Meet The Disruptors: Joseph Burton Of TeleSign On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Don’t be frustrated, be curious. Almost everyone we meet is smart and cares. Never forget that. If you can’t imagine why someone thinks what they think, they almost certainly have their reasons. Open your mind and heart and learn something.
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joseph Burton.
Joseph Burton is the CEO of TeleSign. Before TeleSign, he served as CEO of Plantronics (now Poly) from 2016 to 2020, after joining the company in 2011 as Chief Technical officer, and then Chief Commercial Officer. Burton specializes in digital transformation, growth acceleration, corporate strategy and go-to-market, and has extensive expertise in technology and product development. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems and completed the Stanford Executive program at Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA).
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Boy, where to start? I grew up in a construction family in rural Ohio: shoveling asphalt, driving a truck, and overhauling diesel engines. For some reason, I always wanted to be a professor and was using my GI bill to get a history degree when I took a programming course.
It’s obvious now, but at the time we were all discovering the power of software. And while I loved history — and still read a lot of it to this day — I quickly found that creating software that democratized knowledge became my true passion.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Disruption is an interesting concept and I think a lot of companies lose their focus. The point of most technology should be to NOT disrupt people. The point is to let people work, live, and learn in a way that is simple and natural to them. The goal of most technology companies should be to make something disruptively easier, less expensive, and more accessible to everyone…all while keeping it simple and natural to use.
At TeleSign, we disrupt problems, not people. We make relationships and engagements between companies and consumers simpler and safer. Less login questions, less hassles accessing your favorite online services when you travel, easier communications — all while we work in the background to make it much safer.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
I was responsible for “modernizing” a 10-year-old business software suite, so it would be faster, easier to maintain, would run on modern hardware, etc. I took the original product specification and spent a year ensuring that every feature was fully copied in the new version. And we fixed a lot of bugs that were in the older version. Sounds good, right?
Wrong! The users found my new version to be completely unusable, and I was confused. Eventually, I visited real users to see how they were actually using the software. Almost every bug I fixed had become an undocumented, mission critical feature over the years.
I never built another system without constantly talking to real users throughout the process to ensure I was making their lives easier.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
I have been blessed with a lot of great mentors and role models: my parents, coaches, several great supervisors, and others.
One stands out these days: at my second job as an software architect, the CTO was just amazing. He understood technology, but more importantly, he understood people and was intensely curious. He interacted with such empathy and used technology to solve challenges people were having. He inspired me to think about people, not technology as much as possible.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
As mentioned above, I am not in favor of disruption of people unless the new solution is truly better in pretty much every way. In many cases, the new system eventually becomes truly superior but only after a painful cycle of hype and disillusionment. A great example that I was involved with was the movement of global telephone systems from the old-fashioned phone lines that ran to every business and home, to voice calling being delivered over internet technology, which is the norm today.
From the beginning, the technology was touted as superior in every way, but it wasn’t. For years, it was less reliable, poorer quality and the user experience was a bit different than old telephones for no valid reason. It was cheaper, so the people that operated the systems liked it, but it was worse for the consumers that actually used it.
Years later, once many systems were upgraded and lots of bugs were fixed, it became truly better than the old system it disrupted, but the industry took the end-users through a painful transition that perhaps could have been avoided.
I am a big advocate of long beta releases and voluntary opt-in, so people are not disrupted without their permission.
Can you share three of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
Maybe not words, but I can do three phrases:
- Don’t be frustrated, be curious.
Almost everyone we meet is smart and cares. Never forget that. If you can’t imagine why someone thinks what they think, they almost certainly have their reasons. Open your mind and heart and learn something.
2. If you want it bad, you get it bad.
Making unreasonable demands of people does not lead to good results. It leads to teams that are disengaged and perform poorly. Inspiring people to do their best and be part of the conversation is great leadership that leads to great results.
3. Let every idea be good for five minutes.
Have an open mind and heart to the ideas of others by genuinely listening and considering the input of others. It leads to better solutions and stronger relationships.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
While I have my own ideas, I try to facilitate and accelerate the ideas of others. The terrific team at TeleSign has some exciting ideas for connecting, protecting, and defending people and businesses on the internet. I’ll be here helping, coaching, and cheering them on — and maybe pursuing a few ideas of my own!
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I read and listen to books and podcasts all the time, rotating between three categories: business/science/societal topics, history/biographies, and Sci-Fi. Staying in the first category, one of my favorites is “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, this is a fascinating read and reveals deep insight into many of the ways the human mind works. I gained some perspective about when to slow down and think a little slower and more deliberately.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
If by “movement”, you mean a habit that I would love everyone to adopt, here’s one of mine: every time I encounter something I would like to know more about, I quickly put it on a list I have been keeping for years. Every day, I try to go into the list, pick two things, and quickly learn a bit about them. It can be a fast search, reading an article, or much deeper research. Even with skipping a few days here and there, every year I know a little more about 500–700 things. This is an easy and enjoyable activity…and it’s something that’s simple to add to everyday life.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
