DocuSign's Thriving Culture Hinges on Development for Emerging Leaders
At DocuSign, employees actively love their leaders. In fact, year after year, one of the company’s highest-scoring items on its employee engagement score is “How likely would you recommend your manager?” When I asked the CPO of Docusign , Jennifer Christie , about the success of her leadership development team, she said she attributed it to the proper preparation of emerging leaders.
DocuSign is best known as an e-signature company. With 7,000 employees, the company has more than one million customers and more than one billion users.
DocuSign Develops Culture by Preparing Its Emerging Leaders
At DocuSign, employees measurably love their managers. On the biannual engagement survey, employees consistently rank the question “Would you recommend your manager to others” as a top-scoring item across the entire survey. Christie attributes this affinity for managers to two key components behind her team’s leadership development:
A Culture of Caring at DocuSign
DocuSign operates with a culture of caring. “When I say caring,” Christie elaborated, “that means not just caring for each other and having each other's backs inside the company but also caring for our customers. We are very purpose-driven and have low egos. It's not about titles. It's not about staying in your lane. It's about what we can do to help.”
领英推荐
To foster a culture of caring, Christie and her team employ two key initiatives:
Christie’s Book Recommendations for HR Professionals: Thanks for the Feedback and Difficult Conversations
All of the chief people officers I have interviewed are voracious readers and learners. Asked what book she would recommend for human resources (HR) professionals to read, Christie recommended Thanks for the Feedback and Difficult Conversations. Both books were written by the Harvard Negotiation Project with Sheila Heen and Douglas Stone. “These are two books that everyone can benefit from. I don't care what job you have or what level you are, these kinds of conversations are difficult. Giving feedback that's going to land the right way or receiving feedback in a productive way are fundamental skills for everything we do.”
Christie’s Advice for CPOs: Ingrain Yourself in the Business
Christie’s advice for someone stepping into a CPO role was to ingrain yourself in the business. She said, “When I first took the stage at a different company, I thought everyone expected me to be perfect and the best HR expert. I chose to focus less on being an expert in the business. If you focus on understanding the business, it will make you a better partner to your CEO and your peers.”
Inqqa AI connects the dots in employee surveys & market research
3 个月How interesting to hear about the success of DocuSign's emerging leader program! Have you found that understanding and acting on open-text feedback from employees played a role in shaping such effective leadership initiatives?
Director of Sales Training
8 个月I’ve built a few management “ladder” programs. Here were the main problems: 1. No clear agreement on who could sign up (very political) 2. Tough to get agreement on the curriculum…I just chose it myself 3. Unless you are in a big company, logistics are tricky…do I use internal or external courses? Do I have enough people for a course? Is there a public course they can attend? What if I have one new participant…what do I do? 4. Learners learned long before they could apply…so they forgot what they learned 5. There were never enough management slots open to fill demand…very demotivating and primes them to jump to another company. 5. Never real agreement on OTJ behaviors for managers…just assumptions that they had been “trained”. 6. The courses didn’t necessarily “integrate” so tough as to what expected behaviors were. 7. Existing managers didn’t go through process or have behavioral expectations…undermined the outcomes 8. Top management didn’t go through the process, set expectations for management behavior or walk the talk. All common “underminers” ??.
Senior Leader @ FBI | Board Member - Leadership Greater Huntsville | LinkedIn Top Leadership Voice | International Speaker | Author | Leadership & Career Coach | Culture Change Agent
8 个月This is absolutely right Kevin! It is one of the biggest gaps I’ve seen in organizations is the lack of early and consistent preparatory development to enable individuals to step confidently AND competently into their first supervisory or management role. But the efforts mustn’t stop there! Another flaw I’ve seen is not continuously nurturing your existing managers especially as they start rising into executive management and beyond. Leaders should never stop developing.
Toyota of PR Consultants | Boosting brand awareness for B2B Tech companies | Cybersecurity PR | B2B Tech PR
8 个月I wish I would have experienced something like this 25 years ago. This is so smart. Strategic. I feel like this program alleviates the stress of getting thrown into the deep end. Having to sink or swim while managing the job responsibilities and the people responsibilities.
Fractional Product Marketing Leader focused on B2B | ??Top 10 Product Marketing Consultant | ?? 3X Top Product Marketing Leader
8 个月I really appreciate the concept of “intentional leadership”. Once people understand the commitment of the leadership lifestyle, it seems they have an opportunity to opt out with no repercussions. Nice!