Being a purpose-driven leader

Ryan Barry:

Hi, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Inside Insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. My name is Ryan and I'm joined as always by my host from the lovely Columbia, Patricia Montesdeoca. What up, Patricia?

Patricia Montesdeoca:

Hey dude, I've got a formal complaint on the part of Kelsey and myself.

Ryan:

Oh yeah. What's up? What did I do?

Patricia:

You didn't. It's what you didn't do. Kelsey and I were not on that stage with you when you won that microphone that's just slightly off camera, that you're about to show us all and you won it for all of us and you accepted that award for all of us. And I am more proud than I could probably or should probably admit at my age. I am just tickled pink at this gold star. And I'm so proud of us all, but I wish I had been at that stage with you guys.

Ryan:

Yes, you should have. And so Patricia is talking about ... we, Little Bird Marketing and GreenBook did an award program for market research podcasts. And there's some great podcasts in the market research industry. Jo Lepore, Z, Adam Jolley, Jamin, many others. Merrill. Do an awesome podcast.

Patricia:

Competition is tough.

Ryan:

And yeah, we were nominated and we won, but the story actually goes, I wasn't on the stage either. I was sitting in the corner having a social recharge moment with headphones in, listening to a call. And then all of a sudden like 300 eyes turned to me at the same time, which is, I've got to be honest with you, it was awkward.

I was like, "Why is everybody looking at me?" And then I saw Ariel go up on the stage and Meg Ryan, not Meg Ryan from Sleepless in Seattle, Meg Ryan, the incredible account executive at Zappi. Big fan of Meg Ryan, by the way. Actually, both Meg Ryans. Anyways, Meg Ryan whispered to me, "You won the podcast award."

And so then I was like, "oh shit! We won a geek award." And so I was pretty excited. I went over, we took some pictures, but yeah, super cool. I wasn't expecting it. I don't know if you two were? I wasn't expecting this.

Patricia:

At all. At all. I just hadn't thought of it. I mean, I never win anything.

Ryan:

We won a geek award, you guys. It's really cool. So to everybody who listens to this podcast, all however many hundred of you, I love you. Thank you. I appreciate you.

Patricia:

Thank you.

Ryan:

The truth is I don't care if we won an award, this is really fun to do. I have a very stressful job and so this is a creative expression for myself and Patricia and Kelsey and many others who help us. We would do it if nobody listened, but I'm really glad that it's creating value for people. And so it also just motivates us to keep bringing the heat.

Patricia:

Oh yeah. Speaking of heat, we've got some heat today.

Ryan:

Yeah. It's funny. I told Marie, so Marie Van Blaricum is the global VP of insights at ABI inBev, and this is such an empowering episode. And I didn't know where this was going to go, frankly, when I met with her, we were riffing about a topic in a conference call that we had. I just said conference call because I wanted to sound like an OG who used to use WebEx.

Anyways, we were talking a few weeks ago about a topic and I was like, "I need to get you on the podcast." Anyways, this episode is amazing. I had a chance to spend some time with Marie, actually, in Austin. What an incredible leader! Absolute pioneer in where this market is going. This interview's a treat.

We're going to talk a lot about leadership and purpose and the tension the insights departments are going through. And I have a little rant, ladies, before we get into this. I was walking with a dear friend last week, who is a senior insights executive at a big company. And I'm going to keep this person's identity private because I'm going to drop some truth here.

He said, and Patricia's left the interview, because wifi, she'll be back. He said, "I think I've digitally transformed insights as much as I can, without insights being willing to let go of their Legos and just let marketing do the things they need to, so that we can sit on top of all the data."

And then I've been on a ... so Zappi does this thing called the customer week. We're doing customer week this week. Shout out to all of our customers. I'm learning a lot from you and our teams that support you. 

We need to let go of our Legos. We have got to let go of our Legos because there's so much turnover in insights departments. How many big departments have had layoffs in the last month? A lot. How many have down leveled? How many are bringing in new heads of insights every 18 months? So every freaking time there's turnover, the whole organization stops and waits for six months. And then somebody else comes in with their new agenda and then we do the whole build and then it stops. And it's really, really hard for businesses to scale intelligence and get close to their customers if they're changing analog systems every time.

And I think a big part of the reason for that is we don't let anybody near our toys. So then when we change, the toys stay with us. Instead, why not set up all these really smart modern insight systems? Enable marketing and innovation to use them, because that's what they want anyway. So they can create shit people love.

And then you, really wonderfully intellectually savvy, culturally relevant insights leader, listen, and watch and synthesize and then go to your chief growth officer and say, "We've got to go right and here's four data points as to why." I have an interview coming up with Steve Phillips, our CEO. I love Steve. He's a dear friend of mine. And we were talking about this.

Someone is going to take the data in all the businesses. There's no better team than insights to own that, but it isn't us controlling it. It's being the ones who put empathy on top of numbers and only this function, only all of you listening, can do that. So the Marie interview, I need you to listen to because if you don't listen to it, we're not going to get there and this opportunity is really ripe.

And I'm a little animated at the moment, because this has been driving me nuts. But I just think it's such a wonderful opportunity, but it's going to require us all to get comfortable setting things up for scale and enabling people to get access to the consumer because we don't need to have all the answers. We need to help the answers exist in scale and synthesize.

Thank you for listening to my Ted talk powered by inside insights, a podcast powered by Zappi. I would now like to tee up our interview for the day with Marie Van Blaricum, who is a badass. 

Ryan: 

Very excited for today's conversation with Marie Van Blaricum, the global head of insights from ABInBev and insights legend. Marie, thank you for taking the time.

Marie Van Blaricum:

Thanks, Ryan. Really happy to be here.

Ryan:

And we are going to get to see each other at a real-life event next week. For those of you who are going to catch us afterwards, we're going to go to IIEX, which is not in Atlanta, Marie. It's in Austin, Texas. There's going to be a lot of fun.

Marie:

I cannot wait. In real life research. It's like the coming of a new age.

