by Gay Gaddis
Bring Along Sacks of Hope, Change, and Energy with You
I walked into a bar in New York one afternoon after work to meet one of my clients. He was standing at the bar and said, “I just ordered a bottle of wine with a straw. What do you want?” He had had a rough day. So I pulled up a chair and listened. He was managing global marketing for a major pharmaceutical company and was beyond frustrated with how hard it was to implement change across such a huge organization. We did not find an answer that afternoon, but he was in a much better mood when we left because I listened to him vent.
Your customers want tangible results; that’s the price of entry. But I have learned over the years that they want more. Many of our clients are in large organizations that are high-pressure environments often burdened by bureaucracy, complexity, and frequent management changes. If we can get them the results they need and then go one step further, we build powerful relationships. Clients often see us as change agents who can make their corporate lives better, or at least more fun. If we come in with creative concepts, a positive can-do attitude sprinkled with fun, and a few proactive big ideas, we make them smile and give them hope and energy. We actually can power them up to go back and effect positive change in their companies—which furthers their careers. And ours.
I have had so many clients tell me, “You are the highlight of my day. You come in upbeat with fresh ideas and challenge us with new thinking.” We purposefully walk in with positive energy, excited by the work we are going to present, and it is so fun to see the smiles we leave behind.
We worked for a small nonprofit hospital in Temple, Texas, that remodeled their emergency room and wanted to attract more patient volume by becoming more of a walk-in clinic than a formal ER. This little hospital was literally across the street from one of the biggest, finest hospital systems in the country, Scott & White.
Great advertising campaigns are usually built upon a known belief, something that people believe is authentic and true. We did a few focus groups and found that Scott & White was notorious for long ER wait times. Everyone in the Temple area joked that Scott & White’s “S&W” logo stood for “Sit & Wait.” We seized on that insight and started a radio and television campaign that proclaimed our ER was for people who did not want to “Sit and Wait.” The entire community got the joke, but what was so special was the impact it had on our client’s staff. Their morale jumped because, for once, they stood tall and were able to best their very capable competitor. It was a huge emotional win for the entire organization, and the campaign won top national hospital marketing awards. Plus, we could measure the financial uptick from the ER visits and hospital stays coming from the ER. Just what I love, great creative that kicks ass and gets tangible financial results!
Done well, creating hope and energy yields another self-sustaining virtuous cycle that gets better and better over time. You gain power by understanding and creating that hope.
Practice Profound Acts of Kindness
Your clients and customers have career aspirations just like we all do. They have ambitions, egos, and dreams like us all. When you earn their trust, they begin to share some of those thoughts. When we were able to, we always tried to help make those dreams come true.
When Sister Kathleen, our client at Spohn Hospital, was elected president of the Texas Medical Association, I helped write her speech and produced her presentation for her. I made that wonderful lady look pretty hip. We had a client at Dell who was a great organizer and doer, but not very strategic. One of our senior account executives would meet with him over lunch once a month and help him brainstorm about his next moves. This guy understood that planning was not his strongest ability, and he genuinely appreciated our help. Focus on your strengths and get help with everything else.
We have worked on new ideas for good clients who were trying to sell an idea to their management teams. If a client had an idea and was trying to secure a budget to make it happen, we often would put together some concepts to support her or build some kind of prototype. We never charged for any of that work. We were always glad to help, and it always came back to us in spades. One of the most powerful things you can do for someone is give a hand without taking any of the credit.
Little things are so important. For years, when I handwrote all of those anniversary and birthday cards for all of our T3 team members, they were personal and filled with gratitude for their specific wonderful accomplishments. I reinforced in each card the good work recognized and rewarded at T3. I thanked our clients with real, genuine gratitude. My mother always told me that if you love someone and appreciate them, you should tell them. Right now.
A public act of profound kindness empowers us all. We recently had a six-year employee leave T3 to take a new job managing human relations at an Austin start-up—it was a remarkable opportunity for her and we all supported her decision. Her hometown is New Orleans. So after our last staff meeting that she would attend, one of her co-workers (who in a former career toured the world with Bob Marley and other reggae greats) stood up and started playing “When the Saints Go Marching In” on his trombone. Everyone got a white handkerchief and we had a parade around the office followed by beignets and rosé. It was a spontaneous outpouring of emotion, because she had touched every one of us during her years with us. She left T3 in tears of joy, feeling the respect and love that she earned.
OK, it was not spontaneous. It was planned down to the last detail by my wonderful Internal Development team, who deliver profound acts of kindness every day. They just made it look spontaneous! (Most companies have a Human Resources Department. At T3 we call it Internal Development because their primary focus is on growing and connecting our people.)
Lessons Learned: Cowgirls Use Competence to Find Confidence
Confidence is earned, not awarded. After you have done all of the hard work to become competent, your expertise becomes the legitimate source of your confidence.
