Soulful CXO Podcast

Staying True to Your Values | A Conversation with Lisa Plaggemier | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn

Episode Summary

In this episode, you will be fascinated as our guest discusses her journey from marketing to cybersecurity and gives insights about cybersecurity, career transitions, and ethical decision-making in the workplace. Also, you will learn valuable insights on navigating the digital landscape safely. The National Cybersecurity Alliance empowers individuals and organizations to harness the benefits of technology worry-free.

Episode Notes

Guest: Lisa Plaggemier, Executive Director, National Cybersecurity Alliance

Website: https://staysafeonline.org 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaplaggemier

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/staysafeonline/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nationalcybersecurity/

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lisaplaggemier

Host: Dr. Rebecca Wynn

On ITSPmagazine  👉  https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/rebecca-wynn

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Episode Description

In this episode of the Soulful CXO, host Dr. Rebecca Wynn welcomes Lisa Plaggemier, the National Cybersecurity Alliance Executive Director and an advisor on the U.S. Secret Service Cyber Investigations Advisory Board. Lisa shares her fascinating career journey from marketing at Ford Motor Company to becoming a recognized authority in cybersecurity. She discusses her transition into the field, which was driven by a passion for thought leadership and a desire to make cybersecurity engaging and accessible. We dive into ethical challenges in the workplace, understanding the company's true culture, interview tips, free resources and support for businesses and individual from the National Cybersecurity Alliance, and more.

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Resources

National Cybersecurity Alliance Free Events and Programs
https://staysafeonline.org/events-programs/

CyberSecure My Business Program
https://staysafeonline.org/programs/cybersecure-my-business/

Cybersecurity Awareness Month Resources
https://staysafeonline.org/programs/cybersecurity-awareness-month/

Data Privacy Week Resources
https://staysafeonline.org/programs/data-privacy-week/

Effective Feedback in Action: Fuel Growth, Collaboration, and Excellence
https://medium.com/@soulfulcxo/effective-feedback-in-action-fuel-growth-collaboration-and-excellence-5b32dad788a7
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Episode Transcription

Staying True to Your Values | A Conversation with Lisa Plaggemier | The Soulful CXO Podcast with Dr. Rebecca Wynn

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Soulful CXO. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Wynn. Please take a moment. Remember to like, subscribe, and share the show. We are pleased to have with us today Lisa Plaggemier. Lisa is the Executive Director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance and an advisor on U. S. Secret Service Cyber Investigations Advisory Board.

She's dedicated to empowering individuals and organizations to navigate the digital landscape safely and ensuring everyone can harness the benefits of technology, worry free. Her prior roles include executive positions at Ford Motor Company, CDK Global, InfoSec, and MediaPro. Lisa's recognized authority in cybersecurity and a frequent speaker at major industry events, including RSA, Gartner, and SANS.

Lisa, it's so great seeing you again. Welcome to the show.

Lisa Plaggemier: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I have to start off and ask you, how in the world did you get from [00:01:00] being in marketing to technology and then, you know, doing all these great cyber security initiatives?

Lisa Plaggemier: Um, yeah, it's not, it wasn't exactly a straight line, but I don't think many of us have careers that are really, um.

Yeah, I'm a, I'm a people person and a communicator and marketing just seemed like the best fit for me. Um, so I spent a long time at Ford, uh, which really is an iconic brand. I mean, you've got Henry Ford, the assembly line and the Model T and, and there's just a whole lot there to dig into brand wise if you're, if you're a marketer.

So I feel like I, I, Cut my teeth at one of the biggest brands in the world that's, you know, globally recognized and got a lot of great experience there and advertising and marketing and merchandising and all those things. Um, and I took some time off to have kids and when it was time to come back into the workforce, I found myself at a technology vendor, mainly to automotive retail and it used to belong to ADP.

The, the [00:02:00] human capital management company, I think they call it now. It's the big payroll company that we all know and love because many of us have had pay statements that have that ADP logo on them. And so they wanted to do thought leadership around cybersecurity issues. It was around the time of the jeep hack.

If you remember that, and you had all the automotive manufacturers seeing that on the nightly news thinking, oh, my gosh, I don't want that to happen to my brand. I don't want to be next. And, um, we felt like because we belong to ADP, we had a pretty solid security program. So I was the marketing person assigned to work with the business security officer from that division on thought leadership for, for cyber.

