Episode 18 of my #podcast with Michaela Janikovicova is now out!
I loved talking to her, especially because we touched on so many things that I believe are important skills to learn and to embody.
Critical thinking, emotional intelligence – especially around self awareness is the first bedrock of self improvement.
If you’re not self aware, and that you don’t realise what improvements you can make about yourself, about how you see the world, how you interact with others and with your inner self – how do you know which way is forward?
It’s like if I walked around with spinach in my teeth, and I carry on laughing and flashing what I think is my blinding winning smile… and no one told me, that would just be so embarrassing 😳
You don’t know what you don’t know, and you will carry on not knowing unless you make an effort to introspect and ask some questions.
It was a really fun conversation and the hour flew by.
I hope you will find it interesting to listen to, and that you come away with a perspective change, or some insight that helps you in your life.
Enjoy!
#OnThePeiroll
Transcript
Michaela
If I start laughing uncontrollably, please just give me a second. Because I want to know when I’m nervous I laugh. Okay.
Pei Mun Lim
Also, the other thing is if you want to start again, just give it a few for like four or five seconds, because I know how to do the editing. Quite ended. I’ll just like, Oh, we had this conversation when we did the testimony. So Oh, yes. Right. Okay, so don’t worry about that. Well, let’s get right. Um, okay. Hi, Michaela, welcome to my podcast OnThePeiroll. How are you today? I’m very well, thank you. I’ve been looking forward to this. So I’m hoping it’s gonna be a lot of fun. It will be a lot of fun. Right? I there are some questions that I like to ask you, especially around your experience with regards to Microsoft Dynamics, and Salesforce, okay. But what would be really great is if you can walk us through your journey from beginning, wherever you’d like to start to where you end up today.
Michaela
Yeah, Aye. Aye. Think as I said to you before, I really like talking about my journey, because I think it’s a, it’s a very good example of how to try and find yourself. I have done a lot of different things at a lot of stages of my life in some parts in quite rapid succession. So but it has all led me to where I am right now. And what I’m doing right now will, again, lead me to where I will be in, you know, 510 years and everything. So everything that I have done, however, good or bad, the experience has been is something that I really appreciate that I had the chance to do. And so if I were to start, I think I’m going to start with what I want what I thought I wanted to do when I moved to this country. So I’m originally from Slovakia. And most of my studies throughout my life before I moved here, were in English. So coming to this country, I’ve already had fairly good education that I’ve been lucky to get get. And when I was moving here, my goal was to study politics. I was also very interested in languages. So I wanted some kind of a combination of that. And then once I finished studying politics, maybe go into international relations, go back to my country, and be in politics and make great changes and make things better, which was a very high ambition. I first started my studies in Glasgow didn’t like it there, too rainy, got the worst flu of my life, right? Like in the second week, I think that I’ve been there. So that was terrible. decided to move to London, and I studied and finished my degree at UCL. And even that I just to kind of explain, I think there’s a phrase that I like to use to kind of describe me, which is I like to do all the things. Which means that I just, I’m interested in everything. And I want to learn about everything in anything. So when I started my studies at UCL, I also wanted to do languages. So I took up Arabic, for example. And yeah, it was it is a fantastic language really love it. And so going through my my studies, I was lucky enough to get an internship back in my country with an MP for summer. So two months of working as an MP assistant. And I very quickly realized that I did not want to go into politics at all. So that kind of ruined my plans for the long term, which is fine, though. I was still really interested. And I am still really interested in politics. So I really enjoyed my degree as a whole. But as I was going through my life, I also really like fear. So I not in that kind of like yes, obviously I’d like to drink beer, but I was really interested in beer itself. And as the culture of craft beer started rising and becoming more popular, I was really interested in the origins and what you can do and the different tastes and different or like everything about beer was fascinating to me. So I started working at budak as a waitress during my studies, which was a great experience, obviously quite exhausting working in a bar. I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that while you’re studying. But brewdog was a company that really gave me a lot because they at the time at least, really cared about educating their staff. So I had the opportunity To gain a certification about beer. So I am a certified beer server from Cicerone, which means that I can tell you how a lot of the basic types of kinds of beer originated. So that’s something that I still have. And I’m still really interested in. By going through this. And slowly finishing my degree, I knew that I didn’t want to be in the hospitality industry forever. So I started working in an office as a retail operations manager, and a, an office manager as well. So that was my kind of first job out of uni. didn’t really like it, not the job itself, the job itself was fantastic. I also did about five different things, you know how sometimes it happens that you have a job, but that job is actually for 10 people. So I was doing customer support, I was doing chats, I was doing doctor stationery, shopping for the for the office, everything. So again, doing all the things. And, but I wasn’t entirely happy, and the company. And so I decided to work in an actual brewery carrying around beer kegs, like 52, beer kegs and bottles of beer and everything you can imagine. So I’ve actually be involved in the production and the packaging of beer, I worked as a packaging assistant. So that was, it was really nice. It was an interesting experience, I don’t think that I ever thought that I was going to stay there forever. And that was going to be my career. But again, I learned so much. And that’s kind of seen, you can start seeing that that’s kind of my theme of what I do with my job. It’s always about learning. So from there, I then went to work in a completely different industry, the education industry. And this is kind of where I first