Interviewee Name: Annemie Ress, Senior HRD eBay & Global Engagement Lead at eBay
Company Name: eBay EU
Website: http://www.ebay.com
Avil Beckford: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Annemie Ress: I’m South African by birth and grew up there. I studied law, worked in Switzerland for a short while and have been living in the United Kingdom for the past 13 years. For the past 13 years I have worked for Pepsi (for a short while because I worked for them in South Africa). I also worked on the trading floor for the International Petroleum Exchange and since then I have been working at eBay. I have had multiple careers at eBay.
I’m totally passionate about diversity, positive psychology, human rights and I just did the New York Marathon with my husband.
Avil Beckford: What’s a typical day like for you?
Annemie Ress: I’m a morning person, so I get up and get on with it. I start early and always fit in some exercise. I love walking. I'm not a marathon runner. I fundamentally believe that I get the best from myself, and others get the best from me when I’ve had the opportunity to walk. I tend to listen to a variety of podcasts while I walk. I’m not a quiet walker. I catch up on news, and I listen to everything, podcasts from the World Service, economics, philosophy, or whatever for a couple of hours, then I come into work very, very early. Working for a California-based organization they have very long hours so it’s really back-to-back. I tend to have a lot of time interacting with folks and a lot of my time is spent on coaching.
I have a real passion for people, innovation, and just helping people to think and approach problems differently. And a typical evening would be just falling down in absolute exhaustion on the couch and watching news again. I love foreign movies, so that’s kind of what my day is like.
Avil Beckford: How do you motivate yourself and stay motivated?
Annemie Ress: I find a lot of motivation in getting up and working on things that fundamentally make a difference in people’s lives. It doesn’t have to be a life changing event, or have to be big things, I think what I’ve learned the hard way is having been a human rights lawyer, a little naive, I thought I could change the world. I fundamentally now believe that I can’t change the world but I can change experiences that I have with other people on a daily basis, and in a little way, try and contribute to make changes by asking the right questions. And for myself, learn things and so change the world, instead of thinking I have to work in Africa or in a war zone and that way I can change the world, but actually I can’t. It really starts in your community with the people you interact with every day, that’s what really motivates me. If I can ask one really great question that will make someone think differently about absolutely anything in a day, that gets me out of bed in the morning.
Avil Beckford: If you had to start over from scratch, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?
Annemie Ress: I am tempted to say I would change a lot of things, but you know, every mistake I have made, every experience I’ve had has turned me into the person I’m now. The biggest thing I would have done differently would have been to approach university differently. I was too serious and I think I should have thought more and not just be there to absorb, and I do not know if it had to do with the way our university education worked. It wasn’t until the end of university that I started turning into a person who developed her own thoughts and thinking. I know that doesn’t sound very deep and meaningful but I wouldn’t change anything. The painful things happened for a reason, the wonderful things happened for a reason, but I would have hadmore fun at university and been more thoughtful around how I engaged with academic content.
Avil Beckford: What's the most important business or other discovery you've made in the past year?
Annemie Ress: I think both in business and in life, it’s the importance of being able to distinguish between what are your issues and what are other people’s issues. The inability to distinguish between the two, having those lenses on, to wear those glasses leads to a lot of pain publicly and privately. The biggest lesson I have learned is to be able in a moment to take a step back and analyze the situation professionally and personally, and find out what’s really going on here, what am I reacting to? What are my issues, what are the individual’s issues? whether personal or professional and then move ahead.
Avil Beckford: What are the three threats to your business, your success, and how are you handling them?
Annemie Ress: At a non commercial level I think a threat is the constant drain on people’s energy whether it’s mental, physical, emotional or spiritual energy. Working in a relentless fast-paced environment, the question of renewal and how people renew themselves, and consequently how businesses renew and unlock the capacity to innovate is a huge challenge, for any business today, not only ours. How I am handling them both in our organization and personally, is we’ve done a lot of work with something called The Energy Project that works with organizations. Two authors, Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomes work with organizations in four quadrants – mental, physical, emotional or spiritual and help folks to unlock their full potential and also unlock innovation and consequently create people and organizations that can sustain themselves no matter what is happening externally.
In uncertain times the ability to sustain one’s self and organization and constantly renew is critical so that’s why I honed in on this.
Avil Beckford: What’s unique about the service that you provide?
Annemie Ress: We’re eBay so you can buy and sell anything. We’re a marketplace we’re turning into a retailer. I don’t think there is anything else like eBay. Folks talk about Amazon…we’re much more than that, and we are yet to be what we are to become, and that’s in part why I am still here. We’ve moved from being a consumer-to-consumer business to much more to business-to-consumer, new in season, really having one of the best phone apps out there, also being very relevant. There are so many things that are unique about us.
Avil Beckford: Describe a major business or other challenge you had and how you resolved it. What kind of lessons did you learn in the process?
Annemie Ress: If we think about business challenges I think we’ve all often been confronted with suggestions where we have to personally do things that are commercially right but are hard on people. In what I do, luckily not too often, but often I’m in the situation where I’m involved in those things and I think the lesson I’ve learned in the process are no matter how hard the message you have to deliver, as long as you treat people with authenticity, respect and fairness, like adults frankly – adult-to-adult conversations – you can walk out from any challenge that you face, which might not be pleasant, but you can truly walk out with your head held high. And also the folks who are going through the tough and challenging times retain their dignity and respect because they were treated fairly and honestly.
