The First 100 Days of NOT being in charge - make the most of a professional time-out?

INTRODUCTION

Begin with humour.

When asked how you are spending the months of a professional time-out, I wish that I could whip out an impossibly impressive list of extreme intellectual and physical accomplishments, all the while humming Shania Twain’ sings “That don’t impress me much.”:

• taught myself a new non-European language (or two)
• wrote a comic-mystery in that new language set in the 17th century (why not?),
• read and committed to memory the Encyclopaedia Brittanica
• circumnavigated the globe solo by paddle-boat and bicycle or even unicycle which I designed and built out of organic bamboo
• finalist in the Master Chef competition and launched a recipe blog for balcony-grown vegetables
• took up cello and clarinet after a 40-year intermission

Now let’s get serious. When work life hands you unemployment lemons, make “Rebound Lemonade”

Being involuntarily out of work is a subject potentially laden with shame or tabu and therefore most often quietly suffered rather than discussed or debated, much less celebrated. There are contrarians: my colleague K.K. declared nonchalantly “Everyone should be so lucky to be dismissed 2-3 times in the course of a career.” Lucky because a well-managed executive exit can generate capital to help to repay a mortgage, send children to university or fund a new business venture.?Also euphemistically “lucky” in the Nietzschean sense that “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”?What is certain is that as CEO tenures shorten, as geopolitical volatility spreads, as nervous boards seek quick fixes to complex problems and scapegoats to release pressure, as waves of mergers take their toll, an involuntary time-out during the career of a C-level executive is common among my Generation X cohort now in our 40’s and 50’s.

“The First 100 Days”

Great symbolism is attributed to new beginnings: Napoleon’s march to Waterloo in 1815, FDR’s fight against the Great Depression in 1933, a newly-appointed CEO setting her strategic course; Neff and Citrin offer relevant advice in “Now you’re in charge: the first 100 days.”?Yet the literature offers sparse counsel for an executive freshly out of office on how to effectively and efficiently re-boot while tending to proverbial or literal flowerbeds on “Gardening Leave.”?Seeking relevant analogies, I found Nancy Anderson’s “Retirement: Make The Best Of Your First 100 Days”, citing psychologist Yvette Guerrero’s five keys to happiness for retirees:

• satisfying relationships
• body/mind fitness
• financial security
• staying young at heart
• acts of kindness

Adopting Guerrero’s five keys to retirement happiness as an outline, I want to offer some free advice (worth what you paid for it, as the saying goes) based on my personal experience and invite my colleagues and connections to help demystify this topic by sharing their own wisdom on this important but under-discussed episode in many of our professional lives.?I have sprinkled questions throughout this article to stimulate the discussion.

1) SATISFYING RELATIONSHIPS

Over decades of 24/7 devotion to work, I have inevitably accumulated large debts denominated in time and especially to my spouse, to my three daughters, to family and friends. We are so often in “always-on” mode, getting things done, going places and meeting people that we overlook that our most valued resource is to offer our undivided attention. The challenge as well as the reward from making this switch cannot be over-stated. Simone Weil said, “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” Disclaimer: I am expressing my own aspiration here, even as I acknowledge that I continue to fall short in practice.

There are few coincidences in life, some even see divine intervention, so when you suddenly find yourself unexpectedly home for lunch, it may be a sign that you are needed in your family at precisely this moment.?Children in their teenage years put on a fa?ade of autonomy but need our presence and guidance more than ever to make good choices in school, in friends, in habits and in life in general. When you can devote undivided attention, you may observe early warning signs or symptoms that not all is well with mental or physical health.?Without going into detail here, this precious time has allowed me to observe both and to participate actively in the parenting (sounds banal, but is quiet profound).

We awake on Day 1 to the void, the absence of our habitual social interactions screaming to be filled.?Reaching out to our closest family & friends is a natural and good instinct. The wonderful German expression comes to mind: “geteiltes Leid is halbes Leid” sharing the burden of difficult news already reduces the load on our shoulders.?We move through concentric circles and exponential expansion in our network, our top 10, then 100. The very process of reaching out triggers new neural connections and takes us to new or to revisit unexpected contacts and topics.

You will be missed, your departure may even be mourned as colleagues digest the meaning and travel along their own Kübler-Ross Change Curve / Grief Curve, but rest assured the sun always rises and the world keeps spinning. We are all replaceable, sometimes faster than we might like to believe.?My network has showered me with support and encouragement. “Your experience and skills are in high demand - you will rebound quickly!”?That helps rebuild confidence, but don’t be deceived: seeking new employment is a full-time job and advisors warn that for the most senior positions you should plan on up to one year for the stars to align; consider anything quicker to be a bonus.

DISCUSSION; Who do you turn to first and what is your “navigation algorithm” for the networking journey where it is said more than half of all new jobs are found?

2) FITNESS OF MIND AND BODY

Health check - (Latin: mens sana in corpora sana)

Travel criss-crossing the planet, as your frequent flyer statements testify, deadline stress, 24/7 always-on have taken a bigger toll on our health than most of us will readily admit.?An investment in a comprehensive health-check will generate high returns as you plan and prepare for the professional rebound.?Spare no expense and run through the alphabet of specialists and therapists that you have ignored or deferred at your own peril for too long: cardiologist, dentist, dermatologist, the nutritionist to recalibrate quantity / quality / variety / sequence of caloric intake, posturologist, urologist.

DISCUSSION: What are your health priorities?

