Get Amplified
Podcast series GET AMPLIFIED where we’re going to be talking about everything to do with working in the tech industry from staying ahead of the pace of change to fulfilment and well-being.Hosting the series will be Sam Routledge former CTO at Softcat who will be joined by Vicky Reddington from the Amplified Group. The team will be joined by leaders in the tech industry who will share their stories. We are going to share things we wish we knew 20 years ago. This is not rocket science but, we are going to highlight many of the things we do subconsciously and with a more conscious approach, done with intent and purpose can be hugely impactful. We will break it down and make it practical! Like everything we do at the Amplified Group, we will keep it real, it will be relevant and it will be lively!
Get Amplified
Innovation through the power of Teamwork - Dave Wright, Chief Innovation Officer, ServiceNow
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Dave Wright joins Sam and Vic to share his thoughts on how to drive innovation through teamwork. Hear Dave's fascinating career story that has landed him in such an exciting role.
Dave gives us a valuable insight into why no idea is a bad idea because you never know the future and why asking 'why' is the most important question.
It wouldn't be an Get Amplified podcast if we didn't touch on the importance of trust - We learn why Dave believes the most beautiful culture is where you don't need to be 'brave' because everyone is safe to say what they think' and where cross functional teams can work without hierarchy.
There is also an admission from Vic that perhaps she should have edited out ?
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Welcome to Get Amplified from the Amplified Group, the podcast for tech industry leaders and aspiring leaders who want to help their companies execute faster. As always, we're virtual. I'm at home in Buckinghamshire. Vicky's in deepest darkest Oxfordshire. So Vic, who have we got on the podcast today?
VicThanks, Sam. I'm thrilled with who we have today. And I have to say, this person I hold responsible for why I joined VMware. So let me explain that.
Speaker 3He's got a lot to answer for.
VicSo when when I um was talking to VMware about joining, I was a little skeptical about virtual desktops and what VMware was doing around end user computing. And I needed to be convinced that there was going to be innovation coming down the path. And I met with Dave and he convinced me that VMware was going to be all about application delivery and that there was amazing innovation coming down the path. And that's why I joined. So thanks very much. So our guest today is Dave Wright, who currently holds the role of Chief Innovation Officer at ServiceNow. And ServiceNow is just going from strength to strength with innovation after innovation. So it's just wonderful to have him on as a guest. And what we're really looking forward to hearing from you, Dave, is uh just about your perspective on what innovation really means to you and why innovation comes through teamwork. If that makes sense. So, Sam, I'm gonna hand over to you. Yeah, great. Great to take over the reins.
Speaker 3Going to enjoy this one, I think. So, Dave, do you want to start maybe by giving us a bit of uh a potted career history? How how does one become chief innovation officer?
Speaker 1Yeah, hi Sam. So um, I mean, it's a question I get asked a lot, and I think it's it's interesting the way you phrased it. How does one get to become chief innovation officer? I don't think anyone sets out to become chief innovation officer.
Speaker 3I think it's uh that wasn't what you were aiming for when you left school.
Speaker 1No, I I I do a lot of work with uh our interns when our interns come through and and try and give them career guidance. And unfortunately, my career's been a a series of lucky accidents rather than phenomenally good planning. So um so you know, my my whole story was uh so I started out kind of way back in the late 80s as a mainframe guy. So I was uh a mainframe uh systems programmer and uh I was looking at mainframe automation, ended up uh using a product called AF Operator from a company called Candle. And um, and as I was using the product more and more, I got to meet the account team more and more. And then eventually one day they said, Hey, we've got a vacancy coming up in Candle. It's to do a job called pre-sales. And I was like, wow, that sounds like I don't understand what the job is, but I'm sure you can explain what pre-sales is. So they explained the whole concept that you're gonna work with uh sales guys and you're gonna actually do the technical part of the presentation. So so I ended up getting into that in my early 20s. Um, went through went through a few years at Candle, uh, joined a company called Maxim, the Pool and Babbage Acquired. Uh, and at this point, I was doing, I suppose, some support, some consultancy, some pre-sales. Uh, then I moved to a company called Peregrine Systems in the mid-90s. So I was there from '95 to 2002, I think. And that was much more looking at the technical architecture of solutions. And I ended up working in product management, I think, at one point there. Uh, then I went to a company called Mercure Interactive, uh, focused on management at that level. So that was managing all the pre- and post-sale sales resources for Northern Europe. And then in 2005, I joined VMware. So I was at VMware for six or seven years.
