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>> Rick Miller: I remember the first time I thought,
"I want to be a chief."
I was seven years old.
My dad took my brother and me to a parade.
I remember the colors and the balloons,
but what I remember most were two gentlemen in uniforms
at the end of the parade.
Everybody stood and applauded when they went by.
It was obvious that they were very important people.
I looked at my dad and he said, "That's the police chief,
and that's the fire chief."
He also told me chiefs are in charge of helping others.
I decided I wanted to be a chief.
Years later, I was an undergrad -- business school.
And I heard the term again,
this time it was chief financial officer
and chief executive officer.
I learned that these were very important people
because they had power.
I decided after I graduated I wanted to be a chief.
Today, if you're in business and you want
to be a chief, it's a lot easier.
It seems that every department,
no matter where you go is run by a chief.
And by the way, it's not only business;
you will hear the term chief academic officer,
chief medical officer, chief diplomat.
I read this one the other day: Chief rabbi.
The fact of the matter is we have a chief explosion going
on of titles.
Okay? And the real question is:
Why is the term "chief" trending?
I think it's just another signal of what's going on;
we have information in everyone's hands.
We have all our communication devices, right?
And organizations are trying to find a way,
"How do I engage everyone?"
So they throw the chief title around, right?
Some organizations they're all chiefs.
I think this is a really good thing.
But it does lead to a question.
The question it leads to is:
What does it mean to be a real chief?
Now, I spend lots of time with chiefs --
some with titles, some without titles.
I've written on being chief.
Heck, I run a company called Being Chief.
I can tell you that there are an awful lot
of strong feelings about the term chief
and there's an awful lot of strong feelings
about the power that's associated with chiefs.
People are focused on this.
I know I am.
I'm very focused on the definition of the word "chief."
And I think it's something that we need to think about.
I think it's something we need it think about.
When I started my career as a bottom of the rung
on the ladder sales trainee, I had views about chiefs.
I thought chiefs are special, I thought chiefs are chosen,
and I thought chiefs have titles.
Now, at the bottom of the rung in business
and you're looking up, there's lots of rungs to go up.
And moving up in business is pretty simple:
You need to take care of customers,
and you need to make your numbers.
That's it.
You want to move up in business?
That's the formula.
Right? Now, as you move up in business,
you have to teach other people how to do that with you.
Right? I was very fortunate that over an extended period
of time, good luck, hard work,
I was able to move up the ladder.
It was already mentioned
at about the twenty-year mark I was named President
of AT&T's Global Services.
Okay. But shortly after I got the title, I got a phone call.
I was told "You're about to take a plane ride."
Two days later, I'm in the AT&T corporate jet going
to the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am with the chairman --
chief executive officer -- of AT&T.
Okay? Now, I had seen his picture before on the cover
of "Forbes" and "Fortune".
I had spent some time with him before, but never this close.
Never this close.
And to be honest, I mean,
this is a business icon, a Fortune ten CEO.
I was a little intimidated -- just a little bit --
for a little period.
So we get on the jet, I board the jet,
we have a nice dinner.
And just after the dinner was served, I kind of leaned back
and I'm loosening my tie, and I realized that he's
over here kind of doing the same thing.
And I stop and I kind check him out.
And I realize he's wearing the same blue suit that I am,
he's wearing the same red tie that I am,
he's wearing the same white shirt.
Okay, his cuff links are more expensive.
Big deal. But then I notice something important:
He's got the same stack of paper next to him
that I have next to me.
And I look at him and I notice he looks tired,
as tired as I feel.
And at that moment the light went on, and I knew the truth:
He wasn't all that different, wasn't all that special.
And that led to a bunch of other thoughts.
I thought, "Okay, for twenty years you've been waiting
for somebody else to tell you, looking over,
'Is it time for me to get the next rung?'"
For twenty years -- and I'd done okay
but I was waiting always for somebody else to tell me,
"Is it time for that next" -- I didn't want to wait anymore.
And I thought about this whole title thing.
All right?
And I thought to myself, "I had worked with wonderful people
for twenty years who had done great jobs,
they had taken charge, they had helped others" --
remember the definition, right --
"they'd done a wonderful job
but they didn't have chief titles."
So I'm now sitting next to the CEO,
and I start to look at him more
as a peer rather than a superior.
And I decide that guess what?
These are all wrong.
So that leads me to a whole other discussion of kind
of thinking now -- and this is where I've spent the rest
of my life, really, with this topic of chiefs:
What is a real chief, really?
I spent lots of time on this.
And I offer this for your consideration.
This is what I have learned: A real chief is someone
who makes a choice to connect what they do to who they are.
Okay? Three parts.
Let's break it down.
Okay? Real chiefs, part one: What do real chiefs do?
Real chiefs serve others; real chiefs work hard;
real chiefs create fully, they create the future.
So that's part one.
