Navigating the Landscape of Professional Networking and Diversity with Jacqueline Morgan

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Jacqueline Morgan is a seasoned professional with a strong background in the technology industry, currently serving as VP of Industry SaaS Solutions at VMware. Throughout her career, she has displayed exceptional skills in portfolio management, sales management, software development life cycle (SDLC), and management consulting.

Jacqueline's commitment to innovation and leadership has made her an invaluable asset to various organizations, including Furry Friends Pet Assisted Therapy as a Board Member, Cognizant as the Head of Industry Product & Business Development, GTM & Innovation, and UC Irvine as an Advisory Board Member for the CX Program.

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Jacqueline Morgan:
Hello, hello! Good morning.

Host:
Good morning! How are you doing today?

Jacqueline Morgan:
Good! Today is a good day.

Host:
It is? Well, it's actually afternoon where I am, by the way.

Jacqueline Morgan:
Okay, yeah, good afternoon. It's bright and early, 9:06 a.m. Yes, in California.

Host:
Dragged you out, huh?

Jacqueline Morgan:
That's okay. You know what? I like this. I like having conversations. So, this is great.

Host:
Well, we'll have one today. I'm going to introduce you here. So, for those who don't know, this is Jacqueline Morgan. She's currently the VP of Industry at VMware. She's a board member at a pet therapy place, which I think is very interesting. She's been head of Industry at Cognizant, so she's been in the industry for quite a long time. And I think I'm lucky to be able to speak to her here and learn a little bit from her as well, and I hope you guys do too. So, welcome to the podcast!

Jacqueline Morgan:
Excellent, let's get into it!

Host:
Yeah! For those who don't know, what exactly does a VP of Industry at a company do? Let's talk about the team and what the team does, because really what happens in the software world is that our software's complicated, and particularly for us at VMware, everybody raced to this multi-cloud journey, and really, thank you, COVID created a lot of cloud chaos. And now that we're kind of coming out the backside of that, many companies, many of our customers, are stepping back and saying, "I need to refine how all of my on-prem, hyperscaler components work, and I need somebody that knows me, knows my industry, understands what I'm trying to do, and what my competitors are already doing. Help me stay ahead of the curve." And so, that's where individuals with industry solutions backgrounds, a depth and breadth of understanding of the workflows, the processes, and the regulatory environments by geography—that's really important when you're trying to go from cloud chaos to cloud smart. Right?

Jacqueline Morgan:
And that's what my team does.

Host:
Fantastic. So, is that something where for each industry you go in, learn about it, or are you in charge of a particular industry and then sort of consistently onboard members of that industry into your solutions?

Jacqueline Morgan:
Yeah, it's really about bringing individuals who have a depth and breadth of experience in industry. So, I focus primarily on financial services, healthcare, life sciences, and retail.

Host:
So, if you take a look at banks, they want to modernize their IT infrastructure, they want to drive operational agility, top-line growth, and security—all at scale around the world—and they use our digital foundation. So, we have individuals on our financial services industry team who know how to build, run, manage, connect, and protect any app on any cloud on any device.

Jacqueline Morgan:
And the outcome of that is to help our financial services and insurance customers to drive better customer experience, better employee experience, protect everybody's data, and really improve the trust across the industry. In healthcare, it's slightly different. In healthcare, I have a group of very talented and experienced healthcare SMEs that appreciate that the pandemic really changed the healthcare industry forever. And now more than ever, providers and care teams, clinicians, staff—they all rely on technology to communicate, to diagnose, to treat, and to stand up new services at a moment's notice. And they need to be able to do that quickly. Yet, retailers are in a completely different world. You know, they're trying to innovate faster, they're trying to keep up with customers and the experiences that you and I are demanding, and they have to do that while.. So, they're managing proactively managing blank Legacy retail infrastructure. So even something as simple as those point of sale terminals that we're all very accustomed to using, they can be constrained by Legacy systems behind the scenes that our team, based on what they know about living and breathing retail every day, can help them evolve. Just a couple of examples: We have also energy individuals in our VMware team, we have people who focus on manufacturing and automotive, we have civil and defense, telco, but the three that I focus on are retail, healthcare, and financial services and insurance.

