Practical Leadership Cast

Guest Cast: Raymond Martinez on Leadership for Support Organizations and ERGs

• Forest Handford • Season 1 • Episode 3

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Forest interviews Ray about his leadership experience as a senior manager for a support team. As support teams are often metrics driven the discussion gets into how to responsibly use metrics as a leader. They also discuss how to give bad news. Ray also talks to her about leadership of employee resource groups, including how to make them safer spaces.


Ray Recommends:


Ray suggests we interview speaker and workshop facilitator Sean Ilenrey ( https://www.corpdad.com/ ).

Music credits:

Thanks for listening. Please rate, subscribe, and share. Join the conversation in the Practical Leadership Cast Discord server: https://discord.gg/ewhPY6akRF


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Okay. So Ray, welcome to the podcast. Can you take a couple of minutes to introduce yourself

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Yeah. So I'm Ray Ray Martinez.

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I am currently the senior manager for software support at Duchy.

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At that. She we're an all-in-one cannabis software.

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We do everything from point of sale. Ecom payments you name it.

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We do it? Yeah, I've been in the support industry for probably over 15 years now.

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15. I'm dating myself about 11 years.

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And yeah, I've had any, every any, every support job, really, that you can imagine from, you know, the front line coach trainer like Pse.

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Esk role products, ford, engineer, scroll and social media support. Been there, too.

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You really ran the Cambit

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Cool. And what do you feel is the biggest lesson that you've learned about leadership

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Woof! That's a great question. So there's quite a few things I would say overall.

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The biggest thing is that you know, you're really only as good as your word as a leader, and that goes always.

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That goes from, you know, whoever you're dealing with someone who's had, you know, senior level to you, or someone who's junior to your reporter or indirect report, you're really only as good as your word you know, if you promise something to your directs or indirect reports and you

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don't follow through, you know they remember those things they may not say it, but they definitely remember, and that style of remembering only changes, you know, as you kind of go up the food chain.

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So if you're like your manager, for example, you don't follow through.

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There. They're definitely gonna remember. But they're gonna tell you about.

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So I really believe that you know, as a as a leader the the biggest thing that you have is your perception, and that goes hand in hand with your word

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And how do you try to as as a senior manager I I presume that you've had managers report to you, but I I don't know that for a fact.

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But, even if not like, how do you try to make sure that, how do you teach that about?

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Yeah.

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Yeah, yeah, you really, everyone starts in a different place.

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So with some folks. You know you have. You know, a style of leadership they may have came from somewhere where they, you know.

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They've gone away with a lot of things, or they might have had a leader in the past 2.

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There was a lot more lax, and I think, really, from the get, it's it's about setting expectations with every you know new report, whether it be a manager or a like.

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I see you really want to level set with. You know. What do you expect as a leader from them?

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I tell all my managers from the get go, you know we're only really as good as as our word.

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And and I need you to be honest with me, because you, being honest with me, will help me help you not only in the in the you know, day to day aspect, in the in the actual, you know, doing our our role functions, but also in representing you elsewhere, you know, we're not honest with each other, we're

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Not communicating. Clearly, we really can't help each other.

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We're gonna be stepping on each other's toes, and you know, getting in each other's way, and and that's how do you end up with surprises?

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And I mean my team. We have a hashtag. No surprises

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Cool. I just remember from your intro you were explaining about duchy, and and I should mention because this is A, podcast.

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That you're wearing your duchy hat right now.

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So it's it's cool that you're you're wrapping.

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Duchy, the the company that you're working for, and what about

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When you set expectations, or you set timelines for whether it's for senior leadership or for stakeholders or customers like what happens when you know something goes wrong.

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And you know, priorities shift, and those like. Wh. How do you?

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How do you like? If if if duchy was committed to something at 1 point or the company you're at is committed to something at 1 point, and then, for some reason has to shift, how do you break that?

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And you know, is that still part of being true to your word

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Yeah, that's that's really really good point. I think I I definitely work in the the realm of the more the more context I can provide my directs or indirects, the better off they'll be.

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Yeah.

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So I usually will try to get ahead of it, if possible, as much as I'm able, so I'll I'll link up with them, and I'll I'll kind of level set.

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And and really having that, that honesty and and being able to zoom out and say like, here are the the aspects of either the industry, the business, or the department that have changed and so based off of that, here's why we need to change, or here's what we need to change.

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And you know, given given. You know what's going on in the tech world what's going on in the cannabis world.

