This is the sec­ond inter­view in our two-part Q&A with Jen­nifer Moril­la, CEO of Jen Moril­la LLC. Moril­la will be a keynote speak­er at our ASUG Best Prac­tices: SAP for Mid­mar­ket con­fer­ence lat­er this year. In this Q&A, Moril­la describes the themes in her keynote address, includ­ing the impor­tance of per­son­al and cor­po­rate val­ues, as well as the chal­lenges of cross-orga­ni­za­tion KPI, goal com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and alignment.

Q: How do lead­ers inspire? What do teams and lead­ers need to avoid so they can become their most inspi­ra­tional selves?

A: Inspi­ra­tion comes from with­in the leader. Being a leader isn’t an easy role. I don’t want to say you need to be on a high all the time. But you do need to own the room, right? You walk into a room and the way you feel puts mood into the room for the rest of the team. And that’s very impor­tant to rec­og­nize in your respon­si­bil­i­ty as a leader — how you show up is how the rest of your team is going to play.

Addi­tion­al­ly, are you giv­ing space? Are you allow­ing cre­ativ­i­ty? Are you sup­port­ing that?

There are days when I show up for my team and I’m just mad. I’ve got a lot going on in my life and they rec­og­nize that. I think about step­ping away from the ego and I rec­og­nize that this is going to be a lit­tle hard­er for me today. Espe­cial­ly dur­ing times like this, because we’re remote, we’re with our fam­i­lies on a day-to-day basis. I think that bound­aries have been test­ed. Just rec­og­niz­ing and remem­ber­ing that as a leader, the way you show up for your team is the way the rest of the team will play.

Q: Giv­en vari­abil­i­ty in terms of work, work styles, work loca­tions, etc., what should lead­ers respond to, and do, to inspire that healthy work-life balance?

A: The biggest thing that com­pa­nies have tak­en away from this whole [pan­dem­ic] is that their employ­ees are still pro­duc­tive, if not even more proac­tive and pro­duc­tive. Peo­ple have got­ten so used to work­ing remote­ly that they’re prob­a­bly doing an even bet­ter job.

So now, you may be telling employ­ees, you get to be remote, or, if you want, you get to come into the office. The plus side to going into an office once a week is for com­mu­ni­ty. Whether you’re sin­gle or mar­ried, whether you have chil­dren or not — work­ing from home has tak­en a men­tal toll on people.

I think hav­ing the abil­i­ty to go into the office and final­ly meet some of your cowork­ers can be ben­e­fi­cial. Have con­ver­sa­tions, maybe have lunch, or go to hap­py hours or sim­i­lar. Social events bring more com­mu­ni­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty into the com­pa­ny. Maybe hav­ing a bud­dy sys­tem or some­thing like that would be good. Again, that goes back to cre­at­ing some type of community.

Q: What will you note in your keynote in terms of metrics?

A: Some­times it’s a strug­gle to estab­lish met­rics and con­ver­sa­tions around met­rics. And peo­ple some­times get intim­i­dat­ed by met­rics, sys­tems, per­for­mance mea­sure­ment, etc. When I’m refer­ring to met­rics, I’m specif­i­cal­ly refer­ring to KPIs that are rel­e­vant not just to the val­ues and goals of the cor­po­ra­tion, but also with­in each depart­ment. For instance, when talk­ing about social media mar­ket­ing, what are the goals they want to accom­plish for that quar­ter? Are they try­ing to gain more fol­low­ers, and/​or more brand aware­ness? How about more ad spend? What does that look like, as a col­lec­tive? Then, indi­vid­u­al­ly, who’s man­ag­ing what?

I think KPIs need to be dis­cussed with­in each team. I don’t think one leader should stand at the podi­um and say, ​“I want this, this, and this, and this, this quar­ter.” In a per­fect world, upper man­age­ment has a con­ver­sa­tion with mid­dle man­age­ment. Then mid­dle man­age­ment has a con­ver­sa­tion down the line about goals and val­ues; then they dis­cuss best practices.

Mak­ing goals that are actu­al­ly fea­si­ble — not hav­ing out­ra­geous goals — and then com­mu­ni­cat­ing between all depart­ments so every­body under­stands what the goals are. Every­body has to com­mu­ni­cate. I think that’s one of the biggest things with major cor­po­ra­tions: nobody com­mu­ni­cates. Mar­ket­ing only talks to mar­ket­ing. Sales only talks to sales. All depart­ments should be hang­ing out, hav­ing a conversation.

Q: If there’s one point that you want every­one to know, love, and leave with from your keynote, what is it?

A: The impor­tance of per­son­al val­ues, self-lead­er­ship, and dis­ci­pline; these dri­ve per­for­mance not only indi­vid­u­al­ly, but also on a cor­po­rate lev­el. I want peo­ple to rec­og­nize that they aren’t just a num­ber on a ros­ter, a num­ber on a pay­roll. You are a human being. And you’re there for a spe­cif­ic rea­son. We need your role. Peo­ple need to under­stand that they’re val­ued as much as the com­pa­ny is val­ued. Val­ues, self-lead­er­ship, and dis­ci­pline dri­ve performance.