How Great Teams Win

Speaker 1: [Music] I always encourage women to lean into because I think women have a natural ability in multitasking, in being creative, in being problem solvers and we often diminish ourselves by saying that we don't have the perfect resume. And if I can be but one very small example where I can say you don't have to have that perfect resume or the education, you have transferable skills naturally and there are many ways to build a career. If I can be that very small tiny bit of inspiration or an example of someone who can do it, then trust me, anyone can do it if I can do it. I'm Melanie Bar. Welcome back to the Sheba podcast, your go-to place to empower you to live the life and business that you crave. I'm here to talk about everything from having the courage to make life and career leaps to the details of how to lead effectively, create successful teams, implement strategies for growth, and infuse tech innovation. I'm here to celebrate your wins and navigate through your challenges. I live in the city now, but I grew up in a town of a thousand people. I've navigated major life leaps, a senior level corporate career, worked in professional sports, and now as a successful entrepreneur who loves business, technology, family, and making meaningful connections with you and the She Built It. I also love a good workout and dose of self-care. Magic happens when we focus on the part of ourselves and our business that brings us joy. So, turn up the audio, open your favorite notes app, grab your favorite drink, and here we go. Welcome to the Sheila podcast. Thank you for joining us. For someone who hasn't met you yet, how do you introduce yourself when someone asks, "What do you do?" It's such a great question. It's definitely morphed over the years. Now, I say that I'm the unlikely COO. I don't have a traditional background. If you looked at my resume, you'd think, what does this person do? Who is she? She's been all over the map.

Speaker 1: But all of those experiences have really built this amazing foundation for me to bring forward my leadership, my experience, and really help people at all stages of their careers. It lights my fire. But I've spent most of my time in tech startups here in Canada. Tech startups that are working on a global stage. everything from aerospace, defense, telecom, consumer goods, and now at Vster where we are transforming access to veterinary care for pet owners and making it possible for them to take care of their pets from the comfort of home. And when you work with someone or a business, tell us what that looks like. So, typically I love to work with startups who have a founder who says, "I've got a great idea. I want to build this, but I don't want to have to be the day-to-day person who is running all of the different departments, building things from 0 to one to 10. That's what makes me so excited where I can say, "Okay, you need an HR department. Okay, you need legal. Oh, now you need operations. Now you need an office. Oh, we're fundraising today. We've got to go do that, too." Those are the things that I like. I think that creating a business is truly an art form. So, it's a very creative field for me. And when I say that I'm unlikely in the role of being an operations person, what I mean by that is most people will come from an MBA. They'll come from supply chain. They have a finance background. I have none of those things. I'm actually a public relations professional by trade.

Speaker 1: I went to school for PR. I parlayed myself into the world of startups through that lens. But what it gave me was the skeleton key for every department in the business because I had to tell everybody's story. And in order to do that, I had to figure out what they did, why it mattered, how they did it, the outcomes that they were driving for the business. And it gave me a little bit of a taste over my career where I got to work with all of these departments to really understand the impact that they could have. And that led me into operations where now I knew enough to be dangerous. I knew enough to know what were the kinds of people that needed to be hired into a startup. I knew when that needed to happen. Big business principles don't work for startups. Startups are really creative. One day you need a website, the next day you need a marketing team, the next day you're pivoting into building a data department. It really is creative and always in slucks. And that's the instinct that I've honed throughout my career and the one that I always encourage women to lean into because I think women have a natural ability in multitasking, in being creative, in being problem solvers. And we often diminish ourselves by saying that we don't have the perfect resume. And if I can be but one very small example where I can say you don't have to have that perfect resume or the education. You have transferable skills naturally and there are many ways to build a career. If I can be that very small tiny bit of inspiration or an example of someone who can do it then trust me anyone can do it if I can do it. Yes. Such good advice. And I love to look at operations as a puzzle. What pieces are missing and how do you fill in those missing pieces? And do you work with founders? Every founder or business leader comes to the table with their strengths. Do you fill in around those strengths when you're working with someone? That's exactly it. You nailed it. And I really love that part of it because every founder is different which lets me flex different skills that I have but also let me learn along the way. They become the expert in what they do. Mark Bordeaux, our founder at Vster, he is an expert in marketplaces. He is the one who had the vision of how could he apply his expertise into this industry which is facing a real crisis. There aren't enough veterinarians out there for all of the pets that we adopted particularly during the pandemic. And so it is an industry in crisis and technology has this amazing way to come in and solve for this problem. He saw that he is genius at seeing that opportunity. He's also incredible at fundraising and working with the venture community. He is a big picture guy. He is relationshipbased. And when we first met, he said, "I've got a marketing team. I'm starting to build my engineering team. We've got all of these different pieces. And now I'm trying to figure out, do I manage these pieces at this stage or should I be thinking bigger?" And by the end of our conversations, he just said, "Could you just come and do this?" And that was wonderful. That was such a great evolution from where he was. It's allowed him to focus on what is his superpower. It lets me come in and do all of the things that I love to do, which is build teams, build diverse groups of people with really creative and technical capacities and find that balance of what's going to make the magic happen in our culture. We have 65 people now. When I started, we were at about 12. And so now, you know, we're in 50 countries. We've done this in about five years with our primary focus on Canada and the US. We have thousands of veterinarians who work for us. And so for me, it's making sure that all of this is happening at the right pace, at the right time in order for us to meet our objectives. But it lets him be the person who is front ahead of the business, thinking two, three, four years into the future, making sure that we're always prepared for what's going to come. And that's a really nice symbiotic relationship.

