Archana Ramamoorthy - CTO at Workday

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:00) Hello, my friends. Today we are talking to Archana, the CTO at Workday, and we discussed the evolution of the CTO role, specific steps to advance your career, and why skills are becoming the new currency in the workplace. All of this right here, right now on the Modern CTO Podcast. Here we go. This is the Modern CTO Podcast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:30) Hello.

(Archana at 00:00:32) Hello. How are you?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:34) Amazing. Can you hear me alright? Yes. Perfect. Zoom is working.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:39) That's exciting.

(Archana at 00:00:40) I know. Second time's the charm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:43) How's your day going today?

(Archana at 00:00:45) It's been good so far. I was basically telling Jake the last time I had the conversation, I had to redo my entire computer before I got on this call. So all good.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:56) I'm glad it worked out, though, because you're incredibly smart. You have a lot of great things to say. And when we have high audio quality, it just makes it all that much better as far as people listening.

(Archana at 00:01:07) Absolutely. And I'm excited to be here.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:10) Yeah. I was actually doing your prep, and I saw that you were studying at Duke, like, nerve stimulators.

(Archana at 00:01:20) I didn't work on nerve stimulators. I actually worked on microelectromechanical systems, so MEMS simulators. So mostly to do with VLSI design as well as, you know, more geeky chip manufacturing and fabrication stuff.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:35) So what was it for? So you're building these chips for, like—for some reason, I thought that they were being integrated into people somehow.

(Archana at 00:01:44) Not really. So there were a few things that were going on with respect to research. So you could kind of say that because we were also looking at drug delivery systems, and these chips would be part of those drug delivery systems. We were also using some of the technology to build and fabricate certain chips that would then go into medical devices. So there was a little bit of this, but I wouldn't say that that was the whole purpose.

(Archana at 00:02:09) We're not injecting chips yet at this point.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:13) So what was, like, your—what was the main thing that you worked on that you thought was really exciting in college?

(Archana at 00:02:20) I would say a couple of things. So to back up a little bit, one of the things that I've always been excited about is electronics and technology, which is what led me to start working on electronics and communication engineering as part of my bachelor's. And then when I moved to the U.S., I did my master's in electrical engineering. So I would say my undergrad, thinking about robotic arms and lemon throwers and building systems and equipments, like path tracers were interesting to me. And I think when I started specializing more in chips, digital chips and, you know, analog chips were very fascinating for me.

(Archana at 00:03:02) I think being able to look at a very small, tiny chip and make changes or simulate, you know, how the chip would actually work, and then fitting that as part of the larger puzzle and then seeing if it still works the same way you intended it to. And a lot of times, you know, that was one of those jobs where you would think something would happen a certain way, but you would actually fit it into the larger puzzle and it won't. And then you go back to the drawing board and redo the whole thing. But I think that was very interesting for me. Like, coming up with a solution, designing something, analyzing that, seeing how that fits as part of the bigger puzzle.

(Archana at 00:03:39) I think all of those were aspects that I would say even have a huge impact on what I do today, which is, you know, thinking big, thinking about the bigger strategy, then breaking that down into smaller problems, analyzing those smaller problems, and see how that leads us down this path of reaching that vision or that strategy that we originally set out to do.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:57) Boom. You're amazing. Yes. That's, like, that's what drives me. I like to take difficult things.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:02) I like to break them up, solve them in pieces, and then just continue. Like, I'm just a big fan. And I talked to this guy, Rafael Duran, and he had a documentary called The Cyborgs Among Us.

(Archana at 00:04:16) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:16) Right? Have you seen it?

(Archana at 00:04:18) I haven't seen it, but I've heard about it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:20) Yeah. It is really cool. So he takes a look at, like, the underground of people injecting chips and different electronics into their bodies. And then he takes a look at the financially viable medical industry that's

(Archana at 00:04:36) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:36) You know, pushing forward the technology. And he kind of contrasts the two and shows the difference. And it's just unbelievable what some of these people are doing in their houses, injecting themselves with these microchips. And I was like, I bet you—is it Archana or Archana?

(Archana at 00:04:52) Archana.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:53) Archana. Yeah. I was like, I bet you Archana is gonna love this because it's just so geeky and futuristic. Right?

(Archana at 00:05:01) It makes a lot of sense, especially today because I think a lot of medication is moving towards controlled release. And when you're thinking about controlled release medication, if you're actually able to target the area of attack within the body and have the release be done to certain organs, it minimizes side effects and other parts. And it also provides you with a mechanism through which you don't have to have the human sort of do that, you know, control that on their own, but actually have technology help, you know, make that better.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:32) Oh, yeah. My—like, you sound like my Thanksgiving last year. So my dad's an engineer, and my stepmom and brother are both physicians.

(Archana at 00:05:41) Okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:05:41) And they're all geeky into their own things, and they were literally—he pulled out, like, a Popular Science magazine or something, and he showed these little genetically programmed scrubbers that they were, like, injecting into people, like, nanos that they were injecting into people to help them remove plaque so they don't have heart attacks. And I was like, this is crazy. You can design and program these things.

(Archana at 00:06:03) I think there's been a lot of advancement with respect to science and drug delivery and a lot of these different things. I just—my next hope is that we fast track the path towards getting the COVID-19 vaccine so we can be out of the pandemic.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:18) Right. I heard that there's, like, three or four vaccines in the last phase of trials, which is pretty exciting.

(Archana at 00:06:23) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:24) Alright. But Workday doesn't do health stuff, do they?

(Archana at 00:06:27) No. We don't. No, we don't.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:28) What does Workday do?

(Archana at 00:06:31) So we're an HR and financial software company, cloud first, cloud only. And our—I would say that our goal is to basically think about the future. What's the next 10 years look like, and how do we make sure that we're keeping—we're getting to that elusive zero-day close from a financials perspective? Or how are we thinking about reskilling the workforce? Because there is a huge change and COVID's definitely accelerated the digital transformation for organizations.