Ryan:

Oh my God. Is this going to be the rise of in-person qual again? I mean, who knows? Who knows what will happen?

Marie:

I know. It's going to be wild though. We'll see what Lenny has planned for us.

Ryan:

Exactly. Do you remember, years 2004 to 2008 where every single market research conference was stating that it's the year of mobile?

Marie:

I do remember going through practicing using an app as part of our digital training, which is just wild to think about, that it has been less than 20 years and here we are today.

Ryan:

We've come so far. We've come so far. So I have a lot of stuff I want to talk to you about. I've been looking forward to this conversation. So let's just talk a little bit about your journey. You've worked at some of the most iconic companies in the world. You've worked with some of the most innovative startups. But when you're taking me through your journey, start with how you got into this field in the first place. I always like to understand what got people here.

Marie:

Yeah. I would love to say I had some romantic story that I always wanted to be in insights. And to be honest, I fell into it. So I had an interview with Unilever, which I thought was a car parts manufacturer for a little while until I researched it. And I have always been fascinated by elements like, "Why do people leave the TV on when they're not watching it?" or, "Why when you look at the mirror at yourself do you tilt your head?" And those are just questions that have always been in my mind. And so when I went into the interview, I didn't really understand what insights was at that point. I was 22 years old, but I thought it sounded interesting. And it was just a natural fit.

And going into that industry, I thought I'd always wanted to have businesses and startups and that's always been my passion. And I just felt like, "Wow, here I am getting to learn about every single aspect of business. I get to learn what makes great communication. I get to give point of views on how to grow the business." And it just always felt like a really natural fit. And it went from there and time passed and I've always found new ways to learn, new businesses, to work on, new ways to innovate and to be able to be opinionated and push the envelope and be at the table. And so I think for me, I fell into it, but I think it chose me rather than me choosing it. And I think that's probably a good thing.

Ryan:

That's a wonderful story. My subconscious is telling me this needs to be a recruitment ad to get people into market research because I feel like one of the problems we have is getting people into this field in the first place. And you've just done a really good job of selling this industry. So thank you. I'm working with a few industry bodies to try to get more people in. And it does strike me that people don't even know what it is in the first place, which is interesting. 

Marie:

Yeah. They have an old point of view on it that you're out on the street, chasing people down to fill out a questionnaire. And I think for me, it's being at the table to drive the strategies of a business, to be able to work on so many businesses, to be able to really understand people. I didn't have a passport until after I graduated college. I grew up in Kansas. And so for me, being able to learn about people in the Philippines and what drives them and who they are and what they do in their day-to-day and in India and in Singapore and all around the world, it really is so cool versus studying Excels all day or studying movements in some of the different markets. For me, it's a much more intriguing and curious path than some of the other paths I might have fallen into as well during my early business school days.

Ryan:

Yeah. I dig it. I really do. It's a wonderful industry, but I don't know about you. Every time I tell people when you're at a cocktail party, "What do you do?" I try to skate around that answer because it's not usually what I want to talk about. But if I get to market research, I hear one of two things. "You mean the focus groups?" Or, "Like SurveyMonkey?" So it's one of those two paths that I'm just like, "Okay." I usually will tell a story like you've just done, and that either helps or they just don't want to talk, listen to me anymore. So they move on.

Marie:

Yeah. I feel like with the digital revolution, we've gotten a little bit cooler, so it's married into my love for tech and data that I've always had and brought that together of how do you humanize that?

Ryan:

Yeah. You're right. I mean, before all the tech stocks crashed recently, Qualtrics has helped us a lot, right? Like, I mean, they became this really big name, it's the tech darling of the last several years. So it's helped a lot. Okay. So you have that interview at Unilever. You realize they're not an auto parts manufacturer, but they actually make a ton of amazing products and great brands, and you held a bunch of jobs there. So without going through them all, what are some of the highlights of that journey? And, I was only thinking about this because a colleague of mine interviewed Paul Polman and then sent me Paul Polman's book. Net Zero, I believe is the title of it. It's a wonderful book. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and read it. If 80% of what he wrote is true, it's how businesses should be run. It struck me that you were there when Unilever was going through that big transformation. That's a highlight of mine of that company, which I don't know a ton about, but what were some of your highlights?

Marie:

It seems like such an organic thing that happened within the company. And so it has been part of the journey for the whole time. For me, I spent the first 10 years in more traditional roles like local, global, big brands, small brands. Worked in Argentina, did some portfolio strategy. And for me, that was so important to learn the foundations to where I get my energy, which is now much more in the innovation space because I learned what I can bend and break and what I can't. And then the last seven years have been much more in the digital innovation data space, first leading research innovation at Unilever. So all the digitization of the methodologies, which that's how you and I met. That was an absolute blast working with just amazing internal leaders and getting to really overhaul 88% of that toolbox in a really short time and bring in significant levels of advancement in AI and analytics and tool development.

And then the last four years have been a whole new adventure before my current role into first-party data. And how do you create more meaningful conversations with consumers, with audience analytics and digital data and the massive potential there? So I think for me, what's been really cool is purpose and how to better serve our consumers is at the heart of the purpose strategy that Paul brought in. And that's at the heart of what we want to do as insights is serve people, serve consumers. But being able to do that in a really cool way and continue that work now in my current role is something that gives me a lot of energy. And knowing that I have made that impact is what my highlights are as well.

Ryan:

I love it. And at the risk of pivoting our whole conversation about something I'm really passionate about, I want to have a coffee with you next week to talk about first-party data because I'm really passionate about it and we need to get this industry there much quicker than we are.

Marie:

It's crazy. It's such a high potential space, high return, and it is so misunderstood, there really is not much standardization around it as well, too. So yeah, we can definitely have a very long coffee on that. But insights staying at the center of that is really critical, because you don't want it to get lost in efficiencies and other elements. You want to keep the human at the center and how to use data to have a more meaningful connection.

