Finding Success Anywhere with Karen Mangia, a WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce – OpsStars

Finding Success Anywhere with Karen Mangia,
a WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer
and Market Insights at Salesforce

Karen Mangia, a WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce

Karen Mangia, a WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce, joins the conversation to share how we can succeed in our roles and organizations in the new world of work. Also, she talks about how we maintain our health and wellness, be creative, have our voices heard, and be successful.

Karen is the author of four books: “Success From Anywhere: Create Your Own Future of Work from the Inside Out,” “Working From Home: Making the New Normal Work for You,” “Success With Less: Releasing Obligations and Discovering Joy,” and “Listen Up!: How to Tune In to Customers and Turn Down the Noise.”

Karen is also an internationally-recognized thought leader whose TEDx appearance, keynotes, blogs, and books reach hundreds of thousands of business leaders each year. She is a prolific blogger and sought-after media interviewee, featured in Forbes, and regularly contributes to Thrive Global and ZDNet.

Key Highlights:

7:58 – 10:02 – Divest Before You Invest – Anytime you have a top goal, what are you going to divest from your commitments so you can invest in your top priority? Being crystal clear about what success means for you in any given moment, helps you to decide what to invest and divest. Once the deliverable is complete, press pause and reset so chaos and commitment don’t become your way of being.
10:03 – 12:30 – Making Time to be Productive – When you have an idea, put some concepts out and see what people respond to. Block time on your calendar to do deep work-focused sprints. Try a true distraction-free 90 minute sprint when you need to create something.
12:31 – 15:40 – Being a Thought Leader on Success – The great aspiration we collectively strive for is to have more of what matters in our personal and work lives. Success comes from the inside out. You can achieve success, but it’s crucial to listen to yourself, prioritize, pause, be present, and ask great questions.
15:40 – 17:46 – Reconstructing Work – As the world changes, we have the opportunity to rebuild and redefine work practices to find what makes us more productive and happier as human beings. Karen thinks about the future of work by categorizing it into four W’s:
1. Work – What is the work that needs to be done now? What outcomes are we trying to achieve and are we aligned to those outcomes?
2. Workforce – Who needs to be doing this work?
3. Workplace – Where does this work need to happen? When we come together, what is the purpose of that gathering?
4. Workflow – What is the workflow that enables those shifts inside your work, workforce and workplace?
18:33 – 23:09 – How to Maintain a Positive Mental Health – Success begins with deep listening. The workforce has shifted its needs and expectations. Leaders need to get deeply curious about their employee’s personas and understand their needs in the workplace. Strengthening the foundation of your organization begins with constantly re-examining your personal and organizational values. Karen talks about the Stress Free Experiment and how ultimately, reconnecting with your values is a tool to tap into greater resilience – a key factor in mental health in the workplace.
24:12 – 26:00 – How to Show Success and Advancement – When we can be crystal clear with a manager or leader, we help them understand how to help us along our path to success. We love to help others and hate to ask for help. Success begins with your story. When you show up to a meeting, make it easy for them to understand how to help you. It’s helpful if you can articulate your success in terms of three areas:
- Education – what do I want to learn next or what have I recently learned/mastered?
- Experience – what have a recently tried or what would I like to try
- Exposure – who have I recently met or who would I like to meet?
26:08 – 29:21 – Engaging and Networking – If your career objective is to grow within your company, you should focus on building relationships internally. If you think you may be looking for new opportunities, then it makes sense to build a broad network that can serve you.
33:28 – 34:45 – Advice for Starting a New Remote Role – Build your internal network by asking WHO you need to know, not just what you need to know. Video is powerful – consider sending videos over email – video is an opportunity to connect in a more personal and context rich way.

Who Would Karen Like to Take For Lunch?
Priya Parker, facilitator, strategic advisor, acclaimed author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters and the host of the New York Times podcast, Together Apart

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“One of the most important lessons that I have learned is, and I’ve learned it the hard way, is divest before you invest any time you have a top goal, whether that’s training for a triathlon or writing a book, or learning a new language or being the best PTO parent, what are you going to divest of from your calendar and your commitments, so that you can invest in your top priority.”

Karen Mangia, WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce

“Gathering with a purpose because it’s not that 100% of employees are 100% opposed to returning to the office. The question they’re asking is why, to what end, for what purpose? What are we going to do there that requires my in-person presence? That’s the piece that’s missing.”

Karen Mangia, WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce

“I believe the three most powerful words in leadership are I hear you. Our workforce has shifted, their needs have shifted. The expectation from employees of employers has shifted. We need to get deeply curious about our employee personas. Who are we serving now? What are their needs? What is the purpose that they’re seeking in this work that they’re doing?”

Karen Mangia, WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce

“When you are thinking about mental health in the workplace, when you are thinking about strengthening the foundation of your team or your organization, return to your values. This experiment has been repeated thousands and thousands of times with everyone from executives to entrepreneurs and everything in between and the results are the same. Reconnecting with your values is a tool to tap into greater resilience. That’s what we’re all looking for right now. Resilience is a key factor in mental health and certainly mental health in the workplace.”

Karen Mangia, WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce

“What I find is when we can be crystal clear about the conversation in that framework with a manager or in the skip level conversation, we help that person understand how to help us along our path to success. At our core, we all love to help others and hate to ask for help. The great paradox is most people stop just short of asking for the help they need to go to the next step in your career. Success begins with your story.”

Karen Mangia, WSJ Bestselling Author and Vice President of Customer and Market Insights at Salesforce