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Recently those conversations have happened happen probably more frequently than I think any of us would would have liked to admit.

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But it it. It's important, because that that maintains your trust that maintains their buying.

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Yeah.

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You know like, how? How can you operate as a leader, you know, in a world where things are constantly changing, and you know, having coming worked in the cannabis industry, this is my I'm going my first year first full year in the cannabis industry.

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And I can see there's nothing else like it.

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Those conversations have all the time, because things are constantly changing you know whether it's a new market going online, whether it's, you know, shift in the payments industry or something else crazy.

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That's happening. You know, some new law came in deployment or legislators didn't read the law before they cost.

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And now we have any more like tho those kinds of things, our our constantly happening, and the way I leave my team is definitely like honesty is the best policy.

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But I definitely go into those conversations armed with all the points before bringing it up to them.

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Thank you for further care for me, because I I know that to them my take is is that

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Kind of more specified to how this impact them.

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Awesome.

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Earlier before the podcast we talked about how you're really passionate about people, focus performance management.

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And how do you meet the needs of a business and still treat an employee as a person which I feel totally relates to a little bit about what you were just talking about?

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But you know, maybe dig into that a little bit like, how do you have people focus performance management?

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How do you meet the needs of a business, you know, and still treat people well

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Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a really good good question.

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This is something that I've I've been passionate about, really, since I started my career and customer service.

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I I used to work at Netflix in the past, and the one thing that I really did like about them is that there was this like notion of in our support world of you know, we focused on the behavior and not the number the number is how we you know articulate to the

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business how we're performing. But the behavior is really how we impact that number.

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Yeah.

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So the numbers more of a symptom is the way to think of it right, as a leader or coach or manager, team manager.

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Whatever your your level is, you really have to assess like, okay, what is the root cause of I of this number?

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What is the behavior that's causing it, you know, if you're looking from a support aspect, and in my case, you know, why is this agency set so low?

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Is it because the customers are just upset at them?

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Or is there something we can do? And when you know you look through those tickets you might find, oh, this person is not empathizing with the customer one bit or they're not even acknowledging issue, maybe they're not responding directly to questions there are things we can do.

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Even in a negative situation, to win someone over and those are the kinds of things that you want to focus on and and at a leadership level, too, you know.

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Oh, this team is performing very low on their efficiency.

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Well, turns out, they just spent a month going through. How did they empathize and acknowledge with customers so sometimes, you know, to give and take?

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What is the cause? There? Okay. Now that we have those behaviors knocked down, let's see where we can trim the fat a little bit.

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I believe that every leadership work should have a coaching model, that they stay true to.

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To keep that in focus. Yes, we have those numbers. But really, what cost that?

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And a lot of leaders don't think about that, you know.

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I've I've worked for Vegas in the past where they see a number they freak out, and they're like you need to fix that immediately without even starting to think about where my flaws would be.

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And that's that's painful as a leader that's the worst thing you can do, because what the the path of really focusing on the behavior gives you is that eventually, when you get to your point where you're nitpicking behaviors about you know an

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IC's core work, or a managers core work.

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You can really start to use that same model to build on things like development opportunities, you know.

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Okay. You're great at your current role. Where do I get to to next?

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And that's long-winded answer. But you know that's that's really what drives my passion is is developing.

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People, because I believe no one wants to be in the same role forever.

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So I've struggled at times with numbers and metrics where it's like, yes, I'm I'm looking at them, and like, you know, when to tell employees that I'm looking at a metric when and not tell employees that I'm looking at a metric and then because

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There's that psychological thing of when metric is being monitored, it will get improved.

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So? How? How do you approach that with your team like? Do you talk to them about the numbers and the meeting behind the numbers?

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So, for example, in in encoding lines of code for a while, was a metric, but it can be a really bad metric, because you can add a 100 lines of code that do nothing, or you could tweak one line of code to improve something.

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So how? How do you think about numbers in terms of like talking to the employee and trying to make sure that it doesn't become too gamified

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Yeah, yeah, and that's you know, that's something.

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I think every work goes through and and struggles with when when building and a in a support org in particular.

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What we're, you know, like something we're doing a Dutch to use.

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We're surface. These metrics to the agents in the form of a scorecard that they get weekly, and that's that's really what I believe builds trust into the system is being able to regularly see where you're standing.

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Hmm.

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Now you're never gonna get it right to your point.

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About the first time to your point about, you know, maybe the line of code being the wrong metric.

