:47):
this instant right now. It's informing and helping encourage the sale.
And so what you're seeing is in a digital world
that all happens, you know, instantaneously, if there is if
you want to fish and you want to make sure
that you have a what I would refer to very often,
you know, you're filling the pond with new customers so
(15:07):
that when you do get to the performance side of it,
there's actually customers there that want to bite. We've separated
for so long right now, the ponds are drying up
because we haven't been able to really draw customers in
to actually be able to then.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Get to the sale.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
And we're not talking months anymore like that used to
be in the old days. There, you know, when we
started having conversations.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
You had it.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
It's hours.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Now Now you'd have to do awareness and consideration, setting
and everything else. You can have awareness, consideration, and consideration
fail within seconds.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, no, no, Susie. It's funny because in the dot
com boom, when people would come to me early on
and say, Michael, we're going public on the nastack. We
need to build a brand in thirty days. I used
to kind of smile and go, you don't build a
brand in thirty days. Today you can build a brand
in thirty seconds.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
I mean seconds.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I hate to say it, but it's funny. And you
talked about the pond. I do have to digress and
tell a funny story when we moved my family moved
to California in the early fifties. Oh my god, we
crossed the plains in the Conastoga it felt like it
must have been. But there was a place here in
La called the Sportsman's Lodge and they had a little
pond where you could go fishing. And my dad took
(16:19):
one of my sisters and I to go fishing in
this pond. I was five years old maybe, and we
just kept catching fish. Yeah, And my dad was so impressed.
And then he realized they were stoking the thing and
you couldn't fail, and they were charging you by the
pound a fish that you caught. My dad said, throw
those fish back. We couldn't eat those fish. But you know,
(16:40):
you talk about that, it just made me think of
filling the pond. And here I thought I was, you know,
Moby Dick.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
I thought I was like a grass and you were like, man,
this is my new profession.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Yeah. No, Then I found out they were stocking the
pond with fish, so it was they were hungry fish too.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
That's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
But it's the same thing if you think, you know
and that the unlike fish, customers can decide to jump
out of that pond quick and so, you know, is
it something we should be heightenedly aware of. It's absolutely
critical to the success of businesses that these things come
together and you don't ever look at them separated. The
(17:19):
biggest challenge with that is, and you're watching it right
now with when you know companies get under pressure, where
do they go cut costs? They're going to go cut
cost in building the brand. Where do they see the
long term suffering and cutting the budget out of the brand.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Yeah, now that being said, I chatted to Mark Pritchard
even a year ago as we were we were somewhere
at a conference and I was interviewing Mark. I shouldn't
say somewhere. It was actually in France, I remember, and
as we were looking at the economic storm clouds that
seem to be forming, and you know, even now we
still look at them as forming. We don't know if
they've actually erupted. Although here in California the rain has
(17:56):
yess me that the storm clouds are real, because we've
had more rain than ever and I've lived here a
long time, maybe one of the rainiest seasons we've ever had.
But I said to Mark, how do you look at
that from a Procter and Gamble perspective? And Mark said,
and he was clear to say, don't let the media
people think we're doubling our investment. But this is the
time we quote double down, because this is when we
(18:18):
realize we can gain more market share. So the really
astute marketers understand the place to cut and the time
to cut isn't necessarily now. This is when you can
gain market share and you know, get ahead of the pack.
But that being said, with a recession kind of on
the horizon or you know, seemingly yet consumer spending is
(18:40):
not slowing down at a certain level. Consumer spending is
as strong as I've ever seen it. You know, as
a marketer, how would you be looking at that and
what are the trends that you're seeing.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (18:52):
I think in certain segments of the customer base we're
seeing no slowdown. In fact, you're seeing in some regards,
you know, to your point, a pent up demand, you know,
for certain industries. Right, so again you know a similar situation.
I was going into the book, you know, summer vacation,
and I'm shocked because in Italy right now, I almost
can't find the places that I want to go to.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
I can't find the right availability. And that was floring.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But then when you look at it, you go, well,
there's been built up demand because people are now really
truly trying to get back into travel and so forth.
