If Your Office is Lord of the Rings, Are You Gollum?
Information is my business. But as valuable as information is, if I’m not careful, my single-minded quest can slowly turn me into a devilish creature who cares only about himself.
Stacatto footsteps approached Chris’s office. They were mine. And they came with purpose: ask a question, get the answer, and do a quick 180 to my office to advance the ball.
Chris looked up from his desk and smiled. I blurted out my question without even bothering to step over the threshold of his office. I tapped my foot.
Chris greeted me warmly. Waved me inside. Asked me how I was doing today. And just when I thought Chris was about to give me the information I so desperately needed, he instead sidestepped my question and began telling me a story. Good news about his family. He was animated. Hands waving. Grin widening. Eyes wide with excitement.
This is not what I need. I need answers. I need INFORMATION. I need…
Suddenly my sad little mission came into full view. I suddenly saw myself as Gollum, creeping up on Chris as if he were Frodo the hobbit, and screeching, What has it got in its pocketses? My PRECIOUS!!
Before I even walked to his office, I had reduced Chris to an inanimate means to an end. But neither Chris nor I are inanimate. We are living beings designed to experience validation and companionship and gratitude and purpose and other immeasurables.
Yes, we serve a company with a bottom line at stake. But isn’t that bottom line best served when its parts move together in harmony? And those parts are people. And harmony requires being human – not just a hungry machine awaiting information and nothing more.
As Chris continued to share his story, I realized that this slice of time was not about me getting my precious. It was about validating a coworker by sharing in his story. It was about listening with eager patience instead of devaluing his humanity so I could get what I wanted. It was, and is, about strengthening a relationship, which in turn only aids the company when the two of us do depend on each other to get things done.
Our coworkers see us for who we are (even if we don’t). They hear it in the harshness or warmth of our voice on the phone, in the terseness or softness of our emails, in the body language of impatience or serenity.
The “I” in CIO is not the most important part of my title. The most important thing are the people who provide it, receive it, and govern it with me.
When we go home at the end of each day, will our fellow human beings at work remember us for the information or work that we squeezed from them, or for the life-affirming value we gave back to them?
Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be? – John Keating (Dead Poet’s Society)
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions. He is also a published author and speaker. To learn more, connect with him on LinkedIn or follow him on Twitter,
A Christmas Story of the Christmas Spirit
Ralphie had a dream.
I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!
Ralphie had obstacles. Every adult, it seemed, believed unwaveringly…
No, you’ll shoot your eye out!
And in the middle of this epic struggle of one human to obtain a precious object that really only serves to bring to life the indwelling desire to be heroic and save those he loves from the forces of evil, he faced the most hideous of all Christmas evils. Do you remember what it was?
Every growing hero needs a secret decoder ring, and Ralphie invested time and days of waiting-in-anguish until it arrived. Once he had it in his hands he gleefully sat down in front of the radio to record the stream of numbers that enciphered the message he knew would change his life. And when he leveraged the power of the ring to decipher that message, he stared at it in horror…
Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.
Ovaltine?
A crummy commercial? Son of a…
Yes, friends, Ralphie’s greatest confrontation with evil was not the bar of soap his mother placed in his mouth, nor was it the endless parade of grown-up grumblings about eye safety. It was not the lamp, major award though it was. It was not the bullies in the alley. It was not Black Bart. It was not his father’s misplaced anger. For you see, in the end, Ralphie’s mother saved him from his father. Ralphie received the Red Ryder BB gun on Christmas morning and sent Black Bart running. Ralphie vanquished the bullies. The lamp was destroyed. His eye, closely missed though it was, was intact. And the soap in his mouth went back up on the ceramic arm of the sink where it belonged. Ralphie’s tastebud memories were now palimpsests atop palimpsests of his mother’s cooking.
But what does not happen? Ralphie never uses the secret decoder ring again, because his greatest evil – that which drained him of heroic power far more than the BB that struck his cheek just below the eye – was senseless, manipulative advertising.
Ralphie already paid for the ring. He gave up his time to listen to the radio commercials touting Ovaltine. So why should he have to endure more? He shouldn’t. And what did he think of Ovaltine in the end? Far less.
May we all remember this during the holidays and beyond. Let’s remember that our clients have already invested heavily in us. They have spent money. Time. Effort. They have traversed our websites and mobile touch points and already given themselves to our advertisements that plead for more. So why not simply help them get the Red Ryder BB gun they already want instead of trying to manipulate them into something that they don’t? Even if you have to send them down the street to Gimbels to get it (sorry, wrong story).
