Case Study – Joe Sangiuliano

Case Study – Joe Sangiuliano

So one of the best things is the empowerment that it’s given and the amount of maturity that’s come from it as well. There’s not as much finger pointing. People are taking ownership. People understand their place. They understand their context. They know where their swim lanes are.

Tim Meinhardt, CEO of Atruity, interviews Joe Sangiuliano, VP of Business Development and Alliances for the North American Public Sector at Red Hat

Tell us a little bit about yourself and who you work for?

Yea – Thanks a lot, Tim. Real happy and fortunate to be able to have this conversation with you. So I work for Red Hat. Red Hat is an enterprise class open source software company. I’ve been here about nine years. We support the public sector. I grew up at Red Hat, starting as a sales rep, and worked my way up through management, directly selling to the civilian government, and also into the IC government. And now over the past five months, I’ve been working as the Business Development and Alliances manager, so the Vice President of that.

So, our entire public sector business, our team, chases after working with the big FSIs to build capability with them and sell with them. Also have a capture and business development process with a separate set of resources to be able to really understand the domain, and meet at the middle, to really have true capability to meet customer mission. So it’s awesome.

Red hat has been great. We are the 800 pound gorilla when it comes to understanding open source and making it enterprise class. And you may have heard of things like Linux, or Ansible, or OpenShift. Those were our flagship products. That’s how we implement technology. But we’re really about the people, we’re about the process and meeting customers at mission by leveraging that technology platform. That platform that leverages all the capability on top of it to meet customer mission. That’s done through partnership. That’s why I’m so excited about this position moving forward. So yeah, it’s been wonderful run. I hope to be here another nine years at least and you’ve been a big part of a lot of the success we’ve had for the time that we’ve been working together, and how we put together structured OKRs. So yeah, that’s basically me, Tim.

Before we started working together, what were your thoughts about OKRs, what were your goals, and why were they important to you?

Yeah. One of the interesting things about a sophisticated go to market is that you have to realize you can’t be good at everything. So you have to have certain disciplines in that business, regardless if you’re selling commodities or something very complex and that’s what we have at Red Hat. We have a very functional group of individuals that have different disciplines that are all trying to accomplish the same mission. So that’s a great thing, but it also provides challenges. If you don’t know what everybody else is doing, well, you don’t know what their goals and objectives are. I have my goals and objectives and being in sales is like, well, you have to hit the number. You have to make sure you continue to hit growth. You have to win the platforms, whatever it might be.

So when OKRs came along, the goals we had, well, there was an opportunity there to say how can we really get inclusive from a top down perspective of what are the goals, and how does that matriculate down into all the different functional parts of the organization? So one of the goals we had is just to be able to understand how everyone is approaching to go after the same objective with their own discipline. So when we started that out, and why it was important to us, is we didn’t know. We didn’t know what everybody else was doing. So we had to figure that out and see if it really aligned to the overall objectives.

So that was the important thing to me is the focus. What are people focused on? How can I understand how that’s accomplishing the overall goals and objectives that we have for our region, for our company, et cetera? So that top-down approach and then the matrix way that we go about the business without the OKRs was complex. It was confusing. But we all continue to do that, and it just happened in the nature of doing business. You just talk to one another, and you found out what you were doing. Structured, written goals – that’s the interesting thing about the process.

How did you feel about that whole process? What was the sense of the organization when there wasn’t this type of clarity and direction?

It’s easy for people to get defensive. It’s easy for people to make assumptions about what people were doing. And the smart people, and the good, and they’re all great. But the reality is you get into a siloed mode, which isn’t helpful for anyone. You can go far together, you can go fast alone. And that is really how we’ve done so well over time is that we just set things up to have cross-collaboration, but it wasn’t done in a written way outside of account planning, outside of just having team meetings, et cetera, without having a true goal process. So the feelings were different. A lot of people said, “Oh no, another meeting that we have to have internally to try to get things done.” But the reality is, done right, it really helps understand context, and here’s how we all are pulling in the same direction. It took a little while to get there though, obviously.

Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on the OKR Implementation Process with you and your teams. Then, what part of the process was the most impactful for not only you, but for your teams?

Yeah. So interesting point right there. Again, the big thing was that came down, “Hey, Joe, we already do account planning. We already work so closely together with the account teams. We have multiple different factions of people doing different motions.” You have solutions architects, you have a sales specialist in the products. You have customer service people. You have account reps. You have BD professionals and you have alliance professionals. We’re all chasing after the same thing. Okay. And they all had their own discipline at the time, in which you would have a goal setting exercise, which was basically set out individually with a performance review, a development review, et cetera. Here’s your goals. Let’s go tackle it. What’s your base of customers? How are you going to do that?

So at first it was, holy cow, I’m going to check the box. This is another thing that we’re just going to do. Let’s check the box and see what we could do. But the reality is if you as a leader can come in and then show the context, and that’s how we started. The implementation process wasn’t making them do something. It was I’m going to lead by example. And that’s what you did in the OKR process is, hey, here’s what the goals are from the GM of all public sector. And then that flowed down to the leader of the public sector. And by the way, the goals from the leader of public sector mapped right to the goals of the leaders of Red Hat.

So once we start explaining that and rolling that out, we didn’t make the teams or the individuals just start doing their goals and objectives in the OKR format. We led by example. And that I think started the process of helping them understand how they can map to what we’re trying to accomplish. So once that happened over a couple of weeks, people started buying it and going, “Oh, okay. This is interesting. Now I see what you care about. And I see what the federal leader cares about. And I see what XYZ cares about.” It started to make a lot more sense. It provided more context. I’m really big on providing context for people to understand how we all pull together to accomplish the goal.

So that was the process that worked. It wasn’t like, “Hey, go ahead and just do this thing. And I’m going to tell you if it’s right, wrong, or indifferent.” No, I’m going to lead by example. This is what I care about. And then helping guide them through when they were doing their OKRs, well, you saw how we kind of mapped to these three big objectives, and here’s the key results we’re trying to drive. How can you align to that? Not telling them what to do, but giving them the freedom to go ahead and build their structured goals in the same context. So took a little time, right? It took a little time. And had to gain the muscle to be able to do that. It was a new exercise. But I found that given time and clarity in providing the context, that made all the difference.

You speak about the freedom element and empowering your team to be able to think with you to achieve a greater purpose for the organization. How was that taking place, Joe, before the OKR program? Or was it taking place? What did it look like?

Account planning is how we really structured that, Tim. It was different. It depended on the individual. It wasn’t structured. It was situational. And you can’t really scale with that. That was the thing. You have silos of people doing the right things, and you can augment that and you can try to replicate it, but it was in a vacuum. So you could have a silo doing something really well in this organization, I mean, within the org. And we’re not that big of an org. We have maybe 500 people. But still you have 500 people not pulling in the same direction, it can be quite confusing.

So we all had our goals and objectives, and it was handled individually. It was individual development plans, individual goals and objectives that we would roll out during planning times, and quarterly would check up on that. But there still was not a context of saying, well, what’s Johnny doing over here, and what’s my SA, what do they care about? And how about the services organization? How are they being viewed? And what’s their goals and objectives?

OKRs expose everything. So before that, it was just we didn’t know. And people crave context. I can’t say that enough. People crave understanding. The more we can do that as leaders to show this is what we’re doing, this is why we’re doing it, they will figure it out. They will figure it out and we will help them in certain structures and the guard rails to be able to do that. So before that, Tim, to answer your question, it was different. We just had a lot of different siloed ways of going about setting goals. It’s really what we were doing. We’re setting goals, but we were setting goals without the context.

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How was everybody feeling about that? Or were they just checking boxes? What was the sentiment?

Yeah. Checking boxes. It really was. It was that. Because salespeople want to sell things. We don’t want to overly bog them down with too many meetings and too many reporting. This is not a reporting exercise. We aren’t doing this to give them more work. We are doing this so they can be more focused, so they can be more effective towards goals and objectives. That’s it. So it’s a beautiful exercise once you get people bought in on that. But you have to lead. You really do.

