logo
episode-header-image
Oct 2021
19m 36s

Looking Backward Before You Go Forward w...

MISSION
About this episode

The company was a Goliath in its industry and Marissa had a lot of respect for it. But she also knew the company was facing hard times, and when she got the call asking her to join the team as CEO, she knew that turning things around would be no small feat. 

The company had an attrition rate of close to 25% - meaning 1 in 4 people were leaving. It had cycled through six CEOs in the last 5 years. The stock price was dropping and revenue losses were at an all-time high. Most news sources, investors, and business execs agreed that the company was on the way to the grave. To join the sinking ship would be crazy -- and Marissa knew it was crazy.

But, of course, we wouldn’t be sharing her story if she hadn’t taken the leap. 

Marissa started as CEO the day her appointment was announced. But rather than jump in, take the wheel, and try to save the ship, for the first 90 days, she did… nothing. She didn’t present a strategy, she didn’t cut off hemorrhaging lines of business, she didn’t try to recruit a new team — no, she remained silent, and, for three months, all she did was listen. 

It’s a technique many notable CEOs have used when entering a new organization, and it’s one that Steve Murphy, CEO of Epicor Software, has relied on time and time again. What exactly helped Steve and Epicor write a new ending to their story. How did he turn Epicor into a thriving business making more than $900 million in revenue, with 20,000 customers in more than 150 countries? Find out on Business X factors.

Main takeaways: 

  • Talk Less, Listen More: If you want to become a better leader of a business team, become a proactive listener. Especially when a business is going through big changes or is at an inflection point, leaders should not be tempted to rush and communicate what’s on their mind. The first step is to listen to customers and your workforce and to engage, to be able to understand. Astute leaders know that surrendering the floor is how you get to understand what is on the mind of others. The smartest person in the room is often not the one doing the talking; it is the person who is engaging and asking relevant questions and doing most of the listening. 
  • Rewind, Take Stock, Move Forward: Steve Jobs famously said at Stanford University that you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. For companies, this rearview mirror to connect the dots of past mistakes makes great sense in finding out what was broken and why it was broken. By looking back or taking a step back, you can develop a tactical tool kit that will help you to move forward. Weave the lessons you learned in the past into a future strategy and move on toward a more successful future.
  • Putting Out Small Fires Won’t Do It: When businesses experience problems, you can examine and try to fix a range of symptoms, like missed deadlines, low morale, lack of materials or software problems or put out the small fires. A better solution is to dig deeper into the root causes of problems, diagnose the underlying issues with your team. Root cause analysis consists of defining the problem, digging below the surface for the underlying conditions that gave rise to the problem. Design and implement a solution with buy-in at all levels and evaluate the success. 
  • Managers Don’t Need to be Liked: Managers' relationships with their teams can often seem like that of a tightrope walker between too close and too distant. As a boss is often the reason why people leave a company; it is important to get it right. Friendliness and respect without friendship create balance and this balance needs to be constantly adjusted. To get the balance right: Focus on the job you have to do, it’s about delivering results; set the boundaries between you and your team, but give descriptive feedback on what has been done and the impact it had; keep emotional self-control; take responsibility if things go wrong; know your team by taking time to listen. Give respect and it will be given back.

---

Business X factors is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by Hyland

For over a decade, Hyland has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms, leading the way to help people get the information they need when and where they need it. More than half of 2019 Fortune 100 companies rely on Hyland to help them create more meaningful connections with the people they serve. When your focus is on the people you serve, Hyland stands behind you. Hyland is your X factor for better performance. Go to Hyland.com/insights to learn more.

