What was an unusual compliment you once received, but really appreciated?

While I was working at NewPage Corporation in the Information Technology strategy role, Tom Anderson once told a small group of people, with myself included, that “For most people, we’re trying to get them to think outside the box, but for Paul, we’re trying to get him in the box.”  I guess that fulfills the “unusual” part of the question.  I’ve never heard anyone being described that way. 

For most of my career, I was tasked with creating or managing change.  A large part of that is getting people comfortable with that, whether providing the resources, motivation, or atmosphere to move an effort along.   The biggest part of the atmosphere aspect is reducing or eliminating the fear of failure.  A part of being “in the box” is that it’s a safe place, where you do what’s expected of you and not rock the boat.  It’s doing what you know and perhaps learn one or two new tricks, but nothing where the blame can come back on you when something inevitably goes wrong.  

I’ve completely changed how our network was designed, challenged deeply held “in the box” beliefs, was part of the team that went from day one to first SAP go-live in ten months, pushed Internet and mobile technologies, and made a one-a-month, four-hour SAP outage a reality.  I did this, obviously with the help of many talented people, by taking risks, seeking the true issues, and figuring out how to get people to understand, calm down, and begin moving.  Then getting out of their way.

I really appreciate Tom’s compliment.  It sums up how I approached work every day, being that guy who took risks, saw things differently, and enabled people to grow, enjoy their jobs, and make a difference.  

What are you really hard on yourself about?

I’m really hard on myself when I do something stupid.  Not any stupid, but the kind where I’ve told myself what to do or not to do and I go ahead and do the opposite.  For example, I’m doing some kind of task and it has become obvious I need to stop what I’m doing and regroup.  But no, I continue on until I start shouting at myself to stop, often several times, before my body listens to my mouth.  It’s that kind of stupid I can’t stand in myself.

Conversely, I’m generally not hard on myself for being wrong, unless that wrong is really stupid.  I’m notorious for poor navigational driving skills.  I turn on the wrong street often and even drive by my own house on occasion.  Being in Information Technology all my adult life, I’ve written many errors into programs, misconfigured hardware more often than I care to admit, and have had to take a whole different approach when a decision turned out to be poor.  I personally think admitting you are wrong is a strength, so much that I wrote on my office’s dry erase board “It’s good that I don’t mind being wrong, because I’m so good at it.”  It’s much easier to manage people when they see you as imperfect.  They don’t worry as much about being wrong at times. 

I’m also hard at times when others are stupid, for example, a football player that just needs to take a knee to seal a win, but instead tries to score another pointless touchdown and in the process fumbles the ball, the opposing team recovers and wins the game.  I just can’t stand losing because I, or others, haven’t thought about the current situation and planned out the proper response.  That’s what really steams me.

What famous or important people have you encountered in real life?

By far my biggest encounter was basketball legend Michael Jordan.  I had just finished a round of golf at the Wailea golf course on the Hawaiian island of Maui and was in the pro shop searching for a golf shirt to take home as a reminder of those beautiful 18 holes.  As I was browsing, all noise in the pro shop abruptly stopped as if everyone left at the same time.  As I looked up to see what was going on, Michael casually walked by and headed to the desk to get checked in for his round.  The place stayed quiet until Michael was out the door, then the noise returned, of course, louder than before.   

The second NBA encounter was Larry Bird, another legend, and this one occurred in an airport, Philadelphia probably, but not totally sure.  If you’re not familiar with Larry, he was a 6-foot, 8-inch forward with one of the best shooting touches ever.  When you see him on television he appears to be slim, at least in comparison to the other beefy goliaths trying to guard him near the basket.  Larry has a very distinctive face and when I saw him at the airport I knew it was him.  But what amazed me was how large he was, nothing like the skinny rail I expected.  Larry had wide shoulders, appeared fifty pounds heavier than I ever imagined, and was a real hunk of a man.

