 Hello and welcome to theCUBE's coverage of International Women's Day 2023. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE series of profiles around leaders in the tech industry, sharing their stories, advice, best practices, what they're doing in their jobs, their vision of the future, and more importantly, passing it on and encouraging more and more networking and telling the stories that matter. Our next guest is a great executive leader. Talk about how to lead in challenging times. Krista Sadaway, who's the senior vice president and GM of mainstream compute. Krista, great to see you. You're a CUBE alumni. We've had you on before talking about compute power. And by the way, congratulations on your BPT and black professional tech network 2023 black tech exec of the year award. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And thanks for having me. I knew I liked you the first time we were doing interviews together. You were so smart and so on top of it. Thanks for coming on. No problem. All kidding aside, let's get into it. You know, one of the things that's coming out on this, these interviews is leadership is being showcased and there's a network effect happening in the industry. And you're starting to see people look and hear stories that they may or may not have heard before or new stories are coming out. So, you know, one of the things that's interesting is that also in the backdrop of a post pandemic there's been a turn in the industry a little bit. There's a little bit of headwind in certain areas. Some tailwinds in cloud and other areas compute your areas doing very well. It's, it could be challenging. And as a leader, has the conversation changed and where are you at right now in the network of folks you're working with? Is it, what's the mood? Yeah, so actually things are much better. You know, obviously we had a chip shortage last year. Things are much, much better. But I learned a lot when it came to going through challenging times and leadership. And I think when we talk to customers a lot of them are in challenging situations. Sometimes it's budget. Sometimes it's attracting and retaining talent. And sometimes it's just demands because, you know it's really exciting that technology is behind everything but that means the demands on IT are bigger than ever before. So what I find when it comes to challenging times is that there's really three qualities that are game changers when it comes to leading and challenging times. And the first one is positivity. People have to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel to make sure that, you know their attitudes stay up, that they stay working really, really hard. And they look to the leader for that. The second one is communication. And I read somewhere that communication is leadership. And we had a great example from our CEO, Antonio Neary when the pandemic hit and everything shut down. He had an all employee meeting every week for a month. And we have tens of thousands of employees. And then even after that month we had them very regularly. But he wanted to make sure that everybody heard from him his thoughts, had all the updates, knew how their peers were doing, how we were helping customers. And I really learned a lot from that in terms of communicating and communicating more during tough times. And then I would say the third one is making sure that they are informed and they feel empowered. So I would say a leader who was able to do that really, really stands out in a challenging time. So how do you get yourself together? Obviously the chip shortage everyone knows in the industry and for the folks not in the tech industry it was an economic potential disaster because you don't get the chips you need. You guys make servers and technology chips power everything. If you miss a shipment, it could cause a lot of backlash. So Cisco had an earnings impact. It has impact to the business. When do you have that code red moment where it's like, okay, we have to kind of put the pause and go into emergency mode. And how do you handle that? Well, it's funny because when we have challenges, I come to learn that people can look at challenges and hard work as a burden or a mission and they behave totally different. If they see it as a burden, then they're doing the bare minimum and the pointing fingers and they're complaining and they're probably not getting a whole lot done. If they see it as a mission, then all of a sudden they're going above and beyond, they're working really hard, they're really partnering. And if it affects customers for HPE, obviously, HPE is a very customer-centric company. So everyone pays attention and tries to pitch in. But when it comes to a mission, I started thinking, what are the real ingredients for a mission? And I think it's important. I think it's people feel like they can make an impact. And then I think the third one is that the goal is clear even if the path isn't, because you may have to pivot a lot if it's a challenge. And so when it came to the chip shortage, it was a mission. We wanted to make sure that we could shift the customers as quickly as possible. And it was a mission. Everybody pulled together. I learned how much our team could pull off and pull together through that challenge. And the consequences can be quantified in economics. So it's like to burn the boats example. You got to burn the boats, you got to figure out a solution. How does that change the demands on people? Because this is, okay, there's a mission. It's not normal. What are some of those new demands that arise during those times? And how do you manage that? How do you be a leader? Yeah, so it's funny. I was reading this statement from James White who used to be the CEO of Jamba Juice. And he was talking about how he got that job. He said, I think it was one thing I said that really convinced them that I was the right person. And what he