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Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 563 - Melanoma Research Alliance COO Stephanie Kauffman - How to Translate Vision Into Amazing Results Quickly
00:48:46
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- [00:00]
Stephanie Kaufman
I believe it could go to a million dollars, but at minimum a quarter million dollars. And I remember getting a phone call. I was in a, in a boardroom with, with one of our other partners and they said, hey Steph, I need to talk to you about what's going on with our ballistic Overwatch game. I thought, oh my goodness, are we not even going to hit, you know, the minimum? I told the board we were going to get and she, she shared with me, she's like, we just hit $10 million in two weeks. $10 million that was raised for breast cancer research from the incredible gaming community that loved the very authentic space in which we were playing. It wasn't just putting a pink ribbon somewhere.
- [00:45]
Cameron Herold
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herald. In the second in command podcast we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer.
- [01:14]
Savannah Brewer
Our guest today is Stephanie Kaufman, the president and Chief Operating officer of the Melanoma Research alliance, the largest nonprofit funder of melanoma research in the world. Stephanie's career sits at the intersection of strategy, operations and impact. She's led partnerships and communications at major mission driven organizations from the Breast Cancer Research foundation to Americares and now drives the strategic and operational engine behind MRA's groundbreaking work and accelerating progress toward better treatments and ultimately a cure. In this conversation, we explore how storytelling can become a secret weapon for partnerships and leadership. The three Bs for translating up and aligning with your CEO and your team and across the board, if you have one, and what it really means to think boldly and bring your team along for the ride. She shares a really cool story actually of a huge win that they had at the Breast Cancer Research foundation that just gave me goosebumps. So I'm excited for you to hear that and if you are in general just wanting to learn from a world class operator who blends heart, vision and execution to mobilize millions and millions of dollars for impact. You are going to love this episode with Stephanie Kaufman. Let's dive in. We are live with Stephanie. Welcome to the show.
- [02:40]
Stephanie Kaufman
Thank you so much. It is so fantastic to be with you. Big fan of the POD and it's an honor to be with you and hopefully we can share some wisdom and nuggets of information with my fellow chief operating officers.
- [02:54]
Savannah Brewer
Absolutely. I Know that this is going to be a good one. Just from our little 10 minutes of prep here. I kind of want to throw it back to you of the same question I asked earlier because I loved your perspective on it, but I asked why you're interested in being on the show. Would love to hear your answer to that.
- [03:11]
Stephanie Kaufman
Absolutely. I love this idea of second in command because it's really dual in command in so many respects. And I don't think that the CEO community gets showcased in such an incredible way in terms of what is really lifting up that vision of a board of a CEO. How does that get translated into reality? What are all the different parts and frameworks that you have to bring alive in order to realize that vision? You know, how do you bridge the idea with the moonshot and then operational reality? And to have these types of insights from such a diverse community of COOs, you know, across sectors, across industries, really inspired me to want to be a part of the conversation. And I think it really helps bring about some great knowledge in this increasingly difficult and complex world where CIOs have to be at this intersection of what's happening from technology to new, new finance measures, to what's happening from people, people and talent culture, to also making sure that the organization is thriving and humming every single day. And so I really love the conversation that this pod creates for all of us who are just navigating our way to realizing mission, but everyday success, Absolutely.
- [04:31]
Savannah Brewer
I totally agree with you. And one of the things that we are going to get into today is around the topic of storytelling and how, as you mentioned, there's so many pieces in the COO role and how you believe storytelling is so important for all of those pieces. So we're going to dive into that. But first, going back to mission, as you mentioned, tell us a little bit about the mission of your company. What do you do and who do you serve?
