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For this 65th Episode of the Podcast, I’m excited to welcome a friend, former colleague, and someone I partnered with at Microsoft; Lani Phillips, the Vice President of Microsoft’s US One Commercial Channel Sales Organization. In this episode, we have an authentic and wide-ranging conversation focused on Microsoft’s partner co-selling business, the impact of social injustice on society, and Microsoft’s response.
Lani and her team are responsible for driving digital transformation across customers in Commercial, Mid-Market, and Regulated Industries in the United States with Microsoft’s partner ecosystem, driving a $30B+ business. She and her organization are responsible for accelerating the Co-Selling partnership, which enables partners and Microsoft to drive joint sales pursuits, revenue, and ultimately customer success.
Lani, her husband James and son, Brayden, reside in the Chicago/Naperville area. In her spare time, she enjoys spending quality time with her boys, cooking, and writing her first leadership book, which she hopes to publish.
Lani and I worked together at Microsoft, and I had the opportunity to work with her team while I was leading the Partner Business for Microsoft’s Top U.S. Co-Sell partner across three industries. I so enjoyed this conversation, and we could have easily continued for two hours had it not been for our schedules. We discussed her business and priorities for Microsoft FY21 and what makes a great co-sell partner.
I also wanted to ensure we spent a fair amount of time discussing her personal and professional journey as an African American Woman rising to the ranks of Vice President at Microsoft. In our conversation, we touch on how the incidents surrounding Geoge Floyd personally impacted her and her family. We also discuss Microsoft’s response toward racial injustice.
We could have easily continued this discussion for hours. I’ve invited Lani to join me for a second episode later in the year to continue our conversation.
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at @vincemenzione on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook page or drop me a line at vincem@cloudwavepartners.com.
LINKS & RESOURCES
- Find Lani Phillips on LinkedIn and Twitter
- Satya’s Blog on Racial Injustice
- Your Black Coworkers Are Still Not Okay—Here’s How to Support Them.
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
- Transcript of our interview is below.
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The previous episodes are a rich compendium of what makes successful partnerships, and I encourage you to listen*
Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!
TRANSCRIPT OF THE AUDIO
Vince Menzione 00:38
Lani. Welcome to the podcast.
Lani Phillips 02:31
Thanks for having me events and excited about the conversation we’re going to have today.
Vince Menzione 02:36
I’m so excited to welcome you to the Ultimate Guide to partnering. You know, we had the opportunity to work at Microsoft at the same time, and I had the chance to work with you and your team while it was running a partner’s business. And I’m excited to have you as a guest today. Your role is so essential to partners looking to drive sales results with Microsoft. So welcome.
Lani Phillips 02:55
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. We missed you.
Vince Menzione 02:59
Well, I find I feel like I’ve never left, quite frankly. I mean, I feel like I have more connections now. And I get to work with so many amazing people like yourself. So thank you very much for that comment. Many of our listeners understand how Microsoft is structured. And we’ve covered in previous episodes about the one commercial partner organization. You’re in a leadership team on the one commercial partner organization in the US under Dave Willis. And I thought if you might spend a few moments explaining how the organization is structured, and how you drive and I, this numbers is astounding to me, a $30 billion business. Yeah.
Lani Phillips 03:33
And the number continues to grow as we think about the just amazing performance from our partner ecosystem in our account teams. So how I would describe the channel sales organization is the, I think the most important thing for people to anchor on is we actually are aligned 100% to our field account teams, and we approach everything with the customer at the center. And what that means is, with the customer at the center, we’re always focused on how to help our customers be successful, and what business outcomes are they trying to drive. And we make sure that we identify the right partner for the right opportunity at the right time. So I have a team of Enterprise Channel Managers. And I have a team of Partner Success Managers that support our account teams in the field. And we really are about trying to drive a seamless Cosell engagement between our Microsoft account teams and our partner ecosystem, to drive our customers business outcomes and we make sure that everything we do is aligned to our industry scenarios because that’s an area that’s a big bet for us as we go forward throughout the year. So I would also tell you that the Enterprise Channel Managers play the role of a trusted adviser to the account teams, where they make sure that they understand the needs of our customers and what problems we’re trying to solve for and our overall strategy within the account. So we can make sure that we recommend the right partners for the opportunities to engage directly with so that we can close more business. Also our Enterprise Channel Managers are responsible for the partner lead pipeline within their name set of accounts, and they make sure that they are working with our partners to understand the progress we’re making within opportunities. If we’ve run into roadblocks, how do we remove those roadblocks? But ultimately, how are we winning together? And so we usually do a lot of the pipeline work and all of the follow up on sales, plays and things like that through something we call our Co-sell Days. Where we bring together our partners with the accounting teams, and we review the book of business, and then we strategize on how we’re going to win together. And ultimately, together, we’re just 100% focused on making sure our customers are successful in driving their business outcomes. And ultimately, we’re driving towards mutual success for both Microsoft and our partner ecosystem.
