653: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy - Becoming a CEO, Transforming a Company, Earning the Promotion, Knowing Your Non-Negotiables, & Hiring Excellent Leaders

22:52So do my superpowers align to what the organization needs? I'm doing that fit, but you should also do that fit because I'm not perfect. And there's things you're not going to, you know, maybe if you wish for a leader of another's ilk, like you should know that going in. And then number two, do we share enough values in common that when the times get tough, we want to be in the boat with each other? Those are the only things I care about. Do you see my strengths as something that is added to this organization? Do I see them the same way or accelerants? And number two, do we share enough values?

23:21And so I said that to Zero. I said, like, the reason I'm here is like, man, I look around. This place is full of lovely people. They want to do the right thing. They're diverse. They're humble. They're inclusive. Man, I would want to be a part of this tribe. By the way, the board is diverse. Like, yes. And I know maybe diversity is a bad word. I'm sorry. I'm a woman of color who's a leader. I want to go to a place that welcomes who I am, how I show up, and have heterogeneity, diversity of opinions in the room. So yeah, do I look for that when I interview? For sure. Got you. I would love to go a little bit deeper on when you're making hiring decisions for senior leaders to work for you.

24:01Because one of the commonalities I've found, Sekinder, and excellent long-term CEOs are that they're really, really good about surrounding themselves with excellent people. high character, high competence. So you mentioned back channeling. So you're doing reference checks, you're checking on the people. That's one of the things. What are some of the other things you do? Take me inside the process. What is it like when you have an opening on your team, a direct report of yours? How does it work? What are some of the must haves, like they got to have this to make it? What's that process like? Sure.

24:31And I interview anybody who's in our top kind of two to three leadership cohorts. So I care a lot that I don't just interview people in mine. Now, I don't have the hiring decision on some of those, but I do interview the top two to three levels of zero because it's very important to me that our leaders all exhibit the values and the traits that will make them successful at zero. I want to get to that in a second, but how common is it that you have disagreements? Let's say it's two or three levels below you and you're interviewing them and you're like, oh my God, they're amazing. And if someone else is like, I don't know, or probably more common.

25:05No, I don't think they got it. And the other person says yes. Does that happen a good amount? It doesn't happen as much as you think. And I'll tell you why. Because you always have a diverse slate of interviewers. And you always want to have bar raisers in your interviewers. So interestingly, you know, I'd say at zero, in most of where I've been, if you have a high quality team and you have enough diversity on the interviewing panel, the right issues usually show up and it ends up being a close call. You know, I'd say the clear outliers are there. And then the controversy, to your point, I'll tell you where the controversy always is.

25:35It's always about maybe somebody's strengths and that they have superpowers and then the shadow of that. And does that fit culturally? It's almost never about competence at that point. Now, look, it could be about somebody's potential, you know, like, have they done this job yet? You know, so you're betting on their potential versus like, I don't know, known experience. That's another dimension that people sometimes debate. Well, this person has all the experience and this person has all the potential. Like that sometimes shows up in the end interview rounds. but when the close calls are always like about culture fit you know they're like wow this person is excellent at this are they going to be able to get it done here it's not about are they a great person or are they competent it's almost always about culture when you get to these close calls but they're always I would say the issues always surface when you have a diverse slate of interviewers which I mean comes back to why I like diversity of perspective so what does the interview process look like for me I'll tell you my process is very specific and probably very funny to people.

26:29I always say sell, interview, sell. So when I meet with a candidate for the first time, I'm spending all my time selling the opportunity. People are like, what? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, talented people have choice. I am in full sell mode on my zeroes in the nation consider. I can't tell you how many times we've approached a leader who's like, you know, I'm not looking. I'm really happy where I am. I go into sell mode hard. And quite frankly, that's my most charming self as versus my most, you know, aggressive, intense, irritating self. So like, man, I got a bait and switch, but I hope not. And then the second interview, and then typically before I see them again, believe it or not, I put them through my whole leadership team.

27:12So I'm like, I'm going to see you again, but first I want you to meet a bunch of my team. So why do I let them meet a bunch of my team? Obviously in my cell interview, I am getting to know who they are. But my point is, it's like, tell me a bit about yourself and I'm going to tell you a lot about Xero. So that first interview is probably 50-50, me letting them ask a bunch of questions and me kind of ask about who they are. But it's not like, what do you think about Xero, blah, blah, blah, because they're not even sure they want to come. And so in that, I'm doing a silent assessment of like, oh, would I want to work with this person?