- [04:55]
Stephanie Kaufman
Well, I have the great privilege of serving as the chief operating officer for the Melanoma Research Alliance. We are proud to serve as the largest nonprofit funder of melanoma research in the world. Melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. It's going to impact about 100,000 people here in the US this year. And what a lot of people don't realize about melanomas so often, skin cancer and then melanoma sometimes gets marginalized to, oh, it's just skin cancer. You can just take it out and you're fine. And that's not the case. Skin cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in the U.S. but melanoma accounts for 80% of the fatalities in terms of that diagnosis. So what we do at the melanoma research alliance is we provide investment funding to researchers and scientists across the world who are looking for better treatments, better early detection and diagnosis for the disease. We're really proud. We've invested $175 million in research projects, about 500 research projects across 19 countries. If you were diagnosed with melanoma prior to our founding in 2007, advanced case, you more than likely had a less than 10% chance of survival. There were no treatment options really available, maybe two. And today, thanks to the investments that we've helped bring about in partnership with across the horizon of science, pharma, biotech and other organizations, today melanoma patient now has 17 FDA approved treatments that's available to them, which is really exciting. 50% of people now have really amazing survivor opportunities. But obviously we've got a lot more work to do. So I get to oversee really our business, our impact across the organization from resource mobilization, communications, storytelling, and then obviously everything that lifts that work up. In terms of operations, who I serve, actually what we say is the heart of everything that we do is the patients, the patients and the caregivers who are impacted by this insidious disease. But we serve a board, and in my particular case, the melanoma research alliance board. I have the great benefit of having some of the most legendary leaders of finance that convene on our board. So the fact that I have access to these legends and finance private equity that can really help guide us through financial resiliency investment strategies is a tremendous gift. We also have leaders across media, retail, pharma, biotech. So it gives me an opportunity to tap into our board in terms of a panoramic look at all the different levers of what our business does. Have a seat. An incredible CEO we have. This is our second journey together. We were collaborators previously at the breast cancer Research Foundation. So a big, big fan of his vision and his bold reality. And I also, I play in service to the team members that we have. Our organization, we're very small, we're very agile. We have 10 colleagues. So I would say we have several people that I am proud to be in service to.
- [07:59]
Savannah Brewer
Amazing. The stats that you gave me a few minutes ago, I just want to recap, make sure I heard them correctly. Sure. You say in about 20 years it's gone from 10% survival to 50%.
- [08:12]
Stephanie Kaufman
If you have an advanced case of melanoma, there are now treatments available that push that survivorship for about 50% of those patients, which is great, but we still have 50% of the patients who don't have an option. But what I would tell you that a lot of people don't realize is that melanoma research has actually unleashed a whole new era of oncology. It used to be if you had a cancer diagnosis, you had three standards of care, you had surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. And melanoma actually pioneered immunobiology therapy. So using your body's immune system to fight cancer back. And as a result of all the breakthroughs that we've seen as a result of melanoma research, it's now informing the treatments for 30 other cancers and diseases, everything from lung cancer to bladder cancer to kidney cancer. And that's. As a result, melanoma is a fast moving. But that's what a lot of people don't realize. They're like, oh, you cut it out and it's done. It's not the case. It's a very fast moving cancer. So we're able to get those answers quicker as opposed to a slower moving cancer. And it's really exciting that all these new breakthroughs in oncology, chances are melanoma research has been the launchpad for that disease. So it's really exciting to see what has been accomplished to your point in less than 20 years. And with really, if you stack it up in terms of all the different cancer research funding that's out there, it's actually been a fairly large return on investment in terms of the impact that it's had across the entire field.
- [09:43]
Savannah Brewer
And you're so right about not as big of a focus on melanoma. Like I've heard that like, oh, that's like the one you least need to worry about. Like you do get skin cancer. It's like not that big of a deal. It's like the highest survival rate. That is actually the. Coming into this, the. The thing that I've heard circling in my mind because that's like the latest and the most frequented thing that I hear about it. So this is really impactful for me to just have more awareness around and I'm sure for other people too. And we are going to get into the operations. But I am curious, are there any like one to two things that maybe outside of sunscreens, like yeah. Where your sunscreen you found to be like something that the everyday person can do or keep in mind that can prevent melanoma? No.
- [10:30]
Stephanie Kaufman
It's a great question. 90% of melanomas are as a result of UV exposure. So the sun essentially. So yes, sunscreen is one of your first line defenses, but there's also an opportunity. So if you're, if you're out and about during the day and you know you're going to be outside for a long time, wear a wide brimmed hat, maybe some UPF apparel, clothing that you could, you know, possibly tap into. If you're going to enjoy the beach for the day or if you're going to go do something sports related, you just know that you're going to have multiple hours in the sun. So those are some very quick things that you can do. And certainly I do also, I think what a lot of people don't realize, one of the tips that I learned when I stepped into this space was if you're on long haul airplane rides and you're by the window, you need to have sunscreen on because you're at a higher level of UV exposure. And unfortunately, commercial airline pilots and flight attendants and flight crews actually are at a much higher risk for melanoma. So I would say if you happen to be in an office space that has wonderful, beautiful, beautiful windows, which is great, let's set light in. You probably should take a, you know, just have some sunscreen on. So that's a real practical tip. So some sunscreen wear hats, sunglasses. If you're on a long car ride, definitely, you know, make sure that you have your skin protected because that UV exposure comes in. We see it in truck drivers. We see truck drivers who, you know, long haul truck drivers, they tend to have melanoma that will be, or skin cancer that'll be diagnosed on their left hand side because that's where the window is, the driver's side. So it's just really important to protect your skin. And there's a lot of easy ways to do it. And so often I get asked what sunscreen should I use? And I will tell people it's the one that you will actually apply. So something that's broad spectrum. SPF 30.
