Jim: I am so excited to welcome Joan Burke today. She's a renowned people leader, a visionary in creating exceptional people, first cultures a friend, and a truly conscious person and leader. Joan served as Chief people Officer at DocuSign, and previously she was senior Vice President of HR at Marketo during its truly rapid growth.
And prior to that, at Responsys, she helped drive both companies SaaS industry leadership by creating and inspiring cultures of innovation and growth. Prior to her leadership roles at Marketo and Responsys, Joan led Global HR at ZipRealty, ShoreTel, ZANTAZ, The Industry Standard, and SoftNet Systems.
Outside of the office, Joan is a passionate supporter of The Human Rights Campaign, Boston Children's Hospital Trust, The Women's Lunch Place and the AIDS Action Committee. Wow. She is a busy human being. Well, Joan, welcome. We're so excited to have you here today.
Joan: Thank you, Jim. I'm really excited to be having conversation with you also.
Jim: Given your decades of leadership in this space and your passion for people and cultures, I'm just thrilled to be able to chat with you about a few topics today.
And I'd love to start with the concept of belonging. Everyone wants to feel they belong at work. And when, when you think about belonging personally, what does that mean to you?
Joan: So for me, it means a sense of psychological safety. Where individuals, have a sense of being able to show up in a way that is authentically themselves and their full personalities and everything that they bring to the table. And for me, it's, you know, the next phase of what I call the diversity journey, right?
We started talking about diversity so many years ago, and it was just about diversity. I called it the 'diversity 1.0'. And it really failed because companies were only focused on actually bringing in, you know, diverse candidates, but there was nothing around the culture to try to make them want to stay.
And then we morphed into this notion of inclusivity and the importance of inclusivity to make sure we're actually able to keep that. And now it's really even bigger than just inclusivity. It's really about belonging, which is a deeply personal. Instinct. And it requires us to measure it in a way that is very different than simply diversity or inclusion.
I mean, we've gotta ask people how they feel and really listen to them to know whether or not we're being successful in creating a culture where people feel that they belong.
Jim: So it sounds like listening was a big part of what you did to enable that culture of belonging. Can you share maybe programs you might have put in place to promote connection and belonging?
Joan: Yeah. During the pandemic it was such a challenge for all of us, particularly people in the human resources space who really didn't have a playbook to figure out how do we make sure people stay connected while none of us were in person. One of the things that we did at DocuSign was actually put in a program called DocuSign Connections.
And actually it was this platform that the head of my leading and development team had discovered and it helped us connect people with similar interests. So it was both a mentorship platform where people could sign up to be mentors, people could sign up to be mentees, and it, we also asked people to be what we call peer coaches.
So [it connected people based on] things that somebody was known for doing very well. Like we might have an employee who had a reputation for being really excellent at giving presentations and communications. They would sign up as a peer coach and people would actually kind of like reach out to them to talk about how do they get better at that?
We also really doubled down on our ERG programs. You know, we had 10 different ERGs at DocuSign that had started well before the pandemic, but we used the connection and the power of ERGs and bringing people together to really make sure we found a way. They stayed connected to each other, to DocuSign, and we use those ERGs as as an opportunity to really educate the rest of us about really what did it mean to be gay?
What did it mean to be Black? What did it mean to be an Asian woman? So those are some of the things that we did.
Jim: I have a quote from you here that I wanna read. I thought it was really interesting. You said, 'The hardest thing about being in my role and being sheltered in place. Is being in my office by myself, I never went into HR to be by myself in an office for eight months. We go into this field because we love people and we want to help them be successful.'
Joan: You know, I sometimes I've thought about my long career in human resources when people have asked me why I chose HR.
And for me, the most interesting part about business has always been the people.
I have been a strong believer, and you know me well, that corporate programs are great. You know, you certainly need to have them in many areas around comp and benefits, but at the end of the day, a lot of the real magic that happens is at the team level.