And that’s when you have to be consistent on, “Hey, this is what I’m thinking about. What do you think?” And then it’s gotten to the point now where we are, I’m asking them. They are giving me. What do you think we should do here? Here’s the challenge that we have. What do you think? And so that’s the beauty that one of the big outcomes that are happening because of that. And I know we’re going to talk about that a second, but that’s really where it’s going.

I thoroughly enjoy the empowerment aspect of this because, to a manager, everyone loves being able to sit down and talk for a while and say this is what’s important to us. So how about challenges and limiting beliefs here for a second? I would love to just get your perspective on when you started doing this, what were the challenges that you thought were really important for you that you needed to solve as you were beginning to roll this out to your various teams?

There were numerous challenges. And a lot of it is people don’t like change. They just don’t. And you’re entering in something else that some people might just think is work. So you have to convince them of the why. I always start with why. Why are we doing this? To me, it came down to scale. Always came down to scale, context, the ability to pull in the same direction and maximize time and focus. So the challenges are getting people out of the same rut. Sometimes the ruts work. I’m not saying the rut was bad. But we have to get them out of thinking of a new way of doing things, especially when you think about the dynamic way that you go about the business. We are not on islands anymore. We rely on multiple different people to be able to accomplish goals in this complex IT environment that we live in.

So the challenges you have is like, well, I’m already successful. Joe, I know how to do this. I’m selling software. I’ve done smart goals. I know how to do specific, measurable, attainable, timeframe. I know how to do all that stuff. Why am I doing this? And Joe, we already do account planning. But those things exist in one period of time. And then we don’t go back and check on it. It’s just how do you have a consistent, flowing, working model over time?

And the other challenge is, well, what are we going to take away if we’re going to adopt this as well? And so what you find is, as time goes on and you get people convinced into understanding that this really isn’t a time suck, it is the most important thing you can do to provide goals and objectives towards what you’re trying to get to and hit your number, right? And provide better customer service, meet customer at mission. This is the right way to do it.

And that was the challenge is this trying to get people out of, I got this. I know how to do this, Joe. I’m a professional. I’ve been doing this for years. Yeah, I know, but try this. And just continually trying to be consistent with that. So other than that, those were the big things, Tim. It was just, oh my goodness. Here we go again. Here’s another thing we’re going to roll out and not stay consistent with. Because that happens. You try things. Some things don’t work. This, if you stick with it, works.

 

Often people bring up the time element with us and want to discuss how to find time to not only implement OKRs, but how to consistently set them and maintain them quarter after quarter. How did you address that with your team and what are your thoughts on that Joe?

Yeah. So one of the big things I always harp on is we kid ourselves all the time in thinking that we’re effective with uses of our time. It’s a joke. And one of the biggest things that salespeople do is they spend time just because they have somebody that’s friendly to them. And they might not even be a decision maker, or they’re just busy. There’s a difference between being busy and being effective. So there’s always time. There’s always time to take a step back. And I said this before, sometimes you have to go slow so you can go fast later. Or you can go further together than you can go fast alone. But fast alone only goes so far, especially in this environment.

So you have to make the time. If you make it important, you say trust me. And you have to ask for that. You have to say, look, timeout. I know we’re all running fast, and we have a lot of things to do, but your most important commodity is time. And just spending time with them to understand that. Look, timeout. Understand why I think this is important. And why I think my manager thinks this is important. And why his manager thinks this is important. And just helping them understand that, look, I get it. I know. But trust me on this. And you’re asking for trust. You are. And the only way you can get to trust is that you really understand what they’re dealing with. And it’s like, yeah, I get it. I know you have a lot of things going on. I know you have a process. But this is a structured process, a structured organizational goal setting process that really works.

So once you get them just to let the guard down, and say, “Okay, I’m going to try it. And I’m going to try it, Joe, and see how it works.” And you let them tell you how stupid it is. You let them tell you whatever else. And then over time, you really can start moving towards consensus. And you start moving towards real goals and objectives that align. Because it is all about time. And we have to be honest with ourselves about what’s an effective use of time and what’s not. And goals will do that goals. That’s why we do goals. In a certain timeframe, how can you get things done? Well, you map it right out. You can map it out. And mapping is one thing, but alignment is a wholly totally another thing to get there. And it’s not just about selling this thing or selling that widget at one place or another. There’s context that goes behind everything that aligns to corporate objectives.