- [12:20]
Savannah Brewer
Perfect. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, well, let's get into some operational things. I want to circle back to the financial piece that you had just mentioned around your board. You said I've been able to learn some things from financial legends. What happened? Some of those financial pieces that you've learned from these legends?
- [12:43]
Stephanie Kaufman
No, absolutely. I think the first thing I would share is we actually look at when we go to invest in, where's the science that we want to invest in? I would tell you we take probably A very private equity approach to our investment strategy and really understanding, you know, how private equity looks at the acquisition of a company and then how they bring that about. So I think I've learned a lot about how do we take a nonprofit grant model and then how do you mirror that to finance or in our case private equity by employing this very rigorous high impact model focused on maximizing returns. Obviously in our case it's how much science can you advance and how can that improve the outcomes for patients? We have kind of that return on impact. That's our roi. And I think we look at it as how can we build a transformative portfolio of science? So how do we strategically identify the most promising research projects in the way that a finance company or private equity company or M and a kind of strategically identifies companies with high growth potential? We really look at our research portfolio as what will have, maybe it's high risk, but maybe has the biggest potential to create those breakthroughs across the spectrum of melanoma research. You know, that early detection, prevention, treatment breakthroughs, survivorship, quality of life. Then we do our own rigorous process in terms of how do we vet those proposals, bringing around cross collaborative synergistic experts, much in the way that a private equity firm might rely on market analysis and management assessments. And then once our funding is allocated, we stay very engaged, we monitor the progress, we foster that collaboration. Again, we're looking to generate outsized impact. And I think our model over these last several years has certainly proved that out, but not just for the melanoma patients for today, but for future generations of this disease. And I think really having a view into that real high level investment strategy that really amplifies every single dollar has really been a great learning process for me in terms of how you rethink your investment strategy. As someone who invests in cancer research where you may not see that outcome tomorrow and the way that other mission based organizations may be able to say, okay, well we built this and you can see this cancer research. You're probably going to see the next impact of a new treatment option 10 years from now. But how do you track that to give success?
- [15:26]
Savannah Brewer
What are the lessons that you've learned in that process? Because I would imagine the way that you guys are raising money for people that are like, please fund our projects is different than a CEO who might be in more of a B2B or an agency. It could be really anything, but they might be interested in doing partnerships from a marketing or revenue generating standpoint. What are the lessons that you've learned in your career thus far in what you're doing with the research alliance. That could transfer to a COO who might not be like raising money for research but is wanting to create partnerships for general marketing or other revenue ideas that they have.
- [16:12]
Stephanie Kaufman
My background initially was always in kind of that marketing communications partnership space versus the quote unquote traditional operational space of finance, governance, administration. And so often there would be these two chambers, oh it's marketing and sales partnerships over here doing their thing. And are they really kind of making sure that there's diligence behind those deals and vice versa. Sometimes you would see the operations role as going to your operators as okay, how many, you know, guardrails are they going to put up to get in the way of that deal? And so the opportunity for me to now bring that experience I've had in marketing and sales and now with a very forward thinking operational lens, I think first things first is coo. Now I really look at where are their values alignment, what are they looking to get out of a partnership, let's say with the Melanoma Research alliance, does it align with what we're doing? Is it at cross purposes? Is that partner asking A lot of our organizations that I now have to balance the bandwidth of, again a very small and agile team, are they looking for me to become, are they looking for mra, I should say to become their de facto cause marketing agency? You know, where are those balance, where are those tension points? Where are those friction points? And so I think to the extent that a COO really can get into the marketing speak of where the brand values alignment, what is that partner looking to activate, what resources is it going to really absorb within the organization and then what, what's going to be the opportunity? So often I would hear, and I just used this reference a couple days ago with some friends of mine who are in marketing and entertainment, which is initially my background, it was this idea like, well, it's this partnership. We're not, we don't know exactly what it's going to do, but it's a little bit like chicken soup. We know it'll do something good. I do think when you're the operations leader, in that case, fine, you can talk about the chicken soup model. But you know, again, how do you partner up with your other colleagues to say, okay, let's, let's really look at that holistic look, it may be a win that will satisfy one aspect of a board member's wish, another key stakeholder's wish, but what is going to be the entire impact on the organization, then how do you balance that out? And I think in this particular case, as you're looking to scale those partnerships, you may be serving multiple stakeholders who really want to do this, but maybe the diligence isn't there and they want to have you move with velocity. I think in those moments is as you're thinking about partnerships and you're thinking about how you bring those together, particularly again if it's more of a consumer facing or even B2B facing partnership. Like how do you tap into your emotional intelligence around these deals? How do you figure out the diplomacy that is needed to kind of navigate what everybody is looking for at the table and then have the courage to push back where it's needed? Because ultimately you have to ensure that the organization is sustainable, that there are safety and guardrails back, but not always to say no, like I don't want to be the land of no. I always want to figure out how do we shape the answer? Yes, very responsibly. And that's some of the filters that I think about in my approach to balancing the tensions that sometimes in terms of what we have to do operationally, what we have to do to balance our team's capacity, capacity and is it going to be a win? And I will tell you in the, in our space, the nonprofit space, not everything will be a yes. We will absolutely say to people who come in, oh, I want to work with you and it's not going to be a win for our mission, it's not going to be a win for us. It feels a very one sided value prop. And where would be a scenario where we're going to have you do all this and at the end of the day it's going to be maybe a $3,000 return on investment. Well, that's not a good use of our time and it certainly dilutes our mission and our team.