(Archana at 00:06:57) So what does that mean for the workforce and how are we enabling both companies and employees to be best in class as they move towards the next 10 to 15 years of their life? We have a suite of applications even around the HR space, be it absence or time tracking benefits, calibration and performance management, all of those. And then on the financial space, taking care of core financials or procurement, anything to do with workforce planning or financial planning. Basically, a single system that allows companies to understand their workforce and their business ecosystem so that we can basically take away the minutiae of doing work and let the companies do what they're best at.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:37) And how did this opportunity come up for you?

(Archana at 00:07:40) It was very interesting. So I was in investment banking before this. I've had a very, you know, I would say, not so traditional career path. I, as we talked about before, I was in the electrical engineering industry working on chips and working on the lower levels of the OSI stack, I would say. And then I basically, in 2008, I think, switched over to computer science and wanted to start thinking a little bit more about technology and its application in the digital world.

(Archana at 00:08:12) So I started working for Deutsche Bank. They had just started an office in Cary, North Carolina, which was focused on technology. And Deutsche used to usually sort of outsource a lot of this, but they wanted to build their own development center. So I was part of the very early team that started out as a mini startup within a large organization. And I worked there for about four years, started out as a software developer, moved into a little bit of a functional specialist subject matter expert role.

(Archana at 00:08:41) And after that, I was moving to the West Coast. And it was interesting because the company was around 2,000 people at that time. So small enough where I could make influence and, you know, help change processes and work on very interesting problems, and it was in the technology space. And I wanted to figure out what product management was all about. I think that was one of the things that was coming up as, you know, a new trend, and a lot of companies were embracing product people who could think big and then break those problems down into executables.

(Archana at 00:09:15) And I think that's where my passion is, so I fit right in.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:19) Yeah. It was like this weird evolution of, like, you got engineers and then designers and then, like, product designers and product engineers, and then it kind of all just kind of came together. And at the same time, I guess, like, the scrums and the agiles were coming out.

(Archana at 00:09:34) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:34) But getting to watch the progression, all of it, of the entire thing, it's been incredibly, incredibly fascinating. What do you think is progressing right now? So I was talking with Derek, a CTO from TrendTech, and we were discussing, like, the evolution of the CTO role. Like, where do you think it is now?

(Archana at 00:09:55) I think that's a very interesting question because it's a hodgepodge of everything. It's pretty much like how product management was when it started out. As a CTO, you're thinking about strategy and where do you want your technology to go in the next few years? How does that actually support your customers? How does that support your technology organization?

(Archana at 00:10:14) What does the architecture look like? And how do you want to evolve the architecture in such a way that it supports that growth that you want to see within the product suite and the product side? There's also the thought leadership piece of how are you taking everything that you're doing within the organization, packaging it up, and conveying that story or talking to your customers or your prospects? How are you having that executive presence in terms of, you know, both influencing inwards within teams and also influencing externally with respect to thought leadership in the industry? And you kind of are thinking about how you can stitch together these smaller things that are happening within the organization to form that bigger story.

(Archana at 00:10:56) So I think from a leadership perspective as well as from a technology perspective, it's going to continue being an evolving role. And it also is going to depend a lot on what industry you're working on and what's the most important thing that comes up within that industry or that space. And being in HR, it's been interesting because as a CTO, you're also thinking about how does GDPR affect our product? How does CCPA affect our product? What are data residency requirements in different countries?

(Archana at 00:11:25) And how do they impact the development of product or hosting of the service within our space? So I think it's a very interesting role where you could basically go wherever you want with it depending on how ingrained you want to be either internally or externally.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:43) Oh, I'm so glad we got your audio high quality because you're awesome. This is great. What big project are you really excited about right now?

(Archana at 00:11:54) I would say there are several. COVID's been one of the biggest sort of, you know, curveballs that everyone's sort of facing right now. Right? And we were no different. We started out there.

(Archana at 00:12:04) There's the employee aspect in terms of everything that we thought about and did for the employee force, and we'll talk about it maybe a little bit later. But from a product standpoint, that also brought up a lot of things that were important. Insurance companies were processing payrolls. We saw manufacturing companies sort of trying to understand their workforce better. Pretty much everyone across the board was thinking about data.

(Archana at 00:12:27) Even the people that weren't actually data focused or data centric or data driven are now thinking a lot deeply about their operations, their business, and we're seeing a change in terms of even the C-level. The CIOs, the CEOs, the CHROs are all working together a lot more than they used to before. One of the areas that I am really excited about, I would say, is this stage we've gotten to where everyone is more excited about data than they ever were. People want to be more cognizant of what's happening within their organization, and they're thinking about how they can utilize data to have better decision making. But then comes the question of the way people have traditionally gone about getting information or getting data within organizations is throwing a bunch of analysts, having them stitch together information from different software systems that they have, and then stitching together reports and showing it up to their C-level executives.

(Archana at 00:13:23) And a lot of times these reports are out of date because the second you export something to Excel, your data becomes stale. And there's also a lot of human error in these calculations. So you'll have the marketing department running with a completely different set of data compared to the HR department. So there's now a huge need to not only bring together all of the relevant data into a single platform to expose it, but there's also a realization across the board that companies need to move from being very gathering focused to being more insight focused, where you understand what to actually do with the data. A lot of times people might have a bunch of data in front of them, but they're like, what do I do with this?