Part two, here's the deux part, okay?
Should be "Here's the B part."
The B part.
This is linked to values -- who you are.
You are your values.
It comes from insight, right?
In my experience, real chiefs build insight in terms
of who they are, by being five things -- five.
Real chiefs are present; they're in the moment;
real chiefs are accepting,
they're not in denial of what's happening;
real chiefs are grateful; real chiefs are generous;
and real chiefs can be still.
Now, if you're thinking of the term "mindfulness,"
which is also trending right now,
it's got bits and pieces of this.
Okay? I love the mindfulness movement.
But again, that's only part of it.
The power comes when we connect the two,
when we connect what we do to who we are.
All right?
So here's a question for you:
Have you ever found yourself engaged in an activity
where you were so focused that you lost track of time?
Yeah? Yeah?
You were in the zone.
What would it be like if you spent far more time,
a far higher percentage of your life in the zone?
It would be pretty cool, right?
I spend lots of time with individuals and with companies
that try to create opportunities for more, and more,
and more people to be in the zone.
Right? To love what they're doing.
You see all these chief titles;
this is a representation of that.
How do we create organizations
where everybody brings their A game every day --
not because they have to, but because they want to?
Right? That's a great place to be.
That's a great place to be.
When I think about when businesses are successful, right,
you see more and more businesses that are out there trending
up this term "chief."
But the good news is that there are plenty of chiefs
who are not in business, who are not at work.
You can find real chiefs anywhere -- anywhere.
Sometimes you can find chiefs in places
that you wouldn't expect to find them.
I found one in a hospital.
She was sitting in a wheelchair,
waiting patiently for her appointment.
The first time I saw a girl that we will call Melissa,
this wonderful six-year-old with cerebral palsy,
was waiting for her turn in a 100-degree heated pool
where I was volunteering
to help a physical therapist stretch these kids
who had incredibly stiff muscles.
I remember Melissa's patience waiting her turn.
But when we got her in the pool, she had a smile that lit
up the entire place.
Gets me goose bumps to this day.
Okay? What I remember when we got in the pool,
she was as focused on the task at hand
as anybody had ever seen.
She started looking like this.
She was rigid.
And we worked for months to connect her arms
and fully extend them.
She had one dream: She wanted
to take a little foam basketball, be able to grip it,
and put it in a net and score two points.
It took us six months for her to recognize her goal, okay?
When she did it, we celebrated.
You could only imagine.
Now, she was a real chief.
She was present, she was grateful, she was generous,
she was accepting of her situation; yet she was disciplined,
she was hard working, she was creating her future.
She was an inspiration.
Did she serve others?
I'll tell you what, she served me.
She taught me so much.
Right? And she reminded me you know --
you know that we can never assume that those
who are less fortunate are less courageous, or less worthy,
or less able to be a real chief.
She had a power, an incredible power
that frankly we all have.
This is the last assumption that I want to put out there
that I have a problem with.
All right?
We have lots of challenges that we have
to face economically, politically,
socially, environmentally.
And a lot of people look at people with titles
and say, "They'll solve it."
I think we all have an opportunity
to stand up to do our part.
And I think we have to look at it --
this is a assumption that we can no longer stand.
All right?
Look inside yourself; what's going on out there
that you think you can do your part on?
Now, I'm a business guy.
I focus on numbers.
Right? Increasingly for the right reasons I focus
with organizations on: What should we be doing for profits;
what should we be doing for people;
and what should we be doing for the planet?
The triple bottom line.
We spend lots of time on that, okay?
But it's about numbers.
I normally focus on numbers.
Here's a set of numbers I've been focused on recently.
These are numbers I don't want to go up:
There are 17 million kids in our country who go
to bed every night hungry --
that's the size of the populations of Massachusetts
and Virginia combined;
41 percent of the high school students
in our top fifty cities will not graduate;
33 percent of children born today will contract diabetes
sometime in their life.
These numbers bother me.
And I have to figure out what I can do to stand up
and do something about it.
So I spend lots of time with kids.
And the wonderful thing about spending time
with kids is they teach.
I think I'm there to teach, and they teach me.
I learn, I learn, I learn.
And it's funny because the lessons that I learn
from the kids are the same lessons I learn when I spend time
with C-suite executives.
And I do some of that, too.
Time and time and time again I come back to the same lesson,
that being chief -- being a real chief -- is a choice.
That's the key takeaway.
So my question to all of you: Do you have an opportunity
to serve others, to work hard, to create fully,
totally consistent with your values
and who you are, your insight?
The world is changing.
Power is shifting.
You have a wonderful opportunity to step up.
So here's my request: The next time you see the term "chief"
or you hear the term "chief,"
use it as a personal wakeup call to remind yourself
of "What does a real chief do?"
And think about it, think hard
about your chance to make the choice.
Thank you very much.
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