Success League Radio
Success League Radio
Mental Health and Leadership: A Conversation with Ryan Johansen
Ever felt the pressure of leadership, the gnawing stress, and the looming threat of burnout? You're not alone. I, alongside my special guest, Ryan Johansen - founder of HumanLeadership.io and mentor to leaders at Amazon and HubSpot - discuss the pitfalls and pressures leaders often face. From his personal journey shifting careers from pharmaceutical sales to software, Ryan recounts his own brush with burnout and how it dramatically altered his life and approach to leadership.
We dissect the unique hurdles first-time managers encounter, from managing mental states to establishing trust and effectively delegating tasks. Ryan candidly shares his trials with imposter syndrome and the struggle of maintaining performance culture amidst these challenges. We also delve deep into the heavy responsibilities of leadership, the traps of micromanagement, and practical solutions to common time management issues.
We're not skirting around the tough stuff either. Mental health is a pressing issue in the workplace and we believe it's time to bring it into open discussions. We explore ways to enhance productivity, prevent burnout, and promote a healthier work environment. We also recognize the absolute necessity of resources for new managers, helping them grow, gain confidence, and guide their teams effectively. So, join us for this enlightening conversation and glean wisdom from the shared experiences and lessons in leadership and mental health.
Welcome to Innovations in Leadership, a Success League radio production. This is a podcast focused on customer success and the leaders who are designing and implementing best practices in our field. This podcast is brought to you by the Success League, a consulting and training firm focused on developing customer success programs that drive revenue. My name is Kristen Haier and I'm the host of Innovations in Leadership and the founder and CEO of the Success League. On our show today, I'll be talking to Ryan Johansson, who's the founder of humanleadershipio, and they train leaders at companies like Amazon and HubSpot about how to overcome stress. That's what we're going to be talking about today how leaders can protect their mental health. It's an exciting and very important topic. Ryan, welcome to the show.
Ryan Johansen:So excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Kristen.
Kristen Hayer:How did you end up in the field of customer success? Can you tell us about your career path so far?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, that's a great question. So I am from the Boston area. I actually started my career out in the pharmaceutical sales. I was selling direct to hospitals in Alabama and Mississippi, which was pretty interesting. Then I ended up moving into software because I saw that it was a little bit less travel, which I liked because I was living out of a suitcase and worked at.
Ryan Johansen:A company you might have heard of before is a little startup called Oracle, and really started to learn a lot there. You get into it, but I saw people in startups where they could. It seems like there was a lot of good benefits to it. People could allow for some creativity, and that's something that got me excited. So I started reaching out to other people in my network. Finally, a friend introduced me to this company called RapidMiner and I joined them as a sales rep and did pretty well as that.
Ryan Johansen:But one of the things that we were an AI company and I got really excited with some of the things our customers were doing, spent a lot of time on their projects and got to learn so much. One of the things that naturally came to me is I asked hey, would you be okay with me moving over to CS, because I like spending time with our customers. It makes me feel like I'm alive. I got really excited. They made that move and then within a few months they ended up promoting me to manager and then went on to be director. It's been a pretty good run since, and then I've been at Dynetics for the past few years and definitely more has happened in that story too, but that's how I got into it.
Kristen Hayer:That's great. We're going to just kick this right off with the topic. I know that both you and I as we were talking and preparing for this have struggled with stress in our own leadership roles, and I guess I would be curious to know how you started researching stress and burnout among leaders and what drove you to do that.
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, it wasn't the best scenario. To be totally honest with you. I got promoted to management. I've always been someone that really tied myself to achievement and I was a hard worker, and these are all very good things that will help you in your career. But there's a dark side to the other edge of that.
