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Welcome to The Culture Code podcast. On this podcast, you’ll learn how to grow, shape, and sustain a high-performance culture with the CEO of LEADx, Kevin Kruse. From designing and delivering highly effective leadership development programs, to measuring and improving the employee experience, you will understand what it takes to cultivate a thriving company culture. Through interviews with Chief People Officers, deep dives into key topics, and recordings of our invite-only community sessions, we bring you cutting-edge, data-backed insights from the most desirable companies to work for in the world.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Hello, everyone. I'm Kevin Kruse. Welcome to Culture Code. I'm so excited because our guest today is the Chief People Officer at Seismic, Linda Ho! Linda, welcome! And where are you joining from today?
Linda Ho: Hi, Kevin. I am joining from sunny California, specifically San Francisco.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Love it. We're on about three days of rain here in Philadelphia, with New York City under flood watch. So, I wish I was in your part of the world. But hopefully, we'll catch up to you soon. So, Linda, let me ask, just set the context. Anyone who's in tech, anyone who's in sales knows of Seismic. But there's gonna be many listeners out there who are like, "Haven't heard of that firm." So tell us in your own words, what do you guys do?
Linda Ho: Sure. So here's a quick Seismic introduction. We are a SaaS company. We have a platform to unite go-to-market teams. So, for example, marketing, customer success, sales, united to enable collaboration, content management, learning, onboarding insights, all in service of creating a better buyer experience as they work with their clients. So, in a nutshell, we help teams get better in terms of winning deals.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: And how big's the company? Where's the headquarters?
Linda Ho: We are about 1,600 people. We are across 7 countries. We are headquartered in sunny San Diego, California.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: And just for context, when we're talking about culture. And obviously, a big question right now is return to work, hybrid, remote-first, etc. Where has Seismic landed, at least for now?
Linda Ho: Yeah, so this is such an interesting topic, and one that is top of mind, I think, for most companies. So prior to the pandemic, we really anchored on a few offices, and most of our employees came into those offices. I think that's a pretty similar story with many tech companies out there. With the war for talent as well as Covid, we started to expand, and we saw so many benefits to expanding outside of our core offices. We saw improvement in terms of our DEI, specifically our representation. We saw greater access to talent pools that we didn't have access to before. And so we've continued that trend. We are decidedly a hybrid workforce. About 40% of our employees are not near an office, and we'll continue down that path. We do not have a mandate to ask people to come into the office. We see office and in-person interactions as really an intentional opportunity to create connection, community, enhance creativity, and engagement.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: I love it. And that's important for all of us and listeners, you know, to keep in mind because it's extra unique about how you foster culture in this sort of, you know, hybrid environment. But before we even talk about that, you know, culture is such a unique thing. Some people have a hard time even describing what culture is in a company. Seismic is very successful. So I know you have a very successful culture. How would you describe it to an outsider?
Linda Ho: You know, it's a tough question to describe, so maybe I'll add some stories to bring it to life. I would use the words "we care." We care about our customers, we care about our employees. In fact, when we were rolling out our mission, vision, and values a few years ago, we did a few culture labs because we believe culture thrives in the interactions, the actions, the behaviors, the stories that people carry with them. And we wanted people to share those stories because values are not just words on a wall. They're how we live every day, the interactions that we have with each other. And I still remember this amazing story. Someone from our sales team, our CS team, would say during the Covid pandemic, they were working with a customer, and they were having a really hard time. That customer had to downsize their sales team. They had bought Seismic, they were trying to implement it. But everybody who was part of the implementation team, you know, either had Covid and couldn't work, or were no longer with the company. And this engagement leader was literally in tears, saying that, "I know this is good for my company, but I just can't get it through. And I'm worried about my job and my team." And our team jumped in. We went way beyond implementation. They did the work of the customer in service of ensuring our customer had a really good outcome. And the customer has then moved on to another company, huge advocates of Seismic. But that's just the silver lining. I think the core of it is we care. We show up for our customers. We show up for each other internally. I've actually never seen more customers join companies as employees. Interesting fact, we have a lot of former customers who are now Seismic employees because I think they're so excited about our product. They see what it can do. And they want to be part of the journey.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Yeah, that seems like the ultimate product solution testimonial. Like, obviously, they wouldn't join you if it didn't work or they thought you had a bad environment experience. They get to work with you closely as a customer. And then, you know, when the right opportunity presents itself, they actually wanna be part of that team. So that's such a unique culture. Talking about caring? That doesn't happen accidentally, right? You don't just hire a bunch of engineers, sales professionals, and this just organically happens. So what are some of the ways that you teach new joiners about culture? How do you foster it and sustain it, especially as we've now all moved into this hybrid post-pandemic world? Share some of that.
