It’s MAKE Anything Thursday, and I am making space for ‘rest’ near Palma, officially known as Palma de Mallorca. Palma is the capital and largest city on Mallorca, part of the Balearic Islands in Spain.
Cathy and I are celebrating our 36th year of marriage this week, and I turn the calendar to my 65th birthday next Monday.
It felt like the time was right to snuggle into a little boutique hotel and spend a few days chilling out. Except for some tennis drill sessions lined up with a local pro, the name of the game is to eat well, sleep well, write well, and take it easy on the beach. (Side note, Rafael Nadal is from Manacor, a town on the island of Mallorca. We are happy to bat it around with Rafa if we see him! I can’t wait to play on the red clay for the first time, the slowest surface in all of tennis.)
It takes an army to help the world’s largest companies MAKE Anything!
As I write this morning, I am processing thoughts from a two-day offsite, hybrid team meeting we completed yesterday. My group was in Birmingham, England, and we had teams at our Barcelona and Munich offices. The meeting included a cross-section of enterprise sales roles: Account Managers and Expansion Executives, Solution Engineers, Technical Solution Executives, Customer Success Managers, Account Marketers, and Inside Sales Representatives.
The theme for the meeting was ‘trust’
Every attendee was assigned a different role before the meeting. Our prework was to reach out to individuals with the ‘other’ role and learn about their day-to-day activities, work streams, challenges, etc. This set the table for some fun group dynamics. Plus, some learning opportunities for the entire team, as you could step out of your usual role and participate from another’s perspective. A novel and unique approach to a two-day team building meeting.
Takeaways:
- When you walk in another’s shoes, you learn and grow.
- Hybrid meetings are still challenging, especially the technology when you are bouncing in and out of virtual meeting rooms.
- We’ve come a long way, but nothing beats face-to-face interaction.
In the final session, we virtually met our new Vice President of EMEA Named Accounts, Daniela Becker.
Daniela shared her unique perspective on trust in the context of enterprise teams and customer engagement. Her insights on innovation and focus were not just intriguing but also encouraging for all of us.
I see there is a lot of passion and a lot of focus amongst our people. But, are we focused on the right things to help companies innovate and change for the better?
Daniela also shared her perspective, after just a few weeks at Autodesk, on our award-winning culture. (See Fast Company: Autodesk takes the top spot in the software and computing category of Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators 2024.)
In the Q&A, I asked Daniela a question I like to ask those who work in technology sales, who, like me, are NOT an engineer, a computer scientist, or an architect. With a Master of Arts degree in English Literature, I wanted to know how (or if) those studies had served Daniela throughout her successful career. Her answer was interesting.
Daniela talked about how she dove deep into philosophy during her schooling. How philosophy and mathematics share several intriguing similarities despite appearing as distinct disciplines. I’ll paraphrase and expand a bit.
Three examples of how philosophy is like mathematics
- Both fields rely heavily on abstract reasoning. In philosophy, we discuss abstract concepts such as existence, knowledge, and morality, while mathematics deals with abstract structures like numbers, shapes, and functions.
- Both use logical rigour as a foundation. Philosophers often develop logical arguments and test their validity, much like mathematicians use proofs to establish the truth of mathematical statements. Logic is a branch of both disciplines, philosophical logic and mathematical logic.
- Philosophers and mathematicians tackle complex problems that may not have straightforward answers. Philosophical debates about the nature of reality, ethics, or free will require structured approaches, just as mathematical problems require formal methods for solutions.
In summary, both fields ask deep questions, require precision in reasoning, and often explore ideas that seem far removed from everyday experiences yet have profound implications for understanding the world.
This unique comparison reminded me of my last MAKE Anything Thursday post, particularly the part on ‘making intersections.’ See that post here: MAKE Anything: MAKE Intersections, MAKE Circles
Well said, Daniela, and welcome to Autodesk!