Ryan Johansen:What ultimately happened as I moved from an individual contributor to a manager, I thought that everything would be easy for me. I could teach everyone exactly what I do, they're going to follow that process and everything's going to go amazingly. I quickly found out that's not going to be the reality and immediately I went from someone that, in my career, didn't struggle a ton and was able to pick things up pretty quick to being brand new at something and honestly feeling like a failure all the time, working insane hours, having everything out of my control, and it was a blow to the ego. What that happened was I ended up spending months and months of not telling anyone and really suffering in silence and withdrawing from social activities, and it put me on a pretty rough path mentally to when I was about 11 months into the role. I ended up putting myself into a hospital because I was suffering from massive panic attacks and finally, as much as I tried to push that down and make it go away, it just kind of exploded one day.
Ryan Johansen:So that was obviously my origin story, which was it felt like the worst thing in the world at the time.
Ryan Johansen:But the good thing about it is it ended up being one of the best things to ever happen to me, because maybe take a step back and notice that I have to take better care of myself and that's something I've done and that's made huge improvements in life. But the other part of it, while we're talking a little bit more today, is I knew I had to make a bunch of changes with the way I worked too. I was trying to solve those two problems and I really dove into the research of what can I do to feel better and go back to work and be able to, because I liked my job. I didn't want to leave that. So that really kind of led me to this journey of self-discovery, of fuel, and it's been a really interesting run and I just did it to feel better. That was like my life depended on it and the good part is I started to feel good and I started sharing this with other people and it's kind of snowballed into something really cool that excites me.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I think for myself during the pandemic, it's just been a really challenging time. It's been challenging because I have a kid and the kid also was dealing with stress going into college during this time and that you know, on top of me leading a team through the challenge of getting economically through a pandemic and changing the way that we deliver all of our services, and you know it's stressful. And I think most leaders new leaders and senior leaders, I think deal with this, and so you know. I know we're going to focus our talk today mostly on newer leaders coming into a leadership role, but I think it's important to call out that. I think anyone that's listening can get some benefit from what we're going to talk about today.
Ryan Johansen:Absolutely. Life is hard and there's so much pressure to put on that good appearance like you have it under control and then you look outwardly and it looks like everyone else has it together. But the good thing I found out is that the more I talked to other people, they were dealing with the same things and that made a huge difference, and that's why I love doing what I do.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I think it's great. Linkedin. It kind of makes you feel like, oh my gosh, I'm the only one that doesn't have my stuff together.
Ryan Johansen:Oh, it's a comparison machine.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, it's just terrible. So I mean like it's great and it's terrible. I love seeing what everybody's up to, but then you sort of feel like, oh my gosh, I'm not doing enough. And you could literally do work 24 by 7 and still never feel like you are doing enough So as we dive into this topic, I think it's really important to note that you did a lot of research on this and you researched the topic of mental health and you talked to a lot of leaders. Can you talk us through your approach and then some of the results that you saw?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, definitely. So I'd say this research comes in two different directions and the first was my own research to just help myself out. So I'll say right now, like I talk a lot about things you can do to help your mental health and reduce stress and be more productive, but like it's something where you know getting professional help is probably the best thing you can do and I like I just want to make sure that's perfectly clear. But some of the things that I did was I got a certificate on positive psychology. That was helpful. I learned mindfulness based stress reduction, which is a very important thing. There's a program through UMass that was a pretty intensive one. That that made a huge difference. But and then my bookshelf, as you can see next to me, is just packed with stuff. So I think that has been one of my best things about why I loved being a CSM and Excel, this very curious person. So I like to learn, and what I did, in this experiment at least, was I had my own ideas coming into this because I had gone through a lot of this before, but I figured I want to learn what other people have gone through.
Ryan Johansen:So I set out interviews and I reached out to a good amount of people and a lot of them perfect strangers, and a lot of them, to my surprise, said yes. I'd love to talk about that, because I asked them. Hey, I'm looking to find out what are the top three things that caused the most issues for a first time leader, and the response was insane with how many people actually agreed to do it. I was hoping for maybe five to 10, ended up having about 45 different people do it, and I had to make a cut off so I could actually get this thing out, because I was having so many conversations and it wasn't just like sending out a survey.
