Season 2 | Episode 5
Embracing a People-First Culture with Terese Lam, 6sense
Join SugarCRM and Terese Lam for Fuel Growth Podcasts S2E5 to learn the ins and outs of adopting a people-first growth culture.
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About the Episode
Terese Lam is the Chief People Officer at 6sense, a revenue AI platform for marketing and sales. Terese leads the People Team and is passionate about driving impact through empowering, developing, and challenging people to be the best version of themselves.
On this episode of Fuel Growth, learn how to develop a growth mindset while adopting a people-first culture, and how to enable employees to grow in their roles.Get the recap of this episode, or check out the site for more episodes, and information about the Fuel Growth podcast, brought to you by SugarCRM.
Guest
Terese Lam Chief People Officer at 6sense
As Chief People Officer of 6sense, a revenue AI platform for sales and marketing teams, Terese leads the People Team and drives impact through empowering, developing, and challenging people to be the best version of themselves. Terese has over 20 years of HR experience in both large multi-national and medium-sized high-growth organizations spanning across the globe, having lived in Australia, Singapore, France, UK, and now the U.S.
Transcript
Clint Oram
Thanks for joining us today on the Fuel Growth podcast.
Lizzy Overlund
What is the right growth equation for your company? Is it pipeline?
Clint Oram
Brand?
Lizzy Overlund
Product?
Clint Oram
Customers?
Lizzy Overlund
Employees?
Clint Oram
Join us as we interview CEOs, entrepreneurs and seasoned executives to explore what it takes to propel your business into growth. Joining us today is Terese Lam, Chief People Officer at 6sense, a revenue AI platform for sales and marketing teams. Terese has over 20 years of HR experience across both large multinational and medium sized organizations spanning the globe. She has served in a range of leadership roles including M&A, integration and cultural transformation. As a people team leader, Terese is passionate about driving impact through empowering, developing and challenging people to be the best versions of themselves. Wow, I want that. Welcome to the show, Terese.
Terese Lam
Great to be here. Thank you for the invite.
Lizzy Overlund
We're so happy to have you join us for one of my personal favorite topics, Terese. Let's kick it off by getting to know you on a personal level before we head into our conversation around culture today. I know you enjoy both traveling and cooking. What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten or maybe most memorable while traveling?
Terese Lam
Well, the most craziest would be when I traveled to Vietnam with my family. And we were in a countryside town was called Saba. And we were at a restaurant and they brought out two snakes. And I was thinking, What are we eating? We're eating the snake? But no, it was the heart of the snake. So they actually popped it in alcohol and that was probably the craziest.
Clint Oram
What about for you, Lizzy, what's your craziest culinary memory?
Lizzy Overlund
I don't have any crazy memories like that because I'm not adventurous when it comes to eating, apparently. I'm cringing hearing that, Terese. Did you know? It sounds like you didn't know what was coming. How was it for you?
Terese Lam
I think it was my uncle who ordered it. And so they yes, they brought out these little shots with white wine and the heart and it was like, Okay, let's try.
Clint Oram
What a visual impact there or just everyday sensory impact the whole thing.
Lizzy Overlund
Never heard of that before.
Clint Oram
I think mine is eating scorpion on a stick in Beijing or ant eggs in Mexico City. A couple of my crazy eating memories. That's part of the fun of traveling though, just trying something just completely different. Right?
Terese Lam
Absolutely.
Clint Oram
Well tell us a little bit more about yourself, Terese. I'd like to learn more on the professional level. Tell us about your current role at the company 6sense. I love that name 6sense, by the way, and tell us maybe a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.
Terese Lam
Yeah, sure. So yeah, Chief People Officer at 6sense sense leading the People Team. So my team is comprised of people partners, people operations, employee experience, talent acquisition or development. So typical of a people team. And we're really focused on helping the company to scale. So I joined the company when it was 1300 people, and I was the first Chief People Officer as well at 1300 people. So you can imagine a lot of building, a lot of program development, helping company to scale efficiently and effectively. And really, I love the building part. And you know, as you mentioned before, in my bio, I love everything that has got to do with unlocking people's potential, right. And so building programs that really help seeing people develop and you know, and having great career experiences or success, at any company that I've been is just amazing love to work on that.