But let's be very clear, there is a very large,
large population of art in the United States and even
more so in Europe right now that the recession is
hitting day in and day out, and it is hitting
(19:37):
very specific industries. If you start to look at where
price you know, has obviously just become so inflated on
daily goods like grocery and CpG type of categories, you're
going to start to see an influx so QSR restaurants
versus those midstream type of restaurants. If you just go
back and kind of look at it in any kind
of you know, economic situation where there was you know,
(19:59):
pressure put back on to the you know in the
early two thousands, you know, when there was pressure on consumers.
So it's there, Michael, It's just it's a little bit
more I would say strategic and surgical in nature because
of where it's hitting. So again to the point that
Mark Pritchard made, if you're P and G, you're looking
in saying, we definitely have to double down because they're
(20:20):
going to be fighting on both on price and on
you know, the consumer heart because people are really going
to have to make tough choices. So I think that
now more than ever, marketers have to actually do what
they were trained to do, which is become specialists and
really understand the customer and understand which customer they're talking
to it at, which where are they in that stage
(20:42):
you know from an economic standpoint that you know is
going to influence their marketing efforts. But what cannot be sacrificed,
whether it's at the high end on you know, a
high end side that we've just been talking about, or
even you know, on your daily consumables and so forth.
The brand has got to be it has to be
healthier because you have to make sure that you're doubling
(21:03):
down to ensure that that true intention span of the
customer is there. So it's a really I think for
the first time and all of the study that I've
kind of looked at and everything, I've not seen as
being this kind of interesting economic situation because there is
such a variety of impact that's happening. And then you've
(21:25):
never seen before where a consumer or customer is even
more vocal than ever than we see today. How this
plays out over the next I think, you know, fourteen
months is going to be a lesson that all of
us are going.
Speaker 4 (21:41):
To learn from.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
I want to kind of, you know, do the future question.
We're seeing so much change occurring right now. Content has
become so important. I came up with ten words that
began with the letter T or the letter C or
go t's and c's. Let me give you the T
words first, and these are conversation starters. You can pick
(22:03):
any one or two of these to talk about. The
T words are trust, transparency, talent, technology, and transformation. I
would submit there's no marketer on the planet who isn't
focused on one or many of those te words. And
the S words are content, commerce, culture, curation, creativity, and community.
(22:28):
When I landed on these ten words, Susie, I realized
I landed on something that really touched all the all
the areas that are you know that our industries collectively
are focused on them. Talk about those words, pick them.
How do you respond to those words?
Speaker 4 (22:45):
You know?
Speaker 2 (22:46):
I a one hundred percent agree with you that they're
all interconnected and they are absolutely critical to any conversation
that's taking place because it goes back to where our
conversations started earlier, especially from a marketing perspective, where marketing
sits as as kind of the hub, you know, in
the organization, because it has to spoke out any one
(23:08):
of these areas, whether it's content, it's you know, commerce, communications,
or to your point, the technology that may be helping
enable it. They're all interconnected. And I think the way
that I look at it as an ecosystem, and the
ecosystem has to feed each other, right like it has
to be able to constantly be in movement and motion.
What I think that I would pull out that we
(23:30):
lack that helps us and cut some of these so
I may break them down a little bit differently. I
take the two that you started with on the T side,
trust and transparency, and transparency is lacking in most of
our leadership in any organization today. I'd add an E.
I know it doesn't fit within your construct, but I'd
(23:52):
add the E of empathy because if we just went
through one of the biggest crisis management exercise and it
was non discriminating, right like, it hit across every industry,
across every person, regardless the title and anything else.
Speaker 4 (24:09):
And what I.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
See right now is that we have a breakdown in
we're in a crisis mood, candidly of what's a renewed
sense of leadership and this renewed sense of leadership and
what it takes to create transformation, what it takes to
actually transcend or to build out and take brave steps
(24:31):
in technology so that it can enable communication, so it
can enable content, so it can enable commerce. Those two
things that you started with, trust and transparency, and I
would add the E of empathy are at the heart
of what leaders need to start to really hone in
on and not just give lip service. Because I look
(24:55):
at the next generation, and the next generation is right now,
your children, my children who are looking and saying, hold
on a second. I don't want to just be you know,
in the grind of it every day.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
I want to make an impact.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
I want to come in and I want to create
change with an organization. I want to I want to
go work for companies who want to be part of
my fulfillment as much as I want to be part
of the fulfillment of the good of the of the business.
