ER to Ecosystem 4

Work in Emergency Medicine and in the Salesforce ecosystem has more in common than I initially thought. Thankfully, after our journey through a portion of an ER shift (Part 3), many of the transferable skills are self-explanatory. The context for those listed below is drawn from my experience as a Salesforce Administrator, especially my involvement on a team project for the Talent Stacker Program. 

1. Self-Care: I begin my day of Salesforce work much the same way I begin ER shifts. Fueling my own needs from the outset yields more productivity, effectiveness, and satisfaction. I take deep breaths, move, and listen to inspiring audio, then it’s Go Time!

2. Adaptability: My adaptability translates well to my role as a Salesforce Administrator because I already know how to shift gears quickly when needed. Clients change their minds, colleagues miss meetings, and “go-to” solutions fail. I adjust and keep moving. I’m ready and willing to be flexible. Read my article on “Downshifting” for more on this. 

3. Preparedness: Planning ahead minimizes surprises. Working in a coffeehouse setting? I make sure the laptop is charged, the charger is packed, and there is a seat near power outlets. Presenting a live demo this afternoon? I will run through the demo twice, looking for potential problems.

4. Situational Awareness: It pays to “read the room,” even if the room is virtual. Otherwise, clues can be missed. For example, I might not notice that a colleague wants the challenge of a certain assignment but she doesn’t want to appear rude. Or I might not realize a client feels embarrassed for not knowing how to ask for what he needs. 

5. Organization: When staying organized, digital and physical spaces are equally important. I try to use consistent labels and categories, having a place for everything to go. This way, it will be hard to lose anything for long. Saving a document on a digital desktop as “Untitled (79)” will never be the secret to happiness. 

6. Time Management: Countless meetings, events, and tasks demand effective use of time. Each item needs its own block of time, and it pays to have a realistic sense of duration for each item. I log my time as I work and review each day at the end. These reviews help me better plan for upcoming work days and their time blocks.

7. Prioritization: Beyond the time-blocking skill of Time Management, prioritization involves strategic sequencing. For instance, a dashboard component first requires the correct report, which first requires the correct fields, which requires the correct object. 

8. Critical Thinking: Recipes work well in kitchens and chemistry labs. But even cooks and chemists have to think outside of the box sometimes. Similarly, many tasks in Salesforce are straight-forward, but many simply aren’t. It might be nice to have a “Congratulations” banner message that appears whenever a customer has no more issues to resolve. However, users won’t appreciate the presence of such a banner if the reason there are no more issues is because the customer no longer works with them.

9. Teamwork: “Solo” and “synergy” are mutually exclusive terms. The entire point of a team is for a group of people to accomplish what an individual person could not. Salesforce work might be doable alone, but rarely in the most efficient, effective manner possible. Like Time Management, Teamwork divides the work strategically.

10. Calm in High Pressure Situations: Deadlines and sprints work because of crescendoing pressure. Panic wastes time and energy. When I keep calm, especially as the pressure rises, I can often even experience peak performance.

11. Decisiveness: We all would like 100% certainty, but real life requires decisiveness without every single question answered. Often, the biggest threat to decision-making isn’t deciding too quickly but taking too long to decide. Eventually, solutions drafted in writing need to be built. How else would we know that a permission set actually isn’t the best way to give that one user access to that one group of data? 

12. Team Leadership: We have established that teamwork requires multiple contributions. Additionally, teams require a leader. Leadership does not necessarily mean the leader has more skill or experience. The leader’s primary role is to serve as a point person, someone who keeps a Big Picture perspective and helps keep the team moving forward.

 

13. Building Trust: Salesforce work involves communicating with and relating to people. From colleagues to clients, employers to end-users, all of these interactions go better when we can establish trust. When I enter my first team meeting with my client, it is like walking into a new patient’s room for the first time. I know how to build rapport and trust, and I actively listen to help put my client more at ease. Trustworthiness involves consistency of character and competence. And often, earning trust usually begins by first showing some trust. 

14. Summarizing Information: There’s rarely as much time as we’d like. Abridged versions and book summaries abound in efforts to make key information more concise. Einstein reportedly said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Salesforce professionals who master this art save time for their clients, and this skill alone can pave the way for great success in Salesforce. 

15. Eliciting Information: Clients often need some guidance as to what they truly want. Once a positive first interaction and meeting has been established, I begin the work of eliciting information. Medical practice has taught me how to be very good at drawing out the right pieces of information from a patient’s history. In the same way, when I actively listen to a client, I try to make sure that our interaction produces relevant topics of discussion so that our solutions are meaningful.

16. Data Analysis: Gathering and analyzing is at the core of most businesses, from healthcare to software. As this Salesforce blog post describes it, data comes in significant volume, velocity, and variety. In his book Scrum, Jeff Sutherland quotes Senator Patrick Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding how better analysis of already-obtained data might have prevented tragedy: “We had information that could have stopped 9/11. It was sitting there and was not acted upon.”

17. Problem-Solving: When trying to explain Salesforce to my grandmother, I ultimately just tell her it is “trouble-shooting a lot of computer stuff” before she seems to understand. In Part 2, I mentioned how the presence of problem-solving opportunities is one of three key conditions of work where I tend to thrive. The other two are Broad Inspiration and Balanced Collaboration. I greatly appreciate Maria Forleo’s phrase (and book title) “Everything is figureoutable.” 

