Leadership Detectives
Leadership Detectives
Why 'VUCA' can be so Effective in the Modern World of Business?
Welcome to Episode 10 of The Leadership Detectives.
In this episode, we share a wonderful interview with another incredible guest, Sophie Stanton. Sophie is the Chief Marketing Officer at IBM (Middle East and Africa).
"VUCA" stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Sophie guides us through some of the core foundations of "VUCA" and why it can be so effective in the modern world of business.
Find Neil online at: https://neilthubron.com
Find Albert on LinkedIn at: www.linkedin.com/in/albert-e-joseph
Find Sophie Stanton on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiestanton/
Welcome to the Leadership Detectives with Albert Joseph and Neil Fobron. This is the GoTo Podcast uncovering clues about great leadership. If you are a leader today or an aspiring leader, this podcast is a must for you.
SPEAKER_02:Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. This was first mentioned to Neil and myself during an interview we had with Clive Fernandez. Soon after that, our guest today commented on LinkedIn about the very same concept or way of working, call it what you will. So we asked her to come and talk to us a little bit more about it. And here it is: a great interview with Sophie Stanton, Chief Marketing Officer for IBM in Middle Eastern Africa. Lots of great content, lots to get your mind around, but great ideas that could help you get the very best out of your team. Enjoy.
SPEAKER_03:And welcome to another episode of the Leadership Detectives, where we're trying to uncover clues around great leadership. Morning Albert, how are you doing this morning?
SPEAKER_02:I'm really good actually. Yeah, nice. Nice to get up a bit bright and early because we're up a little bit earlier than normal today, right, Neil?
SPEAKER_03:We are indeed got over managed time zones. Uh we're an international podcast. So exactly.
SPEAKER_02:So our guest today, we've got a great guest for you today because we're down here. We're going to talk to a guest who's based in Dubai. And so we're talking today with the chief marketing officer in IBM, Sophie Stanton. So she's chief marketing officer for Middle East and Africa. Neil and I both worked with Sophie over the years in our days gone by. One of our last episodes, Sophie actually commented back on LinkedIn about VUCA VUCA. So we said, Great, Sophie, come and tell us all about it. So good morning, Sophie. Good to see you. How are you?
SPEAKER_00:Good morning, Harvard. Good morning, Neil. Good morning, everybody. So it's delightful to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Ah, listen, we're so glad to have you with us. And in the preparation session, we could not stop Sophie. So we've got a great topic.
SPEAKER_03:So listen, guys, I'm going to just give you a little bit of advice today. So whatever you're doing when you're listening to this podcast, put it down. Just hold on to your hats because this is going to be fast and furious, and there's going to be lots of stuff to take in. So no worries, Sophie. It's great to see you. And uh great, thank you for joining us from Dubai.
SPEAKER_02:So that was that was my quick introduction, right? Uh Sophie's done lots of other things as well, but but she's currently chief marketing officer in Middle Eastern Africa. But Sophie, first question for you as part of our opening, right? Imagine that you're being introduced onto stage to come and talk to some people. Who would it be that's introducing you? And what would they say about you?
SPEAKER_01:Wow, I would like it to be my heart mentor.
SPEAKER_02:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Should I give his name?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you're welcome to, yes.