Linda Ho: Yeah, I mean, we are lucky that it really stems from the top. You know, our President and CEO, he is the epitome of our culture. He is a founder, so we're a founder-led company, and I think that's unique in many spaces. And he is a very authentic, transparent, and caring individual. He cares about the customers, has great relationships with them, and cares about employees. He actually handwrites anniversary cards to every single employee with some tidbits about his interactions with them, words of encouragement. I mean, that's the level of care that he has. Frankly, I've questioned how long we can scale this for because I'm a bit of a realist, but I love that. He brings that to the table. But some of the cornerstones of our culture are, for example, we have push pins. This is when we close a deal. Not only do we celebrate the closing of the deal, but we celebrate everyone who has come together to make this deal happen, whether it's legal, finance, the sales team. We also celebrate our customers, the advocates within those customers that help us ensure that they realize the outcomes that our products deliver. So that's super exciting. We also have a "why we win" Slack channel, and this one's particularly close to my heart. I love Slack. But this one, in particular, I look at, especially when we always have those down days because we tag the values that we have. And we say, this is why we win, based on these values and how we're showing up together, whether it's winning deals, whether it's a conversation that we're having with each other, that's extremely vulnerable in a learning moment, we celebrate that in our "why we win" channel. And I love seeing our values come to life in stories. So those are just a couple of examples of our culture. But the one that I love and I think is pretty unique to Seismic is we have an event that we call "Activity." We had to put it on pause for Covid, but the last time we had it, this event, again when we felt like it was a little safer given the conditions. We had everybody together, all employees across the various countries for a week, and we took over Petco Stadium. And that was our moment to build connection, build community, completely unified around our strategy, and really celebrate the humans who we are. And those types of events really are the hallmark of who we are as a company, and it's a lasting impact. Like that "Activity," people talked about it for months and quarters to come and really brought people together.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Linda, you were spitting so much gold there so fast that I'm gonna hit the rewind button so that I can underline some things for all of our listeners. First of all, kudos to your CEO for writing so many anniversary notes. It reminds me of Doug Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup, who's legendary for handwriting so many thank-you notes every single day at the end of his day, and there's even an HBR article about the thousands of thank-you notes that he sent. Not all of us can force our CEOs to do it. But we can always set that example, right? So, you know, I kind of challenge everyone to take up this practice. Personally, there's some magic in handwritten notes. There's some magic in personalization, whether it's a thank-you note or an anniversary note. I think that's something that we could all aspire to.
I want to ask you about the "Why We Win" channel. Because, I'm thinking, even for LEADx, we have a Slack channel that has the very boring name of, like, "Client Testimonials" or something. Yours sounds a little bit better than that. And who's adding to that channel? Is it actually anybody who spots something related to values or somebody they want to show gratitude for? Like, who's really posting in there?
Linda Ho: It's open to everyone. And that's the amazing thing. Because we all add to our culture. And why we win is often because we win together, because someone is showing up for someone else, whether it's providing feedback, whether it's pulling together to get something done, whether it's meeting a customer need that we're working around and wanting to accelerate it. I mean, that's how we win and why we win. We win together as a team, and I love that we anchor it on our values.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: That's great. Now, I'm passionate about manager training and leadership development. Because I'm more passionate about employee experience and culture. But research suggests 70% of how we feel about work has to do with who our manager is. You join a company, you might leave a bad boss. I'm guessing if you have about 1,600 employees, you might have 200 to 300 people managers, and a pretty good guess, right? Been doing this for a while, Linda. So, you know, especially on the front line, what are you doing to train them and support them in a way that makes them successful as managers and fosters this positive culture?