Clint Oram
We're gonna dig into that growth topic more and how you scale and how you build an organization that can scale and does scale. Just before we jump into that, I'll note that you're very specific in your language, to not say, HR or human resources, you talk about people. And I've got to believe that there's a little bit of a philosophy behind that. Can you share your thoughts on how you approach the people topic as opposed to the human resource topic?
Terese Lam
Yeah, actually, when I hear HR these days and at 6sense, we still have people refer to the HR team, I cringe. And I think, why do I cringe? It's because, this is actually a few years ago when I was at AppDynamics. And even before that, I didn't really like the word human resources, right?
Clint Oram
It's a phrase that has the word human in it, but it dehumanizes the human part.
Terese Lam
Resources. Yes, I love people, right? Because it's about people, diversity of people. So yeah, so I cringe I do cringe when I hear HR, but the evolution when I first started my career, 20 something years ago, I don't want to egg myself, but 20 something years ago, you know, it was personnel, right? And it evolved to HR and now you know, I think many more around the world, it's evolving to people and it should.
Lizzy Overlund
Well I wanted to ask you Terese, I think most of our listeners may know maybe not most of them, but many of them are probably implementing approaches, growth approaches with sales and marketing at top of mind. And and here we have you coming in with the philosophy around investing into the people and the actual culture of a company. So we're really excited to understand from you how you've seen companies achieve growth by investing into the people, for people that might be listening that haven't yet thought about how the culture of their company impacts their business's ability to grow. How would you describe the benefits of culture investment?
Terese Lam
Yeah. So, you know, you mentioned culture of growth, right. And certainly, I think people need to understand why it's important for us, right? And what are the benefits of it? We all know now that the world is very different than what it was even two or three years ago, right, pre-COVID, or post-COVID, and it's ever changing. So you know, there's a saying what was it two things in life are certain death and taxes, and a third thing was, is change, right. And so the speed of change is even greater now than even 10 years ago, right, fueled by, you know, technology and our need for digital transformation. So if you're not innovating, you're not disrupting, you will be disrupted. Think about companies like Blockbuster. I mean, it's just a classic example. It was disrupted by Netflix, and even Netflix, even today, you know, having to constantly rethink about their business, about their business model, about their product, and how to, you know, increase revenue, right. It's about you know, how to keep shareholders happy as well, right, from a revenue perspective. So, you know, having that growth culture is just so imperative to survive. What does really growth culture mean? And it can mean different things in different companies, different experiences, as well. But from my experience, yeah, the growth culture needs to permeate the people, the business and the customer. So, you know, when I'm talking about the customer is the internal customers, of course, but more importantly, the customers in the broader community, right, because we're all connected. And, you know, making sure that you don't have a great culture, it's all like growing at all cost, right, from a business perspective, but balancing that with the people.
Clint Oram
I've heard the jokes saying growth at all cost. Isn't that called cancer, right? And of course, we want to thoughtfully grow our business, we want to grow it into a specific point, a specific direction, and your people need to feel part of that mission, need to feel empowered in that mission. And I think that's a big part of what you're talking about. Right?
Terese Lam
Absolutely. So, you know, there's a component of that growth culture, right. So, yeah, people need to be that center point. Definitely.
Clint Oram
Let's kind of tease that apart a little bit more. So you talked about the people being at the center of that growth culture and everything around it. Do you have a framework or pillars, if you will, that you've seen companies put in place or that you've put in place to help organizations with these growth objectives? How do you approach that topic, programmatically within your company?
