This episode features an interview with Laura Klieves. Laura is the Senior Director of L&D & Comms at Malwarebytes, an internet security company providing cyber protection for millions of consumers and organizations worldwide. Laura has over two decades of experience in advertising and marketing agencies and previously ran the learning academy at Duarte, a communications firm specializing in presentations. On this episode, Laura delivers valuable lessons on the components of phenomenal storytelling, how to give compelling presentations, and how to create an amazing experience for virtual employees.
“When you think about internal communications, It's so much about change management. It's about bringing people along on the journey that the CEO or the executive team have created in multiple meetings. They already know it, but now they have to turn around and communicate it. And so they have to make that their own. They have to believe it. And we as humans can really smell when somebody doesn't believe what they're saying. And so you have to just own it and practice it and know it inside and out and bring your own stories and examples to it. It can't just be talking points off of a sheet because the rest of us know when it really isn't yours.” — Laura Klieves
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Episode Timestamps:
*(1:50) - How Laura got interested in communications
*(3:05) - Laura’s first job in communications
*(5:08) - Laura’s current role as Senior Director, L&D and Communications at Malwarebytes
*(7:42) - Segment: Storytime
*(14:00) - Segment: Getting Tactical
*(17:20) - Overcoming learning curves when joining a company
*(20:30) - Must-do tactics for ICs in order to be effective and engaging in a digital workforce
*(25:00) - The critical components of storytelling
*(29:40) - Ensuring virtual employees have an amazing experience
*(33:25) - Segment: Seat at the Table
*(37:50) - Segment: Asking for a Friend
Links
Connect with Laura on LinkedIn
[00:01:41] Amanda: Well, thank you for joining me today, Laura. It's really great to have you. How are you today?
[00:01:45] Laura: I'm doing great. It's so good to be here.
[00:01:49] Amanda: Great, well, thank you so much. First of all.
[00:01:51] Start off by learning a little bit about your background in communications. And I know you've made some transition, uh, to, to communications, but can you [00:02:00] just talk about how you got interested in this area? I
[00:02:02] Laura: fell in love with communications. When I was a junior in college, I had an advertising course that I needed to take, and I just fell in love in that course.
[00:02:15] And I thought, oh my God. This is the only thing I ever want to do. And so I was really one of the few coming out of school that actually went and applied. My craft that I had learned in college used my degree for. Gone to school with. And I was really happy in advertising and marketing for years and years and years, but I got a terrific opportunity.
[00:02:40] About 12 years ago to begin migrating into the world of learning and development. I still apply all of my communications skills up to this very day. And I'm still in love with marketing and advertising, but now I get to do it in a different, yeah, I
[00:02:58] Amanda: do want to talk about that [00:03:00] transition, but that'll be just a little bit later on, but could you just, just a part of that background.
[00:03:05] Can you tell me what your first job in communications?
[00:03:08] Laura: My first job was the marketing manager at a car dealership group in Daly city, California, just outside of San Francisco. And I worked directly with the owner of the group and I advertised. Cars. And this was back in the day, when you put ads into newspapers and you had events on their radio, all the stuff.
[00:03:35] So I spent. Third of my career in automotive advertising. So, um, it was, it was a really exciting first job and it was a little bit terrifying because I was it. I didn't have anybody to learn from. I. Had to just learn on the fly and learn from my partners at the newspapers and at the [00:04:00] radio stations and the television stations and my cohorts that I had graduated from from school.
[00:04:07] So, yeah, it was, it was exciting. It was really exciting and not typical of a 21 year old young woman coming out of college. Well, I
[00:04:16] Amanda: have to ask, since you have a background in automotive advertising, what do you have a favorite car?
[00:04:22] Laura: Uh, there's so many great cars. Um, I will tell you, I am currently driving. I think one of my favorites and it's kinda surprising.
[00:04:32] It is a Ford. I drive a Ford fusion hybrid and it's. All the stuff. It's got a six cylinder, great gas mileage and all of the bells and whistles, including a heated steering wheel and heated leather seats. So pretty good and definitely gets up and go. So I love that there's so many great ones out there by dreaming about the VW van that's coming [00:05:00] out.
