July 14, 2025 • 46 mins
Thurman Sneed, COO of Marigold, shares leadership insights focusing on staying calm under pressure, creating organizational alignment through shared data, and building effective cross-functional relationships.
Thurman tells how to stay poised during tense situations enables objective thinking and decision-making
Thurman advocates for creating a "single source of truth" for data is crucial for organizational alignment
Thurman emphasizes the use of regular cross-functional meetings (15-30 minutes) to build essential partnerships
Thurman explains that patience is a strategic leadership quality, not a sign of complacency
Whether you're currently leading sales teams or aspiring to move into leadership, you'll walk away with actionable strategies for creating organizational clarity, building effective partnerships, and maintaining your effectiveness even in the most challenging circumstances. Listen now to transform how you approach sales leadership.
Music by Ben Cina & Ayler Young
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
Pillar Talk where we build thefoundations of sales leadership
success, create clarity in termsof what good looks like for
current and aspiring salesleaders.
Before we jump in, I like toreview what the six pillars are
for sales leadership success.
First is around talentidentification and attraction.
(00:39):
A strong leader can identifyand attract the talent into the
organization, because both areextremely difficult.
We cover operating rhythm,mastering the craft.
The best leaders know how tohelp the team win business
planning, communication andownership.
Today I'm delighted to have asa guest Thurman Sneed, aka the
(01:00):
Thurminator At least that's thenickname aka the Thurmanator at
least that's the nickname.
Thurman is a sales andoperations leader who serves
currently as the COO of Marigold, a cross-channel marketing
platform.
But Thurman has been in avariety of senior leadership
roles at companies such asMarigold, at Sierra, wireless,
micro Focus and at Intralinks,where our paths have crossed in
(01:24):
the past.
Thurman, thank you for joiningPillar Talk.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thank you, Rick, for having me.
I'm excited to join you today.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So, thurman, the reason I created this podcast is
in my continued pursuit to tryto identify the good behaviors,
the behaviors that lead tosuccess in a leadership capacity
.
Good behaviors, the behaviorsthat lead to success in a
leadership capacity, oftentimes,like leaders, are evaluated
(01:52):
based on the performance of thebusiness, and that's certainly a
contributor to that, but it'snot the only thing.
There's a lot of factors thatgo into business performance.
So you can't just say, oh, ifthe business performed, then the
leader did great, especially ina sales capacity.
So I've been on an explorationto try to identify, well, what
are the behaviors that lead tothe biggest impact that a leader
can make?
(02:13):
And so you've been in aleadership position and I got to
say, if I shared my experienceworking with you, one of the
things that I've really admiredabout your leadership style is
your ability to stay veryneutral and poised in a variety
of like tense situations.
Sales leaders and even salesindividual contributors can be
(02:35):
quite emotional and things canbe perpetually urgent, and I
think one of the traits thatI've observed with you
individually is how, by stayingpoised and by staying sort of
like calm, not only is thatcontagious with the audience,
but it allows for, like,objective thinking and objective
decision making, which is, aswe all know, crucial to success.
(02:57):
So I wanted to, you know, diveinto that a little bit.
Where do you think your abilityto sort of stay calm and stay
poised developed?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
That is a great question, rick, and something
that other people observe allthe time about me, but I have to
say I don't know where itoriginated.
I think that it's justsomething that the Lord blessed
me to be able to have, and I'lltell you the one thing in my
adult life that I think mighthave contributed to it.
It's just, um, being the oldestin the family, right and, and
(03:33):
being the oldest in the familyfirst to go to college, first to
graduate from college, andthings along those lines.
I think I had to grow up alittle bit earlier than most, um
, in in some particular cases,but when, when things were were
a little rough, growing up I wasjust always the calm one.
I was always the one that thecoach, you know, asked to quiet
(03:53):
the team, so to speak, but itwas from a not so much, not a
not having passion perspective,because I certainly did, always
wanted to win, and whatever Iwas putting, you know, whatever
I was doing, whether that wassports, whether I was business,
whatever the case may be, but Ialways realized that there was a
(04:14):
long, it was a long run.
Nothing was won in the shortterm, nothing was won in the
moment, so to speak.
And so if we react in certainsituations, we may regret our
reaction as opposed to beingable to say hey, everybody, just
calm down.
We know the steps that we needto take and we can't make those
(04:37):
steps happen faster than whatthey're going to occur, because
there's always another party onthe other side and from a
patient's perspective, Icertainly believe that patience
kind of comes through in thissweaty moment, so to speak.
(04:59):
So in cells you have, quarterafter quarter after quarter of
something to perform at, whetherthat's operationally, whether
that's hitting the numbers, whathave you.
But the patient ones seem toalways be able to get the job
done, even if it's at 11.59 pmand that cutoff is coming.
And so one of the things thatI've tried to do is, especially
(05:23):
when it's when it sells people,is to encourage them, to guide
them through those lastparticular steps and for my
teams that many times havesupported them, for them to also
stay calm in the moment,because we know what to do, and
when you're confident and youknow what to do, you can be
patient.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
That's interesting, Are you?
So you're sort of saying thatwhen you see folks acting with
patience and not being, you know, overly reactive, that you'll
correlate that with greatersuccess?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I absolutely correlate that with greater
success.
And when I say patience, thatdoesn't mean that we're not
pushing until the end, right,it's just.
How are we handling thosestressful moments?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, of course , and as somebody that many have
given you feedback of you knowdemonstrating poise or coolness
under pressure or staying calmwhen the world is going crazy
around you, Do you think you'remore attuned when you see higher
levels of emotionalism inleaders or peers that you're
working with?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I think that I've seen cases where leaders who are
very highly emotional in anegative sense that it causes
the team to kind of cave in, soto speak, if you know what I'm
saying.
So, unfortunately, I've gottento witness situations where the
pressure is on and the leaderkind of loses cool, and those
(06:54):
people that have, so to speak,been impacted somehow come to
Thurman.
And I never have been able tofigure that out.
But one of the things thatconsistently has occurred is for
me to be the calming spirit, soto speak, to get them reset
back on that path and toencourage them, to let them know
(07:16):
that, yes, that was a moment,that was not necessarily the
moment that you wanted to be apart of.
But how do we stay out of thatmoment the next time?
But to calm them down and let'sget the job done still.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I love it.
Yeah, there's a sort of rippleeffect from being poised and
that is that when there is astorm around, you are the
individual that folks will gorunning to to try to find, to
get a piece of that poise?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So, thurman, you know you've gotten to sit in an
elevated leadership positionacross a pretty large
organization, or a variety oflarge organizations, and we're
really looking to exploretactics in leadership as we
think about the differentpillars.
Things that might come to mindfor me are the way you conduct,
or learn to conduct, a highperformance operating rhythm,
(08:10):
which to me I define as theenvironment that's created or
the systems and processes that'screated, motivation, engagement
and accountability through asales team.
And certainly where we've workedtogether in the past is in
business planning, where how doyou work cross-functionally to
be making decisions that willcome to roost in like six to
(08:32):
nine months, versus what moreoften happens is having to make
decisions because something justhappened and we're reacting to
it.
And I want to try to learn fromyou in maybe one of these areas
around how you go aboutpursuing these today in your
role and how your processes oryour tactics that you use formed
(08:55):
through either lesson learnedor experiences in the past.
So maybe we can start, justlike on your operating rhythm.
You act in a COO capacity,which means you have to sit
across several functions andpretty big teams, and maybe we
can just start about you knowwhat you like best about the way
you're approaching the rituals,processes, meeting structures
(09:18):
and elements that create highperformance across your teams.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, and I'll try not to go too long on this, Rick
, because this is one of myfavorite topics, but I love
talking about the cadencebecause I believe that the
cadence kind of sets the stagefor just about everything and
within that cadence, one of thethings that I would love people
to take away is that you have tohave good reporting, single
(09:45):
source of truth reports tosupport that cadence.
So whether that's sales, whetherthat's services, whatever.
The function is that you'remanaging and developing that
operating rhythm around.
Everyone needs to be speakingfrom the same book, from the
same book, and every singlecompany that I've been engaged
(10:05):
in at the beginning that bookhas many chapters, so to speak,
and everybody's reading from adifferent chapter at times, even
though they intend not to beright.
So, first thing, when we setthat cadence and set those
agendas for those discussionsthat we're going to have, is we
have to say what is the singlesource of truth that we're going
(10:26):
to use.
And not only is it one singlesource of truth, but it goes
from top to bottom.
So, if we're talking about sales, it might be these metrics at
the highest level, you know ELTlevel.
Take one click down SLT level.
One click down your first linemanagers, another click down the
reps.
The exact same reports, theexact same set of data, so that
(10:50):
everyone knows we're allfollowing the same book.
Tune right.
Sun is gonna come up everymorning, moon is gonna come out
every night, but on Mondays wedo this, on Fridays you do this,
and we're to be looking at thenumbers that are rolling up from
the reps, and so we used tocall that rep to CEO type of a
(11:13):
cadence.