SPEAKER_01:So his name is Hugh Auburn. He's uh an Irish IBMer, uh, ex-IBMer. I chose him as my um heart mentor, and he knows me really well. And whenever I prepare for a change in my career, I would reach out to you every time, and he would give me very honest, straight feedback. He would challenge me with questions that I hate answering, and by the end of it, I would come out and I would know that I've made the right decision thanks to the questioning and uh you know the pointing. So, what would he say? And I hope he would say that I'm a go-getter, I am a very human-centric leader, and that I'm very professional and dedicated to anything I put my head into.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, good. And I know Hugh actually, and he's not he's not renowned for being quietly spoken about his thoughts. So I can imagine him giving you that feedback.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually, there's a good clue in there, by the way, for our leaders about mentorship is making sure you have a good mentor that you can work with and talk to, whether they're in your organization or not in your organization. Yeah, absolutely. So, so Sophie, we were we're we're talking today around VUCA. So uh a volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity of the world that we're living in today. And it's a word that we first came across in our interview with uh Clive Fernandez from Salesforce, where Salesforce were adapting to this VUCA environment, the volatility of the world, the uncertainty of what's happening, the complexity of everything that's going on, and the ambiguity. I mean, what would be great to understand as we go through this today is how should leaders adapt in that environment? And what advice would you give to leaders to adapt as they're going into that volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so for me, I've been a leader for many, many, many years. And I always say, like, I'm not in marketing, I'm not in technical support, which I, you know, I used to do the technical uh support leader role in France. What I really do as a job for many, many years is to lead teams, lead teams to success, lead teams to achieve and get people to collaborate and work together. And in the changing environment, I think what has become absolutely crucial is the human side. Because I think that in the past, it wasn't really maybe the dumb thing to be doing your human side. Yeah, right, yeah, and to uh to be caring so much about people as a leader might not have been the right thing to do, or it might not uh be the quickest way to promotion, right? But nowadays, I think the that you cannot afford as a leader not to be human-centric. We don't have people very often in the same room anymore. We don't have all those uh you know physical signs that you can pick upon when people are in the office sitting next to you. So you have to be so much more attentive to what people are saying, to what people are feeling, to uh their environment, and not anymore just in work, but outside of work as well, because that has an impact on the way that show up at work. So you need to be, you know, asking the right question, listening, you know, feel following your intuition and probing people with the the right question to make sure that you provide the environment that is the best environment for each single individual in your team to perform at their best.
SPEAKER_03:So, do you think we've heard the word being being more human as a leader quite a lot? We've heard that phrase uh quite a lot over the last year. And it so I think what you're saying is to be more human, you you have to engage, you have to listen, you have to work out how you can help your team. What I find when I'm with a lot of the leaders we speak to, a lot of leaders that I coach as well, like I just haven't got time for people because I've got the business to run. So, how do you how do you what advice would you give to a leader that you know is just finding it difficult to get this balance between I've got to drive the business and I need to engage with my team?
SPEAKER_01:For me, it's uh really is people first and it's a discipline, right? So when I and it's really strange because every seven single time I move new into a job, I start something that wasn't there before, which is schedule as part of my management system. I start to run HR meetings. And honestly, people look at me and they go, HR meetings? Really? Yes, HR meeting once a week, one hour dedicated to people. What are we gonna talk about? Oh, we're gonna talk about you know recognition, we're gonna talk about learning, we're gonna talk about how they progress, we're gonna talk about our talents, we're gonna get to know everybody in our team, not only the people that report to you, but the people that are you know in a broader organization. We're gonna talk about tons of things. And honestly, they're amazed after about a month or two, they're like, whoa, we didn't realize how much there is to talk about and how much we need to sync up HR topics. And then I make sure that all the team members know that this is happening, that you know, it's it's not only me as a leader, but that this needs to be infused throughout the organization. And everybody needs to care about the people. And it comes in very different ways. And yes, uh, you do need to take time after a meeting. You know, if you pick up on anything at all that demonstrate that somebody is irate, that somebody is annoyed, that somebody is not acting as normal, you need to pick up the phone after that meeting and you need to ask the right hope and understand. And so there is this proximity with the employees that I think is is absolutely crucial. And it doesn't, it should then shouldn't be something that people are forced to do. It shouldn't be going against the grain. When you're a people manager, this is why you do, you know, you choose to be a people manager because you want people to be, you know, their best at work and you want them to succeed, you want them to grow, and you want to enable that.
SPEAKER_02:But you know, that's what's that's what's in my head as you're saying this stuff, Sophie, that they seem to think there could be a thinking that these HR topics belong to HR. They're not HR topics, they're people topics, right? And as a leader, it's your responsibility. And I think that's kind of something that's becoming a lot more clear these days, that people realize it's not this separation you give to HR. What's your experience of that?
SPEAKER_01:Uh well, I have news for you. Um I spend more than 50% of my time on HR topics.
SPEAKER_02:As a marketer, as a marketer, as a CMO, yes, yes, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01:And I and I need to. And any jobs I've been into, you need to. If you want to motivate your team, if you want to your team to excel, if you want people to collaborate, you know, and it's not only HR topics like the compensation and things like that, it's it really is to trigger how do you trigger inspiration in people? How do you trigger them to be innovative? How do you inspire them to want to be involved into brainstorming and working through the solutions that, you know, the big rocks that are in your shoes? How do you get them in that mindset? Because honestly, um, in this world where things are really changing fast, things are uncertain, you need to spend a lot of time also reassuring your team. You need to spend some time skilling them up because the more skilled up they are, the better they will feel about themselves. And it's not when you're in a state of mind or frame of mind where you're worried about your work or you think that you know you might lose your job tomorrow and you don't feel strong about your skills. This is a terrible place to be in. You're not going to be performing. So it's what do you do as a leader to make sure that people know you're talented, I trust you, I want to empower you. Go, go try out, you know.