It’s not that hard. Is it, Ralphie?
Forget the Numbers and the Calculable ROI: Just Do It
Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein
Living in the information age can cloud our ability to see clearly.
Our focus drifts toward numbers and away from people. We see…
Costs and not customers
Hours worked and not our workers
ROI and not you or I
Just because it can be measured does not mean it is worthwhile. Often the best things are immeasurable deliverables. And yet we often don’t offer our best because we are blinded by the data.
For example, how do you calculate the ROI of a handwritten thank-you card given to an employee on her work anniversary or after she does a great job on a project?
You can’t. And because the hard return of gratitude cannot be stored in a database and analyzed, we don’t do it. And even when someone like Soul Pancake does a great job of illustrating the ROI of gratitude, we still flounder because we can’t see the hard numbers in our own database.
Recently I decided to stop just saying “thank you” in quick but heartfelt spurts and to start giving out handwritten thank-you cards with a few short paragraphs of worthy things I see in that human being – especially at key times like work anniversaries. Since that time, I have seen an ROI that I cannot codify. How do you measure…
The width of a smile?
The number of tears streaming down a face?
The weight of the words, “I can’t tell you how much this means to me…”?
The length of time the note stays on prominent display?
The strength of a grip in a grateful handshake?
You can’t. Not now. Not ever. And yet, you can see with your own eyes that the ROI is there. The R is worth far more the little I it takes to show some gratitude in a meaningful way. Or to show respect, kindness, consideration, courtesy, or a note that says, “You are worthy.”
Forget the numbers. Who cares of you can’t calculate the ROI? Just do it.
The CIO in Spidey’s Clothing
…manipulation is more appropriate than influence and honesty.
from “The Wolf in CIO’s Clothing”
by Tina Nunno, Vice-President and Distinguished Analyst
in Gartner’s CIO Research Group
“In certain situations,” is the context for this quote. The Prince by Machiavelli is the basis for the philosophy. The Machiavellian CIO at work is the methodology.
Much research went into this book – it arises from none other than Gartner. And I am not here to argue with the research – it is probably 100% accurate through and through.
That’s what makes refuting it so easy.
If your goal is to succeed and you define success by personal advancement in fame, fortune, and power, then this book and its research are for you.
But if your definition of success is to improve the lives of your employer, clients, colleagues, and employees, then you need another book entirely.
You don’t buy a book of cheats on how to master the video game All Zombies Must Die if your goal is to cook a gourmet meal for friends and relatives.
I have no desire to assemble an arsenal of Machiavellian weapons, carry them into the workplace for a first-person-manipulation rampage while viewing all around me as zombies over whom I alone must reign victorious.
My job as a CIO is to cook a gourmet meal of technology, content, and user experience that satisfies the hunger of all of the good people who have and still do make my job a privilege.
The role of the CIO is to be a hero that rescues everyone else, not the villain that devours everyone in his path.
Machiavelli may provide direction, but not in the direction I want to go. I prefer to remember the words below and all others that echo along with them…
With great power there must also come – great responsibility.
You go ahead and be the wolf in CIO’s clothing if you want. I’m going as Spider-man.
Know Thyself: A Root Cause Analysis On You
Everything we do, we do with purpose. It’s just that sometimes we don’t understand the true purpose behind our actions.
Very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do….
By “why” I mean: ‘What’s your purpose?”
‘What’s your cause?” “What”s your belief?”
Simon Sinek
If you want to understand your purpose – to really dig down deep and understand yourself better – consider the following exercise. I call it a Root Cause Analysis on Yourself.
Warning
If you commit to this root cause analysis exercise and you haven’t done anything like this before, you will get uncomfortable. But if you do commit, that discomfort could fade from memory as you see more clearly just what drives you.
We all do what we do for a reason. But in our hectic culture, we tend to leave our analysis of “why” at a shallow, single layer of thinking. But why we do what we do goes far deeper than the surface. There is a spiral staircase that descends far below the first step of reason to determine why you do what you do. And until you make the descent, you never really know just why you are the way you are.
Reason alone does not suffice…
Your vision will become clear
only when you look into your heart …
Who looks outside, dreams.
Who looks inside, awakens.
C.G. Jung
A methodical journey deep into the rarely-explored territory called you is worth the effort.