 

What would you tell our audience or tell people about your takeaways? What are the key takeaways that you’ve gotten through this process?

Key takeaway is we all know that setting goals and objectives is paramount. We must do that, but we can’t do that in a silo. The key takeaway that I came away with working with your team, and how you structure this across 50 managers, is understanding exactly what everybody else cares about, and how they are all pulling in the same way to accomplish the same goal. We all have the same goal. We do. But you can’t do that in a silo. And we all set goals. We all have our own ways of doing that, or we had a structured process for us to do that, but in our own silo. What was missing was the context. What was missing was the alignment all the way up to corporate objectives and understanding, and having that inclusive clarity of what everybody else was doing.

And that is powerful because now I know when I’m approaching one of my peers, I can tell what they care about. And I don’t have to sit there, and say, “I don’t understand what you do, and I need you to help me out with this.” So you can give them some grace. You can give them some credence. And understand that they’ve got a lot going on too, and here’s how they’re trying to accomplish their mission and goals and objectives that are also aligned to that.

So that’s the biggest takeaway that I have, among other things. The biggest one is just understanding and having that transparency in a matrix organization, that the job of the organization is to increase 20% bookings year over year, how does everybody pull together to be able to do that? And that clarity that the process brought in together is extremely valuable. That’s one of the biggest things, right? Let alone what you’re able to do with your own team to have them focus into those same objectives.

 

I’ve heard people say OKRs are a little bit frighting at first because everyone knows what you are doing and working on. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, yeah. I mean, you have to be confident. You have to know what your place is in the organization, and you have to know what the value that it brings. And that transparency again, I’ll say it, is extremely valuable. And you, look, if you don’t like what I’m doing, let’s talk about it. There’s other things, and we can understand how you think I could do things better. Hey, look, I love getting different feedback. Feedback is a gift. There’s other people. And that’s one of the great things that we have in our open source culture is there’s a lot of people that have wonderful ideas about a lot of different things. And that’s a meritocracy.

So it actually sets up a structured meritocracy if you want it to. And look, if I’m doing something that you think I could be doing better, great. I love to hear it. And I will take that under consideration. It doesn’t mean I have to do it. But if we’re not hitting the goals, we’re not hitting the objectives, great. And people in glass houses also shouldn’t throw stones, Tim. But I don’t go there. I’m just like, “Thank you for the feedback. I’ll take that under consideration.” Maybe ask some questions about it. And that’s normal. We welcome that. You think I’m not doing something right. Great. What do you suggest? Yeah, I’ll take that under consideration. Thank you. And we move on.

 

Tell us a little bit about your experience and what it was like working with us, Atruity, myself and what was it like to receive that hands-on support that we provide continually?

Yeah. I mean, if you think about the facilitation that you did, and that’s what you did. It’s a consultative type approach that you would help steer the conversation if it went offline. Because it is a process. You have to get used to where you can go with this. And it’s hard sometimes when you are going down these objectives and goals, and people go off on tangents. Having someone who this is what their job is, it’s to come in and say, “This is how it works. Stay in these guardrails.” And just giving us a little nudges one way or the other to stay focused on these core objectives. This is what we’ve agreed upon as the objectives. Okay. How can we drive results towards that? And just helping put clarity into those results and objectives. You needed guidance for that because it can go off.

And then simplifying it too. Not going down into rat holes. Hey, let’s just simplify it and go through it. And once we got into that cadence, that’s what Atruity really helped us out with is steering, consulting, guidance. This is the best practice and way to get that through. Without that, we could have gone off and tried to make it our own thing. And they’re like, “Well, we don’t like this module. We’re going to change it into this.” I’m like, “No, no. Timeout. Stay here.” Because we have a tendency of doing that too. It’s like, well, let’s kind of mold it into what we want it to be.

