On Being Fired From My Own Company
London in the sunshine is a magical city.
Something about the contrast to the otherwise endless stream of grey drab days. Sunshine lends life, optimism, warmth and beauty; everyone looks more beautiful when the sun shines, don’t they? Well, they do in London.
July 18th 2018 was one such day.
Two years earlier we’d sold the company I’d help set up and spent more than 15 years running.
The CEO of the business who’d bought us was over from Australia. He is a tough operator, hard, not well liked, in truth, although wise and insightful. He wanted a catch up.
Outside the office, there are a number of benches. It was a design business, so they’d taken care of the finest of details. Even the benches were comfortable. Big wooden slats. It was hot. I was wearing shorts and can feel the heaviness of the wood warming the backs of my legs.
He cut straight to it.
"The Board and I have decided it’s time for a clean break. We’ll not extend your contract.
You can go.
Today.”.
And that, as they say, was that. All the years of effort and toil and sweat and struggle, of successes and drama and hopes and annoyances, the defining effort of the previous 15 years, ended. In a sentence.
In truth, this wasn’t a surprise. We’d been back and forth about an ongoing role but my usefulness was on the wane. I wanted out, but couldn’t let go. And now I’d been cast away.
I spoke platitudes, thanking him for this, for that… while my mind tried to manage, to analyse - a mumbled jumble of thoughts and feelings.
If I was telling this for the sake of a good story, this is where I’d share the ‘happy ever after’ thought as I ride off into a glorious new future.
Not for me. Not then anyway.
The office was quiet. My team were not in. I walked downstairs, packed my bag. And left. No farewell, not even a goodbye. Onto my bike and gone. The end.
The sun was still shining but I don’t remember the warmth.
My mind was racing, cycling through thoughts, plans, ideas, next steps, actions!, things I must do, could do, straight away.
But really I was numb. My body heavy, empty, sad and confused.
Worry for me grows up from my belly. A big, dark, potentially all consuming cloud. I don’t like the feeling. It scares me.
We cycled. My mind, heart and body cycling in different directions, at different speeds, into my unknowable, uncertain future. Without anchor.
I am hard wired to hold on; hold on to people, ideas, projects, companies. Often times, long beyond their usefulness, their ideal ‘sell by’ date. And the main culprit is my lazy, crazy, needy, greedy chattering mind.
My mind chatted the whole way home. And into the evening. Because that’s what the mind does; it chats. Endlessly. Ceaselessly. Trying to fix, solve, resolve.
You can’t stop it. Or control it. But you can let it play itself out.
Yet, even by the end of that day, the first twinkle of a new seed was very slowly revealing.
In my heart, I’d known my work, my usefulness to the old company was done. Long done. That was a good part of why the sale had happened in the first place. I knew my orientation was to new work, new impact, different ideas. New seeds.
But those new seeds remain dormant unless they’re given space to breathe and resources to grow.
And for that, something (almost certainly) needs to end.
You know the greatest cause of death?
Yep, it’s birth.
So, by extension, the greatest cause of birth? Yep, death.
The CEO did what was necessary.
He cut the chord. Severed the line.
Because ending things is the precursor to creating new things.
_____
We stand on the brink.
New change, new opportunity sweeping through the workplace, the play space, the home space. Where you work, the work you do - everything up for grabs.
“What do you do?” is an overused question, introductory stocking filler. We ask it a) because we’re programmed to and b) to sense check where we sit in the social hierarchy or c) because we’re selling something and occasionally d) because we’re interested.
But it points to something else.
“What work do you do?” might be the defining question of our time.
What do you do?
Tech, social, economic, environmental changes point to a transition. You have opportunity to create work, to create opportunity, like never before. For starters, you can sit at home, like me, now, and write to the world. Sure, they‘re not listening (see point 3 below), not yet anyway. But some will, slowly.
Stepping into this new work, shifting the orientation of your company, your work, embracing the myriad opportunities available today, creating a revolution, incrementally (as we like to say…), is best served by ending things first.
It’s the first of the only two truths shaping your work and business. Everything has a time to die. (The second? Everything is always changing).
End things well and often. No. 6 on my hit parade of principles for good work.
The rest?
- Don’t chase scale, chase connection
- Don’t chase scale, chase change
- Know that most people are not interested in your stuff
- Remember, people decide emotionally and justify rationally
- Tell stories
- End things often and well
- Know your mind; it’s calling ALL the shots. What you do, how your company functions and behaves is a regurgitation, a mirror, of the ideas, stories and beliefs sitting pretty between your ears. Or in your chest. And / or tummy. Wherever it is they hangout. Shine a light. Open the door.
And create a revolution, incrementally.
You do know I write about these things each week, don’t you? Join the weekly email group here, now. Yes, now. Go on. Off you go. You know you want to.