Ryan Johansen:These were, like you know, really in depth questions to get a good understanding and learn their story too. So it was, you know, not only a good experience with being able to learn from how other leaders have overcome it, but also getting a deeper understanding of those problems and how they've seen it. And the number one thing that really made me feel better and I think will make other people feel better, is some of these people, like you say. You look and you say, wow, they're killing it. They have a great title at a huge company dealt with a lot of this stuff too. So it's almost universal that people struggle with some of these things that first time managers go through.
Kristen Hayer:What were the biggest challenges that you saw?
Ryan Johansen:So it comes out to. There were three themes that these were my guess of where they might go into, and the number one is what we'll talk about a good amount today is the, you know, managing your own self and some of the stress that comes with it. Number two is how you manage others, and number three is more on like the business side. So the way that this ended up breaking down is the first problem was the mental toll of the transition. So you go from being someone who's an absolute expert in their job to being completely brand new, dealing with nonstop failure, imposter syndrome and all the good stuff that comes with it.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah.
Ryan Johansen:The second one was the changing social dynamics. So a lot of folks they get promoted and then suddenly you're running a team that you were just going to have, the ROF, because that's that can be a tough thing. Also, this was my scenario, definitely is I worked at a smaller company. I went from having peers I could talk to and bounce ideas off of to suddenly feeling like I was on an island, which was was really tough and it's an isolating feeling, and wasn't getting feedback or help, and that it was wasn't good for me. Number three was giving up control and being able to delegate. So that's all of a sudden you're a manager and other people are responsible for your success. It's terrifying. It's a hard process for people to get used to.
Kristen Hayer:Especially, I think, if you're a top performer, you're used to like owning your own success and it's a big transition. That's a big one.
Ryan Johansen:Exactly and that was one of my missteps Definitely was thinking people are going to be wired the same way that I am, and that clearly didn't work out like that. But the fourth issue that we came against was building trust and motivating the team. So that's something where, you know, I think a lot of managers make that misstep of not getting taking the time to really understand your team and building that trust. So they trust you and you start to trust them. That goes hand in hand with that delegation piece. And then, of course, the next one is how they can deal with feedback. That's one thing in difficult conversations. So that is something that is a huge problem for first time managers, because I say it's kind of like telling someone that they have spinach in their teeth. It's uncomfortable, but it tends to be good for that person and if you don't tell them, it tends to have some adverse consequences down the road.
Ryan Johansen:After that we have number six, which is balancing performance and culture, and that is you know you need to get results from your team, but if you only focus on your team or if you only focus on results, your things are going to go in one way or the other.
Ryan Johansen:So it's a very difficult balancing act that a lot of new managers aren't equipped for, don't really know the best way to handle that. Then we have number seven was handling the increased workload. So all of a sudden you go from being able to even if it's a stretch, you can get all your stuff done to your workload exploding, Like we talked about earlier. You could work for 24 hours and you'd never get it all done. What really helped me as a manager from a source I didn't think I would expect management advice from, was from Seinfeld, in the episode where he asked Newman why postal officers go crazy and he says well, the mail just keeps coming. So that was the thing that always popped into my head made me take a step back and relax, that the work is never done.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I mean, the one thing that I think saved me during the pandemic, when everyone's working from home, that a lot of people just didn't have, is I mean, you can see this, because we're on a call right now where you can see what's in my background. I have a door to an office and I can go out of the door of my office and shut it. All the work stays here in my office. I think a lot of people don't have that. You're working from your dining room table or you're working from the desk in your kids room. It makes it literally physically harder to leave it behind. So I think finding that balance of what is a realistic, acceptable level of work is a real challenge. I think that's a huge one.
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, the problem that also relates to that, which is number eight, is dealing with those unclear expectations and competing priorities that a new manager is going to face. Of what should I be focusing on, especially in customer success, because you're going to be rolling up to different areas. You have probably meetings with your product team, your marketing team and, guess what, everybody always wants something from you. So, being able to take a step back and really know your North Star of what are the top things that we focus on, and also being clear with your team of hey, these are our most important things and we need to focus on that. Otherwise, like you said, you're running around and you can never shut off.
