How a client who took his life changed my career for the better and worse.

A call unlike any I'd ever experienced

It's not every day that you have a client die by suicide. I still remember the call that was the start of the downward spiral. By the end of the chaos, I changed the entire direction of my career.

The weekend

I had just rolled off of a big consulting engagement. Before I left for Michigan to see my parents for the weekend, I'd gotten an email from the Managing Director (MD) on my next engagement. It was a crisis situation, with the company hemorrhaging cash and in such distress that the bank had brought in the workout group. The MD had been appointed Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO) and had been in that role for months on a somewhat part-time basis.

What's a Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO)?

A CRO is a senior-level executive brought into a company, typically during times of financial distress or significant organizational change. The primary role of a CRO is to lead the restructuring efforts of a company, aiming to restore financial stability, improve operational efficiency, and enhance overall performance.

Why bring us in?

The owner of the business, a highly respected and loved man in his 70s, was known throughout the community. On his office wall were pictures of him with celebrities and high-profile business people. Everyone who did business with the company knew him. But he was increasingly at odds with his son over the future of the business. The relationship was so tenuous that we'd been brought in to help navigate forward.

My MD was at the helm, given the distress and the lack of trust between the bank and the company. The company had tripped a debt covenant ...

What's a debt covenant?

A debt covenant is a provision in a loan agreement or credit contract that imposes certain conditions on the borrower. In layman's terms ... they're rules a borrower has to follow. These conditions are designed to protect the lender (aka the bank) by ensuring that the borrower (aka the company) maintains a certain level of financial health and operates within predefined parameters.

Debt covenants can be affirmative ("you must do this" or else...) or negative ("you are prohibited from doing this" or else...).

If a company is in really bad shape like this one was, and when it breaches a debt covenant, it signals to the lender that the borrower's financial health or operational stability may be at risk. Credit agreements often contain specific clauses that outline the lender's rights and remedies in the event of a covenant breach. One such remedy can be the installation of turnaround advisors.

Thus, there we were.

The first call

On my way to Michigan, my MD had given me the background of the situation. It was dire ... far more dire than most crisis situations and it was going to be all-hands-on-deck. Without alarm, he told me to join him at the client site first thing Monday morning.

The second call

Two days went by in Michigan, and on Sunday evening, I got in my car to head back to Chicago. About 1 hour into the 4.5-hour drive, I see the MD's name on my caller ID. I wait 10 seconds for the Bluetooth to connect but, when it finally does, the line goes dead on the other end. I call him back, it rings once, and goes straight to voicemail. Something's up but I don't know what.

The call unlike any I'd ever experienced

Rather than play phone tag while I was driving, I waited for my MD to call back. Finally he did and I'll never forget the tone in his voice.

Never sugar-coating and always straight to the point, he said, "The old man just killed himself in the parking lot." I don't even remember what I said when he told me that. But I do recall asking him where he was.

"I'm heading to the client right now. Don't come here in the morning. Go straight to the office and wait for me to call you."

"OK."

The next day

I'd just finished 10+ months helping an industrial company navigate through a bankruptcy out of state.

I was exhausted from one fire drill and crisis after another. And now this. I arrived at my downtown office at 7:30 am. I drove, which I never do given that parking is egregiously expensive in the loop. At 9 am, I got the call.

"Get the f*ck down here right now!"

He had just told the whole staff that the founder of the company killed himself in the parking lot the night before. An already terrible situation was getting even worse.

I grabbed my stuff, went to my car, and drove to the client site. When I arrived, the looks on people's faces were images I'll never forget. Sometimes, you don't know what trauma looks like until you see it in person.

What happens when there's no one else to turn to

I'm a financial person. I'm a numbers guy. I'm not a therapist.

In Francis Coppola's The Godfather, Michael Corleone, in his pursuit of his enemies, famously declares, “It's not personal. It's just business.” The line continues to be a mantra for many advisors, who try to overlook the human implications of business interests. Sometimes, we have to have the thickest of skin and even self-numb to help us get past the emotional toll of extremely difficult decisions.

