by Gay Gaddis
A fearless culture diminishes competitiveness among individuals because the core of the cultural values is cooperation. I was recently in an all-day creative meeting at T3 working on a branding strategy for a client. The team had made some real progress and things were going well. The team leader came back after a break and challenged the entire group to think about things that would cause the project to fail. For the next forty-five minutes, everyone confronted their fears, looked for weaknesses in the plan, and did worst-case scenarios. They looked fear square in the face and left the meeting feeling confident and unafraid. They had looked for the unspoken elephant in the room, confronted it, and turned it into a little armadillo.
In college, I learned something so valuable from Earl Campbell, who ended up being a Heisman Trophy winner and one of the most celebrated football players in the history of Texas football. Sports reporters always asked him, how was he able to perform so well? How could he score so many touchdowns? He never took credit for himself, even though he was physically strong, talented, and a master at self-deprecating humor. He would always answer, “It wasn’t me—it was my teammates.” And he meant it. He earned the admiration of everyone on the team and everyone in Texas. When Earl succeeded and you were on the team that allowed him to succeed, all of the boats would rise. One of the most uplifting evenings of my university career was the night he won the Heisman. Thousands of students poured into the streets celebrating our admiration for Earl. It still brings a tear to my eye.
Once, early in his career, he was badly injured and sidelined. His football career was in jeopardy. I saw him at an event, shot some informal black-and-white photos of him, and took them to a class that we were in together. I asked him to autograph the photos and he said, “Why do you want my autograph?” I just said, “Because you are going to be famous someday.” Boy, did I call that right. I guess it was just my gut feeling shining through. Earl is a winner. He knew how to motivate his team. He was an honorary cowgirl. I am proud to know him.
Meetings: The Good. Bad. And Ugly.
I have been to many uplifting, inspirational meetings. You can almost touch the positive energy and empathy among the participants. There is a camaraderie that signals healthy relationships.
I have also attended bad meetings that suck the life out of you and make you want to run out the door screaming. Look out for any meeting where one person dominates the conversation and few questions are asked and few are answered. I attended a meeting like that last year and afterward told the team leader privately that was the worst meeting I ever attended. A few weeks later it happened again. We now have a new team leader.
I read a New York Times article about how men interrupt women in business meetings, and as result, many women simply give up and do not speak at all. Obviously, this gets in the way of effective collaboration. I was taken aback to say the least. Where I come from, if anyone interrupts a cowgirl, they better duck as they do it! No self-respecting cowgirl would put up with such behavior. We have cultural norms “out here” (back at the ranch) that people understand and respect, that come from lessons learned by generations of ranchers. This is simply boorish behavior that any respectable cowgirl would call out.
More than half of the challenges that women face at work are a result of a lack of guiding principles in their workplace. We had two women from T3 attend the 3% Conference recently in New York. The 3% group is focused on getting more women in creative management roles in advertising agencies. They came back with a new respect for our culture and were horrified at the stories they heard about how women are treated in many agencies. Organizations that behave like that, that tolerate behaviors like that, have a flawed culture that comes from weak leadership. Think of the squandered talent. Think of the loss of shareholder value. If they worked for me, they would be kicked out the door with a boot firmly planted on their butts.
Allow me a personal rant on meeting behavior. A few years ago, we were approved to be on the agency roster of a major pharmaceutical company. We had picked up a few successful assignments and were hoping to really grow the business. Another opportunity came our way, so we brought one of our expert teams to New York from Austin to pitch the business. We had rehearsed, prepared, and had novel ideas to discuss with the clients. Before the meeting, we were really excited and feeling good about our odds to win. After we set up our presentation in the room and everyone was seated, the key client arrived. No sooner had we completed our introductions and exchanged pleasantries than the client buried her face in her iPhone. She texted, giggled, e-mailed, and probably searched for a dinner reservation. It was beyond rude.
Our professionals at T3 continued to present and did a damn great job. The client glanced at our presentation only a couple of times. I wanted to stop and challenge her behavior, but I did not want to embarrass her in front of her team. We left perplexed and ultimately did not get the business. Although I was mad we had wasted our precious time, I knew that we would never be happy working for a client who showed such disrespect.
Lesson learned. Never, ever do that in a meeting, unless you announce to the group ahead of time that your wife is having a baby, and you will be checking messages in case you need to dash off to the hospital. Or you just got a call from your child’s school and he is throwing up in the bathroom.
Shoot the Asshole as Soon as You See One
I was speaking at a conference years ago, and during the question-and-answer period a woman stood up and asked, “How do you maintain your cool culture? How do you make it real for your staff?” I did not hesitate. I looked directly at her and said, “We shoot the assholes.”
The crowd roared. That idea became the hit of the entire convention. As I walked through the exhibit hall over the next few days, people would wave and make a little gun with their fingers. I was a cowgirl that day!