27:41And then hopefully after that first call, they're like, you know what, Zekindra, I would like to learn more. And then I'm like, great. Now go meet five of my team members. Why do I do that? Because it makes it more efficient for me when I interview. You know why? They're going to go ask a bunch more questions. They're going to learn about the organization. They're going to be a bunch more informed. So by the time they see me again, now we're in interview time. Now I'm like, okay, you leaned into the process. You met each of my leadership team. You got to ask a bunch of questions. Now I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions.

28:10And then we get into the heart of it. And then I might meet with somebody one, two times. Obviously, if they're direct to me, they probably meet our board, a couple of members, not all, but I probably have a couple of board members interview. Meanwhile, of course, after my first interview, we're calibrating, we're shortlisting, and then I probably see them again. The board sees them. And maybe I have a couple more of my close-in leaders. If it's a close call, spend more time with them. That's what it looks like. And then we make a call. So when we talked about your book, you mentioned that you don't have to be specifically qualified for a specific job before taking it.

28:43Do you still believe that? Because this job you were overqualified for, I think, right? But you still want to give this advice to others, how do you feel about this idea of still going for jobs that maybe you aren't even specifically qualified for? Well, I think it comes to the quality of your thinking. So will I take somebody who's not specifically qualified for a job? Well, look, there are a couple of things, and you can appreciate this. While you might not be specifically qualified for this job, you need to be qualified for whatever the company is headed to. Okay? So let's say, you know, Xero is now a$2 billion plus kind of revenue organization, let's say, and we've just told, you know, our investors, we're going to double by 2028.

29:21Like, okay. So like our fiscal 28. So we've already given, you know, we just said that with our recent acquisition. So if I'm thinking about the organization doubling, you would say, okay, well, there are some must-haves and some options at the MI level. Some must-haves are like, can you operate at the next level of scale? Okay. If you haven't done it in this industry or this job, can you demonstrate to me, where have you seen the level of scale or complexity we're going to, as an example? So I'd say in almost every job, Ryan, there's some must-have skills. And the question is, you have to show that if you're not in this job, you have demonstrated the capacity for those skills.

29:56So, you know, if you ask me, would I take somebody? I don't know. I'm making it up. We don't have this job before. Who hasn't been a COO into the COO job? Sure. But I want to know that the summation of the skills that I need in that job, they have demonstrated individually. So I think, like, you want to know that you're hiring a person who can go where the puck is going, right? in hockey analogies without having to have done the specific job. Where do you typically find that? You'd find that in people who are agile in their ability to learn, to grow, to adapt. And then, as I said, look, in the case of any company, including Xero, there are some must-have.

30:30Is it likely, as an example, you know, that at our scale, we would hire a chief revenue officer who has never managed revenue? I would say that would be a very high-risk hire for us, You know, but, you know, if you said to me, hey, again, would I take a COO who's never been in the COO role but has managed discrete multiple functions over time at significant complexity who is now going to put it all together in this job? I would say yes. So those are maybe like real and theoretical examples. The problem is once you've had 20 or 30 years, maybe 30 years of experience, Ryan, you are qualified, sadly, for almost everything because you're just old.

31:05Now I'm old. So sadly, most of the people I interview are younger than me. So sadly, I am going to be overqualified for a lot of things now. That wasn't always true. You mentioned the fact that you're now a$2.1 billion company, 21 % year-over-year growth. So you're just absolutely crushing it. I am curious about this balance between growth, and we're getting into real operator stuff here, growth and profitability, as well as this obsession, this kind of Amazon-ish obsession for the customer that you've hit on a few times. How do you balance, I don't know if they're competing priorities, but how do you balance out growth, profitability, as well as customer happiness?

31:49Yeah. Well, you hit, I think the, and obviously this is now very specific when you're a public company CEO versus private, because when you're private, you might have more latitude or your public kind of hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, it's not an or, it's an and. And, you know, I'd say in tech in particular, there was an era of growth at all costs, as you know. And then we moved to growth and efficiency. And if you look at today at multiples in public tech and in SaaS, the category we play in, if you are high growth and profitable, you traded, you know, a bigger multiple, right? So investors obviously benefit from that and investors like that because to get both is hard.