Speaker 3And uh that was relatively early days of of VMware.
Speaker 1Yeah, it was just after uh EMC had done the acquisition. There was probably probably probably like 800 people in the company, maybe when I joined, and God knows how many tens of thousands it is now. But um that was that was looking after pre and post sales for Europe. Um and then in 2011 I got the call to join ServiceNow. Now I had I had history with ServiceNow because Fred Luddy, the founder of the company, used to be the CTO of Peregrine Systems. So we were we had a connection there, and um, and when I spoke to them and understand what they did or understood what the vision of what they could do was, that was when I decided to join the company. So I joined the company running pre-sales globally. Um, and then this is the point at where my career uh goes in a slightly different direction. So I'd had this whole pre-sales career in the past, and I started to have more and more conversations with the exec teams around a disconnect between what the vision was and what the reality was. And over a period of time, we had more and more of these conversations until in 2013 I got appointed as uh chief strategy officer for ServiceNow. And that was very much a role that was focused on the strategy of what we did around products. Uh, we went through a number of CEO changes. So we went from uh Frank Slootman uh over to John looking after it from uh 2017 onwards, and now obviously we've got Bill McDermott in place. But when when John came on board, strategy to him was much more about the the strategy of the entire company. So so how we sold things, what segmentation looked like, what markets we were we were in. So he said at that point, I uh I still need someone who understands the technology. So he moved me into the position of chief innovation officer, and that's the position I've been in for the last uh three years, four years now. Good stuff. Do you enjoy it? I do because it's uh it's interesting because you get to uh you get to look at a lot of technology that's not necessarily uh things that are directly related to what you do. So so a great example was um I spent a lot of time uh looking at 5G technology and and I was having conversation, I was having conversations with other people, and they were like, well, why why why is 5G gonna be of any interest to us as a company? And the thing about something like 5G is it starts to move connectivity and processing to the edge, which means the knock-on effect of that is you're gonna drive more and more IoT or connected devices into the arena, and all those are gonna need managing. So you get these these weird things. I I I've done presentations around it before. I always call it the digital butterfly effect, where where one piece of technology happens in one area and then it has knock-on effects way down the line.
Speaker 3And I I guess from the point of view of some of an organization like ServiceNow, you know, if you've got tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or or even millions of IoT devices, you can't manage those with people sat behind PCs. No, it's got to be a level of of automation and orchestration in there, otherwise you you screwed. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and and you get the same problems all the way through. You'll get problems about understanding what assets you've got, what those assets do, how you secure those assets. It's the same thing.
Speaker 3Where they physically are, who's responsible for them, what they connect into. And right. It's that's CMDBs, isn't it?
Speaker 1It is, it is. I mean, and that's that's very much the way people look at it, although they don't realize it's a CMDB at the time.
Speaker 2Yeah.
VicSo you guys are going far too technical for me, but I'm just sitting here thinking, we we have a competition at home now trying to figure out how many devices we've got just in just in the house that are connected. Like, why does my washing machine need to be connected? The whole thing's just gone a little bit nuts.
Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, even as a geek, I think my washing machine is connectable, but I haven't seen the point and I haven't connected it.
Speaker 1So I did the same with my oven.
Speaker 3My oven can be connected, but the number of times I need to switch it on remotely isn't see, I can see the point in an oven because you know you might be you're out on a dog walk, you're coming home, you you want to warm some bread up for lunch or something, so you put your oven on when you're 10 minutes away from home and you get see that that's logical to me, but I don't understand the washing machine thing. We've we've gone off topic as uh as as we have as as we no doubt often will do. But so Dave, tell us what innovate innovation is obviously the key word in your job title there, right? Um, what does what does innovation mean to you?
Speaker 1So I suppose it's got a lot of concepts that are linked to it. So innovation to me is is pretty simple. It's just about thinking, thinking about a different way of doing something, but but more importantly, it's actually then implementing that idea. So so if I just get an idea that no one uses, then then that's not innovation. That's just that's just creativity or invention. Uh and the other thing that I think is interesting about that simple statement of just thinking about a different way of doing something is the word something. So I don't think innovation is just about products. It can be, it can be how you market something, it could be how you sell something, it could be an experience, it it could be anything. I think people people get very hung up on, oh, innovation's all about the products and the technology, but but what makes a a company really successful is if it can innovate at a at a generic level, it needs to be it needs to kind of be ingrained in that culture. And and the innovation to me has to drive the purpose of the company as well. Otherwise, it's it's just people uh going through an intellectual exercise of what could we do with technology.