Ryan:

Exactly. I mean, yeah, so I'm going to be quiet now because this will pivot our entire conversation. But folks, a bit of foreshadowing. The second part of this conversation is something that Marie and I are equally passionate about that we stumbled upon in our chat we were having recently. So we'll have two fun sidebars. So your personal purpose makes a lot more sense to me now, but I was preparing for this conversation and I was on your LinkedIn page. I believe the kids call it creeping. I was creeping. And you have a personal purpose that says, "Tilt the world by creating a place for divergent creators, builders, and innovators to belong and thrive." I love it. I love the fact that you have a personal purpose. I derived one from reading a bunch of Brené Brown stuff, and it's not nearly as cool as yours. But what does that mean to you? And how did you get at it? I'm really hoping our audience can start to use your answer to think about theirs because what a compass that must be for you to guide you.

Marie:

Yeah. Unilever had this wonderful program around helping people to find their personal purpose. And I went through it pre-COVID, and I think I had my personal purpose then was around always finding a better way and inspiring teams to do that. And I think going through COVID and seeing so many people around me, my friends, my colleagues really struggle with that sense of belonging both in the broader world and within the work they do reminded me back to a lot of the core values that I hold.

Growing up, I was always really passionate about... I think I had a Baby Sitters Club about entrepreneurship. I think I had about five different... I had a candy ring at one point in my junior high, just really passionate about building businesses, but I always felt a bit odd, that I never fit in. And I think growing within that environment and seeing the importance of creating that environment, working with especially data scientists, data analysts that have different, not just personality profiles, but a lot of times different learning styles and different ways that they get energy and motivation, I could just see how critical it is to modern leadership and to me personally to make sure that they feel like and that everyone on the team feels like they can bring their unique skills to the table and that I as a leader am creating an environment to where they feel like they have the room to do that in their own style.

And I mean, I've worked for some amazing leaders in the past that created that environment. When I was leading research innovation, Stan and Vijay and all of the leadership there, they really created that environment to where we could build and innovate in our own ways and support us throughout. And I think for me that was something that I wanted to be able to hold core to my values and core to what I want to do when I go to work every day.

Ryan:

It's amazing. All right. So I'll share mine since people that tune into this probably heard me ramble. Mine's not nearly as cool as yours, so I'm going to rethink it, though. So I'm really competitive. And so there's a bunch of things that I am doing. So I'm a leader, I'm a husband, I'm a father, and I want to be the best version of that I can be. But one of the things that strikes me, and it relates to, I think some of the belonging and kindness that you were discussing. You don't need to be mean to be a successful business person. I was raised by baby boomers and it was like, "You have a job. Be thankful for the job. That's all you've got." And so I want to be the best that I can be while still being kind, is my purpose. So I believe you can run a successful company and be kind to people. I don't think those two things need to be at odds. So maybe mine just isn't ambitious enough. That's what I'm thinking. But anyways, we'll talk more about me another time.

Marie:

No, I love that. I mean, I think that at the end of the day, it's a gift that people choose to spend those hours. It's such a significant portion of your life that they choose to come work with you, be on your team. No one has to come or do or stay at a job at any time. I think we're seeing that, especially right now with the mass movement of talent. There's no reason not to be kind. And I think having that patience too and knowing you're not perfect and other people aren't perfect is really important. So I love that. I love that you can be kind and successful because I think that's the new generation.

Ryan:

I think so too. I had a new employee who was saying, "Oh, I can't believe the culture is actually what you say." And my response is, "In 20 years, every company's going to need to be like this, or they're going to be out of business." It strikes me that we work in highly skilled knowledge jobs, but apply a lot of the same principles to factory work in the '70s. And it's like, it's a completely different paradigm. And yeah, I think the businesses that get that are not impacted as much by the great resignation, right? The ones that don't, I mean, the 30%, 40% churn that you read about is real. I mean, that's existential. But I think it starts with what you said. People choose. They get to choose whether they do or don't spend their precious hours with you or not. And so if you know that, then it's easier. It's easier to do a good job.

Okay. So you are now in a really high profile role, your first top job in the insights business at, I believe the biggest beer company on the planet by quite a bit, if my research proves me accurate. But also, a big change. Different companies. Every company's different. I used to always say to people, Coke and Pepsi both sell soda, but there couldn't be more different companies. So what are some of the things you're taking with you from Unilever, but what are some of the key observations and learnings you see several months into your new role at ABI?

Marie:

Yeah. I mean, Unilever, I'm so grateful for my years there. Absolutely amazing leaders, world class insights organization. So much that it feels very nice now coming into this role that I've had this foundation of just really… excellence across a lot of areas and pushing the envelope and driving a lot of innovation there that I can use my experience to be able to help now with ABI. I think for me, ABI again, that challenge of building something and creating a function, an inclusive function that can really help the business grow, was such an intriguing challenge to me and brought together all those different pieces of my experience. And I think coming into ABI, they have that founder's mindset, which is very oriented towards: if you see the opportunity, go and build it. And that really called to me, and I think the amazing brands and how quickly they move on digital and data transformation, all created into the perfect storm for an opportunity for me to feel like I could live my personal purpose and also my passion areas of digital and data and helping businesses grow.

So I think it's a very small industry and there are so many transferable skills, but it is really nice too to see like, okay, those years of experience, being able to have a lot of applications and a new role and help new people.

Ryan:

Yeah. And I remember we spoke about this a couple of weeks ago when we had a chat, but even though they're both massive business, both wanting to digitally transform, it struck me that the how and the tools and the way are going to be very different, which I imagine for you as a learner is quite intellectually stimulating. You have some skills, but it's like, "Oh, I still got to figure this problem out."

Marie:

Yeah. No. It's fascinating because it's also, I grew up in Unilever, so many years there. It's fascinating. You see things that you're like, "I've never thought of that before." And that's amazing. And so I think it is really great, for me, the passion of always learning and trying to learn from others, that really is giving me a lot of energy. And then I think just iconic brands. Just talk about being able to have such a large impact on the business and with the company strategy switching to more organic growth. It's just such a critical time for consumer insights. And the business is hungry for transformation and continuing to be on the front edge with that here as well.

Ryan:

I love it. Okay. So this is the part where I go off our script a bit because I have a question for you.