32:26It's hard. To your point, it's hard. So now let's go to the fact that it's hard. Like, so first of all, it's an and not an or if you want to be a high performing SaaS company over time. And AI, of course, is only going to accelerate the expectations of how efficient you are, by the way. Right. So that benchmark is not going down. It's going up. OK, so it's hard. So how do you do it internally? First of all, welcome. Like we are going from being a teenager to like university. Welcome to the graduating class. Great that you're on the top of this stack. Yeah, I just to be a freshman again in the next, you know, in the next class at university.

32:58And guess what? It resets. And so now it's growth and profitability. I think they understand that. I think the way you manage it internally is I think you do have a number of bets. I think you do have all things being equal, you know, and you know, I'm a believer in bets. So, you know, at Xero, we do have a portfolio of things we're doing and they run the gamut to things that are trying to improve productivity to things that are trying to, like, I'd say multiple bites at the growth apple and it making customers happy. And so I think if you have a good CFO and if you have a supportive board, we luckily do.

33:30You know, they allow us to manage a portfolio of bets and we give, I would say, ourselves latitude with investors. We've been clear with investors. Hey, we're going to try and be balanced, but all things being equal, you know, we're not going to give you, I don't know, what we call like, rule of 40 for us has been an aspiration, not guidance. And people say, well, why is it an aspiration, not formal guidance? And we're like, well, because at the end of the day, we want the room within these two sectors to flex between growth and profitability. So we're going to promise you both, but the level of both we want to flex between, where we see opportunity.

34:01And again, the best you can do with investors, I think, is if you have supportive investors, we are lucky that we do, is to be able to say, this is what we're doing internally. Let us give you examples of decisions we might make. Trust us to be thoughtful allocators of capital and to be optimizing between, but we're not going to give you a specific number on each because that takes away our flexibility to make the right decisions for zero. Now, again, I realize I'm giving you an ideal case, right? Sometimes as CO, you don't have that latitude. Let's say you're doing a turnaround or what have you.

34:31Internally, though, I think you need to manage your portfolio. Of course, you know, you need, I'd say, your own constructs and you need buffer in both. I believe that if you're going to get to the right outcomes, you need to be, I'd say, shooting, you know, past your target on both profitability and growth. And it's a balance. It's not easy. It's all about being what we call an allocator capital. And like, what does that mean? That really means like you have to have a set of focused bets. You have to say to everybody, these are the bets we're focused on. These are the ones we're not. I'm sorry we can't afford to do everything.

35:01And, you know, and a portfolio of focused bets. What are some examples of bets you've actually made? Would the recent acquisition be a bet? Like what are some examples of bets? Yeah, bets we've made. Well, first of all, I mean, as we talked about, remember, we talked about building that ideal business plan. And we said bets can be smaller moves. They can be bigger moves. So obviously we just announced the acquisition of Melio, which is a leading bill pay plan in the U.S. That would be called the biggest of big moves. Like you don't make that move every year. You know, it is, we're super proud of it, but it was many, many months, almost a year in the works.

35:33But in organically, like let's not talk about M &A or we can talk about smaller M &A because, you know, Melio is an outlier in terms of its size. I mean, bets are very simple. Like if you read our investor day presentation, we're like, here's some of our bets. We are going to, you know, now use pricing and packaging to try and deliver more value to customers each year. That's a bet. We listed out, like literally we had five themes. We had about three bets under each. We said, these are the bets we're making. Number two, we're going to try and transform our sales motions. So they don't just focus on acquiring a subscriber, but helping subscribers pick the right product on the way in and improve our mix.

36:10Like, by the way, do these bets sound quite operational? Sure. That's what I mean about a fundamental bet. I'm like, here's some smaller moves we're making. But when you compound these moves, we see that we can unlock a lot more value in a zero subscriber, not just keep adding subscribers without increasing the amount of products they take from us. So you're changing your sales motions, you're changing your pricing and packaging. These are literally discrete bets we listed in our investor presentation. We had another one. We said, hey, we're going to reimagine the small business experience. I don't know if you know that, Ryan, but this past week, zero just launched a reimagine dashboard for small businesses.