Host: 

Right, right. So, if we go from, like, based on basically one industry at a time, what was interesting to me, I guess, in what you said was sort of how exactly do you tackle something like retail? Because the thing that speaks to even my personal experiences, like, you know, these point of sale systems, and it's hard to think about all the changes that have happened, or at least even over the last 10 years, and how those point of sale systems, as they are, they haven't changed. But a lot has changed on the backend necessarily of those, sort of, those retail conglomerates or businesses. So, how do you actually maintain, I guess, how do you maintain that older system and nervous system and all the complexities that that comes with?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right, because every new thing you introduce interacts with a set of new things, and that increases the number of interactions and increases the complexity so that you lose value every time that happens because of, because you've introduced complexity. And how do you manage that?

Host: 

You know, it's so, yes, everything that you just said. And now layer in the complexity of you walk into a store, and you stand in front of a mirror, and you take a shirt, and you hold it in front of the mirror, and the mirror now displays that shirt on your body in the mirror. And you can touch—you can touch the mirror, and you can determine if that shirt is in stock in your size in that store or another store. And if it's not, what stores remotely, what is available? Once you do that, you start to kick off an entire ecosystem of additional parties that are helping that store deliver that experience to you in that moment. But you want to order that shirt, and that shirt is at a store, let's say 200 miles away. That shirt's going to be delivered in a box in two or three days.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

What has to happen in the back end in order to execute on that experience that you expect to have, and millions of other consumers expect to have, is really quite extraordinary. Because the level of integrations between not just the retailers, and not just their backend, not just their edge technology in the store in that moment, but everything that they need to support behind the scenes from a supply chain and a partner ecosystem perspective is really quite remarkable. And so, when our retail team shows up to talk to a Walmart or a Lowe's or a Loblaws or Marks and Spencer, they have to understand that entire ecosystem that each retailer is actually kind of uniquely trying to evolve because the strength of the ecosystem of all those partners and how well they work together is the competitive differentiator.

Host: 

Right, right. And VMware facilitates those relationships?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yes, well, when we build solutions, right, when we build those retail solutions, when we build the retail edge solution or the point of sale modernization solution, and we take it to any one of those brands that I just referenced, we have to understand them. We have to understand them very specifically and very uniquely and how they operate and what their ecosystem looks like.

Host: 

Now, do you have a number of retailers in the United Kingdom that may share an ecosystem?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Absolutely, but they're also delivering globally. Right? Most retail brands are global. When we go to work with Canadian Tire, we need to understand very specifically the ecosystem that they work in geographically, but also more broadly. So, we look at the solution and we create it with the workflows and the specifics of the industry in mind, but then the...

Host: 

Real magic comes when we sit down with our account teams, with our field sellers, and our partners and say, "Okay, very specifically in this unique environment, it's actually going to look like this." It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's not the Henry Ford "everybody gets a black car." That doesn't work.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

And the same thing happens in healthcare, I mean, even at a much larger scale and with a much more diverse ecosystem—payer, provider, U.S., Norway, Australia—and even thinking about how you deliver to healthcare service providers in Asia Pacific, that ecosystem is even more diverse. Absolutely, and the regulations are much more significant. At the end of the day, think about all those different geographies from a healthcare perspective. And healthcare... it's right, which makes sense, right? The regulatory environment for retail, I would say, is less complex than the regulatory and global regulatory environment for healthcare service providers, okay, and for life sciences as well. So you really have to be able to bring a depth and breadth of not just subject matter expertise to the table in the industry for each individual customer, but also understanding localized regional differences and nuances that are going to impact your ecosystem.

Building strong professional networking for career advancement within the healthcare sector is crucial in understanding these local nuances and the regulatory challenges faced by providers in each region. By developing relationships across diverse healthcare markets, you can anticipate needs and tailor services accordingly. Inclusive networking within these global markets ensures a well-rounded approach that considers all stakeholders' perspectives, leading to better solutions and more successful outcomes.

When you approach healthcare from a global perspective, professional networking ensures that you are able to bridge the gaps between different geographies, bringing valuable insights into how to best serve each region’s unique needs. Effective communication in networking becomes key in such a diverse landscape, as it allows you to align on objectives and collaborate effectively across different cultures and regulatory environments. Additionally, diversity in networking is not just about reaching different people; it's about connecting with individuals from various professional backgrounds, which can bring innovative solutions to the table. Finally, with the rise of digital communication, social media networking has become an essential tool in these interactions, enabling real-time collaboration and information sharing across the globe.

