Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Maggie Fox, a former marketing and operations executive who has spent most of her career in technology and software, often in ground-breaking spaces. She's also a two-time startup CEO who is passionate about small, sustainable family businesses and heritage crafts. Introducing consumers to the concept of "luxury scissors" (your scissors should be as good as your knives!) under the Ciselier e-commerce brand is a natural culmination of her years in digital and social media marketing, love for brand-building, collaboration and exploration. Maggie’s passion is to help celebrate Ciselier's traditional scissor makers and help them find new markets globally:
Have you ever stared for a while at a humble scissor? I mean, really considered it? When I was growing up, we had (what seemed at the time) a massive pair of old black-handled carbon steel shears. They lurked in the junk drawer, always at the ready to help in opening packaging, wrapping gifts or making crafts. My mother still has them; they’re called “the good scissors”.
They are a tool from another time – hot-forged and oil-hardened, not even in the same category as the scissors most people have today, which are cheap, plastic-handled and cold stamped. You can’t sharpen these mass-produced scissors, and when they dull or break, they’re thrown away. They’re literally garbage.
But how did that shift happen? And can you still buy really good scissors, serious tools made by skilled craftspeople?
This is a question I’d idly asked myself a few years ago. It was entirely random, and yet it stuck with me in a strangely persistent way. Until one day I decided I needed to know the answer.
If there’s one thread I can draw through my life, it’s exploration. I’ve taken on every new twist or turn based on one thing, “Well, that sounds like fun!” One person’s fun might be another’s torture, so a definition is probably helpful: if it’s never been done, no one can figure out how (or they tell you it’s “impossible”), I want to do it.
From my “first career” as a television writer and producer to starting Social Media Group (the world’s first social media consulting firm) in 2006, to joining the Senior Executive Team at SAP as head of digital marketing, I have always been drawn to technology, innovation and transformation. Most recently, that’s been at Smile.io, an ecommerce loyalty software platform in the Shopify ecosystem, where I sat on the board and spent a year running the business.
In August 2021, I decided I was ready to launch a startup again. I came up with a list of ideas, white spaces where I thought there could be opportunity for creativity and growth – for making something new, much like Social Media Group. Research and exploration narrowed the list, until I came to that very small question mentioned earlier: “Where can you buy really good scissors?” I thought I’d see if I could find out.
I was shocked to discover what felt like a secret: there are a small handful of heritage makers producing amazing scissors - as good as the best knives. Often in regions known for swords, many of these firms have been making household blades for centuries. But they are dwindling – fast. In Solingen, Premana, France, Spain… makers were practicing their craft in the traditional way, but their scissors were not making their way to global markets. These companies were closing, one by one.
Here's one of the artisans in Italy
I became instantly obsessed. High-quality household scissors did not exist as a consumer category, and there was virtually no content available on the history or making of scissors available online. I started looking for more makers, turning to export manifests and other documents in the public domain to track down company names and contact information. It was like a treasure hunt, and I began ordering samples. Google Translate was my very good friend.
By the fall, gorgeous scissors in hand – unlike anything I had even owned - I knew I was on to something really, really fun. So, of course I obviously (?) decided to start an e-commerce company, importing only the finest handmade scissors, with the tiny goal of creating awareness about this dying craft and hopefully saving the industry from oblivion. Ciselier (French for “Scissor Maker”) was born.
For the first time in a long time, Ciselier has given me the chance to make something net new from end to end: product selection, branding and positioning, packaging, systems and processes. After years of training myself to delegate to people far smarter than myself, it’s been an education and a re-education in marketing. And e-commerce software, metal forging, supply chain logistics, copywriting, packaging design, vendor management, importing… the list is overwhelming when I look back at it). Not to mention the rush of founding a company with a mission to help our heritage makers (who craft such beautiful scissors). They’re under huge economic pressure from low-cost, low-quality products; it’s truly an industry that could be gone before most people even hear about it, which would be a terrible loss.
I’m still obsessed with technology, but this time it’s very, very old technology! Scissors are a tool that are used almost universally; everyone has a pair. Our point is that your scissors can - and should be - as good as your knives. It takes up to five years of apprenticeship to learn how to assemble a pair of high-quality scissors, and the number of people who can do so is fewer than 100 globally. Everyone instantly appreciates the difference when they handle a pair of hot-forged, hand-assembled scissors, but sadly, most of us never get the chance.
We decided to keep our focus narrow, on just four categories of scissors: kitchen, embroidery, paper/craft, and left-handed use. Kitchen are by far the most popular. We find that anyone who appreciates a fine knife or cooks with any serious intention immediately falls in love. Scissors are an incredibly efficient kitchen tool, but not as commonly used in North America as abroad. To that end, we've started publishing a video series about uses for kitchen scissors. Truly - once you have a pair, you simply cannot go back. Similarly, our other categories offer the finest quality tools specific to the tasks at hand: tiny, deadly-sharp embroidery snips, powerful slicing fabric shears and a great selection for lefties. Here are the Pallarès Primera Everyday Kitchen scissors, made in Solsona, Spain:
Ciselier was founded to raise awareness of the world’s heritage scissor manufacturers and make it easier for quality-minded consumers to find them. We had the great good fortune to visit our heritage makers last year, and we plan to make another trip this coming May. We’ve had incredible uptake and coverage in the media, and now we’re more concerned about our supply than demand. At the moment we sell only within North America, but we’ll eventually expand to Europe.