(Archana at 00:14:03) I don't know. And there's also the secondary question of how does that data that you have or information that you have compare with other people in the industry? So I think there is a huge change that we're going to see in terms of how people even think about their data strategy overall.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:21) Yeah. I like that. It—I have—you know, what's funny is so, like, I had a conversation about, like, a year ago with Yasser Anwar. He's the CTO—and I'm sorry, buddy, if I messed your name up—but CTO of a home goods company and Williams Sonoma. And he had talked about this concept of, like, data lakes versus data swamps and intention with the data. Like, intention, like, rather than just putting everything together, I have this specific outcome I want, and I'm going to focus on this outcome and drive it by using these tools. And I was like, okay, I'm on board with that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:58) That's a great mindset. Adopted it into my personal philosophy. But then, like, several months later, I was actually executing on a project here at the business, and I realized that it's like feature creep. Like, you know, in product, when feature creep starts to happen, you sort of develop a muscle to, like, stop it as early as possible. So that was happening with me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:19) Like, I kept wanting to go, oh, but—because what happens is you need this piece of data and then you start searching through different tools, and then all the tools are telling you all the things you can do, and it's so easy to get distracted. It's very difficult to, like, stay exactly—that focusing on the outcome part's really challenging.

(Archana at 00:15:37) Yeah. And I think that's the big thing that a lot of companies think about. And sometimes they don't even know what to focus on. You might be able to come up with three things, but maybe there's a fourth and a fifth that you haven't thought about. So if tools that you're utilizing can tell you, here are the five things that we're seeing the industry focus on.

(Archana at 00:15:56) And we've pulled those insights together for you based on the information that we have for you within the system. And areas like HR and financials are very important because that's how you run the company. Your people make up your company, and your finances dictate how you perform. And if you're not able to get that information on what your business is doing and how you're operating in a cohesive manner, it puts you at a disadvantage compared to another company that's doing it. And the other interesting part is, if your data layer or your data platform is solidified and you have a clear data strategy, it only lets you go one step further to start thinking about machine learning or advanced capabilities in AI that I think are going to be the trend for the next five to ten years.

(Archana at 00:16:41) We're seeing what GPT-3 is doing right now. There's definitely going to be a change in terms of how organizations are going to think about automation to augment what they currently have. And I think data is the fundamental foundation for that.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:57) Other than being smart and intelligent and all that good stuff, how did you go from—you didn't join as CTO of Workday. You worked your way up through the organization, correct?

(Archana at 00:17:08) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:08) Right. Yes. How did you do that? Pretend I'm somebody you're trying to help. I'm the version of you right when you started at Workday, and you're going to coach that person to help them go farther, become CTO.

(Archana at 00:17:21) That's a very interesting question. So I actually joined Workday as a product manager, as I mentioned before. And one of my goals when I joined Workday—and I joined as an associate product manager, so it was the APM program that Workday had—and my goal coming in, which was my goal even at Deutsche.

(Archana at 00:17:37) At Deutsche, I'd probably reached a point where I really understood the architecture. I understood software development really well. I was a functional specialist for security. But when I moved to Workday, my goal was to learn something new from scratch. So I didn't care about the title.

(Archana at 00:17:52) I didn't care about what I was coming in as. My goal was, "All right, they're going to give me or help me be part of a rotation program. I'm going to take the most advantage of it. I'm going to understand how every aspect of the product lifecycle works." So on the technology front, I actually worked on different areas.

(Archana at 00:18:08) I worked on our core scalability and performance engine. I worked on our search platform to understand how we're thinking about search and how do we index and how do we surface information out. How does the querying work? And then, of course, I held on to my passion. So I did a rotation in security to understand that area.

(Archana at 00:18:26) Went on to do some integration work and collaboration work in terms of, how do you engage from a user experience perspective? What are some of the product functionality you build for a recruiter or for somebody who's collaborating within the platform? And that gave me a very solid foundation of how different aspects of the technology stack work. And at that point, I decided, "All right, I know how all this works. I know how they're interconnected."

(Archana at 00:18:54) I know how the internal systems talk to each other and connect with each other. My next goal was, I still love security, and I constantly feel like there are fewer women in cybersecurity than in any other field. And I wanted to go into that. So I actually went in to build our authentication platforms, worked on that for a few years, then started leading the entire security team. That was our identity accounts, access management, authentication.

(Archana at 00:19:22) And that led me to also get a view into privacy and regulatory requirements across different countries. So it gave me a very global view across different industries on how software services and products are looked at. And I think that was a very valuable thing for me to learn because it gave me an idea of not just the industries that I was very used to, but it also made me think about obscure industries or how factory workers and organizations think about security, or how do they actually log into systems? What's mobile usage like? What's desktop usage like?

(Archana at 00:19:54) How does Europe think about privacy? And what are technology trends in Asia? So I think it gave me a very, very well-rounded approach and thought process towards everything to do with product, which then helped me elevate myself more to start thinking about security strategy at a higher level for the organization. I also love public speaking and networking a lot. I believe a lot in mentorship and sponsorship.

(Archana at 00:20:19) So I'm part of multiple organizations outside and in Workday as well. But that's basically my growth path. I grew myself. I had that horizontal span of understanding the technology stack. I started growing within the security space while having a pulse on how different parts of the organization work.

(Archana at 00:20:37) At one point, I actually went on a mini sabbatical of six months where I handed over security to someone and went and did a six-month project in another part of the company where I helped ramp up a product from zero to MVP and go live, and then came back to doing security. So I've done these mini projects across the board. But I would say the biggest thing that I would say to anyone is, focus on horizontal growth. Focus on understanding how the business works and understanding how the entire technology stack works, and not just focusing on one area.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:12) I love that you said that too, because for me, I got my start writing some basic software, then I got into some real estate software. And then after real estate, I did some fitness. And then after fitness, I did financial software where I had to completely get a 360 perspective of each one of these industries in order to build software that would help move it forward.

