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Creating by Extracting

In a world that gets more complex by the day, sometimes great things can best be created by extraction. By making things simpler.

If you are in northern New Mexico and hear a tap-tap-tap, it just might be Ra Paulette. Paulette is an American cave sculptor who lovingly and intentionally digs into and scrapes sandstone – solidified sand dunes, which were once the shores of an ancient sea – in order to transform the material into elaborate artistic spaces inside mountains.

For the past 25 years, with only his dog as company, he’s been scraping and shaping the New Mexico sandstone into man-made art caves.

Working alone, he uses hand tools to do his work: picks, shovels, scrapers, mirrors, and a wheelbarrow. There is no dynamite, no drills, no sledgehammers, no generators, no power tools or conveniences of any kind. It’s a grueling, arduous process and the manual labor is backbreaking.

Describing himself as “simply a man who has found his passion,” Paulette is not an architect, he has no degree in sculpture, and he is not a structural engineer. He prepares no drawings or blueprints to guide his efforts. He calls himself an “intuitive engineer” and feels like an archaeologist, uncovering something that is already there by creating space through extraction.

Ra digs horizontally into a hill or mountain, about fifteen to twenty feet, and then he breaches the ground to open a hole on the top of the cave for sunlight. He can feel the empty space. And he digs and creates what he calls “the juxtaposition of opposites.” You enjoy a sense of being underground with streaming light – it creates a perception trick. There is intimacy in being in a cave with high walls, with columns and arches sometimes 30 to 40 feet high. Light floods in.[i]

These wilderness shrines are massive in scale and poetic in design. He finishes the caves with scallops, molded curves, smooth ledges, inlaid stones, narrow pods, and crusty ledges. He wants his work to take your breath away in its magnificence.

He believes his work is magical. He’s totally obsessed with cave sculpting. When he’s engaged on a project, he thinks about it all day long. He dreams about his cave when he sleeps. He’s passionate about his calling.

Ra doesn’t do it for the money. Over the past 25 years, he’s sculpted over a dozen caves, each about the size of a house. A project takes at least nine hundred hours, but it may take two years or more to complete. He charges about fifteen dollars per hour for the project. And now in his late sixties, he acknowledges he doesn’t have much time to continue his art. His work was chronicled in Cavedigger, a documentary that was so unique it was nominated for an Academy Award.[ii]

He describes his caves as celebrations that create transformative experiences. They are an aesthetic adventure. He seeks to open people’s feelings. He views his caves as hallowed places and healing retreats. They are sanctuaries for prayer and meditation where transformations occur. He hopes that visitors to his sculpted caves will come in and find the solitude that he experiences. To find a sense of peace and purpose. To share a sacred moment when they can gain a deeper understanding of themselves and life.

 

Ra Paulette’s gift: His ability to visualize what could be and to create space from extraction.

Ra’s purpose: To give others a deeper understanding of themselves.

Committed to living an expressive life, Ra doesn’t put any energy into being a success in the world. But he does put all of his energy and passion into living a life of purpose.

How does Ra define creating impact?

By creating healing retreats to discover peace and purpose through extraction. 

Less is often more. How can you create something remarkable by making things simpler? By extracting?

[i] Ra Paulette, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra_Paulette.

[ii] Cavedigger documentary, Ra Paulette, Jeff Karoff, Journeyman Pictures, 2013.

How Mike Sievert Fumbled T-Mobile’s Massive Security Breach Crisis: Mobile Provider CEO Fails The Three Rules of Crisis Management

A cyberattack that exposed the personal information of more than 53 million people, including names, addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers and driver’s license information of current and previous customers was reported to T-Mobile, the US’s second-largest mobile service provider, on August 13.  This is the fourth known data breach at T-Mobile since 2018.

On August 15, T-Mobile reported an investigation of a security breach was underway. On August 26, John Binns, a 21-year-old American living in Turkey, shared in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he was the hacker behind the security breach. Binns described his entry point into the cellphone carrier’s data center and how he accessed more than 100 servers. Binns said, “… their (T-Mobile) security is awful.”

Fourteen days after becoming aware of the massive security breach, and one day after the WSJ interview, CEO Mike Sievert finally went public on August 27. Sievert stated, “We didn’t live up to the expectations we have for ourselves to protect our customers.” Sievert’s public post on the company’s website included news of T-Mobile’s plan to partner with two consulting firms to prevent future cybersecurity disasters, a two year offer of free identity protection services and instructions for resetting PINs and passwords.

Nowhere in his public statement did Sievert explain why the breached confidential personal information was not encrypted. Nowhere in his public statement did Sievert – as CEO – take personal responsibility for the security breach.  Nowhere in his public statement did he acknowledge the inconvenience and potential pain his customers and former customers might suffer as a result of their private data being breached.

With 90 million customer accounts, the damage to the T-Mobile brand with this fourth breach in three years could be massive. The damage to Mike Sievert’s personal brand may also be massive. Time will tell.

Last week, the Federal Communications Commission announced an investigation into this latest T-Mobile failure. Two years ago after their data breach failure, $3.5 billion consumer credit reporting Equifax, entered into a $700 million settlement with US officials. With over $68 billion in revenue in 2020, what will be the fine T-Mobile will pay for their lapse of security?

At some point in time, every company faces a crisis. These are the moments that can define companies, brands and CEOs.  Three steadfast rules should govern CEOs when mistakes are made and things go wrong. They are:

  1. When a crisis arises, the CEO must be front and center, seen as personally managing the crisis. While T-Mobile knew of the breach on August 13, it took two weeks, a day after the hacker went public, for Sievert to issue a public statement.
  2. When the crisis arises, the CEO has to acknowledge the issue and accept personal responsibility. When Sievert finally issued his public statement, he didn’t comment on the headaches and problems for millions who had name, address, SSN, date of birth and driver’s license numbers compromised. A statement on the company’s website two weeks after T-Mobile learned of the cyberattack, doesn’t cut it as a heartfelt personal apology to impacted customers.
  3. Most importantly, when crisis occurs, the CEO needs to overcorrect. When Johnson and Johnson experienced the Tylenol murders, the CEO pulled product and developed tamper-resistant packaging. When Wal-Mart experienced a fatal shooting in its El Paso, TX store, it stopped selling handguns and ammunition. What did T-Mobile do? They offered assistance on how to change your pin and password and a couple of years of identity protection service. Could something more financially meaningful for loyal customers be offered? A free month of service? A free phone upgrade? A generous gift card? Something meaningful to show “we care” to valuable customers.

The old adage about life, “It’s not what happens to you but how you react to it that matters,” holds true for CEOs and companies that stumble.

While Sievert whiffed on CEO rules 1 and 2 of crisis management, there’s still time to salvage rule 3 by overcorrecting. The window of opportunity is quickly closing. Will Sievert recover and handle T-Mobile’s latest crisis in a way that protects his company’s brand, restores confidence to customers and shareholders and bolsters his leadership?

Here’s an opportunity for Mike Sievert. It’s time to pivot. How about taking personal responsibility for the mess and recovery? How about providing a heartfelt, deep apology to those who have been affected? And how about overcorrecting by doing right by your customers?  Following the three rules of crisis management will help Mike Sievert and his Team Magenta shift the story, boost stakeholder confidence and ensure this latest crisis doesn’t go to waste.