Speaker 3I think that makes sense. I think that makes sense. Um obviously you're responsible to some extent for the direction of travel of the organization and and and where it goes. Um staying true to purpose, is that important in that context?
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean I'd say, and we can talk about this maybe a bit more later on. I I'd say innovation doesn't sit with an individual, and I've never purported to say that it does, but but um the purpose side of it is really interesting to me because because I think if you don't have a purpose, you've got you've got nothing. You've got absolutely nothing. You've got no no direction, no end goal, there's no buy-in from the company, there's no alignments, there's there's definitely no fun when you've got no purpose.
VicThere's no question.
Speaker 1Yeah, I don't think so. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 3I mean it's like that start with why thing, isn't it? You've got to have a reason for what you get.
Speaker 1Right. Right. And I I I've worked for loads of companies uh that have had kind of different views for this, but but it's the ones that it's the ones that focused on purpose, it's the ones that that got the whole company to go in the same direction. That's where it that's where it kind of felt like uh more like a living organism than just a group of teams that were thrown together. It's it's got everyone pulling in the same direction. Um, but but it I also think you can't just create a purpose. You can't just it's not like when you sit in all these meetings and someone goes, Oh, we haven't got a mission statement, and you build a mission statement, and and then next year you build another mission statement.
Speaker 3It's if if it's a marketing-led exercise, you're in trouble.
Speaker 1I I think if you if you come up with a purpose, everyone's got to believe in that purpose. And and the great thing about having it is then from that point on, it makes it makes it really easy to evaluate everything you're doing by relating it to the purpose. So if you're doing something and it supports the purpose, fine. If you find you're doing a lot of things and they don't support what the overall purpose of the company is, then maybe you shouldn't focus on it because that's where um that's where I think things become derailed or or fragmented. And you used to see um if you if you think about the late 90s and the early 2000s, software companies used to do this all the time. They go on these big uh big kind of uh acquisition binges where they buy all these different companies and and you'd end up with a sales guy that'd have like 500 products in a bag. And yeah, obviously you've got to want one product, but innovation through acquisition. Yeah, that's it. You know, what what what's your problem? Let me look in your bag, I'll try and find a solution. But but those companies, those companies, a lot of them don't exist anymore, but but even the ones that do, they're all in survival mode, they're not they're not thriving. There's no there's no spark that drives it forward. It's just it's just there's no directional purpose for the company.
VicThat's really interesting you say that, Dave. Someone we we both know well, Louis G. So he's coming on the podcast shortly. He's one of our amplified advisors, and he is actually coming on to talk about the importance of purpose and how his experience at Citrix and his experience at VMware and his experience at ServiceNow, how ServiceNow is the only one that has stayed core to the purpose. And I can talk about this from a VMware perspective because I joined to do end user computing and it felt completely irrelevant to anything else that VMware was doing in the data center, and it was a really, really hard thing to do. So I totally understand where you're coming from with that.
Speaker 1Yeah, who I mean, that was an it was an interesting concept. Sometimes in a company, no matter how it tries to expand, it's always about its core business. And yeah, VMware was always about virtualization. Um and and it's been interesting. It's been interesting in this company and ServiceNow specifically. Um, although you know, I suppose this isn't a Service Now podcast, so I wasn't going to promote it. But the the the fact that the fact that we have this vision around how we can make the world of work work better for people, the thing that I really like about that is that was the vision that the founder of the company had as well. He he just wanted what he used to get a real buzz out of, and and you hardly ever hear this, is he used to he used to because he was uh unusual in the fact that he was a CEO who was a coder, he used to he used to like to write the software, and then his his real pleasure experience was watching someone smile when they used it, watching someone take something and smile, and he'd think Yeah, I can see why that would be really satisfying. Yeah, yeah. You're you're making better, you're making it better for them.