18. Documentation: During and after each client meeting, I document take-home points from our conversation, and develop specific, actionable steps. As we say in healthcare, “If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen.” Without clear understanding of the progress made, even amidst mistakes, we are more likely to miss something, overdo something, or make similar mistakes again. 

19. Language Acquisition: As in healthcare and many industries, Salesforce has its own language. The concepts behind orgs, objects, records, fields, users, profiles, permission sets, etc. are not often immediately intuitive. More time spent in the ecosystem leads to a better grasp of these terms. 

20. Collaboration: After my meeting with my client, our team is eager to get to work based on the new information. We play to our strengths, and make sure we understand the expectations and have a clear plan for how to proceed. 

21. Precepting Students: The Salesforce equivalent to medical precepting might be the mentorship of newer Salesforce professionals. New members join Talent Stacker and introduce themselves to the community, and it is delightful to “pay it forward” by helping them the way that I was and still am helped by those who have gone before me.

22. Intellectually Curious: In my work on a client solution later in the day, I might be curious about one of the requirements. I’ve found it most helpful to launch a new playground to begin building out what I think will benefit my client most. 

23. Patient (Client and End-User) Education: Part of the skill of language acquisition is the ability to translate the specific vernacular of the industry into something a layperson can understand adequately enough to make informed decisions. With Salesforce, the client might be extremely intelligent but just not as knowledgeable about Salesforce capabilities. I personally find that the use of analogies is quite effective in achieving sufficient understanding. An analogy is like a key that unlocks every door in a house, so if the front door is stuck, you can try the back or side doors. 

24. Compassion: Earlier, I mentioned how situational awareness allows for a Salesforce professional to realize when a client feels embarrassed for not knowing how to ask for what he needs. Compassion is a step farther, going beyond recognition to demonstrating compassion for how a client might feel in situations like this, and figuring out how to help him save face while still accomplishing the overarching goals. This helps to build the rapport and trust also previously discussed. 

25. Active Listening: The best interviewers are the ones who ask great questions then truly listen. They aren’t just thinking about their next question, nor do they say “Hmm” and “Yeah” and nod their head or even laugh unless it is genuine. Active listening is a special kind of engagement that cannot be faked, and when done well, this can make or break an interaction with clients, team members, or anyone. 

26. Integrity: Patient confidentiality is a paramount tenet in the practice of medicine. We honor the patient’s requests for privacy even if it means keeping a close friend or relative in the dark about a patient’s diagnosis and treatment. I treat professional codes of ethics with the utmost care. I am accustomed to a high level of professionalism and confidentiality, and I bring this same level of integrity and care into my career with Salesforce.  

27. Presentation Skills: Every client encounter provides the challenge to present information clearly and concisely in whatever time frame is necessary. Ideally, visual aids like slides, videos and/or live demos are available to enhance the presentation. But even if not, it is a valuable skill to be able to get in front of other people and communicate effectively, especially on short notice.

28. Patient (Client) Advocacy: In all my time serving patients, I’ve found that sometimes their requests are not actually in their best interests. For example, some patients think they need an antibiotic, when in reality they need other medications or therapies, such as an inhaler or a steroid. I take the time to explain why I offer a certain treatment plan as opposed to the one they thought they needed. In a similar fashion, clients can ask for solutions that they don’t fully understand, or they simply don’t understand the Salesforce ecosystem well enough to even begin to comprehend the types of solutions that are available for them. Often Salesforce has the capacity to far exceed their expectations. When I open my new playground to explore solutions, I create a solution that will better serve my client. I make a note to explore that solution with them in our next meeting.

29. Professionalism: Salesforce professionals, like healthcare professionals, are expected to act like professionals. We arrive early and prepared, we are appropriately enthusiastic and confident, we have proper etiquette and appearance, and we maintain a demeanor of respect and reliability. These are standard expectations, not outstanding or “bonus.”

30. Interpersonal Communication: Many times, interpersonal communication is necessary to get to the core of an issue quickly and develop a plan without delay. 

31. Written Communication: During the time block I set aside for client and team correspondence, I post messages on Slack and draft emails. I am experienced at sending messages to other healthcare providers about a patient’s case, so I am confident that I can communicate effectively via emails to clients and colleagues within the Salesforce ecosystem.

32. Employee (End-User) Training: In Salesforce, end-user training can incorporate the aforementioned skills of presentation, interpersonal communication, and written communication. Ideally, the training format includes written and recorded media for end-users to reference at their own pace regardless of live training sessions. Customized training may be necessary as well. 

33. Discipline: I keep track of my time blocks, including those I use to take a break. During these breaks, I might log in to LinkedIn or other social media, but I need to be disciplined enough to get back to a work block of time when the break time is over.

34. Sense of Humor: While I maintain professionalism, I also try to exude warmth and humanity. This can often come in the form of appropriate humor. For instance, perhaps my colleague dictates a message on Slack that autocorrected to an expletive, and then promptly issued an apology and said how embarrassed they were. Their fingers accidentally touched the send button as they were trying to correct the problem. I send a laughing emoji and move on, realizing that we all make mistakes like this, and it can be healthy to have a sense of humor about it.

35. Endurance: As I wrap up my work day, I aim to end it much in the same way I began, with a few minutes of self-care and decompressing. I take a moment to review the day and prepare for tomorrow. My family and friends are eager to spend some time with me, and I want to bring them the best of me, even after a full day of incredible work with Salesforce. 

After exploring the multiple transferable skills of an ER provider-turned-Salesforce professional, Part 5 of this series will describe how I am making this transition.