(Archana at 00:21:34) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:21:34) And so I just got in a habit or a pattern of taking really complex ideas, understanding all the different aspects. Now, if you quiz me on this stuff today, my memory definitely deteriorates. But when you're in there building it and solving the problem, it's super exciting. And so I believe that for me, looking back, those experiences with the business people and the engineers and everyone I got to work with in all of those different projects gave me a really good understanding of the market—how a market works. And so when you start getting away—I got away from this idea of a product, because that's where I started.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:15) I started as an engineer. So it's product—all you do is build, and that's the only thing that matters, right?

(Archana at 00:22:20) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:20) And then I got into this understanding of teams and management and how you can do more by being a good manager, a good leader. And then I found something that made me more excited than anything, which is growing people and solving problems. And then I was like, "All right. Now I'm going to look in my past and see how I can use this toolbox of things I've developed to help me do that at a greater scale." But I want to get to something specific.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:42) I want to get to, how did you move throughout the organization? Was there a software? Was there a program? Were you just putting in requests? How did you move?

(Archana at 00:22:51) So that's interesting. So the initial part was a program. So there was a rotational program where you could pretty much decide your course. I was probably the last one to graduate from the program. I would have been completely fine just being rotational, but it helped me build connections across the organization.

(Archana at 00:23:09) So I knew people from different parts of the organization because I would have worked on a project or I would have worked in a particular product area. And of course, that product area is going to touch two other or three other product areas. So I get to know people as part of that process as well. And through one of those, I remember at that time, one of our acquisitions, CapeClear—the cofounder of CapeClear actually was leading our European office.

(Archana at 00:23:35) That's our Dublin office. And he basically asked me to come and lead this project. So he said, "Hey, I really am struggling to get this off the ground and get this to our customers. We want to talk about this at our partner conference in seven months, and I want you to be the person who actually builds it and talks about it on stage and gives the keynote presentation on that particular topic."

(Archana at 00:23:56) So again, at that point, I had a team of security folks that were working for me. So I had one of the people take over the things that I was doing from an authentication perspective, and I moved over to the other group. I worked with them for seven months and got that opportunity going and kicked that off and did the presentation he wanted and then came back. But I would say it's all about connections a lot of times. I think once you start building credibility, your work shows for itself, and people know, especially if you're taking the—I would say one of the things I did was I constantly talk to people within the organization and what they were working on.

(Archana at 00:24:36) I still do that. And I think that's a really important way to keep in touch with everything that's going on and for them to know what your expertise is. And a lot of times, I'm just curious. So I'll ask them about something, and then I'll give a suggestion or a way to improve what they're doing or an outside perspective. And I think that makes a lot of difference to how people think about problem spaces or to involve you when they're looking at a situation where they might think that it's good to bring her in to ask for her opinion.

(Archana at 00:25:06) It also goes back to my previous experience. I talked about the second part of my experience with Workday and with Deutsche Bank and stuff. But going back before that, I worked in India. I interned and worked in two different organizations that are both national organizations. I worked for BSNL, which is our telecom provider in India.

(Archana at 00:25:24) I also worked for the Indian Railways, working on switching systems and looking at how complicated processes work and how communication happens in those scenarios. And then here, I worked for AT&T and for a smaller startup called Triangle Biosystems. So I think one of the major aspects of clearly and consistently working within a team or company is both communication as well as transparency. And I think those factors play into even you getting opportunities to do things.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:55) So if I were to summarize—or I'll let you do it. If you were to summarize how to move horizontally around a business, it would be relationships, right?

(Archana at 00:26:06) Be curious. Start with that. Be curious. Figure out areas that you are interested in. Approach people and just ask them.

(Archana at 00:26:13) You might even be able to spend 10% of your time just helping them do something. And eventually, that might result in a gig that they might have for you within their organization. And I think companies these days always prefer internal movement to you leaving outside, right? So if you're bored in your job, it's better for you to think about what else is there within your organization.

(Archana at 00:26:35) Your company will most likely support it. And that's a great way to move and learn.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:41) Yeah. I always find advice interesting when people will write to me on LinkedIn, because I feel like advice is—people asking for advice, sometimes, depending on what they're asking—but it's almost like step one, you have to start searching. Step two, you have to try things and fail. And then step three, you get angry enough to get it right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:03) Right? You've got to have that—or at least for me, subjectively. I try to do things. I've gotten to the point now where I figured out the pattern, so it's really easy. Thank God for age, right? But I figured out how to do difficult things and the pattern. But I always try to look back at what it felt like going through it to try to help other people get to the conclusions faster. Maybe if we can help pass information along down to the next generation, they'll make less of the mistakes and they'll be able to get through the pain quicker.

(Archana at 00:27:39) No, absolutely. And I think mentorship comes in a lot handy with that as well, because then you're able to bounce your ideas off of someone who's already been there, done that, and then they give you a perspective of how they would handle the situation. You don't necessarily need to take their ideas and just run with them, but it at least gives you a different perspective from someone who knows you, who has your best intentions in mind as they're giving you those suggestions.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:07) So for you, have you ever—I'm just curious—has a male leader ever come to you and ask for coaching advice on how to better manage his female team members?

(Archana at 00:28:21) Interesting question. I'm thinking about it. I have definitely had people in leadership positions that are men who I coach and I mentor that talk to me in general about leadership. And of course, their team has both men and women. I don't think they've ever specifically asked about women.

(Archana at 00:28:41) But one of the things that I proactively do, especially with young leaders who are upcoming, is I bring them in as allies to a lot of the foundations that I'm part of. So for example, I'm part of Women in Cybersecurity. I met Dr. Ambareen Siraj, who runs the organization. She's a minority woman. And it's probably one of the few security organizations that's global and accepts women from every part, and they're truly committed to the cause of bringing more women into that space.