- [20:15]
Savannah Brewer
What is an example of a partnership that you've set up that was a huge win?
- [20:21]
Stephanie Kaufman
This was during my breast Cancer Research foundation days, which is where I was prior to joining the Melanoma Research Alliance. So my first half of my career I was in media and entertainment. I was the senior vice president of global alliances for Universal Studios, which basically worked with brands who had an interest in having a long term relationship with the studios, product placements and marketing and Universal's films and theme parks. So I knew from that experience that gaming is huge and the ability of gamers and how loyal they are to their games. And I realized through a partnership that we were doing. I think it was Mafia wars, one of those games back in the day that gamers were really excited to purchase this avatar of the Scarface suit, to put it as their arbitrage. I think it really was Mafia wars and it was making the studio a ton of money every single month. Like just, you know, Evergreen revenue that was coming in from people who were willing to spend 1499 to basically have their character have this, you know, this costume, if you will. They called it Skin and Gaming. So I knew that there was something there. And when I was at the Breast Cancer Research foundation, we had some conversations with Blizzard Entertainment, and as it turned out, they had a number of employees, employees whose loved one's family had been impacted by a breast cancer diagnosis. And so we worked with them on their Overwatch game in which gamers, consumers could purchase a skin for the character Mercy, which very much aligned with our organization because she was a healer and you could do it was a pink ribbon influenced skin. And I knew that that could work, but I had to work with board members and even some internal colleagues that wasn't sure about getting in the gaming industry. They had their own perceptions and I really believed it and really said, I will take the hit on this if it's not successful. And so I was asked by our board, well, what do you think it's going to deliver? And, you know, through our team, we said, you know, we're at minimum a quarter of a million dollars. I believe it could go to a million dollars, but at minimum a quarter of a million dollars. And I remember getting a phone call. I was in a boardroom with one of our other partners and they said, hey, Steph, I need to talk to you about what's going on with our Bliss Overwatch game. And I thought, oh my goodness, are we not even going to hit, you know, the minimum? I told the board we were going to get and she shared with me, she's like, we just hit $10 million in two weeks. $10 million that was raised for breast cancer research from the incredible gaming community that loved the very authentic space in which we were playing. It wasn't just putting a pink ribbon somewhere and there was no place for it. The character, you know, Mercy in this character of Overwatch, her previous life, before she got, you know, before the new story of her, of her life, if you will, she was a. And this new version, she's this healer that helps heal the other characters in the game. And we netted out $12.7 million over three weeks. And we really opened up what it meant to have different partnerships and really pushing the boundaries of that partnership and pushing back against people who weren't comfortable necessarily with the idea. But I knew intuitively that was the right channel. And that's something that I will be forever grateful for. Not only to Blizzard Entertainment, but the team that I had alongside with me on our corporate partnerships team at the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Their faith and belief of this idea and also the gentleman who helped me champion it through the organization was Dr. Mark Herbert. He was our chief Science officer at BCRF and he is now our CEO of the Melanoma Research Alliance. And in that moment with Mark, I was like, he gets it. He's a scientist by training, but he gets what we can do here. And he was one of our biggest champions and voices to kind of push that through to people that were maybe initially hesitant about this idea.
- [24:18]
Savannah Brewer
That was such a cool story. I got full body goosebumps. I mean, to go from people saying we'd be lucky to hit 250 to 12 million, that's insane.
