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What Color is a Birch Tree?
Bob Ryan, About Purpose, Inc. ©2003
Early in our marriage, we took our summer vacation on the North Shore and enrolled in the Grand Marais Art School. My wife worked on pottery and I signed up for something I’d never done before – watercolor. The professor was wonderful and after some indoor classes talking about the medium and art in general, he sent us out into the woods to work on our own. A few hours later, he showed up and began to watch me work on a painting of some birch trees. I was frustrated and embarrassed, because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t make my painting look like what I was seeing.
This wise old professor asked just one question, “What color is a birch tree?” Well, duh! “White,” I snapped back. Patiently he asked again, “What color is a birch tree?” Less sure of myself, I answered, “White?” He drew me closer to one of the trees I was trying to paint. As I stood just inches away, he asked again, “What color is a birch tree?” And then I saw it. The birch bark that I was seeing as white, was in reality full of multicolored specks and swatches. Browns, greens, oranges, blacks, tans, and yes, whites leaped out at me as I really saw that birch tree for the first time. I never became a great artist, but I did a passable job of representing some of the beauty of that birch tree, and I still have that watercolor today. I learned some powerful lessons that I share with you today.
Look, Jane, look. See Spot run – That professor taught me to see. More accurately, he taught me to really look. As long as I saw a birch tree as white, I could never capture the richness, the nuance of color, the depth of character of that tree. Any picture I painted was flat and lifeless. I’m willing to wager that most of us see others – customers, friends, vendors, etc. in the same way that I first saw the birch tree. We group them all together, classify them in some way that makes it easy for us to talk about them and serve their needs. But in doing that, we miss our chance to truly know them, their needs, and their wants. Our view of them is flat and lifeless. Even though we desperately want to serve them, we will ultimately disappoint them. We simply aren’t seeing them.
Lesson one – really look at others. Draw close to them and learn what makes them unique. Look past the obvious and see the depth of others. Then as you serve them, they will be amazed and delighted that you know them so well.
There’s no such thing as a dumb question – My initial response to the professor was that I couldn’t believe he could ask such a dumb question – “What color is a birch tree?” In my ignorance (and probably my embarrassment, disappointment, and pride), I judged the question from solely my own viewing point. He was asking from quite another. Socrates, or one of those Greek guys once said, “The asking of questions is the teaching of virtue.” Questions challenge the status quo, delve into motives and beliefs, and surface things that are hidden.
Lesson two – Learn to ask questions of yourself and others. Develop a questioning culture around you and model it by both asking questions and carefully considering questions asked. Assumptions are the backbone of mediocrity and failure. Challenge yourself, your services, your products, your staff, your structure, etc. You cannot help but improve from the exercise.
All work and no play… – As I was sitting in the woods alone, staring at crumbled pages and failing miserably, I wondered why on earth I didn’t take photography. I was pretty good at that. I even had a couple pieces in shows. Why didn’t I stick with something I was good at? Looking back, I realize that little exercise in water color was the best thing that could have happened to me at the time. By exposing myself to something uncomfortably new, I opened myself up to being stretched. I learned to see things in new ways and to let go of some pre-conceived notions that were holding me back in life.
Lesson three – Take a risk this year. Challenge yourself to do something outside of your comfort zone. Travel and stay with families instead of at a Holiday Inn. Take a class. Go volunteer at an inner city agency or ministry. Write some poetry. It can be work related, or not. The important thing is that you open yourself up to seeing something in your world a little differently. The result will be a widening of your eyes and a change in your attitude.
What color is a birch tree?