Vince Menzione 06:26
What I heard there loud and clear is accountability. The people on your organization are sort of the quarterback representing both the sales team and having accountability to that number. You mentioned the pipeline, they own that pipeline is from what I understand what you just said,
Lani Phillips 06:41
they do, they 100% to their quota-carrying individuals and that is what they’re focused on.
Vince Menzione 06:48
So we’re recording this at the very, very end of July 2020. You’re coming off of a really big inspire conference. It’s always I always call this Microsoft summer this time of year. It’s a crazy time of year. For you, I can imagine, if you don’t mind, can you tell our listeners how that event felt this year delivering it virtually?
Lani Phillips 07:06
Sure. So I know when I went into Inspire, I had a lot of hope and optimism, that it was still going to provide that special feeling that we all feel when we go to Inspire, where we get excited about celebrating our successes from the prior year and get really excited about what lies ahead. And I think that Gavriella and team and Bob Bejan and team did ap beautiful job, really taking an event that is so special that we all enjoy doing in person, and they were able to bring some of that specialness on the screen. And what I appreciated about it is they were in smaller chunks. So we weren’t forced to sit in front of our computers for a long period, but we also recorded them and made sure that we had access to them. So we could go back and listen to it if we had a conflict, and we needed to grab the content along the way. So having that on-demand content readily available throughout Inspire was a really good thing. And I think people appreciated that. I think we also did a beautiful job making sure that a diverse group of topics to make sure that everyone had some things that were specific to partnering and how they can do that better. They also had great topics around professional development. I was so pleasantly surprised to see a lot around leadership creativity. They also talked about “Empathy and Action”. They had some “Diversity and Inclusion” topics. So I felt like that a wide group of topics so that it could appeal to the vast audience we had. That the piece that I will say that I even though they did a beautiful job, executing We still miss those personal connections. Even though we use cameras to connect with our partners, there’s nothing that’s going to replace passing each other in a hall or seeing each other in a stadium or grabbing a drink at night to catch up, or breaking bread together. I think people still miss that. But in light of what happens, you know, we can’t do anything about the pandemic. I think they did a beautiful job executing a great experience virtually,
Vince Menzione 09:31
I would agree with you. In fact, the one part that I missed the most was all of those; I’ll call them hugs or just, you know, virtual hellos you would do as you pass people, right. And there’s just so many friends out there and people in the channel and within Microsoft, you get to see, and you only get to see them that one time a year but you feel like you’re so connected to them. And that was the piece I missed the most.
Lani Phillips 09:52
You know what I thought about? I was talking to I remember which partner I was talking to. I said you know what, it’s like a family reunion here.
Vince Menzione 09:59
exactly
Lani Phillips 10:00
know what happened. You see, oh my goodness, it’s been a year, it’s been five years, whatever it is right. But you know, what I loved also is a lot of people weren’t able to send many people from that organization to inspire. But they were able to participate in this one virtually. So I was thrilled to hear about that as well.
Vince Menzione 10:20
Yeah, I haven’t seen the numbers, but I thought the same thing and various time zones around the world people were able to attend. And I’m sure the numbers were up quite a bit from the in-person event.
Lani Phillips 10:31
Oh, absolutely. You know, that’s a good question. Because I have not seen anything that captured the numbers are I would just share them with you. But I know they’ve gone up because they were able to allow more people to participate.
Vince Menzione 10:43
So let’s go back a bit, just the last couple months with COVID. Right. So this has been in time like no other, and so Microsoft continues to be a highlight and technology. And this transformation is happening so fast. I think Satya said at one point; we saw more transformation and the last two months than we’ve seen in the previous two years. What are you seeing now? And how do you iterate stay engaged and drive impact Now, during this accelerated transformation with your partners and your teams?
