Interview with Mark Allen Roberts
Mark Allen Roberts works in Sales and Marketing, is 46 years old and lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Mark was psychologically tested to be a futuristic thinker, and had to cope with different company cultures of which only a few allowed him to truly share his opinion. He believes that to be authentic and to be a person of integrity, you have to do the right thing. Check out the “art of thoughts” at his website www.outbsolutions.com.
Andrea: I am working on a project to collect stories about expressing one’s thoughts and especially about how and why one should speak out. I am building this collection as a way to help people speaking out in difficult situations.
Please tell me about a situation when you didn’t dare to speak out and explain why.
Mark: I have worked at a number of different companies over the last 24 years and very quickly you determine whether the culture is conducive to speaking and truly sharing your opinion, or whether it is closed and you need to have an opinion that is pretty much what I call “group think”. There was a situation for one company not too long ago where I was brought in to be the vice president of sales and marketing and I was asked a very specific question at a meeting, but I knew the truthful answer wasn’t correct, so as opposed to having conflict with the CEO, I chose to say, “I need to investigate that information…” to avoid conflict with him in that meeting.
Andrea: Tell me about another situation where you spoke out when it was also difficult for you and explain how you found the courage to do it.
Mark: It was also with this same CEO, but this time because he was not receiving feedback from his managers as well as his market, we were making some bad decisions. So the board called a meeting and they asked me to attend. In this instance, the board has a number of people that are actual financial investors in that company and when they started asking these specific questions, it gave me a sense of pause at first because I knew what the CEO had been telling them, but instead I chose to have what I call an integrity moment and tell the truth even at the risk of losing my job.
Andrea: Why did you choose to tell the truth at this moment?
Mark: Because at this moment, I had people in front of me that were very large banks that had promised money, investors in the organization and they needed to know the truth and I also felt that the truth would help shape what we were about to do in the future, as opposed to continuing to do what we had always done in the past. That was the biggest problem with that organization. The CEO led the company, based on information that he had that was about 8 years old, and the market had dramatically changed in the last 8 years. It was really important to him to look like the expert in the meeting; however what he was saying was inaccurate. So at one point the board started asking me questions and I knew what the answers were what the CEO had been telling them, but instead I had an integrity moment and I just said, “No. In my opinion, based on market data, here is what I found.” I gave them very specific feedback and also where I heard the feedback, and when I heard the feedback. I also gave them contact names to call to verify what I was saying.
After that meeting, the CEO called me in the office and basically told me that I would never be invited to another meeting again. He saw that as a huge trust issue that I didn’t take the company line and his quote at the time was, “Every time you open your mouth, you make me feel stupid”.
Andrea: What did you do then?
Mark: What I did that evening was I updated my resume and I started talking to other companies and within about 6 months I had found another job.
Andrea: Great for you. You told me that you were tested to be a futuristic thinker. What does that mean exactly?
Mark: What I do and what I have always done, I go into the market, and the market will tell you a lot of things that you cannot find out while you are sitting in an office having a meeting. The unfortunate thing is that a lot of times these are companies that as they go up in rank, they go out in the market less. What I have always done is go out into the market a great deal and gather information and then provide that information so we can make great decisions. For companies who embrace that, which is most of the market leading companies in the world, with true market data, you make great decisions. I don’t want to take the credit; the market will tell you what it needs. Because I was in the market and I was asking questions all the time about how we could better serve our clients, what are our client’s unmet needs; it looked like I was a pretty creative thinker, when in reality I was just communicating the needs that I heard in the market.
Andrea: In regard to the expression “futuristic thinker”, do you imagine what the future could be like?
Mark: Yes, because the ideal scenario would be a company where everyone is in what I call, “their zone”. Mine is creative thought and I call it “The art of thought.” What I do is I kind of look at a problem, I hear a problem and then I start seeking solutions to that problem, but on that same team might be someone that is brilliant, which may be financial management, and they may be complemented by an outstanding marketing person with visual creativity, and it is OK to be really good at your discipline and not be good at others because you have great team members that can do their part. That is not the typical feeling among a lot of high level executives and CEOs. They have this almost angst to be an expert in everything and that actually becomes their downfall because they are not always in the mindset of their goal, and the CEO has this strategic vision of the company; the overall company. What they need to do is to hire a team. I forget what book it was; I believe it was “Good to Great” where the first thing you need to do is get everybody on the bus and the second thing is to put them in the right seats. So, in the future, I am sure what I will be doing is solving problems and identifying problems the rest of my life. Some of the problems that I have identified have become multimillion dollar products over the last 24 years.
Andrea: Can you give an example of a problem that you solved in the past?