Step 1: Identify an Action for Root Cause Analysis
This is the easiest thing you will do on your journey down the twisting staircase and back. Identify one particular action for root cause analysis. Then phrase it in the form of a question.
Example: Why do I keep putting off Project X when I know I need to work on it now?
Step 2: Identify the Reason that Drives You to that Action
This step is almost as simple as Step 1, but requires a healthy dose of honesty and accuracy. For example, your answer to putting off Project X may seem like “because I don’t want to do it.” While that may be true, it is not a reason. Dig deeper and be honest. Perhaps the reason you keep putting off Project X is because you are unfamiliar with the technical specifics of the project to even begin to know how to delegate, and you really don’t think you have time for the tough, uninterrupted concentration in order to understand. And if you really think about it, you are putting off Project X because you enjoy Projects A, B, and C so much that Project X would just taint the fun you are having.
Whatever the reason, after you are sure that you are being honest and accurate, write down your answer in the form of a complete sentence.
Example: I am putting off Project X because I don’t understand it enough to get started, and I don’t want to spend the time it takes to understand it, and I don’t want it to distract me from the more enjoyable Projects A, B, and C.
Step 3: Identify the Feeling(s) You Want to Feel
Your reason is just an intellectual reduction of your feelings. It’s time to unpack the intellect from its little box and get it out into the open where you can see the feelings that drive it.
Your feeling may be a complex soup of multiple feelings, and each ingredient may seem vague or elusive. That’s okay. Don’t get discouraged. In our example, the feelings you want to feel may be any or all of these in varying degrees of intensity…
- I want to feel in control of the projects on my plate, and Project X makes me feel helpless or out of control, so I am focusing on Projects A, B, and C because I feel I am in control of them.
- I want to feel competent, and I want my boss and colleagues to see me as competent, and if I dive into Project X I may just discover that it is beyond my capabilities of understanding without asking for help, and to ask for help reveals that I am not competent. Therefore, I will focus on other projects where my competence shines and I can feel better about myself.
- I want to feel good at work socially, and the only person here that might be able to help me is Jimmy. But I don’t like Jimmy. Jimmy is arrogant and carves fiefdoms into everything he touches. I can’t understand this project without Jimmy, but if I bring him into this, I will lose partial control of the project to Jimmy and he will see me as incompetent. So I’m not going to go near Jimmy, but I don’t know how else to understand this project.
After you identify your feelings, continue answering your original question my modifying your answer with your new discoveries as concisely as you can.
Example: I am putting off Project X because I don’t know how to begin and still feel competent, in control, and socially positive.
Step 4: Identify the Desire(s) that Fuels Your Feelings
You may think your desire to have the feelings you want is just that – a simple desire to have those feelings. Remember, though, you are deeper now, and the desire that fuels these feelings also fuels other feelings and other reasons and other actions. You are looking more for the general desire that creates these feelings.
What desire(s) drive you to feel competent? You desire that people think about you positively, and competence is a feeling that fulfills that desire. You desire a sense of accomplishment that is independent of what people think about you, and being competent in your own mind is confirmation of that accomplishment.
What about control? You desire to feel in control because you want your trajectory toward all of your goals in life to be stable and on target. To feel out of control is to feel lost and unable to move toward fulfilling your dreams.
And you desire your social life to be free from conflict and uncertainty, so you avoid people who may introduce either.
Whatever your case, work hard at identifying those desires and add them to your ongoing analysis.
Example: I am putting off Project X because I don’t know how to begin…
- And still feel competent. I desire competence in Project X so that my boss, my coworkers, and my colleagues think of me as the right person for this job. Trying to understand Project X makes me feel incompetent.
- And still feel in control. I desire control of Project X so that I can steer this project from beginning to end without instability along the way. I don’t understand Project X, and facing that fact makes me feel out of control.
- And still feel positive socially. I desire coming out of Project X feeling good socially, and I have no one besides Jimmy that can help me – and dealing with him is a negative social experience from start to finish.
Step 5: Identify the Beliefs that Form Your Desires
Don’t lose heart at this stage, because your heart is where you are headed and you’re almost there. It’s time now to examine the beliefs that drive your desires. These are core beliefs that you hold so strongly and so near to your heart that they are almost always taken for granted as self-evident truths that require no defense and will accept no debate. In fact it would seem to you almost nonsensical to even question these beliefs because they are just true to you. They are as foundational as 1+1=2.