Same thing would happen withservices.
You just have to define whatare those KPIs, what are those
things that I need to bechecking on a daily, weekly, et
cetera basis and make sure thateveryone starts to align not
agree align to what those thingsare and what we're going to be
(11:33):
looking at on a consistent basis.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, so the prerequisite for a performative
cadence or operating rhythm isthis sort of dimension of a
single source of truth as itrelates to data.
And it resonates because I dothink most times there's
cross-functional collaboration.
It's a BYOD, it's a bring yourown data to it, and so people
are talking past each other,looking at different things that
(11:57):
don't necessarily have theconnective tissue.
The famous one in softwarebusinesses would be marketing,
talking about how great they didin generating leads, while the
sales team is complaining aboutthe quality of the pipeline.
Correct, yeah, do you have astory about like I don't know?
You said you mentioned that you, you know often, will enter an
organization and you have thisdisaggregated dynamic that
(12:20):
exists and you know your firststep is to try to ensure that we
have a single source of truth.
Any, you know your first stepis to try to ensure that we have
a single source of truth.
Any you know narrative aroundhow to go about doing that
effectively.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, many, many times it starts with getting out
of Excel first and foremost.
So I find it hopefully not in2025, but it still happens that,
whether it's your spreadsheetof choice that is managed by
separate individuals indifferent departments, so you
may have a spreadsheet formarketing, a spreadsheet for
(12:51):
sales, a spreadsheet for finance, one of the first steps that I
like to do is to bring all ofthose parties together.
I actually think this happenedat interlinks those parties
sitting in a room prep torealize we connect to one
another in some way, shape orform all the time, but we're not
(13:12):
connecting.
So why don't we develop areporting tool, a reporting
system where we know what'scoming in from marketing is
going to flow through sales?
We're looking at the sameinformation there.
So the beginning of the salesfunnel and then carry on from
there Sales what you're managingultimately has to make its way
(13:32):
to finance Finance.
How about you leverage the sameinformation that this team is
using and I like to put it intoBI reports, rick, as opposed to,
or common Salesforce dashboardsor whatever the particular CRM
is and literally lift the teamup out of the spreadsheets,
(13:55):
right?
So when we're in a cadence call, it's no more.
I'm looking at a spreadsheetthat was already obsolete the
minute that I sent it out.
But we're looking at liveinformation, as close to live as
possible within a datawarehouse reporting structure.
So what allows to happen inthat particular situation is, if
(14:15):
marketing says something is off, it must be off in the source
system.
If sales says something is off,it must be off in the source
system and they need to go andaddress the source system.
And when you get to running,you can click into that report
and you can go address thesource system at that moment in
time, as opposed to waiting forthe next refresh.
Right, so that's when you'rereally running.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Do you feel, like you know, the world has gotten.
You know, now every company hasa ton of applications.
Applications have narrowedtheir focus to a specific area
within a specific function, butyet the flexibility of software
has gotten better.
Do you feel, like the dynamicof creating, like the starting
(15:00):
point of this disaggregation,the lack of a single source of
truth?
Like the starting point of thisdisaggregation, the lack of a
single source of truth?
Do you think it's gotten easierto correct or harder to correct
in recent years?
Like, if you take your mostrecent, you know onboarding?
Like there's a proliferation ofBI tools, there's ERP systems
(15:21):
that finance is working out of Imean Salesforce is ubiquitous.
Erp systems that finance isworking out of, I mean
Salesforce is ubiquitous.
So, like, do you see the sameissues place to place or is the
variance high?
And then, is the correctivemeasures gotten easier or harder
?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Like I actually don't know how to think about that.
I would say both, dependingupon the situation, rick.
So I have seen it every singletime.
There has not been one time inmy many places and experiences
that I have not seen it as a gapto start with.
Typically, there is a majorimprovement within the first six
(15:59):
to nine months, and thatimprovement comes from getting
cross-functional teams into aroom together, right.
So as long as you have thatwillingness from a
cross-functional perspective toaddress the known gap or when I
say known, once you havepresented it as a gap and that
there is a better way, it goesfaster when there is resistance
(16:23):
from any of those functions,that's when it can be heated.
Right.
So this function is pickingthese systems and saying that
the data doesn't work that way.
Right, this team has this other.
The data doesn't work that way.
So first you got to geteverybody on the same page, as
you know what we're going tocome up with, a taxonomy, and
(16:45):
you might think that the dataover here is not the same.
But by the time we get done,you will realize oh, we have a
good data mapping to where we'veeffectively made it the same
and put it into the datawarehouse to where you don't
feel it anymore.
So when we're having aconversation, you see the same
thing, regardless of the factthat this field over here says
(17:06):
something different than thisone in the source system.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
What are the common reasons?
You see resistance.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Sometimes it's just a lack of awareness.
So one of the things that myteam teases me about I have a
few of those sayings 80-20,crawl, walk, run but a big one
is if you're sitting in yourseat, whatever function you are,
try to look two steps to yourleft and two steps to your right
.
Right If you're.
(17:35):
If you have never done that,then you just don't know from
your upstream partner you'recausing pain or downstream
partner you're causing pain,right?
So it's just literally a whack,a lack of awareness of knowing
I'm causing pain to my fellowemployee or I could be providing
(18:02):
a service to my fellow employeeif I were able to shift how I
provide information to them orhow I think about the
information that I'm providing.
Most of the time it is not withany level of intent, it's just
lack of realizing.
Oh, we could work together andmake this a lot more efficient.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Do you come into a situation that we've been
talking about with aprescriptive sense of what the
metrics should be and thechallenge is how to get accurate
reflections of what those areand from where?
Or do you find in eachorganization you've been a part
of the actual determination ofwhat the variables should be, is
(18:35):
part of the decision making,and I'll just tell you a quick
story.
Part of the decision making,and I'll just tell you a quick
story, I mean my currentorganization.
We wanted to build ago-to-market scorecard and we
wanted to look at it, even withthe CEO, on a weekly, bi-weekly,
monthly basis, whateverfrequency made sense, and what I
found in that exercise was alot of time was spent trying to
figure out what the variableshould be.
(18:55):
Well, what does this actuallymean?
You know be how much pipelineover what period of time.
I found we got caught in themud in variable definition and
my fear, in a cadence off of asingle source of truth, is that
(19:15):
the actual metrics that you'relooking at might have a lack of
insight coming out the otherside and that I just I struggle
with that because I don'tbelieve that every company
should look at the same things.
Every company's got some nuanceto it.
So how do you approach those,those dynamics?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Being inquisitive, first and foremost, you,
naturally, because we're human,we come into certain situations
thinking being inquisitive,first and foremost.
Naturally, because we're human,we come into certain situations
thinking that we know what itis and there are some basic ones
.
So there's some basic thingsthat you already know if you're
working in a SaaS company,especially that if these are not
there, you've got to put themin.
(19:56):
However, as you say, everycompany, every situation is
different, and that's where yougo and you just start asking
questions, or at least that'show my team approaches it.
Start getting a betterunderstanding of what are the
drivers, to the end points thatyou're trying to get to, what
are the true drivers.
(20:17):
But what I would also say isthat not to be in a frozen state
, so you make me want to bringup my crawl, walk run.
You don't have to get toperfection with those metrics.
You can start with the onesthat you know and then start to
build to the walk phase withones that you learn as you're
going.
So that cadence that you'retalking about doesn't have to be
(20:41):
reviewing absolutely everything.
Review the ones that you knowand every month that you pick up
better knowledge, add the nextone, add the next one.
You'll look back in six to ninemonths and then you'll have
what you were looking for fromthe jump.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Thurman, do you feel like being in a COO position?
I mean, certainly it uniquelyqualifies you to be inquisitive
and look across functions.
A lot of organizations, andmaybe even smaller ones, don't
necessarily have a full fledgedCOO.
They've got functionalleadership, symptoms of why the
(21:17):
BYOD dynamic forms Like, like.
What should an organizationthat doesn't have a COO, who's
basically translating acrossfunctions, to develop a single
source of truth?
How do they get there withoutlike, like?
How should they even thinkabout that?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, that's a great question, Rick, and it actually
goes back to kind of my journey,my own personal journey.
So I actually started off infinance, as you know, years and
years ago, and the most fun partabout my young years of being
in finance was I was unbiased.
I was not within any of thosefunctional groups, right, but in
(21:57):
a small company, fp&a got to bein between and I started doing
serving that function.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So may not be that Like what's an example of where
that happened.
An example of let's say I havewhen you start serving that
function.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So yeah.
So my one of my first jobs outof public accounting happened to
be for one of my clients and Iwent into an FP&A position and
in that FP&A role because I wasof one, even though it was a
public company there was amanufacturing group, there was a
marketing group, there was asales group.
Well, someone is looking ateverything still, because
(22:41):
ultimately it comes back to thefinancial expense, revenue
pipeline forecast, all of thosetypes of things.