Up next
Apr 2022
Beyond the Status Quo With Raj De Datta, CEO and Co-Founder of Bloomreach
Is it possible to create an organizational culture before you even have a company? Raj De Datta, Co-Founder and CEO of Bloomreach, explains that he developed the cultural framework for Bloomreach before the company launched. Tune in to learn:How customer personalization changes e ... Show More
30m 35s
Apr 2022
Change the Why to Win, With Joe Walsh, Chairman and CEO of Thryv
Is it possible that a CEO can get duped into running a company? Joe Walsh, Chairman and CEO of Thryv, shares how he ended up holding the reins of a historic company to pivot it from its phone book past to providing a digital platform that helps small businesses thrive. Tune in to ... Show More
27m 23s
Apr 2022
Leadership Takes Guts With Jim Kavanaugh, CEO and Co-Founder of World Wide Technology
Jim Kavanaugh knows a thing or two about rising to the occasion. As the CEO and Co-Founder of World Wide Technology – an organization that provides global technology solutions and services – he’s had to prove his mettle more than once. Tune in to this episode of Business X factor ... Show More
33m 30s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 11
Why Big Tech Is Spending Millions to Partner with Smart AI Startups
What if the next big wave in marketing isn’t about targeting people at all—but impressing their AI agents instead?Abhay Parasnis, CEO of Typeface and former CTO at Adobe, joins us to explain why the future of brand discovery is less “search bar” and more “autonomous agents doing ... Show More
1h 9m
Jun 13
Digital Marketing & AI News
In this special solo edition of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel introduces a new regular feature: a fast-paced roundup of the most critical AI and digital marketing news. With the rate of change accelerating across platforms, tools, and marketing strategy, it’s never been m ... Show More
12m 51s
May 19
Is Every Company Now an AI Company?
The buzz is deafening—every company is now an AI company...or are they? Knownwell CMO Courtney Baker is joined by CEO David DeWolf and Chief Product and Technology Officer Mohan Rao to unpack whether the AI revolution is as widespread as the hype suggests. They explore what it re ... Show More
34m 5s
Apr 2025
20Sales: How the Best Sales Teams Use AI to Win Enterprise Deals | Sales Teams Will Be Dramatically Smaller | How to Ramps Sales Reps Way Faster | Why Unpaid Design Partners are BS | Why this Generati
Ishan Mukherjee is the Co-Founder/CEO of Rox, a Sequoia-backed AI-powered sales productivity platform. Before Rox, he was the Chief Growth Officer at New Relic where he scaled the self-serve business from $0-$100M in ARR. Prior to New Relic, Ishan founded Pixie Labs (acq by New R ... Show More
1h 9m
May 11
MicroVee: AI Is Eating Google Search: What Every Business Should Do Next | GaryVee Bloomberg Interview
AI is flipping the script on search—and most brands aren’t ready. In this episode, I sat down with Bloomberg to break down the massive shifts happening in digital marketing, thanks to AI-powered search engines, and how every brand—from Fortune 500s to startups—needs to urgently a ... Show More
5m 43s
Aug 3
ChatGPT Agent and the Future of Digital Marketing
In this episode of The Digital Marketing Podcast, Daniel Rowles and Ciaran Rogers explore one of the most transformative shifts in digital marketing: the arrival of ChatGPT Agent and the rise of agent-based AI. No longer just about generating content, AI is now taking action on o ... Show More
30m 56s
Jul 7
Why Hyper-Growth Actually Starts With Your Existing Clients
What if your next wave of growth isn’t about chasing new logos—but mining gold from the clients you already have? In this cepisode, CMO Courtney Baker challenges the traditional growth mindset with Knownwell’s CEO David DeWolf and Chief Product and Technology Officer Mohan Rao. T ... Show More
29m 15s
Mar 2025
20VC: HubSpot CEO on Where Value Accrues in SaaS AI | How HubSpot Competes Against Salesforce | Why B2B Is Not a Winner Take All Market | How to Go From SMB to Enterprise an Win | How SEO Dying Change
Yamini Rangan is the CEO at HubSpot. The $32BN juggernaut that has revenues of $2.6BN, over 247,000 customers and 8,200 employees. Prior to Hubspot, Yamini served as Chief Customer Officer at Dropbox, and before Dropbox, she was VP of Sales Strategy and Operations at Workday.  In ... Show More
55m 12s
Mar 2025
20Product: How to Design and Build Products in a World of Agents | Why AI Will Kill Many SaaS Products | What Products Will Thrive and Die in a World of 100M Developers with Matt Biilmann, Co-Founder
Matt Biilmann is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Netlify. Under his leadership, Netlify has become one of the fastest-growing platforms for modern web development. Matt recently introduced agent experience (AX), a new way of thinking about how software is built and experienced in the AI ... Show More
49m 4s
Aug 2024
What You Need to Know About AI to Use it Effectively
Do you need to understand backpropagation, K-means clustering, or hyperparameter tuning to lead an AI transformation in your business? Probably not. So, what should you focus on instead? In this episode, David DeWolf and Mohan Rao explore how to think strategically about AI adopt ... Show More
31m 53s