In addition, you believe without question that your desires are 1) worth pursuing and 2) must be pursued in a particular manner or all will be lost.
In our ongoing example, the desire to feel competent is fueled by a belief that not understanding Project X means you are incompetent, and everyone including you will believe this as well. You believe competence is worth pursuing and must be held, and the only way to get there is to understand this project in some way (probably alone), without Jimmy’s help because Jimmy will shine a light on your incompetence.
The desire to feel in control stems from a belief that not understanding Project X prevents you from having control and that this lack of control will slow or damage your ability to steer your career along your intended path. You believe this control must be gained, and that understanding this project is the key to that control, and that Jimmy – though he could help you understand – would take away some or all of that control.
And finally, your desire to feel good socially springs from the well of belief that interpersonal conflict creates unwanted feelings. The lack of conflict, especially the type that Jimmy brings to the table, keeps things positive and feeling well. Therefore you believe you absolutely must understand this project, and understand it without any assistance from Jimmy.
To sum up our example…
I am putting off Project X because I don’t know how to begin and still feel competent, in control, and socially positive. I believe I cannot attain these feelings without understanding and moving forward on this project – and without Jimmy’s help. But I am clueless on how and where to begin.
Step 6: Identify the Choices You Have Made That Lead To Your Beliefs
Welcome to the core of your being – your heart. This is the control room where all your decisions are made, though you rarely come down here consciously. This is the place where you come to an understanding of who you are – where you have an opportunity to truly know thyself.
It is in this room where you make the choices that ultimately lead to all of your actions. It is here where you make decisions to believe what is true, what should be pursued and in what manner.
The key here is to take an objective look at the choices you have made and to see if there is any room for adjustment. Any changes in choices will lead to a change in beliefs and ultimately to a change in action.
Three points to consider about your choices. Even if you believe strongly that there is no point in analyzing your core choices, humor yourself with this exercise and see if you are right.
- Is your choice to accept your belief(s) as true a good one? Why did you make that choice? (overwhelming scientific evidence, trust in an authority figure, experience, faith, etc.) Is it at all possible that your choice is wrong or incorrect? Is admitting that you do not know enough about Project X equal to incompetence? Is there any room to at least choose that your belief might not be entirely correct? Perhaps others would not see you as incompetent for simply sharing that you do not understand and need help. Example: I choose to believe that admitting I do not currently understand Project X will make me look and feel incompetent. Though I cannot see any way to change my choice, I admit that there is a possibility that I will not feel incompetent if I do decide to ask for help. But with Jimmy in the picture, I cannot see admitting this publicly.Once you reach the core belief that ultimately drives, at least in part, your action under root cause analysis, it is time to turn to resources that will either confirm your belief as the right one or challenge you to make some adjustments.
Is there something about me, that if other people know it or see it, then I won’t be worthy of connection?
This is how researcher Brene’ Brown defines shame – a better word for your fear of being seen as incompetent. If you have not already, spend the short 20 minutes it takes to watch her do a root-cause analysis on herself in this Ted Talk and come face to face with the belief that shame is to be avoided at all costs and how she changed that belief about herself and how she is now helping others discover the power of vulnerability.
This is just one example of how long-held beliefs at the core of your being can actually need change and be changed. This change then sends you back up the staircase with a new stride, altering how you feel and how you act. In this case, for example, you might choose to call a meeting with all of your relevant direct reports (including Jimmy) and explain that the time has come to begin Project X, but that you admit you are completely clueless because you have not had time to focus on it and you need help. You declare your vulnerability honestly, and, to everyone’s amazement, perhaps you actually turn to Jimmy publicly and say, “Jimmy, would you take the lead on this? I would very much appreciate your insights.”
This might be more risk than you can take, but it is an example for consideration. Meditate on your own issue under analysis, consider the advice of Brene Brown or others that you respect on the matter, and move forward with the best fit for your particular situation.
- Is your choice to pursue things based on your beliefs worth expending your energy? You may believe that gravity is the reason you weigh too much, but it would be ludicrous to consider changing gravity to lose weight. Consider the uncontrollable circumstances around you as gravity. If Jimmy and his personality are here to stay, then don’t waste your energies trying to change the force of Jimmy – worrying about how he sees you; avoiding him so that he can’t make you feel negative socially; anxious about how he might be talking about your incompetence to others.Instead, turn the gravitational forces around you into your strengths by utilizing tools that work to your advantage. Don’t waste energies on what you can’t change. Focus your energies on achieving your goals with what you can.