At the same time, I learned how to see people's fears of the unknown for what they were.

The deep loyalty, commitment, and collegiality that people bring to their employment only goes so far when the company is about to blow up. But those feelings and traits matter ... a whole lot ... in the worst of times.

They're the glue that can hold a company together when it's completely falling apart. And despite my role in being 'the numbers guy', I found myself in the role of the therapist ... who happens to know numbers.

For the next few months, despite the firestorm, we kept the wheels turning. Another advisory firm came in, valued the business, and helped it get acquired by a larger company.

The silver lining of it all? The people who kept the company afloat got to keep their jobs. The company survived despite the change of the name and the sad conclusion of the old man's legacy.

What I learned and how it changed my career forever

I'd experienced plenty of chaos and client trauma. And it pains me to share that this was not the last time a client took his life. But this particular engagement was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of my two-decade-long career.

Despite the immense stress and emotional difficulty, it taught me a few important lessons and changed the trajectory of my career and life forever. Sometimes, when we're in the thick of the experience, it's not evident what lessons there are to learn:

1. Business isn't just business -- it is personal. The Michael Corleone quote, as it relates to tough decisions, makes it easy to overlook the personal side of business. But when we overlook the personal side of business, we miss the fact that every number that's in a P&L, balance sheet, and statement of cash flows is the result of non-financial activity. When we drape ourselves in thick skin and zap our compassion through numbness, we ignore that nearly all of that non-financial activity is driven by people.
2. There is no such thing as work-life balance. Work intersects with life and life intersects with work. And despite our best efforts to keep them separate, the positivity and difficulty that we experience in either one can (and most likely will) make its way into the other. I brought that stress home with me every single day. And it emanated from my very presence in every interaction I had with people regardless of whether they were colleagues, friends, or family. Everyone experiences ups and downs in life. But when those downs become pervasive, they can cloud judgement, behavior, and the sense of positivity that is so necessary for our well-being.
3. You don't have to directly experience the trauma in business to be traumatized by its impact. Ironically, I never met the old man before he left this world -- I arrived at his company the day after he was gone. I'd only experienced his influence because of the impact he'd had on his loyal staff and the culture of the company. Culture is a strange thing. It's how people show up and behave as a collective. Companies with great culture share common values and purpose and have exceptional leaders. Companies with terrible cultures lack shared values and purpose, may exist in a fear-based environment, or favor individual contributors over the group. The trauma that these people experienced, as a collective, was real, and it permeated into their personal lives. They wondered if they'd have a job to come back to and weekly compensation to count on. They had kids and aging parents to take care of, and their fears were real and justified. I experienced that trauma indirectly through them, which threw me into a counseling role on top of my advisory role. It's not always something we prepare for.
4. Sometimes, we need trauma to shock us into a new direction. It took me another three months after this experience to take a break from it all. I had nothing else lined up. But I knew I needed some time off because my mind and body were telling me so. For years, I thrived in this environment. The hits of adrenaline and serving as a paramedic for businesses -- it lit me up. And I rationalized that I had a good thing going. I expected to become a Managing Director and Partner in a few years... ...until I realized the emotional and physical toll. And I don't know if I would've felt it so acutely if it wasn't for this gut-wrenching experience. I would never wish trauma upon myself or anyone else. But sometimes trauma can put life into perspective. And it can shock us into action.

It's profound that, despite never meeting the owner of the business, his legacy to me wasn't about the business he built and products he sold -- it was about being more purposeful, building a better career and life.

Until next time,

Carl

How can I help you?

• FP&A Learning: Professional Development Engagements and Individual Online Learning
• FP&A Inner Circle Mastermind: Community, Connection and Content for Financial Professionals
• The Finance Circle Community: Expert network, learning resources, discussion, Q&A, and more.
• Book A Call