(Archana at 00:29:12) And I usually have my male mentees who are leaders actually be part of some of those organizations, or I would tap them to go to Grace Hopper with me. Because I think those are the ways in which you can make people think about gender diversity or mentorship or coaching or different aspects when it comes to men or women. But I've never had anybody who's explicitly come and ask me the question of how should I think about managing a woman. No.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:42) Yeah. I was just—you know, I saw that you were part of some of the women's groups and you've got some content out there on that. And so I was trying to figure out what's something unique we could talk about that would benefit the audience, right? And I had put stuff out in newsletters, and people were saying there's a lot more women on their teams nowadays. And that brought up this conversation of, I wonder if there's talking points.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:10) So I actually went and tried to find a book on it. I tried to find a book on men managing women in the workplace. And the only thing I found was the author of "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus." Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:23) He or she—I don't remember—but that author did an audiocassette you had to buy. It was old, right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:33) So I'd have to buy the cassette and listen to it.

(Archana at 00:30:35) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:30:36) But it was the same title of the book, but "slash in the workplace." And I was like, well, I couldn't find any books on this. But if I think about—if I step back—what I've learned myself growing these teams is that I start to see people—I really noticed that my mind, I'm very self-aware in a sense, right? I noticed my mind doesn't seem to care about gender or race.

(Joel Beasley at 00:31:06) My mind seems to care about the styles of how people think, because that is directly correlated to the work they produce and their attitude, regardless of sex or race. So I've just kind of developed this sense of the only thing I really care about is figuring out how the person thinks and whether or not I need that style of thinking for a specific role at a specific time. And so that's kind of the pattern I found myself in. But maybe that's why—maybe some of these managers or these leaders that you're working around, maybe they've kind of instinctively done the same thing, where they just are trying to figure out how the people think and then treat them or leverage their abilities based off of their style of thinking.

(Archana at 00:31:51) Yeah. I think that's a very interesting point that you bring up. I always say that it's not just about hiring people with diverse opinions in the team, but it's about making them feel like they belong to the group. And I think that's an aspect that a lot of people don't think about. There's probably one woman on the team, or there's one person of color on the team, and then the conversations that happen around that person, even within a team setting or a team meeting setting, matters a lot because you want to be inclusive in terms of how you engage in those conversations or the topics that you talk about.

(Archana at 00:32:28) And I think that is something that a lot of leaders need to be very cognizant of within their team. How does your conversation, like the first five minutes of your team meeting, what topics do you talk about? And how much do you see engagement from everyone in the group when you're having those discussions? And sometimes people just don't think about it. It's a chitchat for two minutes, and then beyond that, everyone's just back to their jobs. But the way you make people feel included is being part of conversations that everyone can be excited about and can contribute to.

(Archana at 00:33:03) And similarly, as the leader, I think it's perfectly fine to be empathetic to all groups in your organization or within your team. You don't need to do anything specific for that. You don't need to treat a woman different from a man. You just need to make sure that everyone's treating everyone equally. And that's your responsibility as a leader.

(Archana at 00:33:21) You might be doing it, but maybe there are people within your team that are not. So I think those are the biases that I would look for in general, and I would ask people to look for is, are you treating everyone the same? Do they all get the same opportunities? Do they all feel the same way about working for you?

(Archana at 00:33:36) And I think those are things that every leader should be thinking about.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:40) Yeah. I fully agree. You know, so my mom's best friend, her name's Debbie, and she's a very successful business owner out in Las Vegas. It's a large furniture company. And so growing up, she was at our house every six months. She would stay with us for a week. Right? And so I got to watch her growing up, and I got to hear her talking about sexism because she was building a business from nothing in Las Vegas in the eighties.

(Archana at 00:34:12) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:12) Right? So people say that tech is male dominated, but casino bosses and stuff like that, and you're trying to sell stuff, they had some bad stories. But in my experience, I had never seen that. And so as I went from 12, 15, 18, 20, 30, I'd never run into another male that was like that. I never experienced it in my entire life, and I began to think that it's not true. Right? And then one day, it happened. And I'll tell you what, I tore into that individual. Because for me to have that much experience and never encountered it, I believe that they're very much the minority. Like, it's very rare, at least in my subjective experience.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:04) I did not run into many of these people. But when I did, it was so blatant what they were doing. And I was just like, you can't do that. You just can't do it. Maybe make a joke, but you can't actually not give the opportunity. You know what I'm saying? Because with me and my team, and we have guys and girls, we're a 50-50 split right now. We're small. We're like 10 people, but I celebrate with everybody equally. I make fun of everybody equally. We have our own unique culture. It's just our behavior, our culture. Right?

(Archana at 00:35:45) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:45) I know I'm being a little bit ambiguous, but I was just surprised that some of that stuff did exist. And I think that there's an overwhelmingly large amount of good people. And I think that it's become okay for the good people to correct the bad people as far as this equality issue. But I still tend to lean towards, one thing I do struggle with, which you might be able to open my eyes a little bit on, is, okay, here's a scenario. So let's say we have Person A and Person B. Right?

(Archana at 00:36:17) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:36:17) And they're equally qualified and Person A came first. Right? But so I have those two people. Person A came first. Everything is equal about the quality with the exception of their skin color or gender. For me, not to pick the first person because of an attribute which is otherwise irrelevant, and I might back that statement up because it sounds bad when I say it out loud. But for me to pick the person, if I have two equally qualified people and the first person, I would go first come first serve based off of skill and need. And I wouldn't say I'm not going to hire that person because I want this other color or this other gender on my team. I feel like that's wrong. I feel like that's racist and sexist. I feel like that's the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is the most qualified person, first come first serve basis based on the need and how they think and the work that they can perform and put that individual in. I mean, do you see how I feel it's wrong? Can you help coach me or guide me?

