because of the people and how they were carrying themselves, and the enthusiasm they had for their company. I wanted to be part of it.
Of course, I was delighted to hear this, and it tells me that we are doing some things right. At the same time, I know we're not perfect. Anaplan is a work in progress, and we still have a ways to go. But, working together, we're accomplishing some truly amazing things for our customers, in a culture based on mutual trust and respect. In fact, we've hired a number of people who used to be our customers. In every one of these cases, the people we hired were impressed with the Anaplan culture, which they experienced as they worked with our employees.
Sara Baxter Orr is our Global Head, CFO Practice. Here's what she told me about experiences she had before and after joining Anaplan:
While I was still with Verizon, you invited me to speak at Anaplan's Women's Interest Network. It was a fantastic event—there was tremendous passion around wanting to help women succeed. And I tell everyone I meet that I've never been around a company where women supported women the way that we do at Anaplan. It's so refreshing and amazing to me because that's not always the case, not every culture is like that. For me, that was very exciting and it's one of the reasons I joined.
And then, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing aftermath, we've really leaned in. We've been honest with ourselves and we've taken a position of wanting to learn, wanting to make a difference, and taking this moment and making it matter. That has been really refreshing and meaningful to me as well. Culturally, this has been just as rewarding as it has been to grow revenue and grow our business.18
Ray Curbelo, our Global Head of Finance Solutions, had his own very positive experiences with Anaplan and our culture while he was working at a Fortune 500 insurance company. As he explained to me:
The Anaplan team I worked with always made it about more than just “what's in it for Anaplan?” It was about what's in it for the customer, how are they going to benefit, and how can they help them be more successful—and help them drive value for the company? It was always simple things, like the account executive at Anaplan sending me articles. He'd say, “Hey, I remember you mentioned you were struggling with X, Y, and Z. This article made me think of you and that situation you mentioned.” Or “How is so and so doing on your team? Is there anything we can do to support them?”19
Claire Lord, a Senior Customer Success Business Partner, told me about how the Anaplan people she worked with while at Thomas Cook made her and her coworkers feel valued—even after the company went out of business. She said:
In my role at Thomas Cook, I dealt with a lot of suppliers, and with Anaplan it was never a hard sell—it was always a group effort. You guys weren't selling to us; we were working together. The people that we worked with closely at Anaplan made us feel like we were valued, and they championed us at every opportunity. It wasn't just we were doing our own thing. As a collective, we were working together to make both companies better.
And then, when Thomas Cook went under, we were so overwhelmed by the support that we got from everybody at Anaplan. You know, there was nothing in it for them, but they made us feel like they cared about how we felt. They introduced us to other companies, introduced us to people within the business. And it really felt like they cared about us as individuals, not just as an account. And I see that now from the Anaplan side, which is great.20
Our investors have also noticed the emphasis we put on character, culture, and customer focus. Alex Wolf is Managing Director for the Investment Group of Santa Barbara, one of Anaplan's largest investors. In a discussion at one of our large company and partner events, Wolf explained what he and his investment group look for when they assess an investment opportunity, and what they saw in Anaplan.
We spend a lot of time when we get to know a company, trying to understand what they are doing well. We'll ask their customers questions like: Are you happy with the products? Are you happy with the service that you're getting? Have you looked at competitive solutions? Would you ever switch? What would cause you to switch? What other use cases are you interested in buying? All of that checked out extremely well with Anaplan.21
Here's an example of a strong culture from a company that everyone recognizes. Disney is famous for hiring young people to work in its theme parks. What's amazing is that the same teenagers who might routinely stay up late playing video games or hanging out with their friends will eagerly wake up at 6:00 a.m. to come to work for Disney with a smile on their faces, ready for the day. Disney claims it's because of the unique culture that it breeds—the pride it builds within employees (called “Cast Members”) to do the work that they do, whether it's donning a costume to play a cartoon character, operating a ride, or sweeping litter from the walkways. When they have a purpose and feel valued, they transform from sullen teenagers into stellar employees.
A few years ago, we got a taste of Disney's unique culture when a group of Anaplan leaders participated in a one-week professional leadership and development course at the Disney Institute in Anaheim, California. The leaders were steeped in Disney's approach to building employee engagement and satisfaction while delivering the highest levels of customer service, and they put those lessons to work in their own teams.
A big part of Disney and other companies that leverage culture is that they don't just take it for granted. They put extra effort into it—they make sure that it provides the right business outcomes, just as they make sure their company is delivering the right product and financial results. They'll ask, for example, “Is our employee morale in a good place? If it's not, then we need to focus on that as much as we need to focus on our customers.”
In Chapter 6, I devote an entire section to the specific learnings that our people brought back with them to Anaplan, and how we integrated them into our own unique culture.
The Nexus of Culture and Strategy
Culture and strategy are interdependent—they feed and have the potential to elevate each other. When a company's culture ignites passion and loyalty in their employees, their efforts to ensure the success of that strategy are multiplied. The results aren't visible just internally, but externally as well.
In the past, leaders were mostly judged on their ability to execute the technical aspects of their jobs and to deliver results. And while these will always be important qualities for leaders to have, motivating and energizing the people on their team are just as essential. In 2019, Fortune published its list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders. The list represented a big shift in how we view leadership effectiveness today. Instead of being focused solely on financial results, the Fortune ranking rewarded leaders in business, government, philanthropy, and the arts who “are transforming the world and inspired others to do the same.” And, in the case of the business leaders on the Fortune list, they do this by creating great corporate cultures.
On the flip side, some companies do a poor job of creating a positive and sustaining corporate culture, but I would say most are in the middle—they believe they have a good culture but don't actively nurture or invest in it. It is an untapped resource.
What I've seen over and over again are leaders who take their culture for granted. They'll schedule an event that is meant to improve morale, or they'll take on a couple of short-term culture-boosting initiatives, check the box, and then move on. They don't realize that culture is an ongoing, evolving thing that has to be constantly developed and nurtured. Actively demonstrating character