SPEAKER_03:So so in the in the VUCA world, that what you're just describing kind of covers that volatility and that uncertainty by communicating and engaging. And apart from being human and in and focusing on people and engaging in that conversation, what else, what other advice would you have around how to how leaders can deal with the VUCA world?
SPEAKER_01:So the the other one would be around communicating. And this is not one that I would have been at ease very naturally. Okay, though I do communicate.
SPEAKER_03:I don't believe that for one minute.
SPEAKER_01:So what I mean is communicating around the strategy, forcing myself to really bring the strategy to the level of uh my leaders and to the and to all the levels throughout the organization. And you need to kind of force yourself a little bit if you are like me, but it really paid off when I started doing this. Um, it really, really breaking it down so that you know you take the big picture, you bring it down to the level two. What does it mean for marketing that you know our company wants to grow? What does it take for marketing to be a real true change agent in this transformation we're going to go through? What is your role as an individual? And it takes some thinking, right? It takes some, okay, leaders, what are we going to do for our team to understand what it takes for them to make a difference? How do they collaborate with the business leaders? Because in marketing, the success is about working hand in hand with the cells, right? And very often, our team would work in silo, and they would consider my leaders would consider naturally that their teams are the team members in marketing, the marketers that work for them hierarchically. Well, guess what? The team is not that. The team is, you know, whoever on the project is going to work with them, and that includes sales, that includes, you know, operations, that includes people also in uh Europe or worldwide. So it's that kind of you know change of gear that is really important. So communicating for me transparently, and this is something that I'm just telling you what the feedback was when I started here in this uh region, because people were shocked. People said to me, Whoa, whoa, they didn't know even how to react with the amount of information I would be giving them because I was so much more transparent than anybody else before.
SPEAKER_03:Did that make them uncomfortable? Did that make them uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_01:It did initially they love it, but somehow it's a little bit uneasy, right? And because I would also say, you know, I trust you with a lot of information that I can share with you. It's not, I I would never share confidential stuff that I'm not allowed to, that would be on NDA and stuff like that. But I would share what is in my power to an authority to share, I would share, I would share because it's important that they understand what's coming, the changes that's coming, that they can prepare themselves and that can help me prepare the organization for it. So it's communicating transparently about changes ahead, about how do we cope. And instead of giving the people one week to kind of adapt to something, you kind of try and give them a little bit like of a head start. And it makes a huge difference, makes a huge difference. And I think I wanted to maybe give a little um a little tip of something that I've started. It's only recent, I started it in this job. I thought for me, communication is so important, but not just communicating, that people are aligned in the way they communicate. So I know it's gonna sound like army eating, but but you know, my aim is that it's not only me saying something to my leaders, and then everybody does what they want and they communicate in any, you know, in their own way. It's about aligning some of the communication to agree as a leadership team, how we approach something, to agree how what what are the words we're gonna use and how we are going to communicate it to the team. And that at the same time, we all have one voice. And so I started those meetings, my leadership meeting. I changed the name, I called them one voice. I love the name of it because it implicitly also sends a message, right?
SPEAKER_02:It's very marketing, isn't it? It's very marketing.
SPEAKER_01:I thought you might say that. I thought you might say that. But honestly, I think the people get it, right? You don't even need to go further. They get it. We have to behave in a way that is consistent. This is super important in the organization. If people are not behaving consistently with the team members, they there's there's nowhere to go.
SPEAKER_02:There's there's something we scooted over there, though, by the way. You made a comment earlier on about the fact that it's not just the people that report to you, it's all the other people, right? So this managing and leading in a matrix world, tell us a bit more about that.
