Changing Careers with a TOUGH Economy Ahead Requires A Well Thought Out Career Plan - Not Emotion

Over my 30 year career I have never made a career change due to emotion - it has always been a strategic decision in pursuit of my career goals. I moved from Microsoft Canada to the UK because my partner and I had a career goal - international. I left Microsoft because the next step in my career plan was blocked by a toxic leader (Classic block for the leader's own needs) and the realization that I wanted to lead with autonomy (Not the KT culture). I left Bell Canada, a culture led by two of the greatest leaders I have ever know - George Cope and Wade Oosterman, to move to Asia. I left Salesforce, an amazing culture and company I still admire, because I wanted to join a medium sized company with the goal of leading it.

I chose Calix over a large pre-IPO unicorn (which was a financial slam-dunk) because my career goals are way more important than money. The only career mistake I regret in 30 years is the one I made for money - I lasted 3 months as I detested the toxic culture - and learned a valuable lesson. From then on I stayed true to my belief; do the right things at a company you are passionate about with people your respect, and money will come.

Every decision was part of a plan. If you are considering a career change, ask yourself these questions:

1. Why now? If it is not part of a career plan, it is time to sit back and build a career plan. If you move from job to job on a whim, the results will also be variable. If you read about the "great resignation" (which is coming to a screeching halt as the economy shifts) and all of a sudden you are feeling like you are falling behind or that everyone else is doing it so you should, stop. Build a career plan.
2. Once I have a career plan, what is the right path? Inside the company, outside the company? Do I have mentors I can speak to who can guide me? How do I achieve my plan? Set the goals, build the plan to achieve it and start executing.
3. If you do change jobs, do you have a 90 day plan? Are you entering that job with a 90 day plan (Read Watkins: First 90 Days) to succeed? 99% of people do not. You will excel past the masses if you do this one thing.

To share my personal story on Calix, I joined the company for these reasons:

1. My career plan was to lead a company, I saw that path at Calix. That is why I did not go to the unicorn as I did not see a path to that goal (The only payoff was money). I made that goal clear with the founder/CEO during the initial interview process - which meant I opened the door to being tested by him - he wanted to know my motivations. I shared how I enjoyed leading teams, how I had turned around organizations with a pacesetter style and then migrated into a highly collaborative/empowering leadership style as the team formed into a high performing entity. I shared how I had moved around the world with this goal in mind, to ensure I had a range of experiences to prepare me and how I was seeking a mentor.
2. Because I knew I could learn at Calix. That initial discussion on my career plan became core to my joining as the CEO/founder and I addressed it right from the start. Calix is Carl Russo's 3rd multi-billion dollar company, having sold his last one for $7B and the one before for $2B. He was accepted to MIT at 14. In our initial discussion, which was supposed to be an hour and went 3, I knew that I had just met the smartest man I have ever known - and it was obvious, I could learn from him ... and I have. The last 6 years have been an incredible learning journey. It has been very difficult (nothing worthwhile is easy), but our results are proof - all that hard work was worthwhile as we are growing at an incredible pace .. and we are just getting started. 14 beats and raises .. and counting. We are just starting to accelerate.
3. I was seeking empowerment. The conversations with Carl led me to walk away from an insanely lucrative offer from the unicorn with no offer from Calix. The 3 hour discussion, led to 8-10 hours of discussions that weekend and many more calls before we met face to face. As I began to understand the vision for the company, I also actively questioned Carl, testing as to whether he was ready to make the big - painful changes that were necessary to achieve that vision. Was he willing to partner? I believed he would. Once again, the proof is in what we are today. Calix continues to change and that change is through the people. People often ask, with all the growth how to you protect the culture (4.7/5 Glassdoor, 28 culture, diversity, work awards in the last 12 months) and I say - we don't! Our culture is better, better, never best. We embrace that the 125 people who joined Calix in Q1 will bring new ideas, new approaches and they will challenge our norms and make us better. We accept that we are imperfect, that we need to listen, adapt, empower and partner. That is the culture I wanted to work in, and that is the culture that we have created. Are we perfect? Heck no - that is the point. But we are trying .. and we expect everyone to help us get better.
4. I wanted to swing for the fences. Calix was a hardware company when I joined and Carl's vision was to build on that strong foundation by adding clouds and software. If you have read the Innovator's Dilemma, Calix is a case study on executing that challenge - changing the engines while flying the plane. I knew it was risky - but nothing worthwhile is easy and I knew that when we achieved that transformation, which we have, that it would pay off. Calix is now the only company in our industry with true end-to-end software and cloud platforms built on the world's best engineered hardware, as evidenced by a pace of innovation - 10X to 50X our competitors. I can say with confidence that the pain was worth it. The amazing thing is now that the core transformation is complete, we get to do the cool stuff - transform by becoming the industry's most advanced ecosystem company, which our competitors cannot do until they do that core change .. and I have not seen any of them start - if they do, we will see them in 5 years.
5. I wanted to do more than a job - I wanted to be at a company who had a purpose, had a great customer culture and was going to change the world. That is Calix. This company was built on a customer centric culture, and we are changing the world. We are helping even the smallest broadband service provider take on and crush the consumer giants by simplifying their business (lowest opex), exciting their subscribers (access to an ecosystem of solutions that allow them to have an awesome suite of go-to-market solutions) so that they can grow. Growth means for their members (co-operatives), for their investors (for profit) and for their community. That means they can launch Bark to help parents engage with their children to address cyber-bullying, they can launch community wi-fi to ensure that a low income child has access to broadband to do homework, or they can be wildly profitable so they can build a world-class fibre broadband network in the 13th poorest region in the US to have a profound multi-generational impact on that region - remote jobs, education and happiness. Our BSP partners are changing rural lives and I love that I get to help make that mission a reality every day.

As we enter uncertain times, it is critical to have a plan. At Calix, we enter into these uncertain times stronger than ever with customers that are essentially recession proof. In fact, we believe that during an economic downturn, our customers will get even strong ... as work-from-home is something than many employees are pushing hard to retain (Calix has been work-from-anywhere since 2016 and we are not going back) and a reduction in disposable income will lead to BSP growth. People stop spending at a restaurant ... or at the movies ... and seek entertainment at home, with managed broadband and exciting experiences being core to the home.

Long way of saying, if you are looking, we are hiring. Check out the Calix career site if you want to join an amazing team that is changing the world.

We are not slowing down. We are speeding up ....