[00:05:00] I think it's going to be fully electric. So I know that might be in my team.
[00:05:04] Amanda: That's very cool. I'm to call. I'm excited to see that as well. Well, thank you for that. Um, can you tell me just a little bit about, more about your role as senior director of learning and development communications at Melbourne?
[00:05:15] Yeah,
[00:05:15] Laura: absolutely. Malwarebytes has been in existence for 14 years and when I joined the company, we had a very small learning and development team. They were doing. Corporate learning had several programs that they were delivering, but it really was kind of. Request of the functional groups. So it was more reactive than it was proactive.
[00:05:43] And one of our core values is always learning. And so we wanted to build out the corporate L and D function and make it much more robust and much more proactive than [00:06:00] reactive. And that's exactly what we've done. Uh, the team that was there when I got there. Ha continues to be there. And together we've really been building out an extensive portfolio.
[00:06:12] We've brought in UC Berkeley professors to help with our leadership programs. We've brought in, um, you know, best in class management consultants, experts to help with our manager programs. And we've actually hired in someone to build out our e-learning courses. And then I have a dual role. Of internal communications and I'm the first one in the company to actually hold that title because as the company has grown, you know, marketing has become more extensive and more focused on outbound communication to our prospects and our customers and which has left kind of a gap.
[00:06:55] Internal communications. And, you know, you can only be a start-up for [00:07:00] so long until you finally need to start codifying a lot of the programs and the communication style and the communication cadence. And so with my background in marketing and advertising, I'm able to bring that best practice into the organization and flip it on its ear for internal communications.
[00:07:19] Amanda: Absolutely. When I, when I saw you signed up and I agreed to do this, I was really excited. Um, my background is an internal communications and I worked very, I've always worked very closely with learning and development. You know, they go hand in hand HR, internal comms, learning development. So I've got a lot of great questions for you.
[00:07:36] Uh, great.
[00:07:37] Laura: Just so I
[00:07:38] Amanda: can learn from you as well. So again, For being here today, absolutely want to switch to a different segment called story time,
[00:07:52] Laura: but big stories
[00:07:52] Amanda: from the wonderful you were vice-president at Duarte, which is a communication agency training company that [00:08:00] writes designs and delivers groundbreaking presentation. I have to ask looking back what you probably probably created hundreds, if not more presentations that you've built and delivered, do you have a most memorable presentation?
[00:08:13] Laura: Yes, I do. And it wasn't one that I actually created myself. It was a presentation that was going to be delivered by our CEO to one of our largest training clients and our CEO, Nancy Duarte got sick and wasn't able to travel. And yet we were going to have 500 plus folks in a room kicking off a really comprehensive training program that was part of their new hire onboarding.
[00:08:44] And she couldn't show up. And so she said, Hey, Laura, could you deliver the presentation? So I'll cut to the chase. With my experience at Duarte, I'm learning everything that I could from them about [00:09:00] presentations, um, and how to plan for them. Build them. And then deliver them. I went into high gear and over the next two and a half, three days, I just practice like a theme.
[00:09:11] And what I did is I took that presentation. That was Nancy's and I made it my own and brought my own stories in some of them I could pick up and lift and pretend they remind because they worked for the organization, but some of them were very personal to Nancy and I needed to replace them. Delivered it practiced it.
[00:09:30] I stood in my hotel room in front of the mirror with my slides on my screen and just practiced like a crazy person until I had really taken a presentation that I had hardly looked at and made it my own and had internalized it. And I think that that is. The crux of all communication, you know, you don't have to actually be the one, writing the communication, um, to be the one to communicate it and [00:10:00] really get people to believe and to buy into it.
[00:10:03] And when you think about internal communications, it's so much about change management, really? It's about bringing people along on the journey that you. You know, the CEO or the executive team have created in multiple meetings. They already know it, but now they have to turn around and communicate it. And so they have to make that their own.
[00:10:24] They have to believe it. And we, humans can really smell when somebody doesn't believe what they're saying. And so you have to just own it and practice it and know it inside and out and bring your own stories and examples to it. It can't just be. You know, talking points off of a sheet because the rest of us know when it really isn't.