SPEAKER_01:I started another thing as well. It was as a CMO in France in my previous role. When I started the job, the CGM told me, he said, uh marketing is a black box. I was like, a black box, okay. I don't like working in the dark. So that's that cannot go on like this. So I said, okay, what am I gonna do about this? And and then I started to uh to set up this management system, which I run here as well, which is so I have I have a monthly uh marketing board, which is run by the CGM, but I I would do all the work, right? Yeah, but in essence, it's the CGM that leads it, it brings all the leadership team in the market to come and talk about marketing. And what we do is like we don't look back at things, we work and collaborate to define how we're gonna work together for the future. Okay, it's the getting people involved in the events, the choice of the third-party events on anything at all that makes them part of the game of the decision making, so that then after they really work with us really closely to make it a success. So it's shifting the mindset to really collaborate and it changes everything. It really does. And then we do that at all levels in organization. I do it with the top management, and my team does it with the lower level, etc. And this really changed the game. And and before I left France, I did a little video, I had to do a video for for for EMEA, and I asked the CGM, I said, so Nicolas, tell us, do you still think that marketing is a black box? And he said, No, it's a beautiful open colored box.
SPEAKER_03:Fantastic. And there was something that's which is brilliant. I mean, I love I love these ideas, and I'm writing down lots of ideas here, which we'll summarize at the end. But the there was something you said, and I just want to come back to it and not lose it, which we've we've kind of dug into a couple of times. I think it's really important that in the VUCA world, what you said was it's bringing strategy to all to the level of all the leaders and having to spend time on, you know, you call it communication, but that time on that strategy and then getting it down to every person within the organization. So there's a communication of the strategy, but there's also an execution of the strategy as well, isn't it? So so how do those two marry together?
SPEAKER_01:So I'm I'm going to try, I'm very boring. I talk about management system all the time, but this is how I think you can change things, right? So again, in my management system, I would have a monthly all-end course with which I lead with the whole of the marketers. And there I will share strategic thinking, I will share vision, I will share this kind of things, okay? And we will do recognition and things like that to ensure our team is engaged. And then I have another meeting which is called, I told you about the one voice for leaders. I have a one voice for marketers, and this is for all marketers once a month, and this is execution level. So this is a time when we share the thing. So, and I really like to take it bottom up so that I get the team on the ground to share what they're doing, how they're doing it, and to to basically showcase the best practices so that others get inspired. We also, if we if we launch a new way of working, a new tool, things like that. So, this is really how the whole thing comes together through the management system.
SPEAKER_03:Brilliant. I just wanted to make sure we we touched on that. And and so as we go through the VUCA ideas, what what would be a third tip? So we talked about being human, we've talked about communication.
SPEAKER_01:What else would you uh so I I'll go with my favorite then in no particular order, I will go with uh with the developing people, okay? Because I think that when you're evolving in a complex world, first of all, you need to up your game, right? And your team needs to up their game. So I am lucky that I work in a company that is really focused on learning, as you know, and we have tons of my tutorial. But what I find is we have a ton of things to train our people on what we call the hard skills. So even as marketers, I don't think that I've seen any organization giving as as many trainings as as this, as IBM would.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And but I feel that I always need to give that little extra to the team because I see development and uh career development learning as a present. It is something that as leader we can offer to our team. This is something they can take with them anywhere, in the next job, within the company we work for or externally. And this is in a time of uncertainty when people are worried about maybe losing their job or what's going to happen next. This is unvaluable. You are actually spending time and money on them as a person. It's a gift. You know, it's something I'm not looking for anything in return. And especially because if it's hard skilled, you can argue that this is for the benefit of them doing the job, you know, better and bringing more performance and results. But if you're starting working on the personal and uh what I call the soft skills, which are more personal, then you're really touching to what you give to them as a person. So I would have like in the past, I would have trained my team on um, you know, theatre improvisation, on communication skills, on recently we did um give and receive feedback. So we had an external. So I would reach out and I would build actually programs just for my team and it would be tailor-made. So it's like spending that time and effort on what you want intentionally want people to be. Because if I train them on feedback, of course, it's because I want an environment for my team that is open and I want people to be able to grow. I want them to feel like if something is wrong, they can raise their voice and they can say it and they can ask the person to improve. And it's not only the leader that needs to be able to do that, it's everybody in the team.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, no, I love that. And I and when you're developing this, so you is that through formal training or are there other developments you can do just without having to do training, but just on the job train as development?
