In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, navigating the realms of digital transformation while upholding mindful leadership principles is a crucial endeavor. Johnny Russo, Chief Digital Officer at Lamour, has been at the forefront of this journey, driving innovation and inspiring teams to excel. With over 16 years of experience in Digital Marketing and E-commerce, Johnny’s insights shed light on the dynamic intersection of technology and leadership. In this exclusive interview with The Entrepreneur Times, Johnny shares his journey, key leadership principles, and his vision for the future of business in the digital age. Let’s delve into his remarkable insights and experiences, offering a beacon of guidance for aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders alike.
What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or business leader?
I am lucky that I love what I do. I also love the industry I’m in. But I have to say, leading people is my greatest passion. Part of my purpose is to help and inspire people. Over the years, I have worked on different areas of my leadership to ensure I am motivating people to be better and to meet their goals, not only professionally but also personally. This is not a monthly or quarterly thing. It’s not a set it and forget it. This is a daily impact I hope to make.
Can you briefly describe your journey and the pivotal moments that shaped your career?
Growing up, I wanted to be a sports writer. Sports was my passion, and writing came naturally to me. So I graduated in Journalism from Concordia University in Montreal. This is back in 2003, and digital was just shining its light. Little did we know the worldly change this thing called the Internet would have. After being unable to find a job in Montreal at a newspaper (yes, those were still popular 20 years ago) or news station, I decided to move to Ottawa. Needing to pay rent, I took any job I got. Well, it happened to be in marketing. After 2 weeks, I knew this was the career I wanted! I read everything I could get my hands on relating to marketing, advertising, or branding. The first of those reads was Guerilla Marketing, by Jay Conrad Levinson. I then binge read every Seth Godin book. And Mitch Joel, a fellow Montrealer, became an inspiration and virtual mentor. After 2 years, I moved back to Montreal, but my path was set.
A few years later, I got a job at Buffalo Jeans, a global brand that manufactured and sold jeans and apparel in retail stores and online. I ran their Digital business. I loved retail and everything about it. Fast paced. Sales data and analytics at your fingertips. And innovative technology advances.
So while the shift from journalism to marketing was one pivot, the next was moving to Calgary. I’ll touch on this story a bit later when we talk about risk, but moving to Calgary was an extraordinary opportunity for my career development, and I loved it. I got to work with one of the largest and most successful retailers in North America.
The next huge milestone was writing my book, Mastering Mindful Leadership: 105 Ways to Level Up Your Leadership and Become the Leader Your Employees Need You to Be. It got published in October 2022. The book is about a new wave of leadership, one that examines what it takes to manage a team of individuals to get them to buy into a team concept, to help inspire them, to motivate them, to get them to care about others, and to do it with respect and a smile on your face and theirs. Leadership has changed. While it will always come in many shapes and sizes, the days of yelling to get your point across, ruling with a stern fist, controlling your people, playing punishing mind games with them, focusing on the negative and never accentuating the positive, and letting fear be your main leadership characteristic…those days are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I wanted to right a book on leading with mindfulness of your team at the core.
And my greatest achievement and life milestone to date – having 2 beautiful children. Luca and Siena are the sunshine in my life, the beating of my heart, and I want to be the greatest and most loving Dad for them. Being a Dad is a living legacy for me.
What key leadership principles do you consider essential for success in business?
In his excellent book Principles, Ray Dalio said “Create a culture in which it is okay to make mistakes and unacceptable not to learn from them.”
As leaders, it is our job to create and foster an environment where employees and team members are not afraid to speak up, to welcome open and honest communication, and to allow for a playground where mistakes might be made, but (continuous) learning must be a core principle, or success may not be so close. I also believe compassion, empathy, and positivity are crucial to any great leader. At the end of the day, my leadership philosophy is to lead the way I would want to be led.
I have been motivated to be the leader I am by some great leaders who showed me what it is to be a great human being, and what it means to care for your people; I’ve also benefited from some great team members and colleagues, and some amazing authors whose words inspired me to lead in a better way, to help make people better, and not just focus on profits. Profits are hugely important, but they can’t be our only driving motivator. We shouldn’t prioritize profits over people; we should prioritize people and profits, with purpose. It’s the only way forward.
How do you foster innovation within your organization?
You have to focus on action and agility/speed. Without action, you may have the best strategy in the world – on paper. The difference between good and great is critical actions and milestones met and achieved in the most efficient time possible.
Take Chat GBT example. You can only sit on the sidelines and watch for so long. At some point, you have to dive in and see what impact it can have for your business.
We ship thousands of packages to consumers every day. We’re constantly thinking about how to make the entire experience better, from getting to our website to adding items to your cart to buying and then the post purchase experience. How do we innovate? How do we make it better for the consumer? How do we gain more profitability per order? We have tons of ideas. Again, it’s nice to have them on paper in a nice strategic plan. And we take that plan and constantly test and iterate to make sure we’re always trying new things. Again, that’s the difference between good and great.
Can you share an example of a significant risk you took and the lessons learned from it?
Moving to Calgary. I had a great job, and a comfortable life in Montreal. A huge opportunity came my way with Mark’s and the Canadian Tire Corporation, one of the largest and most respected retailers in Canada. I didn’t know anyone in Calgary. It’s likely what an athlete feels like after being traded to a new team in a new city, leaving his family and friends and home behind. I left my family (I didn’t have kids, so it made the decision a lot easier). Left my friends. I played on a few ball hockey teams in Montreal and had a fun social life. And then in January 2016 I moved to a city that is a 5-hour plane ride away from home with a 2-hour time difference.
That move not only catapulted my career by a few years and gave me oversight into tremendous budgets and a large team, but it strengthened me in so many ways. It was not easy. Some days and nights were unimaginably tough. Being alone, especially when I first got there, was quite the experience. But I gained so much strength, resolve, and love for the beauty of Western Canada. Along the way, I also gained some life-long friends and an appreciation for the city of Calgary and province of Alberta. I eventually moved back to Monreal after 4 wonderful years. I still miss Calgary and Western Canada dearly, and try to get back to visit as much as I can. I am so thankful for the risk I took, how much I learned about myself, and the leader I became because of it.
How do you shape and maintain a positive and productive corporate culture?
It’s always fun to summarize in 3’s, isn’t it? I would say motivation, prioritization, and positivity. Let me expand on those.
A part of my life intention is to develop, inspire, motivate and lead people and businesses in digital transformation. So inspiring, empowering, and motivating people is my passion. How I do that depends on the individual, the team culture, the company, the pace of change needed, etc.
For the last couple of years, something that has been helpful is asking my team members to reflect on the prior year. I ask them about 6 or 7 questions, and it requires a lot of thinking, reflection, and internal soul searching.
So before the start of the year, sometime in December, I send my team a self-reflection document to fill out, with questions such as: What are you most proud of accomplishing last year? What have you learned about your ability to deal with challenges in the previous year? What else have you overcome (or how have you evolved) last year to strengthen your capacity as a person or employee? Who do you need to thank for your growth (personally and/or professionally)? On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how alive did you feel (this past year)? What will you do to increase your aliveness in the next year? What do you need or want to let go of in order to be even better in the next 12 months? What are your 3 primary specific development goals for the next year?
From this, I help them develop a personal development planfor their career and life for the next 12 months or longer. I review it with them every 6-8 weeks. It contains 3-4 main focus areas for their job, career, or life (could be time management, fear of speaking, becoming a better analytical thinker, working on procrastination, etc). We then setup an action plan against each of those goals, and they grade themselves on where they are each time we meet to review. (They grade themselves. Makes them accountable). While I empower them in many ways, if we write it down together on their plan, you can be sure I am going to use everything in my toolset to push them to achieve those goals they told me they wanted to achieve.
They also have a theme for the year. For example, Discipline and Progress. Last year (yes, I do it for myself as well) mine was: Be transformational. Monumental growth:
Love/Health. Success/Money. Travel/Fun.
In these plans, they also have scorecards (both metric-based and project based) with all their various KPIs on them, and we track those quarterly. And then we have things to continue that they are doing well, and things to work on.
So by the time we get to the “official yearly review” there are zero surprises and they know exactly what they’ve done well and areas to improve.
This enables the entire team to crush their goals, both at work and at home.
I like to listen, learn, encourage, and coach them. Again, mindful leadership. I like to not only help develop the employee, but the person as well.
Secondly, it comes down to prioritization. And how you track your goals. Every employee and every team believes they have a lot to do. And they usually do. But not everything is or should be due today or this week.
Not everything can be priority 1. Not everything can be priority 2. So you (or your boss) have to align and agree on them. What moves the needle most? If you’re the boss, then you need to be clear on what is 1, 2, 3, a nice to have, a future ask when there is nothing to do, etc. And when you expect or want the work completed. Everyone moves at a different pace. So yes, your team members likely each have their way of doing things, and some are quicker than others, some are more diligent than others. So you have to factor that in.
The other thing about goals and goal setting people may forget is where they put them. What system do they use to track goals and things they need to work on? Is it Evernote, Asana, a journal, a purpose playbook? If you have them on post-it notes in the office, how will you access your own life goals for the weekend? Or your work goals when you’re working from home? Make sure you have a system that works for you, and then get hyper focused on your personal and career goals, big and small, for the year.
So now that you have big goals for the year, you need to break them down in Monthly, Weekly, Daily tasks. In the daily tasks, you need to get your core (or before Noon tasks) out of the way first. What moves the needle most – again, priority No. 1.
At Lamour, we manage several brands and licenses through our Digital channels. So we need to split our time accordingly. So we have to be super focused on time and output, driving traffic, conversions, and sales at each step, while building the brand too. We have about 15 key KPIs we look at on our scorecard, and that helps drive how our week and months look.
And the difference between a good goal setter vs a great one is action and prioritization. So if you think you’ve done this before and it hasn’t worked, ask yourself if you really worked towards your goals. Did you write them down? Track against them? Prioritize them?
Another small trick I do is to complete most of my weekly goals from Monday to Wednesday.
Thirdly, positivity. I don’t know many people who would want to be led by a negative person or a pessimist. If you lead with positivity, your team will always be more inspired. I think it’s never been truer in this day and age, but being a great leader is usually tied to being a great human being.
How do you manage the balance between your professional and personal life?
I feel like countless books have been written on this topic. I have a formula that works for me, and I am happy to share it.
Firstly, let’s talk about balance. I create balance in my life by feeling good and doing things I love. So I wake up every day at 5:30 to workout. I then make a healthy breakfast for the family, usually consisting of lots of egg whites, Canadian bacon, and some fruit. Get that protein!
Secondly, I create balance by doing what I love. I love spending time with my family. My 2 kids, Luca and Siena, are my sunshine. They give me energy. And I safe guard my quality time with them. I love to travel, so I make time for that in my calendar. And I love great food and wine. Now let’s talk about work.
On Sunday night, I make a list and review all the things I need to do for the upcoming week, on a Monday-to-Sunday schedule (including the weekend, as I do) or Monday to Friday if you like.
That’s the first thing. The second task may be painful. And while it may be painful at first, it will pay off by mid-week. Complete as much as 70% of your tasks on Monday and Tuesday. I know it’s a big ask. But hear me out.
If you have 20-30 items on your to-do list, and you knock off 60%-70% of them on Monday and Tuesday you will have much more strategic planning or thinking time available for the latter half of the week. Yes, you may have to work extra hours, stay up late, watch less TV, or cut your lunch in half to do so much in these first two days, but it will be worth it. You will have more time for urgent items that may come up, and/or have more free time to spend with your team members.
The other trick is to complete your to-do tasks in order of priority, starting with the absolute most important item. So, if by the end of the week item Numbers 16-20 don’t get done, they fall into the next week. Feel free to add personal chores or other non-work items to these lists.
Either way, if you have a structured approach to doing this, the rest of your week, from Wednesday to Friday (or Wednesday to Sunday, for some) will be achieved with more purpose, productivity, clarity, and satisfaction.
Everyone views balance differently, and this is my formula.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in maintaining a healthy work-life balance?
You must define what that balance is for you. I can offer up advice. So can countless others. But you must take from it what you want, and do what’s right for you. People think work/life balance is about working less than 40 hours per week and never responding to a call or email during the evening. But that’s not accurate. Some people love what they do and maybe they want to work 50 or 60 hours per week and maybe they plan so well they don’t miss any family time. But in the end, it’s up to each individual to define what a healthy work life balance is. That’s the key. That’s the advice I’ll give. Define what it looks like for you, and spend your time guarding it.
How have you embraced digital transformation in your business?
I get to transform businesses (and processes) digitally on a daily basis. I’ve been preaching this topic for quite some time now. In fact, I created a framework for it. Digital transformation is not the path of least resistance. It takes real grit to make change happen, especially when stakeholders are accustomed to more traditional ways to go about business success. But digital champions are entering the workforce with more conventional brands (and companies) and driving change at all levels of business (not just Marketing, Ecommerce, or IT).
Empowered by data, motivated by technological change, these early adopters know that digital transformation is inevitable. But the challenge of creating momentum in siloed organizations with deeply entrenched processes can be slow.
For me, there are five core pillars for digital transformation: People, Partners, Culture, Data, Education — and then there’s also an aspect of Change Management and continuous learning that all fit together.
For me, digital transformation is not a buzzword. It’s a real thing that I’m doing at my current role and that I’ve spearheaded at other companies. When I talk to people that are on this quest or journey, these are all the elements that seem to be recreating themselves.
These are the core pillars of the digital transformation and in a year from now, maybe you’ve worked on 3 of them and can tackle the other two. Every business will be in a different place as far as adoption goes. So you’ll have to digest that as you go.
Culture, for instance, if we were talking about digital transformation four or five years ago maybe culture didn’t play such a role and maybe marketing couldn’t really control aspects of culture. But I believe that marketing has a seat at the table at some of those discussions surrounding company culture, employee culture, customer culture. So, culture has strongly played a role in digital transformation at the organizations I’ve proudly been a part of.
Here’s a quick summary of the five pillars.
1. Ensure we create a continuous learning environment, share our learnings across the team, and stay attuned to industry changes
2. Outline our future needs and ensure all agencies, suppliers, and technologies/platforms we work with and we engage with are true partners in the process. Must be win-win though
3. If we build this without looking at past, current, and future data, it can fall apart. Experience is key, but data will make decision-making easier. Data helps us manage through change
4. For Digital Transformation to be sustainable, culture must be front and center. A culture of being adaptive and curious, not accepting the status quo, being positive and enthusiastic about what you do, helping each other, and driving it (your area) like you stole it (speed and accountability)
5. The most important of all: people. The right people in the right positions will not only drive growth, it will drive sustainable growth (while having fun!)
What advice do you have for entrepreneurs navigating the challenges of the digital age?
There’s admittedly a lot of noise in Digital today. Generative AI and Chat GBT, the metaverse, and big data. Everyday there are new purported experts popping up in each of these sectors, almost creating sub industries in the process. My advice: keep testing to see what’s right for your business, but as a business leader, if you have the right priorities, then limit the noise and focus on what’s right for your business, and adopt the new as you see fit. You get paid to drive business success. Often times, that includes new technological advances. Decide what’s right for your business or functionality, and limit the distractions to the must-haves.
What legacy do you hope to leave through your entrepreneurial journey?
I wrote a book called Mastering Mindful Leadership. A part of the reason I did so was to give back to aspiring leaders on how to lead. If I could help one person on this leadership journey, I would have fulfilled part of my legacy. I also did it for my children. To see their Dad have a goal to one day write a book, and then see it come to fruition. Now, they are quite young at the moment, 6 and 4, but one day I will tell them all about it. I also can’t wait for them to read it!
Legacy is something we all want to understand more of. And it is a journey.
In a piece of beautiful writing on the topic of management, famed leadership guru Ken Blanchard wrote this: “As for me, I’m still working on my vision of moving from success to significance. I’ve discovered that as we move full steam ahead toward our vision, our vision expands the closer we come to it. My vision has expanded to include my community. I’ve realized that on this planet, we are all part of one community, and we all need to assume responsibility for creating a shared vision.”
Moving from Success to Significance. It’s a great line. And we are all on different leadership journeys, different life adventures. There will be ups and there will be downs. Some people are just beginning, and others are entrenched in their journeys. I try to impact people positively, whether I am their Dad, family member, manager, friend, or someone I just met. That may be my legacy.
How do you devise a customer strategy to offer frictionless and seamless service?
At Lamour, we’re moving from REACTIVE to PROACTIVE customer experience. Imagine getting in front of the customer before they think they have an issue. Or solving it before they need to reach out. We’re trying to.
But back to the question – I would ask: Does everyone have someone leading Customer Experience on their teams? That is a crucial step in the process. Maybe that’s you, but it should be a key hire if it’s not you. When I first started at Lamour a few years ago, we had disparate teams of customer service personnel. But they were reactive teams, not proactive. They responded to emails and took some calls.
Since then, we’ve hired a Customer Experience Manager and changed the other team members in what was customer service (mainly answering Email complaints) and changed them to Customer Experience Specialists. Our CX Manager’s role is to ensure a seamless customer experience on their path to conversion, and after it. So if we have to cover shipments or give out free shipping on their next order because we made a mistake, I tell her I’ll worry about helping ensure we are profitable; she worries about making the customer 100% satisfied, happy, and coming back. Our job is to ensure there is no friction from beginning to end, even if that means paying the shipping on some returns, or covering global shipping and duties fees when we made a mistake.
What is one (or two) great leadership trait(s) many leaders forget?
Listen to your employees and team members. You may think things are going well in your mind. But listen to your employees and look for cues.
Be positive and optimistic. Even when things go wrong, a leader’s approach to a problem goes a long way in having the team be in peak form to solve it. A good coach in sports, or a good captain, knows how to alleviate the pressure – in hockey terms, you don’t want your team gripping their sticks too tightly. If they feel good, they’ll usually perform better than adding more stress on them.
What do you think the landscape will look like in five years?
A bigger delta between the rich and the poor in the world. Businesses will have to understand how to deal with that.
More people will be in better physical shape. Wellness will be even more central to our lives.
Chat GBT and generative AI will cause some industry shifts in terms of labour, but people will adjust and not know how they lived without it.
And every company will be looking for mindful leaders and managers to be part of their company.