[00:10:49] Amanda: Yeah, I think, I think I want to call out just what you said there about the practicing and the believing in the feeling. It is such a key component. Anytime you present any for job interviews, [00:11:00] presentations, that's such a key component. I know I do that. Um, I know when I was younger in my younger years, I have a, you know, in terms of education background, my younger years, I would feel straight, you know, like silly doing it.
[00:11:11] Now I, I build in that time, like you said, to really, really make sure I know exactly where I'm going.
[00:11:17] Laura: Yeah, absolutely look the higher the stakes, the more you have to practice it so that you really understand the nuance of the, of the conversation, because it's really a conversation, whether you're up on a stage or you're in a one-on-one meeting or a small group dynamic, it's really about a conversation.
[00:11:35] And. And I don't know what you're going to say, but I need to know my stuff well enough to be able to navigate that conversation. Right. Absolutely.
[00:11:44] Amanda: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I want to take a step back a little bit further. Uh, and because prior to your time at Duarte, you were a founder and CEO of a company called 22 elephants.
[00:11:55] It sounds like you ran a close to 11 years. Uh, can you share a little bit of [00:12:00] the founding story? What got you to start that company?
[00:12:02] Laura: Well, as any good consultants will tell you, you, you start it because you've got a passion for, you know, what you're doing. And, um, I started that when I was in between jobs, it was during the.com during the financial collapse, not the.com.
[00:12:24] I navigated through that. Okay. But during the financial collapse and, um, I was able to continue working with the company that I had been working with Tajima for over a year after the first big collapse. Um, and then, you know, it just. It just ended because it needed to, because you know, the world was upside down and backwards.
[00:12:47] And so I took a look at what I had been doing and what I could do, and I decided to put together my own consultancy and I did all kinds of different things. I consulted [00:13:00] with a startup company on their marketing communications plan. Um, and you know, I. Copy for, you know, deep in the weeds technology company that I couldn't even begin to explain what it was that they did, but I interviewed several different people and, and help them with developing their copy platform.
[00:13:22] Um, I put together websites and brochures and events and was getting up at the crack of Dawn because I needed to talk to Thailand. And, you know, I just. I knew I could do it based on my experience. And so I put it together. The name is, um, 22 is a lucky number in out player in the world. And I love elephants.
[00:13:47] And so thus, the name came to be 22 elephants, you know, because I'm going to be lucky with that. I was
[00:13:56] Amanda: going to ask where that name came from. That's such a thank you. Thank you for sharing that. [00:14:00] Let's get a little more tactical,
[00:14:04] Laura: um, trying to figure out tactics and it'd be prevalent. And I didn't have to worry about tactics to the merger here I am in charge of driving to see why didn't you sleep some tactics,
[00:14:14] Sponsor: tactics.
[00:14:18] Amanda: I'm going to go back to malware. Right. Malwarebytes being a cybersecurity company, um, from what I have, from what I found at your first role, working in cybersecurity, indeed. Yeah. What were some of the tough learning curves when you first joined that you'd, you know, you'd mentioned you do what, you know, you're getting up the crack of Dawn for other, for your, you know, for the company you own to, you know, all these questions, but can you talk about some of the learning curves you had when you'd first joined Malwarebytes?
[00:14:42] Laura: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, the re the reason I joined Malwarebytes was that I believed then, and I still believe now that we're doing something really important in the world. Um, we're helping people to keep themselves secure online, and it's still is [00:15:00] amazing to me how. Few people really take that seriously, you know, and I'm all over the web.
[00:15:06] I've got social media profiles and all of that. I mean, I'm sure someone in my company would say, oh my God, Laura, what are you doing? Stop doing that. But, but I think for, you know, everyday folks, whether you're sitting at home, working on your home computer, or you're working in a corporation, understanding how.
[00:15:27] RI ridiculously prolific that these people are in trying to get your information and to, and to mess up your life either taking money from you, you know, taking, you know, your, your property. Um, I mean, we had. Run recently, probably about two years ago when I was still at Duarte that we had fake profiles where people were being notified that they had an interview at Duarte and getting all excited, but it wasn't coming from us.