(Archana at 00:37:25) That's an interesting theoretical problem to have. So I feel like a lot of times when you think about, you know, both of them are extremely equally competent to do the job, I usually tell people just think a little beyond, especially if you're in a situation like this where you absolutely, for some reason, feel like they're both great. They're both going to fit the description of the job. Maybe think a little bit beyond to see who's going to fit that next job. Who's more coachable, who is going to potentially be able to leave this particular role you're giving them to move into newer responsibilities or bigger responsibilities in the future. When you add a couple more parameters, it becomes a little bit more apparent. Even culture fit. I think that's something that a lot of people have one interview on and then don't worry about it too much. There's also the aspect around, you know, true diversity within organizations.

(Archana at 00:38:20) If your organization is fully comprised of white men and then you have these two equally qualified people and the first person who came in is not a person of color, but the second person who came in is a person of color, they're both equally qualified, all of these factors sort of influence your decision making, and they might change the parameters because the control setup that we have could change based on these extra parameters we haven't even thought about. Right? So I would always say put that in perspective versus just comparing these two people. Compare them with the environment, compare them with the scenario, compare them with what you're optimizing for, and then the decision becomes a little bit easier. And if the qualifications match, I always back myself up on culture fit, I back myself up on potential to grow, potential to get them into leadership roles, or even, you know, how does my team look today?

(Archana at 00:39:14) Because that is an extra parameter for the qualification for the job. Because you're looking for diverse opinions and you want to make sure that you have people with different backgrounds be part of your team, then that completely changes the decision making as well. So it's not as easy as having two people with equal qualifications. It's how does that fit in with the larger picture of the organization, the company, and where you guys want to go?

(Joel Beasley at 00:39:40) Yeah. So I always like to use the rainforest because the rainforest, the reason why it's so successful and its ability to maintain itself is due to its diversity. Right? There are so many thousands of species of everything. And so it's like a really, I tend to think decentralized systems are very stable. Those are diverse in one regard. I think diverse decoupled systems tend to be more stable if they're designed properly. And then diversity in general is a good thing. It's just, you know, I don't know how to talk about some things. And so I feel like I have two options. I can either shy away from them and not talk about them at all or try to solve this angst that I have and understanding because I was thinking about it on my run the other day, and I was like, division, the more you divide, the more division there will be. Right?

(Archana at 00:40:37) Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:38) Yeah. But at the same time, you need unity. Right?

(Archana at 00:40:44) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:40:44) And so it's like, if I were to look just like thought experiments, it's like, okay. Let's look at this thought as divisive and what is the unitive thought, if that's a word. Right? So I was thinking, is there language or a way to talk to solve the problem of diversity without saying we need this many people of this color?

(Archana at 00:41:08) No. Absolutely.

(Joel Beasley at 00:41:10) How do we solve that?

(Archana at 00:41:11) And the thing I tell people is the goal is not to lower the bar. The goal is to be able to bring in as many people of color to at least have the opportunity to interview for their job. And I think those are very different things. And going back to one of the things you said, it's important to bring up these questions and talk about these questions. I think when this whole racial injustice thing came about a couple of months ago, people were worried about talking about it sometimes even within companies, and they didn't know how to address it. They didn't know whether they could ask their dumb questions, whether they could ask questions and get answers for those. They didn't know whether they could approach people and say, hey. I'm here for you. Is that okay? Is that not okay?

(Archana at 00:41:57) And I think one of the major things that we all need to do is be open to ask those questions, get those solved because that is the first step towards solving problems. And that's what's going to bring about that unification that you talked about is if we all sit together and figure out a mechanism through which we can actually make a change or a difference in the world. So even within Workday, we had a huge channel to talk about Black Lives Matter and everything that's happening around the movement. We had powerful town halls that our CEO and the entire executive team came together and hosted. We have Slack channels where people constantly talk about diversity and mechanisms through which we can improve things. But one of the things that we've done is over the next year, we're bringing together people from different parts of the organization as part of an accelerator program that's going to think about the exact question that you asked about. Like, how do we creatively solve the problem of diversity?

(Archana at 00:42:32) Because the answer is not lower the bar. The answer is not have a checklist of number of people who are coming in, but it needs to be more fundamental than that. How are we going to solve that for the longer run rather than for the short term success? And a lot of times you might even see this within some parts of the organization, we're very good at making that change. But if you look at other parts of the organization, they predominantly tend to be very homogeneous in their setup. So I think there is a lot for different companies to think about. There's no one single answer for it, but I think the beginning of all of this is around even having a conversation about it, acknowledging the problem, coming together as a group of diverse set of people, and making sure that there is a path towards where you want to be in the next five years.

(Archana at 00:43:03) Not just saying I care about diversity and inclusion, so I'm going to have a head of diversity and inclusion, but going deeper than that and saying, it's not just that team's choice and work to think about diversity, but how are we as a company across different organizations within the company coming together to solve this problem for each one of us. So it's just like a product problem. Right? And this is much more fundamental than that because this is a people problem and a culture problem. And if we are going to build good products, the foundations of that needs to come with good people.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:15) Yeah. And it's like, where do your people come from? They come from your communities. Right?

(Archana at 00:44:19) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:44:20) And yeah. I so I grew up poor and there's different levels of poor, but enough to be on food stamps. Right? And then my parents ended up doing better and, you know, becoming better at their craft and progressing and so on and so forth. And we got out of that as I got into high school time. But it was, I always think about the community. And what it comes down to for me is if I were to visit my past self, it would be about education. And I would almost definitely give myself advice on go explore the personal development space. Most people, everyone will have an opinion on it, but just go explore it because doing difficult things and learning how yourself works is the foundation of how you're going to get ahead in life. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:45:11) And so I feel like if we could just amplify that message to communities, right, and just make it harder to not know the information. I see some sides say, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It's like, well, yeah. I agree with that. But at the same time, you have to have the knowledge that you have boots and they have straps and that you can pull them up. You have to have some basic business knowledge. You have to have some basic understanding of how the market works. You have to understand your own personal finance. There's a lot of these things, and we have this beautiful existing educational system. We just need to, I think, pump it full of better content. Right?