Kristen Hayer:Well, that's a great list. I want to dive a little deeper into some of the challenges that you saw. I think the mental transition from being an individual contributor to being a leader is far more significant than people think. Tell me a little bit about what you heard about that in your interviews.
Ryan Johansen:So I'd say one of the biggest things there is. A lot of people, and myself included, didn't really know what they were getting into. Then one of the possible solutions there is and a few companies do this already is having a pre-manager training or some type of a team lead program. So people have an understanding of what it is, because it's a completely different skill set. When a manager struggles, it doesn't affect just them. It can make their team miserable. It makes their company performance go down too. It has such wide-ranging implications when you have a manager that suddenly they're making mistakes and they feel like a failure. So what do they do? They stop taking risks, they stop trying new things. They're filled with self-doubt. What happens there? All of a sudden, their team has that same doubt too. It has this snowball effect across the organization where you're not going to be innovative, you're not going to create new things, because you're going to keep doing what they do and they're going to hold on and keep doing the same job.
Kristen Hayer:I feel like when I was in my first management role, I was almost the opposite of that in a really also bad way, which is, I ran complete roughshod over my team. I'm a bossy person. I've been a bossy person since my brother was born, when I was three years old, so I have a tendency to want to impose what I want on my team and I became a massive micromanager and so I think, yeah, you can have it go in that direction of self-doubt, lack of risk-taking, and then you can go in the total other direction, which is also not great. I mean, my poor first team. Those people deserve medals for having survived my first management job.
Ryan Johansen:It's really a coping mechanism for being afraid of being out of control is you try and control through other people and I feel like I was getting both accomplished. So, yeah, same thing, like I've talked to some of my team and we're cool, but it's all these years later the relationship's fine and I'm still beating myself up over this, some of this stuff, because that's the other thing. Why this is such an important problem is if you mess up as a CSM and renewal doesn't get done on time, then it's unfortunate. But if you mess up and it's someone's life, that's a huge responsibility.
Kristen Hayer:It is, and I think that very few companies prepare people for this.
Kristen Hayer:When I was finally a senior leader and I was leading other leaders, one of the things that I did was have everybody who was considering had told me they wanted to move into leadership, read one of the books I really like, which is called the 12 Elements of Great Managing, to kind of get them into the mindset of what is a really good leader and to start thinking of it as a totally different discipline than the discipline that they were in, whether that was sales or CS or support.
Kristen Hayer:And that was a huge improvement in having people who are a little more prepared to go into a leadership role and understanding the responsibility of it. Because it is huge. You have an impact on every single person who works for you and their families and their mental health. So, yeah, you have to be ready to take that responsibility, and it's not just a promotion for you to get more money and a better title, it's a promotion for you to lead and that's a big deal. So I appreciate you saying that. You also mentioned that time management surface is a real challenge for leaders. Why do you think that is and what do you think people can do about it, I think time management is an issue across the board and I'll go into my way of working on it.
Ryan Johansen:As someone who is, admittedly, easily distracted, I'm excited by ideas, which can be a very good thing. We can also like kind of like the being very ambitious. There's a difficult trade off to something like that. I think one of the main things that can make a difference and I'm on my soapbox about this one small shift that I tell every single podcast, every single thing and it was a change that I made and it was not starting the day on email and waiting for 30 to 60 minutes doing what I needed to do that day. I'd start my day early.
Ryan Johansen:I wasn't like ignoring people, but I would get those things done. I wouldn't be on email, I wouldn't be on Slack or anything like that. I'd have some time to think and then I'd feel accomplished, I'd be in a good mood and then I could be present with other people, whereas before I ended up in the hospital situation, I was waking up as soon as my eyes were open, I was refreshing my email. So when I did that and there's pretty reasonable research on this that there's a couple adverse consequences of being constantly tied into email- Naturally I don't have to say any studies, because we will know that it doesn't feel right.