[00:15:55] I mean, these people are just insidious. And so I love that I'm working for a company that's. [00:16:00] And taking care of the world in that way. So what I had to learn was all the terminology I really had to come to understand. And some of it, you know, of course I read and, you know, I'm aware. Um, but I really had to understand the terminology.
[00:16:16] This is the first time that I've worked in an engineering company. So I had to really get to know and understand the process for bringing products to market. Truly, um, being at advertising and marketing firms all of these years, I got a peek into that, but now I'm inside. So really understanding what that is all about and understanding just the cadence of a corporation that.
[00:16:42] Deuces product different from the cadence of organizations that provide consultancy and creative services. It's a different heartbeat that's going on. And so that was a big learning curve for me as well. But again, you know, I'm [00:17:00] very confident in what I do and, um, the experience that I bring to the table.
[00:17:05] Um, I've been at the executive table before. And so, you know, being in this role, I can really be a great support mechanism, not only to my executives, but also to coach and mentor younger folks who were coming.
[00:17:20] Amanda: What about ways and tactics you use to get that industry knowledge quickly. I know that this is something that internal communications people can struggle with.
[00:17:29] You know, you get into a new industry, you know, the principles of internal communications, but you don't know the company and their products. So how can internal communications folks jump in and learn as quickly as possible?
[00:17:40] Laura: Talk to people, reach out to people within the organization and say, Hey, can you, can you tell me what you do?
[00:17:48] Um, or I've heard this, can you share a little bit more? I'm just curious. Get curious and ask a ton of questions. Cause I guarantee you people love to talk about what they [00:18:00] do. They love to. Sarah and educate and mentor. And so just, just be curious, I mean, everything that we do in communications, we can do for ourselves when we're ramping up at a new company or in a new industry, you know, you have to get to know who the target audience is.
[00:18:17] You have to figure out what the strategies are, you know, what, what's your target reading and, and seen and, and, you know, exploring all of that. Just take all of that and now apply it to yourself because you're on a learning. And it works every time. And, and don't be shy about saying, I don't know, you know, I mean, God, God bless, you know, zoom right now because I can do a ton of Googling back behind the scenes.
[00:18:44] When somebody pops up with an acronym that I'm not familiar with. And, you know, don't, don't be embarrassed that you're either in a new industry or transitioning into a new role. I like to say that I got my master's in learning and development on the [00:19:00] job, because I read, I read about Blanchard. I read Franklin cubby books.
[00:19:06] I went to industry conferences, ATD training magazine. I just immersed myself into the field. And I think that our workshops at Duarte were successful in part because not just because. Of me, but, but everybody who was on the team, wasn't from learning and development. So we were doing things differently.
[00:19:29] We were bringing that outside perspective in, um, and, and kind of turning things on its head. We were following Duarte's methodology, but we. Have that L and D oh, we must do it this way. So we could explore all kinds of different ways to create the workshops and deliver the online learning. So while it was always challenging, uh, to an, in a little bit scary at times to be outside my comfort zone, [00:20:00] I knew that there were people I could reach out to.
[00:20:02] I knew the industry was well-established and I could find those mentors who would help guide. Through it and that's exactly what I did. And I'm doing the same thing. Now, having transitioned over to the corporate side in cybersecurity, finding the people I can connect with learning about the industry, watching what the competitors are doing and pulling on my peers and colleagues within the org to support me and keep me.
[00:20:31] Amanda: Given that right now, the workforce is relatively remote and dispersed, and that's likely here to stay for a lot of industries. I'm curious as to what you'd consider some must do tactics for internal communications folks in order to be effective and engaging to end for a digital
[00:20:49] Laura: workforce. There's several goals in mind.
[00:20:53] First of all, we need to have our executives communicate often and, you know, [00:21:00] executives are humans and not all of them want to actually be front and center, even though they are at the executive table. I think the second thing is to really figure out what our communication channels. How do we leverage those channels at what time?
[00:21:20] And that's something that over the past couple of years, as I joined the company, we've really been contending with, we were very email heavy for communication, corporate communication. You know, there's an announcement that goes out and it goes out through email to one of our distribution lists slash. Is something that we use in the background, you know, for quick conversations, updates, you know, the pets channel and, you know, jokes and things like that.
