Can Heart Truly Lead a Business in the Great Re-shuffling?

TL;DR - I'm at a crossroads and know I'm not the only one. The kid in me still wants to go out and change the world but the adult in me has bills to pay. When you're lead by heart, how do you find balance in the corporate world? Can you find balance in the corporate world? If you find meaning in the work you do, is that enough? When comments from your C-suite make you question the ethics of a company, that can create unrest and make you look for new opportunities. But will a new company be any different? For me, it means chasing a dream to change the world and scale kindness in a way never before seen. It may mean something completely different for you. What are your next steps?

TL Version

As I was running some errands last weekend, my music app decided to play a song from an album I hadn't listened to since the years of my teenage angst. As soon as the guitar riffs and beat hit, I was immediately thrown back into my bedroom rocking out on my drums.

When the first verse started, all the words came rushing back as I sang along...

"To resist is to piss in the wind

Anyone who does will end up smelling

Knowing this, why do I defy?

Because my inner voice is yelling

There is a fist pressing against

Anyone who thinks something compelling

Our intuit we're taught to deny

And our soul we're told is for selling"

As those last words came out of my mouth, I had to pause because it hit me like a ton a bricks. Why was a lyric from a 23 year old Incubus album (the age of the album is upsetting in itself) speaking to me like it did when I was teen?

You see, I'm currently struggling with a bit of an existential crisis that involves my professional and personal life. I'm unfortunately plagued with that millennial purpose-driven-work non-sense that has hit corporate retention hard these past few years. I'll admit, I'm more on the geriatric millennial end (my ego prefers Xennial ...) but even a few years ago, I lightly touched on this subject when I talked about corporate culture positions in a blog .

The search for meaning can lead to someone like me being labeled as a job hopper. I understand this because if you take the historical approach to work like that of my immigrant parents and grandparents, they'll end up staying at an organization (unhappily) for decades. Let's take out the whole pension, corporate climb, etc. that is radically different these days as factors and just concentrate on the feels here. Why is it hard to hold on to so many sub-40 year old's for more than a couple years?

I'm not going to generalize everyone's experience on "why" we are seeing the great re-shuffling / great resignation as there are plenty of articles that do that . Everyone has different reasons and factors and let's be honest, Gen Y and Z retention hasn't been easy for many years. I'm not saying I have a playlist for when I write my resignation letter and prepping an exit interview, but I will say, there is nothing like the feeling of having a weight removed from your shoulders the moment you walk out of a company that wasn't right for you.

An interesting question here is, what is the right company? I got into healthcare 15+ years ago because I wanted to help people get better. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, but if I could be part of a process that helps patients, I feel like my professional life has meaning beyond just trying to pay bills. I attached a portion of my identity to my work (a mistake?) which is probably why I'm having this crisis.

While searching for meaning, I also have encountered some leaders that changed my view of the companies I have worked for. I want to share some of those quotes here:

"I want to milk our customers for every dollar that they have..."

"They're a non-profit? Charge them more!"

"If you vote for this President, you are signing your own pink slip"

"We are changing your compensation plan mid-year to align with the rest of the organization" -- I lost over $40,000 life changing dollars because of this decision.

"We are building a state of the art facility in another country to save costs" -- this announcement came out as local manufacturing began to have increased cases of cancer.

"If we ask the legal team permission, they will say no..."

"F**K Humanity, I'm here for the money"

"I know I told you not to worry about this and I take full responsibility, but we have to lay you off effective immediately with no severance" - This was 45 days after I was hired and the company had run out of money. They assured me prior to my hire that if they had no sales for 9 months to a year, they would be okay. A week after 2 clients cut their projects early, they laid off 25% of the company with many more to follow the next couple of weeks.

"We know you're the "fun" group with great culture, but it's time to assimilate"

"You're Mexican and Japanese? We can report both to help with our diversity numbers!"

The last one reminds me of an experience a close friend shared recently. Shortly after he was hired he was told his position would change and they wanted him to have Hawaii as part of his territory "because of your last name and also..." as they point to his skin (color). To be clear, he is not Pacific Islander but some how being brown with an ethnic last name was close enough.

If you heard or experienced any of above directly from your C-Suite, what would you do? Would you stay at that company? Who do you go to when it's a leader saying these things? Imagine you loving this company so much that you wanted to retire there, only to hear a leader say any of the above to you? This break of trust can easily lead to un-engagement, lack of effort in work and of course looking for a new job. Yet, if you leave, you are considered disloyal / job hopper?

There are plenty of people that won't see anything wrong with most things of what was said or done above. "Business is business" as they say. Maybe that's why I'm at this juncture of being unsure of what to do... and I am learning I am not alone.

What do you do when you are having a hard time with the direction, ethics, treatment of customers, and/or treatment of employees at a company? Do you search for the holy grail of companies that embodies and embraces who you are, what you stand for and helps you thrive? Do you become the change you want to see in your company? Do you start your own company and just go for it? Or do you acknowledge that business is business and you need to be "realistic" and settle? There are pros, cons and financial implications for all of the above.

Is it time to change the world?

A friend once told me "we'll never be happy at a company unless it's our own, huh?" and it was followed by an awkward laugh and pause. I think about this statement often and I wonder if others have/had the same thought?

If you have spent anytime with me and talking about passions the past few years, you'll know I have this burning desire to change the world for better by scaling kindness. I helped develop an idea in how to do this. I mixed all of my experience in advising tech companies, behavioral engineering, spending way too much time on social media and then mixed it with my love of seeing people become their best selves.

The outcome? A roadmap in building a platform to accomplish all of that. The challenge? I'm lead by and lead by heart. The sales, consulting and side hustle portion of me knows there has to be a business model for this to sustain itself but that's not my key driver. I came up with 4 separate revenue streams that can run in parallel, a way to build a platform / algorithm that allows the tech to be IP / patentable but the hardest part? Finding people with the same heart and the experience to help execute the idea.

The initial team was great and the first event to test the MVP was due to launch April 2020. We even had clients listed to work with development that summer. The world shut down (and for good reason) March 2020 a month before launch. Since then, the team was lost, the company was dissolved and I sit unsure of how to take the next / first steps again.

Conclusion

There isn't one. It's my story of where I am today and deciding on how to dust myself off and start again. I know I'm not the only one sitting here wondering what to do next.

Some of us are born with a knowing that we are destined for something larger than where we are at today. For those of us with it, you know it creates an unrest if you're not feeding that monster. People that don't have this or gave up, may tell you you're delusional or living in a fantasy world. Maybe they're right? Maybe business is business but to dare is to do and keep in mind that "something is impossible until it isn't."

In a world where you can choose who you are, be a prism.

Go be amazing, be that change, and as always be kind.