CX Decoded Podcast Episode 16: CMO Leadership Challenges and Opportunities

Note: This transcript has been edited for space and clarity.

Dom: We talked a lot in the beginning stages of the pandemic about how to market in a time of crisis, how to be a marketer at a time of crisis. How do you market despite a future of uncertainty?

Rich: This year has really proven to be just as challenging for marketers, who are still digging out of the crisis, and now they're dealing with new seismic shifts that include hybrid working and quickly-changing consumer habits and more. So who better to talk to than a CMO at a time like this, and today, we don't have just any CMO.

Today we have with us Stephanie Moritz, chief marketing and communications officer at the American Dental Association (ADA). In her role there she designs and delivers insights, and designs all with the goal of placing the customer at the heart of what they do. So without further ado, welcome to the podcast, Stephanie.

Stephanie Moritz: Oh, thank you so much for having me. And you're definitely talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart since I am in healthcare with the American Dental Association.

Rich: Yeah, I heard you say in a previous interview that you did that you are in the mouth of the pandemic, which I thought was funny.

Stephanie: It's the truth. We literally were in the mouth when this all began. And it's certainly been quite an adventure, but just very proud of the industry and the ADA, the members and the leadership, and also the patients throughout this entire time period.

Dom: You know what's great, Stephanie, is you joined us and got such good feedback from your keynote at the 2019 DX Summit, that's our own conference. It was in Chicago, our very last in-person event, can you believe it? November of 2019. You talked about a culture of curiosity, and how that can resonate for all of us in business really in life, too.

So I am super interested to hear how that approach took off during the pandemic, where you had to establish these new norms and just totally shift your marketing strategies and everything. And I wonder how that kind of fit in. So, before we get into how everything played out for the last 18 months, let's talk about you know yourself, how you landed in that spot. You're in now with the ADA and a little bit about the ADA for our listeners.

.@smoritz of the American Dental Association- "What if we considered innovation as the result of thoughtfulness"? #DXS19 pic.twitter.com/3I22lsHaz1

— DX Summit (@thedxsummit) November 6, 2019

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm very proud to be at the American Dental Association. And I've been with the organization seven years. And the ADA for folks who are not familiar with it, it's the leading healthcare association for the profession of dentistry. So it's really everything from the science behind dentistry, the practice, there's the lobbying efforts, and we put really the dental team and the dentist, as well as the patient, in the center.

So really, our vision is about empowering the dental profession to achieve optimal health for all. And what led me here? I have been in a variety of exciting communications, marketing and other leadership roles, really for the past 25 years. I am a transformer and a branded growth accelerant, and I've had just really the pleasure of working with organizations such as Disney, Jim Beam brands, Hershey, ConAgra foods, and I'm pleased to be with the ADA.

Rich: Could you tell us a little bit about Chief, I know that you're a founding member of Chief, Chicago.

Stephanie: I am very proud to be a member of Chief. Chief is a network that really centers on empowering women leaders, and just helping the C-Suite of women find that group to learn from, to rally around, as we look to create more opportunities, may they be board positions or helping future women enter the C-Suite. So really proud to be a member of Chief.

Dom: Stephanie, let's talk about the impact because obviously COVID impacted every organization and you're in healthcare. So the impact had to have been tremendous. Tell us about those immediate impacts and changes as you started with the ADA as COVID came on in the early days of 2020.

Stephanie: I'll tell you, we were definitely in the mouth of COVID. As this all began, we went from being in office to literally overnight, moving to home operations. So certainly we went you know, from kind of analog to digital immediately. And with that, with the American Dental Association, being the leader in dentistry, I'll tell you, it was exciting, because the entire organization stopped what it was doing, and really focused on what was most important to our members and dentists and the patients, which was having the right COVID information and resources.

So we literally turned on a dime, the entire organization from science practice, our government affairs, communications, you name it, we went from different departments to sharing one clear goal. And I'm one of the co-sponsors of the executive team, and through that, we set up four to five agile teams. And each team we did everything from daily standups to we worked collectively to constantly update information.

So an example is, you know, we created a web page that, I can tell you over the course of COVID, we've updated that page more than 200 times based on the new information that's out there, or information on PPE, or in terms of how to secure some loans through the CARES Act. So we really shifted. So we've been leveraging agile for a number of years. But this really put it front and center.