[00:21:48] What we were lacking actually was a really robust platform in an intranet to really. Pull people together and be able to share [00:22:00] knowledge asynchronously and L and D term. I learned early on asynchronous and we had one, but it was pretty terrible. I likened it to. Uh, dark dusty filing cabinet in a dank corner of a basement.
[00:22:19] Nobody went there. Nobody wanted to go there. Right? You couldn't find the information you were looking for, even if you did go there. So we began a journey this past year. February March on looking for a new intranet. And I partnered with my, my business apps people, and we had a, a pretty robust team going out and evaluating and found a great platform happens to be called simpler.
[00:22:47] And we actually love it. And in fact, I just did a quick demo this morning for our extended security it and biz apps team, because. Continually [00:23:00] encouraging more and more people to use it. And it really is a place where people want to go and gather. I'm teaching up our executives on what to communicate when to communicate.
[00:23:12] I've given permissions to so many people. I think at the end of the day, I had at least. 50 people who were supporting me and getting this up and running. So it's not just me doing it. It was a team of people and I probably have missed some people that it really has become a core place. And what we're doing now is, is retraining people in communication.
[00:23:35] We're doing less communication via email. We're posting up to, we call it snap. We're posting. Content up to bite snack. And depending on the importance of it, we'll hit people up in slack and we'll send an email out or newsletter out to the distribution list, but we're really, we're going to wean people off of that email and work.[00:24:00]
[00:24:00] Drive them to bites net for the central source of truth for the organization. Um, and I'm already seeing traction on that. I mean, last week I looked at the, the analytics and we were at about 78% of people within the organization had signed on. We launched August 31st. Um, so it's been a little over a month.
[00:24:22] Now today we're at 80%. So, so the traction's growing, it just takes time. You know, there's always going to be a handful of people in the organization that are just never going to sign on, but by and large, I'm getting really good feedback. People are enjoying it. Um, and people are now referring people to bite snack looking for, for information.
[00:24:41] So. Yeah. You know, just really understanding how to get your, your execs out there more to communicate more often, and certainly having a strategy on what tools to use when it's really critical and just go back.
[00:24:56] Amanda: Well, first of all, thank you for saying that about some of their products. I think it's everything as [00:25:00] well, being internal comms, it's a great product.
[00:25:03] But I want to go back to the leader, um, and get leaders in front of people. Cause I also think that's really critical coaching leaders on being good storytellers, right? How to bring people along on the mission, um, how to help them connect their job to the mission, how to help remind people while we're here, we're doing this job.
[00:25:21] And to me, a critical component that is key as, um, as good storyteller. And I know storytelling is, as you know, you're a proponent of it in your presentations and what you do. Can you talk about what you think of the critical components of storytelling are? If someone is out there and struggling with how to tell a good story, is there a magic formula you can help them with?
[00:25:42] Laura: There was never a magic bullet, but. You start with who your audience is, who are you communicating to? You know, and the, and for the marketing and advertising folks out there, the internal communication folks, uh, you're going to say duh, but by and large, most [00:26:00] of us, including myself prior to my Jortay years, we hear the word presentation and then we kind of shut down and think, oh, now what do I need to say?
[00:26:10] It's not about me. It's about. The audience and what they need to hear in order to really understand what I'm trying to share with them and what they need to do with that information. So start with the audience in mind, whether it's a presentation, whether it's an email you're one-on-one with your boss, you got a crunchy conversation with a colleague.
[00:26:32] Whatever the communication, be empathetic and start thinking about the other person, get out of your head and stop worrying about what you need to say, but think about what they need to hear and what kind of evidence they need, or the samples or anything like that. And once you've got that mindset, now, all of a sudden the story begins to unfold.
[00:26:54] You start with, what's your core idea? What do you want to communicate? And [00:27:00] what action do you want? To take with that information. And once you've got those two components together, now you can build, you know, the bigger story. I think that it's really interesting working with a technology company. Our CEO's an engineer at heart.
[00:27:17] So, you know, he's all about the stuff about, you know, putting together the roadmap and the details and you know, all of, all of that. And, you know, I'm, I'm seeing. And it's not because of me at all. I am seeing more of the empathy about what does this mean for the employees for, we call them ourselves now we're not.