Speaker 3Yeah, yeah. Something that's yeah, something that's that's pleasing to use. I could see that.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3That's interesting. That brings me on to my my, I guess the next question is we had Mark Templeton's formulas, former Citrix president on the podcast a little while back. He was uh speaking about uh his advice to companies who are in that sort of hyper-growth mode. I guess service now have been through that to some extent, and that's to remain customer focused, to think customer in rather than company out. So think about the customer journey rather than think about you know, create this this crazy stuff and throw it out there and see what happens. And that's that sounds exactly what you're aiming to do there.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean, I think I think being customer focused essentially. I think if you look at the world's most successful companies, they're always the ones that focus on on customers first. And especially, especially when a company goes through that hyper-growth stage, the the customers are the story. So you know, you're you're successful. That's what everyone's asking. Everyone's coming on board. Who else is like me? Who looks like me, who feels like me. So so you're using customer stories all the time, and and how successful they are directly impacts how successful you are. Yeah. And I think the the other thing that's changed now as well is uh you think about the way that you you consume things. So almost everything's become subscription based from you know your your mobile phone to the the software you consume when you're sorry, the software you consume from an entertainment perspective, you know, what you're subscribed to there, to to all the SaaS solutions that's out there. And because because now we have swapping costs that are a minimal, it's it's pretty easy to go from one bank to another or one teleco provider to another. That that whole focus on customer success and customer satisfaction, that that started to become the lifeblood of companies now because you know, everything's around renewal, everything's around customer retention and customer acquisition. And if you're going to do that, then it's essential for what the customers do to become front and center for you as a company.
Speaker 3That makes sense, yeah. And if you lose that that customer service element, the customer just goes.
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely. You know, freedom of choice is is what you're doing.
Speaker 3Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Which which kind of makes sense. Yeah, and uh I I'm involved in a in a startup um called Cocharger, which is a um sharing sharing economy type startup that's basically an Airbnb for electric car chargers.
unknownRight.
Speaker 3One of the one of the things that we've said all the way through is that we um we don't want to contract people in to the co-charger platform, whether they're a host or a chargee. We want to tie them in by making the experience as slick and as elegant and as wonderful as possible. And yes, that's through using the app, but that's also if you know if you run into problems and you need to speak to somebody, engagements with social media, you know, it's all of that stuff. So you tie you tie somebody in by making the experience as perfect as possible, yeah. Rather than contracting them in, because people won't sign up for a year's worth of contract these days.
Speaker 1No, no, I mean people like that. People want that flexibility. Or you see, yes, I don't know whether this became a universal thing, but it definitely happened in America, where where people would sign up for contracts and and the customer side became so important to other companies that they would buy you out of that contract. Yeah. If you if you'd signed up for a year, well, we'll pay that for you, but yeah, we're gonna give you a better service over here.
Speaker 3Yeah, I guess that makes sense. So um one of the things that I always thought in my time at SoftCat, so I finished up as a CTO uh after kind of 20 20 years or so there, and uh you know, not a dissimilar role to what you're doing, I think, at ServiceNow, albeit with a slightly different focus. And one of the things that I I always thought was that I I wasn't the CTO, everybody in my team was the CTO, right? As a collective, it was like a brain trust, and I was I was just the pitch guy, I was just the front man, as it were, and it it felt like it was important to engender that culture where the ideals uh ideas come in. Is that yeah, innovate innovation through culture, is that something that's important to you?
Speaker 1Yeah, I I mean I hardly ever hear someone who describes a job where I think, yeah, that's exactly the same as as what I do. But but but yeah, it's the it's it's exactly the same. And this is where this is where I think job titles get confusing now because job titles tend to be based on on these traditional structures that we've had for 30 or 40 years, but the the reality is that's that's not what you do anymore. So I think when people meet me, they always used to they always used to say, Oh, so uh so you're gonna be like the the epicenter of innovation. Everything that the company does comes through you. And when when a company is really small, it might be interesting to have one person who is is that spark of all the ideas, but but innovation works best when it's uh it's a way of thinking for the company. So it can't it can't sit with an individual. Um I'd argue it can't even sit with a team. It's got to be the the red thread that goes right through the company. It comes from everything from how you think about technology to how you work, all the way through even to to how you view diversity and what diversity means from an innovation perspective.
Speaker 3But yeah, I mean we talked quite a bit about diversity of all different types on on previous episodes of the podcast.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 3Yeah, obviously gender diversity, ethnic diversity, social, uh, socioeconomic background. I've got a big thing about neurodiversity. Right. Yeah, all of that stuff is important.