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There are several, you know, iterations that you might go through initially until you find the perfect one that really represents.

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You know what your team is passionate about, but also with the business, is passionate about.

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And you have to kind of go through those iterations and learn as you go, and as far as the the agency is in the front line, taking the mystery out of it.

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Yeah.

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That's huge. That is the biggest thing that here it is.

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You gotta be upfront. You've got to you've gotta preach.

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You know what they are held accountable to make sure they understand it, but also, you know, give examples, show what it's not what is, you know.

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For example, handle time. What is candle time? What is it not?

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Does it measure and clarify terms that you know?

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Maybe I sees haven't heard before. As you know, there are metrics that I see.

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These are responsible for metrics, that leaders are responsible for.

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They might. Hear. For example, me talk about Sla with that something that like, you know.

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Maybe me or my partner and workforce is responsible for.

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But as a team, you know, they are responsible for their individual performance.

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That's what they need to care about. And so, really being clear, having documentation, regular checkpoints, and really describing what those metrics will play into, whether it's, you know, touch points whether it yeah, paying increases or what have you you know, ability to participate in like a erte or something

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Like that, like you have to really be able to say like, Hey, this is what demonstrates your corporate work.

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And then some companies like you look at like bigger companies.

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You know the the Verizon, you know all those companies, where they they live by those metrics.

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So I'm gonna do it right some of them do it wrong.

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When you're building. That's when you're gonna sort of encounter.

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The most challenge, not only from your Ics, but you know internally to am I doing the right thing?

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Is this really the way to measure my people? This is the best way to communicate our performance to the rest of the company.

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You know these are all things to think about

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Yeah, and I just want to define for the listener.

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I, I see, is for individual contributor, and I think we should probably define sla to service level availability

00:16:06.720 --> 00:16:14.160
Okay. Agreement.

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Agreement, so a promise and a in a support world to see it says, like, what are the the, what is the amount of time that we're gonna be able to get to you?

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And essentially, for example, you know, 60 s. We get to a phone call.

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80% of the time we'll get to our phone calls within 60 s.

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As an example, there

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And I love that you brought up er G's. So er employee resource groups. Can you tell me what your experiences with er Gs

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Yeah, yeah, so my real experience with the has been more recently.

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But I'd say within the last at Duchy, and we have a great pool of br.

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2 use, you know. Pride. We have heritage.

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There's so many my my experience has been with the priority currently co-chairing that with Sauna and and Kt.

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Shout out to them, They do great fork. I I say that the the G.

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Work is really what blends my personal passions with my professional ones.

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It's it's a pretty awesome to be able to, you know.

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Yeah.

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Advocate for education, whether it's, you know, the recent monkey pox you know, epidemic or you know whether it's you know, you know, HIV awareness month those kinds of things, you know, you really want to be able to marry essentially what you're

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Doing in in your industry and and your personal personal motivations.

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In the cannabis space. It's pretty interesting, because, as you know, the Ltbt.

00:18:00.070 --> 00:18:06.840
Q community has a relatively large impact on on the progression of the the cannibals industry.

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Whether it's medical in California or or leaders currently, in the space.

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Yeah.

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You know, it's it's huge, and and my clients there is is.

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It's what drives me. It's I think some everyone needs to have that one thing about their job that eyes into their perfect, their personal life, that can help motivate them professionally.

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And you know, when times get hard, I do also look at that energy work.

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And I say, you know, this is why I'm here.

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This is my north star. This reminds me, I'm here because one and passionate in my case about you know cannabis access to cannabis and criminal justice reform and my personal, my my personal beliefs with being a member of the Lgbtq.

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Community and and really want to add a vaccine for education across all communities

00:19:06.220 --> 00:19:09.370
Yeah, and my experience from when I was at Duchy is that Kat Suzanne and yourself did an excellent job.

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I had a lot of fun at at the events, but you know it.

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It was more than fun. It was also about community and education, and it was.

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It was really wonderful I've been in other priorities.

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And yeah, it's, it's a really well run.

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Erg, the the duchy pride, Erg, so you should be proud to 3 of you should absolutely be proud

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No makes me so happy

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What have you learned as a leader about er Gs

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I I think, as a as a leader going into an energy kind of have your leader classes on, as you know, everyone around you should have the exact same understanding of you know hierarchical structures and how to organize something or how to run a project when that's not always the case you know sometimes you

00:20:19.110 --> 00:20:22.620
Actually, you know, can help walk someone through doing that. And sometimes that's necessary, like, when you think about why you do any energy, you do it either for professional development, you do it for you know, connecting your world to do it.