- Is your method of pursuit – the chosen object you believe will fulfill your desire and the path you choose to attain it – the right or best way? This is where most people choose a belief vector that leads to poor choices. The choice to believe in something may be entirely true, but the choice to assign a tangible goal and method of pursuit to attain it may be entirely misdirected.
The most painful discovery about yourself may be that you are right through and through about what you want, but wrong entirely about how to attain it.
For example, let’s say that you choose to that believe peace is worthy of pursuit. You desire to feel peace. However, somewhere along the way you experienced a two-week, luxurious vacation that put you at ease from a terrible month at work. The peace you experienced on that vacation might make you believe that the best way to attain peace is to have the maximum amount of time possible spent on luxurious getaways like this one. So you go back to work after this vacation and face work and peace begins to seem elusive. You become frustrated by your lack of remaining vacation hours. You stare at your bank account balance and realize there will be no more vacations like this for some time. Now your mood changes, and with it, your goals. You become obsessed with obtaining more vacation and more money, and it is clear that you won’t find it any time soon in your current job, so you begin job hunting or seeking a way to create a new start-up that will make you rich. Before long, you fail to recognize the said irony that you are making yourself miserable while seeking what you believe is the one true path to peace.
This is simplified example, but resonates with many people who spend their lives on a similar treadmill. Is it possible that peace can be attained without limitless funds? Without a life of luxury? Without the “freedom” to do what you want, when you want, how you want, with whom you want? Is it possible that peace can be yours through other methods – giving to others; spending quality time with your spouse, children, family, and friends; tending to your spiritual nature; investing positive change in your company so that others benefit; etc?
If you believe your beliefs are solid, but something still isn’t working, learn how to separate them from the methodology you think will help you achieve your goals. This painful separation may be difficult after years of unseen adhesive have made them seemingly inseparable. This breakaway is important, because on your current path you may never actually attain the very things you seek if you have unknowingly misaligned the goal with the methodology.
Step 7 – Ascend the Stairway With a Clear Understanding of Who You Are and How to Change
With a fresh perspective on what it is that is really driving your actions, and perhaps with the realization that there are changes you need to make, come back to the world at hand and approach life with a stronger alignment of you core choices with your actions. You may just find that when you understand and embrace who you really are that you attain the very goals that were so elusive before you took the time to descend that staircase.
In our ongoing example, you may find that you are now ready to begin Project X in many different ways…
- Take the time to do the research yourself. You just may find that it all comes together and you are ready to meet with your team and delegate the responsibilities to get it done.
- Get others involved in getting it started. Admit you are struggling with having the time and mindshare to understand it and get it going.
- Take Jimmy out to lunch privately and thank him for his work so far and ask him if he would consider taking lead on the project because you think he very competent. Often when someone else is trying to punch holes in your competence, it is because they feel that their own competence is not adequately recognized.
Repeat
Every time you sense that you don’t understand why you are taking a particular course of action, this root-cause analysis can help. Each experience will have its own texture and tone in various contexts. Here are some ideas to get you started.
- Why do I get frustrated in traffic? (Don’t forget gravity in Step 6)
- Why do I hate my job?
- Why do I love my job?
- Why does __________ perceive me as _______ when I know I’m not like that?
- Why doesn’t __________ perceive me as ______ when I know I am like that?
- Why am I so obsessed with ________?
- Why do I have a bad habit of __________?
- Why am I so unhappy right now?
- Why am I so content right now?
- Why do I get up in the morning and do what I do all day?
Good luck! I would love to hear about how this exercise, or one of your own devising, works for you.
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions. He is also a published author and speaker. To learn more, visit his blog or follow him on Twitter,
Your Blind Spot is Blinding Me
It has melted cars. Fried eggs. Set fire to carpet and furnishings. And made pedestrians very, very uncomfortable. It’s been dubbed the Fryscraper, the Walkie Torchie, and its concentrated solar power the Death Ray.
And while the public stands agape over the irony that this blinding beam of light could be such a blind spot for the architect or the army of consultants or whomever designed this thing, we would all do well to remember these words spoken long ago…
How can you say to your brother,
“Let me pull out the speck out of your eye,”
when you have a beam in your own eye?
(Matthew 7:4)
This story reminds me all to well that I have my own blind spots. And its possible that I am to others what this building is to cars and sidewalks – too much to bear.