36:43You should go check it out. It's like, it was designed with 3 ,000 customers. We said a year and a half ago, we're going to do that. We just shipped it. Now, by the way, that's for customer happiness. We're not betting on it having financial yield, but man, our customers want an easier to use dashboard with customizable widgets that they can control, that gives them more insight. And so like, that was a bet. So remember we talked about customer happiness, financial performance, people. Imagine if I sent you our investor presentation page of like five themes and 15 bets, you would see their bets allocated to each of those things that are meant to drive each of those things.

37:18Some are for customer happiness, some are for financial revenue accretion, some are for productivity, some are for future growth. So that's what bets look like. And again, on a page, you ought to be able to write down like that. And I think most zeros would say they could understand our bets. Let's talk about the people side of things and specifically culture. This is hard to get it right, but vital and super important. What's your overall mindset and philosophy on building? I mean, you're in charge. You're the CEO on building an excellent culture at zero. Well, first of all, I think culture means consistency of message and what's important.

37:59So I think people will say, oh, culture is what you do, not what you say, or how people act when no one's looking. I told you, there's some important... First of all, My first goal is to not, excuse me, screw up. I think I swore before. Not to really like screw up the thing that zero does uniquely right, which is it attracts really, I don't know how else to say it. It attracts really wonderful people. That's all I can say. And for me, wonderful people, like I said, they show up, they want to do the right thing. They care. They collaborate well. Their natural inclination is to be helpful. And they're really unentitled.

38:30Like those speak to my personal values, the type of people I would want around me. By the way, I also want people who are very diverse from my style and perspective. And so, like I said, I love that Xero attracts all different kinds of people from all different kinds of backgrounds for that reason. Okay, so that's one. So let's try not to screw up the thing the company does well. But I think in terms of the culture and how you kind of drive it, I think I really strive, as I said, to be consistent and authentic in my communications about what's important. To be pretty plain speaking on the things we're going to do and the things we're not going to do.

39:03Right? And to make sure that what we say to investors, what we say to the board, what we say to employees all matches up again and again and again. So for me, culture is about consistency. And maybe that is like a weird answer. But that's how I strive to, I would say, improve our culture. Of course, we did things like look at our values and we re-energized our values about a year and a half ago when we did our investor strategy. You know, the thing I talked about, our portfolio of bets, we made them public. We sort of said, hey, for the next era, what do our values need to be? How do we take them?

39:34How do we tweak them? How do we improve them? Yes, but you don't change your values every year. Mostly you try and live your values. And the best way I know how to live my values is to be consistent as a leader in my messaging, in doing what I say I'm going to do, and keep closing the loop for our employees. We talked about it. We press on all three, purpose, performance, people. You know, we try and, like I'd say, manage all three in concert. And I try and move them as a system. And honestly, I just keep, believe it or not, in culture, I just keep trying to repeat the same thing again and again and again.

40:06It was funny. I love that you said this. In all relationships in life, I think one of the key components to trust, which is the foundation of a relationship, and it's mandatory that you have it if you're going to have a relationship with somebody, is being consistent. is doing what you say you're going to do day after day after day, right? It's continuing to show up, continuing to do the thing, continuing to do the work, to being dependable, to being reliable, to consistently being there. All these unsexy words. It's funny, but man, it leads to trust. It leads to the formation of a strong and powerful relationship.

40:46So it's interesting that this consistency of messaging is so important to you. It makes a lot of sense that you've been able to build excellent cultures wherever you go because you're so focused on being consistent. Yeah. I mean, I think you said there's one other word that goes with trust, which is authenticity, right? So I believe like, just say the thing, you earn people's trust when you do it. And by the way, there are times you make unpopular decisions for culture. Like, let's not forget that, you know, like this does not mean that things don't change. This is in fact, quite the opposite.

41:18This is the challenge. This is the challenge in building a culture in today's tech that's enduring. Things change all the time. You have to pivot. You have COVID. You have AI. You have efficiency. When I arrived at zero, we laid off almost 900 people six weeks after I arrived. Do you think that's a popular decision or an easy decision? Whoa, what happened? Why? Remember that plan we talked about with the board? I said - Was that in the plan? Like I'm going to chop off 900 people? What was in the plan was not I'm going to chop off 900 people. What was in the plan, remember that outside in view?

