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Elissa Fink, former CMO, Tableau Software

Source: Erin Rinabarger

Recently retired as CMO for Tableau,¹ Elissa Fink led all marketing strategy and execution for 11 years, from pre-IPO startup with ~$5 million annual revenue to public enterprise with $1 billion+ in revenue. She knows growth, scale, and building disruptive brands. Prior to Tableau, Elissa served in marketing, product management, and product engineering executive positions. Now semiretired, Elissa advises tech companies, serves on multiple boards, and teaches at the University of Washington.

In this interview with Elissa we are going to explore how to charge a brand with culture and how this also helps in hiring people.

Alexander: As CMO you were creating a culture that is unique for a B2B software company. How did you discover Tableau? How did you become Tableau's CMO?

Elissa: I discovered Tableau as I was browsing the web — my very first exposure was when I was looking for Excel add-ins to help me force Excel to be an analytical tool. In fact, I was a Tableau customer before I even joined the company!

But Tableau became front and center to me when I wanted to relocate to be closer to my extended family. I read a LinkedIn job description, and the way that the company described itself intrigued me. I had downloaded the product, and I knew this product was going to change the world. So I really wanted to be part of this company.

When I interviewed with Christian Chabot² on the phone, I asked him what the mission of the company was. He said it was to help people see and understand their data. And then he stopped. Silence. No long-winded blather about stakeholders, just a mission with a clear purpose. That was it. I knew this was the right company for me.

Alexander: That is indeed an amazing journey. How far in advance did you plan? Did you have a vision for the first six months, first year, or even five years?

Elissa: Because I saw from the start how the product was just going to change things and revolutionize the industry and the way people use data, I always had a long-term sense of where we were going to go. Being a small startup, you do have to think deeply and think long term, but act quickly in the short term and constantly be taking small steps that prepare you for the long term.

Sometimes you're so excited about the big that you start building for the big before you're ready for it and you don't focus enough on what's needed in the current so you can get to the long term. But on the other hand, you don't want to be acting so reactively in the short term that you're not ready for the future. So it's a real balancing act.

Community in particular is a great example of that. I knew the community was going to be a critical linchpin even before I joined the company. We have always been mindful of making sure that our community, even when it was small, really felt part of something and they were connected to each other.

Alexander: Very interesting approach. How much did you have to adjust your vision over time? How much did you have to align your vision with the C-level team? How much freedom did you get?

Elissa: Our founders are so amazing. CEO Christian Chabot and chief development officer (and inventor) Chris Stolte³ are both brilliant Stanford graduates. Pat Hanrahan⁴ is an Oscar-winning professor — and won the Alan Turing Award (which is basically an Oscar for computer scientists). These brilliant guys invented the product.

I was worried because I didn't come from that kind of pedigree at all. I was really concerned I might not hold up, but they were so respectful and incredibly open. It was something that just really struck me. These guys started a company, a culture, a movement where you didn't have to be a genius; you just had to have something to contribute. The fact is that the founders were humble and smart (in fact, I coined the term “humblesmart” to describe Tableau people). At the same time it meant they really wanted people to bring their “A games.” They wanted to give opportunities to people of all kinds who could contribute.

So even if you were not from some hot company or didn't fit the typical hot startup profile, their attitude was: You can add to this. You could be part of this. We want your opinion. We want your thoughts. We want your contribution.

Alexander: Not so long ago, data analytics, dashboards, and reports were considered boring work done by experts. Many questions could only be solved with heavy SQL knowledge. The visual output of course was not fancy and not interactive. How did you manage to create a culture where working with data was cool and inspiring? Which role did this culture play in shaping Tableau's brand?

Elissa: Using data makes you smarter and makes you more curious. I was an English major in college, so I didn't think of myself as a numbers person at all. Then I realized I really liked data, but I knew nothing. I became a bad Excel user, breaking all these rules, not knowing what I was doing. But with Tableau, it was different. With Tableau, people could start thinking of themselves in a different way.

But to your point, one of the most important things we had to do was get people to give it a shot — to get people to experience it. You have to be convincing that you're worth the time or effort to try. That's hard, especially when you have no brand or no image.

Because we did convince a few people along the way, they could convince more people. So enabling them and getting them to share their experiences rather than us talking was critical. That was the huge thing: people connecting with other people who might join the family, become customers, and be part of the community.

We spent a lot of time and energy on cultivating customers who could come forward and show what they accomplished and what they did. And in a lot of ways, that was the beauty of Tableau Public.⁵ Because that was a public forum that allowed people to showcase what they accomplished with Tableau. It was a passion project a lot of times and that, I think, did a lot to help us make it easy for people to convince other people.

Alexander: People also meet and share their ideas at Tableau Conference.⁶ This is also an opportunity for people who know each other via Tableau Public and Twitter to catch up face to face. Besides the Tableau Conference, what role did social media play? How were you building a social media community that is so active and well connected?

Elissa: When I joined back in 2007, it existed, but not widely. I thought, “We don't have a lot of money, so we've just got to leverage every angle.” But I also saw that it gave a lot of people a voice — that they could start or participate in a conversation on any topic locally or globally with anyone. It's crazy to think back to what it was like when you first came upon Twitter or Facebook.