And to see the entire organization and to lead the organization through refocusing its efforts and strengths here was exciting. So it also was certainly tireless, the team worked around the clock. And I'm really proud of all that the group was able to do together from you know, providing dentists with guidelines and guidance, helping them to understand safety processes in their offices, to how to communicate with patients, to how to acquire PPE, that was really hard to get. So throughout that entire time we did that.

We also created new communication channels to communicate that real-time information, everything from webinars to Power of Three chats. Because being the national organization, we wanted to work with our partners in state and local associations to be sure that we were doing everything we could together as efficiently as we can.

And I'm just proud to say that during this time, we achieved 11.5 billion media impressions, as well as our highest Net Promoter Score to date.

Rich: That is impressive. We know that digital adoption was increased. Everybody saw that. But what did that actually mean for the American Dental Association? And you talked a little bit of a moment ago about how you solve some of those problems. But what did that actually look like for your organization?

Stephanie: So we have been on a path of digital transformation for the past few years. And what this did is it actually accelerated it. And it underscored the need to be digital, and also to operate in that agile methodology, not just for technology, but across the entire organization.

So what this did is it it helped us actually advance, you know, some of the two-way communication that we were trying to do, as well as really putting the customer at the center of the content. I mean, the COVID page that we created was perfect for this. It wasn't about the customer, the dentist going around to find it, we put them in the middle. So it really helped to not only demonstrate, you know the power of working together, but the power of focus, as well as the critical nature of digital in order to reach out and provide individuals with real-time information, and we all know that the information from COVID continues to change rapidly. So this just really was an accelerant for us.

Dom: You imagine going through a pandemic in the early 20th century with no digital, with no internet? How did they communicate back then? How did they do it?

Rich: Town Crier, Dom.

Dom: Right. I mean, you had to find out, you know, a day later that you shouldn't go out and be next to someone within 6 feet. It was crazy. But that said, Stephanie, as great as digital is to have, there are so many challenges around it, you said you had to create a few new communications channels. Tell us a little bit more about that, like, where did that information land? What kind of channels were you creating? And, and you know, where are your existing technologies standing up for that? Or did you have to kind of support that with new technologies?

Stephanie: Well, we certainly needed, Zoom was something that existed, but we needed just that heartbeat of communication, so that we could really flip from all of our in-person to digital, regardless of where folks were located. So we did leverage Zoom, we also leveraged Microsoft Teams, which has been important to us. We also for our project management, for agile, we leveraged Trello, and other new tools that we hadn't used quite in this way.

So that part was pretty exciting. Plus, the good news was that we already were doing digital events. But it really meant doing even more and expanding on the amount of digital events, may they be webinars, may they be Zoom calls. We even held our annual meeting digitally, completely digitally this year. And you could imagine, usually, that's an event where we see about 22,000 individuals in person.

So again, all of this required us going to going back to design thinking and putting our customer in the center, in this case, our dentist, and ensuring that everything that we did was in service for our dentist.

And then on the flip side, a little less technology, but still critically important, was the employee side, because you go from a workforce that is used to working side-by-side to now everybody is on Zoom. And so it really took understanding the technology and using it differently. And that's where having a culture of curiosity was really able to use some of the technologies for us to use the chat feature, for us to ask regular questions, for us to, you know, engage folks in a very different way. So we're taking these lessons and pulling them forward and what we're doing. I think it's making us stronger.

Rich: Stephanie, would you just real quickly, for the people who are unfamiliar with design thinking, just give like a brief definition.

Stephanie: Sure. So design thinking, which is also called human-centered insights, it's all about putting the customer in the center of all you do. And this is through qualitative and quantitative research, but it's also getting out and walking in the shoes of that consumer or customer. And taking that really rich information, distilling it to identify a compelling insight that then can enable greater connections with that customer moving forward.

Rich: You know, with your marketing team pivoting, I'm sure there were skills gaps that you came across, could you talk a little bit about the challenges your marketing team faced where they had to improve?

Stephanie: Well, one of the key things I'd say just for the organization overall, was design thinking. And this is something that I brought to the ADA when I joined, really putting the customer at the center. And so many organizations, they might just put their external customer at the center, but you need to equally put your internal customer at the center.

So a key piece was kind of, you know, dusting off design thinking. And both internally, as well as externally, we did regular polls and leveraged research, just to understand what our dentist is going through, what's most important to them, as well as our employees. What are their greatest concerns? How can we stay connected? And all of that became real-time data that we use to pivot and make changes and really it helped to inform our decisions along the way.