Lani Phillips 11:12
Well, let’s just pause for a minute and just reflect on the fact that Satya was spot on when he said that we’ve seen such an accelerated pace of transformation within a short period. And the piece that you have to remember there is it was forced on a lot of people, because they did not have the plans that were planning for that event to happen so soon. So we are starting to see the results of that. I think the thing that I’m trying to impress upon our partners in our customers, is the importance of just trying to get through this recovery period, really invest some serious time around it, reimagining what the future is going to be like for your industry for your business. I think as leaders, no matter what industry you’re in, you’re forced to get out of the off that hamster wheel. And you’ve got to divide your time really thinking strategically about where the industry is going, how are you going to be a disruptor? in the industry, you’ve really got to think about your company, what services you want to offer, what are your customers needs? Where is it going so that you can stay ahead of the curve. So you don’t find yourself here again, if something another pandemic hits our world, right and disrupts things, but I’m seeing people are resilient. I think what we found in the beginning was there was a lot of disruption. And you got to keep in mind you’ve got the technology disruption that a lot of people were feeling in terms of now all of a sudden people can’t come to the office. They’ve got to work virtually. Oh my goodness. How do we equipped our people, but I’m also seeing with life happening as well, those that also had children in the home that were school age, they manage both, because now I’m not only a professional out here having to do my job, but also the other role that I play. As a parent, I’m now also having to be a teacher. And I have to make sure that I keep an eye on the kids and make sure that they’re doing the studies depending on the age group, right. And so it was just a lot. I don’t think anyone was prepared for that level of disruption. I’m pleased to see that many people have kind of normalized events started identifying a new normal, and they are coming up with new strategies of balancing the two we’ve got some that are working on a hybrid that are going back into the office as well. But the sad part for me is some of our smaller partners so To the ones that weren’t prepared for this disruption and didn’t have the pipeline in the book of business that they needed to sustain themselves for this period, they’re starting to question if they need to remain in business and some start to close their doors. And that’s, it’s variance.
Vince Menzione 14:20
There’s a lot you unpack there. And I was thinking about a few of the comments that you made, first of all, the new normal about working from home and the acknowledgement that the kids are in the office. And by the way, that’s okay, right now. It’s okay to take a pause in a meeting to address, hey, I’ve got to help, you know, Johnny with the schoolwork kind of conversation, and then the technology, a lot of organizations were caught on their backhaul. There were winners and losers in this and I wasn’t thinking as much your last comment was really insightful about some of the smaller partners, maybe not having the pipeline or the business to sustain, you know, making it through this.
Lani Phillips 14:54
Yeah. That’s so sad to watch because you want to do everything. You can But it’s one of those things where I tell everybody, we have to start thinking about how we create new opportunities to create revenue streams for our business. I think you have to think about partnerships in new ways, by leveraging the ecosystem, because when you think about it, the most successful partners, they actually collaborate to solve the real business problem and drive outcomes for their customers, while also expanding their capabilities through leveraging and focusing on what else is in the ecosystem, what other partners are out there that have complimentary services or extension to their services. So they can kind of do a partner to partner scenario where you can provide an end to end solution. So you’re going to have to really just be thinking about complementary solutions with other partners that you can deliver value to To meet the needs of your customers, that’s another way. And I just think that we’re all going to have to invest the time to make sure we just find a better balance of doing the tactical versus the strategic. I think those that were smart and intentional around planning ahead. I think they have the contingency plans to get them through the difficult times. Well, I’ve seen other people who’s like, Man, I’m just trying to get through the next month, next three months, the next six months, they’ve struggled.
Vince Menzione 16:34
You know what you said there, if you don’t mind. One thing I wanted to say about this is like, I think there’s a growth mindset. We talked about growth mindset. And just the ability to understand that if I partner with another partner that partner “P2P” as Microsoft refers to it, there’s opportunities both to reach new customers, add additional capabilities, and maybe solve for a whole product solution and be at the head of the customer at the center of that discussion versus the transaction, I think is what you were saying.
Lani Phillips 17:03
Yeah, that’s another way to say it. And you said
Vince Menzione 17:08
I had been around this business a little bit. But you know, it’s the, you know, happy new year, as we would say, right? It’s 2021. And Microsoft, it’s July is the January of Microsoft. Are there any big changes to both priorities or to the business? Like, what can you share with our listeners about what 2021 look like at Microsoft?
Lani Phillips 17:28
Yeah, well, you know, since I’m on the CO selling side, I’ll focus more on some of the shifts we’ve seen in the fields. And one of the things that we’ve decided is we’ve decided to invest in our customer success by making sure that we can differentiate our approach and how we engage across the entire lifecycle. So we are actually making sure that we go deep on industry. So within the Enterprise Commercial Segment, we are going to add to national verticals manufacturing and retail, that is going to be something that is going to allow us to bring together a center of excellence around our manufacturing and retail accounts, so that we can be on the journey with them around reimagining their future. So I’m really excited about that. And you will find in everything we do; we’re going to always have a pivot towards industry. First, we want to make sure that we deepen our subject matter expertise there. And from a partnering standpoint, I’m responsible for the Co-Selling piece without partners and the way we execute. That seamless connection with our ecosystem in the field is we leverage an operating model we refer to as the Partner Field Integration Model. And through that, we offer a set of programs that allows the partner ecosystem To connect with the accountings. Through those programs, we’re going to have some that are very intentional, around industry conversations around bringing together those partners that have deep solutions. And they’re able to, they have the relationships and connections and pipeline within the industry verticals, to partner with our account teams, and they’re going to strategize on that together. We’re also going to do some ideation more around the art of what’s possible in “industry.” Many of our customers want to have those conversations a lot now about anticipating what’s to come. Let’s start ID ating. together around creating something, a solution together, and I think you already know many customers today are also software providers because they’re wanting to monetize some of the solutions they’ve built in house. They’re leveraging the partner ecosystem for that. So those are just a few things that are going to change. And the biggest one is that I can’t believe I didn’t lead with his “Partner Lead Sharing,”
Vince Menzione 20:08
Ah, Partner Lead Sharing, tell us more about that!