We're extremely active on Instagram as well as Twitter and in order to fill the huge void of information about scissors (there are literally only three books available in English on the topic, and they are extremely slim) we have also been doing a lot of research and conducting interviews with makers, publishing articles on our blog and via our email newsletter. We've been building up a good library of information, but there's much more to document.
It's been an incredibly fun startup to build – creative, innovative, challenging and meaningful. When I tell my acquaintances in the technology space what my new company does, they often give me an odd look. They must think I’ve lost it or wonder what the software angle is. But then I show them a pair of hand-assembled, hot-forged and oil-hardened stainless steel kitchen scissors… and that look instantly disappears.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Kate Murphy who calls herself a lifelong learner, change leader and communicator. Her career has centered in the tech/software sector. Her motto is “I focus on what is, and what can be - not what is not or can't be”. She writes about her incredible organizational skills and passion to transition people, places and things to a better place.
"Along life’s journey I became adept at making positive change happen. This realization inspired me to dig into the structural and cultural aspects of organization design and change management. I spent a chunk of my career in roles where I led transformation and change initiatives and/or served as an internal practitioner helping teams across the business landing changes into practice.
Once I saw the power of systems thinking and how simple tools and solutions enable change management, I was hooked! My knowledge of how to make change stick eventually spilled into my personal life where it has helped my life’s journey and serves my passion to help people.
We all have moments that call for us to reflect and revise our 3 Ps: purpose, priorities, and practices. It might be due to a major life event like getting married, becoming a parent, getting divorced or the death of a spouse. You know, the big stuff that has us rethink and reset how we live.
I now regularly reflect and revise, but for a time I did more floating and reacting than planning. For years. my husband Dennis and I made unconscious, daily decisions which eroded our financial outlook and slowly sabotaged our health. We both spent way too much time working (and caregiving) and too little time focused on healthy eating, exercising, and keeping up positive daily rituals. For me years of unconscious practices resulted in compounded weight gain and diabetes. Years of paying for outside services led to overspending and saving less money for the future and fun experiences. We talked about saving more, having more fun but the reality was – we had no structured life plan. Our conversations lacked direction on how we spent our time and money. When the kids were growing up, it felt like we too frequently navigated life on automatic pilot and based on their lives.
As I became professionally adept at translating strategy and change management, I started to bring key aspects of strategic planning, change management, and communication into our home. We took a step back and built a life plan. We discussed and I mapped to key changes across all aspects of our lives. We were not perfect – some old habits die hard. Over time we increased focus on health, how we made decisions together and our future. Progress was made! We had a framework to make life decisions.
Nearly 30 years in, life threw a curve ball (as it will) – Dennis was diagnosed with terminal cancer. After two years of working and caregiving, he passed away and I was widowed. Those two years and the aftermath were tough. But we were thoughtful about our decisions. We prioritized health, seeing family and friends over our professional roles. We slowed down. We both liked to keep commitments, so we upheld our professional responsibilities – but not above other priorities. And when work became too much for Dennis, I managed my career and caregiving, but not at the detriment of my priorities!
When Dennis passed, I recognized an opportunity to transform my identity and life as a single woman in her 50s. I defined what that meant to me. But before I launched “Kate plan #1”, I needed to make the emotional and physical transitions – I needed to grieve and literally undertake the legal (loathsome) processes when a spouse passes away. It may sound crazy, but I scheduled time to grieve. I treated my transition strategically. I whipped out MS Office tools to plan out immediate, midterm and long-term goals. I planned, I made timelines, lists, I tracked, and I adjusted along the way. The structure and focus on execution served me well. I was focused on making progress, not achieving a certain date. I celebrated all wins – small to large.
I hired a financial planner, revised my will and other legal documents. Over time I cleaned out closets and reimagined how to use the space in our home. I leaned into making the changes (big and small) and I role modeled a mindset of reinvention for my adult children.
My parents’ finances and health declined. I helped them until each passed away. And my daughter’s disabling health conditions brings with it responsibilities and a housemate! I realized that my role as a caregiver needed to become more ingrained with my life and financial planning. Another “ah ha” moment which required a revision in my plan.
It has been seven years since Dennis passed away. And the Kate plan has been revised seven times based on life’s curveballs and opportunities. During 2020, my daughter Jill and I made a move to the coastal city, Newburyport Massachusetts. The main driver for the move was to serve Jill’s health and healthcare. It also moved us closer to some family and closer to Boston sports. I wanted to live in a coastal community where I could slow down, be close to water, walk more and drive less.
A downside, besides the cold winters, is the cost of living. Both are brutal and required a revision in how we spend and save money. I started following Shang and her story and advice: at Save My Cents. Her advice serves as reminder to be conscious about where every cent is going. And she draws some tight boundaries to achiever her goals. Her life is different from mine, yet she offers ideas and inspiration.
Professionally speaking, my work “Kate plan” aligns with my personal plan. I added spending additional time to help colleagues, friends, and family to my list of priorities. It is time to give back more.