Social was something we cared about pretty early on, and it also is a great way to carry your brand and your voice, because it's somewhat casual and very temporal. You could have a little more fun with it, which of course was a huge part of our brand.

But you also have to be respectful and responsive. When people complained or needed help, you had to help.

Alexander: How did the culture and brand evolve over time from pre-IPO startup to public enterprise with $1 billion+ in revenue? How did you feel the change?

Elissa: When we started, we were very personal — we were much about the rogue data analyst or the casual data enthusiast. Data to the people, we'd say. Our brand was very much about individuals embracing their inner geek and sort of breaking the rules. Or, getting around the old ways of how people use data. But then as we got bigger and more accepted, we also realized so much more the importance of IT, of governance, and the possibilities of large numbers of people sharing and using data. I think we became as much about democratizing data for one person as democratizing data for groups of people and then making sure that we adhered to and helped with the organization of that in a governed way.

Through this, we never wanted to lose the soul of Tableau that data geeks identified with. But it had to be expressed in a way that was, as we grew, and our customers grew in number, congruent with their vision and their ideas of how to use data within their organizations. I think we got more sophisticated and smarter about that.

Alexander: Besides the customer-facing brand, Tableau also had a unique culture among its employees. Customers describe Tableau employees as freakishly friendly. How important is this for the company's culture and brand?

Elissa: The employees are super important. We couldn't have done it without all those employees. They are who most customers interact with and so it's just so important that they feel that passion. They are just so fundamental to representing Tableau, expressing Tableau, and carrying the Tableau brand. But it's a circular thing. Employees impact that brand, modernize it, and keep it going.

Alexander: And how did you achieve this? How to hire the right people? Would you say this is because cool people hire cool people?

Elissa: We definitely had a huge number of employees come through referrals. So yes, cool people hire cool people, but in Tableau's case it was maybe more that data geeks hire data geeks. I look at the management team and the executive team, and most of them were referrals. (For the record, I wasn't. Sometimes you need to break out of your own circles.) I think when you are hiring, you are looking for passion, and you are looking for attitude. If they don't have passion for data and they don't have the attitude of work hard, work smart, and always be learning, then I don't care about [the] CV because [they're] not going to work here.

I think the company did a really good job of having the referral network and then really understanding how to hire for passion and attitude.

People went through the wringer on interviews. But the thing about a great culture is not only does it attract the right people, sometimes it helps people understand when they need to move on or move out.

That's why we would put cultural aspects in performance assessments. And it wasn't just checkbox. You had to assess if the employee was living our cultural values. Tableau put a lot of energy into all those hiring and onboarding aspects to ensure the right people were on the bus and had the tools to be successful.

Alexander: Onboarding is a very good topic. Tableau's onboarding process is well known in the software business for featuring a two-week bootcamp organized by Nate Vogel⁷ and his team. Bootcamp happened almost every month, and cofounder Christian Chabot used to welcome every new hire. How much does such an extensive onboarding shape the culture within the company?

Elissa: I think it was huge. People came from all over the world for two solid weeks. That was not common at the time. And it just spoke volumes: you chose us, and we chose you, and this is an investment for both sides.

This is a relationship we're investing in from the ground up because we believe in you and you believe in us. So, we want you to be as smart as possible as fast as possible.

And then, of course, the payback. It's hard to measure directly, but you can so see it as people were just more efficient and more effective sooner. And so, from a business perspective, it was smart because people could get efficient and effective a lot faster than not doing it.

Alexander: I was at your farewell party right after Tableau Conference 2018 in New Orleans. All our colleagues were very sad and touched. How much do you miss your Tableau colleagues and your Tableau identity?

Elissa: That was a night I'll never forget — thank you for being there. I do miss Tableau — the people, customers, and fellow employees, mostly — very much and I'm just so proud of it. I'm so proud to have been a part of it, what we invented and what we accomplished together. There were so many interesting people who had so much to give and had such interesting lives. I felt like I had done everything I could, and it was time for me to just get out of the way in a lot of respects.

Alexander: You are now semiretired. How did you adjust? Which things did you learn?

Elissa: It took me a while to adjust to a different pace and realize my schedule was my own. I would wake up on a Monday and look at my calendar. I'd be like — holy smokes, I don't have 30+ meetings on my calendar this week. I'm not in wall-to-wall meetings from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. That was my life as a CMO.

I've learned a lot as well, some of which I wish I knew before I retired. A big lesson has been to take time for reflecting — for activities like learning, thinking, getting advice, considering new ideas, reading, really listening. In a fast-growing company like Tableau, the pace is relentless, and you're constantly trying to squeeze more into your day. So I often sacrificed reflecting time to get more doing time. That's not always an exchange worth making. I would have been better at my job if I had taken more time for reflecting.

Now, I'm advising companies, serving on a few boards, doing some teaching at the University of Washington, mentoring or being a sounding board, and most importantly spending more time being truly available to my family.

Alexander: So many companies do not have such a strong and positive culture. Which advice can you give other companies that are at a very early stage?