Ryan Johansen:There's a baseline anxiety that comes from always checking on your email, and so I'd say the challenge is there is that it sets you up for distraction right away. So instead of what you want to do and especially as CSMs, we always talk about, oh, you need to be proactive, not reactive. Email equals reactive. The other thing, too is, with your email, it sets you up for distraction so you can get all these different things that pop up. I have to work on things that get me distracted, so I always joke around about I'll get an email about a project in Connecticut and then all of a sudden I'll think of my aunt in Connecticut and that can bounce me off in a few different directions. And the thing about that is making that small shift. I was able to get what I was taking the hours before of no focus time into just that hour of the day, and I was able to get way more productive over time. So that's my advice.
Ryan Johansen:But I'd say this problem is it comes down to I think we're doing a lot of multitasking. I feel like there's this pressure to always be on which is leading to burnout. It's making us not feel healthy. I think there's some really adverse consequences. That but I'd say in one of the other problems that came up when I talked about in this report of the unclear expectations and competing priorities, is, I think people struggle with, like, what's really important? What should we focus on in a world where we're trying to do more with less and we're chasing so many things when everything's important, nothing's important. So having that actual discipline to say, hey, this is our team's, ok, these are the top three things that we do to move that by doing less, I really feel like you accomplish more. So it's kind of one of those interesting things where, if you take a step back and try an unconventional approach, it might make a huge difference.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I think time management is challenging because we teach some of that in some of our classes too and it's what works for one person doesn't always work for the next person and you have to kind of really do some thinking about what's going to work for you and what's going to fit into your life and your day and help you find that piece. I think I love I do exactly what you do, which is don't look at email first thing in the morning. I made the mistake of actually doing it today and I, you know, first thing in the morning. Then what I'm hit with is there's a billing issue for one of our clients that I've got to call my bank, and then I'm spending the whole morning thinking about that instead of exercising, spending some time in meditation, you know, getting ready for the day, like the stuff that I normally do in the morning. That kind of helps me center and ground.
Kristen Hayer:I'm busy thinking about like, oh gosh, I got to call my bank when they open stuff like that and it just throws your whole day off and you have an immediate first thing in the morning stress response. Your body physically has that response and then your body suffers from that for the whole rest of the day. I mean, I'm sure most of you listening have done, have read studies on this, but it's incredibly bad for your body to get hit with stress all day long and you know, if you do that first thing in the morning before you do some things to combat it, it's even worse than it just kind of makes it worse through the rest of the whole day. So, yeah, I really appreciate you saying like take your morning time to like get yourself prepared mentally and physically for your day. That's such a huge, great piece of advice. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Ryan Johansen:I say this with the burnout and some of the stress. Stuff too is treat it like a buffet where try everything and see what you like and take seconds, and then you know throw away what you don't. So there's a lot of good stuff out there.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, there really is. I actually really like I have an app on my phone called Calm and I think a lot of people have that. If you're in California, I think, and you have Kaiser Permanente, I think they actually give that to you as part of your insurance. But you just can do like a little 10 minute meditation or, you know, a breathing exercise or whatever, and it's on your phone and it's really super easy and I don't get any money for promoting Calm. I just use it and I have recommended it to a lot of people, so I really like that. I think it's helpful for getting to sleep at night and then also for starting your day out really well. So I know one of the big things on your list is avoiding burnout, and I have to admit that the pandemic and assorted other challenges that I've already mentioned for the past three years have been very burnout inducing for me. What did you hear about burnout and the interviews that you did with other leaders, and how do you recommend that people prevent that or recover from it?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, so I've heard plenty of horror stories similar to mine. I heard a lot of people that also suffered in silence, that didn't have the avenues or. You know, when you're in a state like that, you're not as resourceful. Going back to that where you talked about stress, your brain isn't operating at the same level when you're in that survival mode, so you can't think of as many resourceful ideas. If we're talking more about, like, how it affects an organization, because it gets a lot of lip service, but I don't think organizations are really doing what they can be doing.