encountered Salesforce, which is where my career is at the moment. So I worked in an English Language School, where I worked as a sales administration manager. So managing well not management, being the mom of about 10 people in the sales team, just making sure that they’ve got everything they need for their sales trips. And making sure that the data we were storing in Salesforce, which was the CRM that we were using at the time, was nice and squeaky, clean and usable. And that’s where I found out about Salesforce. And I was like, What is this, this is so cool, you can do so many things. And the org that we had that that company was quite small, there wasn’t a lot of complicated background, Process Automation or anything, there wasn’t a lot of customization. And the entire org kind of ran of one custom app that everyone was using that was specifically created for managing schools. So we didn’t have the Salesforce administrator in the company, everything that we ever wanted to do or customize or change was in the hands of the support team of the app that we were relying on. And with my curious nature of basically I started going home, but could we do this? And could we maybe do it this way? And why isn’t this working over here? And could I do it myself? Can you give me the permissions and I was being that really annoying person going? Can I Can you show me how to do this so that I can do it myself and help other people. And as it went on, I just suddenly became the go to person for the entire company to ask about Salesforce things. But I wasn’t an admin at that time. And I felt that I wanted to go into sales. So I started doing a little bit of sales and then that didn’t really work out and then suddenly, a position opened in our tiny IT department for a system administrator, which was a combination of Salesforce admin job, a team’s and SharePoint admin. And first line IT support which I jumped at immediately. Despite the fact that I didn’t have I didn’t have a certification. I probably wasn’t the most qualified person when it comes to sales with administration at that time. But I had the knowledge This was after about a year and a half in the companies I had the knowledge of how our companies using Salesforce and what the processes are and who does what and who interacts with with with which data, at what point etc. So I knew all of that. And I had a very keen interest in the role and in learning and a part of part of the power of getting The job was also a condition that I had to get my Salesforce admin basic certification. And also one four for Microsoft, which I didn’t end up getting in the end because I started focusing more on Salesforce. But this is, this is where I became a Salesforce admin, officially. And I’m working on a couple projects and everything and then pandemic hit. So I was furloughed. During my furlough, I was like, right, I’ve got a lot of free time, I’m gonna study I did two trailhead, modules a day, to get my badges and everything and to learn all of it, and then got my admin certification for Salesforce during my lockdown, start looking for sales for that job. And that’s how I landed my current job. So that is my journey. It’s a, I think a lot of people might say that it’s a confused one. I mean, certainly my parents raise an eyebrow or five. On the occasion of, you know, Oh, you’ve got a new job again, you’re not gonna stay with this company for a bit longer? No, no, I’ve, I have reached my, my end goal here of what I needed to learn or what I wanted to learn or patients, with some people, so I moved on. And right now, I am very lucky to be where I am. And that’s not to say that there are problems in the company where I am, or in the ways that things are working. But I think that where I’m currently is a fantastic opportunity for me to grow. I mean, I, I got the job as a junior sales administrator in September, last year. And I have learned so much and I didn’t even know what a flow was properly at that, but like I knew what it was. But I wasn’t really that skilled in that background, automation and everything. And I am now I’ve been since given a promotion, because I have learned so much. And I have done so many things. And again, doing all the things. I used to think about JIRA, when I came in, I created our service desk, because we had to have one. So I think I love learning so much. And when I have the opportunity to learn something new, then that’s what I do. And I jump at it, and I get it, you know. So that’s kind of my journey.
Pei Mun Lim
Fantastic. It was really quite fun to hear all the different things that you’ve been doing, what’s really struck me, is that a couple of things, I think that sets you apart from a lot of the younger people who leave the nest, parents nest got, what do I want to do. And two things that struck me about you is, number one, I think your natural thirst for learning for knowledge sets you apart from lots of other people. And basically, you’re curious, you’re really curious person about all the things that interest you. And the second thing, I think, is that you’ve allowed that curiosity to lead you to make the decisions that you’ve made. And I think that that’s a trick that a lot of people miss. And a lot of people would think, Okay, what kind of jobs do I need to get in order to earn X amount, or to achieve this sort of status, so that my parents have bragging rights, for example, it could be led in different ways. It could be your parent, saying, hey, you’ve got to do this. Because think about the houses you can buy, the cars you can buy, and how much I can talk about you to my friends. So it’s a different way where those decisions are made. And therefore, I feel that those are decisions can can lead to sub optimal happiness in that person’s future. And I like how you have been curiosity LED. And you have used a benchmark in terms of I finished learning in this particular role on insert of something new, which which you nicely put in that little anecdote with your parents and how curious they are in to the white, why don’t you say so that I like the journey that you’ve taken. I’m just going to take you back. So I’m being led by my curiosity now. Okay, take you back to your the position you had as an intern with the MP, was it specifically about your experience that made you think I don’t want to do politics because it sounds like from degree that you’ve taken languages that you’ve seek to acquire sought to acquire that that would have been the best kind of role for you that it sounds like that was what you kind of thought you wanted initially. And you’ve you’ve taken a step to not fulfill what you wanted. Then when you started your internship, something made you decide, hmm, I’m going to, I’m going to have a look at what else is there? What was it? About the experience?