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Host: 

So you talked a bit about, at least on the healthcare side, the need to spontaneously spin up resources. Is that unique to healthcare? I mean, no, I'm sure this scaling, but is there something about healthcare where you mentioned that? Or is that just in general?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

I would assume it is in general for retail because there are seasonal purchases. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I mean, if you think that healthcare has that as well, why would it have that? Well, think about what we just went through, right? Think about what we all just went through globally is that, at a moment's notice—and the result of the pandemic has... I'll give you a personal example.

My father-in-law was recently diagnosed with cancer. Now, my mother 13 years ago had leukemia, so I've kind of been on this journey before. I've experienced the clinical environment that you need to walk through with someone who's on that path, and I spent yesterday afternoon at my father-in-law's house marveling at the fact that he was having a consult with the oncologist and the surgeon about his particular situation remotely.

Right, now the appointment was delayed 45 minutes. My experience with my mom years ago was that you had to go to the hospital, and you had to sit in the hospital waiting room and bring some snacks and a warm blanket because you're gonna be there for a while. And, you know, everybody's trying to do their best that they can, and you see the person, you see the oncologist and the surgeon.

When you see them, the experience has fundamentally changed because of remote patient access. Because clinicians are now able to communicate, diagnose, treat, and leverage those new service moments as an outcome of how we all walked through the pandemic together.

People have said, "I don't want to come in. I don't want to have to go sit in the room and wait. I'd rather wait. I'm already sick. I'd rather wait in the comfort of my own home, walk to my own fridge and get a snack and sit on the couch and wait for you to be available. Thank you very much."

Host: 

Exactly.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

And hospitals and clinical environments have to respond in that way. They have to be able to provide that. And then, of course, they have to manage all of the complexities around electronic medical records and privacy and data and security while providing that kind of experience. And also, many of those clinicians and care providers might also be working remotely.

Host: 

Mm-hmm.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

So it's complicated.

Host: 

Sounds like it.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

It's wonderful from a customer, from an individual perspective, right, that the care has transitioned into this much more human experience of how we support people.  So, what I'm sort of digesting is a lot of these industries are leveraging technology to facilitate convenience for different purposes. So, over for retail, it's a more convenient experience on making a selection; for healthcare, it's more convenient service provisioning; and I would also assume that in finance, with different kinds of regulatory concerns, it's sort of the same thing. So, is there overlap? Because I would assume that with healthcare, the regulation you're going to slap on is going to be a lot different from finance. But, in terms of the scaling concerns, will they be a little bit different? Because, you know, the reasons why people go to or ask for an account at a bank and the reasons why people want to see a doctor, those are more spontaneous things. Like you just talked about with COVID, and in general, people don’t plan to get sick, but people kind of know when they want to get a house. So, there will be some scaling concerns, but the fundamental experience of making a call and talking to someone on the technology side is essentially going to be the same. 

Host: So, are there opportunities for overlap in solutioning that you guys are leveraging and packaging things for different industries in different ways? Are there units that you can put together that will work in several places?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yes, but okay, right. So, let me go back to when you started this question. You used a word that I kind of went, "I'm not sure that that is a word I agree with," and that's the word "convenience." I would say it’s not broad enough. It's about expectations—your expectations, my expectations, expectations of individuals that are older than both you and I, and expectations of people that are younger than both you and I, expectations of regulators, governments, politicians, expectations of corporations. We all have a different set of expectations that we are being required to line up behind, serving the experience that we all want to have and how quickly. Thank you very much, Amazon, we want to have things, services, provided to us. You can take a look at the financial services industry. They've done an absolutely amazing job of providing us with the kind of hat trick—if you’re Canadian, if you're a hockey player, the trifecta of security, trust at scale, now, anytime, wherever you want, sending money to anyone around the world safely, securely. When’s the last time you walked into a bank? When’s the last time you paid cash for anything? I remember somebody actually asked me for cash; they preferred to have cash. I kind of looked at them and thought, I don’t even remember the last time that I had cash in my pocket. And how well they've been able to meet those expectations over time. And I mean, look at— you can buy crypto on PayPal. So, everybody in the financial services industry, in particular, is constantly adapting and re-adapting at scale around the world. So, certain industries are really leading the charge. Financial services is a big one, and healthcare is also another big one, and retail. That's why we focus on those three as the kind of global industries because, yes, from a customer experience, from a complexity, and from a regulatory point of view, they're all incredibly unique in terms of what they demand. But you're right, there are pieces and parts of the fundamentals that we can get right on the back end from an infrastructure point of view that our product teams deeply understand, but it's all the nuances of those other components that really differentiate certainly us when we show up and talk about all right no absolutely and those challenges, you know, there are so many of them that it sort of dwarfs it seems to dwarf any sort of overlap because it's such a unique yes experience to provide that kind of value.