It's identifying someone orsome function that is unbiased
to bring the different dataelements together, elements
together.
Not necessarily a COO could bean FP&A analyst that gets
(23:02):
assigned to, hey, create theplaybook, so to speak, for how
we're going to help conduct anefficient cadence.
So what?
(23:24):
I would encourage people itdoesn't have to be a certain
position, it needs to be someonethat has curiosity that is not
within any of the functionsthemselves, to bring that
unbiased opportunity to presentto all of them.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Right.
Their incentive shouldn't bebased on the number of MQLs.
That's right.
All right, I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Keep going there, you just have no idea how funny
that is, but for me right now.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I've lived it.
Um, so any best part, like likejust sort of wrapping up on
that, this topic, like any bestpractices on um, you know, on
the metrics that you are findinglike the world's changing we're
now in, like are there any newthemes?
Or like hey, the Thurmanplaybook of key metrics for
(24:07):
organizational health, thatwould drive a cadence, like what
are the top of mind things thatcome for you as it relates to
best practices in doing this?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah, I don't know if I can state it in specific
metrics.
What I would state it as isfocus on your 80-20.
So many times we get into, oh,we need to measure these 10
things when only two thingsactually matter Focus on the two
things that actually aredriving the 80%, not the eight
(24:41):
things that make you spend allthe time.
Um and it's only going to driveyour business.
You know, an incremental stepright.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Uh, to bring it to life.
Like what's an example of?
Uh, you know you were going totalk about services, but like
what's an example of of how thatthose determinations got made
of?
Like hey, why don't we justfocus on these and not
everything?
Yeah, so if I use an example ofhow those determinations got
made of, like hey, why don't wejust focus on these and not
everything?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah.
So if I use an example relatedto services just for one quick
moment, rick, we can talk aboututilization, we can talk about
billing per hour, we can talkabout a lot of different metrics
, right.
But if you're going into asituation and you know that
you're just stepping into thatcrawl phase, pick the one that
(25:26):
is going to allow you to speakto every level of the
organization.
For me, at a certain experience, it was simply making sure that
they reported time.
Like, are you actuallyreporting your time, that you
are logging in a customer andI'm being literal about that,
right, so I could get intowhat's my utilization rate,
(25:49):
what's my chargeable rate, and X, y and Z below that.
But ultimately, if they weren'tlogging the time to begin with,
it's not going to help me verymuch.
So if we're going to enter acrawl phase, let's look at are
we reporting time on time, firstand foremost, and then we'll
(26:10):
catch up to the others later,because I can be off and make a
bad decision on utilizationrates if that's not the root of
the first problem.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Right, because in the absence of having that time
logged, it's what?
Is it just anecdote orassumption?
It's anecdote assumptions.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You can just be off Exactly and you see that sort of
extrapolated across manyfunctions where it's like the
source data is the issue, and sowhat they actually are
reporting on isn'trepresentative of like what's
impacting the business what theactual truth may be right and if
and if you have a root andusing that as one example, but
(26:50):
if you have something thatyou're seeing is a big issue at
the top, find that first root ofthe concern.
Narrow, narrow it, you know,rule it out first and then go to
the next one.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, yeah.
And again, that's where yourpatience and not being in a rush
and really understanding, andthen you know, starting to make
progress and then build on thatprogress.
I mean, frankly, one of thethings that I think this is both
individual and organizationalis the checkbox desire, like,
let's get something done, get itdone, all right, done, we did
it, and then move on to the nextthing, let's go fight the next
(27:24):
fire, and what I'm hearing islike a purposefulness about a
longer term play and makingincremental progress along the
way, but starting withfoundational, like do we have
the raw material to build thehouse?
That's right, and like pickingout the windows when we haven't
(27:45):
even gone and measured the youknow foundation.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
That's right.
We might say we want to reducetime to value by 20%.
What's your denominator?
What's your base?
What's your baseline?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I live this today.
You know we got a highperformance organization, we're
doing great things, but we havenot done a good enough job of a
holistic view of the actualvariables that we think drive
the business how, what's thesource of that and do we all
(28:20):
agree on the right source?
What is the presentation ofthat for company consumption,
and then what businessconversation or decisions need
to be made on the back of them?
A lot of companies will lean onwhere the most.
The one source of truth iswhat's in the RP.
So for us, netsuite thefinancial's in there.
That is what's in the RP.
So, if you know, for us,netsuite the financials in there
(28:42):
.
That's what's getting audited,that's what we're using Um,
whereas, like Salesforce ends upbeing the data within there,
ends up being the sales BYODtype of thing you know it's
interesting which is which iswhy you have to have the cadence
and, matter of fact, thatcadence needs to be
cross-functional too.
(29:03):
Yeah, which is where I want tokind of move to next, the
cross-functional.
I think one of the biggestchallenges that I continue to
experience is I know alreadythat my first team is not my
direct reports, that the firstteam is my cross-functional
peers, and yet my days are verybusy supporting the
organizations that roll up to meand I find it to be, I don't
(29:28):
know, it's like the river'sflowing one way and you're going
to paddle down it.
But to actually like, build andsustain strong cross-functional
relationships, it feels likeyou have to actually paddle the
opposite way and go against thetide.
Cross-functional relationshipsit feels like you have to
actually paddle the opposite wayand go against the tide.
And I think for a business tosucceed you know I talk about
business planning and it's oftenis the cross-functional
partnership between sales,finance, rev ops around, like
(29:51):
making decisions.
I'll give you an example.
I mean, one of the things thatI'm always trying to do is like
forecast attrition in a certainarea so that we can proactively
backfill.
The worst thing in a high growthsoftware company is to have
someone leave and at that pointcreate a wreck to backfill, then
go interview, then go hire,then wait for them to join, then
(30:11):
train them up.
I mean, we're talking from aquota capacity.
We're talking six to ninemonths out the window.
So if you wait for something tohappen, you know you're dead,
at least if high growth is yourmotivation.
So the only way to sort of getin front of it is to be aligned
with your financial stakeholders, your HR, business partners,
your folks that need to be onthe same page.
(30:33):
It's not as clean.
We're not hiring because Sallyleft.
We're hiring because we have agrowth goal and we need a quota
capacity and we expect likelyoutcomes to happen.
And you know there's thisnuance to this type of thing.
So how do you, what like whatwould you teach others to how to
foster these cross-functionalrelationships from the get-go so
(30:54):
that these conversations canhappen in a productive and, you
know, effective fashion?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
yeah and this is this is gonna sound so simple, but I
don't.
I think it's very hard for alot of people to do.
I would love to say it'ssetting those objectives and key
results at the top level of thecompany.
Everybody does does thosethings.
However, I think it's simplerthan that.
I think it is having your Mondayor Friday afternoon chats
(31:25):
15-minute, 30-minute chats withyour cross-functional teammates
and making that a priority, asopposed to assuming that they
know what you need at all times,actually sharing what you need
at all times and also sharingwhat you've learned and sharing
your successes.
Right, hr may not know that thelast rep that they helped you
(31:50):
hire is absolutely fabulous, orthe opposite.
Did that feedback actuallyoccur in a constructive way?
So that the next time throughyou do the same?
You make corrections, whateverthe case may be?
But I actually think it's aboutthe individual peer-to-peer
conversations that allow them toalso apply that going downward,
(32:13):
and when they see you workingwell with your cross-functional
teammate, they will want to dothe same things, whatever those
functions are.
I'm using HR as one example.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So how do you do it today?
What's your Monday Fridaychit-chat schedule and is there
structure to the meeting?
What's the practice onapproaching?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
this.
I've gotten to the point towhere I don't have to have the
meetings but my cell phone justrings right or someone else's
cell phone rings right.
But before, earlier on, youknow, years ago, it literally
was.
I almost had a one-on-one witheveryone for 30 minutes,
typically on Mondays or Fridays.
(32:53):
I have no idea why it happenedto be Mondays or Fridays, but
typically Mondays or Fridays.
Sometimes it was a debriefafter pipeline forecast type
calls, right.
What do we actually need to do?
Corrective actions.
Other times it was a end ofweek debrief, right?
How can I help you?
(33:14):
Many times we especially mebeing in a function of
operations.
It is just that simple question.
How can I help you?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
My fear is there you're going to get a long, long
list.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Not all the time, not if the rest of your cadence is
going well, right.
You start to get to the pointthat if the 80 is being managed
through the cadence, right, youget to actually focus on the
exceptions and deal with how doyou keep the noise down with
those exceptions?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You're advocating for a simple approach, right?
Like, who are your keycross-functional peers?
Are you making sure that you'rechit-chatting with them, in
this example, on a monday and orfriday?
Yeah, um, do you like one ofthe fears that I might have
around?
That is like people are tryingto protect their calendar.
They're trying to make surethat their working hours are
productive without structure inthe meeting.
(34:09):
Um, you know you might end uptalking about the kids, or you
know not that there's anythingwrong with that or other topics
that aren't business related.
