How to Create Meaningful Organizational Change

Hey everybody, welcome to the Content Experience Podcast. This is Anna Hrach from Convince & Convert. Randy Frisch couldn’t be with us today unfortunately, but we have not one but two amazing guests for you today. In this episode we are speaking with Jessica Jensen, who is the Global Director of Digital Marketing and Strategy at Qualcomm and Tuck Ross, who is the Senior Vice President of Marketing at Synchrony.

Now, together they co-host their podcast, Social Currency, which covers all of the hottest digital and social media topics that matter for your business. So definitely go check out their podcast after you listen to this episode.

Now, today’s conversation is all about making changes within organizations and making sure our teams are ready for and open to change as well. Now we talk a lot on this podcast about how the best in business are creating content strategies and achieving marketing greatness. But sometimes in order to do that we really have to look internally first and make sure our organizations are ready to make those strategies a reality and that our teams are prepped for that as well.

Every so often, and actually all too often really, we are stepping into new roles or having to create new titles because content is still finding its way in settling in. We actually, whether we realize it or not, are some of the biggest instigators of change within our organizations. This is where a lot of us feel the most friction within our day to day. It’s not actually doing our jobs, it’s actually making sure that we work with co-workers. Or, we’re finding the right spot within the organization, or we’re finding our champions.

Thankfully Jessica and Tuck have a ton of experience and amazing advice about how to actually create meaningful organizational change so that we can help our organizations and ourselves and our teams be the best that they absolutely can be with our digital marketing and content marketing efforts.

So, without further ado let’s go ahead and say hi to Jessica and Tuck, and hear what they have to say.

Hey, Jessica and Tuck. Thank you both so much for being on today. I’m really excited to talk to you two.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah. We’re excited.

I know. So, it’s kind of funny we’re in three different locations but actually not that far away from each other. So, Tuck you’re in Palm Springs right now. Jessica, you’re in San Diego. I’m in Phoenix. But, you two spend a lot of time talking to each other. You have a podcast together, which is an amazing podcast. But, let’s go ahead and get everybody to know a little bit more about you. So, Jessica and Tuck, if you wouldn’t mind telling everybody a little bit about yourselves.

Hey, yeah. I’ll start it off. So, Jessica Jensen. I’m the Global Director of Marketing at Qualcomm in San Diego. I specifically focus on digital marketing here. So, I look after things like social media, our website, our podcast here at Qualcomm. Yes we do have one, and search, that type of stuff. So, that’s me and I’ve lived here for about six years. I’m originally from Portland, Oregon and Tuck and I met in business school at Pepperdine in LA.

Yeah. Hey, I’m Tuck. Jess and I, as she mentioned, we go way back. We had actually just had reconnected, what, a little over a year ago after not talking for a long time and said, “Hey, we should start a podcast.” So that’s sort of how that came about because we have so many similar interests. It just rekindled what we had connected back in grad school about.

So, I’m Tuck and the SVP of Consumer Marketing at Care Credit which is part of Synchrony. It’s their largest credit card company in the US, largest private label credit card issuer. So lots in terms of banking and finance, which on the face may sound a little snoozie but is actually pretty exciting and in a space that’s going through a ton of disruption. Especially if you look at healthcare and finances put together.

But, always been about the consumer. I come from Disney, Hasbro, Guitar Center. A few little start-up type environments as well. Always just really been interested about the consumer journey and what they care about and how they shop. Interestingly a lot of those things apply across the board. So its been a fun trip. Really enjoying what we get to do every day.

Nice. I totally hear you on customer journey and all that fun stuff. Yeah, it’s so much fun to actually illuminate all of the brains when you work in a company with the customer journey and they’re like, “Oh, that’s how they actually interact versus how we think they interact.” That’s always a fun conversation to have.

So, you two both have incredibly diverse backgrounds. Just a ton of amazing brand experience between the two of you. Part of that, obviously your experience, is coming into organizations and really, for lack of a better term, plusing up their digital, right. Making sure that brands are doing the best they possibly can. At the end of the day there’s sometimes only so far that the best strategies can do for a brand. A lot of times we have to start looking internally and making some changes. Sometimes some of these, the best strategies, really need a lot of internal organizational change, which you two have a ton of experience with.

So, just out of curiosity a lot of people are going through these sort of struggles right now with content marketing, and coming in and being new. How have you sort of come into organizations and made that change for the good instead of just saying, “Well, here’s the best strategy possible.” How have you actually made that change internally and gotten people, one, to buy in to being the best they could be digitally. Then, two, making sure that that structure is in place?