(Archana at 00:45:57) Yeah. And I think there's an interesting aspect of this. I feel like technology is actually helping us move in that direction. People who didn't know what investing was or didn't even think about investing on their own are now using apps like Robinhood. People who are not thinking about, a lot of people don't understand Bitcoins or blockchain. They're using Coinbase. We're seeing a change in terms of how people are managing their finances. Companies like Wealthfront or companies like Betterment are making it possible for folks to start thinking about their personal investment and finances. You know, YouTube and other content providers are giving information on courses and knowledge bases that people can use to improve themselves. And one of the areas that we're focusing on is even reskilling people that are currently in the workforce.

(Archana at 00:46:47) How do we use machine learning and techniques to say, people in your job listen to these four learning videos. You should go and listen to them. Hey. It looks like you just got promoted to being a manager. Here are five resources you should know about managing your team. Those recommendations that you can give people that's point in time enhance their experiences. And we're so used to it in our regular life with Netflix or with YouTube or other forums. And I think even bringing that back into the enterprise space changes how even folks that are currently in the workforce but are looking to reskill themselves to change how they work or, you know, even understand what their career path looks like. A lot of times, no one's telling anyone where do they go next. But if they have a mechanism to sort of go in and see people in your role went to these four different positions, that gives you an idea of what your career path or trajectory could look like without having your manager or somebody tell you about it.

(Archana at 00:47:45) Right? So I think there is power in technology and systems that we just need to channel and leverage in the right format to better both our society, community, as well as outlook within organizations because that's all a cycle. How your people and companies think is what's going to dictate how they bring other people into the fold as well. So I think you bring up a great point around the community value and the system around education being the force behind how people are going to change in the next few years.

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:16) Yeah. Because, you know, fifty years ago, the best professor at whatever university would interact with their students and maybe write a book, which would then be distributed wherever. But now we're getting close to the point where we're going to have three-D versions, living replicas of how people think and their styles, and we're going to be able to interact with them. And when it becomes so cheap, which is beautiful, right, how education's becoming cheaper, then we can distribute it wider. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:48:48) And then it'll be a lot like nerds, how it wasn't cool at first and then it became cool.

(Archana at 00:48:56) No, information proliferation is where we're at right now. And if we're not able to channel that and use that in the right way, that's going to be hard. As you said, we're thinking about how we can download our memories and keep them stored for the future. When we're doing that, we know storage is cheap. We know the technology enables us to provide platforms or mechanisms through which people can consume content. The next step in the game is how do you incentivize people to make use of that? What is that path that you can actually show them? I was actually part of the SPARK mentorship program in the Bay Area, and this was aimed at schools in Oakland and other areas. These were middle school kids. And the goal was to make sure they don't drop out. And the way we would do that is basically we would bring them to work to show them what different roles are like, what it's like to work in a corporate environment, what does the future hold for them, what could their future look like, and also work on a project with them as we're going through this. But that program allows them to look at the possibility that's there in front of them and the opportunities that they could be part of. And I think that's part of this whole circle—programs like returnships or programs that allow moms that have taken a break to come back to work or military veterans to come and work in the corporate workforce with skills that are required for them to be able to join. I think all of those are programs that all companies should be looking at. We've invested in it for a few years now, and it's paid huge benefits. And I think that's the way companies can start building social good: think about the population that is not able to find jobs and then figure out what the program or the structure is to help them get the skills required for them to be successful.

(Joel Beasley at 00:50:41) Yeah. I remember I was in Tennessee, and this company was blowing up. I was giving a talk at their tech council, Tennessee Tech Council or something. And in the building, this company was exploding. And what they did was they took people out of the service industry in Nashville and trained them to be product managers or engineers, and they did it with money from the city, and then they got paid by the company for placement. So they financed it with city money, got paid, and they were just like, we have to move out. We need a bigger building. Like, a hundred people are just moving like crazy because—you know what the difference was? Because these programs had existed for a long time. They started treating it like a business and advertising it. So that the bartender would be sitting there going through Instagram and see, "You want to make $70,000 a year as a product manager?" Boom. Click here, and then it's going to be free, and then you're going to come to our thing. And, you know, there were requirements and all of that good stuff. But the fact that—I call it transfusion. Like, we're actively seeking to improve and grow. And then I just saw the other day Google released these certificates that they're doing. I know Google certificates have been around for a while, but they were these six-month programs, and they're going to treat them when hiring at Google equal to a college degree. So if you have one of these six-month programs for data science and you're applying at Google for data science, then they will respect that education. And for me, that's unbelievable. It's like we're removing—it's like college was the middleman that so many of our multi-sided marketplaces got rid of. Right? It's like we're getting to that point where it's just based off of your skill, and the skills are changing so fast.

(Archana at 00:52:30) Yeah. I think the one thing that we've realized even through our research in the past few years is skills are the new currency. And that's why, going back to horizontal growth, the reason why the focus on horizontal growth matters is because what you gain from that horizontal growth or engaging yourself in these multiple areas is skills. Right? And those skills become really important as you start functioning in society. I think, sure, a college degree in computer science or electrical engineering might matter, but if you're applying for a machine learning job, a Coursera course that's just focused on machine learning from Stanford or other organizations for a fraction of the cost would serve you better. And you could have a project or something associated with it where you show that expertise and demonstrate that you actually have expertise in that. They issue you with a certificate or a digital credential that can then be accepted by other organizations. So I feel like the roadblocks are being removed little by little. There's still a long way to go. But I think those skills come in handy a lot of times when people are applying for jobs. Even if you look at veterans, the discipline they bring into the role, the organization skills that they typically have, the leadership skills that they have in terms of looking at orders coming in and executing on those orders or being able to give orders to people from a military perspective—sort of translating over to how they would manage and work in companies. They're great folks to work with. But I think giving them that opportunity and allowing them to translate those skills that they learned and gained over there into tangible things that we can use in every workplace is a huge advantage.