Is there is the Thurmanplaybook, that it's like they
don't need that structure.
It's the consistency ofcommunication.
There's enough issues to talkabout.
Like, if I'm meeting with HR,how do I know what's going to be
valuable for them to know?
(34:30):
If I'm meeting with finance,how do I come prepared to have
the right things or ask theright questions?
So, any recommendations abouthow to approach that?
If, yes, I can have thosemeetings, but when people say,
well, send me the agenda, youknow like people aren't
necessarily wanting to.
You know chit chat, uh, so youknow what I mean.
Like, how do you just?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I do, I do, I do.
Do you know what you mean?
Um, when I have some of these,let's say, sales leaders, we
don't have an agenda.
But the agenda is the deals andwe know that it's going to be
the deals.
Hey, thurman, this, this andthis is going on right, we need
(35:10):
your team to do A, b, c and D.
We just know that that's goingto be the conversation, so it's
a little bit more defined, butnot written down on paper,
because that's why we know we'rehaving the conversation Right
With HR.
I would set an agenda and Iwould set that agenda,
especially if I'm hiring Right,to be able to say hey, how many,
(35:32):
how many qualified resumes didwe get this week or over the
last two weeks, depending uponthe time frame of your cadence.
Right, and I'm not talkingabout every week.
Typically these things arebiweekly Right, it's not
something that you have to doevery single week, but it would
be.
I need to recruit, I need toreplace Right, I need to up
(35:52):
level.
What are the things that wejointly work on and how are they
going?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Right, I'm almost hearing you say, like the volume
of like.
Show me an organization wherefunctional leadership is in
regular communication with eachother, and I'll show you an
organization that's focused onthe right things.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Absolutely focused on the right things.
Cause they will.
The leaders will leave thosemeetings and typically I
typically do not leave any ofthese meetings without an action
, as you say, but I take it andI explain to my team what
happened, especially if it wassomething, if it was a gap that
(36:34):
we're trying to feel, and I tryto explain how do we avoid
having to feel this same gapagain.
Yeah.
So cross functional teammateraise X, y, z issue.
First of all, was it a validissue?
Yes, it was a valid issue.
Okay, how could we haveproactively prevented getting
(36:54):
into the issue situation tobegin with?
And so you use that as a repeat, continuous improvement type
cycle until you start to getthose things that cause
frustration, those things thatcause people to call me for that
poise, for that calm downmoment.
How do we prevent having moreof those Right?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Thurman, you're exposed to a lot of leadership,
a lot of levels of maturity ofleadership across many functions
.
What are you seeing right now,that's like behaviors that are
driving the biggest positiveimpact, and where are the areas
that you think mentorship inthis moment is most necessary?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
great question, rick.
Um, I think mentorship isneeded to help people understand
where they're trying to get.
So a lot of times people andI'm going to use another
services analogy, but notnecessarily but in a services or
support function you could justbecome a ticket answerer.
(38:05):
I'm addressing the ticket.
The issue of the moment right,but there's a bigger picture,
right?
So in the moment of addressingthat ticket, if I have 20 of
these same tickets, then I stepback and think about the fact
that, wow, if I was to tap thedoor of my teammate to my left
(38:28):
again, I might have only gotten20 of these tickets.
I mean one of these tickets outof 20.
But because I'm living in themoment of I'm just answering
tickets, maybe I never go knockon that door To show someone, to
teach a manager.
Ask your people are they dealingwith the same thing all the
(38:52):
time?
Do they feel comfortableraising up and saying, hey, I
shouldn't have to be stilldealing with this after a year
or two years and then beingcomfortable with raising their
hand and saying you are theexpert, right?
We don't want you to be in thatsituation.
We want you to be having theopportunity to come up with an
(39:16):
idea, to add value, to learnsomething new, to refresh
yourself, to keep you energized.
That folks fall into thatnarrow I'm just addressing the
ticket and they never get tohave the opportunity to say, wow
, this is how I could actuallyimpact the business.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Regardless of what role they're in.
No-transcript.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah, but but empowering the management team
to empower the employee toactually recognize where they
are and that they have the bestrecommendations most of the time
and that they have the bestrecommendations, most of the
time Not management but the onethat is answering the ticket.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Typically has.
Finish your thought please.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
It's typically the one that has the best idea if
you would let them step out ofit on how to do something better
.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, what I heard you say there for leadership
effectiveness is one an abilityto identify common problems,
like problems that aren't justlimited to one person, but more
commonly available.
Commonly available, and the wayto do that is through effective
(40:53):
communication, which isactually creating an environment
where people can share thosetypes of ideas or feel empowered
or responsible to share those.
I always use this concept oftrying to get information from
the edges, like what's actuallygoing on, what's actually going
on.
Yeah and so good.
Leadership effectiveness is anability to actually foster an
environment where you get theright answers.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Right and when you're mentoring, to your first
question when you're mentoringis you're mentoring people to
get comfortable by doing thatRight and asking their folks
those questions right and forthem themselves to ask
themselves that question why amI even getting asked this
(41:35):
question about that metric onthis report, the why behind it,
what is the real why?
Many times we don't take thetime to explain the why.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, no, I think you're spot on.
I think the only other way Icome at this is that often and
again, I deal with thesalespeople pretty frequently
and you get highly emotionallycharged feedback and that is a
little harder to process.
And it's also a big, big focuson recency bias because the
feedback on their last call mustbe ubiquitous.
(42:10):
This is everyone, but it justhappened, so it has particular
emphasis.
So there is also a filter ofdigesting what you hear.
That is required to identifythose common problems.
Thurman, I really want to thankyou for joining.
What is the best way if folkswant to reach out to you?
(42:31):
What's the best way to find you?
That's a great questionLinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, linkedin is the place.
All right, thurman Smith,that's where you find me.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
We covered some great stuff here.
It starts with the data.
It starts making sure that atan organizational level, you are
figuring out how to keepfunctions aligned.
In doing that, if you're ableto do that, the cadence that you
can put together the processes,the meetings, the way we can
all speak the same language, wecan actually get to a more
positive place.
And just the simple tactics ofif you want to succeed, you've
(43:03):
got to build strongcross-functional relationships
and, as wild as it sounds, thebest way to do that is just the
forcing mechanism to actuallyconsistently talk to those folks
and a lot of good things canhappen.
Thurman, thank you for joiningPillar Talk.
Can't wait to talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Thank you, rick, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Reflecting on the conversation with Thurman Sneed.
You know, the more thingschange, the more they stay the
same.
I first started working withThurman Sneed.
You know, the more thingschange, the more they stay the
same.
I first started working withThurman more than 10 years ago
and all these years later,thurman is still the voice of
reason and the voice of calmthat people are really drawn to.
And, as a leader, what are youtrying to do?
You're trying to have access toinformation, you're trying to
(43:47):
know what's going on, and peopleare generally a little bit
hesitant to share bad news.
But when you are the voice ofreason and the voice of calm and
someone that can be helpfulwhen the going gets tough, well
you find out about things faster.
And so I think about myself.
Well, I'm a pretty aggressive,I'm pretty passionate, I'm high
energy, but maybe fairlyemotional because of that
(44:08):
aggressiveness and that passion,and so there is like positives
around that, but there's alsothe potential to not be the
person that people want to go towhen the going gets tough or
things get difficult or thepressure builds.
You know the pressure builds.
So I think one of myreflections on this episode is
around how that poise thatThurman consistently
(44:29):
demonstrates, can be anaspiration to be the type of
person that is more approachableas a leader, and I think
Thurman really is the model forwhat that can look like.
Thurman also talked about thesingle source of truth.
He talked about the importanceof that as the baseline for the
operating rhythm or the cadenceof how the business is actually
managed.
You know I'm thinking about SamJacobs, the CEO of Pavilion,
(44:51):
recently posted on LinkedIn andI'll quote every department lead
doesn't deserve their own data.
Every department lead doesn'tdeserve their own data.
He also said quote everyexecutive meeting shouldn't be a
battle of spreadsheets preparedby underlings in a long-term
war to assert a self-servingnarrative that the reason the
company isn't doing well issomebody else's fault and
(45:12):
definitely not yours.
This speaks to me about theprevalence of the issue of that
BYOD bring your own data thatThurman and I discussed, and a
takeaway for me is to improvethis for my own organization so
we can make better decisions andultimately be in a better
position to win.
Lastly, I have to admit I'vebeen thinking about how to
(45:33):
establish better relationshipswith my peers.
I have high regard and highrespect for my peers and I want
to work more collaborativelywith them.
I want them to know what I'mdoing and I want to know how I
can be supporting their success.
And Thurman's recommendation ofjust a consistent 15 to
30-minute meeting weekly wherewe share what each other are
working on is such a simple,simple recommendation that even
someone like me can action.
(45:54):
So I'm going to try and attemptto put that into place and I
can't wait to see the results onthe other side.
So, thurman, I want to thankyou.
The Thurmanator strikes again.
Thank you for joining.
