3,000 days at EY

So, today is my final day at EY, exactly 3,000 days since I joined. Time flies.

Over the last few months, I’ve been reflecting on a Building a Better Working World poster that used to be near the elevators in 5 Times Square, EY's former headqaurters: to paraphrase, what will your legacy be at EY? 3,000 days of one’s life is a long time, so it ought to add up to something. I got a lot of nice emails from my colleagues, once they found out I was leaving, and it made me step back and consider what it is to be a good colleague and professional. After all, one’s legacy is never the clients served, deliverables completed or articles published. It’s the impact you have on the people around you (and, of course, them on you, as part of one’s legacy is the effect on yourself).

My journey with EY has been a long one. I actually worked with EY London in the late 1990s on their independent director program, when I was at the Institute of Directors. Then, EY became my client, when I was at Tapestry Networks. Then 3,000 days at the EY coalface. When I wonder why I’ve had such a long connection to one firm, I put it down to the people. Not the 370,000 I’ve never met, but the 175-200 I’ve interacted with the most in my EY relationship. EY is simply filled with nice people. Long may it continue.

In my departing email to my EY colleagues (of which this is an excerpt), I noted my reflections made me start typing in "tips from Mark." They ended up covering meeting etiquette, time management, workplace etiquette, providing feedback and advice, recognizing your team, writing and speaking English, engaging in discussion, writing and presenting more effectively, grammar issues to avoid, email etiquette and phrases to avoid.? I got to over 100. I'll probably share some on LinkedIn.

I'll share the first here. Ever since March 2020, in general, I’d observe we all got out of kilter on the trade between work and life outside of work. We have all gotten ridiculously productive, but it has impacted our families because it simply meant longer, more intense hours. Something will need to give at some point and hopefully soon, for everyone’s sake.

Tip #34: Make explicit decisions on your work/life balance: We’ve all made negative trades on the work (which wins) and life (which loses) balance. We know it because we are tired and irritated or, more likely, because someone who cares about us brings it to our attention (often in a jolting manner). Alas, most times, after doing minor corrections, we tend back to the same negative trade-offs. Thankfully for me, at a time when I’d just become a father, I had a senior colleague who told me how he’d made a significant trade-off, but in a sense, unknowingly, and he urged me to make explicit decisions and live with the consequences. He had a son and daughter, some 7-8 years apart, and when his daughter was born, his wife very directly said to him “You need to spend much more time with your daughter than you did with your son.” It hit my colleague like a rock. He’d focused so much on being successful to get a major promotion that he’d missed the opportunity to have a relationship with his son in the first 7-8 years of his life and, when he spoke to me, he was investing significant time in rebuilding his relationship with his then 17/18-year-old son. My colleague noted that, as he looked back, he wasn’t sure he would have made different choices years back (and it’s a fool’s errand to reinvent the past), but he sure wished he had known he was making such a major trade-off so he could have done so knowingly, with eyes wide open to the potential negative consequences. He added, he wasn’t telling me what decision to make about my own son or family; he just wanted me to make explicit decisions, one way or another. I’d urge you to do the same on such important matters. (Within three months of getting this counsel, I changed jobs and accepted a different career and financial path, because I wanted to hang out with my son – and I often say thank you to my former colleague as I spend time with our children.)

I’ll back on LinkedIn in September, having been fairly quiet for 3-4 months. I’ll keep campaigning for the four-day work week.