[00:27:42] So what does it mean for us to be on this journey with him and what can we do to support him and the vision that the executive team has put together? We just had an all hands meeting on Wednesday. We have these everyday. Every [00:28:00] month or yeah, every month, if we were in person, he would actually travel around to the different, uh, offices around the world.
[00:28:06] Now it's all on zoom. The meeting was terrific in that he reminded us of our purpose and our mission. And then he connected that to the changes, the strategic changes that we're deploying across the organization. And I thought it was a terrific. Presentation because it, it started with the why, why are we all here?
[00:28:31] And then it carried on throughout on what each of us could do, um, in our functional areas to really support the mission and the vision. And that's, what's important. It's, it's about bringing people along for the adventure. Um, and too many times, I think. Corporate communications, just it's all about the stuff and forgets about the, you know, excitement in, in the journey.
[00:28:58] It's not [00:29:00] the necessarily all about the end result. It's about the journey and how we get. Okay. Yep.
[00:29:04] Amanda: I want to touch on some of what you just said there. Cause I wanna, I wanna put a particular audience type of audience in front of us and think about the new employee experience. Okay, great. What's typically the new employee digital experience, right?
[00:29:17] So if you're starting at Malwarebytes or any company, like there's like a good chance, it's going to be a remote virtual. Yep. So I know firsthand some of the challenges that you encounter as a new employee at a new company, I'm fairly new to the company I'm at now, the L and D and internal communications function of a company is often the first interaction an employee has with a company after the interview.
[00:29:42] So I'm just wondering, what do you think companies should be doing to ensure these new virtual employees get the best possible experience, feel connected to their coworkers and feel connected to the broader organization.
[00:29:54] Laura: First of all, have. Do not do this ad hoc, even, I don't [00:30:00] care if you're 10 people have an onboarding plan, it doesn't have to be terribly robust, but, but put it together again, thinking about this new employee, what, what do you need to share with them?
[00:30:13] What, what tools are they going to be using? How. How do you interact with your teammates? How do you interact with the larger organization? What is the founding story? You know, sinks through everything that you want to impart to that new employee. And I always, I always say, you know, and, and we've done this here.
[00:30:35] We've revised our new employee onboarding program. A couple of times. I thought it was terrific when I first got here. And you know, my, my team's just built upon that. Um, You know, think about being that new employee. You know, the best time to get insight on how the program is, is when they're still new. So we're doing, we're surveying our employees, our new [00:31:00] employees along the journey of onboarding through.
[00:31:04] I think, I think we go up to like 120 days. About four months. We may do a six month. I can't quite remember now, but, but we're asking again, we're getting curious and we're finding out, um, With our experience has been look. The whole COVID thing has just turned everything upside down, including our onboarding program.
[00:31:24] We onboard twice a month. Every other week, we have enough people that we can do that we usually have 10 to 20 people go ahead and do the math. We thought it was going to die out in 2020, and we ended up onboarding. More people than we had when, before lockdown happens within two weeks had to convert our in-person.
[00:31:46] Two day training into virtual three morning training and kudos to my team for doing that. They just jumped in and did it. And we've continued for the last 19 months in [00:32:00] that schedule. And it really has been important again, you know, I talk about making the. Executives visible. Um, we bring our executives in as guest appearance.
[00:32:14] We usually at 60 days, we'll have a luncheon with another executive. So all the new hires up until that point, get to come and have lunch. Now it's all sitting in our, our own kitchens, but we do Jordache or. Whatever, and you expense your launch and then we have a get together, but it's really about making other humans in the organization, visible to these new employees.
[00:32:37] We actually have a very robust mentorship program that new employees can participate in. Any of us can participate in, but they can right from the get go if they'd like. So, um, we've, we've really tried to create. Uh, a sense of our culture, even though we're all sitting now at home in our bedrooms [00:33:00] or living rooms or wherever garages, in some cases, you know, and trying to have that human interaction, but it really comes back to being intentional, be intentional about your new employee onboarding.