A close friend once told me that everything that came out of my mouth was sarcasm. I thought he, ironically, was being sarcastic. But he wasn’t. He was serious. He said it was so prevalent that it made it difficult to be around me.
My blind spot was blinding him.
I remember disagreeing with him so intently that we parted ways in deep disagreement that night. To me, sarcasm meant being rude and caustic, so I knew that he was wrong – because I wasn’t like that. But as my anger over my friend’s case of obvious mistaken identity began to subside, I began to see more clearly.
As opportunities arose for me to say something in conversation with friends and coworkers, I found myself catching my breath and remaining silent because the words that were about to emerge were dripping with sarcasm. It wasn’t insulting sarcasm, mind you – it just wasn’t authentic, real conversation. I was staying on the surface with humorous banter and avoiding the opportunity for more authenticity and intimacy in conversation. For days I spoke little, because the well from which my words would spring was labeled Sarcasmo.
It was one of the toughest weeks I’ve ever had. I finally realized that what I had to do was find a new well from which to draw for my spoken word. It was a drastic paradigm shift. One that did not change overnight. But it did change – and only because a close friend chose to expose my blind spot.
We all have blind spots, and we all need friends and colleagues who are willing to expose them for what they are. We need 360-degree reviews at work. We need to listen when our children say, “Dad, you always…” We need to stop thinking that we are above reproach and perfect in the eye of every beholder. We’re not. We’re human. We’re imperfect. And we’re vulnerable when other people know it – but vulnerability is where life begins (preach it, Brene Brown). Admitting you have your own blind spot and relaxing your death ray of judgement on others when you see theirs is a real key in leading, motivating, or just being likable.
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions – a fantastically unique place to work. Heritage’s mission is to help people successfully acquire or pass on rare and significant objects that have both monetary and soul-stirring value. His job is to create a quality customer experience using the red carpet of technology.
Hospital Food and the Customer Experience
Across the street from Heritage’s headquarters in Dallas is an unassuming hero of the community: the Scottish Rite Hospital.
I go there almost every day, and believe it or not, it is for the food. At least, that’s why I started going.
The food at the hospital is far better and far less expensive than most of my local alternatives. But I continue to go because of reasons that can only be explained through stories of some of my visits.
I once walked into the lobby and saw the original Twelfth Man football squadron from Texas A&M – guys my age who were studying alongside me in college as I was earning my undergraduate in College Station. They were there to honor the children who were patients there. I stood in line, chatted with them, got their autographs on a Twelfth Man towel, and shook the hand of former head coach Jackie Sherrill, whom I once bumped into on the elevator in Rudder Tower. Now I have a great memory and a cherished collectible from my alma mater.
There is the time I walked into that same lobby to find a small army of television reporters and cameras and a small crowd gathered around a young teenage girl performing a ballet. I stopped to watch and thought to myself, “She is really good, but I wonder what makes her stand out enough to warrant television time?” After a stellar performance, the young lady walked away from center stage and sat down, where she calmly removed both prosthetic legs and let her real legs (which stopped at or above the knee) rest from her work. Until she did that, I had no idea that she was “handicapped” in any way. My lunch that day was accompanied by this meditation: my life should be like hers – not a complaint of what I do not have but a celebration of what I do.
Nearly every time I visit, I see parents escorting their children who have various forms of physical disability. Once I remember seeing a young lady holding a baby, pushing a stroller, and trying to corral a third child while carrying a tray laden with food for them all. An elderly volunteer quickly rushed to her aid with a smile to get her to a table in one piece. At least two of those children had physical challenges that brought them to the hospital. And before I noticed her, I was lamenting the weight of my to-do list back at the office. My lament quickly found its way into the mental trash can I have labeled “first world problems” and I returned to the office with a renewed sense of what is important.
What is important? Other people.
The Scottish Rite Hospital inspires me because the very purpose of that organization and its building is to serve other people and improve the quality of their lives. It inspires me to ensure that everything that I do here at Heritage is for the benefit of other people. My purpose is to serve and encourage my staff to provide red-carpet experiences for our clients through a landscape of technological touch points.
Thank you, Scottish Rite. See you for lunch tomorrow.
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions – a fantastically unique place to work. Heritage’s mission is to help people successfully acquire or pass on rare and significant objects that have both monetary and soul-stirring value. His job is to create a quality customer experience using the red carpet of technology.