Marie:

Yeah. Go for it.

Ryan:

You probably knew where everything was at Unilever. Your last statement resonates with me because I worked at Kantar for a really long time and knew how to get stuff done. And the only thing that saved me was there was nothing to find at Zappi when I got here. It was this four-person company. So how did you navigate at Unilever knowing the players? I mean, I imagine access wasn't a problem. Legacy information wasn't a problem. Mistakes that have been made in the past and present weren't a problem. So that's an advantage in some cases, but if you go to ABI, it's a completely new language. It's a new governing structure. So was that a challenge? And if not, how did you overcome that?

Marie:

I mean, absolutely. It felt like I was having a first day of school experience again. And I had to remind myself that I had actually already graduated and gone through many grades. But I-

Ryan:

You're an adult. You got this.

Marie:

I mean, I think people are people everywhere. And I think what really helped is just being welcomed so warmly by so many people who offered me their time for talking through things, for helping me to navigate, for onboarding me. And so I think it's interesting though, because I can take a step back and be able to see things a little bit more objectively of how information flows and how influencing happens because it's so new to me. But at the core, it's the same foundation of people who want to grow the business, who want to do right by the business, who are smart and driven, and that's very consistent between the companies. And so it's definitely like drinking from a fire hose, but there's a lot of great things like what's the fundamentals of great creative? What's the fundamentals of great digital strategies? All of those fundamentals that being an insights person teaches you, sets you up to be really strong at any other business, whether it's in insights or not.

And that's why I always say, I think insights people make the best entrepreneurs because you have to actually do the research on all the different elements, write the recommendations and all the other elements. So there's a lot there that is transferable, but being humble enough to understand that not all of it is transferable, and to go into that learning mode as well.

Ryan:

Yeah. It's wonderful. So there's a couple of things to unpack there. So fresh eyes or objectivity. What a gift. How do you keep that, right? I try to keep them, but it's hard when you're close to it. So to your point, there's no bias in you when you're new. If only we could have that thing from The Matrix to just keep those as we go.

Marie:

I had an old leader many years ago say your most valuable time at a company is your first 90 days because you're seeing all these... It's good behavioral economics, right, where you're supposed to challenge the category norms. And your first 90 days is your one chance whenever you're in a new role. It can be internal within a company too. But whenever you're in a new role, you are so valuable to look at things to say like, "Wait, why do you do this? Why do you assume that is the norm?" And so I think it is making sure to take the time to write those down too because everything's coming at you so quickly. But I think it's a lot of fun. It's almost a piece of research in itself, research on job.

Ryan:

So actually this is validating. So we do new employee onboarding sessions. So Steve and I meet with new classes of employees once a month or so. And they come read. They read our strategy and they've been onboarded and so on and so forth. And then we use Miro to basically guide what they want to talk about. So questions. And then I always put a section in, "Where do you think we're getting it wrong? What ideas do you have?" That is gold what those people say cause they don't have any ties to the words that were written historically other than they bought into the company's purpose, right? And so I guess that's one way to steal objectivity is to harness that time and try to scale it. Because I wonder how many companies ask the new person, "What's in your notebook?" Because that's gold in those pages. It's really important.

So there's one other thing. There's actually two other things. But you talked about researchers are good entrepreneurs. I believe product people need to be entrepreneurs. And I was interviewing a potential product manager the other day who has zero product management experience. They're a qual moderator, and I was sitting there for the first 10 minutes going, "Why am I on this interview?" And then question after question after question came and I said, "Now I get it," because the ability... And I'll use my vocabulary, but the ability to do great discovery enables you to see the problem, which then allows you to solve it. And unless you have to use... To go back to entrepreneurship, unless you are a founder who started a business to solve a problem you had, you have to do discovery to understand if there's a problem. Otherwise, you're just a tech geek who's created something that's looking for a problem it solves. We haven't actually followed through with that experiment yet. But if I do, I'll let you know how it goes, everybody.

Marie:

Yeah. Absolutely. And I think to that, keeping fresh aspect, it's really critical that everyone figures out what that means to them. There should be something that has nothing to do with your current job that helps you keep that outside-in perspective. For me, I love working with female founders. I work with a number of female founders in New Jersey, just coaching and offering advice and everything from digital strategy to pitch decks. And for me, it's in that purpose, it actually keeps me super fresh because now I know what the latest Shopify updates are. I know how Facebook changed their Ad Manager. And those are minor things, it sounds like. Why would you need to know that? But that actually helps me understand the pulse of how that whole world is changing, what's usually the technology that startups are using. Things like Canva, et cetera, it's very saturated there, and it's something that corporate is not even thinking about, shifting all their creative use to an easy-to-use platform like that versus a traditional agency model.

And so that for me is what I both get energy from and keeps me fresh. But from other people, it could be having their own podcast and having to do research for it and talk to external people. For someone else it could be doing Coursera on a random topic that has nothing to do with work, but actually always ends up bringing back to it. So I just think it's finding what keeps you fresh because if you feel stagnant or you feel stalled, that is not just because of your job. It's also because you've probably lost that keeping fresh outside too to reinspire, remotivate.

Ryan:

Love it. I love it. I'm going to ask you another question on this topic. I'm so glad you shared this. If you're not doing that, it also should be a question of if your purpose and your company's purpose are in alignment because if it is... I believe everybody has superpowers. I believe that everybody's got something special. But if you're not thinking about it and how to improve, then perhaps that's not the best use of your time. Again, this isn't 1970 anymore. 

But the reason I want to come back to this is people might listen to this and say, "Of course, Marie's involved with startups. She's the global head of insights at ABI." I will have you all know we're not super close friends. We've known each other for a long time through work circles, but you've always done this for as long as I've known you. You were always involved in really small entrepreneurship communities. So the reason I wanted to say that assertively is because you found those channels. So for those of you who aren't at the top chair yet, yes, there's probably a relationship between Marie's growth mindset and the fact that she got there. But when you weren't top of the insights org chart, what were some of the ways you went about getting involved in those communities?