[00:33:13] Um, it's so crucial. You know, the old adage you only have, what? Three seconds to make a first impression, same goes for your employees.
[00:33:23] Amanda: Yeah, I'm going to move us onto the next segment. Laura constituted the table,
[00:33:30] Laura: the table to table
[00:33:32] Sponsor: the table.
[00:33:35] Amanda: But from what I was prepping for this interview, I came across a quote, um, that really struck me and kind of stuck with me.
[00:33:41] I think it's from 2015 from you. And it is, and I'm going to read it here. Quote being ineffective communicator is about more than putting your message in front of your people in front of people. Presenters need to sell an idea, influence management, ask for resources and direct teams. It's not what I need to tell you.
[00:33:59] It's what you [00:34:00] need to hear from me to adopt to my idea. Now, with that in mind, that really stuck to me with that in mind. How have you, how do you respectfully, but also persuasively justify and ask for a budget for your department.
[00:34:13] Laura: Hmm, that's a good one considering I'm right in the middle of planning right now you have a plan.
[00:34:21] You put a plan together, you test that plan out with your colleagues. Cross-functionally. You are in a great organization. Like I am, that has access regularly to executives. You interviewed them and you say, Hey, here's my plan. This is what I've heard from your team on what their needs are. What do you think?
[00:34:44] What have I missed? And you do your homework in advance of going in and go, yeah. I need this much money. Now I'll tell you a quick story. I joined Malwarebytes in November of 2019, [00:35:00] right? On the cusp of planning for our next fiscal year. And, um, you know, it was just throne, neck deep right into it. And within the first week I learned about our planning process and that we needed to put our budget together and I kind of looked around.
[00:35:16] I'm like, but. I don't know what I'm going to do yet. How can I advocate for a budget? So I hunkered down and I started talking to people. I was already on an interviewing schedule with my executives. So I ask you questions about what do they think their needs are? And I put a plan together so I can go build my bench.
[00:35:37] It, so. That's what I did. And when I was prepared to defend my budget, surprisingly, there were very few questions because I had talked to my executives. I'd learned what the needs of the organization were. And I had built a plan that was supported by the financial numbers. It wasn't just. [00:36:00] A random number.
[00:36:01] I pulled out of my head and, um, there was a little bit of arm wrestling. There always is when you're dealing with budget, but by and large, I got that. For that first year. And it's because I did the legwork upfront, you know, and I talked to my people and I got their support in advance. In fact, I remember our CIO, I think, I think towards the end of my presentation, I asked for questions and he said, I got to tell you, you know, I, I met with Laura and I don't have any questions.
[00:36:35] I think this is just going to be a terrific program.
[00:36:38] Amanda: That's great. You know, you've mentioned you've got a new platform, a new intranet. Was that a part of that budget or did that come out of COVID pandemic work from home or work from home?
[00:36:47] Laura: Yeah, actually, um, I came in knowing that we needed to replace our intranet, but it took a full nother year to really do that.
[00:36:56] Um, just, just the, the corporate [00:37:00] priorities. We had looked at replacing it in 2020, but there were other corporate priorities. And then this whole thing called COVID just sent us all sideways. So we had to redeploy resources. I mean, all of my brain space as internal comms. You know, I was immediately looped in and part of the COVID committee and it just, it just sent us all sideways.
[00:37:23] So we talked this time last year, we talked about looking at internet for this year and we factored that into our fiscal budget as well as just time, you know, we needed, we needed resources. I needed my partner across the aisle, um, in bus apps to walk with me on this as well. So it just was the right time.
[00:37:43] Right. So, yeah, I would've loved to replace it last year. Um, we've definitely had the pain points, but we just, we just couldn't get.
[00:37:52] Amanda: I'm going to move into our last segment called asking for a friend.
[00:37:59] Sponsor: [00:38:00] Hey, asking for a friend
[00:38:07] Laura: as a female
[00:38:08] Amanda: leader in tech, what has been the most significant barrier of your career so far? And how did you
[00:38:15] Laura: overcome it? Wow. Um, you know, I. Honest. I have been working for many, many decades. Um, and I will out myself. I started in the mid eighties and it really was a different world than my background is advertising.
