Page 4 - Compass Issue 3

MARKETING
by Ray Seggern &
Mr. SpocK MeetS Don Quixote Monica Ballard

t’s great to see old friends doing well, isn’t it? When Chris sible Dream” to balance with the tight focus of Science Officer
iHyams and I hung out in the 1990s, he was working at Taco Spock.
Bell. Now he’s Senior President of Product and International at Lastly, a huge part of Indeed.com’s success is their innovation
Indeed.com. Yeah. THAT Indeed.com. (I’d like to think it was my model. Their employees regularly come forward with new ideas
influence.) for the company, new features, and business models. In fact, there
I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Chris and talk was one that was presented called, “Jobspotter.” It was an app
about the treasure map that led to his latest success and what he that allowed the general public to take photos of Help Wanted
experienced along the way. As expected with any entrepreneur’s signs, post them on the app, and get rewarded by Indeed.com.
journey, there were bumps in the road and a few “learning expe- Chris didn’t care for it. He said it would never work. The other
riences,” a.k.a. “flops.” But in skinning his knees, he learned some upper-management types agreed. The group that brought it in
important lessons. thanked them for their input—and they went ahead and proved
When asked what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur, Chris’ them wrong, developing the app. Delightfully surprised and will-
response was intriguing. He said you had to be one part Don ing to admit his mistake, Chris said the lesson there was that, “the
Quixote and one part Mr. Spock. Even if the only thing you know greatest threat to innovation is certainty.”
about Don Quixote is that he was the deluded knight who tilted at Let that sink in right there: “The greatest threat to innovation
windmills imagining they were giants, you’ve got the idea. Chris is certainty.”
proposed that there are some days you need to wake up believing How often have you allowed your certainty of the way things
everyone else is wrong about how to run your type of business. should be done get in the way of other ways they CAN be done?
You have to see your world in a skewed way and examine how you Are you allowing your team members to step up and give you a
can contribute to it in a positive, almost heroic way. Mr. Spock point of view from the trenches? Are your dreams just
On the other hand, there are some days when you have to ap- impossible enough to inspire?
proach your business as Star Trek’s Mr. Spock: in a completely Why not reach out to me with some of your dreams and ob-
dispassionate, unemotional, and logical manner. “Is this working servations. I heard a few last EXPO, and I’m always willing to
and what isn’t? Is this the best way to go about solving this prob- learn from you, just as I learned so much from my old friend Chris
lem?” Extra points for raising an eyebrow and using the word, Hyams.
“Fascinating.” Allow the big picture of Don Quixote’s “Impos-

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4 THE COMPASS | Issue 3 | 2017