said was something like, I will get more out of people than nine out of 10 leaders on the planet. He said, because I will look at their strengths and their capabilities and I will play their passions. And so I feel like when it comes to leadership and getting the most out of people in difficult times, it is all about how much you can get out of people for their own sake and for the company's sake. That's great feedback to people watching who are early in their careers. Leading is getting the best out of your team, attitude, some of the things you mentioned. What advice would you give folks that are starting to get into the workforce that are starting to get into that leadership track or might have a trajectory or you might have an innate ability that they know they have and they want to pursue that dream? Yeah. What advice would you give them? Yeah, what I would say, I say this all the time that for the first half of my career, I was very job conscious, but I wasn't very career conscious. So I'd get in a role and I'd stay in that role for long periods of time and I'd do a good job, but I wasn't really very career conscious. And what I would say is, everybody says how important risk taking is. Well, risk taking can be a little bit of a scary word, right, our term. And the way I see it is give it a shot and see what happens. You're interested in something, give it a shot and see what happens. It's kind of a less intimidating way of looking at risk because even though I was job conscious and not career conscious, one thing I did when people asked me to take something on, hey, Krista, would you like to take on more responsibility here? The answer was always yes, yes, yes, yes. So I said yes, because I said, hey, I'll give it a shot and see what happens. And that helped me tremendously because I felt like I'm giving it a try. And the more you do that, the better it is. And actually the less scary it is because you do that a few times and it goes well, it's like a muscle that builds. It's funny, a woman executive was on the program. I said, the word balance comes up a lot and she stopped and said, let's just talk about balance for a second. And then she went contrarian and said, it's about not being unbalanced. It's about being, taking a chance and being a little bit off balance to put yourself outside your comfort zone to try new things. And then she also came up and followed and said, if you do that alone, you increase your risk. But if you do it with a people, a team that you trust and you're authentic and you're vulnerable and you're communicating, that is the chemistry. And that was a really good point. What's your reaction? Cause you were talking about authentic conversations, good communication with Antonio. How does someone find that team? And do you agree with it? And what was your, how would you react to that? Yes, I agree with that. And when it comes to being authentic, I mean, that's the magic, you know, and when someone isn't, if someone's not really being themselves, it's really funny because you can feel it. You can sense it. There's kind of a wall between you and them. And over time, people won't be able to put their finger on it, but they'll feel a distance from you. But when you're authentic and you share who you are, what you find is you find things in common with other people, cause you're sharing more of who you are. And it's like, oh, I do that too. Oh, I'm interested in that too. And it builds the bonds between people and the authenticity. And that's what people crave. They want people to be authentic and people can tell when you're authentic and when you're not. Is managing and leading through a crisis a born talent or can you learn it? Oh, definitely learned. I think that we're born knowing nothing. And I once read people are nurtured into greatness. And I think that's true. So yeah, definitely learned. What are some examples that can come out of a tough time? As folks may look at a crisis and be shy away from it, how do they lean into it? What advice would you give folks? And how do you handle it? I mean, everyone's got different personality. Okay, they get to a position, but stepping through that door. Yes, well, you know, I do this presentation called 10 Things I Wish I Knew Earlier in My Career. And one of those things is about the growth mindset. And the growth mindset, there's a book called mindset by Carol Dweck. And the growth mindset is all about learning and not always having to know everything, but really the winning is in the learning. And so if you have a growth mindset, it makes you feel better about everything because you can't lose, you're winning because you're learning. So when I've learned that, I started looking at things much differently. And when it comes to going through tough times, what I find is you're exercising muscles that you didn't even know you had, which makes you stronger when the crisis is over. Obviously, and I also feel like you become much more creative when you're in challenging times. You're forced to do things that you hadn't had to do before. And it also bonds the team. It's almost like going through boot camp together. When you go through a challenge together, it bonds you for life. I mean, you could have bonding, it could be trauma bonding or success bonding. People love to be on the success side because that's positive. And that's really the key mindset. You're always winning if you have that attitude. And learnings is also positive. So it's never a failure unless you make it right. Exactly. As long as you've learned from it, and that's the name of the game. So, learning is the goal. So I have to ask you on your job now, you have a really big responsibility, HPE compute and big division. What's the current mindset that you have right now in your career, where you're at? What are some of the things on your mind that you think about? Other senior leaders say, hey, I got the software as my brain and the hardware as my body. I like to keep the software and hardware working together. What is your current state of your career and how you're looking at it? What's next and what's going on in your mind right now? Yeah, so for me, I really want to make sure that for my team we're nurturing the next generation of leadership and that we're helping with career development and career growth and people feel like they can grow their careers here. Luckily at HPE, we have a lot of people stay at HPE a long time and even people who leave HPE, a lot of times they come back because culture is fantastic. So I just want to make sure I'm contributing to that culture and I'm bringing up the next generation of leaders. What's next for you? What are you looking at from a career personal standpoint? You know, it's funny. I love what I'm doing right now. I'm actually on a joint venture board with H3C which is a HPE joint venture company. And so I'm really enjoying that and exploring more board service opportunities. You know, you have a focus of good growth mindset, managing through tough times. How do you stay focused on that North Star? How do you keep the reinforcement of the mission? How do you nurture the team to greatness? Yeah, so I think it's a lot of clarity, providing a lot of clarity about what's important right now. And it goes back to some of the communication that I mentioned earlier, making sure that everybody knows where the North Star is. So everybody's focused on the same thing because I feel like with the, you know, I always felt like throughout my career, I was set up for success if I had the right information, the right guidance and the right goals. And I try to make sure that I do that with my team. What are some of the things that you could share as we wrap up here for the folks watching as the networks increase, as the stories start to unfold more and more on digital like we're doing here. What do you hope people walk away with? What's working? What needs work? And what is some things that people aren't talking about that should be discussed publicly? Do you mean from a career standpoint or? A career for growing into tech and into leadership positions. Big migration, tech is now a wide field. I mean, when I would go up broken in the 80s, it was computer science, software engineering and three degrees in engineering, right? Now it's a huge swath of AIs coming. So many technical career. There's a lot of women. And that's what's so exciting about being in a technical career, a technical company is that everything's always changing. There's always opportunity to learn something new. And frankly, every company is in the business of technology right now because they want it closer to their customers. Typically they're using technology to do that. Everyone's digitally transforming. And so what I would say is that there's so much opportunity, keep your mind open, explore what interests you and keep learning because it's changing all the time. I was talking with Sue, former HP, she's on a lot of boards. The balance of the board level still needs a lot of work and the leaderships are getting better but the board at the seats of the table needs work. Where do you see that transition for you in the future? Is that something on your mind? Maybe a board seat. You mentioned you're on a board with HPE but maybe sitting on some other boards. Any, anything? Actually, we actually have a program here at HPE called the Board Ready Now program that I'm a part of. And so HPE is very supportive of me exploring an independent board seat. And so they have some education and programming around that. And I know Sue well, she's awesome. And so yes, I'm looking into those opportunities right now. She advises, do one, no more than two. Yet the day job. I would only be doing one current job that I have. Chris, it's great to chat with you about these topics and leadership and challenging times. Great masterclass, great advice. As SVP and GM of Mainstream Compute for HPE, what's going on in your job these days? What's the most exciting thing happening? Share some of your work. Sure, sure. So the most exciting thing happening right now is HPE Gen 11, which we've just announced and started shipping brings tremendous performance benefits, has an intuitive operating experience, a trusted security by design, and it's optimized to run workloads so much faster. So if anybody is interested, they should go check it out on HPE.com. And of course, the cube will be at HPE Discover. We'll see you there. Any final wisdom you'd like to share as we wrap up the last minute here? Yeah, so I think the last thing I'll say is that when it comes to setting your sites, I think expecting good things to happen usually happens when you believe you deserve it. So what happens is you believe you deserve it, then you expect it and you get it. And so sometimes that's about making sure you raise your thermostat to expect more. And I always talk about, you don't have to raise it all up at once. You could do that incrementally. And other people can set your thermostat too when they say, hey, you should be, you should get a level this high or that high, but raise your thermostat because what you expect is what you get. Krista, thank you so much for contributing to this program. We're going to do it quarterly. We're going to do getting more stories out there. So we'll have you back. And if you know anyone, any good stories, send them our way. And congratulations on your BPTN tech executive of the year award for 2023. Congratulations, great prize there and great recognition for your hard work. Thank you so much, John, appreciate it. Okay, this is theCUBE's covers of National Whitman's Day. I'm John Furrier, stories from the front lines, management ranks, developers, all their global coverage of international things with theCUBE. Thanks for watching.