Recently I was watching an episode of the documentary The Last Dance about the mid-90s dynasty of the Chicago Bulls and their superstar forward Michael Jordan, considered by many to be the best basketball player ever. 

This specific episode focused on how demanding Jordan could be of his own teammates – how relentlessly and intensely he pushed them in practices, for instance. At times the footage they showed of him doing that was even a bit uncomfortable to watch. 

But in an incredible moment towards the end of the episode, an older, modern-day Michael Jordan reflects back on this reputation. “People see this and they’re going to say ‘Well, he wasn’t really a nice guy. He may have been a tyrant,’” he says. Then he immediately continues, “No, well that’s you. Because you’ve never won anything.” 

Yowch.

Jordan goes on to talk about how this is just who he is to his core. “It is who I am. That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality.” Three decades have passed, and still, reflecting back on this causes him to choke up with emotion and ask for a break in the interview. It’s an incredible documentary moment. 

It’s also a moment that says so much about Jordan – his drive, his commitment, and the depth of his intensity. Can you imagine what it takes to be the single BEST person at something in the entire world?!? Let alone at something as exalted as professional basketball, at which gazillions of talented people in the world are also striving to be better than you? Can you imagine what kind of drive that takes?

So yes, that drill in practice where some teammates might have been just going through the motions – that drill mattered to him. Every teammate giving it 100% every single time – even in practice – that mattered to him. Every single moment mattered to him. He truly, relentlessly, cared. 

So what the heck does this have to do with technology platforms? 

Having great technology is all about caring. Relentlessly caring, to your core.

Maybe even the level of caring that might cause you to choke up when they make the documentary about you 30 years from now.

When we help lead a technology turnaround, it often involves re-infusing a sense of purpose into a culture that too often feels to most staff around an organization like the technology people just don’t particularly care. Or maybe they care but, like everyone else, they have convinced themselves that things are too dysfunctional to ever truly change.

But it can change. It has to change.

When we are setting up a Technology Platforms Team, we are looking for people who care. Deeply. People who really give a sh*t, and then will be relentless in their pursuit of a better tomorrow.

We’re looking for people who care about every single decision that arises, because ultimately they care most about solving the problems of their colleagues around them.

So the type of person that we recruit to lead technology efforts at your organization is not going to ask you to just submit a ticket and then leave them alone until you hopefully hear back someday. Not by a long shot. Rather, they’re going to be in regular contact and in regular communication. In fact they’re going to initiate it.

The right type of technology leaders will want to understand what you’re working on, how the systems are supporting your work and what about them could be better. 

When the system is causing you to waste your time, they will want to see it with their own eyes and understand it, so that together you can figure out the best way to fix it.

When you are frustrated about the quality or completeness of the data in the CRM, or the difficulty of getting what you need out of the website… they will want to have that conversation. They will want to see the issue directly, and to poke around on it together.

When you have an idea for an entirely new opportunity that’s going to open up whole new doors for you and your team, they will want to hear it. They will want to dream about that together. Then they will go figure out how you can start down that road in an initial, achievable way.

I know all of this because I am one of these people. This is who we are. That’s how we play the game. That’s our mentality. And unlike Michael Jordan, in this case there are a lot of us out there.

We want your experience with our systems to be better. We want to help you be more effective. We want to help you cut out inefficient work. We want to help you get better insight from the data. We want to help you put amazing content on a beautiful, strategic website. We want to remove bottlenecks and empower you to do things yourself.

We want you to not only be less frustrated by your systems, but we want to work together with you, step by step, towards the day where you can actually say you love your systems. We want you to feel like we are constantly supporting you better and better in doing your best, most effective work.

Does having technology colleagues like that feel like a pipe dream? It shouldn’t.

If you don’t have those types of technology colleagues yet, let’s get some of them into your organization, stat. 

You must have a technology culture that really cares. That pursues a better future relentlessly. A technology team that sees it as their mission to be strategic and tactical allies in helping the systems improve, step by step, day by day. That thrives on making your entire staff’s lives better and their work more effective.

That’s what giving a sh*t looks like.