Rich: You know, you've mentioned your customers a couple times, and I'm sorry for not knowing this, but can you define specifically who the ADA's customers are internal and external?

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. So we are proud to have over 162,000 members, and our members are our dentists. So we're thrilled to partner with dentists as well as certainly we work with amazing dental teams. Our internal group would be our staff, but also, being a member driven organization, we have a very active board and very active leadership.

So for us what was critical was to bring these pieces together: our internal leadership, our board, as well as our staff, and then certainly our customers being the dentists. But I don't want to forget another important customer for us is also the patients, because we have that dual focus. So for us, we needed to look across those customers, and again, using design thinking, really to dig in to understand what was most important so that the information we put out there would be spot on, that we were helping them in the right way.

Like, for example: we recognized at the beginning of COVID, dentistry was not even on FEMA's list as a priority to get PPE. And when you think about dentists, they are right there working in the patient's mouth, they are right there. So through the amazing work of the team and government affairs, dentistry was elevated to be number four on FEMA's list, which opened up opportunities for dentists to get the PPE that they need it in order to continue to be essential and provide the essential services that patients needed. So again, it truly has been kind of that Herculean effort across.

Dom: They better move up on the emergency list. Stephanie, because I had a dental emergency during the pandemic. I was in terrible pain in like April or May of 2020. It ended up being a wisdom tooth that needed to be pulled, was one of those rare cases, I guess where you're 42-years-old, and you still have to do that. But I did, and I was seen very quickly, it was smooth, we had an assessment went to another place across town, and they pulled it. It was absolutely amazing how they got me out of that pain in the pandemic. I was very nervous about that. You know, that was early days to pandemic, too, right. So I get it, I mean that I'm so glad to hear that, FEMA recognized that.

You know, Stephanie, when we met, you talked about something that really resonated with me, you talked about senior leaders in an organization in your organization getting out there going through the customer journey, you told me that you can't just design a customer experience, you have to live it first, find what's wrong, speak the same language. And then as a team, design, that customer experience because you're going through it yourself.

That was taken away from you. Right? During the last 18 months, you can't get together during a pandemic. So in a digital sense, where you able to kind of build on that same momentum of walking the customer shoes, even though you didn't have access to in-person?

Stephanie: Oh, we absolutely did. Digital became really the lifeline throughout this entire time, our lifeline in regards to communicating but also gaining valuable insight. So we did. So we shifted from instead of physically going out into the dental office, we held virtual focus groups and conversations. We're very fortunate, we have what we call the advisory circle, where we have a panel of members as well as non-member dentists that we're able to tap into, just to really gain their insights and to do that co-creation.

So we use that, we also digitally worked with a firm that through our Health Policy Institute, called Engages, and through this external firm, that partner with Health Policy Institute, we were able to understand other trends within the industry, other worries, other concerns. And we did this both to understand the patient side, but also to understand the dentist and the dental business side. So we constantly were pulling this in digitally to really adapt our efforts.

So we did this in many ways. We also on the staff side, did regular surveys, as well as we brought the group of directors together, online digitally by Zoom to have conversations with them. We also created town halls that were all virtual, where we could answer questions, but also get really important feedback.

So I think the moral of this is, is keeping that feedback loop that is so critical to design thinking, you know, to prototype, to pivot, to adapt, that just became even more important. And we needed to get really super curious and ensure that we weren't losing sight on that really important method for us.

Rich: I'm curious to know if like many organizations your organization pivoted to focus more on customer retention and customer loyalty and I'd also like to know what kind of pressure was put on you to grow. I mean, it was definitely a tumultuous and still evolving marketplace. How was that for you?

Stephanie: You know what we really believed that by focusing all of our effort on what was most important to dentists was going to be the best possible strategy. Talk about getting clear, I mean, uber-clear on what the most important insight would be this was it. So that's where we turned other things off. We weren't selling just to sell, we literally diverted everything for this.

And the results are in, I mean, I look at one of our objectives has been to grow women and grow diverse members to join the organization, and we're doing so. So again, I feel like this is almost that case study for focusing, and for really understanding what's most important, and by when you really invest behind it, it works for you. I mean, we did need to get more efficient throughout this period. But it was just by providing that information. I mean, the responses we got from our dentists just blew us away.

We also did a survey because we wanted to see how are we doing, and we found that we from dentists were above the CDC, in regards to the top resource where dentist went. We also saw that 98% of our dentists found the information valuable. We also saw an increased number of dentists who said that they would be more apt to join because of the role we played during this period. So I'm really pleased to share that.

