“Let me tell you something you already know, the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me or nobody is going to hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward…how much you can take and keep moving forward - that’s how winning is done.”
Or, if you prefer the more succinct Tyson over Balboa, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” After nine years of great work and the kind of combined trust and third-party validated results most consultants only dream of, I got to meet our boss’ new boss in a one-on-one. Although I expected something less than a warm-embrace, given the strange series of events that preceded the announcement of hire, I still wasn’t ready for what would come.
The meeting would last at least 30 minutes and I was well-prepared with slides and stats and success stories. I remember exactly 1 sentence from the exchange: “I hope you know this is not an evergreen contract”. I may not have realized I was entering the ring when I walked into that meeting, but I definitely knew where we stood by the time I walked out.
Whether it was the new requirement that each and every one of our weekly communications, sent to the masses for years at this point with complete autonomy, would require censorship and a personal sign-off prior to sending or the rumblings about special union and management leadership meetings which always seemed to end in “don’t worry, we had your back”, the implications were clear - some fights are unwinnable.In what seems too wild to be true looking back, just across the river, another of our employer-clients was in the process of deciding that our work was a commodity and not a specialty. They would go with the lowest bidder, ironic as it might be, a professional colleague who cautioned others against chasing a lower price. The hits kept coming and it got harder and harder to keep moving forward. As the close of 2015 loomed, our growing company was poised to experience a XX% (50%?) drop in revenues. The Christmas carols may have been on the radio but it certainly didn’t feel like the Holiday Season that year. The partner meetings that followed were about as tense as you might expect. This would mean job-losses, the first time ever, something that sure felt like abandonment of our stated company value of “Family”. It meant pay cuts, also a first, and although unspoken years previously when I told those same folks to “follow me”, a broken promise to them and their families.
As far as I was concerned, it should’ve meant my job - something I would not question if the others decided to take, which they were surprised to hear when I told them. To me, it was the closest thing to abject failure I have ever felt in any endeavor at any stage but what happened next was everything. It was an unforgettable gesture and one of those moments that changes you.The answer was no. The message from Pro-Activity’s partners was clear and unequivocal: This was not a failure of leadership, it was an opportunity to demonstrate it. It would require courage and sacrifice, faith in each other and a redoubling of effort. It would most certainly hurt and put certain plans on hold, but our work was worth it and we had what it took to thrive, even if step 1 was simply survive.
The next few years would be about relearning to walk and then eventually run; to never let our guard down and to know that every scar or in my case beard, has a longer story. It would also be about understanding exactly how motivating a strong purpose can be, the power in working with people you love, knowing all about “the precious present” and that true success, the kind that an achievement company aspires to, eventually grows up to be succession. 2015-2020 may go down as the defining period of my career. I would never wish those years on anyone, but as the late great author Louis L’Amour once said:“A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.”
And so, thanks to the many women and men who shared the journey those years, our story is a lot of things, however definitely not “dull”.
-Mike E.
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