You must build trust. Trust is the foundation of all relationships. I grew up with people who were far from wealthy, but their word made them richly respected. They never, ever let anyone down. They are my inspiration every day of my life.
Oh, and never act desperate. People can smell it and will run away as fast as they can. Exude that confidence you have earned, and people will respect and follow you.
Prairie Rose Henderson
(Accession Number R.241.235 © Dickinson Research Center, National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
Chapter 7
Cowgirls Design Their
Own Lives
One of my all-time favorite cowgirls is Prairie Rose Henderson. Her talent and fortitude earned her a place in the rodeos of the late 1800s when young horsewomen began competing against cowboys in a yearly gathering of cattle herds.
This progressed into the more organized rodeos. Prairie Rose was the exuberant daughter of a Wyoming rancher and decided one day she would ride to Cheyenne to enter a bronc busting contest. To her dismay, she was told she could not ride in the contest because she was a woman. She demanded to see the rules and found there was nothing stating that women could not participate. The officials had to let her compete.
I can only imagine what a stir this created when Prairie Rose came crashing out of the chute. Women and men alike were shocked and amazed. She didn’t win that day, but I guess she really did. By not taking no for an answer, she won the right for women to compete in rodeos.
Eventually she did have many wins at the rodeos. She was known as the most flamboyant and creative cowgirl of her time. Wearing bloomers that she designed, sometimes hemmed in ostrich feathers, and vests covered with bright sequins, she stole the show.
In 1932, Prairie Rose was on her way to a competition and got caught in a blizzard. Nine years later her body was discovered, and the only way they identified her was by her champion belt buckle. Even in death, she was a winner and triumphed by living her life her way. After all, cowgirls design their own lives.
De
signing your life is about deciding who you want to be. Today, in five years, in twenty years. In my view, a well-lived life means becoming a powerful woman to enable you to do the things you both need and want to do for yourself, your family, and others. Find that personal power and you can, to a large extent, design your own life—a life that will be very different as you move through the natural cycles we all face. If you don’t do it, someone else will.
Cowgirls grow up with a realistic view of life. They see beloved old dogs die. They see the miracle of baby goats. They experience both wonder and tragedy and meet both head-on. Cowgirls understand that there are some things they can control and other things they cannot. They put all their energy on the things they can control.
It Is Not about Work–Life Balance. It Is about Life.
I have always been a driven person and I instinctively forge ahead on multiple fronts. I am often unsure of exactly where I am going, but I feel I am following a path, moving in a good direction, and am excited about what might reveal itself around the next curve. Embrace the world. You can have a new style of living and working that is fluid. You can work anywhere. Shop online. Work at home. Stay connected to work, kids, husband, and family. Focus on what matters right now. Is it finishing your white paper? Or looking over your son’s book report?
The work–life question implies that one is bad and one is good. That is not true. If you think of it that way, you are going to mess it up. It is all the same thing. It is all important. That is, if you love what you do. If you don’t love what you do, you will never find any balance. Walk away. Your glass will always be half-empty. But, as a Facebook friend once posted, “If you think your glass is half-empty, quit bitching and pour it in a smaller glass.”
When I told my co-workers in 1983 that I was pregnant with my daughter, Rebecca, they were happy for me, but the inevitable question quickly came up: Would I come back to work after she was born? Looking back at this point in my life, I never let myself think about not coming back to work. I knew that I had to have my own independent source of income to help support my mother financially. I put my head down and decided to build the very best team, who could cover for me during my maternity leave. As the months progressed, my client portfolio grew substantially. I had one of the biggest, most profitable group of accounts at the company.
I scheduled a meeting with our president and presented him with my baby plan. I showed him how my accounts had grown over the past year. I explained what I had done to build up my team both at the office and at home. I told him that I planned to take two months off and then come back to work, but just working a half day for nine months. Before he could react, I said, “But even if I am in the delivery room having the baby, I will take care of things and we won’t miss a beat.” It was a powerful performance! He said OK. He knew I had him over a barrel.
I had a college student help me with Rebecca. My mother decided to move to Austin from Liberty to help me. Mother took a job teaching at a preschool and took care of Rebecca most afternoons.
Let’s Dispense with the Guilt
Running my own business gave me a lot of flexibility around attending the children’s school and extracurricular events. I was pretty good about showing up and would move mountains to do so. However, I will never forget one time that I couldn’t show up. It was when Rebecca was in the third grade, and she was one of the stars of the Japanese play her teacher produced. I had an out-of-town meeting that was critical to the success and future budget of one of my hospital accounts. There was just no way I could get back in time for the play.
My mother stepped in. And, I mean really stepped in! She took Rebecca to her hairdresser and had Rebecca’s long hair put up in a lovely twist with flowers worked in. She made sure Rebecca’s costume was perfect, and that her makeup looked authentic and spot-on. She also photographed the event. All of this sounds great, right? It would have been, but I never heard the end of it.