SPEAKER_01:Um, so we do also do mentoring, uh, which is like, and and then um, so I didn't do it in this job yet, but in the previous job, what I did a lot of was shadow the team members and to do reverse shadowing. So the the so I would do once once a month, I would show shadow somebody in the team, and they would have the opportunity to come and shadow me for a day. So and this was really insightful because it allowed me to really understand, you know, get in the shoes and the job of the person. And I would say to them, do not change anything, do not change your diary. I do not want you to adapt anything at all. I want to come and see what you're living every day. Then and and I would go away with two or three actions that would then ultimately change their life. And I would think, why did I not know this? Why did I not know this was broken? You know.
SPEAKER_02:Do you know what's interesting? I listened to a podcast earlier this week by Brene Brown, and the topic was reverse mentoring. It was how you get an employee to come in and actually give you advice as the leader about what they think you could be doing. Now that's being human and that's being vulnerable, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I had an experience very recently which was very interesting. Because I uh I was listening. We we have a new CMO at one way level, and when I listened to her, I realized that maybe there were some things that I had put my hand in the sound of it, right? And it's I thought I had a ton of things to do, and I didn't tackle this big issue that was you know irritating everybody in the team.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I didn't feel proud about that. And you really made me think, and in my leadership meeting, I just said to my team, I said, I have to admit, I am really there's something I'm not proud of. And you know, when I listened to our new CMO, I realized that I had been, you know, avoiding tackling this issue because it was difficult because I didn't have time. Because, and because, in fairness, I thought, Mia is one market, there's nine markets in Europe, everybody has the same problem. Why should I take the flag and go and run with it? Somebody's gonna fix the issue. So I'm gonna spend my time, you know, on what matters to the team in me. And then I felt really wrong about that. I thought this is not the right attitude. I cannot, I need to take my destiny into my own hands, I need to take my team's destiny into my own hands, and I opened up to my team about it and I said, I feel terrible. Uh, so I'm gonna tackle this issue. And one of them said to me, he said, Sophie, I think you're a little bit harsh with yourself. And I thought, that was so cute. And then the next thing is honestly, that week, that very week, three of my leaders tackled three major issues that were in our team for like months.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so you lead it by example, and uh and that filters down through the organization.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it's the point on the vulnerability, also that you know, as leaders, we also sometimes need to say, you know, I I'm not I'm not perfect, I don't do everything right, I make mistakes, yeah, and I'm honest enough to say it and to go and fix it.
SPEAKER_03:And I think that's brilliant. I think I love that. And and actually reverse mentoring would help open up some of those things because it helps people point out to you some of the things that you might not see because you've got blindside to it. And I'll I think reverse mentoring, Albert, I think would be a great other podcast for us to put together, actually, because there's a whole topic there. Because there's one area we haven't talked about, I would like to make sure we cover it around the VUCA space. And when we when we did a prep call with you, Sophie, one of the things you talked about quite a bit was about agility and the agility that leaders need to have in this world, new world. So I just wanted to spend a few minutes just talking about your view about how leaders need to adapt to be agile.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so it is essential to be flexible because things are moving so fast that you cannot stay static, right? You have to go with the move. And one of the worst things you could do is to actually, you know, go start like not wanting to be part of it and rejecting it. So not only you need to go with the move, but if you can, you can you try and be ahead of it, right? And so I think I had the demonstration in this marketing role in France and in me that those teams just flipped like change at the flick of a switch at a pace that was absolutely unbelievable. And I'm not just saying it because I was a CMO of those people, I saw it in the organization at all levels, right up to uh worldwide. And what happened is we had a CMO at the time that was really like a year prior to COVID, uh the pandemic eating. She made a statement that she wanted 100% of marketers in the world to be trained on agile. And we were like, okay. So this was really, you know, this wasn't the dumb thing. We were one of the first organizations to come up with this, and one of the first, um, you know, marketing was one of the first in IBM to actually train all the people, and not that she could ever have foreseen what was going to happen, right? She didn't, but the fact that methodology that we all had been trained on, which teaches you how to, you know, approach things differently, how even you behave differently as a team member in an agile world, there is no Manager, there's no leader, everybody is at the same level, there's no hierarchy, right? So everybody's contributing to the same level. Nobody has a voice that is um counting double or triple because they are highly ranked. It doesn't work that way. And then you have all the tools that come with the agile methodology. But believe you me, right? I I promise you, we did all the training, we did, we we spent a huge amount of time trying to get people to