The lesson of a wedding Punch Bowl

It was day four in my work at Cisco during q4 of 2000. I was hired to work on a project known as the eHub: https://shorturl.at/egtXY. I was excited. The team was a group team of amazing people; smart, experienced, and successful.

That particular day, we were in an eHub design session. I was nodding my head in agreement regarding many things being said. My specialty was understanding material requirements planning system systems and specifically how to use the data to operate the supply chain more effectively.

After about four hours the meeting ended. I caught a ride back to building D with Rick Roney . To this day, I have rarely met anyone more genuine and brilliant than Rick. As we are pulling out onto Tasman Drive, I brought up something that I thought was missed during the meeting. As I mentioned it, Rick replied and said, (pardon my punctuation...it isn't my strong suit :) "Todd, you seem like a guy who loves to learn". I answered in the affirmative. Then Rick said, "let’s say you are at a wedding party and walking through the punch line and you notice a turd in the punch bowl" what would you do? That caught me off-guard so I replied, "I would yell there is a turd in the punch bowl!" Rick said, "no you wouldn't." I replied, of course I would (remember this was day four..we barely new each other). He replied, no you wouldn't! I couldn't figure out where this was going so i said, "okay Rick, tell me more." He said, Todd, you were just at a $20 million wedding party, saw a turd in the punch bowl, and didn't say a thing! He then said, at Cisco we don't have time or money to waste. Keep in mind Cisco had 80% market share with some product lines and was debt free with about $20 billion in cash. Imagine with that kind of success and cash, we valued time and money so much that the voice of a new employee mattered.

Rick expressed that he expected me to go to the meeting the next day and apologize for not speaking up and then to speak up and explain my point. So, I did. If I wouldn't have spoken up we would have wasted months of development time and millions of dollars. That was a big lesson for me. Rick confirmed my voice mattered at Cisco: Another Amy Edmondson safety moment. He also reminded me that we have a fiscal responsibility to our organizations as well an obligation to the consumer/user to speak up on their behalf when we see something amiss.

Rick's kindness to teach me has stuck for years. He cared more about me than about himself and took the time to teach. His ego didn't get in the way and neither did mine. His leadership actively showed that curiosity is a principle of great innovation along with empathy; he wanted me to question things. Curiosity and empathy are in contrast to egos that will not teach or learn. Bosses that just demand yes answers and who are not willing to be challenged will never be good innovators much less long-term effective leaders.

Rick's admonishment of my learning opportunity, has reminded me to make it safe for others to speak up. It also serves as a reminder that for innovation to be effective we must harness voices, especially those who tell us where an assumption may be invalid! Not only did Rick make it safe for me to speak up, he reminded me that it isn't right to not speak up. If a "leader" doesn't want to be challenged or let people offer a different point of view, is she or he an actual leader? So, if you are at a 'proverbial wedding party" make sure you speak up. If you have organized the wedding party, please invite people to speak up. That very "thing" in the punch bowl may be the assumption that could cause a lot of time and money to be wasted and even ultimate failure. So create a safe wedding party! That approach will serve customers, consumers, and our companies well.