41:49I said, here's where zero does well. Here's where zero benchmarks less well. So I was just very clear. My outside-in analysis of the company is, it's amazing here. Now, keep in mind, again, you don't make a decision like that lightly. I arrived, and by the way, this is all public knowledge. There's nothing here I'm not saying that employees haven't heard. When I arrived, I said to the board and I said to the current CEO, because we had an overlap period, I'm like, I'm going to bring in McKinsey and I'm going to benchmark zero because I'm pretty sure we're overly large. But I don't think this isn't that kind of decision you just say, well, you know, this is my thesis.

42:19Like think about the impact to employees, right? So we bought a McKinsey. We did a six week go round. And I took over the CO seat officially on my birthday, which was like February 1st. And the very first all hands employee said to me, are you going to do layoffs? And in my very first all hands, I had SAS benchmarks in my deck. And I said, look, I'm not going to talk to you about whether we're going to do layoffs or not, but I'm going to show you an outside in view of where zero does well and where zero doesn't do well. Put it out there. I was like, this might, you know, it's like I talked about how excited I was.

42:50Maybe it was my first or second. But my point was within my first two all hands. It was either the day I did it or two weeks later. And a month later, we did a layoff. And it was brutal. But again, coming back to consistency, I thought like, my God, if this is my thesis, and the world was heading there, you know this, this was an era by, like it was untold number of layoffs in the beginning of 2022. But I was like, wow, can I really stand up in front of this team that I am about to be the CEO of? And people are like, are there going to be layoffs? and I am doing a McKinsey study in the background.

43:20What is the data I can give these folks that gives them a clue to how I'm thinking about the business that's still authentic, right? So my point is like authenticity serves you through change. So consistency is about consistency of like, what are your North Stars? What are the principles you're trying to uphold? How are you making decisions? Consistency does not mean nothing changes. Quite frankly, as I said, this is the hardest thing in culture. We are in an era where everything is changing and you're trying to bring your employees along. But you got to go. Are you not going to go on AI? If the whole market is valuing efficiency, can we afford not to make the decision if we're unprofitable to cut our headcount?

43:59No. So the question is, how do you maintain culture and how do you maintain care for employees in a world where everything is changing? Quite frankly, that is a seminal question. And the only thing I know how to lean on is be consistent on the why, be consistent on your messaging. What are you aiming towards? And I'd say be transparent, you know, within the bounds of what you can do and authentic in your messaging. I mean, that's it. Like, that's so, I think it is really hard to just, you know, say nothing changes. That's actually the problem. I think people are like, well, in a great culture, nothing changes.

44:30I said, no, unfortunately, in a great culture, you have to adapt to what's changing. It's easy to criticize a CEO who has to lay people off when you're not the CEO. because we don't see it all. We don't know what's going on. We don't understand the profitability numbers. It's so easy to criticize that person, but that's why it's not for everybody. And you got to be tough and you got to be willing to do what it takes to keep the company in business, first and foremost, and set the company up to succeed in the future. And that's why that job isn't for everybody. And you got to be willing to make those tough calls.

45:04And I admire that. I think that would be so hard to do. Usually though, anything worthwhile in your life that you've ever done is preceded by something really, really hard. Yeah, and it's hard throughout. It's not just preceded by something hard. It's hard throughout, right? But let me tell you the hope I have. And again, I'm gonna come back to the quality of the zero team that I inherited and the people I get to work with every day. Like we have something called a global all hands, right? It's our monthly all hands and we do it live. and I play a pretty big part in it. But you know what? In those all hands, employees sometimes ask me tough questions and occasionally I'm like, hey, this is not appropriate.

45:44But by and large, in those all hands, I get to talk to employees about the system view. Remember we talked about that, Ryan, the system view. You're right. As a CEO, you do see the system and often you get criticized because everybody doesn't see the system. But if your employees are smart, and they usually are, and you're willing to have an authentic conversation with them, you can give them a system view and they are grateful for it. Like every time I have a conversation with zeros and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna zoom back and show you a piece of the picture I'm seeing. So again, just a simple example.

46:17We just did this big acquisition of this company called Melio. And as you can imagine, I mean, my God, for eight months, you have a bunch of people in secret working on a deal. And then we launched it last week. And in our first GAH afterwards, I had a whole script and I went off script because we had a GAH. and instead of presenting the same slides we printed investors, we're like, let us tell you what investors asked us about. Let us zoom back and give you a view of what investors were asking us about. And people are grateful. They're like, well, wow, thanks for bringing us in the room. And when you can be placed, and you know, I always start those GAHs and look, I'm gonna knock on wood because I could be proven wrong, but I start those GAHs.