- [24:30]
Stephanie Kaufman
I think it's a good example of even if you're in this particular case, even if you're not a gamer, not necessarily a day to day gamer, but I knew the power of it. I have my sister who's a definite gamer, so I knew the power of it. Even if you're not in the space where you believe that you can tap into a new audience, a new customer base, take the time to learn about it, put aside your own preconceived notions about what that may be and realize with the research, I knew that research was there. I knew that if it was the right thing, the gaming community would completely come out and support it. They've shown it time and time again. And as long as you have this very authentic conversation, and I think this is true whether you're leading the operations of an organization, if you're creating new conversations with vendors, with employees, if you show authenticity, if you show some vulnerability in those conversations, you're going to have some pretty phenomenal wins, a thousand percent. And I think that that proved that out.
- [25:28]
Savannah Brewer
I think this is a total golden nugget. Like if I had a bell on here and for every time I was like, I think anyone who's listening is, is probably thinking, wow, that's super applicable to me. I actually just got back from Hawaii from an event that actually like heard a girl on a podcast. I was like, who is this? I need to get around her, she's amazing. And Cole, emailed her. And part of the reason why was she's from an industry that I have no idea about yet. When I was listening to her on the podcast, there were so many things that still values wise and how she kind of looks at business and life were very similar, but in a completely different space. And I've been in a bubble for quite some time, so I felt this desire to just get around people who are talking about things that I have no idea about. So I went to this event and got to be part of some of the craziest, coolest conversations with people in spaces that, you know, are using acronyms that I have to ask, what does that mean? And to them, it's like, you know, how do you not know what this is? But being able to pick up on those new pieces has given me totally different ways to think about the challenges in my life currently. So much so that actually tomorrow morning I created a have an event going on with a group of friends called a Podcast Walk, where everyone picks a podcast that is of interest to them. But then at the end, we're going to be sharing what were the key pieces that we picked up on? Because what my friends are going to pick or just I'm inviting people that I barely know, they're going to bring in different ideas and things I wouldn't have picked myself, but are things that I can still kind of the grand expand outside of my own echo chamber with. So for anybody who's listening, I think this is a key point of in business, what Stephanie's talking about is being able to find these little avenues or partnerships and different ways of thinking that can kind of get you outside of maybe what's already been done in the past and really try something new. And there's two things here I want to ask you, Stephanie, that stood out to me as one, you were bold and courageous by saying, hey, if this doesn't land, and some of those more risky moves, you know, they could be potentially really negative. So being able to really stand in your belief that it's going to be a huge success, that's the first thing. And then the second part is being able to have your board and your team all buy into it, despite them not being a fan of it and getting them on board, too, are both really important to that. So I want to ask, what advice do you have to a COO who maybe has some outrageous ideas or wants to try something from a different industry, but their team isn't really on board with that? What advice do you have about being
- [28:18]
Stephanie Kaufman
bold no, it's a great question. I think first things first is how do you build credibility within your organization? And that's not just the upward credibility, but also the credibility across the organization and key stakeholders. So when you're, when you say, listen, I'm going to take the hit on this. Yes, stand behind that. And I was prepared to stand behind that because I believed in the conviction I also had. What I would tell you in those bold things, you need to make sure you have data driven storytelling and convincing like here's what the data is going to tell us and here's the story I'm going to weave around this. So my story in this particular case was Universal Pictures. I've seen gaming. It's this type of industry. It delivers this purchasing of, if you will, a virtual good. From my studio days, we were bringing in this much revenue for little lift, very little lift in terms of just licensing that out. Here's what we're seeing in the nonprofit space. We believe that there could have a different conversation. There was also, you know, there's this perception that gaming writ large is a male driven space. And that may be true for very specific games, but if you look at casual gaming, it's actually, you know, 50, 50 split and so also bringing in that data. So I think when you want to be bold and try to bring other people along, you have to do it under the lens of data Dr. Storytelling. I see. I think the other thing that I've also learned through my career, I've certainly have been given feedback that I'm a. I like to peek around the corner to the future. I tend to be a very future forward thinker, which I do think is very important to have, particularly in a COO role. So honoring the legacy and what you've learned, but you know what's coming next. And so one of the things I've had to learn in my career is if I explain my vision and I've done the great data driven storytelling is really to look at the room and find out, okay, where is everybody on the curve of understanding that vision? Where is their hesitation and to take a pause and to say, I see you're not quite with this vision, you know, where's your hesitation and whatever level that person may be occupying, whatever. I feel like leadership comes from every seat of an organization, regardless of where you are in your career. So to create a very safe space to say, I notice you're