[00:38:35] And I started in car advertising at the dealership level. So that was a world onto itself. Although as, as a young woman coming out of college, There was a lot of respect for the knowledge that I had. Um, and the once I built experience, there was a lot of respect for my experience, you know, transitioning into [00:39:00] technology.
[00:39:00] I think the, the greatest challenge simply has been from myself in just getting over learning a new industry. Um, you know, no one within the company has, or. At large has made me feel less than because I don't know. In fact, I think in many ways, um, you know, we have such a diverse company that people have surrounded me to, you know, help me be as successful as I can be, but there have been barriers and, you know, I've just had two.
[00:39:36] Like so many people, um, whether you're a woman, whether you're a person of color, you know, there just are the biases that people hold. And, um, you know, I, I don't want to, I don't want to give them airspace to go into the greater details, but there have been instances along the way. And what I've [00:40:00] had to do is just be true to myself.
[00:40:03] And find my allies, even as a young up and coming manager and leader, you know, they were out there and many of them were men and I'm so glad for them to really have my back. Um, you know, when I finally realized that I could share what had been going on, that they were. As upset if not more on my behalf and helped me to problem solve through the situations.
[00:40:37] I honestly, I'm, I'm so glad. I don't really think about it much anymore. I mean, I'm, I'm kind of as I'm, you know, on the flip side of my career, I joke about being older now more than anything else. Um, but you know, with, with age comes great wisdom and, um, You know, I have a lot, I have a lot of knowledge to share.
[00:40:58] So while it's kind of a tongue in [00:41:00] cheek joke about it, I don't even feel weird about, you know, any potential age-ism. I just, I think I'm lucky. I'm lucky where I worked, the cities I worked in and the people I surrounded myself with. Um, and I'm equally aware that, you know, that has not been everybody's journey.
[00:41:20] So I am always keeping my eye out so I can be an ally for others. Well, I've
[00:41:26] Amanda: got, I get to benefit from your great wisdom today, Laura, thank you so much for joining me today. This has been so much fun and so insightful for me to listen to you and to learn from you. Um, before I let you go, is there anything else you would want our listeners to know about you or your career or any advice you'd like to give them that we didn't cover today?
[00:41:48] Laura: You know, look you have. And I'm not going to debate that there may be others and I get that, but, but you have, you have now. Grab hold of it [00:42:00] and, you know, make it your own, make it something just amazing. And if it isn't amazing, take a look around and see how you might be able to change that course. Most people now, I don't remember the exact statistics, but most people are going to have several careers.
[00:42:17] Fan of our adults working years. And so don't be afraid of, you know, maybe going a little bit off course. My whole career has been a little bit off course. If you had told me, you know, when I was in college, that I was going to start working at car dealerships. When I graduated, I would have thought. No way, I'm going to start at a big advertising agency and it's going to be all fancy and straight up that ladder.
[00:42:40] And it has not been that at all. And yet it has been glorious and I have met great people. I've worked with great people and I have done, I think, great things with my career. And so just embrace it and, you know, If this period in our [00:43:00] history has taught us nothing about adaptability and flexibility. You know, if you're not liking what you're doing, go change it, go figure out what that is.
[00:43:09] And I don't care what it is. If you're going from, you know, being an internal communications expert to, uh, building a house, go do it, make yourself happy because we need a whole lot more happiness.
[00:43:24] Amanda: Yeah, I've, I've, that's so true in my career. When you open yourself up to any experience, that's where you tend to grow the most and have the biggest steps.
[00:43:32] Um, so thank you for that advice. And what are, can you let our listeners know where they can find you?
[00:43:37] Laura: Sure I'm on LinkedIn. So that is a great place. Laura Wall cleavage. Um, so you can find me at LinkedIn. Um, I met Malwarebytes. If you've got any questions, you can always ping me over there. El cleavus@malwarebytes.com.
[00:43:55] You're in the San Francisco bay area, you know, uh, send me a message and [00:44:00] let's get together for coffee. It might be virtual for a while longer, but I'd be happy to
[00:44:04] Amanda: do that. Great. Thank you Laura so much. Thank you for joining me. This has been
[00:44:08] Laura: great. Thanks. See you later.
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