Fueling Success: How Pega Leaders Cultivate Excellence

Hot on the heels of our Regional Kick Off in Denver, I’m happy to share that we just completed our second and final Regional Kick Off with the EMEA and APJ teams in Madrid, Spain. As the sun sets over Madrid, marking the end of our onsite experience, the lessons we learned continue to shine brightly in our daily practices.

In my last post, I spoke about the importance of continuously improving not only our technical skills but also our interpersonal skills that remain critical in the GenAI era. This time, I want to dive deeper into the workshop we ran with our people leaders who look to bring out the very best in their teams by increasing their emotional intelligence.

Leaders are truly leading when they leverage their knowledge and emotional intelligence (accurately understanding the self, others, and the context/environment) to meet the moment. At Pega, our leaders are developing their emotional intelligence, and their teams, through a focus on strengths-based coaching. We believe when individuals are good at the work they're doing AND energized by it, our business will flourish.

During our Regional GTM Kickoff this year, leaders practiced identifying their individual strengths—as well as the strengths of each individual team member—and how they are being underutilized up until now. We are helping leaders build emotional intelligence and lift performance on their teams by:

1 - Identifying and sharing “what you do best” through a Reflected Best Self Exercise. This resulted in powerful and emotional stories that created trust and connection among peers.

2 - Sharing robust data about strengths-based coaching and organizational outcomes. When more individuals have a chance to do the work where they have a competitive advantage (use their strengths) more often—even just 20% of the time—the organization and our customers experience an amazing product, experience, or outcome. In short, a fair trade on their investment.

3 - Giving our leaders time to practice strengths-based coaching with one another. Here are three questions that leaders at Pega will use each week with members of their team to identify and amplify excellence:

• What did you do well this week that was also invigorating? (i.e., strengths-spotting)
• What drained or derailed you this week? (i.e., mitigate weaknesses)
• How can I help (removing obstacles, creating chances for energizing work)?

These questions are simple but not easy to answer. Over time, patterns in the work we do where energy, competence, and contribution are maximized will emerge. And doing more of that work will yield the innovation and execution that differentiates Pega.

In the real world, we’re busy responding to fire drills, double booked in yet another meeting, and behind schedule on that demo design. It doesn’t seem useful to slow down and dwell on “you at your best.” But these questions don’t require a 45-minute 1:1. When asked consistently, and followed up on with action, the discussion becomes efficient and genuine.

We started this micro-habit of a consistent “strengths-based check-in” to improve our individual and collective emotional intelligence. Leaders practiced identifying and sharing their own strengths (self-awareness), sat with one another (or their team) and practiced asking questions that deepen awareness of someone else’s strengths (social awareness), and finally, we explored how to leverage these strengths in the future (context/environmental awareness). Being asked by a leader to reflect and share those moments when our energy spikes and a work task is effortless and invigorating, we will operate more effectively and energetically as a team!

If excellence is what we want more of—and our customers are depending on it—we must prioritize it. In 2025, I’m committed to creating balance, momentum, and confidence with my team one week at a time by playing to my strengths 20% of the time and looking for moments to leverage the strengths of others! A weekly check-in focused on what went well, what didn’t, and what action will support your near-term work priorities, is an evidence-based strategy to identify the untapped and underutilized excellence hidden in plain sight.

This session was very successfully run by two phenomenal and talented leadership coaches who recently joined our team: Cole Baker Bagwell Coaching, L.L.C. , our Director of GTM Leadership Development, and Thomas Payne, MAPP, ACC , our GTM Leadership and Development Coaching Senior Manager. I'm thrilled to have them in our Leadership Development program and very grateful for the deep expertise, bold ideas and unshakable commitment they bring in every day.

The true magic happens when stellar coaches, great content and engaged GTM leaders intersect..... Let’s make 2025 magical at Pega!

To deliver magic, a lot of people worked in support of this learning experience, very likely I may miss some...and if so I lean on you to tag others too :-)

Kerim Akgonul John Higgins Leon Trefler Don Schuerman Michael Brenner Cole Baker-Bagwell Thomas Payne, MAPP, ACC Anna Kaiser Ed Chase Sofie Bjorksten, PMP Colleen Pearce Chastity Schobert Colm Daly Damon Lockwood Andrew McGlone Samantha Paquin Kieran Tarrant Rajen Sanggaran Joanne Taylor Rachel Boskovitch Karim ZEIN Diane (Lucchese) Paulenich Jen Pratt Pat Dwyer Steve Gross Eric Musser Sandeep Thamaraichelvan Chris McFadden Jonas Lim Cathy Nelson Takumi Ozawa Alex Gould Andy Howell Brigitte Menacher Walter K?hler Jackie McKinley Carly Underwood Smerz, CMP Venessa Azar, CMP Sean Hedenskog Kate Jacobsen Oscar Grobbenhaar Brooke Halloran Denis Lacassagne Luigi Leo Anna Maitland Liz Monroe McCormick Sheena Morett Sandra Nangeroni Chris Nittle Rene van der Laan Michael Tocci Jason Wilhelm Chris Young Lisa Mattivi Kylie McCue Rupy Chana Angel C. Max Rodrick Lauren Deignan Jessica Genatossio Matt Healy Clarence Lewis Danielle Tambini, CMP Helen Gallick Deborah Bianculli Keri Burnett Marc Van Baar Michael Box Stacy Wise Tomás Mac Seáin Wasim Khan Robert Bry Wanda Droz Jillian Irizarry Jackie Flynn Carie Whalen Suraj Victor Peter Welburn Laurence Doody Renata Del Sarto Paul Barnes Baruch Sachs Annette Kerlin Drake Carmody Alaina Herfindal Alec Taylor Evan Braun Christy Wezowicz