Lani Phillips 20:11
what we’ve always done the whole “identify an opportunity”, you attach a partner that didn’t tell us anything. And it wasn’t an active way to measure the involvement of the partner in an opportunity. So now we’re going to have opportunities that we’re going to actively share through our NSX platform, which is our customer relationship management tool, that we’ll send it over to our partners. They have to accept or reject the opportunity so we can start collaborating on it together. That’s a big deal. It requires us to hold each other accountable for the opportunities we’re sharing. So partners have always shared a percentage of their pipeline with us. We share the IP Cosell opportunities now. We’ll share a percentage of our pipeline with the partners, and I’m pretty excited about the outcomes. I know our partners are excited.
Vince Menzione 21:06
It sounds exciting, everything you’ve said points in the direction of “Microsoft gets partnering” and ou’re iterating on the work you’re doing, trying to make it more of a true “Co-sell” motion as opposed to the “I just get credit for an opportunity that lands in my territory.” It sounds exciting, a lot, a lot of great work there by you and the teams.
Lani Phillips 21:26
Yeah, I take no credit, I give it all to the team. They’ve done a phenomenal job. And they’ve just embraced me in this role. And I just have really listened to them and try to figure out what solutions can we come up with that could be a win-win for all parties.
Vince Menzione 21:45
So how can partners best engage with you and your team?
Lani Phillips 21:49
The best way to engage with us because we have so many partners in our ecosystem. I have a number of people that reach out to me on LinkedIn and unfortunately, I’m not able to get to everybody. But I would say if you have a Partner Development Manager, that’s the best way to engage with our team because we’ve had to be somewhat selective. I do many virtual sessions. And I’m going to try and do more of them through IAMCP. To try to find a way to connect to the larger population of partners. And I will continue to find ways to give back to them to make sure that we can plug them in the right direction. Still, because I have the whole US segment, I have a corporate responsibility, and I have unique segment responsibilities. I do think it’s just a little harder. And I always tell people, we’re a small but mighty team. We have to leverage our field sellers as well, helping them to navigate the partner ecosystem so that we’re not randomizing everybody, but I would say the best way is to plug into a Parnter Development Manager. And if they have a specific need, they can request to get time with me or someone within my organization, and nine times out of 10 we will take care of them.
Vince Menzione 23:13
That’s very nice. And especially with all of the move to industries in a bigger way. There are a lot of these points solutions that are very specific. And as you mentioned, some customers are now technology providers with IoT solutions. You know, they’re doing things that they wouldn’t have done in the past. They’re technology companies now. It’s right. Well, it’s exciting. You know, you and I both been around Partnering for quite some time. And you know, I talk about what makes great partnerships. You were in a chief transformation officer role before this. So you’ve seen the transformation and partnering from a couple different lenses. What do you think makes what set of characteristics, do you think makes a great partner?
Lani Phillips 23:52
First and foremost, you’ve got to obsess around the customer. It really is making sure you understand what your customer is trying to drive, and how you can be a part of that solution. But you need to deeply understand what they are solving for and make it all about the customer. And then you are just a piece of the solution there. That’s one attribute, I would say. The next one I would say is you’ve got to have a differentiated value prop. We still have many partners that want to tell us they do everything well. And I do believe you’ve got to have a way of articulating your value prop that demonstrates, and some people use the word superpower. But what is that one thing you do better than anyone else? Right? And how do you articulate?
Vince Menzione 24:51
I’ve seen many examples of that, you know, some of the podcast episodes, I’ve highlighted some of the some of the top partners, some of the award winning partners, and then comes back to that “one thing” like, What’s that one thing you’re known for? That all the sellers know, partner x because they do this. Right. I think that’s like you said, it’s all about being known for that one thing
Lani Phillips 25:11
It really is. I would also say there’s a couple more I would share, make sure you have an alignment with Microsoft, a deep understanding of our overall strategic vision and direction doesn’t mean that you’re running a Microsoft only business, but where we have some synergy, just understand what we’re trying to do and make sure there’s mutual benefit there. And then we already talked about, you know, leverage the ecosystem in terms of really be able to understand where your value is and understand where other people have complementary services and value. And then you have to think about how you can do this partner to partner scenario or p2p scenario, where it’s a mutual benefit for both companies, you’re going to have to start thinking Like that. And last but not least, we want someone that has a cultural alignment with us. Do you have a growth mindset? Do you believe in a learn at all, we’re on a journey together. And we want like-minded companies to be on this journey with us.
