On Feeding and Caring for an Innovator: Chapter Two
A Little Respect Goes a Long Way
In chapter one, we saw briefly how innovators thrive when they believe they are making a difference. We saw how control and a lack of appreciation can suffocate innovation. In this chapter, I’ll share something from my own life and how my wife has, probably without intent, been my greatest catalyst for innovation.
When we were dating, Leslie asked me what my dream job would be. She grew up with a rocket scientist for a father. He spent his entire career at NASA. Maybe she hoped I would answer by saying that I wanted to get a job with some company and stay there until I either died or retired. I’m not knocking that hope: there have been plenty of times since I graduated from Auburn in 1987 that I’ve wished I’d just stayed with my first job.
Instead, I answered that my dream job would be to work in a ‘think-tank’ where I and my co-workers would solve problems, developing and commercializing innovations. I remember that she sort of drew back from me with a slight scowl on her face.
We struggled for that first eighteen years of our marriage. I would start a business or a project, we would disagree about finances, whether I was tilting at the right windmill or not, etc., and the project would die. In between, I held various jobs for which I was ill-equipped. That’s correct. I had two business degrees from Auburn, but I was wired to create. The results of the survey I took when I filled out my application for college came back saying that I should study architecture or art. Ignoring that, I studied business.
One night during those eighteen years, I had a dream. In that dream, I saw sand and some sort of material. I heard the words, “This is going to be huge.” The dream lasted for just an instant, less than a second, but it was so sharp in my mind that I couldn’t forget it. Over those years, I would think back to the dream from time to time and wonder what it meant. After a while, I told myself that someone else had probably already invented it, whatever 'it' was.
At some point in our struggle, Leslie read a book called “Love & Respect”, by Emerson Eggerichs. In the Bible, Ephesians 5:33 says “Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” Leslie read this book without my knowledge, and she embraced what is taught in that verse.
Little by little, I began to see a change in how Leslie acted toward me. I wasn't changing (as far as I knew), but that didn’t matter: She was being faithful to God’s word. Please don’t misunderstand what respect means here. It doesn’t mean subservience or that a wife must take a back seat to her husband. Leslie is a Mensan. She has an opinion and she voiced that opinion. But the final decision - and its consequences - was up to me.
My love for Leslie began to grow. I knew she loved me, but the reality that she respected me began to have an effect on me. Instead of facing opposite directions on issues and decisions, we were now standing shoulder to shoulder - together. I became brave! My confidence grew exponentially, and it was while we were on vacation, staying in a beach house in Fort Morgan, Alabama, that the dream became clear.
It was almost a year to the day since Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast. Some friends of ours were staying with us. Glenn’s an engineer who does construction inspections for commercial and residential projects. He and I were looking at the rusted out hurricane straps beneath the house and he made the remark that “they’re still using these things to rebuild after Katrina.”
I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way.” That night, as Leslie and I were sitting on the screened porch listening to the waves, the dream came back to me and I suddenly understood it.
The point in all of this is that, if Leslie didn’t respect and support me, the company known as Ovante would have never started. I would have bullheaded my way into it and failed because I wouldn’t have had the humility to remember all the times I’d failed before because I hate “business”. As a result of Leslie’s change, I knew I needed a team. That’s why I have a CEO and a Director of Business Development, and that’s why I have a group of engineering friends who are willing to bounce ideas back and forth with me, and tell me where I’m crazy and where I’m on track.
Knowing that respect helped me stand in front of people hostile - yes, HOSTILE - to change, and tell them about a better way. Leslie's respect for me helped me stand before an IEEE committee full of engineers and scientists and, in all humility, tell them that what they've been doing for at least half a century is failing...and that I have a better way.
As an innovator, I’d always been a loner, fighting the wrong battles and achieving nothing. It was when I had the respect and support of the most important person in my life that things changed, and the direction became more focused and meaningful.