Yeah, I mean this is a huge challenge. I would imagine any organization, small, medium, large, as long as there are people working there, there is always complexity.

My first job out of college at the age of 21 was a small boutique agency in Portland with nine people. You know, we all got along almost like a family. It was a great first job. But, even there, there’s personalities and different styles. So, I think making change is really hard. Regardless of the size of the organization, however, clearly larger companies are going to have a bit more sort of a bureaucratic nature. Perhaps processes in place that maybe are legacy. You know, siloing of departments with different sort of objectives and perspectives on how do get things done. So, that probably does exacerbate a bit with larger companies because there’s just more people.

But, I’ve always felt like the approach that I hope to take, and I try my best to take, is I’m building relationships first. Because in general people, they hire people they want to work with, they pick people for their teams they want to work with. They often will buy into an idea or help you shepherd it if they think that you’re someone they want to spend time with. So, I try to build relationships in advance of needing help from somebody, or in advance of trying to sell something in. You know, that often is at least a foundation where there’s a rapport there.

It also can breed really good input. I mean, if you’ve broken down those barriers of the kind of formality that initially you often have when you don’t have a relationship quite yet. You often can really illicit some nice brainstorming, and some collaboration and really up level your idea whatever it might be to a place that you wouldn’t have been able to do on your own. So it’s kind of a win-win.

I was going to jump in and just, you know Jessica your points are right on. I mean, relationships are so key to, I think, any organization. A lot of my background has come from very matrixed, heavily matrixed organizations. If you don’t have the relationships you really can’t get anything done because so many different elements have to have joint buy in, or collaboration and a lot of compromise, honestly, about what someones ultimate vision may be and how they have to flex to accommodate the joint plan.

So, I think that’s a big piece of any of that. When I bring in a team I always look for that type of skill set, more the soft skill set. The EQ as it were. The assumption, I think, at a lot of levels is that you know how to do the job. Tell me that on paper and kind of demonstrate that. But, having the softer skills about how to think, how to take risks, how to be flexible and adaptable in and environment. How you build relationships, especially in a matrix type of arena, I think is really critical to the space these days.

By the way, those are things that are not going to come from robots in the future. So, like if you need somebody just to talk shop, like robots will do that. But, if you want a strong team you have to have development of that softer skill set. Look for things like team fit, right? It comes back to really just basic sometimes breaking down the walls is all about just the communication. The fact time and making sure that people are getting together to powwow about the vision of where everything needs to go together.

Yeah. It’s so crazy how even just the imbalance of one person’s attitude can shift and upset the whole balance. It just throws everything into such chaos. It’s so amazing how undervalued I think a lot of, Tuck exactly what you’re saying, the soft skills, the EQ. How undervalued that is. That doesn’t come through on the resume. So, how do you kind of fish that out in terms of hiring for a good fit, and making sure that the team is balanced? This question absolutely for both of you. Because I know you both are responsible for teams.

I can jump in first. I think you have to rely a lot on the resume to start out with, and feel and filter some of that. But, I think it comes down to once you get a few people in the door you have to really spend the time and see how they interact with different people and really get that 360. That’s where I rely, especially in an interview process with the collaborators that you have on different teams. Not just your own team. So you have that 360 view of how they would interact with someone that you need to cross the border with as it were. As much as they would on the team itself.

Yeah. This is also think word of mouth is still so powerful. I don’t know if it’ll ever actually go away or be replaced by the Yelps of the world. I think that part of the reason that we tend to bring resumes to the top of a pile when we’re hiring that are referred by someone that we know, or even a secondary connection, is because there’s a bit of that implication already built in that they’re probably a decent person. Most people won’t put their name on the line and recommend someone that they don’t have some relationship with, or haven’t interacted with on some level. Even if it’s a weak endorsement, or a loose connection I think that’s far more than just a piece of paper with words on it. It helps, I think, just kind of narrow the field.

Yeah. Absolutely. I am always a big fan of taking word of mouth recommendations, or even people who even loosely know some other people. So I think that’s always a good way to go.

Jessica and Tuck, I want to keep talking about some change and then start getting into some very specific examples of some ways that you’ve both interacted change because you both are at very well known brands, very big companies. So, we are going to take a quick break before we jump into that, though. So everybody stick around with us for Jessica and Tuck and we will be right back talking more about organizational change and leading teams.

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Content Experience Show podcast. We are here with Jessica and Tuck.

So, we are talking about organizational change and change management and working with teams. So, I’m just curious. So, we’ve been talking a lot about making shifts and changes, and some of the ways to do that. But, have either of you tried to enact some change or pivot the team, or even pivot a way of doing something and maybe it didn’t work out. Maybe the efforts were less than successful but you learned something really valuable from it.