Dom: Stephanie, earlier, you mentioned the feedback loops that were so important in the digital world, collecting that voice of the customer. But the feedback comes in so many different avenues, so many different channels. How do you view as a CMO at the ADA feedback loops, and actually gathering that material, making it consistently available and actionable?

I mean, what kind of tools are you using to establish like voice of the customer? You know, because you can have a great conference call with an advisory board, but if you're not capturing, it's just in your head. You know, what, what good does that do? So how are you? How are you approaching that?

Stephanie: Well, I'll tell you, a key piece for this really just certainly technology, but also just how we worked by working in an agile fashion and by having daily stand-up meetings for I'll say, our COVID response group. That team came together. And again, we had individuals across our business unit, across science, across research, all the different units had representation. So by those individuals getting together regularly, sometimes a couple times during the day, we were able to share those insights.

So they didn't go in a corner, they didn't get locked up, they didn't get put away. Instead, they were actionable. And by us putting to use Trello, in this case, and creating that card right away, we were able to prioritize the input that came in, as well as how to act on it. So this became our living record, really Trello throughout this, became our living record and our archive of what we were focused on now, as well as creating our backlog.

So it really was a combination of getting organized so that we could tap into the various inputs, may they be focus-group information, may it be our call-center information, may it be feedback from the states. So kind of pulling all that together, and then actioning it in real time, just made all the difference for us.

Rich: You said you used Trello to share that information. Is that something that you use to help break down silos? I know you mentioned you had a stakeholder from all your different departments. But you know, I think that's a challenge within every organization is yeah, we have all this data and we have stakeholders, but it's still somehow getting siloed. So was that an effective tool?

Stephanie: It absolutely was because what was beautiful about this for the various enterprise-wide teams, each team had their Trello, where we included kind of the priority hot topics, as well as what we're doing what was done. And by having kind of that visual, that visual, I'll say library or archive, right in front of you, it capture things that weren't division-specific. We were literally looking at the response. And in this case, you know, the inputs to that response.

So here you have a you have a science that's talking to CDC, alongside you know, government affairs, that's looking to, you know, work through the CARES Act, all of that in one place. What was beautiful about is it took out the divisions, it took out the silos, so it really became business and customer focused. And it was all there in one place.

So for the four to five enterprise-wide teams we had they each had this Trello, and then our Scrum masters for each of these teams would get together regularly to be sure that nothing, to your point, was not lost or missed. That was on one board versus another. So it helped us to visualize and to organize, and to operationalize, very quickly, kind of those bundles and those efforts.

Dom: Stephanie, how does the ADA and your marketing team plan to maintain this clarity and focus that you discovered, in the last 18 months, moving forward?

Stephanie: Well, I'll tell you, the good news is we are guided by our strategic plan that has four main goals in terms of membership, financial sustainability, capacity and the public. And with this, certainly COVID has taught us the critical nature of focus, and not spreading yourself too thin. So we're utilizing that to be sure that we have just a couple of very top priority strategies under each.

And then with those, those actually are our enterprise-wide teams. So I can tell you, for example, COVID used to be its standalone team, that team is now an emerging issues enterprise team. So what this has enabled us to do is pull that forward, because it's COVID today, it could be amalgam, or something else tomorrow. So this team stays in contact, and it continues to kind of pull through that focus on the emerging issues.

The same thing can be said through our membership, and our emerging growth segments, where we have a dedicated enterprise-wide team there as well. And through that, we then utilize Trello, as our technology or backbone to be able to, again, help us move more quickly get clear and specific and prioritize.

So I'm really happy to say that we're living this, we continue to live this, even as COVID evolves, that's still our emerging issue, that's front and center. But we're using this across the different teams, the organization, because it's been such a key point in, there's not one individual that hasn't seen the benefit of the focus, as well as the organization, regardless of where you sit, utilizing your strengths to accomplish what's most important for our customer.

Rich: Thanks Stephanie. You know, I have some questions coming up around the learning and culture of your organization. But before we move off, you know, the specific marketing topics. What does it mean for your organization, when we talk about pivoting to first-party data and your data collection methods?

Stephanie: This continues to be very important for us, I mean, looking at us as a membership-driven organization, we need to be able to best understand each individual member. So with it, we continue to leverage data, and this is one of the elements driving our digital transformation. If you rewind the clock, you would look back at the ADA and even some of our digital properties, as well, I'm the customer, I have to go seek out what I'm looking for, versus putting that customer at the center.