Pillar Talk Really appreciateit.
Thank you, listener, forjoining.
We will see you on the next one.
I also want to thank Ari Smolinfor producing Ilo Young and
(46:15):
Sons of Summer for the tunes.
This has been a great episodeand we will see you next time.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of
Pillar Talk where we build thefoundations of sales leadership
success, create clarity in termsof what good looks like for
current and aspiring salesleaders.
Before we jump in, I like toreview what the six pillars are
for sales leadership success.
First is around talentidentification and attraction.
(00:39):
A strong leader can identifyand attract the talent into the
organization, because both areextremely difficult.
We cover operating rhythm,mastering the craft.
The best leaders know how tohelp the team win business
planning, communication andownership.
Today I'm delighted to have asa guest Thurman Sneed, aka the
(01:00):
Thurminator At least that's thenickname aka the Thurmanator at
least that's the nickname.
Thurman is a sales andoperations leader who serves
currently as the COO of Marigold, a cross-channel marketing
platform.
But Thurman has been in avariety of senior leadership
roles at companies such asMarigold, at Sierra, wireless,
micro Focus and at Intralinks,where our paths have crossed in
(01:24):
the past.
Thurman, thank you for joiningPillar Talk.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Thank you, Rick, for having me.
I'm excited to join you today.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
So, thurman, the reason I created this podcast is
in my continued pursuit to tryto identify the good behaviors,
the behaviors that lead tosuccess in a leadership capacity
.
Good behaviors, the behaviorsthat lead to success in a
leadership capacity, oftentimes,like leaders, are evaluated
(01:52):
based on the performance of thebusiness, and that's certainly a
contributor to that, but it'snot the only thing.
There's a lot of factors thatgo into business performance.
So you can't just say, oh, ifthe business performed, then the
leader did great, especially ina sales capacity.
So I've been on an explorationto try to identify, well, what
are the behaviors that lead tothe biggest impact that a leader
can make?
(02:13):
And so you've been in aleadership position and I got to
say, if I shared my experienceworking with you, one of the
things that I've really admiredabout your leadership style is
your ability to stay veryneutral and poised in a variety
of like tense situations.
Sales leaders and even salesindividual contributors can be
(02:35):
quite emotional and things canbe perpetually urgent, and I
think one of the traits thatI've observed with you
individually is how, by stayingpoised and by staying sort of
like calm, not only is thatcontagious with the audience,
but it allows for, like,objective thinking and objective
decision making, which is, aswe all know, crucial to success.
(02:57):
So I wanted to, you know, diveinto that a little bit.
Where do you think your abilityto sort of stay calm and stay
poised developed?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
That is a great question, rick, and something
that other people observe allthe time about me, but I have to
say I don't know where itoriginated.
I think that it's justsomething that the Lord blessed
me to be able to have, and I'lltell you the one thing in my
adult life that I think mighthave contributed to it.
It's just, um, being the oldestin the family, right and, and
(03:33):
being the oldest in the familyfirst to go to college, first to
graduate from college, andthings along those lines.
I think I had to grow up alittle bit earlier than most, um
, in in some particular cases,but when, when things were were
a little rough, growing up I wasjust always the calm one.
I was always the one that thecoach, you know, asked to quiet
(03:53):
the team, so to speak, but itwas from a not so much, not a
not having passion perspective,because I certainly did, always
wanted to win, and whatever Iwas putting, you know, whatever
I was doing, whether that wassports, whether I was business,
whatever the case may be, but Ialways realized that there was a
(04:14):
long, it was a long run.
Nothing was won in the shortterm, nothing was won in the
moment, so to speak.
And so if we react in certainsituations, we may regret our
reaction as opposed to beingable to say hey, everybody, just
calm down.
We know the steps that we needto take and we can't make those
(04:37):
steps happen faster than whatthey're going to occur, because
there's always another party onthe other side and from a
patient's perspective, Icertainly believe that patience
kind of comes through in thissweaty moment, so to speak.
(04:59):
So in cells you have, quarterafter quarter after quarter of
something to perform at, whetherthat's operationally, whether
that's hitting the numbers, whathave you.
But the patient ones seem toalways be able to get the job
done, even if it's at 11.59 pmand that cutoff is coming.
And so one of the things thatI've tried to do is, especially
(05:23):
when it's when it sells people,is to encourage them, to guide
them through those lastparticular steps and for my
teams that many times havesupported them, for them to also
stay calm in the moment,because we know what to do, and
when you're confident and youknow what to do, you can be
patient.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
That's interesting, Are you?
So you're sort of saying thatwhen you see folks acting with
patience and not being, you know, overly reactive, that you'll
correlate that with greatersuccess?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I absolutely correlate that with greater
success.
And when I say patience, thatdoesn't mean that we're not
pushing until the end, right,it's just.
How are we handling thosestressful moments?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, yeah, of course , and as somebody that many have
given you feedback of you knowdemonstrating poise or coolness
under pressure or staying calmwhen the world is going crazy
around you, Do you think you'remore attuned when you see higher
levels of emotionalism inleaders or peers that you're
working with?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I think that I've seen cases where leaders who are
very highly emotional in anegative sense that it causes
the team to kind of cave in, soto speak, if you know what I'm
saying.
So, unfortunately, I've gottento witness situations where the
pressure is on and the leaderkind of loses cool, and those
(06:54):
people that have, so to speak,been impacted somehow come to
Thurman.
And I never have been able tofigure that out.
But one of the things thatconsistently has occurred is for
me to be the calming spirit, soto speak, to get them reset
back on that path and toencourage them, to let them know
(07:16):
that, yes, that was a moment,that was not necessarily the
moment that you wanted to be apart of.
But how do we stay out of thatmoment the next time?
But to calm them down and let'sget the job done still.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I love it.
Yeah, there's a sort of rippleeffect from being poised and
that is that when there is astorm around, you are the
individual that folks will gorunning to to try to find, to
get a piece of that poise?
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
So, thurman, you know you've gotten to sit in an
elevated leadership positionacross a pretty large
organization, or a variety oflarge organizations, and we're
really looking to exploretactics in leadership as we
think about the differentpillars.
Things that might come to mindfor me are the way you conduct,
or learn to conduct, a highperformance operating rhythm,
(08:10):
which to me I define as theenvironment that's created or
the systems and processes that'screated, motivation, engagement
and accountability through asales team.
And certainly where we've workedtogether in the past is in
business planning, where how doyou work cross-functionally to
be making decisions that willcome to roost in like six to
(08:32):
nine months, versus what moreoften happens is having to make
decisions because something justhappened and we're reacting to
it.
And I want to try to learn fromyou in maybe one of these areas
around how you go aboutpursuing these today in your
role and how your processes oryour tactics that you use formed
(08:55):
through either lesson learnedor experiences in the past.
So maybe we can start, justlike on your operating rhythm.
You act in a COO capacity,which means you have to sit
across several functions andpretty big teams, and maybe we
can just start about you knowwhat you like best about the way
you're approaching the rituals,processes, meeting structures
(09:18):
and elements that create highperformance across your teams.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, and I'll try not to go too long on this, Rick
, because this is one of myfavorite topics, but I love
talking about the cadencebecause I believe that the
cadence kind of sets the stagefor just about everything and
within that cadence, one of thethings that I would love people
to take away is that you have tohave good reporting, single
(09:45):
source of truth reports tosupport that cadence.
So whether that's sales, whetherthat's services, whatever.
The function is that you'remanaging and developing that
operating rhythm around.
Everyone needs to be speakingfrom the same book, from the
same book, and every singlecompany that I've been engaged
(10:05):
in at the beginning that bookhas many chapters, so to speak,
and everybody's reading from adifferent chapter at times, even
though they intend not to beright.
So, first thing, when we setthat cadence and set those
agendas for those discussionsthat we're going to have, is we
have to say what is the singlesource of truth that we're going
(10:26):
to use.
And not only is it one singlesource of truth, but it goes
from top to bottom.
So, if we're talking about sales, it might be these metrics at
the highest level, you know ELTlevel.
Take one click down SLT level.
One click down your first linemanagers, another click down the
reps.
The exact same reports, theexact same set of data, so that
(10:50):
everyone knows we're allfollowing the same book.
Tune right.
Sun is gonna come up everymorning, moon is gonna come out
every night, but on Mondays wedo this, on Fridays you do this,
and we're to be looking at thenumbers that are rolling up from
the reps, and so we used tocall that rep to CEO type of a
(11:13):
cadence.
Same thing would happen withservices.
You just have to define whatare those KPIs, what are those
things that I need to bechecking on a daily, weekly, et
cetera basis and make sure thateveryone starts to align not
agree align to what those thingsare and what we're going to be
(11:33):
looking at on a consistent basis.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, so the prerequisite for a performative
cadence or operating rhythm isthis sort of dimension of a
single source of truth as itrelates to data.
And it resonates because I dothink most times there's
cross-functional collaboration.