And so we did things like, uh, I got him a speaking spot at J. D. Power Automotive Conference and, and, and then ADP announced they were going to spin us off. And, um, I, I got, Like, I was bit by the bug, like, this stuff was fascinating to me, aside from, you know, marketing SaaS applications, which frankly was really boring [00:03:00] compared to marketing F series and Mustangs and things like that.

Um, like, I like tangible consumer products. That was a lot more fun than B2B. But when they announced we were getting spun, he asked me to join the security team. And I said, well, what am I going to do? I mean, you guys are, you know, what do you need me for? And he said, well, I want you to keep doing all the thought leadership stuff.

I think we should keep doing that. That's really important. Um, and we're going to need, uh, incident communications. Like, somebody's got to keep the executives briefs during an incident. And, um, and then, oh, yeah, we're gonna need a training and awareness program. Well, training and awareness, what's that? Oh, that, you know, that stuff ADP makes us do once a year.

And I said, well, nobody pays attention to that. Like, you click on that while you're on a conference call just to get it over with. Just so you don't end up on the naughty list. And I'm like, people hate that stuff. I don't want to do that said, well, okay, then I'll make sure we have a decent budget and I'll give you a free reign.

And we, you can do something really that actually is interesting. It gets people's attention. [00:04:00] And, um, and that was it. I was really happy to make the transition and that, uh, that chief business security officer that I worked with is still 1 of my best friends today. So that's kind of that's kind of how it happened in a nutshell.

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: For those out there who are not familiar with the National, Cyber Security Alliance, can you explain a little bit of what that is, the initiatives they have, and how you do work with small companies, , as well to these big companies on their initiatives for cyber security and protecting yourself as an individual.

Lisa Plaggemier: Yeah, so we are the founders of Cyber Security Awareness Month. We've been doing that. This is the 21st Cyber Security Awareness Month, it'll be this October. Um, and we've had a cooperative agreement with what was then DHS at the time, 21 years ago, what's now CISA. We've had a cooperative agreement with them for 21 years, mainly to execute on consumer awareness campaigns and industry campaigns for cyber security.

For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, but, um, aside from that, [00:05:00] which most of us know about, and, and most of you, if you're a security professional watching this, you're pretty tired of security by the end of October. Well, you can blame us every October, but just keep in mind that people like your kids and people like your mom probably still need to hear all this stuff.

Um, so we do consumer campaigns all year round. We've done 1 in the summer. . That's the. Cybersecurity Survival Guide. It's kind of got like this National Park look and feel and it, it kind of talks about what to do if, you know, you clicked on the phishing email or you've got a malware infection.

Like, what's that? What are those survival tips? Um, we're doing a campaign on all the different things that can go wrong in the process of selling and purchasing a home. From, from how busy you are getting your house prepped to, to sell and like how susceptible you might be to like a phishing email or something during that time, because you're just really distracted and incredibly busy trying to purge of all the stuff you've accumulated and get and get your house like painted and get out of there.[00:06:00]

All the way through to, you know, things that we think about more frequently, which is the, um, fraud that can happen, you know, during the transaction itself, that money gets wired someplace it wasn't supposed to go. So, um, there's just a lot of places in that transaction that are the, where there's weak points.

So we're, we've got consumer tips about that. We talk about safe holiday shopping at the holidays. We talk about, uh, usually romance scams and safe use of dating apps. Um, around Valentine's Day, um, pick any kind of topic, whether you're giving your kids their first phone, or you don't know how to use the parental, uh, control apps on devices and, and apps.

Um, any topic you can think of that has to do with your average human interacting with technology. And really, a lot of it is the same sort of four core behaviors that we preach, uh, phishing and all kinds of social engineering, using MFA, having better password habits, which probably means [00:07:00] using a password manager, and then just keeping everything up to date and patched.

Um, it's not so much about the advice being different for different demographics. It's about, uh, customizing the message for people from different walks of life and, and different age groups and employed, not employed students, retirees, whatever it is. It's how you package that advice. Um, that makes it engaging for them.

Um, and then we have some industry events that we run as well that are for executives and a lot of CISOs. We have an event at NASDAQ market site every year for cybersecurity awareness month. And we have a launch at RSA every year. Um, things like that, but our main focus. is um, educating the people who need it most like my mom and my kids.

That's two examples, 20 somethings and 80 somethings seem to, I feel like I spend a lot of my time keeping them out of trouble. A lot of us do.

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: And those resources are free. I'll make sure that we put that on the descriptions for everybody. 