Mark: There was a problem here in the US in early 1990 when compact disks used to arrive in the retail store in a big piece of cardboard and then the jewel case was inside that cardboard and the market was told with very short notice from the music company that music was going to start arriving in just the jewel case. Well this caused a huge problem because of fear of theft. So what our company did at the time was we went out into the market and I was literally away from home, and I think my wife said it was 186 evenings I spent away from home in hotels going out and talking to music stores and talking to large big box retailers and figuring out exactly what they needed. That year we gathered all of the information and we built a number of tools to keep the products from being stolen, and our company literally doubled in the next 12 months.
Andrea: Thus it was worth the effort.
Mark: It was very much worth the effort, but again, one of the hard things is that. There is a book out now that I am in the middle of, and it is called, “The Age of Heretics”. What the book talks about is often times in business, creative thinkers and people who think out of the box, they are called heretics; they are like cast out because they don’t seem to fit the company norm or the way it has always been done around here. However, the heretics are actually going to be the people that are going to come into the organization and make the most lasting changes.
Having done this for so many years, you feel kind of like the outcast because you are always working on new ideas and you are always looking at new markets, and a lot of your peers really don’t like that. So it bothered me so much that I actually went and had a test done through a company called TTI, and what they do is personality profile assessments and psychological testing. The owner of the company said, based on my test results, what I am is called a futuristic thinker and less than 5% of the population in the world think like me. At least that kind of validated it, but it didn’t make it any easier.
What our economy needs is innovative people; even in the worse of economies, market leading products are launched. For example, people don’t remember, but in the Great Depression, Miracle Whip Mayonnaise was launched in the Great Depression. “Fortune Magazine” was launched in the Great Depression. Motorola was launched in the Great Depression and all was done by people who connected to unresolved market problems… Revlon, which is one I am sure you have heard of. All of which saw a problem and they fixed it, and they fixed it so brilliantly, that they became multibillion dollar businesses.
Andrea: So you never feel part of a team with peers?
Mark: You never do. You are not invited out to lunch. You are not invited to after-work social activities because they see you as different. Some people I know actually had open discussions with them; some of them are just intimidated. They say, “Why don’t I think that way? You make me look bad.” And I say, “No; that is not what I am trying to do. I am actually trying to help the company.” Some people see it as a lack of loyalty. In other words, you need to be loyal to your peers and not tell the CEO some of the things you are finding. To me, I am always loyal to the company because the company helps support so many families, but sometimes it is a lonely thing. So lonely I actually started my one business at one time.
Andrea: Do you think that those people who treat you badly because you think differently challenge you; do you think they teach you something?
Mark: For many, many years, I just decided not to speak, and I kept a notebook so I could just let out my ideas and I would write them down. I have written my ideas down for 15 years, just to let them out so I can move on with the rest of my day. But eventually what I learned to do was just be me.
Andrea: And they helped you by challenging you?
Mark: What they did was, they helped shape me and helped me really understand what my gift is and what I am not gifted at. One person who helped me was an executive coach named Joy Schwartly. She is a clinically trained Psycologist and a no in your face demeanor. She taught me about our natural style and our adapted style, and what happens to us when we adapt too far from our natural core.
Andrea: You told me that you write down your thoughts in a journal. Could you give some examples of what you write down in there?
Mark: I usually write whatever I am working on or thinking about that day. A lot of my content is faith-based so like if I am working on something that is a particular struggle, I might quote a Bible verse to help me get through it. Sometimes I am sitting there and literally just brainstorming on paper. There is a local member of a company here that goes to my church and he was struggling because he was going to lose his business. What he created, what he solved, they were called misting systems. What they do in the extreme heat out here in the desert is that they have a device that goes on your outdoors and it sends misted water out on to your outside so it cools the temperature about 20 degrees. He was complaining that he really wasn’t growing fast enough. The side effect of what his misted water does is it actually causes particulates that are in the air, dust, dirt, which is a big problem in the desert, to fall to the earth. It actually gives people a little bit cleaner air to breathe.
He was telling me about his problem and I did a little research and it turns out that the state had identified that the particulates is a big issue. So what I challenged him to do was develop a product, like for the mining industry and industries like Waste Management, and anywhere where they stir up a lot of dust. He did that and it connected so well that his company doubled in just 12 months. I naturally see problems as opportunities. I do not take the credit as an idea also needs a plan and execution.
Andrea: That is great. What is your profession called?
Mark: The category I fall under is Sales and Marketing. The company that I work with now, we teach marketers all over the world how to connect with their market. What really successful companies are is they are market driven and they solve market problems. That is what we teach and we have taught it for about 15 years.
Andrea: Your company made the book “Tuned In” into a best-seller. How did you do that?
Mark: We went out to the blog community and we found bloggers that write in the space that our book was about. We sent them issues of books; most bloggers enjoy writing and they want to write, and we sent them tools to talk about the book. We sent them interviews with the authors and we let them blog about us. In very short order, most business books might sell between 4000-5000 units in 12 months, and we did 4 times that in 30 days.
Andrea: That is awesome. About leadership qualities, which are most important to you and why?