Terese Lam
Sure. So reflecting on this, and this is by no means a playbook or set in stone, right? This is just based on my observation and my experiences, I certainly think of it in four components. The first one is a culture code. What I mean by that is, you know, what's the purpose, right? And the values that connect to that as well. So I'm sure you know, Simon Sinek, right, start with the why. So I love the notion of starting with the why starting with Why do you exist? What's the big vision, it frames everything, and then you know, the values that really help you attain that purpose, right, and is aligned to what you think is growth, what growth means in your company, then from that, you know, looking at the people, you know, making sure that, you know, you have diverse people, people who can share different thoughts and opinions and experiences as well, and making sure that managers and leaders are exemplifying that sort of growth, and having also a growth mindset. I really believe in growth mindset, I've built boot camps to help people, you know, understand their fixed mindset and how, you know, to develop more of a growth mindset. So I love that. Systems and tools and processes, I think, will be the third component. And when I think about that is, are you looking at your systems and tools that will help drive efficiency, not slow you down? So there's a fine balance, especially with processes between agility and structure, right to ensure that sort of consistency, and standardization, right? So we just need to make sure we're not going to be subservient to process because it can slow you down, right? When you have too much process, and you make decisions on, you know, process. I've been in big companies where that is the case, you know, another thing around systems processes, making sure that, you know, we're really recognizing and rewarding that sort of, you know, growth and experimentation-type approaches. Performance, everything from, you know, the performance cycle to how you onboard people, I mean, all of those are part of the systems and processes as well. And then the fourth component I would say is the environment, right? Making sure that it's agile, making sure that you know, there's that change, agility, fast moving efficiency there as well. So versus slow and methodical, very process oriented, and really an environment that allows people to experiment and have fun safety net to experiment.
Lizzy Overlund
It's a beautiful world to use a safety net.
Terese Lam
Exactly.
Lizzy Overlund
Terese, can we go to the first pillar of the code that you're mentioning? I think the value statements, are there any value statements that you've seen work extraordinarily well, across the people of companies you've been a part of, or maybe even value statements you've instituted yourself?
Terese Lam
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So came across the growth mindset five years ago, and introduced it at AppDynamics, for example, and certainly at Wind River where it's a software company, been around for 40 years, and was stagnant. When I started with the company, it was stagnant, actually, you know, revenue was going backwards. And so you know, what attracted me to Wind River was really the challenge in the transformation. We wanted to build a double digit growth company, right, at least, so had to look at, you know, how do we do that from a culture perspective? And I started with the mindset, right, and making sure people weren't complacent, but always consistently challenging themselves, and exhibiting behaviors that, you know, was around curiosity, learning from each other, learning from mistakes, experimenting. So I really believe in that value. And so it's kept me going. And even at 6sense, you know, we're starting to talk about growth mindset and mindset around that, too. We talked about coachability. Right? So coachability is certainly part of the growth mindset. Transparency will be another one of my favorites. Unless you are willing to be transparent, there's always going to be a trust issue. We're all adults here. We're working with adults here. And so I mean, there's always going to be a level of transparency, can't say everything that, you know, certainly, I think if things are tough, let's talk about it. Let's work through those challenges, right, rather than trying to put a facade or trying to put a different paint on the same wall. So I do think that, you know, transparency is important. And one of my favorite values as well. And I try to be transparent with my team and others as well. And I think people really do value that right, the transparency and authenticity behind that.
Lizzy Overlund
Yeah, I'm really interested in the first one, you mentioned around being curious or leading with curiosity. I know this is something that a lot of companies would help that ideally, everyone in our organization would lead with curiosity and practice curiosity, and their day to day, maybe this goes to the third pillar, you mentioned around systems and processes. But what have you seen businesses do to really enforce that message? Because it's one thing to have the value statement that you've maybe plastered on your website, or, or materials that employees have access to? And then it's another to embed that really into the culture? Can you give an example maybe not so much on the curiosity side, but any value statements that you have of what you've done, or what your teams have done to really give employees that reminder of following that statement of what the company's values are?
Terese Lam
So let me use the example of the curiosity or the growth mindset. And then, you know, I'll cover how to live and breathe by those values. I think that's important, I think, as well. So I'll share a story at Wind River, you know, initially when we came up with and I went and did a whole roadshow with employees and all of that around, you know, values and what those values should be. And, you know, we did an unveiling at the company with growth mindset and everything. We did some training, you know, on growth mindset, and all the other values, what it means to live and breathe by them. But we weren't seeing the behavioral changes, right? Especially around growth, I think, think about your mindset, right? It's not something that you can flip a switch, right? It does take time. And that's when the penny dropped and I thought, Okay, this has to be a journey, right? The growth mindset, developing a growth mindset. And we all have a growth mindset, but it has to be a journey, you're developing that over time, right? And you've got something that really supports that grows for people. So that's how we came up with a 12 weeks bootcamp, every single week, there was a different theme and curiosity was one of them. Confidence was another. So that was really about you know, firstly, maybe I'm getting in too deep here, but I love them.