Michaela
I’ve got two things to answer in that question, actually. But the main thing that you’re asking about is, I think, with politics, in a very broad sense, obviously talking about politics. But I, I think my interest, I didn’t realize at the time, what my interest in politics actually was. I think that I tought navely, as a lot of young people do. And I was quite young at that time that, you know, I was going to go and study and learn about all old things that I need to know. And all the theory, right, and then I’m going to come back and start dishing outs, white papers, you know, and that’s obviously not what happened. Politics, there’s a lot of procedures and everything, but I think it has to do, the reason why I didn’t want to continue on in that way is it has to do with the particular political environment in Slovakia. We are fairly young democracy as a post Soviet state. And I think even now after, I think it’s over 30 years now, we’re, we’re getting away from a lot of corruption. And there’s still there’s, if you if you search Slovakia, politics and Google right now, you know, a lot of things will come up, which is about currently prosecuting people from the mafia in Slovakia who were in high politics. And it’s just that the way that it works there, and the little things that I saw, well, you know, what you had to do to get where you wanted to be in who you had to work with, I think it just doesn’t sit with my values and what I am comfortable doing as a person. And I had the luck to work for someone who is absolutely fantastic. And I think he, he’s one of the few MPs who actually believes in what he does, and actually wants to do good things. So that and he is a very rare person in this in this regard. And in terms of Slovakia and Poland in probably just politics in general. But he genuinely believes in the good in people and wants to do things wants to make things better. But I just I couldn’t I didn’t feel comfortable in that environment. And then I think that the second thing that I wanted to answer from your question was it really, I think that part of what led me through my journey was being honest with myself about what I am comfortable with, and what I am okay with doing and what I would allow other people around me to do to me, and how they speak to me and everything. I am a fairly honest person, I don’t like you know, playing games. And I, if if there was a place without office politics, you know, I would, I’m right there. I don’t like lasers, I don’t like playing game games. And obviously politics is the place where you play games. But that’s something that I that was part of what was guiding me if I felt very uncomfortable at a company, I would I would leave. And I would be because my, my mental health and the way that I am allowed to work and what my life is basically because if you think about it, we spend most of our time working, which is what it is. And you know, I hope to be one day, lucky enough to perhaps not work most of the time of my waking life. But that is current that is the reality. And I need to be somewhere where I’m feeling comfortable, where I’m feeling that the people I’m working with are solid people and honest people and honest in communicating with others. And that is that’s, I think why perhaps my parents didn’t really understand what I was doing. Because my parents put up with things and I think that maybe some of that generation just you know, you get a job and you stay there and it’s your career. And you kind of climb the ladder or you know They, you just stay there, because there’s some kind of a weird loyalty to a specific place, whether you’re happy there or not. Whereas I think that what we should be doing and what actually might change things, is look for places where you are comfortable. And if you’re uncomfortable doesn’t mean, you know, I’ll just, I’ll just leave, leave, like, I like to leave feedback, if it’s received, you know, so if I’m leaving somewhere, I, and it’s for reasons other than I just don’t want to be here. But it’s something is going wrong here. And if you continue treating people as such, then you’re never going to retain staff, you know, your staff is not going to be happy. And I always make sure to leave that feedback or try and, you know, pick those battles, if if they need to be picked, because it’s the right thing to do. So, I think there’s just, it’s, it’s a better way to go through a career, like be where your be where you want to be.
Pei Mun Lim
Let me let me just applies norms that I believe, is pertinent to draw out in what you’ve just said, I think people stay where they are, not because of not being comfortable. I think it’s because it’s what they know. And for them, it’s home.
Michaela
Yeah, where I agree,
Pei Mun Lim
yeah, whether or not it’s a pleasant place to be, it is what they know. And the idea I can imagine, because obviously, my parents are also of a generation where stability, whether or not it’s a great place for you to work and to spend the rest of your working life, maybe kind of secondary to the fact that it’s stable, it’s kind of what you know, and I can, again, all, also imagine their their concern at you moving jobs in pursuit of something better, something more aligned with your values. So the what I wanted to point out was, I believe that a lot of people don’t change is because they are comfortable with the familiar. Absolutely.