Vince Menzione 26:15
That’s really great feedback. And what you didn’t say there is because I’ve seen this before the partners that don’t get it right, are the ones that show up at Microsoft expecting just a bunch of leads to flow and don’t understand that it’s a gift get, and it’s a true commitment on both ends of the spectrum.
Lani Phillips 26:33
It is it really is. I was just thinking about that because we have a lot of partners out there who are entering into the market. They have wonderful point solutions, but they are one two or three man shop and they are developers, and they’re trying to figure out alright, I put my app in The Marketplace where are the leads? I want to say to them, “oh my goodness, I so value what you’ve done,” but you’re also gonna have to be willing to put something in to get something out around thb business development side.
Vince Menzione 27:11
Yeah, yeah, they have to make Yeah, this is this all ties into what I call what they don’t teach working with Microsoft. And it’s like you have to be your own marketing machine. You have to create your own raving fan customers. And then you also have to market back to Microsoft like, right? You people within the ecosystem need to understand what your solution is. It’s not it’s not a one way street here. Yeah, it’s really great, really great, Lani, and, you know, some great conversation. I’m partnering, we could spend the whole day on this partnering topic and co selling. And I’ll tell you what I’m going to do I am going to invite you to come back maybe a few months from now to do a checkpoint on how we’re doing with CO selling and maybe kind of maybe a checkpoint for some of our partners to learn more and how to engage there better. But you know, we have limited time today and I want to cover the personal and professional journey conversation with you is You know, this is an area of focus for me because of some of the work that I’ve done mentoring, but now, especially now, at this time, right, since George Floyd primarily, but it’s really been an ongoing conversation. But I think we’re starting to have a conversation now that we should have been having for a longer period of time. I’ve been reading white fragility, Robin Diangelo’s book, you know, it’s very insightful for me as a white male, to understand, like, how I can participate in the conversation. So I’d really like to pivot on your personal journey. And I think also from the optics, too, and talk a little bit about how the last few months have been for you. So first, I’d like to learn about you personally, like how did you get to this spot in your life? How did you become a vice president at Microsoft, and congratulations, by the way? Wow, that is amazing. It’s a very hard journey to Vice President.
Lani Phillips 28:51
It is a hard journey, a long journey. And let me just pause for a moment before I jump into that and acknowledge what you just I want to pause and acknowledge and celebrate you for one, taking accountability and responsibility for your own learning, and reading and having the conversation with others and creating the space to learn through the discussion. Because to me, we’re going to need more people to practice that, in order for us to make real progress. So I really want to celebrate you for that. If we would be here all day to talk about my journey because the journey to It was long, it was long, it probably took longer than it needed to. But there were a lot of lessons along the way. And I will share with you that for those that are trying to look at it from a career development standpoint, there’s a couple of lessons I learned instead of telling you all the different roles. I think one is around intentional career planning. I’ve also learned the importance of making sure that I have the right mentors and sponsors, sometimes the ones saying sometimes they’re not. And that sponsor is someone who’s advocating for you when you’re not in the room. I also think that I’ve learned through this process that it’s very important for you to take a stand, use your voice and not lose yourself through the process. And I will tell you, my biggest lesson that I’ve learned as I’ve transitioned from role to role is the importance of owning what my unique gifting is and strengths and operate from it instead of trying to be a carbon copy of what you believe successes by watching other people because I never really had people that look like me. That was on the same journey that I was trying to be on. So I would try to find Another male leader, and figure out what they did to be successful and try to maneuver it from my side and I never could get comfortable there. But when I started to accept that I’m a unicorn, I have unique gifting and to operate from my gifting and surround myself with other people that are operating from their gifting. I’ve seen my career take off. But more importantly, Vince, I would say is I have found more satisfaction in what I do.