It's a BYOD, it's a bring yourown data to it, and so people
are talking past each other,looking at different things that
(11:57):
don't necessarily have theconnective tissue.
The famous one in softwarebusinesses would be marketing,
talking about how great they didin generating leads, while the
sales team is complaining aboutthe quality of the pipeline.
Correct, yeah, do you have astory about like I don't know?
You said you mentioned that you, you know often, will enter an
organization and you have thisdisaggregated dynamic that
(12:20):
exists and you know your firststep is to try to ensure that we
have a single source of truth.
Any, you know your first stepis to try to ensure that we have
a single source of truth.
Any you know narrative aroundhow to go about doing that
effectively.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, many, many times it starts with getting out
of Excel first and foremost.
So I find it hopefully not in2025, but it still happens that,
whether it's your spreadsheetof choice that is managed by
separate individuals indifferent departments, so you
may have a spreadsheet formarketing, a spreadsheet for
(12:51):
sales, a spreadsheet for finance, one of the first steps that I
like to do is to bring all ofthose parties together.
I actually think this happenedat interlinks those parties
sitting in a room prep torealize we connect to one
another in some way, shape orform all the time, but we're not
(13:12):
connecting.
So why don't we develop areporting tool, a reporting
system where we know what'scoming in from marketing is
going to flow through sales?
We're looking at the sameinformation there.
So the beginning of the salesfunnel and then carry on from
there Sales what you're managingultimately has to make its way
(13:32):
to finance Finance.
How about you leverage the sameinformation that this team is
using and I like to put it intoBI reports, rick, as opposed to,
or common Salesforce dashboardsor whatever the particular CRM
is and literally lift the teamup out of the spreadsheets,
(13:55):
right?
So when we're in a cadence call, it's no more.
I'm looking at a spreadsheetthat was already obsolete the
minute that I sent it out.
But we're looking at liveinformation, as close to live as
possible within a datawarehouse reporting structure.
So what allows to happen inthat particular situation is, if
(14:15):
marketing says something is off, it must be off in the source
system.
If sales says something is off,it must be off in the source
system and they need to go andaddress the source system.
And when you get to running,you can click into that report
and you can go address thesource system at that moment in
time, as opposed to waiting forthe next refresh.
Right, so that's when you'rereally running.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Do you feel, like you know, the world has gotten.
You know, now every company hasa ton of applications.
Applications have narrowedtheir focus to a specific area
within a specific function, butyet the flexibility of software
has gotten better.
Do you feel, like the dynamicof creating, like the starting
(15:00):
point of this disaggregation,the lack of a single source of
truth?
Like the starting point of thisdisaggregation, the lack of a
single source of truth?
Do you think it's gotten easierto correct or harder to correct
in recent years?
Like, if you take your mostrecent, you know onboarding?
Like there's a proliferation ofBI tools, there's ERP systems
(15:21):
that finance is working out of Imean Salesforce is ubiquitous.
Erp systems that finance isworking out of, I mean
Salesforce is ubiquitous.
So, like, do you see the sameissues place to place or is the
variance high?
And then, is the correctivemeasures gotten easier or harder
?
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Like I actually don't know how to think about that.
I would say both, dependingupon the situation, rick.
So I have seen it every singletime.
There has not been one time inmy many places and experiences
that I have not seen it as a gapto start with.
Typically, there is a majorimprovement within the first six
(15:59):
to nine months, and thatimprovement comes from getting
cross-functional teams into aroom together, right.
So as long as you have thatwillingness from a
cross-functional perspective toaddress the known gap or when I
say known, once you havepresented it as a gap and that
there is a better way, it goesfaster when there is resistance
(16:23):
from any of those functions,that's when it can be heated.
Right.
So this function is pickingthese systems and saying that
the data doesn't work that way.
Right, this team has this other.
The data doesn't work that way.
So first you got to geteverybody on the same page, as
you know what we're going tocome up with, a taxonomy, and
(16:45):
you might think that the dataover here is not the same.
But by the time we get done,you will realize oh, we have a
good data mapping to where we'veeffectively made it the same
and put it into the datawarehouse to where you don't
feel it anymore.
So when we're having aconversation, you see the same
thing, regardless of the factthat this field over here says
(17:06):
something different than thisone in the source system.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
What are the common reasons?
You see resistance.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Sometimes it's just a lack of awareness.
So one of the things that myteam teases me about I have a
few of those sayings 80-20,crawl, walk, run but a big one
is if you're sitting in yourseat, whatever function you are,
try to look two steps to yourleft and two steps to your right
.
Right If you're.
(17:35):
If you have never done that,then you just don't know from
your upstream partner you'recausing pain or downstream
partner you're causing pain,right?
So it's just literally a whack,a lack of awareness of knowing
I'm causing pain to my fellowemployee or I could be providing
(18:02):
a service to my fellow employeeif I were able to shift how I
provide information to them orhow I think about the
information that I'm providing.
Most of the time it is not withany level of intent, it's just
lack of realizing.
Oh, we could work together andmake this a lot more efficient.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Do you come into a situation that we've been
talking about with aprescriptive sense of what the
metrics should be and thechallenge is how to get accurate
reflections of what those areand from where?
Or do you find in eachorganization you've been a part
of the actual determination ofwhat the variables should be, is
(18:35):
part of the decision making,and I'll just tell you a quick
story.
Part of the decision making,and I'll just tell you a quick
story, I mean my currentorganization.
We wanted to build ago-to-market scorecard and we
wanted to look at it, even withthe CEO, on a weekly, bi-weekly,
monthly basis, whateverfrequency made sense, and what I
found in that exercise was alot of time was spent trying to
figure out what the variableshould be.
(18:55):
Well, what does this actuallymean?
You know be how much pipelineover what period of time.
I found we got caught in themud in variable definition and
my fear, in a cadence off of asingle source of truth, is that
(19:15):
the actual metrics that you'relooking at might have a lack of
insight coming out the otherside and that I just I struggle
with that because I don'tbelieve that every company
should look at the same things.
Every company's got some nuanceto it.
So how do you approach those,those dynamics?
Speaker 3 (19:36):
Being inquisitive, first and foremost, you,
naturally, because we're human,we come into certain situations
thinking being inquisitive,first and foremost.
Naturally, because we're human,we come into certain situations
thinking that we know what itis and there are some basic ones
.
So there's some basic thingsthat you already know if you're
working in a SaaS company,especially that if these are not
there, you've got to put themin.
(19:56):
However, as you say, everycompany, every situation is
different, and that's where yougo and you just start asking
questions, or at least that'show my team approaches it.
Start getting a betterunderstanding of what are the
drivers, to the end points thatyou're trying to get to, what
are the true drivers.
(20:17):
But what I would also say isthat not to be in a frozen state
, so you make me want to bringup my crawl, walk run.
You don't have to get toperfection with those metrics.
You can start with the onesthat you know and then start to
build to the walk phase withones that you learn as you're
going.
So that cadence that you'retalking about doesn't have to be
(20:41):
reviewing absolutely everything.
Review the ones that you knowand every month that you pick up
better knowledge, add the nextone, add the next one.
You'll look back in six to ninemonths and then you'll have
what you were looking for fromthe jump.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
Thurman, do you feel like being in a COO position?
I mean, certainly it uniquelyqualifies you to be inquisitive
and look across functions.
A lot of organizations, andmaybe even smaller ones, don't
necessarily have a full fledgedCOO.
They've got functionalleadership, symptoms of why the
(21:17):
BYOD dynamic forms Like, like.
What should an organizationthat doesn't have a COO, who's
basically translating acrossfunctions, to develop a single
source of truth?
How do they get there withoutlike, like?
How should they even thinkabout that?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, that's a great question, Rick, and it actually
goes back to kind of my journey,my own personal journey.
So I actually started off infinance, as you know, years and
years ago, and the most fun partabout my young years of being
in finance was I was unbiased.
I was not within any of thosefunctional groups, right, but in
(21:57):
a small company, fp&a got to bein between and I started doing
serving that function.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
So may not be that Like what's an example of where
that happened.
An example of let's say I havewhen you start serving that
function.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So yeah.
So my one of my first jobs outof public accounting happened to
be for one of my clients and Iwent into an FP&A position and
in that FP&A role because I wasof one, even though it was a
public company there was amanufacturing group, there was a
marketing group, there was asales group.
Well, someone is looking ateverything still, because
(22:41):
ultimately it comes back to thefinancial expense, revenue
pipeline forecast, all of thosetypes of things.
It's identifying someone orsome function that is unbiased
to bring the different dataelements together, elements
together.
Not necessarily a COO could bean FP&A analyst that gets
(23:02):
assigned to, hey, create theplaybook, so to speak, for how
we're going to help conduct anefficient cadence.
So what?
(23:24):
I would encourage people itdoesn't have to be a certain
position, it needs to be someonethat has curiosity that is not
within any of the functionsthemselves, to bring that
unbiased opportunity to presentto all of them.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Right.