Michaela
And I 100% agree. And obviously, my journey is also, you know, a big part of it is the amount of privilege I get as a white woman, like, I probably have opportunities, and I have the opportunity to move between jobs, because I’m not struggling for for survival, I know that I have, you know, if something really, really bad happens, I know that I can go back to my parents in Slovakia. And that is something that I can influence. And I know that a lot of people don’t have that for them. You know, if you lose your job, you lost your job. I’m not saying that I could go here without having a job. I’m not. I’m not there yet. But I do absolutely appreciate exactly what you’re saying that some people are staying somewhere because it’s what they know. And it’s stable, and it’s safe. It’s actually something that’s very close to home right now, because my partner recently got a new job after staying at the same place for six years, which I’m not saying is a bad thing, obviously. But he has not been entirely happy there. And often, you know, I’ve heard him saying that he is unhappy, or it’s not great. But whenever the topic came up of, you know, would you Why don’t you look for something new or something different? And you know, by that he’s been in one job for six years, I have been in what seven? So for me, it was always like, try something new go somewhere else. But it was always the note. But I know this, you know, and he might not say that outright, but he is aware of and we’ve discussed it that it’s it’s as you were saying exactly familiar, you know, I know what to expect here. I know what the what the rules are, and everything and doing something new can be very scary. And I’m not at all saying that I have never been scared of getting that new job. You know, leaving somewhere after a year, two years. It’s very scary because you don’t want to make perhaps you don’t want to feel like a failure. If you’re not doing well in the new job or it’s it’s a bunch of new people. It’s a new environment, new processes. And it can absolutely be terrifying. I think I’ve always just managed to see it, look at it as a new opportunity. So look at the things that I look forward to the things that I can learn there and the new people that I get to meet there. So try and Trying to put that positive spin on my experience, where instead of the fear of it’s new and unfamiliar, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, I would just go into it with Oh, this is an opportunity to make a new friend,
Pei Mun Lim
you’ve opened up a really kind of juicy topic. And that is, because you brought up the fact of you being white, and you’ve got privilege. And you being super aware of that, as am I always I was, you know, white, but my parents have had, they are my financial base, just like you. Many, many years ago, when I was starting out, I knew if what I did, didn’t pan out the worst that could happen, you know, go back to my parents, I would still have a roof over my head. So what you were talking about was, what we are talking about is the fear that drives people to stay where they are, or to actually take the leap. And there’s a something to be said for people like you and I, who have a safety net of some shape or form either. Either one, we’ve got the education experience and the confidence to say, I can jump ship, and I know I’m going to land on my two feet because I can get another job. Or I’ve got bass, I can go back to my parents will be fine, I will not stop and I will have a roof over my head. And the those who, as you say, who may not have that, I was listening to a podcast, by Seth Godin. And he’s one of my heroes. And he was talking again about this particular subject around change around fear of making a difference and doing work that you love. And he had this one question. And she was a single mom. And if you are the sole breadwinner, and you know, that if you change to do something else, and it does not pan out, the risks are a lot higher. And I think when people are talking about change, they aren’t able to understand the nuances between the different scenarios and why people might fear it. And I like the fact that you’ve brought that up, and the reason why you’ve been quite courageous in the way that you’ve changed jobs is sounds like number one, even though your parents have had concerns, but it sounds like they’ve supported you. They’ve not said Hey, now, we’ve spent so much for you to get your degree, please, can you stay there, at least for X number of years? Because in a way it’s kind of a sunk cost? Because you’ve spent time doing that and not you won’t be
Michaela
and they still ask to this day, you know, are you using anything that you learned that you need in your job currently, or you know, whatever I got a new job or is this something closer to your, to your degree and I’m always like that, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not using the skills I learned during getting like while I was getting my degree that there was a lot of critical thinking and philosophy and being able to form an opinion and all those very, very important things in my opinion but do just go back to the the inequality in whether you can or can’t make certain choices in life. I’ve it took me a while obviously to get to the point where and I’m still learning but where I finally realize how privileged I am because growing up my my lifestyle was fairly middle class like very comfortable and everything like my mum never gave me anything for free. Like you want a second pair of jeans, you go get a job. And I got I went and got a job and bought myself a second pair of jeans. But even going to this country it was a it was a big shock. Because the the difference in expenses between Slovakia which is an Eastern European country, which is tiny and everything is fairly cheap, versus the UK. When I moved to Glasgow, I lost about 15 kilos because I couldn’t eat because I didn’t have money. I lived in a flat that had broken radiators and my window was broken. my flatmate had to put like she had to cover up her window with tinfoil because that’s how cold it was. And I went from a very sad like a very middle middle class lifestyle to suddenly being like, right. I can either have lunch or I can have coffee. Which one is it going to be today? And I think that that taught me a lot. And partially thanks to my mother who was always pushing me towards being self sufficient, like, you know, you want to go to you want to go and do your flute classes. Great. Here’s the