Clint Oram
This is great. This is exactly where we want to go.
Terese Lam
So you know, first was getting everyone sort of centered on what growth mindset meant. Because when you say growth mindset, you know, people think of different things, right? So okay, centered on what does growth mindset mean? And then developing the components of growth mindset, right. So firstly, making sure you're eating, you're sleeping, you're doing your exercise.
Clint Oram
Self-care. Yeah.
Terese Lam
Self-care. Exactly. Exactly.
Clint Oram
If you're not feeling good, you can't pour it all in. Right?
Terese Lam
Exactly. If you're not sleeping well. I mean, like, all of those things, I mean, your health and well being is so critical, right? It's become much more apparent during COVID and after COVID. So we had it at the very first few weeks of the curriculum then after that was like building your confidence, right? So because if you're not confident in yourself, you're always second guessing, your mindsets are gonna be limited. How do you build that confidence, right? How do you develop that? And then from there is about curiosity and then we went into impacting with a growth mindset around feedback, going out there asking for feedback, right? Not just that, really asking for feedback, and being in that right frame of mind when you're receiving feedback. So you're not sort of putting up a defensive mode, but really listening and seeing feedback as a gift.
Clint Oram
Yeah. So as you kind of walk through each of those, and boy, I wish I was in that program with you. That sounds really neat. One of the things I think about in the growth mindset is embracing change, and being open to change and being ready to accept change. And I didn't really hear you talk to that too much in there. Can you can you highlight the embrace change idea? And would you put that as one of the pillars of a growth mindset?
Terese Lam
Oh, yes, yes, sorry, I didn't go through like the whole 12 week theme.
Clint Oram
There's 12 of them. You really hit four, okay.
Terese Lam
We could be here all day. But embracing change is definitely one that is further around, you know, thinking with a growth mindset. So we had phases in developing a growth mindset, think with a growth mindset, and then impacting the growth mindset. So that was part of the developing and acting. So then embracing change is about you know, accepting that change is inevitable, right? Accepting change is there to help you grow, right? Because there are people who were change averse. I mean, I had people on my team who did an assessment, you naturally do a self-assessment. And it shows you where you are, you know, what other fixed or growth mindset on different eight different dimensions, you know, there are people who are change averse, right?
Clint Oram
It's a personality type, right? You know, go back to the Myers Briggs or something like that. I come out as the personality type of entrepreneur, which, you know, I thrive on change, I actually seek change. In fact, people around me say I change things too much too often. You can't have a company of all entrepreneurs, you need people who actually focus and deliver and a lot of those people who are more focused and delivery oriented, they don't like change, they're scared of change. How do you coach those people to embrace change?
Terese Lam
Yeah, and it is a mindset, right? It is a mindset, because for them, it's about uncertainty, right? It's about the unknown, it is the fear of the unknown. And it's about okay, look, learning that there's just things you can't control, right? And you just go with the flow, and learn from that experience. Because yeah, change is scary. For everyone. It's good that you say about the personality types. I use DISC.
Clint Oram
Yeah, but you got to pay to get to that one. 16 personalities.com is for free.
Terese Lam
But how do you help people who are change adverse, you know, get more comfortable with change, and be more comfortable with the rate of change as well. I think that that's a you know, it's a mindset shift about things that you can't control, being not fearful of the unknown, right, the uncertainty of it as well. And the other part of it is some people don't want to challenge themselves, because their fear of failure too. That's the part of, you know, the growth experimenting.