(Joel Beasley at 00:54:11) Yeah. And there goes your mind again thinking about how do we best use our resources. Right? I love it. Was there anything that we wanted to discuss? Because we've got about seven minutes left, and I wanted to make sure that we respect your hard stop. But also, did you have any topics that you wanted to talk about that we didn't cover?

(Archana at 00:54:31) I think the one interesting thing as I was thinking through this is I was basically thinking back at my life and my work this weekend, and I was thinking about what skills have made me successful. Or if I went back to hone a few more skills, what would those be? And it takes me back to my childhood. So I used to sing as a kid, and my parents always showed me up on stage, and they would make me sing to an audience of X number of people. Right? And I would do that. And so I never had stage fright. And that translated over to my job where I'm able to speak to a large audience without worrying or having anxiety. Similarly, I was part of debate clubs in school where we would pick a topic and we would basically block and tackle and talk about both sides of the story and how things work. And if I think about leadership roles and where I am today, a lot of times the decisions that we're making—the job itself is around decision-making, I would say. Right? You're presented with a few options, and in a very short period of time, you need to make up your mind based on the opinions and options that are on the table. And that skill was developed from that extracurricular activity that I took on earlier in my life. And the same thing with playing chess and having that focus on things that I really wanted to do. I feel like a lot of times when we think about education and about studying, people think about subjects, people think about these complex structures around math or English or social science, but they don't think about those softer skills that they're learning that sometimes end up being the ceiling for people's growth. A lot of people are not good speakers or not good public speakers, and that puts the ceiling on their growth a lot of times because that's required in certain jobs. A lot of people are not good at working under pressure and taking decisions based on quick information that they get. And that again is a detriment to a lot of people. So I think one of the aspects that I would tell even to folks that are younger in their careers: focus on some of these skills that are going to come and help you later in your life. Because expertise, domain expertise, skills, and all this around your job, you're going to learn over a period of time. But those skills are things that you have to grow and nurture over a period of time. So I think that's an important aspect to keep in mind. And mentors and sponsors can help you with that. If you have mentors for specific things, if you see someone who's a great public speaker, go to them for that skill. You don't need to have a mentor that is all-encompassing. You don't need to have a mentor that's from your own space. It's actually nice to have a variety of people in different areas mentor and coach you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:57:16) Yeah. And you also don't need to ask them to be the mentor. It's something I found out. If you come with a—I found out this hack. If you have a good enough question and you send it to a famous author and the question itself is good enough, they can tell how much time you've spent in the area or what you're struggling with based on the question, and then they'll respect the question. They'll respond to you often. And so there's just so many people that want the easy stuff. Right? And I was one of those people, and then I wanted the easy stuff, and I kept trying easy ways. And this is, you know, a long time ago. And then I just got so frustrated with not getting the results I wanted. I'm like, just let me go study successful people. And so I started buying all their books and reading and trying to understand how they think. And that is something that I believe a lot of humans have that ability. You can read something and understand how the author would think about other topics. Right?

(Archana at 00:58:19) Absolutely. And I think that's a great way to get mentors: What is top of mind? Who's the best person to answer that question? And people are, in general, very helpful. No one wants to just blow people off. I think a blank email that says, "Can I get thirty minutes of your time?" is probably not going to have a response from me. But an email that says, "Hey, I listened to this particular podcast of yours, and I wanted to discuss a little bit more about strategies around managing women," and of course I'm going to respond back and say, "Happy to take thirty minutes. Feel free to find time." So I think that's very important: context is key, and having curiosity around topics and figuring out the right people to answer your questions can go a long way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:59:03) And then last question as we wrap up. What are you really excited about in your life? Long-term goals? You mentioned five-year plans. I happen to plan my life in five-year plans. I'm actually eight months into my second five-year plan. But what's coming up for you? What are you excited about, whether it's personal or professional? What big goals are you coming up on?

(Archana at 00:59:24) Yeah. I think for me, I'm at a stage where I'm thinking more and more about impact and giving back, and both education as well as mentorship and leadership stand out for me. So I'm actually a founding member of Netri, which is a South Asian women foundation where we focus on helping and mentoring and growing South Asian women leaders. I'm part of educational startups and NGOs that are trying to change the way in which education and the industry works across the world. For me, I would say the next five years are all about impact, giving back, figuring out ways to build more leaders that are empathetic in the world, and also thinking about how we can use technology to solve some of these complex problems that are going to arise over a period of time. Especially in the enterprise space, in HR and financials, there is a huge opportunity to unify fragmented systems and make it better for companies to understand and analyze the business. And if you look at other areas, there is a huge opportunity in general to bring up people, help them grow, help them be better. And our education industry, for example, has so much that can be changed to both impact teachers, tutors, as well as students.

(Joel Beasley at 01:00:44) Boom. We nailed it. We did it. We made a podcast. How do you feel?

(Archana at 01:00:48) That's awesome. That was easy.

(Joel Beasley at 01:00:50) It was so good talking with you. It's three o'clock now, so I want to be respectful of your time. But I'm going to put you on the list to come back next year, and we can catch up and see what else is going on, what you've learned that's new, and we can keep having you on every once in a while. Is that okay with you?

(Archana at 01:01:05) Absolutely. And we've got to get together and write that book that you were talking about.

(Joel Beasley at 01:01:09) Absolutely. Have a wonderful afternoon.

(Archana at 01:01:12) You too. Take care. Thank you. Bye-bye.

(Joel Beasley at 01:01:17) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.