EliseAI Leadership & Management

What are the best practices you follow to cultivate ownership on your team? Where did you learn these practices?

In cultivating ownership within my team, I prioritize transparency and autonomy. By maintaining open communication and sharing detailed context about our strategic direction, everyone is well-informed about how their work contributes to our larger goals. Additionally, I encourage my team to interface directly with clients as much as possible to get their feedback and further context. This enables everyone to make empowered decisions and independently navigate challenges.

To further foster innovation and ownership, I consciously attempt to lower the barrier to making contributions. Engineers are encouraged to push code quickly, collaborate with others and iterate fast to solve problems and build the best product possible. There are little to no formal processes to get in the way of that innovation.

Overall these simple values foster a sense of personal investment and accountability and ultimately lead to an environment where everyone wants to contribute at the highest level.

How has a culture of ownership positively impacted the work your team produces? 

The biggest impact a culture of ownership has had on our business is the pace at which we can ship. By empowering and expecting engineers to push significant features and products forward, we’re able to juggle more workstreams and push more company initiatives forward simultaneously. 

This approach allowed us to build a suite of products quickly and transition from offering a point solution in real estate to providing a full platform experience that captures the entire prospect-to-renter journey. The sense of ownership among team members has not only increased our agility but also enhanced our capability to innovate and adapt to market needs. As a result, we’ve successfully expanded into new industries, such as healthcare.

What advice would you give to other engineering leaders interested in fostering ownership on their own teams?

Keep it simple and try to hire the smartest people you can.

Describe your leadership philosophy as it relates to employee engagement.

I believe that as a leader, it’s your responsibility to set the tone for your team. A few principles I live by are: practice what you preach, never ask something of your team you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself and model the behaviors you want to see from your people. This covers all things from work ethic, attitude and professionalism. And most importantly, you need to genuinely care. I work every day with a very clear purpose — get the most out of my people so they can get the most out of their careers.

What types of resources does your team leverage to keep sellers engaged? How does this engagement directly impact their success and the success of the business?

There are the internal resources, such as weekly one-on-one time to focus on development items, give feedback, brainstorm ideas and strategy and so on. Then there is sales enablement that provides great frameworks, tailored coaching and an emphasis on repetition. For tools, we use Attention to review calls, get deeper insights and help game plan future calls to strengthen the sales process. And when it comes to mentorship, it lives throughout the organization. Our philosophy is “everyone sells” and there are folks you can lean on in nearly every department that can help you not only become a better seller, but a product and industry expert to become the consultant your client needs.

What advice would you offer to leaders in your field eager to drive greater engagement on their sales teams?

I’d say first and foremost, care deeply. The same way your customers can tell when your drive is self-serving, your direct reports can, too. Focus on getting to know your people, learning what motivates them and remember that they are your stakeholders. Every day, you go up or down in their eyes and often what makes the difference is real support, strong accountability and a willingness to roll up your sleeves with them. While you set the tone, they set the culture. Identify people on your team for their strengths and help them build a strong reputation so they can shine. Lastly, give direct feedback, early and often. Nearly every salesperson I’ve ever worked with wants to get better and you have the privilege as their leader to share that gift with them.