Their incentive shouldn't bebased on the number of MQLs.
That's right.
All right, I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Keep going there, you just have no idea how funny
that is, but for me right now.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I've lived it.
Um, so any best part, like likejust sort of wrapping up on
that, this topic, like any bestpractices on um, you know, on
the metrics that you are findinglike the world's changing we're
now in, like are there any newthemes?
Or like hey, the Thurmanplaybook of key metrics for
(24:07):
organizational health, thatwould drive a cadence, like what
are the top of mind things thatcome for you as it relates to
best practices in doing this?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yeah, I don't know if I can state it in specific
metrics.
What I would state it as isfocus on your 80-20.
So many times we get into, oh,we need to measure these 10
things when only two thingsactually matter Focus on the two
things that actually aredriving the 80%, not the eight
(24:41):
things that make you spend allthe time.
Um and it's only going to driveyour business.
You know, an incremental stepright.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Uh, to bring it to life.
Like what's an example of?
Uh, you know you were going totalk about services, but like
what's an example of of how thatthose determinations got made
of?
Like hey, why don't we justfocus on these and not
everything?
Yeah, so if I use an example ofhow those determinations got
made of, like hey, why don't wejust focus on these and not
everything?
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah.
So if I use an example relatedto services just for one quick
moment, rick, we can talk aboututilization, we can talk about
billing per hour, we can talkabout a lot of different metrics
, right.
But if you're going into asituation and you know that
you're just stepping into thatcrawl phase, pick the one that
(25:26):
is going to allow you to speakto every level of the
organization.
For me, at a certain experience, it was simply making sure that
they reported time.
Like, are you actuallyreporting your time, that you
are logging in a customer andI'm being literal about that,
right, so I could get intowhat's my utilization rate,
(25:49):
what's my chargeable rate, and X, y and Z below that.
But ultimately, if they weren'tlogging the time to begin with,
it's not going to help me verymuch.
So if we're going to enter acrawl phase, let's look at are
we reporting time on time, firstand foremost, and then we'll
(26:10):
catch up to the others later,because I can be off and make a
bad decision on utilizationrates if that's not the root of
the first problem.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Right, because in the absence of having that time
logged, it's what?
Is it just anecdote orassumption?
It's anecdote assumptions.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
You can just be off Exactly and you see that sort of
extrapolated across manyfunctions where it's like the
source data is the issue, and sowhat they actually are
reporting on isn'trepresentative of like what's
impacting the business what theactual truth may be right and if
and if you have a root andusing that as one example, but
(26:50):
if you have something thatyou're seeing is a big issue at
the top, find that first root ofthe concern.
Narrow, narrow it, you know,rule it out first and then go to
the next one.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, yeah.
And again, that's where yourpatience and not being in a rush
and really understanding, andthen you know, starting to make
progress and then build on thatprogress.
I mean, frankly, one of thethings that I think this is both
individual and organizationalis the checkbox desire, like,
let's get something done, get itdone, all right, done, we did
it, and then move on to the nextthing, let's go fight the next
(27:24):
fire, and what I'm hearing islike a purposefulness about a
longer term play and makingincremental progress along the
way, but starting withfoundational, like do we have
the raw material to build thehouse?
That's right, and like pickingout the windows when we haven't
(27:45):
even gone and measured the youknow foundation.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
That's right.
We might say we want to reducetime to value by 20%.
What's your denominator?
What's your base?
What's your baseline?
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I live this today.
You know we got a highperformance organization, we're
doing great things, but we havenot done a good enough job of a
holistic view of the actualvariables that we think drive
the business how, what's thesource of that and do we all
(28:20):
agree on the right source?
What is the presentation ofthat for company consumption,
and then what businessconversation or decisions need
to be made on the back of them?
A lot of companies will lean onwhere the most.
The one source of truth iswhat's in the RP.
So for us, netsuite thefinancial's in there.
That is what's in the RP.
So, if you know, for us,netsuite the financials in there
(28:42):
.
That's what's getting audited,that's what we're using Um,
whereas, like Salesforce ends upbeing the data within there,
ends up being the sales BYODtype of thing you know it's
interesting which is which iswhy you have to have the cadence
and, matter of fact, thatcadence needs to be
cross-functional too.
(29:03):
Yeah, which is where I want tokind of move to next, the
cross-functional.
I think one of the biggestchallenges that I continue to
experience is I know alreadythat my first team is not my
direct reports, that the firstteam is my cross-functional
peers, and yet my days are verybusy supporting the
organizations that roll up to meand I find it to be, I don't
(29:28):
know, it's like the river'sflowing one way and you're going
to paddle down it.
But to actually like, build andsustain strong cross-functional
relationships, it feels likeyou have to actually paddle the
opposite way and go against thetide.
Cross-functional relationshipsit feels like you have to
actually paddle the opposite wayand go against the tide.
And I think for a business tosucceed you know I talk about
business planning and it's oftenis the cross-functional
partnership between sales,finance, rev ops around, like
(29:51):
making decisions.
I'll give you an example.
I mean, one of the things thatI'm always trying to do is like
forecast attrition in a certainarea so that we can proactively
backfill.
The worst thing in a high growthsoftware company is to have
someone leave and at that pointcreate a wreck to backfill, then
go interview, then go hire,then wait for them to join, then
(30:11):
train them up.
I mean, we're talking from aquota capacity.
We're talking six to ninemonths out the window.
So if you wait for something tohappen, you know you're dead,
at least if high growth is yourmotivation.
So the only way to sort of getin front of it is to be aligned
with your financial stakeholders, your HR, business partners,
your folks that need to be onthe same page.
(30:33):
It's not as clean.
We're not hiring because Sallyleft.
We're hiring because we have agrowth goal and we need a quota
capacity and we expect likelyoutcomes to happen.
And you know there's thisnuance to this type of thing.
So how do you, what like whatwould you teach others to how to
foster these cross-functionalrelationships from the get-go so
(30:54):
that these conversations canhappen in a productive and, you
know, effective fashion?
Speaker 3 (31:02):
yeah and this is this is gonna sound so simple, but I
don't.
I think it's very hard for alot of people to do.
I would love to say it'ssetting those objectives and key
results at the top level of thecompany.
Everybody does does thosethings.
However, I think it's simplerthan that.
I think it is having your Mondayor Friday afternoon chats
(31:25):
15-minute, 30-minute chats withyour cross-functional teammates
and making that a priority, asopposed to assuming that they
know what you need at all times,actually sharing what you need
at all times and also sharingwhat you've learned and sharing
your successes.
Right, hr may not know that thelast rep that they helped you
(31:50):
hire is absolutely fabulous, orthe opposite.
Did that feedback actuallyoccur in a constructive way?
So that the next time throughyou do the same?
You make corrections, whateverthe case may be?
But I actually think it's aboutthe individual peer-to-peer
conversations that allow them toalso apply that going downward,
(32:13):
and when they see you workingwell with your cross-functional
teammate, they will want to dothe same things, whatever those
functions are.
I'm using HR as one example.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
So how do you do it today?
What's your Monday Fridaychit-chat schedule and is there
structure to the meeting?
What's the practice onapproaching?
Speaker 3 (32:32):
this.
I've gotten to the point towhere I don't have to have the
meetings but my cell phone justrings right or someone else's
cell phone rings right.
But before, earlier on, youknow, years ago, it literally
was.
I almost had a one-on-one witheveryone for 30 minutes,
typically on Mondays or Fridays.
(32:53):
I have no idea why it happenedto be Mondays or Fridays, but
typically Mondays or Fridays.
Sometimes it was a debriefafter pipeline forecast type
calls, right.
What do we actually need to do?
Corrective actions.
Other times it was a end ofweek debrief, right?
How can I help you?
(33:14):
Many times we especially mebeing in a function of
operations.
It is just that simple question.
How can I help you?
Speaker 2 (33:25):
My fear is there you're going to get a long, long
list.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
Not all the time, not if the rest of your cadence is
going well, right.
You start to get to the pointthat if the 80 is being managed
through the cadence, right, youget to actually focus on the
exceptions and deal with how doyou keep the noise down with
those exceptions?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You're advocating for a simple approach, right?
Like, who are your keycross-functional peers?
Are you making sure that you'rechit-chatting with them, in
this example, on a monday and orfriday?
Yeah, um, do you like one ofthe fears that I might have
around?
That is like people are tryingto protect their calendar.
They're trying to make surethat their working hours are
productive without structure inthe meeting.
(34:09):
Um, you know you might end uptalking about the kids, or you
know not that there's anythingwrong with that or other topics
that aren't business related.
Is there is the Thurmanplaybook, that it's like they
don't need that structure.
It's the consistency ofcommunication.
There's enough issues to talkabout.
Like, if I'm meeting with HR,how do I know what's going to be
valuable for them to know?
(34:30):
If I'm meeting with finance,how do I come prepared to have
the right things or ask theright questions?
So, any recommendations abouthow to approach that?