Ryan Johansen:I think the first thing is just acknowledging the problem, because I think there's this fear of opening you know Pandora's box of what can happen. But I think by just having that conversation and offering people a few resources can make a huge difference. To be honest with you, giving people days off, that's great, but I think it's not really what it's going to take to take care of people, and a lot of it is self-imposed too. Like you can lead a horse to water, but it doesn't mean that they're going to take that help or if they even want that help. It's something where it's very individual and you're on your own journey and different things work for different people, but I think what it comes down to is just I think companies can truly gain a competitive advantage by just having the conversation and letting people know that, a they're not alone and B there are some things to do and I think companies offer a lot of good benefits.
Ryan Johansen:I think it's the issue with some of the communication. So I think just some small changes could go a long way. But to talk more on like the organizational side of it, one of the interviews I did she put it in a phenomenal way that I wish I thought of myself was she said stress and burnout lead to turnover and that leads to this idea that hey, there's better options out there. And then you have people that need to suddenly backfill, so the people are taking on even more work, so the people at state are being punished, and then that just eats even worse. And then you have more people turnover because they're having to do even more work and they're miserable, and I think there's other options out there and turnover increases even more. And it's this endless cycle where, until you do something about it, it's just going to get worse.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I think one thing that people can do about it and we're kind of doing this right now is just surface. This is an issue, right. I think we kind of have a tendency, especially in the US I think this is in some other countries too, but here in the US you're sort of thought of as weak if there's a mental health thing going on for you. And you're not, because, I'll tell you, like almost everybody I talk to you post pandemic is suffering from the exact same thing Burnout from you know, trying to balance too many things during the last four years, burnout from new roles, more pressure, a different work environment.
Kristen Hayer:Like every change that we've faced and we've faced a lot of changes over the last four years has compounded to create a scenario where we're in a very different place and people don't like change. We're wired to not be good at changing things because it protects us. So we got just all thrust into this like environment where almost everything has changed about the way we work and the way we live, and I think by just sort of ignoring it and continuing to go on in this sort of tough guy no, that's weakness. To admit that anything is wrong with you way is really harmful, because then we're all just sort of faking it and making it seem like everything's fine when it isn't fine for most people. I think that surfacing that is a big thing that companies and people can do to help other people feel comfortable admitting that it's not all okay right now.
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, I'd say that's one of the things that helped me the most and I like I still get uncomfortable talking about this stuff.
Kristen Hayer:I do too. I've got better at it, but yeah, it's, it's hard to talk about, yeah.
Ryan Johansen:Exactly the reason why I started being more open about this is like it was the most helpful thing in the world to me to hear other people that went through it. So that's why I said, okay, like I'm in a good spot where I can try and give back what was given to me. And the other thing that really helped me a lot with like being a little bit more comfortable and at least taking some of that like the moral issue or the personal defect side of it away is, you know, treat it like you're a diabetic, like you need. You know you're you're. It's a chemical imbalance.
Ryan Johansen:It's not like a deep character flaw, so it's you know. It's something where it's a chronic condition that you need to manage and if you don't manage it, things can go fairly poorly. But when managed and it's hard work, it's not just taking a pill sometime like there's I can tell from experience it's. You know that that road's been a lot of ups and downs. It can be very difficult sometimes but it's unfortunately the best option available. But it can be really helpful to take care of yourself.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think you know, hopefully this is encouraging people who might be feeling like this to kind of get some help, because you know, coaches and therapists and medication and doctors and resources are there for a reason and they're there to help you and there's no shame in that it's. It's to help all of us be the best that I think each person can be, which is really important, and to feel like you're not drowning in what's gone on over the last four years, especially in your role as an instructor. What do you hear from your learners about these challenges? Do you think that there are things that companies could do to help minimize the challenges that especially new leaders face?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, I think it's something where one of the interesting things in the report was a stat that I found and you know, take it with a grain of salt, but it said that 60% of managers fail in the first 24 months, but the number one reason is they're not getting the training. So I think the issue with this is you might look at your, that rock star that you just promoted and say so and so can figure it out. They're great. I believe in them. It's well intentioned, it's not to they're not trying to screw the person or give them a harder time, but because of that they might not provide them with any training. You know, I know, budgets are tight, so maybe it's just something where there's potentially bigger priorities and they don't count on the human side. But I'd say, if you look at the bigger picture, it's something where, like I talked about, like if your managers aren't ready to go and comfortable and have the right skills, it's way more costly to your organization. One of the stats that another one that came up during the conversations is that a you know poor sales hire can cost $2 million. Think of someone running a team of eight. It's almost like smoking or something like that, where it takes a while to hurt you so you don't know, is an organization.