Networking for career advancement becomes incredibly valuable here, especially in industries with such specialized needs. It’s crucial to understand these challenges as they relate to your specific field. By leveraging inclusive networking, individuals can access diverse perspectives, bringing in unique insights and fostering stronger relationships within these complex industries.

For each individual in this dream, right, by geography, by industry, yeah, it gets really complicated really quickly. And so, you know, when you talk about expectations in my mind, I thought I was thinking, you know, did you expect to sort of be in this industry? Sort of how did you get started in coming into technology and then from there seeing this challenge and saying, this is where I want to be and how I want to contribute? Could you just tell us a little bit about your story?

So I started this part of my career and this part of my journey in software as a consultant. I've worked with Accenture, IBM, Cognizant, and KPMG. One of the great things about being a consultant is that you get to solve a lot of different problems, and your clients really rely on you to bring them the best of the industry—what are my competitors doing? Who’s out there doing it really well? What do I need to avoid? What are the mistakes and the pitfalls that others have made that I want to be mindful of? And what are the best practices and strategies that are seeing success and traction around the world?

As I worked over the years in multiple industries as a consultant, I gained a sense of understanding not just for the problems and solutions, but how incredibly complicated it is to actually deliver those in a very specific client environment. Then, you transition into a Software as a Service company like VMware, where the complications are not any less. You really have to translate how to solve for all of that complexity specifically from your product set, from the solutions you have in your back pocket. Interestingly enough, part of what my team does is work closely with Global Systems Integrators (GSIs), hyperscalers, and independent software vendors (ISVs).

Each industry and customer has their own unique ecosystem of solution partners that they work with, and it's ironic that even today, working in a SaaS company, I still spend a lot of time with GSIs, consultants, and hyperscalers, all focused on how to solve this problem and complexity with a particular customer.

Through effective communication in networking, we can bridge these gaps and ensure that these connections work toward solving problems in real time. Diversity in networking plays a critical role here. The ability to engage with different stakeholders from various backgrounds and skillsets allows teams to innovate and adapt quickly, particularly in industries with fast-changing demands. Additionally, social media networking has become a powerful tool for these interactions, making it easier to connect with individuals from all over the world, exchanging ideas and forming partnerships that drive success.

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In addition, professional networking helps teams stay informed about emerging trends and best practices across various sectors, ensuring that they are well-equipped to adapt and solve problems as they arise in client environments.

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Jacqueline Morgan: 

Is there something about it is there something about you that you made it so that you felt like this is some a challenge that you want to continue sort of attacking um or is there or it's just you know it's just something you felt like you fell into and just kept going with and rolling with it feels like a natural it feels like a Natural Evolution honestly yeah because about what um problem solvers do right you have to be able to take very complicated um issues and break them down into the components that are solvable discern how to solve them and then Nobody Does It by themselves right no what are the good problem right what what are the partners internal to your organization or external to the customers organ within the customers organization

Host: 

Who are the partners that need to kind of come together to solve it now now you know problem resolution you know what the answer is actually solving it that's the hard part actually orchestrating everyone to to really kind of move forward from where we know the solution where we want to get to right to actually delivering that there's a lot of things that can go sideways

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right so and that's really interesting because you talk a lot about your team and and how you're able to how you know how they're a big part of you know making sure that a lot of these I would say moving pieces and there seems to be a lot of them actually get executed so could you talk a little bit about sort of your strategy for bringing people together to solve problems and you know especially I guess in your case where it's a new problem every season um how do you there's going to be a cycle on you know bringing people in getting them to understand and then execute but there still has to be a way that the team works and the residual context that also has to be transferred when new pc members come in and out so how are you able to to make that happen