Adrenaline

If we have climbed the ladder to the C-suite, a competitive flame burns inside that will be seeking new outlets. Go for a swim in the pool / lake / ocean, clip on your cycling shoes and explore new routes (komoot recommendations!), lace up a pair of running shoes (I am very pleased with my HOKA #FlyHumanFly ). Combine them and you get a triathlon, once a sport for over-achievers today a popular event drawing record numbers of participants. Signing up for competition motivates me to train; finishing and improving is the objective, winning is not even a remote possibility. Over the past few months, I amassed coveted finisher T-shirts for the Deauville Triathlon Olympic Distance, the Paris Triathlon Olympic Distance, and the Paris 10k, Paris-Versailles 16k run and Paris 20k road races.

DISCUSSION: What gets your adrenaline pumping?

Change Curve (Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, 1969)

Originally written to address the grief of death but since applied widely, navigating all stations of the Change Curve is essential to maintaining or regaining mental fitness.?The curve begins at shock, leading successively through denial, frustration, depression and then via experiment / decision / integration to conclude the process of acceptance.?Be hard on yourself, analysing critically what went wrong and - most importantly - drawing applicable lessons from the painful recent experience for your future assignments.?At the same time be kind to yourself, recognising the meaningful and lasting impact you have made on people, products, processes during your tenure in any organisation.

DISCUSSION: What are your lessons learned? What are your proud accomplishments and fond memories?

Being a slow reader for any form of literature that is not work-related, an abundance of time creates the perfect conditions to tackle that pile of unread books purchased with the best of intentions after I read an amazing review or received a hearty recommendation from a friend. I have enjoyed and finished a handful:

• Sinclair Lewis’s 1935 reality-inspired political fiction “It Can’t Happen Here”
• Joshua Cohen’s 2022 fictional historical novel “The Netanyahus” set in an elite upstate New York university campus
• Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov’s “Grey Bees,” about a lonely bee keeper, Sergeyich, in the grey zone between Ukraine and separatists in the Donbas region following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.
• Lionel Shriver’s novel “The Motion of the Body Through Space,” a humorous commentary and thoughtful reflection on getting old through the lens of endurance sports
• Mark Twain’s short “The diaries of Adam and Eve” applies his biting satire to the eternal battle of the sexes, one could say a very early version of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” but strictly observation without any attempt at advice.
• Kyrgyz novelist Chingiz Aitmatov’s first work, “Jamila” published in 1958 and set in the Second World War tells the love story of an irrepressible spirit in the setting of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Recommended reading by our guide during summer holidays in Kyrgyzstan.

DISCUSSION: What is on your reading list?

Your Stuff

One of George Carlin’s funniest comedy routine’s was “A place for your stuff” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8xyKInZZWA .?I have read and highly recommend for personal and professional use Karen Kingston’s “Clear your clutter with Feng Shui” and Marie Kondo’s “The life-changing magic of tidying up.”?Lessening the physical clutter and cumulation in the house, in the basement, in the attic, in the bookshelves has had absolutely therapeutic (at times by catharsis) benefits for my family and for me.?Re-discovering and sharing those items that “spark joy” (one of Marie Kondo’s essential criteria for choosing the things to retain).?Processing, organizing, filing the necessary and - best of all - weeding out, shredding and recycling the unnecessary.

3) Financial security

Update and enhance your CV

Update the photo in the LinkedIn profile (grey hair is our new reality, own it!).?Move beyond the chronological documentation of organisational titles to highlight the unique bundle of competences that define you our respective selling proposition. Quantify and sharpen the accomplishments. Devote time and find the words to describe the true differentiators that cannot be boiled down to crunchy numbers: emotional intelligence, corporate culture, leadership style. Leverage the setbacks along the way and the lessons that can only be learned with decades of experience.

Create a personal website.

Now is the best time to buy your suitably named internet domain. The website will bring your CV to life, a place to which you can refer people seeking your advice or considering you for board seat, or just seeking to start a conversation.? Wix and others offer a quick and inexpensive way to get started.?Wix has a marketplace where professionals offer their web creation, web hosting, logo creation, and similar services. I am pleased to be working Witt www.agencecloseup.fr ?

Interim is the new permanent

Weigh the advantages of interim management versus long-term roles.?I am advised that the spectrum of interim assignments today covers far more than just companies in distress and often involves leadership capacity and competence enrichment to tackle the host company’s strategic initiatives, whether new product launch, new market entry, operational excellence, etc. Taking an interim management assignment or selling any consulting services will also require setting up a legal entity of a suitable format, for which you will need to consult a local lawyer to weight the pros and cons of the different forms with respect to taxation, cost of creation and operation, flexibility.

Estate Plan

It is never too soon to begin to tackle estate planning, even if the very thought of drafting a “final will and testament” reminds us so brutally of our inevitable mortality.?An international career will often mean assets and liabilities distributed across multiple jurisdictions and the corresponding need to prepare multi-jurisdiction estate planning.?

4) Staying young at heart and 5) Acts of kindness

Having “been there and done that,” our amassed experience is a valuable treasure that can be generously shared with younger generations through mentoring without diminishing that treasure.

DISCUSSION: What will be your contribution to transmitting knowledge to the next generation of leaders?

REFERENCES

https://www.spencerstuart.com/-/media/pdf%20files/research%20and%20insight%20pdfs/now-youre-in-charge-the-first-100-days_01apr2004.pdf

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nancyanderson/2014/06/19/retirement-make-the-best-of-your-first-100-days/?sh=182255571f00

https://www.cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/