But if you work through the hard things, and you have a facilitator there, almost like a mediator sometimes to stop the back and forth. And you were there for that. Some of the times I’d be scratching my head to my manager, like, “What are you focusing on? Why are you focusing on this?” And you’d be like, “Timeout. Let him talk, Joe. Let him talk.” And then you gain some understanding there, and then you start moving forward. Without that, you’ll get caught in the same traps that you did before. So that’s what a good facilitation, and I consider your team being able to do that consultative approach, best practice approach, and how to work through the relationship. And that’s what it is. Relationship, structure, and how we put it all together.

 

What has happened since you started getting these results? What changed in your world, both personally and professionally as a result of using OKRs?

Yeah. One of the key things, Tim, that’s happened is that decisions are being made to the people that should be making the decisions. What I mean, the people in the field. The people in the field, they have the context. They are talking every day with the customers. I bounce between, and I get the high level understandings, but you need to be able to push down decision-making at the level in the field where they’re having the fights. Where they’re having the dog fights. And giving them the power to be able to do that is liberating. And it gives them so much freedom, and I said that before, to feel empowered, that they’re getting things done.

And we just check. All I do is ask questions now. And of course we make decisions, but the decisions that I make are far fewer because it’s happening in the right place now. It’s happening at the level, because of the structured OKRs, to the people that need to be making decisions. Because they have the most context, because they have the most understanding. That is their domain. That is their understanding.

So one of the best things is the empowerment that it’s given and the amount of maturity that’s come from it as well. There’s not as much finger pointing. People are taking ownership. People understand their place. They understand their context. They know where their swim lanes are. They can go outside of those as well, but it’s within conversation. So I don’t mean to overstate this, but the reality is structured OKRs, done correctly, gives decision-making power to where it should be in the field. And we watch and we structure, and we continue to tweak and move in because of how we are trying to align to the overall objectives from a higher standpoint. That’s really it.

 

What would you say to somebody who is interested in working, not only with us, and/or is speaking to us about becoming a client?

We all know about goals. We all set these goals and objectives. We all know how competitive the marketplace is now. We all know that you can’t be an expert in everything, and you need separate disciplines to be able to get things done so you can provide the right kind of trust and leadership to your customers. So I would say if you want clarity of vision, if you want to provide the right amount of context to your associates, and help them understand how we all work together to be able to accomplish the same mission, this is one of the best systems I’ve ever come across to be able to do that. If you embrace it. Otherwise, you’re just counting on silos of excellence. And hopefully the communication is happening between them, and the execution is happening via account planning or team meetings, whatever else has happened. You need a structure process to be able to do that.

So if you have a dynamic sales approach, partner led sales approach, with the direct sales approach with multiple resources to be able to do that with marketing concerns. And think about all the different pieces of structure or of organizational capability that you have in different disciplines. How do you get them to talk together? How do you get them to understand the same context. And if you want that to happen in a scaled manner, that’s what OKRs can do for you. It focuses on scale, commonality of vision, common goals and objectives, and hold you accountable to it.

We didn’t really talk about that, but that’s what results are. We go back, and we look at what we talked about. We don’t just set goals, and then go on and set more goals and more goals and more goals. We go back and we look at, did we accomplish those things. Great. Or what could we have done differently? Maybe that wasn’t a key goal. How could we have done that better? So there’s accountability to it. There’s structure. There’s context. And that’s the biggest thing I can say.

I don’t know how else you do this in this world that we live in today when you have such a matrix structure of going after the business. And you need that today. Customers want specific capability in products, or in the business case, or in customer service, delivery, whatever it might be. It’s all connected. And you have to have a structure to do that. So I didn’t mean to make that too long-winded, or oversell it. But I hope that explains it. I really do. But I really feel passionately about what the program can do if you embrace it. It’s great context, it’s great understanding, and it breaks it down right to the tactical level. You have strategy and you have tactics. You have objectives and key results. So that’s where it misses sometimes. We have great planning. How does it happen when the rubber meets the road? And if it’s done right down to the rep level, that’s where rubber meets the road.

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