Company Culture

Speaker 1: What do you think is the most important element of building a sustainable company culture? And when things get messy or busy, how do you keep your teams communicating? Such a good question. I can't take any credit for this. I learned this by working with Mike Cervinus, who co-founded a company called Coobo. Here in Canada, it's the number one competitor to Kindle. And we took that company from four countries when I joined to 22 countries in less than three years. And the superpower that Mike Cervinas has is he defines culture before he's even launched the company. He sees culture really and truly as his competitive advantage because everything comes out of culture.

Speaker 1: Your ability to execute, your ability to work together, your ability to think bigger, go after your ambitions really is rooted in your culture. And so we did something very similar taking his cue applied it at Vster where from the outset when I joined we established our culture and our values, our mission statement and it's not something that should happen organically. You should be purposeful in defining your culture. You should hire people who will fit that culture, be able to emulate and foster that culture. What you don't want is to get two, three, four years into your business, look around and try and jerryrig your culture together or maybe find out that your culture doesn't meet the needs of the business and what you as the founder had envisioned for yourself. And so we were really thoughtful about defining our values around inclusion, diversity, our own ambition and what we were going to do and just how pet obsessed we all are, which if you came to our office, we have about 15 dogs running around on any given day. I love that. Um, so it needs to be really purposeful, really thoughtful. You hire against that because it's not about people having their own personal values. It's about knowing that their personal values are also aligned with the company. It's about how they're going to make decisions. It's about how they're going to show up for each other. It's about how they're going to hold you as leaders accountable to the decisions that are happening in the business as well. And it fosters a level of transparency and community that if you don't have it well defined can be really hard for people. It can create a lot of problems. And so we're very transparent about it. We nurture these values. We recognize people based on values. Performance evaluations. End of year bonuses are all tied to our values far more than they are tied to any other metric. It's so true. And if you don't set that, how do your teams know where they're going?

Leadership accountability

Speaker 1: It's so important for the leader to set that. Absolutely. You have to be held accountable and you have to live and walk that talk. I think it's too easy for businesses to say we value our people but then the people are the first things to be affected when the economy for example we've seen in tech over the last three years we've had a lot of volatility as many have but certainly in our industry as well and at Bster we've had to ride that storm and really reinforce with our people that they come first I was really lucky to learn that lesson at my last company called inner space they are an indoor analytics company. And so what they do is they measure how people function in an office. Then the pandemic happened and suddenly we had no people to measure in an office. And so we watched our pipeline disappear overnight. Our clients said, "Can we go on pause because nobody's in the building?" And our leadership team and our adviserss who had big holdings in real estate portfolios themselves said, "Go down, brass tax, bare bones in your business.