Lisa Plaggemier: [00:08:00] Right, and we have campaign kits. So if you're, if you don't have a dedicated training awareness manager, or you do, but you only have 1, you have a lot that person is trying to accomplish, or what have you, or you don't have resources to do graphics and write copy, we have campaign kits.

You can download the whole kit. You can customize it, do whatever. There's no trademark or copyright on anything. You can do whatever you want with all of it to make it fit your organization and push it out with your employees. So it just makes it a lot easier to run awareness campaigns. Um, I should also mention we have a program to get.

More HBCU students in the cyber security careers. We have a small business education program that aims to teach business owners, um, how to manage cyber security as a part of their business, as opposed to like, we don't try to teach them to be technical. We teach them how to try to how to know what to questions to ask their person or their how to manage that function because they know what to say to their lawyer.

They know how to talk to their account. They have no idea how to talk to their person. So, um, so that class is going on and. Yeah, a couple [00:09:00] other things in the works, a couple other programs. 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: So the key point there is budgets are always tight. Here's a free resource by people who are experts in the area to help you.

And then if you don't see something that really is pertaining to you, You know, write them, um, so they can go ahead and see how they can help you. Or maybe that's something that's actually other people need it as well too. And then they can help get it developed. 

Lisa Plaggemier: We look for input all the time. If there's something that you feel like would be really useful, like this year to the Cybersecurity Awareness Month Toolkit, we're going to add short how to videos.

Like, really simple things that people like my mom struggle with. How to enable MFA on Facebook, for example. Things like that. We're going to, uh, start including more video content in those toolkits. 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Why do you think after all these years, still going ahead and falling for. Similar type of phishing things constantly , obviously we have voice and vishing (voice phishing) and we have AI coming into the picture, which makes it more challenging.

Why is [00:10:00] it just because humans are humans that we keep struggling with it? Why do you think we keep struggling with it? 

Lisa Plaggemier: Yeah, I think technology isn't designed to be secure. I mean, I'm a big fan of the secure by design initiative that CISA is pushing when you think about things like the safety culture in the airline business, right?

Like, how that evolved over the over over time. Um, there's a guy named John Ellie that gives a really good presentation. It's probably recorded out there on the Internet somewhere about the, the, um, evolution of the culture of safety in, in airlines and you can really see, like, how we're probably on a parallel path or Bob Lord is given.

Francis has given a presentation on the auto industry and safety. I've, I've done the same thing from a little bit of a different angle because I'm a, I'm a kid from Detroit. Um, But the parallels between, like, the evolution of automotive safety and, and software safety. And I think we're, we're still at the advent of figuring out, like, how to design things that are, that are a [00:11:00] little more foolproof than, than the way they're designed today.

The other thing I'd say is that for those 21 years of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, um. It's only been the last couple of years that we've decided that the message should be consistent every year, that we should focus on those four core behaviors. So when I first joined the National Cybersecurity Alliance, I remember seeing a document.

It was, it was, it came from the technical folks at CISA that said, like, here's the things we should be focusing on for October. And it was literally like, 20 pages. And, um, any good marketer will tell you, or behavioral scientists, people can't, people can't remember all that they can't, they won't engage with it.

It's just overload. But I think we sometimes have a hard time prioritizing in security because we're thinking about all of it all the time. Um, and it, and, and, but most people aren't, you know, uh, Most people just need to know the basics. And if you think about the 3 or 4 things that would do the most good if everybody did them, [00:12:00] it's those 4 things.

And so, um, I'm a proponent for staying really focused with the, the end consumer and everybody singing off the same song sheet and not changing that message until we see that it's made a difference. Um, because. Until we've made headway and more people have adopted those behaviors, then we absolutely shouldn't be changing the message and changing the focus.

Unless we decide there's something else that's more important than MFA that people can be doing that boots it off the list, then fine. But I don't think we're there yet. So, um. It's really a matter of just good marketing practices, consistency, repetition, you know, uh, customized content, depending on the demographic that you're talking to.

It's, it's all those basics, but there's been for a long time, this, this. Communication chasm, I call it between, like, what's happening in the world of [00:13:00] cybersecurity and your average, your average consumer. So just, just, I think we're getting better at bridging that gap. Um, we just have to stay the course.

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: Today for a lot of CISOs, maybe CIOs, maybe CTOs, staying the course is really tough. We're getting pushed to, have smaller staffs go quicker. And a lot of times we feel like we have to compromise our ethics, which personally I won't compromise my ethics.