Get More Done by Working Together and Forgetting Who Gets the Credit
If someone asked you to pull down a house using only rope and accurate placement, could you do it?
By yourself, no. The job is too hard and would take too long even if you could do it.
But wIth over 100 eager participants, bringing down an entire house takes less then 5 seconds.
Pulling down that house was a privilege. My small team of 21 volunteers joined over 100 others, grabbing the rope in our gloved hands and tugging on command, and watching an entire house come crashing down.
It was the culmination of a full day’s work in Moore, Oklahoma, where the cleanup continues long after the May 20th tornado that ripped through the Oklahoma City suburb, killing seven in the nearby Plaza Towers Elementary School and many more in the surrounding community. Together my team and many others worked all day to clear rubble from the neighborhood and place it in mounds suitable for city pick-up in August.
During those five days in Moore, Oklahoma, I never heard anyone on my team take credit for bringing down either of the houses we pulled to the ground. I don’t recall anyone fighting for a particular place of honor inside the shells that someone once called home as we formed work lines to pass debris and separate it from sentimental items that the owners might still want to have.
As we wandered through the tent community in Steelman Estates outside of Shawnee, Oklahoma, that was hit the night before the Moore tornado, the local volunteers who had been there for two months claimed no glory for how they had set up a propane-powered laundromat, dehydration tent to recover from the blistering work, barrel-topped shower, supply tent, or the air conditioners installed in the igloo tents that peppered the sloping terrain.
Instead of reckless ambition and elbow-bruised victims of someone else’s ego, all I saw was community. I saw people working together to make things happen. I saw money come out of pockets and find its way into the hands of tearful and grateful victims who were trying to rebuild without insurance benefits. I watched a man who might otherwise appear on the cover of a self-made-man-magazine lean humbly on his shovel and fight back tears as he witnessed a swarm of volunteers surround him to listen to his story of survival and offer help in the rebuilding process.
The short drive back to Dallas was filled with talk of how much we were able to accomplish in such a short amount of time by simply working together and forgetting who got the credit for it. No one stood out as better or worse than the other. We all stood as one – in our accomplishments, in our experiences, and in our excitement at the thought of going back to help again.
Sometimes, in the middle of working to help a business grow, we forget about the real goal (the customer experience) and we focus on only ourselves. That attitude, or let’s be honest – a core value of self-centered greed – results in a less happy us, a less happy customer, and less being done in the end. But when we work together for the customer to have a positive experience, we all win in the end and much more gets done.
Thank you, Oklahoma, for reminding me what is important and how to get things done.
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions – a fantastically unique place to work. Heritage’s mission is to help people successfully acquire or pass on rare and significant objects that have both monetary and soul-stirring value. His job is to create a quality customer experience using the red carpet of technology.
The Indiana Jones Method of Engaging Customer Experience
If you want to create a worthy customer experience, you have to be driven by experience. Your core purpose cannot be making money, climbing a ladder, or becoming famous. It has to be creating and giving away an experience that you yourself have had. Enter Indian Jones.
At the tender age of 9 years, I remember having a moment alone in the house. My father was in his hardhat a few miles away at Dow Chemical Company. My mother was perhaps outside with my little sister. Driven by an investigative personality, I sat down at the base of the china cabinet and opened the small double-doors that that I had never before seen open. Little did I know how that act would set the course of my life.
After a few moments of rummaging, I came across a thick but unusually heavy piece of blue cardboard, tri-folded, labeled “Mercury” Head Dimes. Opening that first-fold was to me what finding the Ark of the Covenant was for Indiana Jones.
In the moments that followed, several key pieces of my psyche developed. The old coins that I could see and touch moved me toward a love of history. The mysterious empty socket where the 1916-D Mercury Dime should have been ignited my desire to collect – to search for and obtain the elusive pieces that would make the series complete.
And, as the days followed, that moment would also prove to be the source of a growing bond between my father and me. That Mercury Dime collection was something that he had started long ago and abandoned. My newfound curiosity stirred up his own. Over the years before I moved out of the house, my father and I collected coins together. We talked about the hard-to-find pieces. We purchased a metal-detector and searched all over historic Brazoria County where I grew up, digging up hundreds of old, silver coins. Every mini-archeological dig was exciting.
I didn’t really think anyone but my father understood these important experiences of mine until I saw Indiana Jones on the big screen for the first time as a teenager in Raiders of the Lost Ark. That movie illustrated my introspective feelings perfectly. Watching it was an experience I will never forget.