Marie:

Yeah. For me, it's a little bit selfish to the fact that I really admire what they're doing and I love the diversity of the community. You meet the most brilliant, amazing people and you meet the craziest people ever who are just so dedicated to their mission too. And so for me, that part of it is like, I feel like I benefit so much from that connection. And then I just try to help where I can from my knowledge. But I think for me, there are so many communities. There's a great group in Hoboken where I live of female founders. You can volunteer to be mentors for things like... For me personally, I'm really passionate about female founders because they only get 2.4% of venture funding. So there's lots of organizations that are dedicated to that, where you can be a mentor, you can bring a subject matter expertise.

And sometimes too, particularly if you have a local company that you love, just go and talk to the owner and get to know them too. But I think there's always a way. There are so many networks and meetups for whatever area you love. And I think it's just finding those people that you just feel that energy from and that mutual benefit from too like, "I can learn from you and you can learn from me." And that can be in any vertical. It doesn't have to just be startup.

And I know you're saying like, "What do you do? How do you do that with time?" I have two young boys that are five and under, and then for me, it's something that I try to weave into my work. I love making sure to find a spot to talk with Ryan about the latest on what he's doing because for me, I know that is important. And I'm sorry, I'm terrible at email. So that's going to fall backwards. But I think too, it's just knowing and feeling empowered that you can take control of your work and your time. And that way too, because if it is something like that that can benefit the business, finding that priority of leaving at 5:00 to be able to go to the happy hour, to meet people or to help someone else in the community is okay. And it's something that you can control to some degree as well.

Ryan:

Yeah, for sure. And I love the point you make about two-way value. Brian Glazer, he's a famous movie producer. He's produced dozens of famous hits, and he gave this talk at Summit, which you and I have talked about before, and he was talking about how he got his career started. And he was in the mail room at the film studios in Hollywood. And he got a meeting with all these famous directors by saying, "Hey, I'm nobody, but I got some ideas that can help you sell more movies." And then he built his career off of that two-way value exchange.

And obviously, now you're in a position where your value is extremely concise on a piece of paper, right? I buy things. I work for a major company. But your brain was smart before those things were all true, right? And so it's really interesting. 

So I want to ask you another curve ball question.

Marie:

Yeah. I love it.

Ryan:

You are an executive who has two boys under five. How do you manage it?

Marie:

Total chaos.

Ryan:

Thank you for being honest, it's a shit show at my house too.

Marie:

It's, yeah, total chaos. I think for me, I have very strong divides between the time that I'm spending with them versus the time that I'm at work. And that really re-energizes me. I used to work for a wonderful boss who would block his calendar from 6:00 to 9:00 PM at night so that he could spend time with his boys. And he set that example. And it's also something that I feel like I want to set that example too, that I can't control the fact that daycares still have early closures because of COVID. So when I leave, I leave. And on the weekends, I try to avoid, because I know if I send an email, then someone's going to feel like they need to respond to it. And so I think I've found an environment at both companies and that is really supportive of that and understanding of that. And I think it's also too knowing if you don't set the boundaries, someone else will set them for you and they're not going to be in your favor.

And so I think it's one of those that's like, what's the worst that can happen if you set those boundaries and trying it out and seeing what works for you. But I mean, it's tough. It's total chaos all the time. School shutdowns all the time, in and out. But for me, it's worth it.

Ryan:

But what an example you're setting. I will say on a personal note, when I started doing... So I have 6:00 to 9:00 blocked off, 7:00 to 8:00 every morning, that limiting of hours actually helps you prioritize a little more. I found I'm better at the things that I do decide to do versus just being on all the time. But you're setting a wonderful example. So thank you for sharing that. 

I want to talk to you about a work related-topic now. It's something that… you're the first person I've ever met who's validated this hypothesis.

Marie:

Uh oh. Sample of one. 

Ryan:

Virtual hugs. I know. Let's see how many likes we get when we post this podcast, although you've dropped so much gold that it might be for any one of the other dozen insights you've given. But I struggle, I really struggle with the fact that we're asking the same people, we're asking people to both elevate their game, be storytellers, be business people, be psychologists, synthesize multiple sources of information, with also being the people that figure out which tools to use, how to use them, how to set them up to scale. And I link this to what I've seen happen in software, which is you always had sales and customer success, and then revenue operations became a thing. I think we need to start an insights operations movement, Marie. What do you think?

Marie:

Absolutely. If you think about insights organizations, especially within corporations and what has happened over the last 10 years, there is probably everywhere half the amount of internal insights professionals inside large corporations as there was a long time ago. Not referring to any specific company, but that's if you look at the industry trends. So here we have our most precious resources. Very difficult profiles to recruit. They have to be digital-savvy. They have to be storytellers. They have to be strategic. They have to feel comfortable provoking the business, but they need to know all their data, they need to be able to wrap it in this story, and they need to make unicorns for the business as well. So here we have-

Ryan:

Just a small outcome there at the end!

Marie:

Here we have this limited resource, and yet we are investing that limited resource and rechecking the same brand list and rechecking the same standardized questionnaire and sending 40 emails back and forth on tools. And it just doesn't make sense from an investment perspective. It's not the best ROI. And it doesn't make sense from a people perspective of how you remove grunt work from people's plates so that you can unlock the potential and make sure they are energized by work. And I think that's why looking at the operation side, how do we bring even more tech and process and flows to operationalize that type of research that we do a lot and really isolate where can those professionals add in where it's adding lots of value rather than managing the back of house.

And so I think if you look at outside industries and what they've been able to do for... Back to startup tech, what Shopify does for operationalizing what used to be tons and tons of code, what Canva does for making it very, very easy to make beautiful designs that can actually be paid ads, what some of the flows for CRM do, we need that for insights. We cannot continue to ask our people to be these unicorns and operationalize and stay and retain at our companies and grow and provoke the business. And so I think I'm fully aligned to that. I think the more that you can platform and operationalize and remove that so that you're outsourcing process and insourcing thinking, the better.