Speaker 1Yeah, um the diversity thing's interesting because I mean this this then goes into the whole concept of diversity of thought as well, I suppose. Where you know, quite often if you put a team together to think about something, the the good ideas come from the people who aren't traditionally in that area because they don't they don't have the constraints around how they think about things. So I yeah, I think when people yeah, I think what you said, when people think about diversity, it's not just it's not just uh uh a race gender orientation thing, it's it's using all the resources you can get to get the best results.
Speaker 3Absolutely. And even if that wasn't the right thing to do, which clearly it is the right thing to do, it's it's definitely a sensible thing from a bit a business perspective.
Speaker 1Yeah, just just hearing those different views and and people coming in that are completely greenfield, they don't know any of the history, they don't know any of the logic around how you do something.
Speaker 3Well, you get the opportunity to ask the stupid question that actually really isn't that stupid. It's probably the most intelligent question you've ever asked.
Speaker 1It's funny, I always think that's that's that's always one of those things I laugh at when when someone joins a company. And and whenever anyone joins a company for the first the first three or four months, they play that, oh I'm the new guy card, so you know I can ask anything because I'm a new guy. Yeah, and I've I've been in meetings with people, and someone have said, Well, I'm I'm kind of a new guy, and you're like, No, no, you've been here for like 18 months, you're not the new guy anymore.
Speaker 3You can't use one thing I'd do when I brought somebody new in is I'd I'd ask them to call my baby ugly. Right. Because because they can get away with it, because they're the new they're they're not invested in it. If there's something that they think doing that we're doing is wrong. Tell me when you first come in with you know when you haven't got any emotional investment in the way that we're doing things.
Speaker 1I think that is a that that that's that is an interesting take to take on things because yeah you do get politics and hierarchy that mean that people don't criticize things and when you don't criticize things that does sometimes slow down innovation.
Speaker 3You you end up with group think.
Speaker 1Yeah yeah yeah yeah very interesting very interesting so I guess as part of that engendering of innovation you need to be in within a team within a group that culture that cultivates a high trust culture would that be fair to say I think so yeah so I think I think trust's become more and more important recently and it's it's a it's a two-way road so you know you have to trust people they have to trust you and I think there's the elements of trust that are involved with things like innovation where you're talking about the the whole concept of being trusted to fail where where you know you you can say an idea and it's bad and and people might laugh at it and say it's bad but no one thinks of you as a a worse person for it. But I I think trust has really shifted in the last 12 months uh trust trust used to be trust used to be defined by the walls of the company I suppose so so people would walk around and they'd they'd watch employees if they were if they were managers and employees would watch each other and and everyone had this trust concept that they were all doing the right thing. I think now that now that people have moved away from that environment trusts become even more important because employees want to feel trusted. So you want to feel that what you're doing is adding value to the business and and the management structure above them needs to feel that value. So so you need to trust management and management needs to trust you and and everyone can't see each other all the time. So I think the the interesting thing about how how trust has changed recently remember when you used to do a zoom call two years ago no one would have the camera it was like really unusual for someone to have a camera on yeah and and no one thought anything of it because it was just like a a conference call but it happened to be going through zoom. Now if someone hasn't got the camera on you'll see people saying oh yeah they haven't got the camera on what what are they doing then they're not they're not focused on the call and that's yeah that's all down to this this this element of trust I mean people people want to see people in the eyes to assume that they're focused and doing something but that's not wouldn't it be nice to have an actual physical meeting gosh unless unless you're at a church parish council I've got a story on that for you Dave go on then we'll take that what the parish council so I've I recorded a zoom with them fairly recently because that's the village that I come from.
VicOh really yeah you can see what went wrong now they're all my Vicky yeah yeah my dad was on TV he's 95 and he was on TV two weeks ago giving his views on it came with his immerframe to the door it's just unbelievable unbelievable yeah anyway I just I was just gonna come in with trust um Dave we we've spoken briefly about this but trust is like the fundamental thing that we do at the amplified group because that's that is the basis for for all organizations to be successful. If you haven't got that trust to start with and you don't feel safe enough to be able to admit mistakes and ask for help then you can't have that free discussion and that diversity of thought that you were thinking about and you know people were say you were saying about when employees are new to a company well wouldn't it be great if if even if you didn't have to be new to the company to be able to just go the baby's still ugly. What can we do to get it better? The the most famous story I talk about is the guy that turned Ford round and the fact that he was like you can't fix secrets.