During one of our frequent trips to California with IBM, our group of five played Half Moon Bay, a golf course located along the Pacific ocean thirty miles south of San Francisco.  We had to break up into a threesome and a twosome as the course did not permit a group of five to play together.  I went out first in the threesome and my buddy Jim Nicholas went out second in the twosome.  A couple of holes later Jim circled back to me and said they had been paired up with another twosome, which included Jerry Rice, a Pro Football Hall of Famer, and the best wide receiver in NFL history, and a pretty decent golfer.  On the back nine, we noticed that this group behind us now numbered five.  A course ranger came up to us and asked if Jerry was in that group of five, which we told him he was, and they were allowed to continue.  I guess the rules that applied to Jerry were different.  As they played the 18th hole our group watched Jerry, now very comfortable playing with Jim, stand in the middle of the fairway, arms up like he was signaling a touchdown, telling Jim to hit his shot “through the goalposts”, laughing and smiling the entire time.   

What is one of the stupidest things you've ever done?

Not all stupid things end up having bad consequences, and very fortunately so in my case.  Back in my twenties, I had a Yamaha 400 motorcycle which I enjoyed immensely.  This was before drivers were distracted by their mobile phones and potholes seemed few and far between.  I was a very careful rider and was very good at anticipating danger, knowing that, regardless of fault, I would end up badly hurt or worse.

I rode my motorcycle to a family picnic one day, somewhere out in the country west of Dayton, if my memory serves correctly.  Rain moved in and I decided to ride home through it.  But there was so much water coming off the road that I decided to put my feet up on the handlebars to keep them somewhat drier.  So I’m flying down a country road at fifty miles per hour, tires hydroplaning and I’ve raised my center of gravity and given up some amount of control.  It took a few minutes to piece all this together and reverse this stupid decision.  

But I was smart enough to stop riding motorcycles after my daughter was born, realizing a whole lot more than myself was on the line at that point.

Who are your favorite artists? What makes their work so compelling to you?

My favorite print, photographed by Gary Crandall, is an image of a male mallard duck floating on water.  I bought this years ago from a store in Park City, Utah during one of several skiing trips I took to the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons southwest of Salt Lake City.  I had been searching for a lone duck print for years and when I spotted Crandell’s work, I immediately went to a store clerk and said I wanted it, without bothering to ask how much it cost.  I didn’t care, I was going to buy it no matter what.  The most compelling feature of this duck picture is the gently falling snow landing on the duck and surrounding water, adding to the story that a duck, as I’ve often thought of myself, is someone that is calm on the outside while paddling like crazy below the surface.

My second favorite print, photographed by David Whitten, is a bright white picture of aspen trees standing in several feet of winter snow.  It reminds me of the several snowmobile excursions I’ve taken in the mountains around Park City, usually on an off day between skiing Alta, Brighton, Snowbird, Solitude, or other northern Utah slopes.  A typical snowmobile trip took a couple of hours, a combination of high-speed races across large meadows and guided, single-file forays dodging aspens and other high-altitude species.  Those peaceful moments cruising through some of the most beautiful scenery in the world had me on the lookout for a print to bring back those memories, and when I found Whitten’s aspens, also in a Park City shop, I knew I found the perfect memory.

I’ve read a lot in my life, particularly in my younger days, and science fiction was always my favorite genre.  Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Scott Adams, and David Eddings were among my favorite authors, with my first choice being Raymond Feist.  I’ve read about twenty-four of Feist’s books, including The Riftwar Saga, The Empire Trilogy and The Serpentwar Saga series, and more.  All author’s ability to write books containing hundreds of pages of deep storylines and interesting characters amazes me, knowing how hard it is to write just a few pages before getting stuck.  My all-time favorite book, and the only one I’ve kept for decades to re-read, is The Number Of The Beast by Robert Heinlein.

I was fortunate to have grown up during the best decade of music, the 1970s.  Picking a favorite group or individual is tough, but I’ll choose Chicago.  There were few groups that were truly unique and Chicago, with their eleven members including Lee Loughnane, James Pankow, and Walter Parazaider on trumpet, trombone, and saxophone respectively, and one of the best voices ever, Peter Cetera, playing bass.  Having any horn instrument represented is rare, but having three in a rock band is remarkable and if you get to see Chicago in concert, you’ll be amazed at the energy they still bring.  