But do the security by design, the privacy by design, what we see in the contracts is what we're actually going to do, what you want me to sign off on. I'm not going to sign off on unless I know that that is exactly what we're doing. I'm not going to put my, my name on that bottom line. What do you recommend people do along those lines?

I know that you just had a top talk at RSA about that, where that was, that's on a lot of people's mind is what do we do? 

Lisa Plaggemier: Yeah. I realized when I got into security, when I moved over from marketing that your security team is really like. Sort of the barometer for the, for the [00:14:00] ethical health of the company that you see so many things that nobody else sees.

And, um, and it became really clear to me that. If your personal values don't align with the values of the organization, then you're going to be in a really stressful position. And, um, and it was actually an executive coach that that helped me really crystallize that for myself. Um, I mean, we, we live in a world where we see a lot of bad stuff going on all day.

Right? You think about, um, you know, the folks you have, uh, that spend half their time in the dark lab or, or, you know, trying to infiltrate. Um, organizations and understand, I mean, they're, they're seeing some of the worst of humanity because they're not just, they're not just looking for, like, planned attacks on your organization.

You know, they're coming across human trafficking, you know, uh, uh, weapon sales. Like, there's just, you know, it's the, it's the worst of humanity on the dark web. [00:15:00] And, um, so I think a lot of the folks that I've met in security have a lot more clarity around, um. You know, what's right and what's wrong because because we, we kind of do battle with with a lot of evil stuff every day and not everybody else in the organization has that exposure and sort of has that moral clarity on what's right.

And what's wrong. And I did my share of trying to influence from within. Um, you know, it could be something as simple as like an incident that's affected a customer and like, you know, what do we tell the customer? And I remember a situation where I found somebody who I knew, uh, like the, the, the most senior person that was responsible for that customer relationship.

I'm like, if I tell this person about this, then they're going to make sure that we do the right thing and are really transparent with the customer. And, um, And so I did that so that she could tell the C suite what we're going to do. So [00:16:00] you can sort of do those. So, you know, you have those situations where you can influence from within because you want to see the right thing.

But, um, but at the end of the day, like, if your values don't align, then it's probably it's it's. You're probably giving yourself a lot. We already have enough stress in the world of cyber security. And that's a, that's an added stress that you probably don't need. Um, yeah, that's how I feel about that. I think, you know, you can also approach it from a policy perspective.

Uh, I, one of my early bosses said, like, you know, whether or not you're going to pay a ransom should be a policy decision that you make not in the moment when your hair is on fire and the attacks already happened. But, you make that as an ethical decision, like, do we want to pay criminals? Do we want to fuel more cybercrime?

Like, is that the kind of company that we are? Is this who we are as an organization? Because most people can look at that equation and say, nope. Like, that seems like people have clarity. I don't want to give money to criminals. [00:17:00] Uh, but you can see what happens in the, you know, when that actually happens.

Um, the decisions that people are kind of You know, forced to make, unfortunately, um, because they're just looking for a way, you know, they just got to stop the bleeding. And I think if you make it as a policy policy decision, that or any other decision that, uh, you might. Might have to make in the middle of an incident, like, if you, if you have policies that address some of those things in advance, then you can say, like, well, okay, if we, if we don't want to have to pay cyber criminals in a ransomware attack.

Then what do we need to do to be prepared? And maybe that helps you to get more budget or to have more resources to justify what you have to do to make sure if, if that happens that you're not in a bad spot, because you have this policy that says we're not going to do this. So, therefore, this is what our, our preparedness needs to look like.

We're probably partnered with sort of legal and HR in how much we are dealing with it just right and wrong on a daily [00:18:00] basis. And, and all the ethical challenges, 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I partner quite a bit with risk management if they have a risk management group.

When we talked right there about where you're paying cyber criminals or things like that. A lot of people, when they bring me in as an advisor, I immediately look at their contracts. I look at their cyber liability insurance if they have that, their private equity, for example, if they are funded and what is those requirements.

So before you get to writing a policy, you need to make sure you understand what the requirements of the upstream is because one, you can find yourself in legal hot water very quickly for that. Or you might find out that they had requirements to report and you didn't think about it because you, you're downstream from them and causing chaos. Is that what you see, where they don't think holistically. 