Speaker 1We have to know where the challenges are and then thank goodness people have given us some challenges right how can we help each other fix them that's the kind of trust that that we're trying to get to how do you see that from an innovation perspective they're definitely the most interesting meetings to go to when because I mean I think everyone's experienced this you you'll sit in a room and someone will say yeah that that's just not right or this isn't the way we should do it or that's flawed thinking and all of a sudden there's this group sigh in the whole room as everyone's like yes someone's finally someone's finally said it now we can now we can all get everything out on the table but but it needed someone to to break through that yeah and and and you need a the most beautiful culture to work in is when that's not brave is when that's just normal. Yes but but it's really hard to get that because you have to you you don't just have to have trust in each other you have to you have to check your egos out as well you know that that that no one's no one's right or wrong everything's up for question everything's fair game and and and don't just say that as a rule for a meeting don't just walk in and say hey there's no sacred cows here you can do what you want you shouldn't have to say it you know you want to get the the company to a culture where everyone's happy to be to be open about what they feel and everyone can take a little bit of an idea and start to mash it together and come up with something that's bigger than the sum of the parts.
VicYeah well that's the that's the joy of teamwork at the end of the day isn't it I mean that's that's what we drive for that is that's why we do what we do. So that's that's really cool to hear you saying that Bab.
Speaker 3Very interesting so I guess we ought to start to move towards the close and probably really good Dave if you can give us maybe your three key takeaways on building continuous innovation through teamwork.
Speaker 1So so I think we I mean we've touched on we've touched on a lot of them as we've gone through some of these conversations the uh the classic one was the one that that Vicky was kind of alluding to then that that no idea is a bad idea. So the the thing about that is as well that you you never you never know the future. So even if someone comes up with something that's uh that's a bad idea it's still worth rallying round and having the discussion about it because I I know I've had ideas in the past where they they've just failed everyone's just said no we're not we're not doing that we're not we're not the type of company who does that or that's not something we're gonna do. And then this year I've seen some of them happening and it there's been an eight year gap between coming up with the concept and seeing it come to fruition. So there's no um even though an idea mightn't be that useful at the time it doesn't mean it's it's not useful moving forward. So so I think every idea should be out there everyone should rally around them everyone should discuss them because the time might be right in the future. The uh the second thing I think that drives innovation is is question anything. So so when someone asks if you can do something the the why is much more important than the yes. And we we well I've seen this all the time in my past five jobs especially if it's uh if you go to a customer and the customer will say can you do this? The the immediate answer is well yes of course we can do that but the the question that's going to change them is why why do you want to do that? That that's what generates really powerful question.
Speaker 3Really powerful question.
Speaker 1Yeah and and it's even a funnier question when people can't answer it when people just yeah well that's the way it's always been or you know that's just what we do. And the um the third thing that's that's really worked for me is don't have uh build a team but don't have a team hierarchy. So when everyone gets together make everyone equal and and I've sat in team calls before where there's been there's been engineers there's been uh product managers there's been designers there's been salespeople and and it's only when you you listen to everyone's view and give everyone's view the same weight that you you start to realize whereabouts you can improve things across the board. So so not having a hierarchy where engineering is more important than sales or design's more important than product that's that's something that drives innovation too.
Speaker 3Yeah. That's interesting because I often felt like that was an another part of my job was creating parity in the conversation between what the sales guys needed what the right design guys needed and what the guys are going to actually eventually implement the solution and you know so just sort of level leveling all those guys out to bring it all together.
Speaker 1It's really funny when you get them together because it is I mean effectively it's like a it's like a Mobius strip the way it feeds each other. But you'll see the meetings initially and people go well you know if if if we didn't if we didn't sell the product for you you know you wouldn't have the money to invest or and then the engineers will say yeah but if we didn't write the product then you wouldn't have the product to sell and and you start to realize that it is this this info that's it that's no no one is no one can exist without the others.
Speaker 3No.
VicSo what one of our um focuses so we it's been great listening because we're we're very much focused at the minute in understanding our customer journey and we've concluded that actually what we finish with is building a team of teams which goes to your point Dave of getting creating a level playing field where where the teams can move in between each other. And then where where I first got the concept of this and this goes down to that stopping the silos forming was the the the work that we do around the five dysfunctions of a team which is like a basis for almost the best practices of what you've been talking about today.
Speaker 2Right.