If, yes, I can have thosemeetings, but when people say,
well, send me the agenda, youknow like people aren't
necessarily wanting to.
You know chit chat, uh, so youknow what I mean.
Like, how do you just?
Speaker 3 (34:48):
I do, I do, I do.
Do you know what you mean?
Um, when I have some of these,let's say, sales leaders, we
don't have an agenda.
But the agenda is the deals andwe know that it's going to be
the deals.
Hey, thurman, this, this andthis is going on right, we need
(35:10):
your team to do A, b, c and D.
We just know that that's goingto be the conversation, so it's
a little bit more defined, butnot written down on paper,
because that's why we know we'rehaving the conversation Right
With HR.
I would set an agenda and Iwould set that agenda,
especially if I'm hiring Right,to be able to say hey, how many,
(35:32):
how many qualified resumes didwe get this week or over the
last two weeks, depending uponthe time frame of your cadence.
Right, and I'm not talkingabout every week.
Typically these things arebiweekly Right, it's not
something that you have to doevery single week, but it would
be.
I need to recruit, I need toreplace Right, I need to up
(35:52):
level.
What are the things that wejointly work on and how are they
going?
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Right, I'm almost hearing you say, like the volume
of like.
Show me an organization wherefunctional leadership is in
regular communication with eachother, and I'll show you an
organization that's focused onthe right things.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Absolutely focused on the right things.
Cause they will.
The leaders will leave thosemeetings and typically I
typically do not leave any ofthese meetings without an action
, as you say, but I take it andI explain to my team what
happened, especially if it wassomething, if it was a gap that
(36:34):
we're trying to feel, and I tryto explain how do we avoid
having to feel this same gapagain.
Yeah.
So cross functional teammateraise X, y, z issue.
First of all, was it a validissue?
Yes, it was a valid issue.
Okay, how could we haveproactively prevented getting
(36:54):
into the issue situation tobegin with?
And so you use that as a repeat, continuous improvement type
cycle until you start to getthose things that cause
frustration, those things thatcause people to call me for that
poise, for that calm downmoment.
How do we prevent having moreof those Right?
Speaker 2 (37:18):
Thurman, you're exposed to a lot of leadership,
a lot of levels of maturity ofleadership across many functions
.
What are you seeing right now,that's like behaviors that are
driving the biggest positiveimpact, and where are the areas
that you think mentorship inthis moment is most necessary?
Speaker 3 (37:42):
great question, rick.
Um, I think mentorship isneeded to help people understand
where they're trying to get.
So a lot of times people andI'm going to use another
services analogy, but notnecessarily but in a services or
support function you could justbecome a ticket answerer.
(38:05):
I'm addressing the ticket.
The issue of the moment right,but there's a bigger picture,
right?
So in the moment of addressingthat ticket, if I have 20 of
these same tickets, then I stepback and think about the fact
that, wow, if I was to tap thedoor of my teammate to my left
(38:28):
again, I might have only gotten20 of these tickets.
I mean one of these tickets outof 20.
But because I'm living in themoment of I'm just answering
tickets, maybe I never go knockon that door To show someone, to
teach a manager.
Ask your people are they dealingwith the same thing all the
(38:52):
time?
Do they feel comfortableraising up and saying, hey, I
shouldn't have to be stilldealing with this after a year
or two years and then beingcomfortable with raising their
hand and saying you are theexpert, right?
We don't want you to be in thatsituation.
We want you to be having theopportunity to come up with an
(39:16):
idea, to add value, to learnsomething new, to refresh
yourself, to keep you energized.
That folks fall into thatnarrow I'm just addressing the
ticket and they never get tohave the opportunity to say, wow
, this is how I could actuallyimpact the business.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Regardless of what role they're in.
No-transcript.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yeah, but but empowering the management team
to empower the employee toactually recognize where they
are and that they have the bestrecommendations most of the time
and that they have the bestrecommendations, most of the
time Not management but the onethat is answering the ticket.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Typically has.
Finish your thought please.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
It's typically the one that has the best idea if
you would let them step out ofit on how to do something better
.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, what I heard you say there for leadership
effectiveness is one an abilityto identify common problems,
like problems that aren't justlimited to one person, but more
commonly available.
Commonly available, and the wayto do that is through effective
(40:53):
communication, which isactually creating an environment
where people can share thosetypes of ideas or feel empowered
or responsible to share those.
I always use this concept oftrying to get information from
the edges, like what's actuallygoing on, what's actually going
on.
Yeah and so good.
Leadership effectiveness is anability to actually foster an
environment where you get theright answers.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Right and when you're mentoring, to your first
question when you're mentoringis you're mentoring people to
get comfortable by doing thatRight and asking their folks
those questions right and forthem themselves to ask
themselves that question why amI even getting asked this
(41:35):
question about that metric onthis report, the why behind it,
what is the real why?
Many times we don't take thetime to explain the why.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
Yeah, no, I think you're spot on.
I think the only other way Icome at this is that often and
again, I deal with thesalespeople pretty frequently
and you get highly emotionallycharged feedback and that is a
little harder to process.
And it's also a big, big focuson recency bias because the
feedback on their last call mustbe ubiquitous.
(42:10):
This is everyone, but it justhappened, so it has particular
emphasis.
So there is also a filter ofdigesting what you hear.
That is required to identifythose common problems.
Thurman, I really want to thankyou for joining.
What is the best way if folkswant to reach out to you?
(42:31):
What's the best way to find you?
That's a great questionLinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yeah, linkedin is the place.
All right, thurman Smith,that's where you find me.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
We covered some great stuff here.
It starts with the data.
It starts making sure that atan organizational level, you are
figuring out how to keepfunctions aligned.
In doing that, if you're ableto do that, the cadence that you
can put together the processes,the meetings, the way we can
all speak the same language, wecan actually get to a more
positive place.
And just the simple tactics ofif you want to succeed, you've
(43:03):
got to build strongcross-functional relationships
and, as wild as it sounds, thebest way to do that is just the
forcing mechanism to actuallyconsistently talk to those folks
and a lot of good things canhappen.
Thurman, thank you for joiningPillar Talk.
Can't wait to talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (43:17):
Thank you, rick, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Reflecting on the conversation with Thurman Sneed.
You know, the more thingschange, the more they stay the
same.
I first started working withThurman Sneed.
You know, the more thingschange, the more they stay the
same.
I first started working withThurman more than 10 years ago
and all these years later,thurman is still the voice of
reason and the voice of calmthat people are really drawn to.
And, as a leader, what are youtrying to do?
You're trying to have access toinformation, you're trying to
(43:47):
know what's going on, and peopleare generally a little bit
hesitant to share bad news.
But when you are the voice ofreason and the voice of calm and
someone that can be helpfulwhen the going gets tough, well
you find out about things faster.
And so I think about myself.
Well, I'm a pretty aggressive,I'm pretty passionate, I'm high
energy, but maybe fairlyemotional because of that
(44:08):
aggressiveness and that passion,and so there is like positives
around that, but there's alsothe potential to not be the
person that people want to go towhen the going gets tough or
things get difficult or thepressure builds.
You know the pressure builds.
So I think one of myreflections on this episode is
around how that poise thatThurman consistently
(44:29):
demonstrates, can be anaspiration to be the type of
person that is more approachableas a leader, and I think
Thurman really is the model forwhat that can look like.
Thurman also talked about thesingle source of truth.
He talked about the importanceof that as the baseline for the
operating rhythm or the cadenceof how the business is actually
managed.
You know I'm thinking about SamJacobs, the CEO of Pavilion,
(44:51):
recently posted on LinkedIn andI'll quote every department lead
doesn't deserve their own data.
Every department lead doesn'tdeserve their own data.
He also said quote everyexecutive meeting shouldn't be a
battle of spreadsheets preparedby underlings in a long-term
war to assert a self-servingnarrative that the reason the
company isn't doing well issomebody else's fault and
(45:12):
definitely not yours.
This speaks to me about theprevalence of the issue of that
BYOD bring your own data thatThurman and I discussed, and a
takeaway for me is to improvethis for my own organization so
we can make better decisions andultimately be in a better
position to win.
Lastly, I have to admit I'vebeen thinking about how to
(45:33):
establish better relationshipswith my peers.
I have high regard and highrespect for my peers and I want
to work more collaborativelywith them.
I want them to know what I'mdoing and I want to know how I
can be supporting their success.
And Thurman's recommendation ofjust a consistent 15 to
30-minute meeting weekly wherewe share what each other are
working on is such a simple,simple recommendation that even
someone like me can action.
(45:54):
So I'm going to try and attemptto put that into place and I
can't wait to see the results onthe other side.
So, thurman, I want to thankyou.
The Thurmanator strikes again.
Thank you for joining.
Pillar Talk Really appreciateit.
Thank you, listener, forjoining.
We will see you on the next one.
I also want to thank Ari Smolinfor producing Ilo Young and
(46:15):
Sons of Summer for the tunes.
This has been a great episodeand we will see you next time.
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