I have always been an active listener. When I take a step back, what I hear are things like “I am stressed”, I am overwhelmed”, “I have no idea what I would do if…”, “I have no time for me”, “How do I do more of what I love to do?”. I can relate. Sometimes people just want acknowledgement. Sometimes they want practical help to change their circumstances or get started. I have started to be more attuned to help others in practical ways.
Over the few years, Jill and I created and/or use systems of work (spreadsheets and apps) to live more efficiently. I have moved 19 times (I don’t recommend it). The upside is we know how to move – the budget, logistics, timing, services, gotchas and all. We designed a system that scales for interstate moves. Jill coded each box. We tracked all contents using a spreadsheet and colored/numbered labels. Our project management was managed tightly.
Before the move, we sold and donated a ton of stuff using multiple storage units over time. We prepped for an eventual move for many months. So, when the opportunity arose, we needed a week to list our home and six weeks to make an interstate move (during COVID-19 pandemic)! The logistics were complex given a temporary apartment in the mix. I factored into the budget external moving help twice.
Real estate, house and space upgrades, simplification and designing rooms are side passions of mine. I love the process of prepping to put a house up for sale including letting go of stuff, upgrading, de-personalizing and staging a home.
Making a career change is another area where I help friends and family. At work my “side hustle” (as I jokingly say) is helping colleagues develop and evolve their careers. I have reinvented my SAP career several times. I have been a strategy auditor in Corporate Audit. I led a transformation and change team in HR. I ran point on various aspects of corporate communications including M&A, financial, crisis and internal comms. Today I am running integrated storytelling for our Global Sponsorships organization in Marketing. It is a mix of digital marketing and communications based on stories told with our sports and entertainment partners.
Big transformations and life changes like career changes and moves can be successful with the right mindset, a plan and daily attention to choices and practices. If you want to be a marathon runner, poor eating is counter intuitive. Turning intentions into daily practice can sometimes feel like building a sandcastle during a sandstorm!
I find that starting small helps. One of my daughter Jill’s (and my) go to books is called Atomic Habits: an Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. After reading this book, Jill vowed to read a chapter a day. At year-end she has read 30+ books, far beyond a chapter a day. Reading is now a part of her daily practice. This is monumental for someone who, amongst her many maladies, suffers from multiple types of headaches daily.
In 2023 I will turn greater attention towards helping people make smooth [life] transitions. I will focus where my passions lie: homes/real estate, career development and reinvention. I am a geek at heart. I will continue to use tools, apps, and the wisdom of others as inspiration to enable smooth transitions.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Ed Maguire who has worked in equity research since 1999, both as a publishing equity and supervisory analyst, with a focus on software and innovation at CIBC, Merrill Lynch, CLSA and SMBC Nikko. He is also a musician and composer, recording and performing on bass, violin and mandolin. He is profiled with a 5 string Vecchio workshop violin.
"I like to make music whenever I get the chance. I’ve released three albums in 2021-22, with more on the way in 2023. I’ve included links to a few recordings below.
A Little bit of Background
Growing up in a household where both parents were musicians (father plays piano, mother sings), I was immersed in music from the beginning. Parental tastes ran towards classical music, so from very early on I was familiar with Chopin, Scarlatti, Beethoven, Rachmaninov and others. Violin lessons began at age 7, followed by piano, with participation in school and youth orchestras a constant activity. At age 13, rock and roll beckoned with a far cooler social cachet, and I took up the electric bass as my main instrument.
By age 16 I was playing in bars and clubs with different bands in the DC area, playing rock, funk and blues. A summer session at Berklee in Boston before 11th grade introduced jazz - and as I explored jazz fusion bands like Weather Report and Return to Forever. I was hooked. Majoring in Music at Columbia rounded out the classical theory and history foundation, while I pursued bass in R&B bands, played mandolin and fiddle in country and bluegrass bands. In my senior year I started working with computer sequencing (Voyetra Sequencer Plus on early DOS PCs).
In the 90s I worked in the music business for a distributor of indie labels and worked with an amalgam of diverse bands – African, Brazilian, Flamenco, jazz and funk with a variety of musicians. In 1997, I released my first solo album “Jasmine” – with the synths and drum programming recorded on a Mac with Opcode Vision. I overdubbed bass, violin and mandolins and had a number of guests overdubbing percussion, guitar, keyboards, sax and bass clarinet.
In 1998, I started my MBA and with a career transition to finance and starting a family in 2000. I set aside playing music for the next decade. Working as a tech equity analyst covering software and innovation at Merrill Lynch and CLSA was a lot of fun but a polite nudge from an old friend induced me to get back into playing actively. When I bought a new Macbook to start recording with Logic in 2011, much had changed: no longer did I need the rack of hardware synths, mixers and effects that I had relied upon in the 90s for recording. Everything went virtual, putting the power of music making in hand for a fraction of the cost a few years prior.
Some Musical Influences
Having spent years exploring many different genres of music, there are a few standouts that characterize my musical taste. Fundamentally, music that appeals to me has to stimulate one of three areas of the body – the head (intellectually interesting), the heart (emotionally rich) or the booty (the groove). My favorite music checks all three boxes. A few representative favorites include Stravinsky, Bartok, Prokofiev, Mahler, Steve Reich, Earth Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Kahn, Take 6, Prince, Miles Davis, Joni Mitchell, Herbie Hancock, Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, Ivan Lins, Marisa Monte, Salif Keita, Esperanza Spalding, Jeff Beck. Van Halen, the Beatles, Steely Dan, Snarky Puppy, Jean-Luc Ponty, Didier Lockwood, Eric Dolphy, John Scofield, Milton Nascimento and many many others.