Ryan:

I love it. I've long had this dream of seeing on somebody's resume, Certified Zappi Admin. It will happen one day. 

So I've seen a few businesses, centers of excellence, work with marketers and insights people to say, "This is the instance. Are we all happy? These are the success metrics. Are we all happy? This is the enablement of how to use it. Cool. We're going to do all the grunt work and roll it out. That way, you all can get the data in stride." So my question to you is... And I think this is more than a sample size of two, by the way. I have chatted with more people. It's just the vocabulary of insights ops. What's the business case, right? So in a trend where we want to create super unicorns, but money's tight, and it's particularly going to become more tight. We appear to be on the bridge of a recession. Supply chain's a bit of a mess. What's the pitch?

Marie:

I mean, it's just the core, getting a better ROI out of your investment into your insights teams. If you have very limited resource, if you have one person and they can do 40 hours work a week, do you want them really spending time on editing questionnaires and chasing down and asking, "The stimulus was two days late. Can you please still deliver on time two days even though we were late?" No. You want them thinking about and looking into hypotheses of, "Here's opportunities for the business to overcome these supply chain issues, these growth issues," understanding what is going on in our consumers lives, not in the city where the office is located, but in the actual country or regions that their consumers are located and being able to provoke the business. And that takes time. And that is a much better return for the business. Like, do you want me to identify a $100 million opportunity for you or do you want me to ensure that our 20 different pack tests have the custom questions built for each that you're probably not going to look at in the report anyway?

Ryan:

That's a really good angle. And I think to add to it, it's like, you're not going to get the person who can unearth the $100 million opportunity if you ask them to program surveys and run data tables all day. They're not going to want to do that job. I do think that because I think part of this does require us recruiting from outside the industry. But I love what you say, Marie, the inspiration from outside the industry. Let's not just look at ourselves. I mean, there's adjacent industry solving similar problems. I mean, the rise of revenue operations came because there was all this tech created to enable the growth rates of companies, but the sellers weren't talking to customers. And so it's like, you're paying all this money to create growth for your company, but your sellers are... There's all this Gartner data about this, but your sellers are navigating your own toys all day. So they're not talking to your customers, which means they're not growing your business.

Marie:

Yeah. I think where companies will move, especially in strained resources, we don't want necessarily researchers. We want strategists and provokers and people who can find opportunities, who use research and data as their superpower, but use it smartly as their superpower versus use it as what they do day-to-day. And so I think instead of having that affiliation to, "I am an insight person. I'm a data analyst," having affiliation to, "I help grow the business and I use my special skills to do that," I think is where the imperative is and must be for us as an industry to continue to thrive and continue to grow. Otherwise, we're going to be left at the wayside.

Ryan:

Yep. So you said at the beginning of our conversation, you... And I'm paraphrasing, so I'm not putting words in Marie's mouth. But my takeaway, right? You learned a lot of the basics. You learned the rules so that you could know where you could and couldn't break them. In a world where you want to hire storytellers, provokers, business people that may or may not have the grounding of what good data looks like, how do we teach them that? I won't bias you with anything. I have thoughts, but I'll shut up.

Marie:

Yeah. So I think there's a generalist knowledge you should have and can teach on some of those things, and there's the specialist. And I think, I mean, it all comes down to do you know who to call, and are you humble enough to call them? And so you know what? I'm looking for people... If you're operating in that area, if it's not your specialty area... I remember working in MMMs earlier on. I'm like, "This is not my area." Do you know the person to tap to get that view, to pull into this circle who wants to be in your circle to advise on that, and then learn a ton from them while they're doing that, so that next time you maybe need to call them a little bit less? But then second, are you humble enough to know and call them?

Because I think where people get themselves in trouble is two things. One, they try to just go at it anyway and they don't acknowledge, "I might need someone else. I might need some of my networked resource to help advise on this and help me learn from them." And then the second thing is people confuse activity versus impact. So I see this a lot of times in method innovation is, "Let's just do some cool, fast, cheaper things," but faster and cheaper alone is not necessarily driving your business forward. You're just doing things you used to do in maybe a cool tech spin. That's very different than impact and doing things faster, cheaper, and better, and in a way that you're going to see consumers and opportunities before your competitors because they're not doing it that way. And so I think that activity versus impact is one that's really critical to help people learn how to differentiate, help them learn how to focus on impact versus activity and pull in that resource.

Ryan:

I love the faster, cheaper, better. I mean, particularly today, 2022, isn't that crazy? That's the year we're in.

Marie:

I can't. Yeah.

Ryan:

The gray hairs that are sprouting up everywhere now make sense. But faster, cheaper tables stakes now. So it's like, "Cool story. What else you got going on?" You said something really profound. You're bringing the heat in this conversation. I'm not surprised, by the way. It almost feels like the world has taught us that we have to know the answers for everything. I love what you said about MMM. You knew what you didn't know and you were okay in being vulnerable in saying that. And like I feel like that isn't normal, and it should be. How many people feel like they have to... They get this job and they have to be BS their way about knowing it all, but they actually don't. And I say this to a lot of our employees. I actually view it as a strength if you're like, "I genuinely don't have a clue. Any advice of who I can go figure it out or so-and-so does. Let me talk to them about it."

And I think about this a lot, raising young kids. Think about a time when your... Your parents may not have may or may not have done this, but, "It's just because the way it is," or, "It's always been done this way." And so I struggle to ever use that vocabulary in this house because I'm like, "Well, just keep saying why." It's a great skill that I think we do take away from people. So I'm glad that you are leading people, knowing what you don't know, carving time for your kids, and also making massive career moves. So I can't thank you enough for this time.

Marie:

Oh, thank you. Thank you. It's been wonderful to catch up.

Ryan:

It really has. Final question before I leave you alone. I like to go all the way to my allotted time with wonderful leaders like you. There's a lot of movement in the market. A lot of people are going to go on the same journey as you. They might be a director and they're looking for that number one job, that global leadership role. What advice would you give to those individuals that you wish somebody gave to you? Now I know you've had the benefit of some incredible leaders, but what's some advice that you would give?