Indie taught me an important lesson: customers, like me, are often driven by the quest to find and obtain significant objects. The search, the discovery, and the final acquisition are real adventures. My job is to give Indie, er, the customer, the clues and the map to make the adventure worthwhile.
I have moved on from using the technology of metal detection to find coins hidden underground to leveraging emerging technologies to help everyone in the world discover coins and other collectibles approaching the auction block.
My job is to recreate my 9-year-old experience in others through mini-archeological digs powered by technology. I love leading a team of software developers and technology experts to unearth these precious objects and allow others to experience them the way I once did – and still do. In a way, I feel like I am directing thousands of sequels to the Indiana Jones movies, one customer at a time.
Brian Shipman is the CIO of Heritage Auctions – a fantastically unique place to work. Heritage’s mission is to help people successfully acquire or pass on rare and significant objects that have both monetary and soul-stirring value. His job is to create a quality customer experience using the red carpet of technology.
This is How You Handle Failure
This is how you handle failure.
The takeaways…
It’s Not About You – It’s About the Customer You Are Serving
This young man appears to be in Middle School / Junior High. He could have been thinking what you would expect – “It’s all about me.” No one would have faulted him for walking away, sitting down with his head in his hands, or standing there and crying from embarrassment.
But he did none of those things that would have called attention to himself. Instead, he rediscovered his original purpose when his cymbals were working properly…
I am here to honor my country and to inspire my viewers to do the same.
If you cannot accomplish your purpose in the manner in which you intended, what do you do? You reinvent yourself. You turn and salute the flag. You call attention to it, not you. And in so doing, your core purpose is still fulfilled and your customer is still served.
Businesses who respond to crises the way that this young man responded to his will always be successful in the truest meaning of the word. However, remember, to respond this way you have to be this way. A crisis reveals who you are.
A Crisis Reveals Who You Are
We humans are prone to conceal the real us – especially when we know that our goals and purposes are less than admirable. Put a group of humans together in a business working together to accomplish a less than admirable purpose and what do you get? You get to watch transparency and honesty be replaced by marketing gimmicks and lies. You get to watch a blooming flower die before its time because it never took root in the earth.
There is only one admirable purpose for a business to adapt…
I am here to honor my customer and to inspire my coworkers to do the same
If that is your purpose, then when crisis strikes, you will still succeed. When all eyes are watching to see what you will do – when your customers are aghast at the crisis you face wondering how you will respond – you will still succeed because you will find another way. Your core purpose will survive. And your customers will love you all the more for it.
A vendor that provides my company with an important service went down for about a half hour. It was a critical outage, so I reached out quickly – by email to customer support and through social media on Twitter. I got an email from third-tier technical support admitting to the error and saying it would be resolved shortly. It was, but after the crisis was over, customer service responded via Twitter denying that there ever was an outage at all. This is a poor customer experience. Either I was lied to in order to save a public admission of knowledge or the outage (which would have affected hundreds of other companies) was not communicated to customer support. Both acts are equally poor because the demonstrate that the core purpose of the company is something other than to honor the customer and inspire others (like customer support) to to the same.
Contrast this with a recent experience with Sanebox. Sanebox lets you quickly set up your email inbox to stay clean from bulk email and email you want to read, but later so that your workflow is not interrupted. Once you get Sanebox running, you will know immediately if they have an outage because your normally peaceful inbox will flood with unwanted emails. They have only gone down once in my months of usage with them, but when they did it was paralyzing. I reached out again via email and Twitter. In both cases I received a very quick admission of the outage and a promise to get me back on my feet soon. They kept their promise. I had a consistent customer experience from all touchpoints that stayed true to the core values of “the customer comes first.”
What about your company? The crisis is coming, so be your best you now.
The Crisis is Coming, So Be Your Best You Now
You can’t fake who you are all the time. You can hide behind the gimmicks and the lies for only so long before a crisis comes along to rip away the veil and reveal just who you really are. It will happen to you as an individual, and it will happen to you as a company.
Andrew Pawelczyk, I salute you. You revealed your character to us when crisis struck and your cymbals failed you. Your love for your country and the symbol that represents it were so strong that you demonstrated that love in an even greater manner than you and your bandmates already were.
Choose today to refocus, or, of necessary, reset your goals and your company goals on what matters most: the customer and her experience. Honor her. Inspire your coworkers to do the same. Be your best you now.
CIO Explorer 