Vince Menzione 31:34
You know, he’s just unpacked quite a few things here, but I’m gonna dig in on that one point about the unicorn because I think a lot of people try to fit into a mold of an organization. How do you break out of that mold, right? If everybody is a certain type in terms of an analytical type or some other type of personality or set of traits from a business perspective? How do you come at it from a different person perspective, how do you show up in a way that is valued when other people maybe aren’t valuing that set of skills,
Lani Phillips 32:07
it’s tough, you are going to win some, you’re going to lose some. I have found that when you have people that value analytics, then you still have to approach every conversation with the black and white analytics. So you have to give them what they need so that they can hear you. Then you sprinkle in your gifting. So for me, I’m lucky I guess I kind of float between two, I could do the analytics man, my dad was a math major. I mean, I spent a lot of time really understanding data. I don’t necessarily enjoy living in a sea of data. However, I do understand the value of bringing out important facts from the data to help guide our decision making. So whenever you and my gifting has always been Around, when you want to get a lot of people focused on a goal, and you want them to be inspired and feel empowered to get after that goal, I can make it happen for you. And I just had a genuine love for people. And I knew how to listen to them, understand what motivates them, and to drive change accordingly based on what I heard. So what I would try to do is give them the data, and then sprinkle in the anecdotal things that provided them the voice of the fields, or the voice of the customer, the voice of a partner, so that it complemented the data. And then I would always try to define a solution that we can measure because that would be important to them. But I’d also talk about the outcomes and the impact it can have on the people and the culture, and all of that. So it’s just a way how you complimented pends on your strength, you can go into an environment where they only value one style, and just completely be all about you and not be able to meet them where they’re at.
Vince Menzione 34:12
Yeah, speak their language, right? And I think I heard you sprinkle EQ into the IQ conversation. All right, so buckle up. I want to talk to you about a topic that is somewhat uncomfortable to a lot of people, to a lot of white people candidly, because we have to come to grips with our own racism as a culture. I want to have this conversation, but I want to be thoughtful about how we have it the right way. I know you’ve spent a lot of time here with colleagues at Microsoft, a lot of people have checked in with you. I Let’s start by just checking in with you on what’s been happening since George Floyd. How are you feeling? How are you dealing with as a black woman and as a mother and as a wife to a husband? How are you feeling right now? What is your world like and what is your day like? And how are you thinking about? or How are you “feeling” through this?
Lani Phillips 35:05
Well, thank you for asking, and I am so grateful that we’re having the conversation, Vince because not everyone can provide the level of transparency and have a quality conversation that you and I are having. And I like to refer to it as an authentic conversation. I would say where am I genuinely, I would say during all of the heights of the turmoil, I was caring for others, and I did not really allow myself to feel and if I were to find the words to describe how I was feeling during the time as I was hurt, I was disappointed. I was embarrassed. But I also had a level of hope and optimism, that fill the same space. But what I also found myself doing was carrying the burdens of everyone around me. And that was heavy because I didn’t have the answers. Because this wasn’t a new problem we were solving, It was rearing its ugly head in a new way. It was tough. It was really tough. I’m in a better place now, because I’ve created some space in terms of talking about it. And I tell people all the time, you know, you got to protect your spirit. Don’t listen to the news all day or listen to people on a rant about it all day, because that’ll get inside you and you’ll find yourself being bitter feeling defeated, looking for the negativity versus looking for something positive out of it. So I’ve just you know, I’ve vacillated between two spaces, but I would say I’m in a really good space right now. And I’m focused more on how I can be the difference. And how do I continue to make sure that this does not die, and we show real progress?
Vince Menzione 37:12
Is there anything special that you do to stay on that plane in terms of your attitude, your spirit? Is there anything you do? Some people meditate? Some people pray, so I’m just trying to understand how you get to, how do you stay at that place?
Lani Phillips 37:29
Well, I would love to tell you I’m perfect. I’m not but that where I go to find this piece is I love. I’m a woman of faith. I believe in God. And I listen to a number of podcasts and try to catch them on TV from time to time and listen to different pastors that speak a lot of positivity. Two of my favorites are Joel Osteen and TD Jakes. I think the other way that I’m able to stay positive is that I have been blessed that I have a diverse group of people around me. And my friends that are Caucasian have been just such beautiful spirits for me and have been the total opposite of what I’ve seen in the news. And that gives me hope as well. And I just have really good friends around me that are always sending me encouraging things to lift my spirits up. And let’s not talk about the two people I live with my husband and my son, they’re my rocks, and they recognize that I need positivity as you know, I can’t sit around and watch that all day and and they try to fill me up with a lot of unconditional love. And I would say all of that combined is what allows me to stain them as face.
Vince Menzione 38:57
You know, I’m struck that it’s been technology leaders like Satya Nadella who have spoken up on the topic during this time. I feel that we in the tech space have a unique opportunity to lead. And to drive some of the change. I do. I do believe that I feel like that’s a role that we have. What do you what is Microsoft doing there? And what are you seeing both but the work that you’re doing and what’s happening at the leadership level at Microsoft to drive the change?