I put on my United Nations blue beret right and um and it's it I just about that but it's really important to be the people you work with a lot of uh Partners internationally and a lot of your teams are from lots of different places yes oh wow okay yeah and and you really have to understand [Music] all of the components that are required to work together to deliver the solution to this particular customer to solve this particular problem and what are everybody's unique interests right in interest first not capabilities um

Host: 

That's an interesting question sometimes you work with people whose capabilities you wouldn't necessarily have we wouldn't necessarily have chosen them but our customer has chosen them

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Our customer has said this is my preferred partner for x now maybe we wouldn't have chosen that particular partner for X but our customer did okay and so obviously they have they have a certain level of competence and capability otherwise the customer would not have chosen them but you know now we need to understand what is it that that organization that that company brings to the table capabilities what's real about it what's the there's a little we all have a little bit of lip gloss put on you know our marketing spin on on what we can do and how we can do it so what's real and how do they get paid right that's important for us to understand

Jacqueline Morgan: we have to understand what motivates other organizations in this ecosystem how do they why are they coming to the table to participate in this solving this problem what's in it for them what do they need to get out of this because if we can if we can solution um and identify where this solution meets their needs it's a much easier conversation to have to bring them in to incentivize them to start down this path with us and they're much more willing to invest their time money and resources to make this solving this problem successful and they're much more willing to work with the other partners in the ecosystem right

Host: 

Because sometimes you can have organizations in a solution that are actually competitors

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right right and if you and if you'd have that what happens because that that's an interesting problem to solve when it comes to Bringing people together how do you because you have you don't have control over how you know how cool it comes in always right correct so how do you how do you solve that  correct you have to understand from a Sil from a from a technical perspective from a process perspective again it goes back to how are folks getting paid how are they going to make money solving for this problem and so what where's their Lane where do they need to exist in the execution of this solution and how do you make sure folks really understand their Lane now you're always going to have people who are going to try to I know NASCAR their way into somebody else's Lane um that's part of what we what we hope to align right how do you coach your team to

Host: 

Um, to sort of do like how do you coach your team to have this sort of understanding expectation and deal with, you know, sort of what's the philosophy on engagement that your team holds in order to get all these moving pieces together? Is there one or does it have to be one?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yeah, there has to be one. Yes, and yes. So, yes, there is one, yes, there has to be one. I think that it has to be about focus. It has to be about focus and being very, very mindful of the customer's problem to be solved. Everything has to relate back to the customer, back to the customer. So that's when you keep this—the customer and the problem that they want to solve—right at the center of what you're doing. You bring everybody back to it. And honestly, that's what the customer wants you to do.

Host: 

Right, okay. So that's not the only thing though, right? That focus on the customer isn't going to Kumbaya your way into having everybody get along.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

So, you have to keep the solution as simple as possible because it can get really complex very quickly. Everybody can want to layer on complexity on top of complexity in an already complex situation. So, you're constantly having to kind of break apart what you've put together and say, you know, what can we—how can we make this car go faster? How can we make it lighter? How can we make it more agile? How can we make sure that this solution—we don’t over-architect it because you have a single use case, right? You have a single problem that you're trying to solve and you can very easily start to bump up against adjacencies, adjacent problems like, "Oh, but if we…"

Host: 

But you know this thing that we did here, if we just tweaked or refined or layered this partner's solution, we could also solve for this other problem?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yeah, and don’t get me wrong, sometimes we end up doing that, but I'd say eight times out of ten, we don’t. Because we really want to keep it focused. There's so many partners involved in solving the problem, and everybody needs to get paid at the end of the day. Everybody needs to know what's in it for them, and the customer needs to know that it's actually going to work. It's much more useful to solve for a single problem.

Host: 

Right, okay. So how do you do that?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right, it comes down—this is probably the hardest part—it’s trust. It is. It sounds so ridiculous and simplistic, but knowing how to communicate and understanding where other partners, other people are coming from. Right? How’s that guy over there who works for X company and this nice young lady over here who works for Y company? How are they going to get their bonus at the end of this solving for this problem?