Yeah, I can jump in. I think this is one of those scenarios that you just as a leader and a business you just assume that change is constant. So, building that into the ethos of the team is helpful. There’s no such thing as business as usual as it were.

When I was at Hasbro massive TV advertising business to sell toys, right. It was a proven model at the time. Yet, Facebook had introduced advertising. For the first time. It was very cool. Being part of the digital team and running digital strategy you want to go try those things. The business wasn’t ready for it, right. You go and you say, “Hey, I need a budget for this.” And they say, “No. Because we know that when we turn on TV you can sell toys.”

Of course, Facebook at that time was a little bit of a toy itself. It was a social network, and there wasn’t necessarily a proven business value to it. So, this type of thing when you think about change in an organization changing a media plan that is proven successful, a known entity, is very comfortable. It’s hard for a business to accommodate moving out of the comfort zone into something that’s unknown.

So, we got to a really good place where after many conversations and, honestly, a lot of spending time winning support and building businesses cases even with Facebook we got to the point where we could run a pilot to prove the case. Which was successful, so we could start to increment that budget over time. Pulling away from the very successful, and very safe TV budget.

So, I think it’s interesting to see how organizations respond to that. But, I would just suggest if your going into that type of scenario always think about change as difficult because it is easy for people to be comfortable and stick with what’s known. Treating each scenario as a pilot, as a test is a good way to move forward to say, “You know what, doesn’t work we’ll pull back. But let’s try this thing because it’s new. We want to always be making sure that we’re paying attention to what’s new.”

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Especially it’s so hard sometimes, especially like you said, when people are comfortable with what they’re doing or when things are working. Sort of that mentality of, “Well, if it’s not broke don’t fix it.” Of just being like, “Hey, we want to just try this and see what happens. Just a tiny little piece. Let’s just take baby steps.” I feel like, totally, people get so much more positive reception to that than be like, “Hey, this is the next big thing and if we don’t do it we’re going to lose out.” It’s hard to shift, make that big of a shift.

Exactly.

Yeah, and if people … This has to do, too, with knowing your audience. Your internal audience when you’re trying to affect change. You know, again this goes back to kind of larger companies that perhaps have been doing something for a while and there’s more of an institutional sort of acceptance of that. I think that’s harder, right. You’ve got people who, again, are perhaps fearful of change and I’ve also learned if you’re the one enacting, or suggesting the change versus you’re the one being a recipient of said change those are very different positions.

So, if you don’t know it’s coming, or you haven’t bought into it, or this is the first or second time that you’ve heard about this there’s almost an immediate sort of, “Hold up. Hold up. I need time. I’m not ready.” That’s different than if you’re the one who it’s been percolating in your mind for six months, and you’ve been researching and talking to others about it. You’re ready. You’re ready, let’s do it, let’s go.

So, I think being cognizant of: Are there already, again, a lot of folks that are very comfortable with kind of the way it was or the way it is? How do you bring them along at a pace that’s comfortable to them? I love the idea of positioning it as a pilot, kind of an experiment so sort of like not a lot attached to it if it doesn’t work. But I think for me, also, just being patient and knowing that everyone goes at different paces. So they might not be … They’ll get there. But they might not move as fast as we want them to. Sort of having that kind of steady as she goes at the end of the tortoise versus the hare. Kind of like eventually with enough repetition and sort of influence you’ll pivot.

That’s a good point too. So, I love that sort of perspective shift as well where it’s one, knowing your audience and understanding how they process information. Maybe some people need to talk it out, or some people need really to take in that information and just kind of think about it for a little bit. Love that perspective shift.

But, then also too like us being the ones being open to change as well. It’s not always just us who should be enacting the change but we should also be receptive to change as well. Which can be a little bit harder than just sort of being like, “Hey, we should do this.” But when we’re confronted with that same thing it can be a little bit more difficult.

I always seem to have this great knack for accidentally stepping on toes. Where I have an idea, but it’s technically somebody else’s job. Or their role, or their department. Then I sort of inadvertently create territory turf wars. Or at least I used to back in the agency that I worked with. So, I learned tread lightly and ask around first when you’re new who does what and why, and they probably have a process that you just don’t know about.

But that’s just me being excited and running and being like, “I got an idea.”

I think that’s really cool, though. But I think that organizations need to allow for that, right. Because, there’s very much the mentality of the sandbox. But I think if you build in the culture of ideas can come from anywhere and then there’s clear ownership of who takes that idea as a handoff, that’s a really good way to think about it. Because that way you encourage innovation from all sides. You can’t assume that it’s only going to come from one team anyways.