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For, you know, getting more exposure to the rest of you know.

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How other people work, and I think, as a as a leader coming in, I I didn't realize, like, Wow, people.

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Oh! Like listen to me, which is nice, but also like just having that title manager and our senior manager, whatever it is.

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People look to you occasionally in that, for you know, answers our responses when you wouldn't necessarily think that someone in another, or would look at you for that particular reason.

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And I think that's that's definitely something that that I learned is like, Oh, this is cool, like, you know, I can actually help mentor people in another org, or I can have a mentor.

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Someone and teach them. You know this is how you start to organize and and design a project

00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:30.720
Okay. I'm gonna cut this out. But Zoom is complaining because I've got a free version.

00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:33.170
Let's see. So we have another 10 min, though.

00:21:33.170 --> 00:21:36.620
Okay, so.

00:21:36.620 --> 00:21:41.240
If I make you what if you make me the host

00:21:41.240 --> 00:21:45.480
Yeah, can I do that? Participants?

00:21:45.480 --> 00:21:50.070
Make host, yes.

00:21:50.070 --> 00:21:54.770
I don't know. It still says remaining time

00:21:54.770 --> 00:21:55.800
Good.

00:21:55.800 --> 00:22:02.570
It's it's fine. If we have to, we can.

00:22:02.570 --> 00:22:05.620
We can relaunch. Maybe you could even send me like one that's like not gonna time out.

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Maybe I should just pay for my whatever. Okay.

00:22:32.430 --> 00:22:38.320
So I recently had. I. I recently wrote an essay about making safer spaces in in er Gs, and have the importance of space, safer spaces, and so like, I'm just wondering like just what are your quick thoughts kind of on on safer spaces in terms of like when should allies be

00:22:38.320 --> 00:22:48.910
Included. When should they be excluded, and also when when you have a safe space?

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If you, as a manager are, are part of the group for the er G and members of your team are part of that.

00:22:52.020 --> 00:23:01.970
Yogi, do you feel like there's ever conflict with you like?

00:23:01.970 --> 00:23:13.300
Going to to an an event that one of your employees is that when when neither of you are allies, both of you are part of the community.

00:23:13.300 --> 00:23:30.120
That's a really good, really good question. I think the safe spaces is is something that I think is really important for particularly our community.

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And and even even, you know, subsections of the community right now. And I think they are spaces that need to be protected. I think having allies included is definitely something that

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Can be done. But I I I don't think it's always appropriate.

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Right.

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I think it really needs to be assessed on a case by case scenario like there are times where, you know.

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You really just kind of want to be able to express yourself in a way that maybe only your community might understand.

00:24:00.720 --> 00:24:16.520
And I, I think in the those cases like creating those spaces is is really important, especially in a professional setting.

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You know, I can really just whether it's near to you or or you know, for for my case, you know I I I was a college college dropout, and so I always have this tip on my shoulder, and everyone else has a decrease.

00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:30.420
I have to compete 10 times as hard, you know, and then and you can take that example, really apply it to a lot of different scenarios of you know, there are.

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Yeah.

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There are people who will really understand that a similar similar thing, and I think that's probably why not?

00:24:42.070 --> 00:24:49.020
Probably that is why it's important to have those spaces.

00:24:49.020 --> 00:24:53.400
So on that question. Absolutely. I think that needs to be assessed on a, on a case by case.

00:24:53.400 --> 00:25:09.620
Your other question about, you know. Is there ever conflict with, you?

00:25:09.620 --> 00:25:09.890
Know, having one of your direct reports, and and and and I safe space bye, I, personally don't feel that way, but I think that also is very dependent on your leadership style.

00:25:09.890 --> 00:25:18.040
Yeah.

00:25:18.040 --> 00:25:23.250
I I think when you go into safe space, usually there's like in kind of a level set of like, hey, this is a safe space, you know, with a set.

00:25:23.250 --> 00:25:38.420
Here, stays here. This isn't something that's going to be, you know, broadcasted under the whole company.

00:25:38.420 --> 00:25:44.760
These aren't stories you want to share. We won't be recording, you know, all those kind of ground rules, and I have been in spaces where I've shared things like that with with employees, particularly direct reports.