check, you have to write it out. Okay, now you’re a bit older, well, here’s the check, write it out, here’s the money, go pay for it, yourself. And I think a lot of who I am right now, at this point, is thanks to my mother always pushing me to just go and do it yourself. If you can’t yet, like you can’t, I’m not. Okay. Let me rephrase that, I was going to say you can’t rely on other people, which is, I think, true to a certain extent. But if you want something, if you want something done, and you want it for yourself, you have to make the steps that you can make, you can rely on things just dropping into your lap, and just be there. That’s again, that’s why going to uni was an eye opening experience, because UCL being the university that it is, I had a lot of classmates who were very rich, and who were constantly going out, going to clubs and buying all the clothes and everything, and I was there. Like, just going to work after, after uni, you know, I had my seminars and and had to go to the bar to work until midnight, to be able to supplement my, my rent, which again, I was very lucky that my parents were able to provide me with some money. But I was still bitter at that point, because I was like, well, all these rich kids around me and I want to go out to and you know, this doll experience should be something else. And I shouldn’t be working. But I worked. And again, later on, I realized how like, what am I complaining about here, I went to a fantastic university, I live in London, I have friends, I have a roof over my head, and I have food to eat. This is this is not bad at all. Like I learned to be very grateful for what I have at every given point. Because those things could go away in a second. And just while you have them, you just have to be aware of how lucky you are. That you are able to do X, Y and Zed and where it all comes from I
Pei Mun Lim
think gratitude plays a big part in helping someone see or have perspective, it also makes makes lives better. Because we can always have what we want and and just being grateful for what you’ve got, lets you savor it a lot more. So just getting back to just indulging my curiosity. Again, it’s going back to your university degree, one of the beliefs that I have so far unless you are unless you are a doctor, or an engineer or a lawyer where domain knowledge is so so important that you need the skills and the knowledge learn through university. I believe that most degrees are helpful in as you say. Creating point of view and critical thinking in a lot of those really useful human and soft skills. If you have a look at those who went to university with you, I don’t know if you’re still in touch with them. But those especially have gone through the politics course that you’ve gone through. How many of them do you think you could very broad brush put a ratio or a number are in politics at the moment?
Michaela
Not many not that many and those that I know that are in politics, they’re not fans. But I I agree like unless you’re studying something very technical, where you just need those skills and you need the professors you know even with with Salesforce mean you don’t need to go to university to be a Salesforce administrator. That’s a skill that I entirely learned through experience and trailhead. You know, there’s so many online courses out there that that teach you technical skills, but as you say, I think one of the big benefits of going to university is exactly that the critical thinking and being able to form an opinion being able to to take into account other people’s opinions and other points of view. I think a lot of the philosophy that I did kind of helped me understand that quite often in communication in communication between people, there’s no right point of view, there’s me, sometimes there is. But most of the most of the conversations that we have, and most of the misunderstandings we have is just that that person is perceiving it differently. And that’s something that I learned through a lot of the courses that I’ve taken, you know, particularly, for example, international relations. One of the things that weirdly, blew my mind at that time, and it’s one of those moments where you suddenly realize you had that lightbulb moment, I was like, Oh, of course, like da, was when I learned when I was learning about the different international relations theories. And it occurred to me like, all this fake, all these things are looking at the same thing, right here, but they’re seeing it differently. And it’s just about that different point of view and the different explanations that you’re offering for that action or activity or that object. And they think something like that, is, is really important in life, and in learning how to communicate better with people. And it all comes down to communication, I think in terms of everything in terms of working relationships, personal relationships, and just being able to become a better version of yourself. You know, it permeates everything, like getting feedback, you can either be a baby about it and get angry that someone tells you that you’ve done something wrong, you know, how dare you hurt my ego now? Or you can go Alright, interesting. What about what I said, made them perceive what I said that way? How did I hurt them? And how can I ensure or at least try not to do that in the future? Is it something that I need to change about my tone of voice? Or is it something that I need to change about the words that I use? Is it something from that I’m directly translating from my own native language that doesn’t translate well into? There’s so many things? And, yeah, just going back to the point, I think university will help will greatly help you gain those skills, those soft skills are so important in life.
Pei Mun Lim
useful, I think you’ve actually, as you say, the light bulb moment is exactly it. If I look around at the different miscommunications, there is that go on day after day, every day, any conflict, any situation, any disagreement. It’s all about communication, not being able to, not transparently, that’s not what I’m looking for, but to be able to convey what you mean, so that the other person truly knows what it is you’re trying to say. And vice versa, as well. And you’ve quite nicely pointed out, you know, is it a tone of voice? Or is it your background that’s causing you to phrasing in a very specific way that’s been taken? Quite not not the way that you intended to,
Michaela
which has happened to me several times, it’s very annoying.