Lani Phillips 39:22
Well, I would just tell everybody that they have got to go and look at they’ve got to go look at the blog that Microsoft wrote around. And I should say, Satya rode around the social injustice and what Microsoft is doing. There are several things that Satya has been inspirational for a lot of us around saying, Wow, this is how you lead, and you and I were just talking about what leadership looks like, right? So there’s a few things that he wants to do within Microsoft and our culture. And there are things he wants to do. in the community, and there are things that he wants to do in the partner ecosystem. And some of those highlights would be like within Microsoft; you’re going, he’s declared that he wants to make sure that we invest in inclusive leadership. And make sure that at the most senior levels in our company that they are provided coaches, so there’s a level of understanding sensitivity, and they can get that safe space to practice. And you’re also he also declared in terms of how he wants to improve our numbers in terms of representation in senior leadership roles. He so he talks about increasing our representation and making sure that we have more people of color in senior leadership roles. I think even addressed it from he called his senior leaders, but you would have managers and managers of managers, I think he wants to make sure there’s just more diversity there. And when you think about the ecosystem, I love this part because he wants to make sure that our partner ecosystem is strengthened. Nice. That’s when you look at our partner ecosystem. Not very diverse.
Vince Menzione 41:24
No, not a lot of white males. I mean I, I’ve interviewed many of them as guests here. And it’s Yeah, exactly.
Lani Phillips 41:31
Well, if I told you what, so these are early days of the numbers, we’re trying to figure it out. So far, the number has been below 20. So it’s very low. So he wants to strengthen the number of African American and black-owned partners or practices. We’ll call him a practice. So he’s allocated funding for that. Also, we want to make sure that They have the training as well. So there’s funding for that. And he’s declared that he wants to see those numbers grow. And so he’s declared specifics around that. And then there’s just work to do in our community to improve the lives of black and African American citizens. And so there’s a lot that he’s doing there around investing money in different programs and how we’re recruiting from historically black colleges. So I think you’re going to see investing in black flakes, and you’re going to see all kinds of things in that blog. Still, he would when my CEO when our CEO, I call him my son, you know, when Satya did that, as an African American woman who happens to be an executive at Microsoft, but just as a little girl out there, and I saw what he put out. I was so proud. Yeah. I was so like; it gave me another surge of hope. And I was like, he’s not in it by himself, sign me up. What can I do? Because I want to be a part of the solution to making this a reality.
Vince Menzione 43:13
Well, I’m a big fan of Satya as well. And, you know, I’d love to have him on the podcast. That’s a goal of mine at some point. So if you’re listening, Satya, we want to have you at some point here. But I, I’d love to, you know, there was a lot to unpack here. Specifically, I’m going to ask you one question now in particular, because I do know how recruiting and hiring can be an issue, right? We tend to hire people who are just like us. How do you overcome some of those challenges? Like what do you do systemically to address that particular set of issues? And I know you talked about this recently, I think at the Microsoft Inspire conference, you’re on a panel talking about like, they wanted somebody who understood diversity to talk to the candidate, like can you talk Can you talk about this particular area? Because I do think that it’s an issue right now.
Lani Phillips 44:01
Yeah, it is. And I laughed because I remember when I said that because you know, I never know what story I’m going to share. After all, I try to be so authentic in my responses. But I do think the way you overcome and systemically is there are ways to make sure you take some of the bias out of decision making when you look at candidates, especially through resumes, and all of that. And I know there’s a ton of solutions out there to help with that. But once you decide on the pool of candidates you’re going to bring in; you have to make sure that to rule out all potential bias is you have to make sure that you have an objective group of people evaluating the candidates. And sometimes that means stepping outside the organization and bringing in other people that bring different perspectives and have diverse backgrounds and can give you an objective opinion of the candidate to root out the bias. Now some And that I also think that we used to do a lot of, but I’d like to see us do more of going forward is let’s not bypass the group conversation when you talk about the talent and allow those conversations just to happen and flow and get people’s perspective. And have, again, it’s important to have an objective party there to be able to pause when people are demonstrating bias. And be in if you hear it or see it, you know, be willing to say, Hey, I think that’s a bias we want to be mindful of. So it shifts people’s mindset. And then I think it’s about just making sure that the people who are interviewing and the candidates are diverse and means, you know, gender, preferences, race, I think you’ve got to, I also am really big on accessibility. But make sure you have a diverse group because they’re just going to have a level of empathy. And understanding that maybe someone who doesn’t have much diversity in their background, couldn’t appreciate it.
Vince Menzione 46:08
So I don’t know if we ever answered quite the question of how you got here. We talked a little bit about it. But you know, you mentioned role models. I’d love to know about some of your role models or was there one life experience ? We talked about? Not enough women in STEM, not enough blacks in STEM? How did you get here? How did Lani get here?
Lani Phillips 46:31
So, if I, you know, I’m still trying to figure that out myself. You know, I was a lot of hard work. Here’s what I will share with you because I just had this epiphany lately. And I’ll just tell you the whole time because it may be a get richer, but, you know, I was the product of a mother and father who were working class, college-educated. All they wanted was for their two girls to have a great education. Be able to live their dreams and be productive citizens. Well, I had a major life event that happened to me at the age of 12. My mother died from cancer.
