SAP's CMO Julia White recalls a lesson learned earlier in her career — on leading teams through change, and owning up to mistakes. She was interviewed by Business Insider at the Cannes Lions 2024 International Festival of Creativity.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00This was the wrong time, and it was going to be a really, really disruptive and too big of a change for that time.
00:10One of my most favorite mistakes, I'll call it, was pretty early in my CMO career,
00:14and I came into an organization, I was going to change it and bring in new types of marketing, product marketing, different categories,
00:19and I was literally at the final stages of rolling out a pretty big org change.
00:24And I was hearing resistance, but I was like, that's normal, people don't like change.
00:28But it was right up at the end, I hadn't sent the email, I hadn't communicated it broadly,
00:32but a leader pulled me aside and was like, I just need you to hear me out on this.
00:36And I really listened, and I paused, and then I went and I asked other leaders,
00:40and I realized that this was the wrong time, and it was going to be a really, really disruptive and too big of a change for that time.
00:47And so I walked back from it completely, and I remember a couple of my leaders pulled me aside,
00:51and they're like, I've never seen anyone literally admit it was wrong, change their mind, and do something different in the way you did.
00:58And so they actually admired me more, which I thought was strange, but in the moment,
01:02because I felt like, God, how did I get this far and make this wrong thing?
01:05And then ultimately, three years later, I implemented that change when the team was ready and when we were ready as a business to do it.