understand why this was important. And not that people didn't get it, but they didn't really see the point. They didn't see the point, they didn't embrace that agile methodology. But believe you me, the day COVID hit, everybody like this turned to their, you know, mural, trailer, all the tools that we had been trying, pushing them to use, that they didn't use, they turned to it instinctively because it made sense. They needed it to continue to do design thinking, to collaborate in a remote environment. It wasn't just being able to work from home, it was being able to collaborate, continue to actually work together as a team. Because that is super important, right? Because if we all stuck at home and you you stop working as a team and collaborate and stop those conversations, it's this is, I think, it's going to fail, right? So, yes, agile to me, how did that translate very concretely? At the time we had our uh Sync Worldwide, the flagship event for IBM. It's called Sync. And it was due to take place in San Francisco face-to-face. Thousands of people registered. And seven weeks prior to the event, COVID hit, the team didn't cancel the event like all our competitors did. The worldwide team transformed the event in a digital event as a massive endeavor. Honestly, I was mind-blown. Honestly, you could you just couldn't even. I was like, they're not gonna do that. No, they couldn't possibly do that. See, nobody can turn this around in seven weeks, and they did, and it was a success. And we didn't have, you could say, oh yeah, it's IBM, they're digital, blah, blah. No, we didn't have the experience, we didn't have the platforms, we had nothing from scratch, seven weeks, boom. So what and without agile.
SPEAKER_03:What did the leaders do to enable that to happen, Sophie? What what because you know, what did how did the leaders change them? Because it would have been easy for a leader to say, look, this is too hard, too complex. So, what did the leaders do that enabled the team to have the inspiration to be agile enough to do that?
SPEAKER_01:Honestly, I think a big part of it is the training. People were trained, they knew what to do, they instinctively they were like robots, boom, boom, boom, they knew what to turn to. And what didn't make sense before made a lot of sense, and they embraced it then. And the second thing is we made a series of brainstorming meetings where we asked people when there is a crisis, people want to be part of the solution. It's it's human and instinctive, right? You want there's so much going on, and that cannot fix, right? And so you want, you need to be busy thinking that you're going to change the world, right? Even if it's at your level. So we had a series of work streams. We designed, like in France, it was seven topics, and we said, you just go and you you contribute to any anyone you want to for marketing. So we had one on our own sync event. We needed, we had events we needed to turn around as well, locally. And then people started to go wherever they felt it was they their skills were more appropriate. Everybody contributed to something, not because we forced them, because they wanted to. Right. And so it's giving them the platform to actually be a part of it. It's back to the vision, right? And the how you contribute.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. We we we we probably do need to start wrapping up. We've been going for a while, but but but there's so much here. So but there's one there's one thing that's coming to my mind as you're talking about this. It kind of sounds like you've got Sophie operating in this bubble inside IBM.
SPEAKER_00:I hope not. I hope not.
SPEAKER_02:But that's an interesting that's a thought in my head. Are you seeing this around you with other leaders and it's widespread? Because it's sounding like you've got it understood in your team and it's it's it's resonating. But what about other leaders around you and into and above and below? It's a difficult question.
SPEAKER_01:I think I see, I think I see it. So the new leader that came in has a lot, like I see a lot of commonality in the way she thinks, and um a lot, a lot of commonality with the CMO worldwide in the way of thinking, in the in the way of communicating, in the compassion, in the human side, in the transparency, that it seems to be, there seem to be new traits that of character or behaviors that seem to be valued, right? Then what I see, I I can't really answer what the question is.
SPEAKER_03:So Sophia, your body language go on, go on, go on.
SPEAKER_01:So one thing I would say is that what I have witnessed is that there people are more and more receptive to this behavior.
SPEAKER_03:So that's what I would the answer to your question, Albert, is no. Yeah. Because so his face and body language completely changed. And uh, but but the answer is no, but I I hope that they're coming along with me.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um the only thing I would come back to, the only thing I would come back to is what you said. That the person that you think has is is getting towards it or is closer to it, you said is she. So do you think that females can adapt to this better than males?
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's a good question to wrap up with.
SPEAKER_01:I think we're out of time.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, we'll hold that for another time.
SPEAKER_01:Honestly, I will answer this because I have I mentioned the mentor, my heart mentor. Yeah, and the reason why he was my I picked him was because he had all this behavior, and we're talking about a man having this behavior, I think it was 15, yeah, 15 years ago.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and IBM does a lot of training on women, but on men as well, on those topics to make sure, honestly, even when I arrived here in Middle Eastern Africa, a lot of people asked me back on how is it working now there?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, a lot of people women in the Middle East.