46:53I said, I'm gonna share a view with you that of course is confidential. You know, this is stuff I'm never gonna write in a book. I'm never gonna talk about on a podcast, but let me give you a feel for what it's like. That has never served me wrong with employees, not at Xero, not elsewhere. If you're willing to be authentic and you can give them a system view. Now, you can't give them everything, to your point. There are things that are confidential, what have you. But the more you can help, you know, your team see the forest and give them a view of the forest, they're smart people. You know, you think they're not thinking about these things?

47:23Of course they are. So I would just say as a CEO, if you can be willing to answer tough questions or zoom back and give your teams the occasional systems view, I think it will come back to serve you really well on the why when change happens. Yes. I want to close by talking about making a big ask. Okay. You did this earlier in your career to Eric Schmidt at Google, which I think is super inspiring. You're pregnant and you want to keep running an international business at Google, but you told him I need to pay for me and my nanny to travel the world business class. and I would imagine knowing you, you backed it up with great reasoning and a deck probably at a presentation.

48:05But I think it's inspiring to hear of people who make a big risky ask. There's a lot that goes into it. So you don't come across as some entitled person who feels like they deserve the world when you haven't fully earned it. So can you go into that story and how it could be helpful for maybe somebody else who's scared, even though they have earned the right to make that ask and what you would say to them? Well, first of all, just for complete accuracy, I made that ask to Omid Kordestani, who was my boss and Google's chief business officer, who I think shared it with Eric. And he's definitely aware.

48:39And I was on at least one business trip to Korea where Eric actually kindly offered to take me and my daughter and my nanny with him on his travel. So he certainly was aware and very supportive. And I am eternally grateful, actually, to Google for their support of my family situation in that time. How do you make a risky ask, well, I think you hit the nail on the head. First of all, don't be entitled. You don't deserve it. Well, I take it back. You might deserve it, but don't go in like you deserve it. Go in and understand. Just be like, hey, I know this is a big ask. Now, to your point, I think in any risky ask, you have to first say, how does it serve the person you're asking and the organization you're asking?

49:16So why did Google say yes? I think they said yes because they're like, wow, the cost of losing Sukhendra in this job and replacing it with someone else and the cost of that time versus, you know, the cost of helping support her six-month-old at the time baby traveling with her as she moves around the world to every pretty 180 different countries I was managing. So first of all, I think you have to say, what's the benefit to you? What's the upside? And then I think you, I mean, I think in any risky ask, you also have to outline the downsides and how you would mitigate those risks. So I think if you want to be a very thoughtful asker on a big risk.

49:51By the way, remember, we just went through the board with a big acquisition. Do you think we didn't go through like, here's a big, we want you to support this acquisition. Here's why. You have to be, I would say, and I think I write about this in my book, you have to list the downsides as much as the upside. So first of all, go in and say, why is it beneficial to you? Number two, what are the downsides of this risk to you? How would I mitigate them? So somebody might say, well, gosh, the downside is, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, okay, well, here's how I thought about that downside and how I'd mitigate it.

50:19You know, it's on balance that you've considered it all. And I'd say in most risky moves, is there a way back? So often there is. Like you can say, look, if this doesn't work out, here's something we can consider, but let's try it. I think in very risky moves, in the case of the Google one, there's a way out. If it's a personal question, there's a way out, right? So I think you have to paint the upside for them. You have to be really clear on the risks and the mitigants. That shows you've been thoughtful. And I think I would end with the ask again from a tone of gratitude and realizing they don't have to do it, but you would appreciate if they do it.

50:49And inside of that, yes, of course you can talk about your value, of course, but if you make it all about you, I'm not sure that's the right point. The point is it's about them and your value in that equation. That's the key, key point. Whether you're going for a job or you're going for a big ask, if you're going for a job, you're essentially solving someone else's problem and you need to talk with them about how you're going to solve their problems and make their life better, to make it as simplistic as possible. When people mess this up, they focus on themselves and why maybe they're awesome or they deserve the raise or they deserve the job or they deserve the business class ticket, as opposed to saying, this is how it solves your problem.