So this information just becomes the fuel to be able to better customize, better provide more information based on your search, your interest and your history. So this continues to be front and center for us as a relates to our members, you know, the information is going to allow us to be a better partner for them.

Dom: Yeah, and data collection methods, Stephanie, go hand-in-hand with how organizations approach personalization. I've been covering marketing space for about seven-eight years. Now, in the beginning, it was day-to-day-to-day to collect as much as possible. And now the laws are coming in and saying, don't do that. Or do it in a smarter way that protects privacy and gives, you know, gives consumers an option to opt out with some laws, you see in several state laws coming in and different approaches about opt in, opt out. How does your marketing team approach personalization?

Stephanie: Well, I'll tell you, this is kind of an ever-changing world, as you'd mentioned. You know, for us, we're most interested in leveraging those insights, as well as in this case, utilizing digital and data to be sure that the experience is relevant to you.

And you know, with that I can share one example even through COVID, because we're very transparent. So for example, we created a toolkit. And this toolkit was available to members as well as non-members. We did ask our non members for them to opt in, in terms of sharing their name and their email in order to get this information. So we were very clear on that. That also has allowed us to, you know, since that point, have some conversations with these individuals. And in fact, we've seen a conversion for some of these individuals, joining the American Dental Association.

So I think again, it comes down to really putting the customer front and center first putting their interests front and center, as well as understanding what is most important to them, and then being very transparent. And then as we are in the midst of our digital transformation, as we're curating that experience that's right for that individual, again, putting them more in the driver's seat. So they're determining what they feel comfortable with, what information they want to see, and how and when they want to receive it.

Rich: Yeah, I was going to follow up with how you approach that personalization with your customers like what that actually looks like for them. But sounds like you talked a little bit about it there.

Stephanie: Yes, again, there's a lot of data out there, right and a lot of information, but it's really in how you use it. And that's why it's a combination of the design thinking and understanding what's most important, but then also, based on the individual and the product that they've purchased, or the call that they've made, or an article that they've read, really taking that intelligence and then helping to make a better experience for them.

Because we don't want them to be out there doing a scavenger hunt, trying to find it. We recognize just how valuable time is. And we want to be able to have that information and bundle it so that it can be utilized very quickly and efficiently, and just be very highly relevant for our customer.

Rich: And it helps to be always curious, which is something you've talked about today ended in the past. So I'd love for you to share with the audience, what you do to foster that culture of curiosity within your organization?

Stephanie: Well, I'll tell you, it has been such an exciting journey to create this culture of curiosity. And it's really prevalent, just across the fabric of all that we do. So, for example, and this is even before the pandemic, but it became even more critical during it. When I look at my team, we would have stand-ups. And with that the entire division would get together. So it's certainly a place to be able to share real-time information. But it's also a chance to recognize and connect ourselves as individuals and full people.

So here was a time where I asked many questions, we talked openly about how we were doing, things that we missed, our worries, what kept us up at night, our concerns. There were many of these calls were folks would laugh, they would cry, they would share. And by creating that culture of curiosity, we just increased our connection as people more than workers, but as people. And upon talking with my team, as well as other teams across the American Dental Association, I'll tell you, it blew my mind that upon talking with them, and looking at the research, that engagement actually increased, and individuals felt more connected, even though we were further apart physically.

So that's one example. But other examples, it's really a combination of we asked regular questions, regular surveys, we wanted to get feedback, we had the town halls, just we really opened up a variety of different channels. So that curiosity continued to play a role throughout it. So curiousity views was one point.

But another equally important point is empathy. Really being an empathetic leader during this time. I believe there are three types of leaders, there are leaders who lean in and are going to continue to test and learn and pivot. There's some leaders who kind of pause and we'll look to see what's working. And there are other leaders that are kind of waiting, maybe hoping that the world will go back the way it was.

So I think constantly having that curious mindset and leaning in, and just connecting with individuals, as well as finding ways to have fun, you know, different activities, you know, throughout this time, even though we were apart, was just really critical to keeping that spirit of curiosity engaged, and also keeping the energy level up during this very tireless time.

Rich: That is a great lesson.

Dom: Stephanie, I hear so many different answers to this following question. With CMOs and technical skills. You know, you had one analyst tell me that he had a CMO that didn't know what a web content management system was. And that's fine. If they they might not need to know where the organization what that is. Their tech team, their marketing tech folks, operations, might handle that.