not quite there with me yet, what's giving you pause? Is there a friction point that I'm not thinking about, is there a blind spot that I'm not considering? Is there something operationally that makes us feel, you know, you're excited by the vision, but you're hesitant because of, you know, help me understand where those things that we're going to have to kind of think through in a deeper way that maybe, you know, big thinkers don't always have an opportunity to. And having that pause moment, something I've learned because I used to be like, this is a vision we're going to pause, understand, also helps you kind of make sure that there is not too many situations that you did not anticipate. Like, okay, there is a system, and then everybody at the table then feels brought along into the process and they create their own sense of ownership and they also respect that you're willing to listen to. How does this impact their to do list? You know, so now I'm asking, you've got 900 things on your to do list. I'm now asking you to move this up to number two or number one. How do we then think about prioritization, balance, and then removing some of the hurdles that may be giving you pause? Hearing that feedback is incredibly important. And some of the feedback I heard on this was, how do we think about if gamers are going to give us money, we may not get all of their data, and then how do we mine that relationship? How is, you know, is this game going to represent our values in such a way, you know, that sometimes people would have some hesitancy around brand safety in these spaces. And I think once you go through that in a very thoughtful way, in a very kind of collaborative way, you're going to get that feedback that you need to make that successful. So definitely take a pause, particularly for noticing, you know, people who are. You're struggling to understand the vision, they want to understand it, but they're not there yet. And take a pause to do a little bit of a deep dive as to why.
- [32:18]
Savannah Brewer
What advice do you have for the storytelling piece, specifically from CEO or anyone else who might be, you know, in a different position than you, that you are translating that vision all the way down through the company. The different personalities, the different roles. How does storytelling impact that transferring of vision?
- [32:41]
Stephanie Kaufman
No, absolutely. I like the fact that some people have called me a little bit of a professional translator. I'm not a PhD in science, so a lot of times I have to translate very high, highly complicated science, you know, to something that a board member may be understanding because they're on the board, because maybe they've been impacted by the dise or to a corporate partner helping our team be able to explain that or helping translate the vision again, I think as a coo really does become that multilingual translator. The COO role ends up being the translator. Here's the board and CEO's vision and here's how I have to translate it down into an operational roadmap that the team can understand. They can understand where we're going, where we're headed, the why, why. So you've got that. You also need to be the professional translator up to your board or CEO, like great vision. But right now our ambition may be stretching us out a little bit further than what we have capacity, reality for. So not saying no to this, how do we get to that? Yes, responsibly. But here are the things on that vision that we're going to need to solve for. Here's how we believe we can solve for it, or here's how we're going to have to lay out that roadmap. So this is going to be a phase one that we'll be able to do these things too. And then making sure that that translation that everybody in theory at the board nods their head to understand that, the CEO nods their head and then the staff nods that. And I think the third translation that you have is then making sure if you're communicating, if you're rolling out a new product, if you're rolling out, you know, a new experience, whatever the case may be, is making sure that the, that however that's being messaged to whatever audience that's being messaged to, does that translation line up to what you believe is the vision and the operational roadmap and make and pressure testing that so that again, the team members who are going to have to execute that vision like they get it, they understand it, the stakeholders understand it, and the reason why, and if you don't go through those kind of translation steps and serve as a hub, as a coo, then that's probably going to be more challenging if you don't. And I really feel it's important that, that coos so often get bunched into that. Oh, it's finance, it's audit, it's governance. Those are always telling stories. And I would tell you, early on in my career, I was moved into a partnership sponsorship function and I would have team members who would say, oh, I'm on the account management side. I'm not really a salesperson, I could never do sales. And I would tell them, you're selling every day. To the existing account relationship that you already have. You're convincing them, you know, in this case it was theme parks or movies. You're convincing them to step into this movie. You're convincing them to maybe upgrade what their investment is going to be. So I would say in the case of coo, we're all in the communication, translation and influence business and then to think about what that story you're going to tell. And then I think one of the biggest pieces of advice I got early in my career is remember your audience, know who your audience is going to be. So you know, in the case of a board, and certainly my board, I've got two seconds to get their attention. So for them it's, you know, quick headlines. I happen to know if it's a major supporter of our work. They may like the narrative and getting into the narrative and they want a long read. Another audience may like the pre read with five bullet points. And I think it's also that emotional intelligence, business intelligence of who is your audience, how do they like to be communicated to and how are you going to get to that? Yes, in terms of that storytelling has been invaluable to me in my career.
- [36:26]
Savannah Brewer
Foreign.