I think if one looks at the macroeconomic environment, there are examples of companies that have done that really well, and examples where they haven’t done that well. But at a core, being fair, authentic and treating people like adults, giving hard messages, but in a very respectful way, and having a lot of integrity has taught me that no matter what happens the response that you get is always positive, even if it’s hard. It’s not positive in the sense that if you have to deliver a hard message, folks aren’t necessarily overjoyed, but their dignity remains intact and your organization becomes known as one of integrity and fairness, which is important for folks who stay and leave.
Avil Beckford: Tell me about your big break and who gave you.
Annemie Ress: I have never really planned anything and things usually just happens, but the biggest opportunity I had was being asked if I wanted to work in Switzerland by a professor I was studying with, and saying, “Yes, that would be great,” not thinking for one second that I’d get the job. He obviously had more confidence in me than I did in myself and the next thing I knew I was on a plane and working in Switzerland. That’s my biggest break, having someone have faith in me. I had no international experience, I was South African, and had never worked abroad, but had someone believe in me and that has opened doors for me to work globally.
Avil Beckford: Describe one of your biggest failures. What lessons did you learn, and how did it contribute to a greater success?
Annemie Ress: I think it’s one that I’m still working on. I’m a very intuitive person, but my biggest failure has been in the past where I didn’t trust my intuition, and I didn’t have my heart and head connect on certain business issues. And then when you have that nagging feeling, every time I’ve had that nagging feeling that something isn’t right, in a commercial situation or otherwise, whenever I have just operated with my head, I tended to be not that successful, or when I have tended to operate with only one side of my brain, whether the right brain or the left brain. I find whenever I’m fully engaged in a problem, fully present, trust my intuition, trust both my right and left brains, that’s when I have the most success. So my biggest failures have been around when I get a little bit lazy, and not fully present.
Avil Beckford: What’s one of the toughest decisions you’ve had to make and how did it impact your life?
Annemie Ress: Leaving South Africa and going to live in Switzerland. I had to leave behind a lot of people who I cared about, and a country that I loved very much, but I knew that making that decision could potentially open doors. I think the way around it was I initially decided to leave for a two-year period, and I set a time limit for myself and I always thought that I would return, but life happens. I have been very fortunate to end up after Switzerland, working in the UK and then getting the opportunity to work globally. It was a really tough decision and I have never cried as much as I did in the first few months in Switzerland but I know it has absolutely changed my life and the lives of many people who I interact with.
Avil Beckford: What are three events that helped to shape your life?
Annemie Ress:
- Leaving South Africa.
- Leaving Switzerland after seeing how the international machinery of the United Nations operates. The second most important event was leaving Switzerland and realizing that the most impact that we as individuals can have in changing the world is not necessarily through those big institutions, and this is not a criticism because they have a place, but if you really want to change the world, that’s made me realize with my experience in Switzerland seeing how other bodies operate, I have realized that I can change the world but not on a big scale, it’s much more impactful if I can do it everyday with the interactions that you have with people.
- Coming to the UK. I think despite what others may say, people may say that London is tolerant and vibrant, and I don’t experience the UK as being cold and unfriendly. I find that it has opened my mind, and again I came from a country that was isolated for many years internationally, then went to Switzerland, which is fairly isolated, then came to London. And I think London certainly has left its mark on my soul, culturally – with what I’ve experienced, the people I have been exposed to – and intellectually. It has really changed me and I am now a much more rounded person.
Avil Beckford: What’s an accomplishment that you are proudest of?
Annemie Ress: I am not there yet, there are a lot of small things that I’m very proud of. One that I would be proud of if I can is being able to live in the now every day. I don’t know if you have read the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, but if I can just master living in the now, that’s what I would be proudest of.
Avil Beckford: How did mentors influence your life?
Annemie Ress: My mentors have taught me the amazing power of powerful questions, and how you don’t necessarily need to guide by telling, but that wonderful things can happen if you’re open to asking questions and always thinking that you don’t have all the answers but that by asking powerful questions in a given circumstance you can unlock many possibilities.
Avil Beckford: An invisible mentor is a unique leader you can learn things from by observing them from afar, in the capacity of an Invisible Mentor, what is one piece of advice that you would give to readers?
Annemie Ress: I heard something interesting from someone the other day that made me reflect. Clearly I’m passionate about living more in the now, and I think the only thing we have, and are certain, of is this given moment, this very second that you and I are interacting. What’s come before is gone, what comes next we have no control over, we really don’t what’s going to happen, but we have to value the now because then we do not have regrets. Someone also said that “Opposites in life are very important.” I don’t know if this makes sense, but they gave me this example, “Honesty without compassion is cruelty” and they went through a wholes series of those types of opposites, and it made me reflect again on the need to always surround yourself in life with a diversity of ideas, very different people that you can be exposed to, never be closed to the wonderful possibilities of what can come from surrounding yourself with people who are so different from who you are.
How can you use this information? What do you have to add to the conversation? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Note: Annemie Ress has since left ebay and started Purple Beach.