00:25:44.760 --> 00:25:44.840
And and really walking into those spaces, you've got to check your your ego at the door, and in some cases sure.

00:25:44.840 --> 00:25:52.980
Yeah.

00:25:52.980 --> 00:26:09.610
Your leadership had to, because you're going. What you're going in there for is usually much bigger than yourself.

00:26:09.610 --> 00:26:24.350
And I think if you can't do that while you're going into the spaces, maybe reassess whether that's somewhere that you know you want to be, or if it will be helpful for you or or others.

00:26:24.350 --> 00:26:38.480
Awesome. So I want to transition back to the support function like, what's leading a support team like, are there obvious differences from other leadership roles

00:26:38.480 --> 00:26:38.960
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'll see. The biggest one is with with the support team a lot of the times you're dealing with folks who don't have a whole lot of professional experience.

00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:43.840
Hmm.

00:26:43.840 --> 00:26:49.220
90% of I would say, support folks in general. They're either.

00:26:49.220 --> 00:26:53.110
It's either their first job out of retail, or you know their first shop ever.

00:26:53.110 --> 00:27:03.580
And there's a lot of professional development that goes on.

00:27:03.580 --> 00:27:08.590
That might be something inherently known to people who are entering another roles, and I think that's that's probably the biggest thing, and so the lead a support team.

00:27:08.590 --> 00:27:13.310
You really have to have the other understanding that sometimes you have to explain things differently.

00:27:13.310 --> 00:27:24.400
Then maybe you would 2, and I see in another org, and that's th.

00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:41.120
That is probably the biggest one is, you spend a lot of time developing their core skills in the role, but also really developing the person.

00:27:41.120 --> 00:28:00.060
And I believe that's what drives my passion and the support are just knowing that I'm gonna keep getting, you know, new folks coming in new opportunities to help somebody really start their career and jump start it and help them go whichever way they might be, whether that's continuing the support world

00:28:00.060 --> 00:28:07.430
Or connecting into another org another one, I will say, is this, one is very challenging, especially in a remote place, is something like, you know, most support roles are non-exempt, which comes with its own challenges of navigating things like labor.

00:28:07.430 --> 00:28:09.490
Hmm.

00:28:09.490 --> 00:28:20.620
Laws, things like, you know. How do you? How can you schedule this person they're they're just logistical issues that come with it.

00:28:20.620 --> 00:28:24.320
That that do make it very challenging. But definitely the biggest one is the professional experience of the individual.

00:28:24.320 --> 00:28:29.200
You get a lot of good, you do get a lot of good.

00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:34.770
But in terms of you know, people who you can really help grow and help flourish.

00:28:34.770 --> 00:28:39.590
You do also get a lot of opportunities where you know.

00:28:39.590 --> 00:28:41.160
Someone might not know how to conduct themselves. Professionally when they're upset.

00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:48.080
Yeah.

00:28:48.080 --> 00:28:58.750
So you do get, you know, a lot of raw notion sometimes, and it's it's definitely not for the fate of heart.

00:28:58.750 --> 00:29:05.080
But you kind of grow with your team, and these are these are things that keep me going day in and day out.

00:29:05.080 --> 00:29:09.620
Awesome, who has been your favorite leader to work for, and why

00:29:09.620 --> 00:29:17.160
Hmm, hmm! This is a good question. I thought about this.

00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:20.560
It didn't. Obviously my first answer was I'm not trying to blow smoke or anything.

00:29:20.560 --> 00:29:26.010
But definitely Shawn are vp.

00:29:26.010 --> 00:29:34.840
Of supported that she has for sure, been my favorite person to work for.

00:29:34.840 --> 00:29:40.060
Just how he controls the room with the way he speaks is so captivating to me.

00:29:40.060 --> 00:29:59.780
He really comes from a place of of caring, and he he! He!

00:29:59.780 --> 00:30:07.420
Speaks that way as well, but he also has a vision, and no matter what obstacle comes through he's able to help you really focus back to that vision and he's willing to to really get his hands dirty and take the time to help you get there and that's something

00:30:07.420 --> 00:30:21.450
That I we really admire about him is that you know you can be going through it.

00:30:21.450 --> 00:30:25.050
You could be in the trenches. You can sometimes get those blinders up, and you only see what's right in front of you, and he has a way of pulling you out of it, and that is something I incredibly appreciate not to mention this story because story. Is incredible.

00:30:25.050 --> 00:30:30.960
I encourage everyone to go check them out