Pei Mun Lim
Imagine if you want to give an example.
Michaela
Oh, I can’t remember what the example is, because it’s always happening in whenever I have a, an argument with my partner. So basically, it’s in the heat of the moment, tonight, I’m talking really fast, and I say something, and it’s, it’s very strange coming from a different language to then suddenly your entire life is in a different language. And there’s that point where you start thinking in the other language, I still count in Slovakia, and though in my head, somehow, I don’t know. But it’s, I don’t have an example. Because it’s always in the heat of the moment where you say something, and you’re taking reference from what you know, and what you have learned and other patterns in your head. If you’re directly translating something, it might be the syntax. It might be the tone, as I said, the tone of your voice, that the intonation that you’re taking from the other language is so many little things. But yeah, my partner luckily believes me. When I say I’m really sorry, that’s probably a direct translation. And I didn’t mean it that way.
Pei Mun Lim
Oh, that’s really good. Thank you. Thank you. So let’s take the question a little bit more recent. And I know that you’ve worked in Microsoft CRM as well in your previous company. So you said Microsoft, you didn’t say CRM.
Michaela
I didn’t say CRM. It was only with teams and SharePoint that I worked with.
Pei Mun Lim
Ah, yes, right. So not a like for like comparison.
Michaela
No, not at all. If I was briefly looking into whether that’s something that we could adapt when everything looked like it, you know, when when all their users are constantly telling you they hate sales for then unit, you’re very new Salesforce admin, you’re like, oh, maybe maybe there’s something wrong with Salesforce. But it’s not usually that.
Pei Mun Lim
Okay, yeah. What do you think it was they did like in Salesforce, and how did you change there?
Michaela
I think it’s mostly about understanding how things work. So is it as someone who came from being an endpoint user, direct user of Salesforce, you know, I remember not understanding what things are and how they work, I think it’s anytime again, introduced to a new piece of software, something new, and you’re asked to work with it every single day during your working time. And no one explains it to you properly? No. And your question is of why is it this way and not that way Get met with I don’t know, or, because it’s been like that for a long time. You know, you kind of you might develop a negative relationship with that system. And if you are getting errors, or if some things are not designed properly, and or things are no one is taking care of your CRM the proper way. It’s very, I think it’s really easy to lose your users motivation, or interest or any kind of enthusiasm that they might have had at any point for, for the CRM system that you’re using. I think what I really tried to do when I was working as a Salesforce admin at that company, and even with teams and in SharePoint, because everyone hated teams, we barely launched it, and everyone already hated it. But I think I tried to listen to my users. And you know, so what is it that bugs you? Like, you know, what is what is the problem here? Oh, well, this process here is really slow. And I have to click, you know, 10,000 times before I get to somewhere, like, okay, fine, we could do it like this, you know, and go away and take their faults and their grievances, and just try and figure out a way to make their life easier. Because I think that is ultimately, my at least the way I view my role as the Salesforce administrator is to make your life easier as my user, I want to be there. So you can do your job more effectively, faster, you know, the right way so that we don’t get errors down the line somewhere else. And I think that was one of the things where I managed to turn turn it around for a lot of users, not everyone, and you’ll never the same way that no one will ever, not everyone will ever like you. Not everyone will ever like Salesforce or other CRM systems. It’s just not possible. However, I tried to I did workshops. So despite the fact that a lot of people have worked with this system for a while, they never had a proper session on. Okay, well, this is what this thing is. And this is how it relates to that. And that, you know, come I came up with metaphors to explain certain parts of the system that made it a little bit more relatable. So for example, is it was it was a school, right, so we had an object called enrollment. And we had an object called booking. And then there was a bunch of other little things and copies, the accounts and contacts and all those things. And I tried to put it in a way of like, you’ve got an account, which is your person. And that account has a basket, which is your enrollment for a certain period of time. And into that enrollment, you can book several bookings. So booking for accommodation, you’re booking for a course you’re booking for some activities, right. And that is your enrollment, and that enrollment contains all of those bookings. And then when they pay for it, then that is it. And afterwards, they leave. And if they want to come again, it’s still the same users, it’s still the same account. But they have a new basket, a new enrollment, and they put new things into it. And I think putting it in those metaphors really helped my users go, Oh, I get it now because they didn’t know what the difference between an enrollment and a booking, but then they’ve understood. So I think, as I obviously only have my my experience to speak of, but I find that making your users understand what’s going on and not treating them like oh, well you’re not in it or you’re on the Salesforce experts. So why would I be explaining things to you, you know, treating them with respect, and listening to their grievances and being empathetic, you know, they’re not really lashing out You, it’s not your fault that something went wrong, and they got a giant chunk of errors. And now they don’t know what to do, and they can continue their work. It’s not your fault, but they are frustrated. So you’re there to kind of go, Okay, how can I help you? What can I do for you, I can sort this out, you give me this information all sorted out for you in five minutes. You know? So, again, communication. Communication is what is absolutely key here.
