Godard Abel

The AI boom is a perfect example of a technical advantage that should be viewed by organizations as an opportunity, rather than a threat. In fact, I believe not adapting to embrace AI is a larger risk to companies, who will be left behind those who take proactive measures to ride the AI wave. Embracing this change must start the top, included as part of the company's vision and plans. If embracing AI was not already in your plans, then it's time for a revision. Include key stakeholders -- your executive leadership and board -- to ensure alignment, with strategic input. Then communicate this revised vision and plan to all employees to clearly articulate the 'why' behind this change, including how success will be measured.

At G2, our PEAK company values stand for Performance, Entrepreneurship, Authenticity, and Kindness. Employees are evaluated on all four values as part of their annual performance reviews. By not only encouraging entrepreneurship, but including it as an expectation of working at G2, employees are motivated to consistently think outside of the box and outside of their day-to-day roles. While all entrepreneurial ideas include some layer of risk, these ideas and initiatives are welcomed and rewarded -- and can come from anywhere within the organization, from any role or level.

Many of my followers on social media are fellow SaaS entrepreneurs and business leaders. Knowing what has been helpful to me from their social shares, I strive to share that same type of helpful content with my followers via social too. This includes, key takeaways from an industry report, lessons learned from an event, or my perspective on what's happening in the industry. This type of advice/learnings-driven content tends to spur discussion and provide value -- and I appreciate seeing this from my peers as well.

At G2, the 'E' in our PEAK values stands for Entrepreneurship. In valuing this, we aim to keep our entrepreneurial spirit alive as we grow into a large global team by encouraging all team members to be curious and share ideas on how we can get better every day. Additionally, the leadership team at G2 embraces Conscious Leadership. This framework outlines a concept of being “above the line” or “below the line.” Are you in a curious and open state versus closed and focused on being right? While there are times when I and all leaders will be below the line, working to minimize those times and shift into an open, curious state helps me be a better leader and foster openness with others.

Burnout is a very common and real concern for leaders, and it’s something I have struggled with in the past. When leading my former company BigMachines, I had been addicted to the adrenaline from fear and anxiety which ultimately led to burnout. I have since learned to shift out of that fear and deal with changes and tumultuous times with more clarity and purpose behind my motivations. This all comes with being more present. One way I do this is by blocking one hour each day on my calendar for an outdoor activity I enjoy to clear my head of anxiety, unleashing my energy —running, biking, hiking, or hitting the gym. I always feel clear-headed and energized when I return.

When our first company BigMachines was almost failing after the .com bust, I learned just how crucial it is to lead from the front as CEO to win and take care of our customers. I prioritized winning our next deal and satisfying our existing customers above all else. We could no longer raise capital and so had to earn enough revenue from our customers before we went out of business. We got on airplanes and out in the field with our team to visit our customers everywhere. And we evangelized the power of cloud CPQ well before most companies were comfortable investing in the cloud. Marc Benioff cofounder and CEO of Salesforce inspired us to go fruther codify our vision in a V2MOM and go out and evangelize it to the world!