Host: 

Right.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

If you understand that, you can have conversations with them and their organizations about their role and their participation that they're going to actually hear what you have to say. Because if they don't think that there's anything in it for them, they're not going to show up. So, our subject matter experts, my team, in addition to being industry subject matter experts, are masterful communicators. And sometimes, I swear, they’re magicians. It’s not an algorithm, it’s more alchemy. They’re able to help bring all of the various partners together in a way that serves everybody's interests and ultimately gets the solution implemented to solve the customer problem.

Host: 

And the other thing?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yeah, too. We don't focus on 27 solutions in a year; we focus on four and a quarter, three and a quarter. Yes, we’re not, this is not at scale. We're not solutioning and throwing solutions out based on and being rewarded by our organization based on the number of solutions that we put out in the market. It's about the quality, not the quantity. Are they adopted? Are they actually used? That’s the measure of our success as a team.

Host: 

Yeah, it's very non-perishable products almost. And, um, so for you, talk about your team being masterful.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Something interesting I found was different companies, well, different skill sets have their own way of communicating. Yes, different tiers of individuals have their own ways of communicating within your corporations, and small business people have a way of communicating. Even people in finance or financing different business models have their way of communicating. But the one that everyone has to learn when they start a company, regardless of what they do, is the company's own jargon. So, I've been with companies that use a lot of sort of acronyms—so ATI, this, that, and the other. It might mean something you already know; it's just like they just don't want to write that much. It's very tribal, it's very tribal too, right? The three-letter acronyms, the four-letter acronyms.

Inclusive networking can help you navigate and adapt to these communication styles, especially when you’re working in an unfamiliar industry or company. It’s actually when I onboarded to an organization, it's one of the very first things. At VMware, when I onboarded, they have a Wiki page, an internal Wiki page that has all the—as many as... as people constantly add to it. For networking for career advancement, understanding the culture and language of your company becomes essential to avoid misunderstandings and to establish rapport. By getting familiar with the company’s jargon early, you can start building connections faster and establish yourself as someone who is aligned with the company's way of working.

Another key aspect of adapting to the corporate world is diversity in networking. People from different departments and backgrounds approach communication in varied ways, and embracing this diversity helps you build stronger, more effective connections. For example, in professional settings, those who engage in social media networking may use different strategies to create connections compared to someone focusing solely on face-to-face interactions. Whether it’s through LinkedIn or internal networks, understanding the nuances of both can enhance your ability to thrive.

Lastly, effective communication in networking is essential. You can establish rapport by speaking the right language, but also by listening and adapting to others’ communication preferences. Recognizing the importance of tone, timing, and medium ensures your message resonates and creates meaningful relationships that go beyond simple exchanges of information.

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Host: So you get an understanding of them before you talk to them?

Jacqueline Morgan: Oh yes. And then you’re able to make the anticipation. Yes. Now, that doesn’t always—I mean, like I said, this is not a waterfall kind of project.

Host: 

No, this is all...

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yeah, everything’s connected to everything. So do we walk into situations where we don’t have all the information about all three of those things (with the exception of our own organization)? Yes. Yes, oftentimes. But we know that we need to understand that very quickly because in order to be able to execute, the team really needs to anticipate what those objections will be. And you know, nine times out of ten, if you’ve worked with an organization, a GSI, an ISV, or a hyperscaler before, you can kind of anticipate what they’re going to ask for.

Host: 

What are those GSIs?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

A Global Systems Integrator.

Host: 

Right, okay.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

So the consulting companies, the big ones like the Accenture’s, the Deloitte’s, the Kyndles, the DXEs, the WebPro’s, and the like.

Host: 

Right, okay.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right, so you can kind of anticipate what they’re going to ask for if you’ve worked with AWS, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, IBM, the hyperscalers to Cloud providers like Alibaba. You can anticipate—if you know the industry, you probably know the independent software vendors, ISVs, that will likely be coming to the table. Right, so in healthcare in the United States, from an electronic medical record standpoint, it’s going to be Epic Systems or Imprivata.

Host: 

Right.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

So, you know, you can anticipate what their objections are going to be. You understand who they are, you can have a conversation with them, and deal with those objections. Take them out of the equation.

Host: 

Right. So you’re sort of leveraging that lip gloss you talked about earlier, where they market their intentions, and then you can leverage that to say, "Okay, if these are your intentions, here’s why you should work with us in this way."