Pei Mun Lim
Absolutely. I think I totally agree with that. Okay, so let’s, let me ask a couple of questions around your specific experience with work and projects. And I’d like to, given the fact that you’ve worked, you’re currently in your second in customer with that, that’s using Salesforce. So what I want to find out is, I think you’ve moved on from a place where you weren’t as happy as you are now. So I understand also your current role, there are some challenges. And that’s, that’s what you said in the beginning, that’s fine. I want to get a sense of how your current role is more suitable, or in line with who you are compared to your previous role. And what can organizations do to help make sure that their employees are those who are working, especially within a role such as yours, it’s not, it’s not a clear cut role. And it’s basically trying to get people to do things that they don’t necessarily want to do, and putting you in a position where he can’t win sometimes, especially if there’s no executive support around Hey, everyone, we all have to use Salesforce. And these are the reasons why it’s just Just do it. And then you there, you’re the messenger, basically saying, Hey, you know, you really got to do that. Otherwise, you know, I’m in trouble. So you correct me if I’m wrong, it’s Canada’s very similar situation that you’re in now still. So you are helping to roll out and support an application that the company uses? Can you just draw some contrast between how it should be in order to help admins and those in your role feel more supported in rolling out change and increasing user adoption and generally making things better for users?
Michaela
Absolutely, I think I’m going to repeat myself here, but communication is key. And that goes within, within the company itself, from the Salesforce admins or the Salesforce team, to your stakeholder groups, and just in general making, I think you as an admin need to feel comfortable and exploring things. And in finding out what the best solution for something is. I think what my current company does really well is that from day one, I have felt like I own my role, and I own my piece that has been given to me, right? So this is not necessarily Salesforce related. But the fact that I was well, I think in a month and a half or two months into my role. When I was like, right, hello, give me admin access on JIRA, so that I can make our, our service desk because we were getting all of our requests through Slack, which got very messy very quickly. And the fact that they gave it to me, not unfounded, Lee, I had a plan and I had a I made a whole presentation. And, you know, I made sure I do my due diligence to convince them that this is actually a good idea that I should have admin permissions on JIRA to get this moving along. So I think that the support that I have been given by my company where they’re like, okay, you have this idea, go, go and explore, go and try it out. Or you want to you want you think that this way of doing things is the right way of doing things in terms of creating this specific kind of automation using flow instead of process builder or something, okay, go and try it out, you know, play around in your sandbox, or there is no, at least in my department, there’s no kind of ring fencing where like, you stay within your piece of land and that’s it. You are allowed to discuss things you are allowed to question things and I am I particularly am a person who is very honest. And so if we have a team discussion about something, some sort of process that We have to implement and created within Salesforce, I will ask Is this really the best way to do it because it could impact x, y, and Zed. And again, I have been very lucky that my team that I work with now is not taking things like that, personally, they know I’m not attacking them. They know that I am simply bringing out ideas, and it goes the other way around as well, you know, I come up with an idea, and it might not be the best idea. And that’s fine. We’re all here to learn and explore. And that’s something that I think that I have experienced with most of the Salesforce admins that I have met, is they’re curious, they want to they all kind of seem to have the motivation of wanting to learn more and wanting to know more, and how to make things better. And what is this new tool that is coming out, you know, in the latest release? Or can we use that? How can we use it. And again, I don’t know if this is most Salesforce admins, or just been incredibly lucky to be surrounded by people like that. And then talking about teams, assembling a good team, for a Salesforce administrator can be incredibly helpful. At at my previous company, I was the sole Salesforce admin, I didn’t have anyone to help, I didn’t have anyone to turn to to find out if I’m doing things the right way. If there’s perhaps a better way, and not saying it was a bad experience, I learned a lot during that role. But I think having a team around me having someone to bounce ideas off of, you know, it’s, it’s been a much better experience, not feeling like it’s all on you. And that’s then feeds into maybe my third point, which is companies need to realize that the car, how important the CRM is, and not neglected, you need to have an administrator or at least a designated person who is looking after your system. Because if you don’t, and then maybe, you know, five years down the line, you finally hire a Salesforce administrator or dynamics administrator, they go into something where it’s no, it’s, it’s a nightmare. They’re basically, you know, your automations are running her haywire and process builders tripping over each other, and there’s 500 million flows that you don’t even know what they’re doing, because there’s no documentation, you know. So it can, I think that in order to make our lives easier, Salesforce admins, companies should make sure that they are taking care of their CRM from day one. If you don’t have someone internal, then find a please don’t implement Salesforce on your own, without some help, or someone who knows what they’re doing. You know, if you’re implementing something big like FSL, for example, into your Salesforce, please do it with someone who knows what they’re doing. Because later, other people are coming going to come in, and they will not only be having to deal with the pressures of the business wanting to get things in a new functionality, new new processes, all that but they will have a mountain of technical debt that they have to go through. And unfortunately, if you work in an environment like me, which is we’re basically transitioning from a startup to a big company, like we can’t afford the startup mind mentality anymore. So we are having to exactly do that deal with the pressures of the business of having to do things and deliver quickly and deliver on time and deliver quality but also quantity and, you know, the almost unreasonable expectations from top down alongside with Well, if we, I would love to make this new thing for you. But I can’t because I’m hitting CPU or timeout limits, because we have 20 process builders, okay, subjects. So, yeah, I, I have heard enough horror stories, about orgs that have not been cared for
Pei Mun Lim
properly. They bring a very pertinent point around, especially if you work in a very dynamic, very fast pace company, there is this constant pressure. And what that means is that you’ve got to weigh the balance between doing something quickly. Because sometimes things something quickly accrue debt versus doing it properly, which is the way that you need to you should go forward with but it takes longer.