Fortunately, I can count on one hand the assholes that we let slip into our company. We weed most of them out in the interview process. But when one gets in, our staff is quick to let me know. Dealing decisively with these people helps avoid complacency in the organization and strengthens our culture because the teams see us aggressively defending it.
I had one very talented guy who was a gifted creative, very insightful, and often ahead of his time. But he had this way of taking personal credit for things that his team accomplished without acknowledging their contributions. It worked OK for a while, but then people started to pull away from him. I had to tell him that he had lost the trust of everyone in the organization. I told him I could not make people want to work for him, only he could do that. He left that day, and happily has done well. Maybe he learned a life lesson that day. Remember, your problem asshole may be a saint to someone else.
I had one recently that I let stay too long. He had this persona that simply created a dark cloud over our collective spirit. Within a few days of his departure, people were talking about how much more fun the café had become without him always watching and judging them. I have learned my lesson: Never, never tolerate an asshole. Fire away the first time you even think someone may have these tendencies. You will rarely be wrong. People will love and admire you forever if you take one out.
I once had a client throw a pen at me across the room because I challenged her thinking in front of her team and her boss. She just lost it. Everyone in the room was appalled. She was a genuine textbook asshole. I got up and left because I thought we were all in danger. Everyone else followed me out the door, including her boss.
Point of clarity: You can have passive-aggressive behavior without having assholes. You rarely have an asshole who does not exhibit passive-aggressive behavior. Assholes only seek power for themselves. Shoot ’em like a snake without any mercy.
Lessons Learned: Cowgirls Build a Kick-Ass Culture
A company’s or family’s culture is built step by step, year by year. It becomes what you stand for. Protecting it and building it through trust, creativity, and tradition is the most important thing that great leaders
do. Your life will be measured by how passionately you defend it.
Nothing inspires me today more than a fearless team. Fearless teams are built on trust and know they have each other’s backs. I watch these teams every day at T3. They take on any problem with the conviction that they will not only solve it, but it will be a home run. Strive to build and inspire your own fearless teams. And then sit back and watch the exciting results.
Sonora Carver and her diving horse
(Glenbow Archives NB-16-417)
Chapter 9
Cowgirls Know a Good Idea When They See One
When William “Doc” Carver was crossing the Platte River in 1881, there was a bridge collapse and his horse took a dive into the water. That experience led to a crazy big idea—girls on diving horses.
Years later Doc’s son, Al Floyd Carver, built the first ramp and tower for diving horses. Then all they needed was the girl.
Ad: “Wanted: Attractive young woman who can swim and dive. Likes horses, desires to travel. See Dr. W.F. Carver, Savannah Hotel.” Sonora Webster answered the ad in 1923 and earned a place in circus history. She loved the idea of a diving act, and she wanted to be the one who dazzled the audiences.
To achieve the stunt, the horse was run up the ramp and as it reached the top, Sonora, wearing a red bathing suit, jumped on its back and dove into the water. She was a big hit and soon became the lead act and a huge cash cow. She married Doc’s son Floyd in 1928. In 1931 Sonora’s horse, Red Lips, dove straight into the water but hit the water off balance. Sonora’s eyes were open when she hit the water and she was blinded by retinal detachment. She was blind eleven of the nineteen years of her career and kept it a secret until 1942. She died in 2003 at ninety-nine.
Cowgirls know that you can teach an old dog a new trick. They are always improvising and working on new ideas, ways to enhance their performance, ways to stand out. Cowgirls are creative, fun, full of life, and always trying to move everyone forward. Cowgirls are unafraid of being the center of attention, out in front. They relish applause.
Our Business Is about Manufacturing Ideas
Our business at T3 is to make ideas. Every idea has to be new, unique, and powerful. We make them, release them into the world, and then do it over and over again, year after year. I used to worry that someday the creative juices might slow down or grind to a halt. But the fascinating thing I have seen develop over the last few years is that our creative prowess has actually accelerated, largely because of teamwork. As those teams have developed, matured, and become so empowered, we have seen the quality of our ideas improve again and again.
Ask for ideas. Trade them around. Teach your people that ideas are like dreams. When you are making ideas, put reality aside. Don’t worry about reality because it will present itself soon enough. Cowgirls like to lie on their backs in a field of green grass and let ideas float around like clouds in the sky and morph in the summer breeze.
Ideas don’t give a damn about gender. But a smart, attractive, confident woman with a big smile on her face because she knows her team “knocked it out of the park” with a big idea is simply irresistible.
Great Things Start with a Few Small Things
An idea can be a very simple thing. It usually comes from an insight. Years ago we had an opportunity to do a small project for UPS. They were trying to reach out to more diverse suppliers and were looking for better ways to connect (which is why we were talking to them). They were scheduled to attend a supplier diversity convention in a few months and asked us for ideas on how to make their booth more effective in attracting people. It was both a small budget and a huge opportunity.