The Process
Since the early 90s my approach to music creation has involved tracking multiple instruments, often a one-man band, sometimes bringing in soloists and percussionists. My more recent music incorporates keyboards, percussion and drum samples, basses, violins, mandolins and guitar. I like to characterize my music as “funky jazz” = funky on the bottom, jazz on top with R&B influenced grooves and complex harmonies
Usually I will sketch out chords, melodies and form with pencil and music paper as a guide. This generally starts with a core rhythm, with harmonies and chord changes blocked out with keyboards. Bit by bit I like to add textures, whether using keyboards or live instruments. For melodies, I will often double up a lead instrument with two or more different sounds to get a richer tone. Bass lines are usually multi-tracked and doubled – one of my favorite sounds is the combination of fretless bass playing low roots doubled with a clavinet, with finger style and/or slap bass filling out the bottom end.
One of the fun parts of recording is creatively using effects to find a good sound. This may include some kind of compression, delay, modulation (chorus or phase shifter), some reverb, and sometimes pitch shifting or stereo panning effects. The goal in mixing a final version is to place the different elements of the composition in the mix so there is clear separation of distinct parts and blending of different sounds to enhance specific voices. Mixing is a bit of an art and science, and the product improves with practice. Since most of what I create is multi-tracked I do the engineering myself. However for the final versions to be released on streaming services, I use a professional mastering engineer, who provides great feedback on balancing the different elements of the mix and polishes the sound so that it renders clear on playback.
Gear – an Evolving Collection
Over the past few years, I have been incrementally building up my home recording capabilities. A bit about my gear: I use a 27” iMac with 68GB of RAM to run Logic Pro X, which provides both sequencing and digital recording capabilities. The digital interface is a Universal Audio Apollo X4, which converts audio to digital and back again, through a Yamaha mixer and powered monitor speakers. I use an array of third party virtual instruments and effect plug-ins from Roland, Korg, Spectrasonics, Arturia and Eventide.
Generally, I run electric instruments direct into the interface, though sometimes I will use a Fishman preamp for acoustic instruments to get a good recording level. Apple has done a fantastic job with Logic – there are a bunch of great sounds (including Alchemy synth sounds) that come out of the box, along with some great effects and music loops. I’ve also invested in third party royalty-free percussion and drum loops, which make the music sound “almost” live.
Instruments
Since the pandemic hit I have upgraded my collection of instruments. For electric bass I have several 4, 5 and 6 string instruments both fretted and fretless from the likes of Fodera, Alembic, Godin and Fender, along with a couple of boutique makers.
I have several violins both acoustic and electric, from a variety of different makers. Recently my go-to instrument is a carbon fiber 6 string violin made by Glasser (there’s a low C and F string that extends the range over an octave below a traditional violin); I also have a 5 string Realist acoustic with electronics built in and a Zeta 5 string Jazz solid body with a synth pickup (I can connect to a Roland GR-55 guitar synth). I have several electric mandolins, including a 5 string Kentucky I got in 1989 and played in the band Chainsaw Jazz. I recently have been playing 5-string baritone mandolin (tuned an octave below a traditional mandolin with a high B string) from Jonathan Mann.
One of the fun things to do with electric instruments is to run the signal through effects and loopers (to get a one-man band layered sound live). The effects chain includes compression, distortion, pitch shifters and wah filters. After cycling through a few different makers, I’ve found that the Boomerang looper offers the most musical options. I like to combine different delays from Strymon and Universal Audio (with tap tempo controls) to create textures that can be combined into jammable sequences. Next project I am looking to capture some of this live and with other musicians.
When I was working in the 90s, one could still monetize music by selling physical media – CDs mostly – while chains like Tower Records prospered. With the advent of P2P file sharing (Napster’s piracy) then streaming services, the economic payback from recorded music has been eviscerated for all but the most globally popular music creators. Of course there are royalties from airplay and licensing, but per stream revenues are de minimis at best for the vast majority. As a jazz influence musician creating instrumental music whose appeal is “highly exclusive” to say the least, there’s not a commercial incentive to the music I make. Ironically the cost and quality of home recording equipment has made it possible to replace professional studios that used to cost $100/hour and up 30 years ago to record (and you had better have a big budget or be able to get it right in a few takes).
So the journey becomes the destination with home recording. I still love to play live with other musicians but it can be so rewarding spending time to focus, create and polish music for its own sake. I’ve been studying music with a fantastic teacher, Kenny Werner the jazz pianist and composer since 2021 and he has opened up so much new language that I am looking forward to using in the future. I hope everyone can find similar paths to personal reward.
CES in Vegas is always a nice way to kick off the tech events year. However, the NRF show in New York and WEF in Davos in the next few days are no slouches.