51:30Be others-oriented, others-focused, not look at me. I've earned this. I'm entitled. It's, no, this is how it's going to help you. Yeah. And of course, look, I am, of course, a fan of if people want to advocate for promotion or raise or I would never say don't advocate. I would say when you advocate, think about, you know, what you have done, what you still can do and how you've demonstrated impact in the past and how you're going to demonstrate impact in the future. Like if I was going to go ask for a raise or ask, I'd be like, look, I'm so excited to be here. You know, this is what I've accomplished.

52:02Yeah, this is, I think, what people would say about my work. I think I'm already operating at this level, you know, but you judge, you let me know. Like, I also would love the feedback. Okay, there's an ask. I'd love the, you know, and what I'm so excited to do, if you were going to give me the promise, it's like, I can't wait to unlock more value here. Here's some of the things I think I could still accomplish. Like, again, it's about the tone of the ask and your recognition that you are part of a system. To your point, it's not you in your own system. You are part of a system. Pape the vision of you in the system.

52:35and how it's better for the system and for you. One more. You're meeting with someone who's earlier in their career. Maybe they're early 20s, just graduated college, maybe business school, and they want to leave a positive dent in the world, but they're not fully sure how. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice for that person? I always say early on, if you don't know how to leave a dent in the world, I'd be like, do great work for great people. Sometimes you don't know where you want to go. You don't know what industry, right? So you might say, oh, this company is interesting or this person's interesting, I'd be like, go find a way to, I'd say, apprentice under somebody super talented.

53:11Now, talented doesn't mean easy. It doesn't mean, you know what? It doesn't mean like they're like the world's nicest boss. But I would say, if you end up doing great work for great people, you're gonna be fine. And if in that equation, you don't even know what great works looks like, go find a great person in a category you find generally interesting and apprentice. And by the way, and when I say great work for that person means like work your tail off, like work your tail off. If you work your tail off for somebody who's highly talented, you're going to learn disproportionately more. That's it.

53:40Get after it and be a value-added person to the team, right? How? I think the question you're going to ask at the end of each day is, what did I do to add value to my boss today? What did I do to add value to the person I'm apprenticing under today? And write those things down and think about it, have conversations about it, like strive for that. I think that is crucial and really good advice. And look, and by the way, if you, let's say you're doing great work for somebody that you don't respect or whatever, maximize the learning opportunity. And then your next, you say, man, you know what? This is what I was capable of here.

54:09I maximize the opportunity. I got a great reference. Again, pretty much early in your career, right? And then be like, now I'm going to go find somebody great to work for. And great is usually defined by pattern of success, you know, maybe outsized capability in one area or another, known for either like the people who've like worked with that person go on to do great things. So you can see outside-in markers of someone's success. Again, it doesn't mean they're easy to work for. But if your goal is to find accelerated, impacted learning, it usually is around people who've done the same. Love it.

54:40Sukinder, this is amazing. I am so glad you came back. Let's keep checking in. I don't know. Let's make it more frequent because you're like right in the seat doing the thing. It's really, really hard and you're killing it. And I love talking to current operators who are getting after it, making a difference, building great cultures, building great value for not only your employees, but your customers and shareholders. It's awesome to talk to you. I'd love to continue this dialogue as we both progress. For sure. And of course, I couldn't end this call without saying thank you for being a zero customer.

55:12Of course. Thanks so much.

55:17It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. A few takeaways from my notes. If you are going for any leadership role, treat it like Sukhinder did to earn the CEO position at zero. Present a vision. What is your goal for the company? What are the first 24 months look like? Build a deck for yourself that outlines how you're thinking about the situation and then Share with them how you will execute on that and make their life better.

55:56Remember, it's about them and helping them. Then, the four things Sukinder looked for when deciding on her next job. Macro, tailwinds, a good industry, right? Customers she can get passionate about, a great business model. And then, I love this quote, learn for miles. She wanted to learn. What are some of the must-haves for you when thinking about your next leadership role? and then going for the big ask. When she worked at Google, she asked for business class travel for herself, her baby, and her nanny, and she got it. How? Well, she focused on the person she was asking, how she was going to make their life better.

56:35Don't be entitled. Don't walk in there thinking you deserve anything. Think about how you're going to help the person you're asking. Make it about them, not about you. Always tie it back to the value that you will add for the company and why it benefits that decision maker to say yes. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. and you also go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

57:25And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.

57:41Thank you.