Vince Menzione 47:11
I’m so sorry.
Lani Phillips 47:12
Yeah. And I didn’t realize how much of that I blocked as a child and as I was growing up, but what I realized too, lately, and I was sharing this story with someone else who was kind of asking me a similar question, because I think it shaped who I was, who I had become, my mother was an English teacher. And I remember going to two funerals because we wanted to have one in Dallas where she was where we lived, and she had a host of friends, families, colleagues because she was a very popular schoolteacher. And then we also went to Louisiana where she grew up, Alexandria, Louisiana. We had a funeral there. My 12 year old mind said, why am I sitting through two funerals? This is hard. Its hard enough to see your mom passed at such an early age, what’s going to happen to my sister and I? The thing that I remembered in a dream not too long ago, that my mother, when they give you a few minutes to speak, in the southern funerals. My mother had a line out the door
Vince Menzione 48:34
Wow.
Lani Phillips 48:35
I remember the things that people said about my mother and they talked about her heart. They talked about the impact she made on their lives, how she challenged them, how she supported them, how she loved them unconditionally, how she was willing to do whatever it took to make them be successful. And fast forward. The same thing happened in Louisiana and I just remember feeling tortured as a 12-year-old. But fast forward to who I am today and what happened to me as I grew up. I carried that with me. So I just decided that how I got here is I just recognize that in everything that I do. I want to make sure that I can make a difference in the lives of the people that I get to serve every day and work with every day. And I want to make sure that in addition to helping them the company be successful, I want to represent the company in a very positive light that keeps people at the center. And I want to make sure that I never lose that empathy for people. And I also want to make sure that I can be a difference out here in the world. My mother lived that in her short 42 years of life, and I didn’t realize it until recently that it was passed on to me and I was always chasing it. And I think that’s how I got here. She was hard working intentional. She asked for what she wanted, she was very confident. All of those things. I just applied it over time. I didn’t get here easy, but I got here, and I’m still on that journey.
Vince Menzione 50:21
I love your spirit. I really do. So I took so much from that that conversation that you were probably thinking at the time, why are they doing this to me, but they were doing it for you. The two services to give you the spirit and to understand who your mom was to all these other people the impact that she had on so many. And subconsciously you probably took that all these years and then think about it.
Lani Phillips 50:43
I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t realize it. And so actually, I’ll be honest with you, It didn’t come to me until probably maybe right a month ago. I hadn’t spoken it out loud. I thought about it. And I had another partner asked me, “you have to tell me what your mom and dad did and how did you grow up?” They were just very interested. And where did this come from inside of me to be I love being of service to people. And I was like, you know, I can trace it back to my mom, I did not realize that. And when I told her, she told me, she was like, you’ve got to tell more people that story because we forget that when it’s all over, no one’s going to talk about how many years you work for this company and how much money you made. They’re going to talk about the impact you have on their lives.
Vince Menzione 51:36
So insightful. We are getting towards the end. I know you have a compressed schedule right now. And so is there a quote you live by? I mean, we’ve talked about so many inspiring things here. But is there one that stands out for you that you think about daily or live your life by?
Lani Phillips 51:56
you know, there are so many quotes that I love, and the one that comes to mind today is, “the past is your lesson, the present is your gift, the future is your motivation.” And I would say to you that I really think about the future for our children. It motivates me to keep doing it the way I’m trying to do it, and continue to learn and learn from them and what’s important to them, so that we can just create a better, a better world for everyone.
Vince Menzione 52:37
I’d like you to repeat that one more time because it was so impactful. So the past is your lesson. Yes. The present is your gift. Yes. And the future
Lani Phillips 52:48
is your motivation,
Vince Menzione 52:50
your motivation. I love that. Thank you so much, Lani. I just so enjoy having this conversation. I’m going to repeat it again, I want to have back in a few months, I think this is an ongoing dialogue we should be having about how things are progressing both in the business and in our world. And so I’m, I’m offering an invitation. I’d love to have you back again in a few months. I want to thank you for taking the time. I know how compressed your schedule is, it’s Microsoft summer, you’ve been on a real tear here in terms of presenting at conferences, being on other podcasts and other events. So I want to thank you for making this time. Lani. I really do appreciate that.
Lani Phillips 53:28
Oh, I want to thank you. And of course, I will come back and spend some time with you. I’ve also enjoyed our conversation. I really appreciate what you’re doing. I also want to celebrate you again for investing in yourself your own learning, and I am hopeful because of people like you. And I want you to keep being the difference as well. So anything I can do to support you just let me know and thanks for having.
Vince Menzione 53:56
Thank you so much, Lani,
Lani Phillips 53:57
thank you.
53:59
Transcribed by https://otter.ai