VicThe the five dysfunctions book is a book by Patrick Lencioni and it's about a tech startup in the valley that isn't hitting its number and how they go through the process of building trust and having robust debate and conflict and commitment and accountability and then achieving the results which are the team results the results of the overall business and and what they the engineering team go, yeah well we've built our product we've built the product it's sales that can't sell it and the spoiler is what they do is they pick up some engineers and they sit them with the sales team and go, you need to go and help them sell it because actually if they're not successful the whole organization isn't isn't successful.
Speaker 1It doesn't matter just this is about what comes back to that purpose thing doesn't it what are we trying to achieve as an entire organization versus what is my little department trying to do yeah and and you can and you can reverse that as well it's like I mean I've been in debates where this has happened before if if you think you're going to build a product and the the sales force isn't going to be able to sell it then then maybe you shouldn't build the product yeah yeah very interesting so Vicky you should probably take us through hero time.
VicYes okay so it's that time on the podcast so Dave just to explain to you so hero time it's not about us being heroes it's we like to make our clients the heroes that we work with so that they are able to go and build that team of teams that we were just talking about.
Speaker 1So in doing that we have this little piece at the end of the podcast where we ask all of our guests who their hero is so feel free to answer this however you like but that's the question who today is your hero so I mean I suppose you can go you know you can go on the the whole big pitch about whether it's a historical character or or or whether it's someone that's uh a classic character like a Steve Jobs character but but I think for me and and this so this is going to sound really really sycophantic but it's it it is true to me. One of my heroes through life watching what he's done has been the guy who who founded this company Fred Luddy so he's not he he he doesn't actively work on the company anymore he's still part of the board but it was uh it was an interesting story if I go way back in the 90s when I used to work for peregrine systems I remember going to an event in uh 1998 in San Diego at the convention center and it was called uh synergy and it was kind of peregrine's user group conference and I watched Fred on stage and he was doing a a keynote and I still remember the presentation I remember it being about RFID tags. I remember the graphics of him using it to track where his mother in law was which probably a politically incorrect joke but but it was funny at the time and uh I stood in the audience and I thought that's what I'd love to do. I I'd love to I'd love to be working for a company where my value was to to stand on stage in front of thousands of people and and educate them on on what the company actually did. And and Fred Fred as an individual you know went from a position of of being successful to to losing it all due to a a kind of an economic disaster when the company went into chapter 11 to to not giving up to deciding when he was 49 I think it was that he was going to start all this again that he started a software company again from scratch that he he got it to be the second biggest SaaS company in the world in in a space of like 12 years going from nothing. But the the whole the whole loop of the story for me that give me my my biggest hero moment in that was was after after wanting to do that in 1998 by the time we got to 2014 I actually got to a point where me and Fred did a a keynote for service now together. So having having wanted to do what he did for years to actually get the honor of of sharing a stage with him and doing it at one point was was amazing. But but even watching him now you know the the work that he's done in in looking at what what he does around some of the genetic coding for newborns the the concepts around what he's doing to help society and try and do things in a different way he's just someone that I've I've always admired. So for me it's uh the there's that saying you never want to meet your heroes but for me I I really enjoyed meeting mine and I uh I still enjoy meeting him whenever I see him now.
Speaker 3Fantastic that's yeah the never meet your heroes thing is interesting. So my hero when I was a kid and I was learning to play cricket was a chap called John Embury Hollow cricket you'll remember him. And you know I kind of modeled my bowling after him and and and I met him not not that many years ago um at a sort of charity cricket match and I was on his team um which was just incredible because it you know he was my boyhood hero and and he was the nicest guy you could ever expect to meet and it you know that was a total meet your heroes and they 100% live up to your expectations and more and I just I just thought he was fantastic. So I'm not sure about the never never meet your heroes thing it worked for me. He was a good guy clearly worked for you as well yeah brilliant cool well thank you Dave that was really interesting another another good episode in the bag thanks for listening to get amplified from the amplified group your comments and subscriptions are always gratefully received chief strategy officer at service now and so is that right I'm a chief information officer oh god I knew that do you know what thank god for editing and that's that's what my other who currently doesn't hold the role of chief strategy officer at Service Now ironic ironically this is Dave who used to hold the role of Chief Strategy Officer at ServiceNow I was reading up on you see that's it that's my brain with yeah so um I'll do that bit again see this is the joy because I know I saw you go no no that's not me this is this is Dave he's chief something or other officer that would be the that would be the best description I know I know that feeling that seems to be my role I reckon but right Vicky do you want to try a bit that bit again yeah