So, I think it’s good to encourage that. You’ve got this spectrum of team with many different experiences and all these different concepts that they experience the business, and the brand, and the product in different ways. Encourage them to bring forth ideas. But then make sure that it ends up in the right path, to your point.

Mm-hmm. I also think this notion of coming in when you’re new to an environment and being a listener first. So, like you were saying, asking questions about where this sit? What’s the history? It took me, again, a while to learn that and I think as you come into organizations perhaps with a bit more responsibility out of the gates. I’ve come to learn there’s a degree, there’s a couple things going on. One, I think there’s, “That’s not how we do it here. You don’t know how we work. You need to sort of watch first.” So you have to kind of almost let that deflate, and kind of let people get used to you being there.

That’s true.

And that you’re not going to change everything immediately. It’s okay. But, also I think there’s a bit of an implied, I guess, authority is a strong word. But, like, “Hey, you came in at a role … ” You already have a degree of ability to make change. That’s almost assumed.

So, it’s almost like wield that power carefully. So then therefore don’t come charging in like a bull in a china shop. Sort of take your time, again, build those relationships, be a listener. I’ve actually, I actually hired someone recently and he’s a good example of someone who’s really done this well. As I’ve been learning from him kind of how to approach a new environment with a very humble, kind of, steady mentality. I think that’s boding well for the rapport that he’s building with his teams.

Nice. So, that actually is a great transition into my next question which is, you both have been in your current roles for quite some time. So, once you kind of settle in, you get past the newness how do you two both make sure that you’re changing and evolving, and growing constantly so that way you’re not sort of getting comfortable, and you’re open and accepting of new ideas. Is that something you find comes naturally to you or do you seek them out? Or do you rely on your teams? Like, what’s the best way for us to keep change happening and making sure that we’re open and receptive to it?

Honestly, we haven’t really mentioned this yet but at the top of the episode. You know, Tuck and I have this podcast, Social Currency, we’ve been doing it for coming up on a year now, 35 plus episodes. You know, to be honest, this has actually been a really good forcing function for me to stay on top of things because there’s that saying, something to the effect of, “If you can teach, something that’s really the testament that you know it.”

Part of what we’re doing in our dialogue, in our editorial for the podcast episodes is we’re talking to each other and having a conversation. But we’re kind of hoping to be teachers if you will for those that want to listen and are interested in those topics. So, by virtue of having to research topics, read articles, look at competitive analysis, all those things and then script it or sort of architect it into some sort of organized outline that would become an episode. That’s really pushed me to stay on top of things. I have found that I have used a lot of our discussion on our podcast in my day-to-day word with my team here at Qualcomm.

Nice. Tuck, how about you?

Yeah. I’m just a ridiculous reader. I read so much stuff. Something that Jess and I have laughed about. You know, I think it’s because I love the space. I love the idea of what we’re doing. I love the concept of it. So, I’ve always just spend a ton of time educating myself. I’ve had this mantra that since the beginning I never liked an agency or a team outside of our team that know more than I did going into a meeting so I could call them out on anything. Its maybe a little bit of a negative positioning. But its helped force myself to stay current on topics so that I knew exactly what was going on. That’s really been a good mindset to travel.

I think I’ve encouraged the same of my team. So when you say, “Does it count for your team as well?” Absolutely. That’s where I think cross organizational ideas there’s by no measure do any of us know everything that’s going on. So I think it’s helpful to encourage those, right.

My team, we have this thing on a lightning round and I’ll put a topic up and say, “Next week we’re talking about this. Come with all your ideas and we’re just going to put them all on the whiteboard and figure it out.” So, it’s a really good time for people to cross lines, get dirty in the details, think about new things that maybe they haven’t thought of and really kind of … You put those two kind of sessions together and people start to bounce off each other. Things grow bigger than initial ideas. So I think it’s a really good way to, again, evolve and innovate.

Nice. I love it. I think I might try that as well. That sounds like a fun one too.

Well, Jessica and Tuck thank you so much for being on the show today. Seriously. This was a fun episode. I always love talking about organizational change and making that happen. Especially since in the world of content marketing and content change is happening all the time. Especially in digital. I mean, things are never fixed. They’re constantly changing. So, really remembering to embrace that change I think is always really important.

For everybody else who is listening and wants to catch up with you and see what else you have to say in the world of social where can they find you? Also, where can they find your podcast?

So, the podcast is called Social Currency. You can find us at socialcurrencyshow.com. Then, of course you can stream us on all the usual suspects. So, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Stitcher, et cetera.