- [36:32]
Cameron Herold
Hey, it's Cameron Herald, your COO whisperer and guide to scaling businesses. Check out my YouTube channel at YouTube.com amronherald and that's H E R O L D where I share tons of raw tips and insider secrets to have you level up as a leader and grow your company from leadership hacks to growth strategies. It's all there. No flow off. Subscribe now. Hit that bell for notifications and comment on a few of the 100 videos that I've uploaded so far. And let's build your empire together. Let's go.
- [37:07]
Savannah Brewer
Cameron has a great book called Vivid Vision which is about getting your whole team on the same page with where you're going and the importance of that. Because if your CEO and your COO are aren't clear on the vision, how are you ever going to translate to your team where they're going and how they should know what tasks to be focused on, which is something that you mentioned about your team maybe bringing up, well I have to move my tasks or this is going to mess up like the flow that I thought I was going to be doing. How do you give feedback to your team? Or what is the feedback that you give to your team about how they should reprioritize tasks? Asks do you teach a flow to your team on how to be prioritizing the right Things in their day?
- [37:53]
Stephanie Kaufman
No, absolutely, because that is the question. I think it doesn't matter how big an organization is or smaller organization is, right? There's not enough time in the day. There's multiple priorities coming down from different audiences, different key stakeholders. So first things first that I'd like to do with our team is obviously you have your weekly check ins to talk about and I like to frame up our weekly check ins of. All right, more than just the status report support, it's more what's working, what are the hurdles that I can move out of your way and is there anything that's getting bottlenecked? And then the last piece is where's the prioritization balance? And a couple of things that I always like to look at with the team is, okay, we know that this project has now moved into a poll position because we, we have to do it because there's a board direction for us to go because we're having to shift. So let's take a look at what are all the projects. What are those projects that quite frankly, if we get them second quarter, third quarter, it is fine. We are not as much as urgent as our mission is in cancer research. And it is definitely urgent. I also like to think we're not the firemen, right? So not everything is a fire drill. Not everything has to be done in the same second. And I think certainly the immediacy of teams chat or Slack or text messaging, a couple of things that, you know, we look at is, okay, what do we really do need to get accomplished today or this week or this quarter and what are some of the things if we push it back? It's not, it's, it's going to make a difference, but it doesn't have to make the difference in this moment because we have this other priority. So we do do a lot of like, you know, let's have real radical candor around where this project is. And then every six months we'd like to just get into a room, phones down, pencils down, like what's working, what is not working? And can we pull up three or four legacy workflows that we've been doing just because it's the way we've always done it and does that legacy workflow work for us today? Or where are we missing technology or what are we getting in the way of ourselves? So we like to do kind of that audit of workflows that maybe that was done five years ago and it sounded like a good idea, but it doesn't make sense today. So I do think you have to as a leader and particularly in operations, what's going to move the business ahead today? What is the prioritization and what are things that can shift and it's not, it will have an impact, but it's a longer term impact and it's going to be perfectly okay. I have this conversations every single day with our team members.
- [40:26]
Savannah Brewer
I like that you actually have like a moment for people to bring what are the things that we've been doing for a long time. I might start adding that into some of my workflows too with my team because I notice I do these time trackers with. Especially when I come into a new company for fractional work, I'll have the team do these time Trackers for all five days of the week. Every 15 minutes they're logging what activities they did and it's been mind blowing how many times I'll go in and look at a tracker and I'm like, oh my gosh, what is this? Like I didn't even know that you were doing this. And they'll say, well, you know, this is a part of my daily process that I was supposed to do since the day I came in. I just always do do it. And I'm like, we're not even using that, you know, so being able to have a pulse on what things like you said are just maybe unnecessary. But team is just kind of like doing habitually is really important. And then the second thing is the delay. I teach my team the four Ds which is on Sunday. I plan my week. I tell everybody to plan their week on Sunday if they can. And you write out just a brain dump of all the things that are taking up mental space in your mind. All the projects, all the things you just need to figure out. And the four Ds are delegate, do, delete or delegate. And I still do this with myself. It's. It's amazing how many things I'll just start doing because I'm like, oh, it's on my mind, I need to close the loop when in reality it is not an urgent thing. It could totally be delayed. And so many of those things I end up delaying end up not even being necessary because we figure out something else that's even better or delegating, you know, like, do I really need to do that or could I do this? Just that mental extra check of the four Ds when you're going through your priority list can be super helpful. I wanted to ask about one of your mottos that you had mentioned in your pre form, which was translate up, simplify down. Can you unpack what that means?