And so, we really empowered our managers and gave them budget to think about doing some sort of things creatively that would help their teams feel like they were connecting to each other and help the manager feel like they were empowered to be able to, to take some actions so that they could get the best out of their teams.
But you know, it took a lot of thought.
Jim: One of the things that you talk about is making sure that when employees look back and reminisce about their career, they can say they did the work of their life. Can you talk about some of the things that companies can do to ensure that people are actually doing the work of their lives?
Joan: One of the things that's really important about that, Jim, and it's a little like the whole belonging issue is that it's very unique to individual. I will tell you, when we first kinda landed on the notion of work of your life at DocuSign and that we thought we wanted to be a differentiator there, you know, everybody wants to be a best place to work, including us.
If we could create environment and we could create a sense of importance around giving people the opportunity to do the work of their lives, and we didn't even say the best work of lives, you said the work of your lives.
It's kind of like, 'I had the time of my life.' It doesn't need best in front of it. It's just, is it [the best work of your life]? We felt that that was a complete differentiator. And I will tell you at first our employees were like, I didn't quite get it, but they understood that what we were getting at was that the work of your life, as I said, is deeply personal.
It's kind of like this notion of feeling like you belong. It is personal. You know it, you feel it, you and I, if I was your manager. I cannot know what Jim's work of his life is unless I spend time with you to really have that deep conversation and to know whether or not you're actually doing the work of your life in the organization you're in.
And if you're not, what's my role? What's the company's role in helping you succeed to do the work of your life? We included it as part of the self review that all of our employees would do prior to the performance review process. We asked that question, are you doing the work of your life? And if you're not doing the work of your life, what is it you need from me?
But the power of this work of your life was really about the manager and the employee really understanding what it meant and what they needed.
And, you know, I'll tell you, during the pandemic when I had to do my self review at times, I had a lot of low periods like so many employees did, and I really questioned whether or not I was doing the right job for the employees. And I had to answer that question for my boss as for the performance review.
And there were times when I said it doesn't feel like I'm doing the work of my life. But I think I'm gonna look back and reflect and say, I really did do the work of my life. And that is true sometimes when you're in the middle of it, if it's messy and it's hard and you feel a little lost. All of those things that I felt, I really wasn't sure, but I know it honestly now. It really was the work of my life.
Jim: Can you talk a little bit about the importance of purpose and meaning in a career or a life well led?
Joan: It really is about doing meaningful work. Now, sometimes I will tell you, you could be in a role where it might be that the, it's a transactional role, or you don't necessarily feel a whole sense of meaning in the actual day-to-day.
Where I see this playing out successfully is when companies have a higher level of purpose and meaning, so that employees love being connected to an organization that stands for something meaningful that they believe in. So, it isn't just your day to day right of what you're doing and am I getting meaning out of my work, but it's also being part of a larger organization.
But in those moments when maybe you're not getting, as challenged by sort of the task at hand, there's a higher meaning and purpose that I think can serve people and companies well and, and make people glad to be part of the bigger organization.
Jim: Something else you said that really inspired me. You said that each high potential HR professional should have an organizing principle, a point of view. That's their true north. So is this your true north, is this your organizing principle that you, focusing on building people-centric cultures that are all about helping them do the work of their lives?
Joan: Yes, and I would say it's kind of, there are two pieces for me. I've seen it work. I've seen how powerful it is, and again, it puts the individual at the center of that conversation. So it requires me to be a good listener. It requires me as manager to be supportive. So that is the reason why I love that [priniciple].
The other thing though, which is really a philosophy about human resources that I've had for many years.
I also believe the best HR is actually helping managers be the best managers they can be. And so what's always been very important to me is making sure if I had some training dollars, I over-rotated on supporting managers because managers, at the end of the day, we talked about this, that's where your performance reviews are.
[Managers] are the people who care about your career. Front-line managers make or break an organization, and the best we could do is to create the best managers is possible. So employees feel supported because how, how they feel about the company in many ways is how they feel about their manager. So I've really always had this strong belief, which I still do you know, if companies can develop great managers, they're way more than halfway there in terms of success.