And what they're not willing to do is just go
work for people who want to beat them down. They
want to go work for people who want to you know,
(25:31):
really champion and support them. They want people who are
going to be true leaders and have empathy and be
very transparent and be you know, create a trust. If
I look back, and I've had, you know, the opportunity
over the last several years to kind of take a
step back and look at my leadership because you know,
I felt like that we were in transition, especially because
(25:52):
I've been brought in into so many organizations to be
a transformational leader.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, you've you've grabbed a few hair balls in your career.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
I did. I definitely did.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
And you know, and when I've looked at and thought
I had not been at my best, I broke it down.
And where I realized that I was at my best
is when I was challenged but not defeated. I was,
you know, championed because I had trust in the leader.
Speaker 4 (26:18):
I know that.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I was at my best best because I could be
transparent and vulnerable. That then led to empathy, you know,
across the organization. And I think that that again is
we're lacking that in many many ways.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Well and also, you know what, there's another word that
I would throw in their empowerment.
Speaker 4 (26:38):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
I've always subscribed to an old fashioned philosophy, which is
you can't give somebody responsibility without giving them the authority.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
And you know, if you make an old fashioned tea
chart like we all grew up with, you know, you
make a car chart of pros and cons.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
When I do that, when I look at an opportunity,
I always say, here's here's the challenge. And do I
in fact have the authority to carry out that challenge?
Because if I don't, I shouldn't be given the you know,
the challenge, because I won't be able to satisfy it.
I won't be able to deliver on the responsibility you're
asking me to undertake if I don't have the appropriate
(27:19):
lever or authority. That's always what I say, kind of
tongue in cheek. Is the greatest cause of heart attacks
and ulcers in business is responsibility without authority because just
frustrated them, because you can't pull the lever to make
stuff happen. You know, Susie, you've worked in large corporations
where sometimes that is a challenge and is an impediment
(27:39):
to success. You know, you're responsible, but you don't have
the authority.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Well, it's even it's authority. It's also you know, very
often in some of the positions that I've been in,
it's been I have accountability without the responsibility.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
And you know that has always been all.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
That, Yeah, accountability or responsibility without.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Authority, authority, and you know, so I now I've been
It's been good in some regards because the power of
influence is critical and so at an early age, candidly
Disney was the first place that taught this was the
power of influence and how did you influence with an
organization even if you didn't have the ultimate of responsibility
(28:22):
that was that was really important. The challenge is is
that we can't get because of all the things that
we just talked about, the importance of technology, the importance
of changing business models, like some of the things that
got us where we are today. I learned this at Moxie.
What made Moxi super healthy was not what was going
(28:42):
to make Moxie, you know, really successful in the long run.
And that was a challenge because everybody was like, wait
a second. I was like, no, well, where are we're
going to go? We can't get there the same way
that we got to the stage.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Well, and look, we've experienced that at Media Link as
Media Link has continued to change, and Susie, you've yeah
great supporter and been there since the very beginning, even before,
and you know that we've continued to morph ourselves because
I talked about that with my executive leadership team this
morning about how this part of the business is still there,
the basic kind of underpinnings, but look at all the
(29:17):
you know, all the shoots that have grown off of
that and the expertise we've developed but you can't lose
sight of what what brought you together at the beginning
and gave us relevance and importance, you know in the
marketplace at the beginning. You know who said it best.
I think it's Satia inn Nodela, who you know in
my book where I ever to write a book? Managing
(29:39):
this I would say has been one of the great
CEOs of this generation. You think of Microsoft, not just
judging it by stock value, but certainly on stock value,
it's been extraordinary. But he reimagined a company in such
a meaningful way. And I think it was he who
coined the expression. We know this from auto race and
(30:00):
you know, change the tires while the car is moving,
but he said it more articulate, in a more articulate fashion.