Linda Ho: Yeah, I think there are two things. First is, I think it starts with mindset. So our employee value proposition is really a growth mindset and a beginner's mind. We want people to join Seismic so they can learn, they can iterate, they can make mistakes, and make something better. So the idea of coming to Seismic to be a builder is very core to who we are, and I think that mindset is really important. So we ensure that our managers have that mindset. And then we build upon that, no surprise. We're an enablement company. So we use our own product, and we have a learning product that allows people to learn, practice, get coaching, etc., within our platform. And we have what we call Manager Foundations with some core skills that employees can learn and develop, integrated with how we work. You know, some of the policies and practices at Seismic. So that's sort of foundational for our first-line managers. We also have Manager Forums because I believe that the best way to learn is also to workshop and talk about things. So you can do that on our platform, but it's also quite powerful to do that via Manager Forums. So those are the building blocks, if you will, of how we enable our first-line managers.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: And how do you know that? Like, you're obviously getting business success, which means you're having success with culture. But how are you measuring that? How are you getting feedback about what's going well and where there's room to get even better? I assume you're doing some sort of employee voice surveys or things like that. Tell us about those.
Linda Ho: Yeah, in fact, next week we are launching our all-employee survey. We do it twice a year, and it's fantastic. We have 91% participation, which I'm really, really proud of. Out of all the scores I pay attention to, participation rate, because it shows me a couple of things. People trust that we're gonna take action from the survey, people prioritize it. And the reason they do is because leadership prioritizes it. So 91% is amazing, and I'm really proud of that score. And I hope we keep it up. We also have pretty high engagement all-around engagement scores, manager scores, etc. The scores just help us understand where to focus. We have action plans from those surveys that we look at twice a year to ensure that we're trending in the right direction. So that's definitely a very important listening channel for us. We also have monthly town halls that our CEO hosts. They are just like him, authentic, informative, and timely. And they ensure that we're continuing to share information and cascade throughout the organization, but also listen to what employees want to hear from us, either through reactions via chat or information and sharing that they do as a follow-up to all hands. And then I would be remiss to not talk about our communities of belonging. We have nine of them. They're basically our ERGs. But they cover a whole gamut of different groups. And those are really important vehicles for us to hear what those communities want and need and how certain programs and messages are landing with them.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: That's great. I really like that. You emphasize one of the first things was participation rate, and congrats on the 91%. We've been involved in employee engagement for 30 years, or the world's largest employee engagement survey. And when I work with companies and see their company reports. I don't look at the engagement score first. I mean, it matters. I always go to participate because, you know, if you have participation that's lower than 80%, it's either that the company's not acting on the feedback. So people are like, why am I doing this? Nothing ever changes. So it's a sign of disengagement. You're not even engaged enough to give your opinions, or it's a sign of low trust. They don't believe that it's going to be confidential. So when you've got a 90 plus percent, which is very rare, I mean, without even looking at the score, I would know that that's a highly engaged workforce with high trust and a great feedback loop. So congrats on that. That's incredible you've shared so much, Linda, in terms of like already, I'm taking notes like crazy. And I think, listeners, your peers are gonna steal things like the way we win channels and other things. But is there anything else you want to share? You know, anything else that you're especially proud of, or that you've gotten, you know, really good results from?
Linda Ho: Maybe two things, so I know. Returning to work is top of mind for all of my peers. In almost every conversation I have with CPOs. This is top of mind, and I'm really proud of how we've actually used our workspace, especially in our San Diego office, which is our headquarters. So we recently moved into a different space. We actually downsized the footprint of what we had before, and we reconfigured everything. So gone is the concept of neighborhoods. But in place, we have very flexible workspaces, and I actually really love the flow of our workspace. So while it's smaller in terms of footprint, and frankly, a bit of a cost savings for us. It's actually richer in terms of the flexibility and the amenities and what we can offer employees. So you walk in into a bit of a social hub, so you can see who's in the office. Then you walk by meeting rooms, you walk by creative, innovative spaces, and you walk through different spaces that are really based on what an employee needs in the moment, whether they need social time, quiet time, meeting spaces, etc. One of my favorites is the concept of the library where you want to work with people, but library rules remain, right? So quiet. Not a lot of talking. So I love that we've created spaces to meet employees based on their needs and how they work. So if you have a chance, take a look at our site. It's beautiful. And I think it really is the future of work.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: I love that, I love that this is a short format podcast. We don't have a lot of minutes left, but I do want to hit you with some shorter, maybe more fun questions, including, you know, if you can imagine for a second I give you a magic wand, you wave it, and all your colleagues are guaranteed to read any book you send them or listen to any podcast you send them, and they'll really take it to heart. That'd be amazing. So what would you send everybody?