Jim: I wanna share a story about you. I, I didn't know you that well at the time. and we had just opened up a role at our company for a head of people and one of the people on your team applied for the role.
I thought, oh my God, what am I gonna do? I've gotta call Joan. I reached out to you. We had a call, and I will never forget your response. You said to me, Jim, I never stand in the way of anyone's career. You should interview her. She's terrific. I was so blown over by that. I was so impressed.
So I'm wondering how did you learn to embrace that mentality of never standing in the way of anyone's career and always doing what's best for your people?
Joan: Thank you, I do remember that story. I don't know whether to call it karma... I've just seen over and over and over again in my lifetime that when you do the right things for people, you always feel good about yourself.
And if you had a better job than I had for that individual, shame on me. Right? I mean, if I didn't have a job as good as the one you had... That's why I say never want to stand in the way of anyone's career. But I also would say to my employees and the companies I've been at, never look to someone else to develop your career. In other words, don't put your career in someone else's hands. You own it.
You know what's best for you. So while you need mentors and sponsors and people along the way to help, don't look to other people to map out your career. Do it yourself.
Jim: Throughout your career, I know you've talked a lot about the importance of showing vulnerability as a leader. So tell me a little bit, how have you personally embraced vulnerability in your leadership roles?
Joan: Well, I think the pandemic gave me a lot of opportunity to show vulnerability places where I didn't have all the answers and I was at times, you know, kind of lost.
I remember a staff meeting that I had. And I remember talking to my senior leadership team, and it was a point when I was really struggling. So I was trying to find places where I could get comfort and words and poems and reading. And my sister had said to me, you know, read, read. The prayer from Mother Teresa, you know, that was found on her wall in Calcutta and [this is] attributed this to her.
It's called 'Anyway,' and it's about 'do it anyway.' You know, there are people who will be jealous of your success, be successful anyway. There will be people who will doubt what you have to say. Speak your voice anyway. But there was one part of that—and I was choking up as I was reading it to my team—because I said, this is the most important piece right now. And I think you probably feel the same way, and I want to allow you to be able to sort of be vulnerable.
There's a line in it that says, 'You will do your best and it will never be enough. Do your best anyway.' And so it was that when I realized everything I was doing was not enough. It wasn't enough for our employees as the company. It wasn't enough for my own team, it just wasn't enough. But what resonated with me is that like, 'Do it anyway.' And I cried, and they did, too.
And it was just one of those moments where I just had to say it, you know, I'm kinda lost a little bit here. And if you are, too, it's okay. And together we will figure this out and together we will come from this lost place to a place where we're leading our people and doing the right things for the company.
Jim: And you did.
Joan: I think we did.
Jim: Before you leave, I've got one last question for you. I'd love to know just what's one thing or a couple of things that you do to be happier in life or happier at work?
Joan: One of the things I feel really strongly about is that it really matters who I do it with. It really, really, really matters who the people are around me. And personally, I came from an epic, epic family vacation that, you know, we've been planning for two years.
We spent three and a half weeks in Africa, and it was amazing at every level. But when people have said to me, so what was the thing about it? I mean, what was the most wonderful experience? What was the place you love the most? And I've said, I was with nine of my favorite people on the face of this planet, and it was just nothing but a bonus that we were able to do it in Africa. These are people who I like to grocery shop with because they're fun.
Work is the same way, you know? And I was talking to a CEO the other day who's been a CEO at a number of different companies, and right now it's kind of in between gigs and what he'll do next.
He says, of course I have to believe in the company, but that's not going be enough. It is about who I'm doing it with.
At this stage it's just about people.
Jim: Well, thank you so much. It's definitely about whom I'm doing it with, and I really appreciate the opportunity to do this with you today. Thank you so much for being on with us.
Joan: Thank you, Jim. It's been a pleasure.