Marie:

Yeah. I would say know your personal purpose before you even start looking... At minimum, you should know what are those few things. The elements, the components, the attributes that you want to have in the next role. And if you were to manage yourself like your CEO, CEO of the company, Ryan, what would be that skill or that new business acquisition that you'd want to add to your portfolio? And I would say definitely consult other people. Ask for opinions, but you have to take the decision yourself. But sometimes, when you're debating between different opportunities or whether to leave or stay, they can give you some really good perspective and objective perspective, ideally on the different opportunities or help you think through things. They should never tell you what to do. That's probably not a good advisor.

I saw a study around change and how change is almost always a good decision that people are happy they made a year, two or three years later. So there's definitely something to be said to change, but there's also a lot of things going on right now with being restless from being home for a long time, being restless because so much is going on. We don't want to live through anymore in unprecedented events.

Ryan:

Please no.

Marie:

So yeah. So I said, just have a strong sense of yourself and what you want before you change so that you can make sure it's building towards your north star.

Ryan:

Wow. I'm sad that this conversation's over, Marie Van Blaricum. Thank you so much for your time. I will see you in Austin, Texas. Everybody listening, I hope that you are as pumped as I am leaving this. I'm actually buzzing with energy. I'm going to go like Marie offered, and I'm going to go hang out with my kids in the backyard now. Marie, have a good day.

Marie:

Thank you so much, Ryan.

Ryan:

Patricia, you have some key takeaways in a bonus goodie for everybody today. What's up?

Patricia:

Yes. It's amazing. She ... the only way that I could title this was eight plus one because you know I love the plus ones. Applicable learning from a great journey. There's just no other way. I mean, she's amazing. Right? And I'm just going to call her MVB, because I'm not as good at pronouncing names as you are, even though my name is a mouthful.

But she's just so cool, and everything's just easy and she has passion. And I think if I were to choose one word that would ... the passion. It's all about passion. But let me just get started on my eight plus one. Number one. I'm going to start with a pitch and just a little foreshadowing. I'm going to end with a pitch too. Just keep that in mind.

Ryan:

Ooh.

Patricia:

Ooh. So I'm going to start with HR.

Ryan:

You're such a pitcher, now that you're an entrepreneur. Look at you.

Patricia:

I know, I know. Me and my pitches, learning something new, 2022. Woo.

Ryan:

Oh.

Patricia:

So falling into insights. Get it? See what I'm doing there? Ha ha, right? An HR pitch.

Ryan:

Yes. I see what you did there.

Patricia:

So do you ever ask yourself why people leave the TV on when they're not watching it or do you ask why when you look at the mirror at yourself, you tilt your head? Maybe it's time to let yourself be chosen by the insights Industry. Even if you don't understand what insights is about, listen, because it sounds interesting. It might turn out to be a natural fit.

You get to learn about every single aspect of the business and what makes great communication. You're asked to give your points of view all the time on how to grow the business. There are always new businesses to work on and new ways to innovate. And you get a seat at the table where you get to drive the strategies of the business. What do you think? My pitch?

Ryan:

Well, the only thing missing from your pitch is like some creepy dude coming in with like, "And this may make you lose all your hair, proceed with caution. Available at pharmacies nearby." And I'm in. I feel like it's almost too good to be true.

Patricia:

It's too good to be. I've only been doing, I've been doing my job for almost 30 years and I still love it. WTF guys? It's like, "Wow, amazing." So that was number one. She created that. And you said, "That sound should be turned into a pitch, so I turned it into a pitch for you."

Number two. Learning at the university of Unilever, right? And some people say Unilever, Unilever. Here in Columbia, they say Unilever. So you know, Unilever. Six courses. The first one's foundational and traditional. It's all about those roles that are local, global, big and small brands. Portfolio strategy. Right? Then there's number two, all about innovation roles, space to learn what can bend and break, what can and can't be done. It's just as important to know what you can't do as what you can. You usually end up doing both. There you go.

Number three. Digital roles, innovation data, leading research innovation, digitization. God, I have a hard time with that one. Of the methodologies, which means about 88% overhaul of the whole entire toolbox so that you can get significant levels of advancement in AI and analytics.

Number four. Digital marketing and analytics roles, which are all about creating meaningful conversations with your consumers, with audience analytics and digital data. Then there's number five. Which is getting closer to today, first party data roles. There's more to come on that. That's like a teaser for later, but later in the season. Used to better serve our customers, it's a hyper potential space with really high return. There's so much to be done because it's misunderstood and there isn't much standardization yet.

So we've got lots to do there. Insights need to keep the human at the center of first party data roles and overall, the top of the top from Unilever from MVB? Overall amazing leaders, world class insights organization. That was our number two. Ready for number three?

Ryan:

Yes ma'am. I'm so excited.

Patricia:

She's now getting her masters at ABI, right? She talks about insights as a small industry with many transferable skills. I really loved how she said that, "Experience, no matter what experience you have, always has an application to your new role, so just look for the application." And I thought that was amazing because there's always bridges to be built.

Because at the end of the day, it's about being able to help new people, right? She says her new challenge is about creating an inclusive function that can really help the businesses grow. And I'll bet most of us have a challenge that is worded something like that. So I think there's a lot to be learned from her.

Now number five is day 91 and going, right? It gets real after that, it really does. It still is like the first day of school while you're drinking from the fire hose, right? People are everywhere. But people are people staying everywhere and they're all welcoming and they're all offering help. Take the offers. MVB accepted all offers for help. And she said that was one of the things that helped her most.

She took a step back to see how objectively information flowed, so she was able to have a clear mind without having drunk the Kool Aid yet. And at the core, she says, "It's the same. People are smart, driven and want to grow and live right and do right by the company." Right? She said, "Discover the fundamentals, insights.” People are good at that. Do it. It's a discovery. It's a skill. Right?

And that's why insights people are so good at being entrepreneurs, because they have an excellent learning mindset and they're ready for anything. They see the problem. They write the recommendation, they solve it. Number six, this one's yours, Ryan. I really like this one.