Ryan Johansen:I think companies can do a lot more things. I've heard of some companies doing really good things, but I would say, at bare minimum, like, mentor your team, like come to them with questions or like but if you're a manager and you're not getting what you need from your company this is a tough lesson that I've learned to appreciate and I've heard it before is you need to participate in your own rescue mission. So no, people aren't going to save you. So it might be up to you to go out and, you know, start reading books or talk to other people that have done it, and I'd say probably a combination of the two. You want to get you know experience from another human who's been through it. But yeah, I'd say organizations can do more, but if you're not getting what you need, it's up to you.
Kristen Hayer:I mean, I almost feel like I'm going to shoot myself in the foot by saying this, because we as an organization offer CSM training.
Kristen Hayer:But what I will say is I think leadership training for your new managers is more important than any kind of other training you can do inside the organization, because managers have a bigger impact than anybody else in the organization. And it's like you said you know, okay, let's say, every leader's got eight people working for them. Okay, and you've got 10 new leaders across your company. That's 80 people who are either being encouraged, motivated, delegated to and, you know, trusted by their manager, or 80 people who are suffering from somebody who's trained and is micromanaging them or, you know, not delegating to them because they're trying to handle it all themselves. And I'm like that. Think about it like, think about the worst managers you've had in your own career. Like if your whole company was populated by people like that, it'd be a nightmare. So you know, there's just such a multiplier effect, I think, by you know making sure that your managers are doing good work and know what they're supposed to be doing, that you don't get from any other kind of training.
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, I obviously completely agree with you.
Ryan Johansen:I think, that's what you do and that's it's been a cool part, like a lot of, like all some people like maybe I'm an idealist with this statement, but let's say I believe like a majority of people want to do well and all they need is encouragement and just feedback and like, hey, here are a few things that you can do and just like that's what I focused everything on is just encouraging people and having empathy where they are and just showing them the next steps forward and like seeing you know, having conversations about people in real time talking about imposter syndrome, and like seeing them take that aside and get more confidence. It's been so rewarding.
Kristen Hayer:That's great. So are there any resources that you'd recommend for a new leader who's facing some of these challenges that we've talked about today?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, definitely so. I'm personally a book person, me too. Yeah, very introverted. It's something where, like it calms me down, it lets me think, but I'd say, like a find which way you like to learn and whether it's you want to do YouTube videos, you want to do podcast, you want to do books, you want to do anything like that.
Ryan Johansen:But a good way to figure this out is I'll give a shameless plug is check out the report I put through and that's going to give you an idea of what you might have the challenges with. And then you can even just Google like, hey, what are the best books on delegation? What are the best article? Like that's how I've historically done anything. And like, just I don't think I'm anything special, but like one thing I've always kind of believed in myself is just in something that might help you as a new manager is like, have the ability to figure it out. You don't you're not perfect, you don't have to know everything, but if, as long as you can be able to figure things out, that's going to take you really far in life. In my own selfish interest, like I run a live program that helps managers, but I would say, like some of the better books that I've read would be. I think multipliers is a very good one.
Kristen Hayer:I love that book. That's fantastic yeah.