Speaker 1: Just hunker down, turn everything off, send everyone home, put them on employment insurance, and keep your fingers crossed and we'll come out on the other side." And that is very logical and that is what a lot of businesses would do. But we were values driven and we cared about our people and we had known many of our people for over a decade. We'd worked together at past companies and the leadership team, the founding team and I, we sat down and we said, "This isn't good enough for us. We're going to try and figure out how to do this differently. First and foremost, we want to keep everyone employed, but we're also going to think through this tough problem and see how we can keep this business going." And so we refocused all of our sales efforts around the facilities managers who were in our clients buildings. They were still there. We convinced them that we could help them prepare for the return to work. We made sure that we could go in and set up our infrastructure while no one was around so it wouldn't be disruptive. And I'm really proud to say that over the pandemic, we kept all of our staff employed, every single person.

Speaker 1: That is amazing, especially for a company that does what your company did.

Speaker 1: Yes. And it just shows the leadership in being nimble and saying, "Okay, we're presented with this." Because you're always, as an entrepreneur and a leader, you're always going to be faced with different things. Nothing is going to stay, especially the way we live today, the same for very long. And I think it's just something that we have to get used to as a culture in working through all of these quick changes because they happen usually pretty quick. Exactly.

Speaker 1: And it's so nice to hear you reflect that back because I think it is very easy to put your values aside when things get hard and we see that all the time. It is very easy to prioritize money over your people and the longevity of your company. It's very easy to sell out and I say easy in that I know it is a hard decision to make but it is often the first decision to make. And I'm really proud of James Woo who was the CEO at Innerpace. He really held the line there. And it was really nice to work for a leader who said, "I'm going to do the hard thing, but I'm going to do the right thing." And they're flourishing. They're a 10-year business now. They have amazing clients. And it really goes to show and most of the team is still there even today, but certainly we kept them all the way through the pandemic. And that was a real lesson learned. And I think the more we can convince leaders and show them the examples of how to think differently, how to pivot, how to challenge themselves not to follow into that status quo, the better we as leaders become. And our people see that from us. Yeah. And it can be scary at times to go through those things. And so leaders are lucky to have someone like you working with them because you can't always go to a team member or a friend if you don't have the right support circle around you. There's a lot of groups. People are part of masterminds and a number of things which are so great, but you really need that person to go to that's a trusted adviser that's not necessarily a team member working for you or a family member or friend. I'd like to think so. I think you need to have the experience in the room that can show you multiple pathways. That's the idea behind hiring a diverse team. That's the idea behind having people with different experiences. My team at Bster come from some traditional backgrounds, but we've got people from retail, from thermostat businesses to social media. I have one person on my team who used to work for Big Brother editing video. We have people from all walks of life and here we are magically creating a fantastic experience for pet owners connecting to veterinarians. It's a medical platform. We bring in those experts, but we've all got different backgrounds. I like to call it the weird and wonderful.

Speaker 1: Somebody's superpower can sometimes be their Achilles heel, but the opposite is true. I like to pick people who have non-traditional paths because they will think differently about the role and what they're bringing to the table, but they'll also spark magic internally when people are brainstorming, coming up with new strategies. And I think we get caught into this trap that we need to hire the resume. And I like to think we need to hire the person, the skills, and their attitude because the resume can get taught. The resume is something that you can teach people. You can expose them to new projects, get them the resources that they need. Really, what you want is how is somebody wired? How are they thinking about this? How are they going to show up every day? That matters far more. That's so true. When we have that intuition inside of us, you can look at the resume, but have an intuition about someone. And it's interesting over the years to learn to build that intuition muscle over knowing that someone's going to do a good job in a role. You're absolutely right. And candidly, in my experience, I think women are far more adept at hiring people for purpose rather than what I often see is people, usually men, hiring for pedigree. And we know, particularly as women, we know that pedigree isn't always something that we have the opportunity to gain. certainly women in tech, people of color, we don't necessarily get the same opportunities over the course of our career. And so it is incredibly important not only for us to find those opportunities where we can be hired for purpose, but also I think as we become more senior now when I'm in this role, I really do think about how can I look at people for purpose and give them opportunities they might not otherwise have. I think that's incredibly important. We have to pay it forward. Hiring for pedigree sometimes can serve a purpose, but more often than not, it can be really disruptive as well. And so really thinking about people, who are they? You referenced the business being a puzzle. Your teams are a puzzle as well. And making sure you have diverse thought, making sure you've got expertise, but also making sure you've got creativity, kindness, the things that are going to align to your values are very important. Yeah. So important. We talk a lot about mindset. How do you start your day with all that you have going on in the right mindset? I love the five minute journal. I find that is a very useful tool. Sometimes on my phone, sometimes having the journal itself. I love to set the intention of what I'm going to accomplish in the day.