So, I thought I would share related megatrends from the new SAP book, Business as Unusual. Even though it is a book written by SAP execs (with our assistance) it is bigger than SAP, bigger than any industry or country. It truly reflects megatrends
For NRF, two of the megatrends are particularly relevant
New Customer Pathways – which looks at how retail has been transformed with COVID and lockdowns and how eCommerce has both helped and hurt – with massive volume of returns and as micro-fulfillment logistics have taken off and CPG companies are becoming better at direct-to-consumer channels
While nothing beats reading about the megatrends in the book (each averages about 30 pages of commentary from SAP, customer, partner, influencer commentary and use cases), these two posts provide a Reader’s Digest and a YouTube Shorts version of the text from the book and videos from interviews for the megatrend.
Resilient Supply Networks – which looks at how companies are moving from reactive to resilient supply chains and how Industry 4.0 robotics and other technology are reshaping commerce
For WEF and its focus on Sustainability , the Circular Economy megatrend is particularly relevant. It points out that only 9% of the 100 billion tons of material produced globally is recycled every year, and looks at innovation at many companies to design less wasteful products, to recycle them and to move to business models that encourage re-use.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is all-around nice guy, Jeff Stiles who has spent over 30 years focusing on all aspects of enterprise software and analytics with notable companies including Cognos, Peoplesoft, SAP and Oracle where he most recently led the Supply Chain and Manufacturing Product Marketing as well as Industry Solution Marketing teams. He is pictured with 2 of his other passions – his 1968 RS SS Camaro (with 23K original miles) and his 3 Australian Shepherds. That is Bowser, the middle boy:
“Don't take for granted the love this life gives you
When you get where you're going don't forget turn back around
And help the next one in line
Always stay humble and kind
--Tim McGraw"Humble and Kind"
I’m certainly not where I would like to be, but I am one of those people who cares deeply about helping others in their careers and lives. It’s been a great experience mentoring people in very different stages of their careers, and it is incredibly rewarding to see their growth in skills, competencies -- and in life. This post summarizes a few key learnings, essential techniques and the power of helping people capitalize on their potential and includes links to helpful resources and some of my writing on these topics.
With intent and a will to grow, Mentorship is rewarding and fulfilling for both parties if there is a solid connection, a similar moral compass and aspirations for growing and learning. If you're seeking a mentor, know why you are seeking help and guidance, and look for a person with specific experiences that can help you grow. And don't be afraid to ask! I've learned through the years that people are generally willing to help. As a person seeking guidance, know what experiences, skills and competencies you want to develop and use that to narrow the potential list. Interested? Get Started and Choose Well.
The best mentoring relationships are lasting and transcend a fixed scope and duration. The foundation of these successful partnerships is long term investment on both sides. To be a great mentor, you need to commit to give, to help, to be direct, honest and constructive... and you need to be willing to openly share you own experiences, successes, failures and learnings.
Helping someone grow and actualize takes time, effort and perseverance. It takes intent and a willingness on both sides to do the work, to be authentic and direct... It takes commitment to grow. There's a Yin and Yang in this. By helping others, you grow as a leader and as a person. For people seeking or beginning to work with a mentor, please have an open mind, check your ego at the door, and commit to put into practice the things you learn.
Great mentors teach people how to think, not what to think. The most important approach I use (in mentoring as well as in business) is working backward from outcomes to determine how to make a difference. This requires honest reflection and humility on both sides. A technique you might consider is asking someone how they want to grow and asking them to write a series of 'headlines' that reflect what the impact is going to be in each area. I also encourage you to think about this over time; people grow at different paces, and it's important to calibrate the expectations and results so they are realistic and achievable.
It's amazing to me that (at least in Western cultures) we are taught to read, write and speak... but most of us do not receive formal training or guidance on listening. The result? Most people I come across listen to respond, not to understand. That's why the most important and impactful thing I talk with every mentee about is Active Listening. The key is paying attention to what the speaker is attempting to communicate and elicit clarification where necessary for comprehension. It also requires shedding our inherent biases… and the deep-seeded bias toward response.
Remote work and reduced in-person interaction can get in the way, but fortunately, technology advances in video calls and collaboration help bridge the gap. I insist on using video wherever possible, but it’s also helpful to use other communications techniques appropriately. A quick text or instant message can offer words of encouragement or an expedient answer to a simple question. My rule of thumb: fit the medium to the message.
This post shares more about Active Listening, including seven essential techniques:
Focus on the intent of the conversation
Watch the speaker's body language
Give encouraging verbal cues
Clarify and paraphrase information
Ask questions... and most importantly,
Refrain from judgment, then you can
Summarize, share, and reflect
Active Listening is a crucial part of getting people to agree, and it is helpful in every relationship and situation. I encourage you to learn more and put these techniques into practice, not only with folks in mentoring relationships... but in your business and personal lives. You'll end up with a better shared understanding -- and better results.
The whole notion of having to sometimes push and sometimes pull applies to different mentoring situations. With early-stage mentees, I have a good idea of what I and my teams can offer and what the impact can be for both the person and the collective. I am very intentional with folks like this to help them understand global business, product, solution and channel marketing, and how to deliver value by addressing customer needs in a repeatable way. The interactions with folks like this tend to be more ad-hoc and focused on sharing lessons from things going on around the person and team as well as working on specific skills and competencies.