Our conceptual teams worked on all kinds of ideas and finally settled on one. As you know, conventions involve lots of walking on concrete floors. And women, as crazy as they are (me included), often forgo comfort for more stylish shoes. We capitalized on this simple insight and built an entire campaign about the idea that by the middle of the day most of the women at the convention wished they had gone for comfort instead of style. When women passed by the UPS booth, we offered them a pair of comfy brown slippers with the UPS logo embroidered in pink on each shoe—all each woman had to do was share her e-mail address and sign up for an account, which she gladly did. (Note: It practically took an act of Congress to get UPS to let us use pink logos instead of the standard UPS gold color, but we prevailed.)
Before we knew it, about a third of the women at the conference were wearing the UPS slippers. One panel discussion started with a presenter proudly wearing her UPS slippers on the stage. She threw style out the window and felt empowered by how bold she was. During the panel discussion, the other panelists asked for slippers to be brought up for them. Home run! We knew we had a winner. Several weeks later we saw the results of the e-mail campaign, and it was amazing. A couple of cowgirls on our team had the audacity to see a big idea in a simple insight. Today, UPS is one of our largest, most valued clients, and it all started with a pair of fuzzy, comfy brown house slippers.
Think about your business, your teams. Do they know the folklore of pivotal points in your business? Do they understand how small things turned into big things? These stories provide invaluable lessons and empower teams to follow successful themes. Do you have a way to tell these stories to new employees? Do you have a campfire where you sit around at night and spin these tales? If not, you should.
The Care and Feeding of Ideas
When we are in free-form idea generation mode at T3, we have a cardinal rule—there are no bad ideas. Ideas are respected, documented, and put safely away. We never shoot down an idea when it first appears. Do that and you quickly slow the flow. Ideas want to go to happy places. They do not want to be judged, because even a bad idea can easily spark a great idea.
Years ago H-E-B, a major grocery store chain in Texas, was opening a unique store in Austin called Central Market. It was a concept that took a grocery store to an entirely different level. It was a store for people who were obsessed with food—we know them today as foodies. We were doing some advertising work for H-E-B, and they called us in a panic. The store was scheduled to open in three weeks but they were way behind their hiring goals. The problem was that they were not just looking for employees, they were looking for “foodies” who were food experts. They had run all of the typical recruitment ads and nothing was working. We assembled a team and started brainstorming. After about an hour someone said, “Let’s put people on street corners with a sign that says, ‘We Work for Food.’” Everyone laughed and the meeting continued. But we all kept coming back to that quirky idea. We pitched it to the client and they bravely said yes.
Within a day we had enlisted some Central Market employees and hired a cast of characters. We hand made signs, printed employment applications, and bought crates of oranges. We deployed them before dawn on all of the major street corners in Austin. As the morning traffic stacked up, our people would wave their signs, hand out applications, and give everyone an orange. It was on all the television channel news programs at 6 and 10 p.m. It was on the front page of the Austin American-Statesman the next morning, and Central Market was flooded with applications. The store opened with a vibrant “foodie” culture that delivered on the promise. Central Market made a big contribution to the local food bank that helped homeless people often seen on those same corners, and continues to do so to this day.
Don’t discard crazy ideas. Put them up on the wall and watch them for a while.
At T3, we want the team, not individuals, to always own ideas. Everyone is encouraged to freely build on top of each other’s ideas in something we call iterative development. The team has to feel that ideas are a collective work product. That collective ownership gets ego off the table. Collective ownership is why we have seen superstars disappear. Collective ownership means that there are no good and bad ideas. Some ideas are more appropriate for a specific situation, but we cherish and honor all of them, because we have all seen what seemed like a terrible idea morph into so
mething wonderful with just one or two little tweaks.
Cowgirls know that being part of an idea-generating team takes equal parts of bravery (to put your idea out there) and open-mindedness (to listen to and build on other ideas). Our best leaders are orchestrators. They encourage discussion. They create a comfortable place for introverts and younger members to talk. Many times, they are first to throw out silly or incredibly personal ideas to encourage others to share openly without fear.
One of my clients hired us four different times as he rose through the ranks of four pharmaceutical research companies. He was smart and bold. He wanted his brands to stand out in categories that tended to skew to the staid. He could be rough on our creative teams during his first review of our ideas and would almost always send us back to the drawing board. The creative department called him Hurricane Glenn because he would leave our initial thinking in ruins. But they called him that out of respect. He challenged their thinking and brought out their best. One of our writers (who had worked with him in the past) suggested that we simply give him preliminary thinking in the first round, knowing too well that it would never see the light of day. But we never did that. We loved the intellectual sparring, the give-and-take, and the twinkle in his eye when he laid waste to our first campaigns. We always came back stronger in our next round. When he finally said, “that’s the one” we knew that he would give our work his full support.
We did one of the boldest campaigns of my career for one of his companies. The campaign focused on how critical relationships and trust played in the decision-making process of his buyers when choosing a pharmaceutical research partner. We used National Geographic–style photography to show people from many different cultures who had earned their community’s trust. We actually recruited people on the streets of New York to find the interesting characters to photograph.