My mother threw it up to me over and over through the years, of how I missed an important event in the young life of my precious daughter. Guilt, guilt, and more guilt heaped on. I always got a pang in my stomach when the topic of “The” Japanese play came up. Oh, and to top it off, my mother framed one of the beautiful photos of Rebecca in a lovely, ornate sterling silver frame. It is still on my dresser at the ranch as an ongoing reminder of my guilt.
We kept that hospital account for many years, and the budget grew and grew each year! I am also quite sure that account helped to pay for Rebecca’s most expensive pastime—riding and showing her Arabian horse, Shesa. I drove her out to her riding lessons as much as I could, and I was always amazed at how strict and demanding her trainer, Martha, was with her. Rebecca never complained, not once. By the way, Rebecca is a cowgirl.
Oh, and cowgirls don’t let guilt get in the way of long-term success. Cowgirls say bullshit to someone heaping on guilt, and move on—unless it’s your mother!
Too Many Doggone Dogs
As if things were not complicated enough, I was always rescuing dogs. Some from the grip of death. We usually had four or five large dogs running through the house, riding in the back of the Suburban on trips to the ranch. One even became a medical miracle, our beloved Joe David. I found him abandoned on the side of the road to our Double Heart Ranch. I loaded him in the truck, and my mind started racing about how I would convince Lee to let me keep him. I already had a herd of dogs that were pretty annoying. When I drove up to the ranch house, Lee was standing with his hands on his hips, shaking his head. I swear I don’t know where this came from, but I jumped out and said, “Look, Lee, it’s little Joe David!” Joe David was the name of our small-town local banker. Lee laughed at the name, and I knew I had saved another dog. The name was actually appropriate because we soon learned that the dog had the same view on life that our banker friend did—affable, friendly, trusting, and laid-back.
The Babies Are Coming. The Babies Are Coming.
Running your own business is full of risk and challenges. But it also gives you an awesome ability to design your own life. I have the flexibility to walk away from a piece of business that is not a good fit for us—either for cultural, strategic, or financial reasons. Each time I make one of those calls I gain a little more respect from my staff because they know I have our collective best interest at heart.
A few years after I got my company up and running, four of my twenty-four employees got pregnant. How they all got pregnant at close to the same time, I’ll never know. We must have had an ice storm that year. Of course, I was thrilled for them but then started lying awake at night worrying about how we were going to manage through their maternity leave and whether they would want to return to work. We had some very candid conversations about it. The moms-to-be assured me they wanted to continue to work if they could find good childcare for their babies, although I knew two of them came from well-to-do families and did not have to work.
After thinking about it for a few days, I realized that we did not have to play by anyone else’s rules—we were in control of our own destiny. So I proposed that after their maternity leave they bring the babies to the office to hang out with us until they started to crawl and/or walk. None of us was sure this would work, but we all agreed to try it. We also agreed that this was not my company providing day care. The babies were the responsibility of their moms. We never drew up any contracts, waivers, or anything like that. We just did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.
One of the moms backed out at the last minute, gave back her maternity leave check, and said she could not do it. We convinced her to give it a try and it worked out beautifully. In fact, she and one of the other first moms ended up starting their own company together. Their children are the closest of friends today.
We started with two little ones, then within weeks two more. It was a bit daunting at first, but we all quickly got into a groove. If a baby cried, whoever was not on the phone grabbed it and waltzed it around the office. When they were asleep, we wor
ked like fiends. We all laughed and said this is what growing up on a family farm must have been like, and it was. Everyone pitched in. The babies thrived and loved the experience. They were outgoing and fun. Our clients loved to stop in and say hi, so did our mailman and all our suppliers who were in and out of the office daily. The babies made everyone smile every day. (Paul, the mailman that we had for twenty-something years, sent me flowers when he retired. He loved being greeted so warmly each day at T3.)
People were amazed that we could actually work with babies around the office. But we did, the babies were fine, the moms were fine, and the business grew because of the quality of the work we were doing. A lot of that quality came from the emotional bonds we built among each other. This was where I learned about the power of trust between team members. We formed bonds that are still there, almost thirty years later.
We named the program T3 & Under, and it has been in place since 1995. It is the single most powerful thing I have done in my life. What we have done for the families of our employees is nothing short of remarkable. And, when I say “we,” I mean everyone at T3. There is not one employee in the company who has not smiled at a baby, opened the door for a mom, or carried a car seat to a car. It is a very tight team that absolutely loves and trusts each other.
I have been honored for T3 & Under at the White House. I’ve been on the Today Show twice and ABC’s Nightline, featured in USA Today and Bloomberg TV, visited by the US Department of Labor, and have had hundreds of other articles published about the success of the program. Our case has been cited in several books. The impact on the company has been transformative and sustainable. And, by the way, we do have a formal policy in place these days.