Speaker 1: But also starting it with gratitude. The more I start my day with gratitude, the less I find that I get pulled off kilter or that I can let the stress of the day or somebody else's stress of the day affect me. I do know I can reflect at the end of the day. Oh, okay. That was a bit rough. I didn't handle that as well.

Speaker 1: And I usually can map it directly to how did I start my day? Did I start it with gratitude? But I'll also admit I've got about a 45 minute to an hour commute into the city and so I spend a lot of time podcasting. So, Business Wars is my favorite go-to where I'm constantly inspired by thinking bigger, really ideating before I get into my day of what are we going to bring to the table, how are we going to push ourselves. I think it's very easy for many people to get insular and only focused on the four walls within their business. Improving a process, improving your designs on your advertising. But businesses are built on being outside of your four walls. And so getting inspired for that, how am I going to live outside of my business to help it grow, help people understand what we're doing, that's the most important. And so if I can do those things in the morning, it will really set me up for success. That's so true because we can be so in our business sometimes that we don't see outside of it. Sometimes I think I'm going to look at my business as if someone else owns it. And I love how you said five minutes because I've become obsessed with a five-minute meditation in the morning. I foam roll or I stretch and do that five minutes. And I found it's amazing what five minutes can do. If I don't do those five minutes, I really feel it throughout the day. It doesn't take a lot. I think we make everything so complicated when it comes to our health and well-being. What I've learned as I've gotten a little older in my years, it really doesn't take much. It can be a walk around the block. It can be 5 minutes. It can simply be stretching. As you mentioned, we like to think that, oh, I have to go crush it in the gym for an hour. Oh, I have to eat perfectly. We have these little check marks of success and then you realize, wait a minute, not only is that probably not contributing to the quality of life that I want, but more often than not, it's actually increasing my stress levels. I remember about 10 years ago, I was facing some very serious burnout. My health was declining. I was very stressed. And I remember I was working with a nutritionist and she said, "You're going to the gym. You're spending an hour and a half, you're lifting heavy weights, you're doing lots of cardio, you're going to work, you're working 10, 12 hours, then you're trying to network at the end of that. When you volunteer, it's more versions of work." And she said, "You're just spiking your cortisol all the time. I just want you to go for a walk every day." And I was young enough and proud enough to think that she was crazy. Uh, you're nuts. This is ridiculous. the gym is my sanity, but I trusted her and I practiced. And now it really truly is. It's those micro moments where you can check in with yourself. Check in with how you're doing and how you're showing up that are going to have far more effect. That's so true.

Getting outside

Speaker 1: And getting outside changes the energy. I just went with for a walk with a friend and she ended up getting a job offer on the walk and we were talking about how it's amazing when you sit in your office and then you step outside and then something really good happens. It's so true. I love that you said that.

Putting your feet on the grass

Speaker 1: I was just having a coffee with a friend and she was very stressed and thinking about life and her existential career crisis. And I said, "You need to go put your feet on the grass. That's what you need to do." And she also thought I was nuts. And I said, "No, really. We're going for a walk. Get your socks off. Put your feet in the grass." And within 10 minutes, you could just see it all come down. And I like a little bit of woo in my life these days.

Letting the universe speak

Speaker 1: is I we live in tech, we live in business, we're all so busy, but taking that moment to just let the universe speak to you a little bit more to be more in tune, I think is so powerful. So true. Thank you so much for joining us today. We learned so much about leadership and operations. Such a fun conversation. Can you please share with us how and where we can find you? I'm on LinkedIn. That is definitely my social media platform of choice these days. So, Caris Goodall as well as my email carrisbster.com.

Stay in touch

Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today. I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me at hell@ shebuiltit.com on our shebuilt website or at she built it on social.

Credits

Speaker 1: Thank you to my editor, Rich Duffelino, who always makes us sound good. Until next time, let nothing stop you from experiencing the life and business that