Clint Oram
That's one of the challenges that I've seen in companies growing, is leaders actually beating people up for trying something new and it failing, right? Oh, you didn't think that through? And how could you let this happen? And why would you move forward without having every single thing figured out? And then that creates this this kind of negative feedback loopp where people are afraid of experimenting. And so I, on one hand, coaching people to accept change is incredibly important. But on the other hand coaching leaders on how to accept failure, or missteps in the change process, I'm not sure if I'm saying it the right way. But your thoughts on that would be great.
Lizzy Overlund
Yeah, I think that's an excellent call out Clint, one I wanted to talk with you about too, Terese, understanding that the coaching side of the leaders and how in your role on the people team, how do you uncover coaching opportunities for leaders that you may not have been aware of if you had not heard of it? Or if you're not getting the right feedback?
Terese Lam
Let me answer the question about the experimentation. I mentioned earlier, one of the components I see is environment, right? So it is very important that part of the growth culture, the environment allows for people to experiment, allows that safety net to experiment and make mistakes. But that's not a reason for people to make the same mistake over and over again, that's a different or different thing, right? And experimenting is not another excuse for bad execution. So to be clear about that. It's just about iterations, like you don't have to have it completely perfect. Because back in those days, when I worked for big companies, you know, you have to get completely perfect before you go out and roll a program out, right? But there's piloting and then there's experimentation and they're much smaller versions of it that then you can start to build out and iterate and then you go out with a big launch if you wanted to in a big company. But yeah, experimenting should not be you know, an excuse for bad execution.
Clint Oram
Making the same mistake twice is a different topic than trying something new, making a mistake, learning from it, Iterating, changing. Yeah, two very different formats.
Terese Lam
Exactly. And I find that, you know, in smaller sized companies, they have that culture already, because you've got to, you've got to iterate, you've got to be fast, you've got to be out there in market trying and experimenting. So I find that I see much more of experimentations in, you know, small companies, or medium sized companies and the much larger ones that I was at early in my career. So coaching opportunities for managers, I think that, you know, you want managers who want to hear feedback from their teams, and making sure that they are aligned to the values around, you know, experimentation, around that sort of support mechanism to help drive that culture of experimentation. So where those opportunities are. So that feedback I was mentioning, it's important to see that sort of feedback loop or 360s, or something like that, to really help one of those questions. I do recall in a lot of 360s, actually, around safety net, do you provide a safe environment for people? That question I've seen used for managers to also be aware right, of how they've been perceived by their teams, and our opportunity for them to develop much more of a role in support of their teams, so that they are allowing their teams or empowering that teams to experiment and holding them accountable to it as well.
Clint Oram
So help me out here, just to make sure I've got these four areas or four pillars, right? So the first one was around company goals. Vision, mission, having clarity on where you're going, and who you're serving. The second one, is the environment, a growth mindset environment? Do I have that right?
Terese Lam
Yeah, an agile, change, agile, experimentation.
Clint Oram
An environment of agility, and change, that all fits back into the values of the growth mindset in the first area. The third one was systems and processes. Boy, how many times have I overengineered a process thinking that I was enabling the company to grow, but in actuality, I was slowing down growth? Because I was over engineering next step process. And then the last one was about coaching. Do I have that right?
Terese Lam
No, no, people. So in relation to, you know, making sure that you have people who are embracing or continuously developing a growth mindset to continuously--
Clint Oram
Having the right people in the right roles.
Terese Lam
Exactly.
Clint Oram
So not just people in general, but the right people, right people in the right roles, a well tuned organization that embraces all those pieces. Okay, so I think I got that down.
Terese Lam
Yeah, managers are a key part of it, as well.
Clint Oram
Everybody from the CEO down, you got to have the right people in place that are embracing all these pieces that you described there. So as we go back to that, and we think about all those pieces coming together, of course, in my mind, not only is this delivering growth for the company, but it's also delivering a really positive impact on employee retention, right? However, maybe it's gone awry at times, right? Maybe you've seen some things that you'd like to warn our audience of don't repeat this mistake. So can you share any tips what to avoid? Or what you've seen gone wrong? That had an undesirable effect? The three lessons learned, if you will? The lean mindset, right?