- [42:28]
Stephanie Kaufman
Yeah, I think it's this idea of you're going to translate up in terms of what are the successes, what are the key, you know, key accomplishments that are happening and how do you manage upwards again to your board and CEO and like, here are the quick wins, here's kind of the things that we're moving forward or here's where we need to go up. So we're going to translate up. How is that vision being realized in a very kind of quick, dynamic way. I call it the three Bs. So I'm going to take your Ds, but I'm now going to turn B as in be brief, be brilliant and be done. And that's to me how you translate up in terms of we're making progress. Your, your board and your CEO, they don't need to get into the weeds. They don't, they just want to know it's being handled. I would say in terms of simplifying down is I like to think of myself as being fairly direct and straightforward. I do not think you need to shroud these big vision plans in, you know, mystery. You just be very, you know, very simple. Like how do we, how are we going to get from point A to point B? And here's kind of what we believe the steps are going to be and where are you in this? And do you, do you understand that? So take this. What could be seen as this big overwhelming vision, like how on earth are we going to do that in six months? That feels overwhelming. And so it's like, okay, well, yes, it's a big puzzle, but we're going to take this one puzzle piece and we're going to do that. So I really work to like, let's simplify what all of this means and here's what your role is going to be and here's how you're going to make an impact. Here's the expectations and here's the timeline that we're looking at it and make it in a very, not 66 page deck, but like literally just outline it and then go through all the steps together. So again, translate up with the three Bs, be brief, be brilliant, be done, and then simplify it down so everybody can kind of see their role, what their deliverables are going to be, the timing around that, what the lift is going to be. I personally don't like to get into all these different, you know, is it a level one or Level two, like, let's just talk as humans as to what this is going to be. I get the benefit of that because I am with a smaller organization. I do know in larger organizations you may have to have that type of additional, you know, rigor just to understand all of those workflows. So I do acknowledge that. But translate up and simplify down and I find that it's worked out pretty successfully in the organizations I've been a part of.
- [44:51]
Savannah Brewer
I love the three B's. That's super helpful. I'm going to store that in the old noggin for future trends.
- [44:59]
Stephanie Kaufman
Yeah. Because if you think about everything that's on your CEO's table or even, you know, board member that you may be engaging with that are running, you know, Fortune 100 companies globally, you gotta kind of get them very quickly and you want to leave them with a message and you want them like. Or if you need for them to have a homework assignment, it's gotta be very quick. This is what I need. And we're going to take the time. Like, this is what I need. Here's how you're going to accomplish it. And go, go.
- [45:26]
Savannah Brewer
That's so true. And I think a lot of COs, including myself, this can be a pain point is over explaining because we're the ones that have. We're in the weeds of everything, you know, and we're like, they need to know all the things that are going on so that I can convince them of this. Most times your CEO just wants to know, how is this going to get a better result? You know, explain the result you bit, like you said, said brief, brilliant, and then be done with it. I think that's a good way to go. Just to wrap up here, Stephanie, I always love to ask at the end, what are you most excited about in the next six months, both in business or personally? Whatever you feel like sharing.
- [46:07]
Stephanie Kaufman
At the Melanoma Research alliance, we're really excited. We're going to be investing much more across the melanoma spectrum in terms of research investments during a time when we need as much funding for cancer research as possible. In a couple of months, we're going to be convening almost 300 of the most brilliant scientists in Washington, D.C. sharing their work, breaking down those silos of information. Share. I'm really excited to. I think what will be some new breakthroughs that will hopefully happen for the patient community. I'm really excited that we are expanding our leverage finance Fights melanoma platform globally, bringing in the private equity leaders who've been supporting our mission since day one and expanding that story and that impact and our influence within London in the uk. And I think the last thing is I'm really excited for the team that we have. We have an incredible team at Emory. I'm excited for the new opportunities that we're exploring around narrative AI storytelling. I'm excited for them to embrace that. I'm excited for the growth and the confidence that I see building this team. And at the end of the day, the day I look forward to is when I can shift out of cancer research into something else because we have found a way to solve for that. But we have a lot of great opportunities at the impact that we're having. And I'm really excited how we're scaling it across science, across our partnerships and relationships and the impact that we're going to have for patients. We're launching a lot of new programs and people can come to curemelanoma.org to kind of see all that Great work.
- [47:42]
Savannah Brewer
Awesome. Well, this has been so amazing. Thank you for such a unique angle of wisdom around the storytelling and vision, something we talk a lot about. And I think there was a lot of just new ways of looking at the that and around the partnerships as well. It was really amazing. So thank you so much, Stephanie for your time.
- [48:00]
Stephanie Kaufman
With pleasure. And thank you for this opportunity. I love spending some time with you.
- [48:10]
Cameron Herold
You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO alliance founder Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com.