With folks further into their careers, there is great joy to be had in helping them actualize. One person wanted to learn the solution marketing discipline and to develop her impact as a marketer. We worked on very specific growth and skill areas, and I was able to help her most by modeling the behaviors and competencies she needed to develop. Directly editing and providing detailed feedback for both written content and presentations accelerated her learning curve and I found her very quickly modeling these techniques and approaches with others. This requires candor on the part of the mentor and an open mind and thick skin from the mentee, but the results are spectacular.
PushMePullYou. Know when to push, know when to pull, and make sure you're working together in the right ways move forward.
I had an uplifting revelation at my father's recent celebration of life. Among the other gifts I received from my dad, I learned that more than half of his former employees reached out to my stepmom after his passing, sharing stories of how he had helped them. And I got to reconnect with someone I met through him 40 years ago. She shared that he had been her mentor early in her career when she was looking to change occupations. Apparently, he gave her sage advice, helped her land that very job a year later, and became a true friend, advocate and inspiration for life. I love that I learned this from him and can only aspire to do the same for others. The Power of Advocacy shares what I’ve learned about playing the role of advocate.
Advocacy builds trust, deepens personal relationships and creates opportunities for people you believe in. Seek opportunities to celebrate both the accomplishments and potential of the people you are leading or mentoring. Be genuine, authentic, and real -- it's vital to grow your own reputation and credibility as a leader and a mentor -- the promise must come with a payoff.
I hope you will reflect on some of these important concepts: commitment to grow, long-term investment, working backward from outcomes, active listening, pushing and pulling and advocacy. Please consider how you too can help people around you. Turns out that the gifts you give become part of a life lived well.
Every few years, I invite readers and colleagues to contribute guest columns in the series Technology and my Hobby/Passion. A couple of hundred have contributed since 2009 on their birding, charities, cooking, music, sports and every other passion, and how it keeps evolving with technology. Click here and scroll down to read them all.
This time it is Marne Martin, President for Service Management, EAM & Global Industries at IFS, a leading global software company. She was recently named as one of the top 50 women leaders in SaaS world. The more I hear about her career, her travels, her sports, the more it strikes me that he is modern-day Renaissance Woman. She attributes her success to being versatile and coachable. She has a combination of verbal and math skills, is fairly ambidextrous, is a natural at learning and has a lot of resilience. And to top it off she has a great work ethic. Here she writes about her enduring connection with horses that started as a child growing up on ranches.
“Horses and STEM disciplines have been tightly connected all through my life, both in school years and an adult as I developed my technology career.
I was born on a ranch with horses and cattle. Going back centuries, my family on both sides have been in agriculture and when they moved to the Western United States and settled in what become the states of Montana and Wyoming. Education wise, I primarily focused on STEM classes in high school and then went on to major in international finance and economics.
Developing horses is similar to developing a technology business: it is a game of math, probabilities and instrumented results. You have likely heard about the “rule of 40” in software. Here is a site which focuses on the math associated with horseback riding. As I will discuss later, the scoring of dressage is similarly complex. Likewise, the genetics of breeding have plenty of biology and botany.
Similarly, cattle drives are a bit like technology sales cycles. You have varied decision makers within a complex set of stakeholders. Cattle herds have a mix of experienced/older cows that know pastures and their state in each season. They are like digital transformation veterans who know the way and the steps to organize themselves. The younger, less experienced calves, sometimes follow the group, but can wander off at other times. That’s similar to project team members who are risk takers. Finally, you have the bulls that lead their own path and often get into fights. You have multiple riders in concert driving the herd. if you have ever ridden a cutting or roping horse, you know it is an essential and well-trained team member.
Whether in business, academic studies or horses, I have always been motivated to learn new things and push boundaries to accomplish difficult objectives. On social media in particular, it is suggested that success comes easily. But it never does - there are often twists and turns with many seen and unseen complications.
Let’s start at the very beginning.
My family moved after the Civil War and settled in the West of the US, in what became the states of Montana and Wyoming. They were fairly well-known in ranching circles and show up in various halls of fame.
I was born in Oregon and we moved to our Montana ranch when I was four around the time when I started kindergarten. I spent most summers on my grandfather's ranch in Wyoming and then we moved there when I was eleven.
Both my parents rode and as is common with ranch families, they had photos taken with the baby sitting on a horse. We also had annual cattle sales and people flew in from all over the place. Stick the cute toddler on the big bull and sell your cattle for a higher price! Here’s me with my younger sister who is 15 months younger. It was the first time we went to the huge Denver Stock Show with our prized bull, Elevator. Later I would show off bulls and heifers all around the US. I would miss about a month of school every year, but have a number of shiny big belt buckles to show for it. We also had one to two big annual cattle sales a year. Public speaking skills and an ability to sell were expected from me from a very young age. I was the oldest and learned all the business skills. We also did plenty of entertaining. That exposure and experiences I received in my early years stood me in good stead later in life.
I was drawn to horses from a very young age. Horses are a lot of fun to ride and I had a natural affinity to their sensitive intelligence. My mom tells a true story of when I was two. She must not have been watching me closely as I had escaped from a locked yard and gone down the hill into the horse pasture. They found me trying to climb up Dan, which was my dad's horse (they had sat me earlier for a photo) trying to get on for myself. Fast forward a few years when we had a herd of ponies. I could get a cow halter on and climb on them. So I started to ride our herd of unbroken ponies, both the stallions and the mares. And while I wasn’t organizing the breeding, we would have new little pony foals every year that I loved. Here is a photo with my mom, myself, my sister and one of our colt pony foals we called Diamond.