So, that’s the podcast. We try to publish about every week. Again, it’s aimed at kind of folks in marketing or on the business side who maybe didn’t grow up “digital natives” which many of us didn’t. So want to stay on top of it without having to ask questions, perhaps, at work where it’s a less of a safe environment to ask those questions. We hope to help them out there.

You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn @JessicaKJenson.

Nice, and Tuck?

I’ll echo Jessica’s comments because we’re definitely building the podcast to focus on, we’re more about leadership type of role whether you’re an entrepreneur or all the way up to CEO to really think about … As you think about your strategy how does digital affect that? How does social affect that? How does content affect that? Really evolve your business even if you don’t know everything that’s going on, we’re going to help you keep up with that.

So, its been a lot of fun doing that. I think for myself you can find me TuckRoss.com, also @TuckRoss pretty much every social platform. LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and so forth. So, that’s where I’m at.

Nice. All right, everybody, go follow Jessica and Tuck. Stick around because now that we’ve gotten to know the professional side of them we are going to get to know the personal side. So everybody stick around and we have some fun questions after this.

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All right. Hey, everybody. So, now that we got to know Jessica and Tuck we are going to ask them a couple of fun questions. Or at least one fun question. So, are you both ready for your fun question?

Let’s do it.

Let’s do it.

All right. So, I know that you both are incredibly, incredibly busy in your days. But when you do finally get the time to unwind and sit down and binge watch something on Netflix, or Hulu what is your binge watching show of choice?

Tuck, you go first.

You know, I’m just a huge comic book nerd so I will go to every Marvel. I’ll watch, you know John Wick’s my new thing. So, I’m always just big into stories. I love the stories behind them. It’s probably why I’m in marketing because I love the narrative of a brand and all that. But, I’ll just sit down and I’ll re-watch a movie I’ve seen eight times again just because there’s a good story behind it. My kids and I are just starting the Star Wars trilogy. So, it’s really fun to just get deep in a different space that is completely outside of what we do every day.

Yeah. It is nice to have than escapism. Also, a real quick note I also saw the most recent John Wick and the thing that I think I love most about that series is it doesn’t try to be anything but what it is. Which is like, amazing, pure action flick. There’s like almost no plot, almost no dialogue. It’s just fun. I have to respect it.

I’m absolutely obsessed. Yeah, absolutely obsessed with Keanu Reeves. Such an amazing guy. By the way, John Wick 4 was green lit that weekend. So, you know there’s going to be another one.

That is crazy. Yeah, Keanu Reeves is definitely the internet’s boyfriend right now. He’s having a moment again. Jessica what about you?

So, I don’t watch a ton of TV. My husband and and I both like a show call Catastrophe, which is on Amazon. Yeah, he’s actually an agency guy from the US, she’s British and they … A one night stand turns into a whole family and kids, and all kinds of other stuff. They’re actually, I think the writers, the two main characters are the writers. So it’s just, it’s well done. So we like that, it’s kind of light hearted funny.

The one that I binge watch which is rare for me to do and that is 100% my jam right now is Handmaid’s Tale. I know it’s heavy, and it’s not for everyone. I’m not a dystopia person. I don’t read that kind of stuff, or watch that kind of stuff. But, you know it’s based on the Margaret Atwood novel, the very first season was. Which I read, then now we’re into season three.

What’s kind of cool is Margaret Atwood actually is a producer on set from what I understand. So she’s actually consulting and helped craft Season 2 and Season 3. Even through they’re way after the book that she actually wrote back in the day. So, Elisabeth Moss, she’s Peggy from Mad Men which I also adore. It’s just such a art directed, well written, thoughtful series that also breaks my heart. So, I watch that.

Agreed with all of the above. I think the thing I love most too about that is as you had already mentioned the acting is superb. Like, I forget that Elisabeth Moss was Peggy. Like, you know sometimes you still associate actors with their previous roles. I forget that she ever was Peggy in a previous life. Like, it’s nuts how good the acting on that show is. Yeah, little heavy so many go watch The Handmaid’s Tale and then cleanse your pallet with a little John Wick action. So, yeah. It’s a good balance.

And enjoy a beverage while your watching, that helps.

Several.

Always. Always.

Fantastic. Well, Jessica and Tuck thank you so much again for being on with us. It’s really fantastic and fun, and thank you so much for giving away all of your amazing tips and tricks for how to keep change going within organizations. Everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in. We will be back next week with another episode and Randy Frisch will be joining us once again.

So, everybody until next time. Thank you, Jessica and Tuck.