Lisa Plaggemier: Nobody asked security to review that contract before it got signed. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I remember being with this CISO once when he got a phone call to review, I think it was a, a [00:19:00] sale of a subsidiary and they gave him less than 24 hours to review the, the, the deal, um, because nobody thought to talk to security before they divested themselves with that part of the company. Yeah. I mean, that's unfortunate. Uh, it's a lot of that is as relationships to. Making sure that you have allies around the organization and people know who you are and what you do and what business value you bring that you're not the department of "no" that you want to work with them that you're there to protect the organization from, you know, unintended things happening.

And, um. Uh, I think the business security officer model, the more organizations I talked to that have that model, I've worked in the company with that model. Like, I think that really helps a lot. To be more embedded with the business and keep track of things like that, like contract. 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I'm always one of those hybrids because I have a big legal background.

And one of the examples I had as I came in [00:20:00] after a merger and acquisition, I always tell people, let me review it before you do it, um, because things weren't adding up and I started looking at it and I found really their chief information security officer , all of the people that he had hired to do assessments of the company.

He actually spun up LLCs underneath his own name. He was signing himself off. On every single thing. 

Lisa Plaggemier: I think you have to have a, a decent insider threat program. That means that, um, somebody's watching the watchers because, I've seen things kind of go sideways as well. It's just important to have transparency as much transparency as you can possibly have and that, um.

Yeah, somebody's got to watch the watchers., 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: What do you recommend for people out there who might find themselves in an organization? You find out that you're with that company and maybe what you thought was their values after they're, the values aren't really lining up.

And so you feel like yourself. You're compromising yourself [00:21:00] to work there, but it's a really tough job market right now. I always tell people there's, there is a right company out there, a right situation out there for you, and it's not worth giving up your soul for, but what do you recommend?

Cause I know you do a lot of mentoring.

Lisa Plaggemier: I think it's really important to have something to run to, not just be running from something. Um, there, a lot of us have a lot of reasons, you know, that we would leave our employer tomorrow. Right? There's, there's things all of us don't like. Some of them are more soul crushing.

Uh, and get to, like, sort of the core of who we are as, as people in our, in our ethics, um, you know, which way our compass points, like those, those things can be more stressful, um, mentally, uh, than some of the other things we might not like about our employer. But I just really think it's important to have to know.

Not just know why you're leaving, because if you're in that kind of situation where you've contemplated leaving, you know why you want to leave. Um, it's more [00:22:00] important to know why you want to go to your next employer. Like, what is it that you're looking for? And, you know, do they have a mission that you align with?

Do they, do they have a people first culture? Do they have, You know, uh, servant leaders. That's really important to me that I'm working for folks that don't have, um, a lot of ego and, and, um, have a lot of emotional intelligence. That's I know that term gets thrown around a lot, but I've seen that in action.

I've, I've seen organizations that know how to interview for that. And they, and they make sure that when they have folks that, um. Don't don't fit with that culture. You know, if you, if you keep, if you keep the bad people, the good people are going to leave. So for me, that's another big litmus test. Like, if there's people that are toxic and the organization tolerates them, or they're even celebrated and promoted, then, um, then that's a big red flag.

So I think it's. I think [00:23:00] it's even more important that you make a good decision the next time around. Like, you found yourself where you are for whatever reason. So I, I just think you don't focus on, like, I got to get out of here. I got to leave like that negativity. I think you focus on what is that thing that I'm running to and what am I looking for?

And when you find the right place, you, you, you know, you focus on how you make that happen, um, as opposed to, you know, leaving a smoking crater behind you or something like that. Um, I think you just, you leave with your own integrity intact and, uh, leave gracefully and go on to your next thing, but focus on what's next.

I think that's important. 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I think one thing that's been real important for me is I just got done doing like almost like a 15, 20 year review. Um, painful, but learning. Wow. And one of the things that I was noticing is that certain situations, Which did not align with me, did not make me feel like [00:24:00] I could be my true authentic self, my full self.

Some people might call it your flow that I could really just be who I am naturally. It's interesting how I kept being attracted to the same things that were, were said, maybe on paper or in interviews or things like that. And then once I got there, it wasn't true. And because I did not reconcile that before going ahead and going to my next opportunity.

I was calling that back into my life again. And so that's one thing I tell people too, is cause I get people ping out on LinkedIn and they just got laid off, whatever, or do you know, of a CISO job I can get. And I'm like, my biggest thing to you is take a pause. Take stock, look at what, what you liked, what you didn't like, what you learn, um, what you really want to go ahead and would like to be still in your life for the next five years and really take an opportunity to really evaluate that.