Elissa: My advice would be three things, all related to taking deliberate action. First, reflect on what your culture is already beginning to be. What culture are you already building? Does it reflect the values you want to cultivate?

Second, culture comes a lot from the personality of the people, especially the early people. So ask yourself — am I surrounded by people I want to build this culture with? Are they displaying the kinds of behaviors we want institutionalized? If not, maybe you need to make some people changes now. It will be a lot easier in the long run.

Third, culture shapes behavior but behavior shapes culture as well. It's kind of like smiling; sure, you smile when you're happy, but sometimes the act of smiling can bring happiness to you. So not only should your culture already be shaping your accepted norms of behavior, but also are you consciously choosing to behave in ways that represent the kind of culture you want?

Alexander: What is your advice for established companies that want to refresh their culture?

Elissa: Refreshing your culture is not something you do a one-day workshop on, list some attributes you wish for, publish an email about that, and then think it's going to refresh. It's going to take deliberate evolution over a long period that starts with the truth about who you are. It's an overused word these days, but authenticity is critical.

I think a great example of a refreshed culture is Microsoft. It's an amazing company, but for a long time, it had a pretty tough culture. But Satya Nadella, an insider who became CEO, has transformed the culture over a multiyear journey.

Culture is reflected in your hiring. Deliberately hire for the culture you want.

So a lot of culture refreshing can be similar to early-stage culture building as discussed before. One way to think about it is through the people you're bringing in, especially the role models at the top.

Second to that is encouraging and recognizing the behaviors and norms you do want and honor them as examples to be emulated. Show people why those cultural behaviors are good.

And finally — maybe most importantly — pay attention to the folklore or cultural stories that get told and repeated. Social scientists tell us stories played at least two important functions for our ancient ancestors: to help people remember important information before we had written language and to help establish what's considered acceptable behavior in terms of social cooperation.

You need leadership with courage.

Alexander: That's great advice. I guess it also takes plenty of courage to perform a huge cultural shift as Satya Nadella did within Microsoft. Don't you think so?

Elissa: I'm glad you brought up courage. It's such an important part of everything we've been talking about. Because if you don't have the courage to be yourself, if you don't have the courage to change, if you don't have the courage to try again after failure, if you don't have the courage to make the first move, well, a whole lot of stuff is just never going to happen. You need leadership with courage.

Alexander: Besides Tableau, what are your favorite apps, tools, or software you can't live without?

Elissa: I use this app called Done. It's a to-do app where you can set goals in order to get in the habit of doing certain things. I love it because it just kind of keeps me focused on the five or six things I want to do regularly to make sure that I'm building the habit.

I love reading so I'm a huge Kindle fan, but I also love the New York Times and the Washington Post. I am a big Evernote user. Actually, I love Flipboard, because it gives me a perspective of lots of different media sources. I also love Spotify, Slack, Waze, Dropbox, and all kinds of word games.

And I still of course love Tableau. I love using it in my class to teach it to show my students that you need to be analytical. But I also use it to analyze the data coming out of my class: Who's paying attention? Who is participating?

Alexander: What is your smartest productivity hack or work-related shortcut?

Elissa: Whatever problem you have, somebody else has had it, so don't think “I'm in this on my own.” Anytime there's a problem, I always think I'm sure that I can't be the first person who has had this problem. Someone else solved it. They got out of it. They survived. You can too. And maybe you can even solve it better.

Alexander: What is the best advice you have ever received?

Elissa: One of my brothers and Christian Chabot gave me great advice. Let's start with my brother. When I was getting out of college, I told him I thought I wanted to do a certain job, but it's too competitive. He replied: “Elissa, there's always room for the best. Don't give up on your dreams because you think you can't compete. If you're the best, there's always room for you.”

Related to that, he said in the same conversation: “You can become the best if you're willing to work hard and you're willing to learn and work smart.”

The third one is from Christian. He said when you're hiring, hire people who have their best years ahead of them. In other words, hire people who are excited about the future and want to change and learn and make the most of today and their future opportunities.

Alexander: How should a business evolve to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world?

Elissa: As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic forced us all to be increasingly digital at an accelerated pace. Businesses needed to evolve in several ways.

First is about hiring your people. Being more digital and more remote has meant that the talent pool for every position has greatly expanded — you know now that you don't have to have every employee in the office every day, that we can work remotely at scale. So take advantage of the expanded talent pool and hire the best people you can find, wherever they are (within reason).

That being said, we're all going to have to get much better at establishing deep and trusting relationships without necessarily experiencing in-person touchpoints. That's hard to do, from the interview or first meeting to the daily working relationship. That means reading people well, sending clear signals, and delivering on the things we say we're going to do.

We're also going to have to find ways to make teams work efficiently together at scale in digital environments. I've noticed in my teaching that I can't cover as much material in a virtual class as I did in an in-person class. But there are practices and techniques that can shorten the time to efficiency.

And finally, when it comes to sellers and buyers, I'll make a pitch for my discipline. In an increasingly digital world, marketing is going to own more and more of the customer journey because marketing teams can generally execute digital experiences well. So seeing sales, customer success, and marketing come into greater alignment and integrate better is going to result in more customers acquired, happier customers, and more turnover.