Linda Ho: I love Angela Duckworth, her book "Grit." I mean, in transparent, full transparency, she actually was one of our external keynote speakers for our activity events. And what I love about that is the idea that passion and perseverance enable success. So yes, you can have an edge based on skills and ability. But you can develop that as long as you're passionate and you spend the time and have grit in what you do. So I love that concept. And it feels like if you can embed that in how you work and how you think about overcoming problems or opportunities, that can really accelerate you and your team. So I'm a huge, huge fan of her work. And that book.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Great recommendation, especially in these times. Grit was necessary before the pandemic, certainly through it, and now, in the age of AI and all the other disruptions going on, it's a great thing to develop at all times. I'm also curious, what's something that you know now that you would have benefited from knowing when you first became a Chief People Officer? If you could write a letter to a younger version of yourself, what might be some advice or tidbits?
Linda Ho: It's a good question, and I probably want to reflect on it a little bit more. But one thing I want to do more of is when I first joined Seismic about three years ago, I did a lot of listening tours. I reached out to employees, and we had plenty of forums for me to engage with them, whether it was one-on-one or in a group setting. As I started to get more comfortable in my role, I stopped doing some of those things, and I feel like that is so important. While we have vehicles like the employee survey and other mechanisms such as our open-door policy, people don't naturally reach out to their CPO or their CHRO. You have to be intentional in cultivating that connection and that community. Based on our conversation today, I'm going to be more conscious of doing that because I think having an ear and really understanding how things are going for employees will help us create an environment where people can do their best work.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: One of the chapters in my last book, "Great Leaders Have No Rules," is called "Close Your Open Door Policy," and what it gets at is the whole idea of the open-door policy. When it originally came out, it was a good idea, but these days it really puts the burden on the team members to come in, and not everyone has the courage to do it. So I think being proactive as a leader and walking through your open door into other spaces and into other people's office environments is so key.
Linda Ho: I'm going to steal that "walking through your open door."
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: There you go! We've been able to steal from each other today. That's always a sign of a good conversation. We're chatting here at the end of September. The new year is only a quarter away. What are you thinking about? What are some of your priorities for the year ahead? What will your team be focused on?
Linda Ho: Well, definitely some of the return-to-work aspects, right? How do we ensure that how we work really emphasizes this new way of this distributed workforce? So I'm really excited to continue to explore that, leveraging the different tools that are coming online with AI intervention, etc. The other aspect is career mobility and career development. So we've been talking about that at Seismic quite a bit. Up is not the only way. Titles, hierarchy, that's all company-specific stuff that you can't take with you. But what you can take are skills, experiences, and learning. So we really try to embed that here at Seismic. And I'm going to push on that even more next year. I want people to feel like they have opportunities to learn and grow every single day of their time here at Seismic. And I think we have a role as employers to help them, and they have a role as employees to shape that experience.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: Seismic has grown and changed so much, even just in your time there with acquisitions, and new products and features. What's exciting you the most about the company right now?
Linda Ho: You know, our product is pretty exciting. In fact, we have a customer user event coming up in just a few short weeks. It's called "Shift." And we're going to be unveiling a product roadmap. We've been talking about AI for several years. It's embedded in our product, but it's pretty exciting what's in store. And for me, why it's exciting, I'm in the people business, and what we do is we help people do their jobs better, and in the best way, because we help shorten the cycles, giving people time to get back to their family, get back to their hobbies, whatever that means, and that really excites me because I feel like in doing so, we change the flow of work. We change how people work, and hopefully, we'll change the future of work.
Kevin Kruse - LEADx: That's powerful. We'll leave it there. Linda Ho, Chief People Officer at Seismic. Time is our most valuable asset. Thanks for giving me some precious minutes today on a Friday. Nonetheless, thanks, Linda.
Linda Ho: Thank you. It was a pleasure. Really appreciate it.