He said his challenge was to perform while you transform.
And I use the word transformation. We all know how
important it is to be continually transforming models and people
and strategy. That's right, But you have to perform while
(30:20):
you're transforming.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, And it's interesting because I've spent a lot of
time looking particularly at the work he's done, you know,
with Microsoft, because it's been phenomenal. He also had clarity
of what their real strategy and vision was, and he's
stuck to it. Whereas I think that again because leaders,
and I don't mean just CEOs when I say leaders,
(30:43):
it's leaders at various different levels within organizations. What I
see happening right now is there's so much fear. And
a little fear is good. A lot of fear is paralyzing,
And you know, it's interesting. I'm just do a really
side note. You know, my faith is very important to
me and I had the blessing several years ago to
(31:04):
spend a year studying the word fear and was mind
blowing because at first I thought, how could we talk
about this word so verse, so long? And it was
really quite interesting because it was when I walked away
from a realized as a leader, I was like, Wow,
if we create fear inside organizations of you know, teams
(31:24):
that feel paralyzed, you'll never be able to transform, You'll
never be able to think differently. We talk about diversity
and inclusion, diversity of thinking, you know, yet we put
fear inside organizations to prohibit that. So we talk we
want one thing, but yet our actions take on something
completely different.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Well, you know, I'll tell you my grandmother taught me
something which I've said and I've lived my life by,
which was, don't read people's lips, watch their feet, don't
listen to what they say, watch what they do. And
you said something to me, Susie Dearing, which I have stolen,
but I've given you credit. You told me this on
a conversation maybe six or eight weeks ago. You said
(32:05):
something and I'm going to get it wrong, but I've
been paraphrasing it, something about you're not interested in talking
about the things you're going to do, but you're interested
in doing the things you're going to talk about. And
I've adopted that and I've given you credit. But it's
such an important statement about life and about business. Yeah,
everybody can blab off about what they're going to do,
(32:27):
Just don't do that. Just go do the things that
then you can blab about. That's exactly as articulate as you.
But it's really landed with me and resonated, and I
don't remember the context of why you said it, but
it just triggered something in my mind, which is that's
becoming a watchword for media link in the marketplace. So
I thank you for that. But you know, if you
(32:47):
want to kind of end on that note, Susie, give
me the genesis of that thinking.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Well, where that came from, Michael was because so often
we talk about the things that we really want to
see happen, that we don't really see it happen. And
so I've watched this in organizations that say they want
to transform, and yet until it starts to happen, and
then all of a sudden, they turn around and they're like, well,
that's not how we do it. And it creates this fear,
It creates this resentment, It creates this oh my heaven,
(33:14):
you know, I'm going to be I'm going to be
forgotten because I don't know how to do that thing,
and so you don't feel fulfilled. And it's a really
really challenging situation for any company, regardless of where you
are in health. You could be one hundred and twenty
years old, or you could be ten years old.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
As a business.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
But what I've realized is here's something and there'll probably
people who don't agree with me. You know, as children,
we were taught when you have children, you always want
them to be inquisitive, always asking questions. There's a point
in time where you need to have answers, and there
is a point in time where you need to know
what the action is. And that's where it's stemmed from,
(33:54):
because if you just talk about it, it doesn't take place.
You've got to be able to actually envision what you
want the outcomes to be and see the outcomes happen
and know how to get there.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
And so and I think that we have.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
We're sitting in again this massive reset right now where
we're going to see how many people really can get
to that answer and understand. You know, the right questions
are the right actions to take. But we're not going
to see the same outcome.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
No, Sadly we're not. Susie Dearing. I want to thank
you personally for twenty plus years of friendship and a
really inspired conversation.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Thank you, Michael, and you know I love you dearly.
So I appreciate our friendship and look, thanks for the
opportunity to come have this good conversation and great company together.
Speaker 3 (34:51):
I'm Michael Cassen. Thanks for listening to Good Company.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
A Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio Special. Thanks
to Lena Peterson, chief Brand Officer and Managing Director of
Media Link for her vision I'm good company. And to
Jen Sealing, vice president Marketing Communications of Media Link for programming,
amazing talent and content
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