Ryan:

I have one?

Patricia:

Yes, you did. Maximizing superpowers. I love it when you talk about superpowers. Remember you talked what superpowers? You said, "Everybody has superpowers." Everybody has something special to contribute. I love that. I love that. Right? Make sure your purpose and the company's purpose are aligned or at least complimentary, so you have some common ground. And reach out and find ways to grow yourself and help the company grow. There's probably a relationship between the growth mindset and having career growth and make sure you tap into that. Okay? Number seven, this one's applicable and she described it so beautifully and you helped. Managing chaos.

Ryan:

Yeah.

Patricia:

She said having a strong divide and you echoed her right away and I have three kids, so I remember the time. Strong divides between personal and professional. You set the boundaries, try them out, see if they work, and you said, "If you don't set the boundaries, somebody else is going to, and they're not going to be in your favor."

Then she said something lovely, which I'm going to paraphrase as “walk the talk.” She said, "People, don't send mails on downtime because people see what you do more than what you say." So if you send a mail in downtime, people are going to feel obliged to reply, so don't do it. Right. And you said limiting work hours actually helps you prioritize more. So do that too. Right?

Number eight. Advice to a younger self. Find and live your mission. Oh, music to my ears, her mission, tilt the world by creating a place for divergent creators, builders and innovators to belong and thrive. That was MVB's. Yours, "I want to be the best I can, while still being kind." I decided to put myself on the line too.

Ryan:

Let's hear it.

Patricia:

“Encourage and enable growth in all things every day.” 

So I put those there because ... it took us a while to get there. I mean, I've been around for a while. So it took me a while to polish it and figure out why I was here. Why is it important? Find your mission. Ask yourself what moves you. What brings you energy? Make your mission real by seeing and feeling the importance of your mission. Not only for others, but for yourself.

Why is that mission important to you? What does it give to you? Grow your mission by contributing to groups or communities with similar passions. Perpetuate your mission by finding a way to have a two way exchange. You give, they give, you learn. They learn, you grow. They grow. Everybody grows. Be a virtuous cycle. Something that feeds itself. The result of having a mission is staying fresh, motivated, inspired.

And then at the end, leverage your mission when you're looking for growth for yourself, career growth, personal growth. All the things you're looking for, building towards your mission. Now you might have heard some passion in that voice, but this is one of those points where this is my soapbox coming out. And I just want everybody to know who they are. It's so important. It doesn't have to be written in stone. Modify It. Evolve it. Change it. Optimize it. Live with it. It's great. You can tell, I like that one. Right?

Ryan:

I like it.

Patricia:

You ready for the bonus content?

Ryan:

Let’s… Oh yeah. I'm going to try not to curse as much. I have a swear jar in my family now, so I have to put $10 per curse word. So I just-

Patricia:

Oh my God. You're going to go poor!

Ryan:

I just caught one. So you carry on. I very much look forward to the bonus content.

Patricia:

I'm going to tie this all together with a beautiful little bow, right? You started off with a lovely, lovely topic that you were just a little bit passionate about and you know, you can tell you and I are just a little passionate about what we do. It comes out right?

Ryan:

Yep. I like what I do!

Patricia:

Yeah. It's something I love to do.

Ryan:

Yep!

Patricia:

And then, I started off with a pitch. So I figured today I'd bring balance to the world by ending with a pitch. An insights operations pitch, because you want to have insights operations because you want better ROI out of your investment of your insights team. Because you prefer strategists and provokers and people can find opportunities who use research and data as their superpower.

But use it smartly as their superpower versus use it as a day to day. You should want insights operations, because you want to move away from having your people say, "I'm an insights person. I'm a data analyst, too, I help grow the business and use my special skills to do that." 

You're going to be unlocking potential. And re-energizing your teams. Without insights operations, you add grunt work to your team's plate and you don't want to do that. With insights operations, you operationalize much of the work you manage to do to use the house. You manage the house with. With insights operations, insights professionals can add value rather than managing things. Back of the office on their desk and because many others have succeeded, you are going to be outsourcing processes and insourcing thinking with insights operations. Did I convince you?

Ryan:

I like that pitch. I'm buying. I'm buying. And your pitch links to the thing that I'm ranting about. It's all interconnected.

Patricia:

Go for it. Of course.

Ryan:

It's all interconnected. It's the same thing. You need people to build the systems that people will use. Make them relevant to the brand. Make sure they work in the countries. Make sure that the data speaks to each other. Make sure that they're easy. Make sure everybody's enabled. Insights ops.

So that the people you pay a lot of money to, to get more strategic and smarter, have time to do that. And the reason why both teams need to let go of their Legos is because the people closest to the problems need access to the data. That doesn't mean that as an insights storyteller, you're not important. It actually means you're becoming more important. So all three of these things need to work in harmony, which is why global teams, local teams, and marketing and innovation teams need to be on this ride together for us to really unlock the potential of growth that we might be missing on.

Great pitch. Great episode. Up next on Inside Insights is our very own Shazia Ali who manages our community. She is also an entrepreneur. She built her own consultancy business and has recently decided to join Zappi. It made me feel like the New York Yankees for a minute, sorry for the overly American sports metaphor.

She's like, "Yeah, I want to join a winning team." This is kind of cool. So Shazia and I are going to talk a lot about culture and leadership and finding your own personal purpose. So it'll be more of an episode about you. And I hope that we can give you some ideas to be introspective about where you're heading, in your own personal journey. We've got, I think, four episodes left in season four?

Patricia:

Yep.

Ryan:

Again, thank you for nominating and voting for us. It means a lot to us. Seriously. If I could ask you to give us a rating on whatever platform you're using, it really does help. All this stuff works on algorithms, so it'll help more people get recommendations.

And we, despite winning this cool trophy that's a functioning microphone, we are still the new podcast on the block. So we would appreciate your help spreading the word. Kelsey. Thank you. Patricia, thank you. Columbia wifi? You suck. But we made it through this episode and I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Patricia:

Bye!