SPEAKER_01:And I said, honestly, because of the culture in IBM, honestly, there is no difference. No difference from what I experienced and and in the behavior. So it's positive.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, all right, good.
SPEAKER_02:So let's do a couple of quick fire questions to finish with, shall we, Albert? Yeah, let's do that. Who who would be your leadership role model?
SPEAKER_01:No, I I don't want to answer because my leadership role model is um part of IT and competition. So I don't want to be there.
SPEAKER_02:It's somebody you'd like to be coming and working in IBM. Well, okay.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I will answer, I will answer somebody that is not very famous then. Okay. Okay. So the name is Josh Graf, and he's the VP for EMEA Link team.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01:And and I really value uh the way he um he leads on diversity topics and uh and and in the openness and transparency in his leadership with his team.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, that's that's really uh really good good insight. Excellent. And and if you were gonna gift a book on leadership to someone, what book would you gift?
SPEAKER_01:Uh, we give uh gift Lead Beyond the Edge, which is a book from Frederick Murphy. So I used to work with Frederick and she wrote that book. He's an extremely uh talented and bubbly person, and she gives very insightful tips on you know how to get to the top of your performance and how to get your team to the to their best.
unknown:Brilliant.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, Neil, I could have mentioned you too.
SPEAKER_03:My book, yeah, no, of course. Yeah, but that well, I wasn't searching for an advert or anything.
SPEAKER_02:But but now you mention it. Is there a quote or saying on leadership that you would like to leave here with the audience?
SPEAKER_00:It's not on leadership, but I would say trust your instinct.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, great. Brilliant, yeah, yeah, excellent. That's about being human, trust your instinct. If there was one thing you're gonna leave with as we wrap up, a message for the leaders listening to this podcast, what would be one sentence, one message you'd like to leave with them?
SPEAKER_01:I I would like to talk about uh maybe the emotional intelligence and all the we talked about vulnerability and we talked about humanity. And for me, all those things have become extremely interesting and very, very, very important. So I would encourage people to recognize if they are people, true people managers, and if they are not, to walk away from it. Because I think that there have been a lot of people that have come into management because it was the natural progression in life, but that are not natural leaders or natural people managers, and nowadays, if you're not able to dedicate more than 50% of your time at work to people and to their well-being and to what whatever is going to make them tick and progress and achieve, it's not a role for you. And you need to recognize that and walk away.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And because I think it's too hard for team members who have people managers who don't really want to be people managers.
SPEAKER_02:It's a great tip. It's a great tip. And no guest has ever said before, if you don't think you can do this, walk away, right? It's a great tip.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, that is, and actually, in outside of big corporates, you see even more. You see even more people who've been put into leadership positions who don't really want to be managing people. So let's wrap up there, shall we? So, Sophie, thank you ever so much for great insight uh into managing in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world we now live in. So there's tons of great stuff in there for our audience, loads of great clues on uh great leadership. So, Sophie, thank you for joining us this morning.
SPEAKER_01:Thanks for inviting me. Thanks for reaching out. Thanks for you know, it's it's great to be able to uh to to get to you know talk to you again, the both of you together. It's really it was a treat. So thank you.
SPEAKER_02:It was our privilege, our pleasure. Really good spending the time with you here, Sophie. Albert, I'll let you wrap up. Yeah, so listen, guys, thank you very much for tuning in and listening to this. I hope that's been useful for you. Lots of messages in there, lots listen to Sophie's experience, her thoughts, and uh and and advice on how things could work for you better as a leader. Uh, please give us your comments, your feedback, your subscriptions, really liking that. Give us your likes. If you want to find Sophie, you will find her on LinkedIn there. And she's not shy talking to people as a CMO. So by all means, reach out. Guys, really good spending the time with you. Sophie, all the best in your career. We're going to watch and enjoy watching you climb that ladder even further. And enjoy climbing goodbye. Thanks for joining us, everyone. Speak you again soon. Take care. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to the Leadership Detectives with Neil Thabron and Albert Joseph. Please remember to subscribe, give us your comments and your feedback. Please also visit leadershipdetectives.com for all the episodes and more resources and support.