8squad CEO Frank Cuiuli returns to the Salesforce Eco System community after a 5 year break launching and building the high performance health care practice – PIVOTme.

Did you miss Salesforce that much you had to come back?

“I missed the innovation and I particularly missed the people. But I could also see an industry using a mantra of disruption as focus without thought of the human impact.”

“After the sale of my last Salesforce venture it was a good time to take a break and pursue my passion in health and high performance.  Building PIVOTme and getting certified as a practitioner for a unique movement therapy really opened my mind and taught me a great deal about human behaviour and the true potential of the human condition.”

“Delivering therapy and seeing the real impact on people’s lives changed my perception of what delivering value meant.  This formed the basis of my strong opinion about what human led innovation means not innovation for the sake of it.”

“So yeah – I did miss but I have a real passionate reason for coming back.”

Salesforce Then and Now must be quite a chasm?

“The company has changed in a significant manner in just the last 5 years. For me this just opens the potential to the impact of outcomes we can now deliver. It’s also exciting to see that SAAS is enterprise ready and treated as a core system.”

“This also provides us a real opportunity to not go about building a business which looks like all other enterprise software integrators. I think the consolidation of the Tier 2 partners into the Tier 1 players both locally and globally has sucked some of the soul from the partner ecosystem.. time to shake it up.”

8squad preaches people and human strategies.  Why so loudly?

“Spending 5 years rehabilitating people from serious health issues, often created because of the high stress, fast paced lifestyle has really made a lasting impact on my way of thinking. If we don’t do things intentionally for the betterment of human outcomes then there has to be a big question asked “why are we doing it?”. Challenging our customers to answer this question is the mission of all our squads.”

The leadership blend from the Board down is an intriguing and powerful one.  What exactly are you building?

“We are building a model which is about leadership not management. The operating model we are embracing to its core is about mimicking how complex adaptive systems work in nature.”

“Simply designing smaller teams is not enough and we are out to prove there is a better way to empower the organisation and remove the central governor model which so many companies are oriented towards.”

We see teams in action from Formulae 1 to Navy Seals.  Why 8squad teams in the Salesforce Eco System?

“Because it a better way – there is a growing body of evidence that about optimum team sizes being between 6 – 8.   There is also a movement towards more holocratic operating models which are more about decentralisation of decision making. I believe these are powerful ideas which will give rise to the next generation of companies who simply orient differently to many modern day businesses. For me if you are using innovative platforms such as Salesforce to transform businesses, why not couple that with an innovative way of building a new type of cultural architecture.”

The 8squad story is a new one made up of some Salesforce veterans. Are you winning?

“It’s early days but we are absolutely on track.   If companies are the result of its people, we have the absolute best lining up to participate in this journey. This is why we will win. You simply can’t fake this and it needs to start at the top. For us, it starts with the board who support this strategy, and it’s my job to execute with the support of my team…. nothing happens without the WE before ME in this business.”