There are only a few athletes that I would put in the category of being an artist, but those that compel you to watch them time and again are special.  Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins is one of them, playing a hard-nosed game with incredible eye-hand coordination that’s beautiful to watch.  Pro golfer Pill Mickelson also comes to mind as he’s a master at the short game with an unbelievable imagination, making impossible shots look easy.  But my all-time favorite is ice skater Peggy Fleming, the 1968 Olympic ice skating champion.  I really respect those people that were first, changing the course of a sport or an industry, and like Star Wars and Jaws did in the movies.  Peggy’s beauty, style, and perfection would be copied by skaters for decades, and yes, improved upon, but she started it all, at least in the mind of this 12-year-old boy staring at his parent’s black-and-white TV screen.

You came of age during the Vietnam War. Share some of your impressions of the war from your teenage/young adulthood. Did you, your parents, or your siblings have strong opinions about the war and/or the draft?

The biggest concern I had was with the draft, as you might expect for teenagers at the time.  The actual reason for the “war” (not really, the U.S. never declared war) and why it was needed didn’t really concern me, I was focused on high school, getting ready for college, working, and camping.  Nobody I knew cared, at least not until 1969 when the first draft lottery took place.  

My older brother, then seventeen years old, would face the draft in 1970 and while he probably would avoid the draft using a college deferment, it wasn’t a sure thing.  For the next couple of years, we would listen to the news as they selected the birthdates that would be chosen first, hoping for a high number and dreading getting a low number.  As I recall my brother was fortunate to have pretty high numbers, and we shared a sigh of relief each time.

I turned eighteen in October 1973, nine months after the draft ended in January.  I never had to nervously sit and wait for October 8th to be called.  

When the draft started a whole lot more people paid attention, demonstrations became heated and more people wanted to understand why our country was involved in a conflict halfway around the world with no end in sight.  The draft was probably the biggest reason, in my opinion, that we eventually called it quits in 1973.  The all-volunteer soldiers that powered the military from 1964 through 1969 were one thing, but being forced to fight was another, and people needed a really good reason to do that, which clearly wasn’t there.

The other lasting memory was the disrespect shown to soldiers as they returned home.  Today you hear “thanks for your service” all the time, but in the 1970s all you heard was contempt and disdain.  I remember how mean people were, releasing their anger on these young men who were following orders, not the politicians and senior military staff who gave those orders.  Cowards berating soldiers.  That’s pretty low.

Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

I think the actual question is how much time does one spend being extroverted versus introverted, as everyone is some of both.  According to my last Myers-Briggs personality profile, many years ago, I’m fifty-two percent extroverted and forty-eight percent introverted.  That made perfect sense to me as sometimes I need to interact with people and other times I just want to be left alone.  I know that if I’m scheduled to present to an audience for a few hours, I need to schedule some alone time afterward.  The reverse is also true.  If I spend a morning alone in the office working heads down, by the afternoon I’ll be wandering the halls looking for someone to talk to.  As long as I maintain a balance I’m good, but too much of either will cause me to feel tired and uneasy.

My complete Myers-Briggs profile is ENTJ, having Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging attributes.  The direct opposite, ISTP, is characterized as Introverted, Observant, Feeling, and Prospecting. There are fourteen other combinations and all sixteen have their unique set of strengths and weaknesses.  For ENTJs, we’re efficient, logical, efficient, and ambitious, and they make natural leaders.  Pretty spot on, in my opinion.

But the way I like to describe myself is a combination of “others-future”, meaning my first evaluation of a situation is how it will play out and affect others in the future.  While I will eventually consider how it will affect me and how it will affect myself and others in the short term, that’s not my major concern.  While something might seem good right now, for example, feeding the ducks at a neighborhood pond, the longer-term effects on the animals becoming dependent on humans to get fed override the enjoyment of the flock swimming over and enjoying some bread crumbs.