Terese Lam
Yeah. Three lessons learned. Okay. So growing at all costs, I think I've mentioned that just earlier, right? I mean, it's so easy, not now, because of the economy. But certainly over the last two years or even a decade, right that, especially in tech, with all the funding available that you know, it's growing at all costs, right. So basically, you know, you have a problem, you throw money at it, right, or that's an issue, let's throw another headcount on it, right. And so I do think that taking a step back, and being much more planful, about how you spend and how you look at things, or organization design, systems and platforms that you're using, I mean, every expense should matter, right? There should be an ROI on everything that you bring in, you know, certainly I look at, you know, the bigger companies where spend was very thoughtful at Wind River, every expense mattered. And you know, when you have tight limits, it's amazing how you see people become really creative. Exactly. So I do think that, you know, a lot of companies are now taking those steps, right? And looking at efficiency, even at success. We're looking at, you know, operational efficiency, how can we continue to be operationally efficient, and looking at an ROI on every spend, right, but companies are doing that now, because things are tighter, but it should be the case, you know, even when the economy is great. So I do think that sort of operational rigor needs to be there, right?
Clint Oram
So have the growth mindset but bring a lean approach. Don't just throw money at everything.
Lizzy Overlund
A lot of employees these days, would really appreciate that, as we're seeing a lot of changes happening in the workforce and some mass layoffs occurring.
Clint Oram
Now you've seen some of the news of five months ago, it was the Great Resignation, and everybody was jumping from job to job as fast as they can. And then you see the news about all of the big companies doing these layoffs. And you can see that shift happening. All right. Second lesson learned. What else do you have for us?
Terese Lam
Putting building blocks, related to the first one but putting in place building blocks as you grow the company, as I alluded to at 6sense, you know, I was first Chief People Officer at the company. But this is not just for the People Team function but other functions as well. We're growing so quickly, so fast 18 months ago, 400 people and 18 months later 1300-1400.
Clint Oram
Say that again, your company went through what? That is incredible growth. Say that again.
Terese Lam
I know 18 months ago, about 400 people. And now 13-1400 people.
Clint Oram
I'm just thinking about your job day to day, it got a lot more complex.
Terese Lam
Yeah, yeah. So so we it gets to a point where now you know, everything is exasperated, but if those building blocks were putting in place as the company was scaling, things wouldn't be so much of a big challenge now, right? Because you're having to really back and start from scratch. But it would have been easier to start from scratch when you know, at two or 300 people not at 1400.
Lizzy Overlund
When you're saying building building blocks, can you give some examples of what that would look like?
Terese Lam
For example, different policies that we had, or compensation policies that that we had worked well, when the company was two or 300, right, or 400, but not at 1300. And so when we're bringing in people who've seen scale, because that's what we're doing now is bringing people who've seen scale, when you don't have the right compensation levels and philosophy around things, there's a compression issue, right. So you'll have to make, let's say, exceptions, and then one exception becomes another exception. And then before long, you've got a huge mess that you've got to clean up.
Lizzy Overlund
That's a really great point.
Clint Oram
Especially hard when you're acquiring right, when you do acquisitions and different levels, you know, a title may not mean the same from one company to another. And so you're looking at two people with the same title, one coming in from an acquisition, one who's been there for a while, but they have very different pay scales, and then suddenly, you've got a problem.
Terese Lam
Yeah, we have all of that. The great news is that I've got a great team and very supportive executive team, and we're working through it. And so we have a path. So we're putting all those things in place now. You know, workforce planning, for example, before, you know, we'll be hiring when we need it. Now, you know, it's a much more thoughtful process around the talent that we need and why we need them. And the organization design behind that as well. You know, sometimes you gotta step back to take two steps forward, right? So it's important, and just the people, right, what smaller companies tend to do is you bring in people that you can afford, one. And secondly, that makes sense for the company at the size, right? And then they grow with the company, which makes complete sense, right? People grow, they have the institutional knowledge. And then when you get to a point where you need to see scale, bringing in a mix of people who has seen scale before, because you do want people still in the company who have that institutional knowledge, and then complementing that, supplementing that with people who've seen scale. So you need both. I do think that the people mix and starting that early rather than later is really important. I think you mentioned this, Clint before is, you know, making sure you've got the right people in the right critical roles.