More complicated activities with horses
When we moved to Montana, there was a lot of stress on my parents as my grandfather was sick and my father’s brothers had moved away. Both my parents were working a lot. When I came home from school, I would entertain myself by catching one of the ponies (typically unsupervised) and ride it around. The rule was that I had to be home either when I was hungry or by dark. And if I wasn't home by dark, they would go around honking. If I could hear them honking, I had to come home.
I also trained the ponies to drive with an old cart using a pony harness I found in the barn. My grandfather had used them when he was a kid. The ponies I trained never got to be as famous as the Budweiser Clydesdales, but I am proud that six little stallions I trained to drive were sold to Domino's Pizza. That money, with the accrued interest became my college fund. The ponies showed up in parades like this one in Austin, MN in 1987 – Getty Images has a video version here.
My sister also liked riding, but for her it wasn't as much of a passion and more for helping to move cattle. She also didn’t like riding the complicated or challenging horses. My grandfather was always really proud that I could ride the horses that would buck off the hired hands. He used to say my first words back when I was a toddler were “me can do it.” My sense of adventure has never waned.
In Montana, I never got further than five miles from home. The ranch in Montana was in the Bitterroot Valley, which is relatively narrow. We would go swim in the river but we weren’t allowed to cross it with the horses. In Wyoming, in contrast, I would take off all day. I could easily go 20 miles from home riding all day bareback into the mountains with the wild animals. Of course, we did not have cell phones back then. The only rule I had was to tell my grandparents which direction I was headed so they knew if they had to come get me which road to drive. And I was instructed to listen for the honking, and that was my sign to come home. I kind of told them, "Hey, I'm headed east”. Or West. My grandfather's ranch was very large and I had my places I stashed things if I wanted to go rest, I created my quasi-Native American experience. My family founded the town of Hyattville, Wyoming where ancient cave drawings and petroglyphs are tourist attractions. I claimed a few caves where nearby I could tie the horse to a tree. Some of the ranch hands were Native American and they would tell me stories of the wilderness. It was very cool to learn different cultures at a young age.
Whatever happened, I somehow had to manage. If the horse fell in a hole or I encountered a dangerous situation, I was on my own. I always say that built an independence, courage and a problem-solving capability at a super young age. People ask me “You moved to DC when you were 17? You had lived in London by the time you were 19? And started working in Venezuela in your early 20s, or did trips to Saudi and China in your late 20s/early 30s” And my reaction is “Well, it actually didn't seem that much different from when I was going in the mountains in Wyoming on my own.”
I have always loved a challenge. In those days, I was often the only woman in the room in the telecommunications or technology business. Plus, I had decided by the time I was 13 that I would not be daunted by what I had heard at some of the ranches that “men wear the pants in the family.” Playing also built confidence as I was very good at sports, even against the boys.
School, college and a busy growing up
As I got older, riding horses remained my relaxation. I was playing varsity by the time I was a freshman at school and I was very competitive at volleyball, soccer and track. In my freshman year, I was one of the best basketball players in all of Wyoming. Even though I'm not that tall – I'm 5'8" – by nature, I had an amazing vertical jump, so I was more like a 6' or 6'1" player. That made me more versatile in a variety of activities. However after my first ACL injury at 15, I lost much of that vertical jump. As the reality set in that I would never be 6 foot tall on the court, my focus switched to academics. I had other knee surgeries from other sports as I continued to compete. However, after the second ACL at 25, it became even more apparent that competing with the help of horses was a better alternative.
Fortunately, I graduated at the top of my class with more than a 4.0 because of all my AP STEM classes. I benefited from being well rounded. I had also played “first flute” in our high school concert band. All this allowed me to get into Georgetown in Washington, DC with an early decision application. (Pragmatically, I am sure it helped being a woman from a lightly populated state where many people don’t leave.)
As many of you know, Georgetown is a basketball school (I was there when the legendary John Thompson was coach and his alums would come back to visit in the offseason), my family knew the politicians in Washington, DC from our state, and lastly it was also a Jesuit school (I was raised Catholic). So off I went to DC and the School of Foreign Service. I loved the classical education alongside STEM classes and the international atmosphere at Georgetown. Of course, it was the heart of both business and government and close to the horse community in Virginia and Maryland. I had considered Stanford my Dad had gone for a bit after Whitman College – but Stanford has no horses. Same with many east coast schools.
Polo
When I went east to Georgetown, I wasn’t able to go home as often, and for the first time in my life I did not do much riding. While I played plenty of pickup ball, I also started playing polo for the Georgetown women’s team. I also did some fox hunting and eventing.
Georgetown allowed me to play, not just watch, polo (Sheridan, Wyoming is one of the only places in the West that has a real polo team, and had made me curious about the sport). We played Harvard, Yale, UVA and other schools with a polo tradition. I loved it because it was, again, a team sport. It is competitive, fast-paced, athletic, and I'm not afraid of physicality. I was a “two-goaler”. At that time, I think there was only two of us on the entire Eastern Seaboard that had that ranking.
With all the international exposure at Georgetown, it was an easy decision to spend my Junior year at the London School of Economics. In London, I was playing basketball and not polo, but I was not far from great polo players and polo matches including events where members of the Royal Family participated.
If you want to see how physical the sport is and the hand-eye coordination it requires watch this video of the US Open Men’s Polo. I do sometimes wonder if I had stayed with polo would I have been one of the few five-goal female players.
Horses and polo also led me to my first job working for a high net worth family (also very successful in international business) that sponsored the Georgetown women’s polo team. We also started one of the first GSM cell phone companies in the world. I joined them right after school at 21, ran my first company by 27, and was running or overseeing their entire 40 or so operating and investment entities by 30. All the international travel led to my meeting my husband, Michael.
I loved polo, but with increased travel for work, even being employed by a family with their own polo team, I needed a change. Through eventing, I picked up on the challenge of dressage. Dressage was a sport I pursued when we moved to Europe. I could compete at a high level - Grand Prix class - while still developing my career and getting my international MBA.
Dressage
Dressage has been described as the highest form of horse training with roots in Ancient Greece (the first recorded writings about it are ‘On Horsemanship’ by Xenophon circa 350 BC) using it as a form of training for horses in the battlefield. It was carried forward as a tradition at the Imperial Spanish Riding School of Vienna, which dates back to the 1570s. It wasn’t till 1912 when dressage became an Olympic sport. In 1921, the International Federation for Equestrian Sports was founded, and today, there are 136 national federations that are affiliated.
The year 2003 was auspicious - I got married and Michael, my husband took a job in the Netherlands. I was able to work from there part-time. I bought my first dressage horse after my jumper/eventing horse sadly died in quarantine while getting ready to fly to Europe. I had a lot to learn about training and competing to go from being a really good rider to being a really good dressage rider. It took almost eleven years for me to go from my first dressage horse to training and competing at Grand Prix. Below is my Escobar, my first Grand Prix horse and a former licensed stallion when we were competing in Germany. Escobar had moved with me from the Netherlands to the US, back to England and then to Germany alongside my work. He was quite a world traveler and competed with me across three countries.
Dressage also appealed to my competitiveness since there is never a perfect score of 100%. Acing a dressage test is much harder than at regular school. But it keeps you striving for perfection. Here are the scoring guidelines from the US Dressage Federation.
Two decades later, I have continued to compete at dressage. Here I am with my second dressage horse, and from whom by embryo transfer, I bred my third Grand Prix horse and first licensed stallion. In this video, we are doing a freestyle dressage where a rider can choreograph music and the pattern. The score I received for this test is one of the highest I have ever achieved. I ranked third in the country that year across all freestyles at that level. It was especially satisfying because I was also running a publicly traded software company at the same time
Breeding
My interest in breeding comes mainly from my family legacy. But it also comes from a desire to manage the economics of dressage. Top horses can cost in the hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions. Breeding isn’t cheap by any means but you have a lower cost basis for the quality of horseflesh I want to train and develop. I have bred my own horses that have gone up to Grand Prix, but I've also bred International Grand Prix horses, stallions, test winners and top performing mares. Over time, we also started breeding Giant Schnauzers who are wonderful farm and home companions.
Cattle breeding has evolved what are called EPDs (Expected progeny differences), which are numerical scores with tolerance and confidence intervals that match to certain types of genetic or lineage-type traits.
European warmblood breeding, especially in Germany, has similar types of analytics available going back decades and, in some cases, centuries Most of my mares have very old and long Hanoverian mare lines, which are called stamms. I use those as data points in addition to my own experience riding and training my mares. Most breeders don’t ride the mares they breed with. That gives me a “leg up” with my own assembled data points to complement the information on the given stamms.
When I started breeding, I started scoring what I felt as a rider, what the horse was good at, what they weren't so good at. I do similarly with teams at work. Whether breeding, training, or growing companies, I like to take a nuanced view that relies on math, sensory skills, partnership and inspiration.
As you can see my love of horses has allowed me to apply principles in business, improve on a wide range of STEM skills, become better at time management and keep myself physically active.
In technology you are always striving for dream teams - training, collaborating, managing, leading. It’s the same in a partnership with a horse that will take at least a decade if one wants to get to Grand Prix. With horses, it starts when you are thinking of a foal, effectively in “stealth mode”. Once born, you start evaluating how closely it meets expectations. It’s quite similar to what happens with a startup or a new invention. You monitor the foal’s growth and development. You make sure it has appropriate food and nutrition, similar to working capital and talent in a company. You start to ride the horse as a three year old. Then the real work begins. if you are fortunate, when it gets to be 10-12, the horse gets a shot at its first Grand Prix. If it is good enough, it may even qualify for the Olympics or other international horse sport. It’s like creating a software unicorn where every step has complications, successes and challenges. Whether developing great software companies or Grand Prix horses, you need a commitment to excellence, enough money, enough time, and of course talent, resiliency and hard work.
The little cowgirl in me would love, of course, to go spend long days riding in Wyoming. Now I spend fewer, but very high-quality, hours with my horses in Florida. It is wonderful that I can do so much more while nurturing my enduring relationship with man’s faithful friend, the Equus ferus caballus
Follow Marne and her horses at the Facebook page for her farm and on Instagram
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