Mark: What I try to be is more of a servant leader. I believe people come to work each day and they want to do a great job, but for whatever reason, there may be a lack of processes or procedures or there may be a roadblock standing in their way. That is what I see as my job; to identify roadblocks and burst through them, but also create tools so that we can overcome objections and do our jobs better.
Andrea: Which concrete leadership qualities would you think are most important?
Mark: Honesty, integrity, problem solving and authenticity.
Andrea: If you had to choose, would you rather stick with integrity than saying the politically correct thing at work?
Mark: That is what I have chosen to do from now on. Ever since I left that one company a couple of years ago, that is what I have been doing. When I was with that one company, I was tremendously stressed. I was on blood pressure and heart medicine and I was really becoming physically ill from the stress. I don’t know if you have ever looked at the difference between someone’s natural style and their adaptive style and do a personality profile, but when you start really moving far away from your natural style, you can actually begin to have physical symptoms from the stress, and that is what I was experiencing. Now that I am being more of who I really am, I don’t have that stress. I am just going to be me and it is a much more peaceful way to be.
Andrea: And your health has become better?
Mark: Much better; yes. I don’t have to take the medicine anymore.
Andrea: Would you like to speak out more often?
Mark: That is what I am doing now. The only difference is, now that I am 47 years old, I know how to do it in such a way that it adds value as opposed to just creating interruption.
Andrea: Can you tell me when you made the transition or what led up to the transition from being very far from your natural style to moving closer?
Mark: I started studying it. I spent about 2 years studying personality profiles; what it means when you move away from your natural style. I have read a number of books and I have interviewed people. I learned that you may think that you are fooling some people, but you never fool yourself, so it is much better to be authentic. That reduces a tremendous amount of stress.
Andrea: If you are authentic, you sometimes suffer from bad consequences. Do you think it is worth it to suffer from bad consequences in order to be authentic?
Mark: To be authentic and be a person of integrity, I think you have to do the right thing and if the right thing causes you to suffer, I still think you did the right thing. For me the Bible tells me through suffering we grow.
Andrea: Do you speak out when you witness abusive situations along the street?
Mark: Yes. I used to not do anything, but now if I see something that is just wrong, I talk about it, I address it and I don’t look the other way.
Andrea: What would you do if you witness parents treating their children badly?
Mark: That is a great example, because what I do is I would walk up to them, particularly if it was physical, and try to defuse the situation first., However, that is going to make you a very uncomfortable person, but you still should do it.
Andrea: What would you say to the parents, for example; or would you talk to the child instead?
Mark: What I would do first with the parent is cause a distraction; somehow get their attention away from what they were doing, because a lot of times, particularly with children, they lose their composure and they don’t even realize what they are doing until after the fact. So what I would do… I used to teach martial arts; I did that for a long time.
When I teach people self defense, one of the first things I teach them is distraction; to take people’s minds away from whatever they were about to do or are doing. So if I am in a grocery store or something and I see somebody abusing their child, the first thing I would do is cause a distraction or ask them a question and cause an interruption long enough to stop the behavior and then I would have to just talk my way through the rest.
Andrea: That is a good idea.
Do you think people should stand up for themselves and speak out when others try to take advantage of them; for instance, at work or at home?
Mark: Yes; as long as you are using the right filter. What I mean by that is; we will never know what another person’s intention is, so you may feel that someone is demeaning you or being aggressive towards you, but that is your perception and it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is true. So all I ask is that people have a word of caution if you are going to stand up. Make sure you are doing it in the right context.
Andrea: I think you are right. Based on what you have learned and experienced, what advice would you give to people who want to learn to stand up for themselves?
Mark: The first thing is to find what your gift is. We all have gifts and find out what yours is because what that will do is help you feel confident and you will become very confident in whatever it is that is your gift. Once you have that confidence, you can share it in other areas of your life. What you will find is that people who are consistently not standing up for themselves, they lack confidence. Those same people all have some gift very deep inside of them, so my recommendation is there are all kinds of tools out there to figure out what that is. A big part of what I plan to do is help individuals and companies find their greatness, their gift, and position them to serve those in need.
Andrea: Can you think of any situation when you spoke out and now you regret it for some reason?
Mark: When I was a lot younger and more foolish, I am sure I spoke out and didn’t have all of the information. I am very confident I have done that early in my career when I was fresh out of university, but over time you learn to try to balance the problem with the relationship, so not only do you address issues, but you also do it in a way so that the relationship matters. I wasn’t very good at that in my early 20’s.
Andrea: I think it is important to speak out, but it is also important to do it in the right way; to do it in a polite way, for example. What do you think?
Mark: Yes; to be polite and then like Steven Covey; think with the end in mind. If your desire is to improve your company, then keep that as your priority. It is not about winning an argument; it is about helping the company grow. What will happen is in your communication, it will be much more beneficial to the whole group if you are focusing on the right outcome.
Andrea: Mark, thank you so much for this insightful interview.