Throughout this whole 18 months. Have you personally as a CMO had to get better, more equipped with your technical game more than ever, because you just weren't in person? I've seen you in person. You are an absolutely lovely human being. You know how to communicate so well. Your team has won awards throughout this past year, multiple awards. But when you're in your house, you have to have some technical chops. If you're the CMO in your kitchen. How did you have to adapt?

Stephanie: You know what it took? It took the back office, and I appreciate kind of, you know, the technology. I think about having worked for Disney you have onstage and then you've backstage, right? There's so much that goes on backstage. And as a CMO, I needed to get backstage and absolutely to understand, the technology, what was working what was not. So it did require diving in deeper and trying different things out. It also, the good news is I have a very close partnership, and my counterpart, leading the digital transformation is the chief technology officer. So we engage regularly, and our teams already we're engaging regularly and upped it during this time.

So for us, it meant really understanding the design, but also understanding the technology here, do we have the right CMS? You know, it just everything that went behind it, so that we could be sure that we were working in lockstep. So I'd say the answer is absolutely, yes, I think it definitely, you know, personally, my skills have been sharpened. And it's a good reminder of the importance of a bit of both, of really engaging both the front onstage as well as the backstage to ensure that the operation works well.

Rich: You know, that brings up a great point. If you step back a little bit, I'd like to hear a little bit from you about how you keep yourself educated in a field like marketing that is constantly changing.

Stephanie: So a variety of different ways, I take the mentality that I'm a perpetual student. And with that, that's why design thinking resonates so strongly, just because it's constant, it doesn't stop, that learning cycle. So it's everything from, for example, I participated in three virtual focus groups, where I had an opportunity to really listen in and understand feedback.

So part of it's, again, putting yourself right in the center, so you can understand what's going on. It's also, I look at Chief. Chief has been such an amazing resource in regards to meeting other C-Suite leaders to sharpening different skills to sharing best practices. So I am part of a core group that meets regularly through Chief as well as I constantly am tapping into different sessions.

I also am a member of the Association of National Advertisers. So being a part of their global growth initiative. It's also a way to be able to engage with others take learnings that are outside of your industry and be able to apply them inside.

The final thing I'll say is we're doing some research right now. Because the last 18 months has shown us it's really critically important to understand the value and what's most important to our members. But also we need to understand the values of our members, and what our members expect of an association that they join. So I guess I would tell you that I feel like I'm a running machine in terms of, I'm listening, I'm learning and then I'm operationalizing.

Dom: Rich. I'm thinking there's so many good sound bites from this, like how do you put together like a little marketing snippet for Stephanie Moritz's podcast, I just can't figure it out. This is too many. I love the perpetual student one is a great one. What a great line. I am a perpetual student. That's what I feel like as a husband, Stephanie. I'm a perpetual student, learning how to get better.

Rich: A remedial student Dom.

Dom: I'm in like fourth grade, basically, in that department. Rich, I'm trying I'm trying, man.

Stephanie, let's bring this home. You've given so many good talking points. You've led us into the world of a CMO, the world of the ADA, a healthcare organization during a pandemic, this is gold. Bring it home by telling us, you're on stage at the next DX Summit from CMSWire the next in-person event, let's call it oh, I don't know late spring 2022. What's your big takeaway? What do you tell the audience of marketers from your huge one lesson learned from the past 18 months?

Stephanie: I think it is all about catalytic leadership. And what's catalytic leadership? It's when you put your employees and your customers, the people around you, truly in the center. It's servant leadership. It's really understanding what's most important and being an agent for change to get there. To me, that's what is taught me the most during this time. I mean, this has helped just in the decisions that I know that I've made within marketing, that we've made within the organization. And also personally, because again, when you think about just catalytic leadership, part of this is about essentialism. It's saying yes to what matters, and no to everything else.

Because when you say yes to something, you're really saying no to something. So be purposeful, and have the right intention on where you focus your time, but put your audience's right there in the center, so that you can help truly enable that crystallization and focus, as well as just to increase that energy to be able to celebrate those successes, learn from the things that you need to pivot from, and move forward.

Rich: I'm sure there's more changes to come, Stephanie. Thank you so much for joining us today. Before we close out the show, could you please share with the audience where they can connect and follow you to learn more?

Stephanie: Absolutely, please, I'd love for the audience to engage with me on LinkedIn. I am Stephanie Crase Moritz, also Twitter, I am at @smoritz. And I'd love for folks to be able to connect with me, and let's keep the curious conversation going.