So then when you're looking at new opportunities, [00:25:00] you don't call it back into a situation that didn't really resonate with you. I wish I had done that 20 years ago. But is that what you found too? Because I know that you have transitioned a few times as well. 

Lisa Plaggemier: I think you brought up a really good point about, like, what you see on a website and what you see in a company's LinkedIn page and stuff like that.

There's a whole bunch of marketing that, you know. Some of it gets written without any regard for whether or not that's really the company's culture. It's just words on a screen. And so what I found to be really helpful is during the interview process, particularly if you're getting into, like, the 2nd or 3rd or 4th round and, and, um.

You're sort of interviewing them, like, you're a little bit more in the driver's seat, or maybe it's after they've made you an offer and you're, you're contemplating it. Um, my favorite question is tell me about a time when, , you had a situation where you exhibited that value. It was really, really challenging, but you stuck to that value. Tell me about, you know, tell me, give me an example, um, because if they can't do that, [00:26:00] if they struggle to find an example of things that they do on a daily basis, or, or tough situations that they've Navigated while being true to that value.

If that's a hard question for them to answer, then then that should be really, really clear to you. Um, because I used to see, I mean, I saw the same thing, like, right out of college, my 1st, 10 years in the workforce at Ford, where policies were. You know, they were policies, but at the end of the day, if we had a discussion about something, the question that we always asked ourselves was, is this the right thing to do?

Like, I know what the policy says and I know what, you know, like, whatever. But is this who we are as a company? Is this is this really the right thing to do? Or do we need to change the policy because this. It doesn't support us doing what we think is the right thing to do. Um, and I was really surprised at a company, the size, you know, publicly traded company, the size of Ford that you would hear that kind of discussion that people had that sort of like.

Ethical compass, [00:27:00] um, and cared that much about what their company stood for. Um, so I think I think really honing in on how you're going to sauce out in those. Interview questions, uh, the things that are important to you. I'll give you a really good example. So, uh, I was interviewing for a VP of marketing position with an organization that I knew I wanted, like, a, a.

A really intuitive people leader as a, as a CEO, like, I knew that was really important to me because I, I'd worked for 1. that was, like, the best guy ever. Like, he could, he could read everybody like a book and, um. So, And use that in ways that were really, really productive and helpful to everybody because he really had a, like, you definitely people 1st kind of guy and servant leader.

Like, he really tried to understand everybody on the executive committee and and figure out how everybody could best work together to run the organization. And, um. And so I asked this person, um, you [00:28:00] know, what are you looking for on your executive committee? Like, I know you're hiring for a VP of marketing, but are you looking for somebody that challenges everybody else on the executive committee, or are you looking for somebody that builds consensus, or like, what are you looking for?

And he just couldn't answer the question to save his life. I mean, I don't know. He kept saying, well, I have a VP of sales and I have a customer, relationship person and I have this and I have that I need marketing. Like, he just thought about it as that function and I could tell then that that that sort of like, managing a team and understanding team dynamics and understanding how humans relate to each other and everything and not being able to to define.

Sort of the prevalent team dynamic on his team so that he knew what he was trying to affect, like, what, what was he trying to change? Like, what did they need as a team to to function at a higher level? Um, that told me that that wasn't his skill set. And he was a brilliant person. You know, had an amazing, uh, [00:29:00] background and resume.

And I mean, owns a successful company. He was, he was the founder, uh, but that, that told me that no matter what the position was or what the salary was, I was not going to be happy. Um, and I think that me asking him that question was awkward for him as well. And he knew then also that I wasn't. Like, like, we came to a very clear agreement, you know, that, like, this isn't right for either of us because I'm asking him this touchy feely kind of question.

Uh, that's looking for how intuitive he is as a leader. And, like, he doesn't even understand the question. So it kind of made it really clear that it wasn't the right fit. Clarity like that is always helpful in life because it makes it really easy for you to just keep moving. Like I could see exactly how that went.

I'm going to the next thing instead of contemplating it and worrying about it and agonizing over some kind of decision. 

Dr. Rebecca Wynn: I want to thank everybody for joining us for, this episode, it's totally [00:30:00] flown by please go ahead. If you haven't already LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and SHARE the show, we mentioned several resources that we will get into the description. As well as Lisa's information, . Please go ahead if you haven't already, the Soulful CXO Insights newsletter on LinkedIn, please also SUBSCRIBE to that. Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom I've learned a lot from you and you're an inspiration to many of us out there, so keep up the great work.

Lisa Plaggemier: Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure.