6 minute read
Farina Mackay - what superpowers does it take to lead at Degreed?
E-learning is full of heroes.This issue, we ask Farina Mackay what superpowers it takes to lead at Degreed.
Curious about what it’s like being a female leader for a sales team in the Learning and Development (L&D) industry?
Welcome to my world in 2024, where no one cares if you are a true Boss-Babe (gender is so last season), where team huddles are done virtually, and AI Robots still haven’t quite managed to sound like real humans, meaning Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) are here to stay!
Whilst juggling people culture, leadership acrobatics, and sales targets at learning unicorn Degreed, I am also fitting in school runs, listening to sales podcasts as I watch Water Polo training, and occasionally jumping off camera to say hi to my best friend… the Amazon delivery man.
Being a mum of two boys and leading a global sales development team has many parallels. Early morning wake-up calls are just like working with different time zones!
Then throw in the need to continuously build fresh skills (exactly what Degreed enables, through a monthly learning budget for its employees) and I am practically living and breathing learning and development 24/7. But I’d have it no other way - lifelong learning really is my passion.
Training for the ever-changing battlefield
With new L&D heroes and villains popping up every week, we’re constantly honing our powers and adopting secret identities to meet the challenges of the ever-changing battlefield. Deloitte says 69% of organisations are going crazy over digital learning. But selling in L&D is no Sunday picnic; it’s more like saving a baby from a burning building whilst trying to fight off an army of supervillains - gotta keep those skills sharp, folks!
If my team doesn’t continuously adapt their skills and keep up with the latest trends in the market, if we don’t remind ourselves of SPIN, transformational sales methods, Value Selling and so forth, we wouldn’t sell a thing.
Sales is also such a relational department, so we always have to stay humble, have great emotional intelligence, and build human connections with our prospects. It’s a lot to achieve, and as a leader, it’s something that is constantly on my mind. The best leaders are those who support their teams to achieve their best work (really, we should call direct reports, direct supports). I’m always thinking of new ways to motivate and equip my team so they can attend every prospect meeting with the latest ideas, expert insights, and L&D know-how.
In fact, my 10-year-old has this pretty much nailed when it comes to his VR headset. He’s always looking for just that little bit longer when using it, and his pitch for “five more minutes’’ would put most sales teams to shame! He’s got the perfect mix of reason and logic (that VR helps him destress/build new skills) plus emotional IQ (tugging at my heartstrings). The dream sales pitch comes when expertise and reasoning meets human connection.
Continuous learning: the hero the world needs
Everyone in L&D is seeking a utopian ideal of learning systems working seamlessly together to create an engaging and interesting experience that people want to interact with over and over again. But the jury’s out on how, precisely, to go about this. It’s a confusing market, with some 426 learning vendors currently available to L&D buyers. And the pressures are getting stronger on L&D leaders, since by 2025, potentially 85 million jobs will be disrupted by technology, requiring new skills.
A great sales rep will be giving much-needed clarity to prospects at this time, solving some very clear challenges for L&D teams. In a way, learning has become a main character among all the calls for more skills, closing skills gaps, and finding alternative forms of talent (through gig work or internal mobility).
Degreed was created with the vision of making skills, not credentials or connections, the way that work is allocated and completed. We achieve this through consolidating all learning into an intuitive single space for learners, while giving L&D teams greater ability to scale and repeat learning across their workforces, and gather invaluable skills data for workforce decision-making. In other words, we can help to plug skills gaps by encouraging people to engage with learning, every single day, in an accessible way (like on their commute, during a work day when they have downtime, or in the moment of need while on the factory floor).
It’s so important that we practice what we preach, so my team constantly shares what skills they’re building using our monthly personal learning budgets. We also celebrate our team’s Top Learner every quarter, because it’s encouraging to be recognised for your efforts.
Superpowers are great, but it’s the people behind them that matter
Creating a positive people culture within a remote team is like organising a full day out with my kids (3 and 10 years old), complete with challenges and victories. The secret sauce? Genuine care. I care about my team’s virtual water cooler moments, about bringing out the best in them, and yes, we do practice daily candid feedback. Those informal moments are what build a strong company culture and we have to be more intentional with creating such moments, especially since we work remotely.
Skills strategy: you can fly, but do you have heat vision?
The skills strategy is going to be the hot new thing in the C-Suite this year. If this is the first time you’re hearing about it, let me give you a debrief. Business leaders globally, in all industries, are grappling with growing skills shortages. The skills strategy tackles this head-on by taking a skills-based approach to areas like upskilling and reskilling. It makes learning far more personal, because learning opportunities are tailored to someone’s current skills and skill level, in addition to what the business needs.
Passion, laughter, and a dash of girl power
I’m not just passionate about learning and development; I’m on a not-so-secret mission with my team of top-of-funnel superheroes to craft a story that’ll make us headline news on the front page of the Daily Planet - or at least happy and fulfilled!
The industry is so vast - my team truly understands the necessity for our product, and they believe in what we do - my role is to make sure we show up and become 1% better every day.
So yes, maybe being a female leader does come with special superpowers. After all, who says Mother doesn’t know best?
Sources
Gallup, “State of the Global Workplace,” 2023.
CIPD, “UK Working Lives Survey,” 2022.
Deloitte, “Global Human Capital Trends,” 2023.
Degreed, “Skill Frameworks: 3 Simple Options to Jumpstart Your Skills Strategy”
World Economic Forum, “The Future of Jobs Report,” 2025.