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Right, and here’s where we want to build you in, and this is what it’s going to look like, and we understand how you need to. Absolutely, and this is that United Nations blue beret, right? The United Nations translator, because the team shows up and they do have that—they do have the technical lingo of each industry. They know how to speak to individuals in the customer organization in the language that they will understand, absolutely. And then they know how to take all of those concepts and bring them back into, let's just take as an example, our VMware product teams, minus all the jargon, and speak in a technical language that our product teams understand. So they bridge that gap, right, between the customer lingo, vernacular, and the product teams, and what they need to know in order to be able to execute specifically for that customer, for that industry. And then they also understand how, again, the other partners in the solution speak and think. And so they adapt in the moment. They know when to use the vernacular of their specific industry, and they know when to use the technical language that resonates with partners more—more specifically who have that technical background. If they're dealing with Professional Services, Global Systems Integrators teams, they know how to speak their language as well. And so they're constantly adapting and flexing, but they know what the message is; it's just which language they choose to use to communicate it.

Something interesting I found was different companies, well, different skill sets have their own way of communicating. Yes, different tiers of individuals have their own ways of communicating within your corporations, and small business people have a way of communicating. Even people in finance or financing different business models have their way of communicating. But the one that everyone has to learn when they start a company, regardless of what they do, is the company's own jargon. So, I've been with companies that use a lot of sort of acronyms—so ATI, this, that, and the other. It might mean something you already know; it's just like they just don't want to write that much. It’s very tribal, it’s very tribal too, right? The three-letter acronyms, the four-letter acronyms.

Networking for career advancement can help you navigate and adapt to these communication styles, especially when you’re working in an unfamiliar industry or company. It’s actually when I onboarded to an organization, it's one of the very first things. At VMware, when I onboarded, they have a Wiki page, an internal Wiki page that has all the—as many as... as people constantly add to it. For professional networking, understanding the culture and language of your company becomes essential to avoid misunderstandings and to establish rapport. By getting familiar with the company’s jargon early, you can start building connections faster and establish yourself as someone who is aligned with the company's way of working.

There’s also the importance of inclusive networking. Networking isn’t just about forming connections with people who think like you—it’s about bringing in diverse perspectives. The more inclusive your networking efforts, the more likely you are to make lasting and meaningful relationships. This diversity in networking helps break barriers and opens up new avenues for collaboration.

And, of course, it’s important to remember that effective communication in networking is key. When you are building relationships, whether in person or through social media networking, being clear, concise, and mindful of the other person’s perspective is crucial to fostering mutual respect and understanding.

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Host: 

Yeah, and the interesting thing is you can have a three- or four-letter acronym that you have used for, let's say, 10 years, and you go to a new company, and they're using it to mean something completely different. It's like, oh wait a minute, time out, you guys are cheating. That's not what it means; you're trying to be extra. Knock it off.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Nope, that's what it means in this organization. So, I used to work for Shell—Royal Dutch Shell, the oil company, for a number of years, and oh my Lord, it was acronym alphabet soup. Every day. Every single day.

Host: 

So, you just have to learn it.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

So, you probably have to learn every time you start with a new company.

Host: 

Yes, yeah. It's only one of the most critical components of onboarding that nobody really builds into their onboarding plan. And what you'll find is that as soon as you join a team, somebody on the team usually will send you a document or a link that says, "Oh, by the way, you're probably going to want to memorize all of these phrases and understand what these mean. Here you go." It's like, "Oh, thank you." That's... and when I have new people that onboard to my team, that's one of the first things I send them in their welcome email. It's right: "You're going to want to know this."

Host: 

Well, if you were going to send out to the audience a page for them to find you on, where would that page be?

Jacqueline Morgan: 

For me, LinkedIn.

Host: 

Yeah, LinkedIn.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Yeah, I usually spend—I haven't been as active in the last couple of weeks, but normally I'm on there. My team is definitely on LinkedIn, and obviously VMware is always on LinkedIn.

Host: 

Oh, Jacqueline, thank you so much for, you know, taking the time to teach us a little bit about what you do, and, you know, showing us how interesting it can be to work with all different kinds of people. I think I learned a lot, and thank you so much for being on the show.

Jacqueline Morgan: 

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure chatting with you this morning... this afternoon for you, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Host: 

I will. Take care.

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