Clint Oram
So would that be your third lesson learned about the people then or?
Terese Lam
So in every company I've been, you know, it's looking at doing a talent review, talent planning, looking at the org, looking at do we have the right people in the right roles? Will they help us scale? Who's limiting us from scaling as well? So yeah, and that's really important.
Clint Oram
Yeah, that's always a tough one. Because from one perspective, it can be seen as Oh, very corporate or even ruthless as you as you make those decisions. But I think, you know, every time I've seen it play out, the company actually ends up being stronger and happier, and people are happier when the right people are in the right roles. You got a manager or director who maybe got promoted too quickly and isn't quite ready. But you find a different roll that fits better for them. You got to make those tough decisions, right? Even if it sometimes means you got to let somebody go and encourage them to take their career to a different place. It's a tough one. But you got to do it.
Terese Lam
Yeah, it's tough. When you talk about people-first culture, you know, people first gravitate to that, you know, everything is people, right, you got to make sure everyone's happy. And no.
Clint Oram
The Santa Claus mindset, you know?
Terese Lam
It's not about that. It's about when you need to make the tough calls, are you taking care of your people in those times as well, right, like when you're doing restructuring, you're doing in a dignified, humane way that you know, is respectful to them, and also celebrate what they've achieved right with the company as well as supporting them and caring for them post-leaving as well. It's just an example. But I do think that you know, people sometimes get the notion of people-first is that everything has to be positive for that people. But yeah, we have to make those tough calls. But how do you do it in a way that is dignified and respectful?
Clint Oram
And in there, one last question, if you will, I'm coming back to your comment from a few minutes ago of dealing a company from 300 to 1300 people over 20 months or whatever, that 18 month time period. What's your number one thing that you're thinking about right now? What's the big topic right in front of you as you help the company go through that growth phase?
Terese Lam
What's that big one? So for me, what's big top of mind for me at the moment is making sure that we have programs in place that really show our people that we're invested in them. That we're invested in them from career development perspective, right through to how we look at performance and performance reviews. So I've changed the philosophy from going from a five point rating scale to really about the conversation and how we elevate people's performance. But it's about elevating.
Clint Oram
Would I summarize that as retention? It sounds like to me, you're talking about how do you keep the people. You've grown quickly. How do you keep the people fully engaged and delivering it all and delivering top performance? Is that right?
Terese Lam
Yes, the end result is about, you know, how do we keep people engaged and connected? Many, many software companies are remote-first, right? So how do you keep people connected? So everything from different programs to help them feel like we're invested in them through to, you know, different social events as well. People want to socialize, people want to be connected with their colleagues. Wellness? And how do we think about wellness and strategy?
Clint Oram
Well, certainly the difference between the winners and losers in today's economy are those who can achieve the growth mindset in a remote environment over Zoom. That's the big challenge for all of us companies that are certainly in the software space, but knowledge-based companies in general, yeah, absolutely.
Lizzy Overlund
What you're describing is the evolution of your world in managing people, Terese. So all of the different multifaceted parts that you're describing, but it's not new to you that there's always going to be change. And you've managed to work around the change, especially over the last couple of years, and making sure that you have the safety for your employees, that you are considering the rewards for them, and that you're looking at their career paths within that organization. And I know we don't have much time left with you. But I did want to make sure that we had an opportunity to ask you where can our listeners find you? Where can they learn more about you?
Terese Lam
Probably on LinkedIn, that's the easiest.
Lizzy Overlund
We may not need to ask this question anymore.
Clint Oram
Yeah, we just say and you can find Terese on LinkedIn.
Lizzy Overlund
Awesome. That's great. Thank you so much.
Clint Oram
This is a fantastic interview, Terese. This is actually one of our longer ones because we just really enjoyed the conversation and your insights and your guidance are very practical, very actionable, very insightful. So thank you so much for sharing your time with us and the Fuel Growth audience. And with that, we'll wish you best of luck as you continue to grow your company and everything else that you have in front of you. Thank you again for your time today.
Terese Lam
Thank you. I very much enjoyed it. So thank you for reminding me.
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