Ryan Johansen:Another one which might sound. It's a little bit different than what you might be used to hearing, but it's called surrounded by idiots and this is, I think, a huge issue for new managers. And what this book is. It really covers the four main personality types and I know that there's things like disk and all these other assessments. It's very much astrology. For business people it's a pseudo science, but I think it can be a helpful reference and it's a quick read.
Ryan Johansen:I got in the airport I think I finished it before I landed and it just covers four different types of people and like how to work with them, how to understand them, what situations drive them crazy, how to give them difficult feedback. So that was something where, as I'm reading this, I'm like oh, this is so and so on the team, and this is so and so, and like it helps you like I would just say, doing that exercise, you get more of an understanding of yourself, which is incredibly important as a manager. Like you need to know how people present you. That's a tough exercise to be able to figure out, like what are my shortcomings, how do people view me? And having like being radically open to feedback and make a huge difference.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, I have two that I'll throw out there that I think are great for like new managers or even people that are thinking of going into management. One is called the Effective Manager and it's a book by Mark Horstman. If you go on Amazon and you're listening, it's got like some dots on the front of the books. You know you're on the right book. And then there's a corresponding podcast that's been going on, for I want to say these guys have been running it for like 10 years and there's thousands of episodes at this point called Manager Tools, and the guys that run it are fun to listen to and they have really solid advice. I mean, it's very rare that I read a business book or listen to a business podcast where I'm not like meh about some of the content. They're pretty spot on with, especially what to do for new managers. So those are two things I'd recommend to the audience too. Okay, last question this is a chance to offer it a little bit. What do you see as the biggest trend in CS right now and why?
Ryan Johansen:So this was obviously the toughest question to answer and I would say the biggest trend in CS right now is we're at this inflection point in CS and it's a little bit of a power dynamic shift. Companies are catching on that. Most of this money is made after the sale. So I think it's really time for CS to start proving ourselves and taking a bigger seat at the table. Historically, it depends on the organization, but at some organizations it's very much a you don't have a seat at the big kids table sometime, which that can be very frustrating.
Ryan Johansen:But in my experience, when I was at my company, rapidmider, running their CS team, we were at a point where the majority of our revenue was starting to come from CS and it got more attention. It got us more resources, got us more respect. So I'd say, like, make sure that you're really clear about the value you're bringing to your organization. It's very important as a leader to like have a clear understanding of like what your impact is, and one of the things that we did at RapidMider was have a very clear okay that we focused on hey, we want to hit a certain number of net dollar retention and these are the steps that we're going to take. This is how we apply and you know it made everyone wildly successful. Who was involved with that?
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, that's great. I love that advice and I think you know, even for CS leaders who don't have a direct line to revenue maybe they're not the ones responsible for the renewal dollars per se, or they're not the ones that are responsible for upselling or cross-selling you still have a massive impact on those things. You also have a massive impact on leads that are going to your sales organization. You have a massive impact on you know people who are advocates, who are making money for your company by bringing in new leads. You know all of that stuff counts, even if it doesn't have dollars associated to it. You can associate dollars with it and you should do that. That's how all leaders in the company work. You claim your dollars that you contributed to.
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, don't let someone else figure it out like you own that.
Kristen Hayer:Yeah, absolutely Go get it. I love that. Thank you for that answer. Well, Ryan, thanks so much for sharing your fantastic research and your ideas on ways to overcome some of the challenges that new leaders face. If someone wanted to reach out to you directly, what's the best way for them to get in touch?
Ryan Johansen:Yeah, thank you. It was a pleasure joining. I love talking about this and it was an awesome time. So the best way to get in touch with me is probably if you go to my website, humanleadershipio, or reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Kristen Hayer:Well, thanks again, ryan. I really appreciate you being on the show. I also want to thank our producer, Russell Bourne, and our audio experts at RFRM Audio. This podcast is a production of Success League Radio. To learn more about the Success League's consulting and training offerings, please visit our website, thesuccessleagueio. For more great customer success content. Follow the Success League on LinkedIn. You can subscribe to Success League Radio on Apple, google, amazon or anywhere else you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening and we hope you'll join us next time.