Michaela
So it’s absolutely and I think that’s where the communication with stakeholders is really important, especially if you’re coming into a company that is transitioning from you know, not really having a Salesforce theme to having a Salesforce theme and therefore certain constraints, that’s been a big challenge and a very good learning opportunity for me at my current role where, you know, stakeholders were for a very long time used to either doing things themselves, or, or having things done very quickly, because because they learned how to do or how to make a process builder, you know, so they would just throw in the process builder. And there wasn’t really any controls over it, which makes sense if you’re in a startup environment. But then you have the problem of how do you get your stakeholders on board with a change in process, so big, where they lose certain privileges that they’ve been used to having for a very long time. And making it’s then harder for them to get the things that they want to get, which, in turn, they want to get because there’s business pressure from top on them to deliver what everyday KPIs are, or, you know, whatever they have to do, they have to do it now. Because that’s what the business tells them. That’s what s&t will tell them. And you’re here trying to do the right thing, the good thing, you know, you’re trying to convince your, your stakeholders, this is the right way to do it. Because if we don’t, then our org will fall apart, and then five months down the line, you know, you’re not going to be able to do your job, because everything will be failing. But it’s, it’s, I think that that was a huge learning bit for me, where you have to have so much empathy, because you know that what you’re doing is the right way to do it. And you know, that what you are really trying to do is just help them prevent future issues. But it’s very difficult to explain it to people who have had privileged certain privileges for a very long time, and suddenly, they’re taken away from them. And it’s not a that is not a comfortable position for anyone to be in. So that was a, that was a big one.
Pei Mun Lim
It’s never easy. When, when you’re trying to provide a choice to your users, whereby the bulk not equally unpalatable, so to speak, what they want is not something that we can deliver, which is everything they want right now without any repercussions. So, okay, but if I hear that one more time, I think that’s why Salesforce is moving towards flows, yes, forward, because that is going to go, I’m very conscious, and I want to be respectful of your time. Just before we finish, I’m going to just ask maybe just one question about yourself. And what do you think that people misunderstand most about you?
Michaela
My intentions, I think this is where I am still learning. I, you know, I might have portrayed myself here on this on this episode as a very communicative and open person, which I am, but I am nowhere near perfect. And I know that I can come across as harsh, you know, or rude sometimes even. And it is usually in those situations, when I’m questioning people, when I am trying to say, you know, your, this is not the way we should be doing things, it should be this because that’s the best practice or, you know, trying to trying to help but probably not doing it the correct way. So this is something where I will quite often and especially in my private life with my partner, I am still learning so much on how to properly communicate my thoughts. because quite often, the way I say things can be misunderstood. And it’s, you know, just saying, Oh, that’s not what I meant is not really enough. It’s it goes back to interrogating yourself and knowing why you came across that way to that person. Is it? Is it. Is it the tone of voice? Is it something I said and just continuously trying to improve yourself? But yeah, I think I have a lot of work on that today. Still.
Pei Mun Lim
I love the fact that you’re so self aware. And then the things that you say, and the things that you learn about yourself. You’re continuously asking and trying to find better ways of just communicating better. So hard work. I just want to say thank you very much for a super fun conversation. I think it took us through places where I didn’t I think we will go, but especially like the fact that we’ve focused on change and the fear around taking the next step, which might not be related to what you were doing before, in so many, so many pathways that we took today. So I just want to thank you for your time. And especially around how your journey has led you to where you are in how your attitude in your mindset has brought you to right now, being someone in the Salesforce ecosystem that perhaps not where you thought you would be when you were doing a politics degree. Absolutely not. Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time out for me today.
Michaela
Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.