Losing a Senior Person — Transcript
[00:00:00.01] Ken: We went through several periods where we lost some fairly senior people in the organization, either business partners or, in one case, we’d actually hired a gentleman to be our, as we were trying to, Jim, you and I were trying to step back, we hired a gentleman to be our chief executive officer. That didn’t work out for a lot of reasons, but, which is probably the topic of another podcast, but I just want to talk a little about the impact of losing a senior individual. From my perspective, a lot of things happen, and these are not necessarily. necessarily good or bad, but there’s a cultural shift when a major, I’m thinking of some of our senior partners who left either through retirement or decided they wanted to do something else. There was a major cultural shift in the organization. For you and I, this worked pretty well because we’ve always been… you and I have been very culturally aligned, and for the most part, our partners were too. But there were some exceptions where they were just thought very differently and were probably more bottom line oriented and focused more on profitability than you or I ever did. So in some cases, having a senior person leave actually worked in our favor simply because the cultural culture became more homogenous and a little more as you and I thought rather than kind of diverse. I think there’s another huge impact was the the redistribution of work carried by a partner. You know, we had some partners who were great salesmen and the loss of them was felt financially in the short term, at least in the short term. We had some partners who were probably better administratively than you and I ever would have been. We certainly had partners in my mind better with human resources than you and I were. We had some that were worse too. But often when a senior person left the organization, to me it meant, “Oh my God, how do we get this work done? We’re already so busy.” And in some ways it was good because I think it forced me particularly, and I don’t know about you, but it forced me to look at outsourcing alternatives for things that were probably better done by somebody else, administrative assistants or something like that. But in some cases, it did create more work for us when a senior person left. I think there was probably a big – that – I should – I want to just step back for just a second. second. Again, that included things like originally we did all our human resource work, all our accounting work, all our administrative work in-house, and we began to distribute that as we lost partners and went down from a number smaller, and we shrunk as a firm for a while, but in some ways it was better for us. My list about losing a senior person was simply the psychological impact we had to deal with within the organization, and the question always came up, “Oh my God, are we going downhill? What’s going to happen? Why is this leader quitting?” There was an exception. The CEO you and I hired, I don’t think anybody cared one way or the other about. that was our mistake, just a bad hire and just a bad fit within the organization. But not a bad guy, just, and a smart guy, but just it wasn’t the right fit. But, you know, my sort of advice there is get in front of it as soon as possible. Because there was a lot of impact. impact to the organization, even when somebody who wasn’t probably a major influencer in the organization left, there was some question about the viability of the company, particularly when we were small, the, you know, everybody wanted to know the answer to what’s the impact and, you know, well, this person was our human resource person, who’s going to do that? now. So they wanted, particularly staff, wanted answers to questions that we may not have had originally and clearly advice there is get in front of it as soon as possible. You often don’t know when a senior person is going to leave unless that person is pretty straightforward with you and gives you more than two weeks notice, and we did have that too where some people were said, you know, This just isn’t for me or I want to pursue something different. I’m going to give you a two months notice to deal with it. So what do you think about the loss of senior people in our organization? And I should say, this isn’t just partners and managers. It was also staff. We’d have some staff leave who were pretty senior in the eyes of. their peers, experts in certain areas and things like that.
[00:05:18.97] Jim: - Yeah, no, that’s a good point, and I’ll pick up from there. I think everybody that joined us and left, it’s easy to dismiss it once they’ve left, but they did leave their mark. so to speak, and certainly had contributed over the years to who we were as a firm, but there really was no one critical person. I mean, but look at us, the firm has grown remarkably since the two of us left at what? six years ago, seven almost or six, and I want to go a little bit different direction though, and that is we, I can think of four senior people who joined us and my belief, and I could be mistaken, but my belief on thinking through it is that all. Four of them viewed their stop at our company as temporary, and the two that come to mind who didn’t disclose that to us, two of them didn’t disclose it at all, and I’m convinced they knew it. when they came in, and two senior people that did know that it was temporary, they were at the, they weren’t in a partner role, they were in a, they were at the top of their game as consultants and who had told us beforehand, I’ve got this block of time, I would love to keep consulting. I’ll come in and do this, this, and this for you, and then I’m out. Those people, it was a joy to have them, and they did a great job, and the two I’m thinking of who didn’t disclose it to us, one is, I believe, who we brought in to lead the company, and I think he had shorter term expectations. than we did, and it just didn’t work out, and I think that’s why the staff didn’t particularly miss him when he left, and then the other one was somebody who I sort of missed on his way in, that he was very enamored of working for what was probably the most prestigious consulting firm in the country at the time, and that was his goal was to work for them, and I honestly don’t know why he came to work for us because we were nothing like that very prestigious firm. We were more get your hands dirty and do the work firm. rather than just a planning on things and building up a name as a, you know, you know the difference. Yeah, so that strikes me, you know, that they, if they would have just said, you know what, I’ve got this amount of time, let’s see if there’s a fit, I wouldn’t have, you know, sort of thing. feelings I have about them now. Jumping in and then jumping out almost immediately.
[00:08:43.65] Ken: Yeah, it strikes me that was a naivete on you and my part, and I think the world has changed a little bit. When I went to work for a firm, it was generally anticipated you’d stay for a long time. I was an odd duck for having left before I finished my partnership. You know, before I became a partner in the firm and stuff like that. People did not job hop back in the day and I was doubly an odd duck for going into business on my own. But, to shift, and people came in with the idea they’d gain some skills and maybe take it to the next level, either for financial reasons or prestige reasons. Do you know what happened to the individual who went to the more prestigious “firm”?
[00:09:41.69] Jim: You know, I don’t. I don’t know if he actually did achieve that, because I kind of lost track of him. This is somebody that you would likely know better than me. If I’m not mistaken, he was in somewhere in the Seattle-Portland corridor. Yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about. Yeah, you’d work. with him for years, a very bright guy, but just seemed to be a little bit defensive about working for a small firm, and maybe it was an age gap. There was some age difference between him and some of our younger, brighter consultants. know. I just, I’ll have to admit I didn’t know him well enough and he wasn’t here long enough to say.
[00:10:37.40] Ken: So of these people, I don’t think there was a huge impact to the organization. How about some of the people, do you have any thoughts about the people who left who maybe had more of a influence, good or bad, on the organization? I’ve got a man and a woman in mind, but
[00:10:59.79] Jim: What are your thoughts about the bigger impact departures? So me too, on the man and woman in mind, but I don’t know if they’re the same. So the two that I mentioned who disclosed it before joining us, brought some unique skills one joined us he was on a rotation either within Microsoft or had rotated out of Microsoft it was just a brilliant guy I would even say that he wasn’t exactly a consultant but his uh knowledge fit what we were doing at the time and and the projects uh that I had a chance to work with him on he he just added immensely because he came at it from a different viewpoint. Um uh can’t even remember his name but I’m sure you’ll you’ll know who I’m talking about and then The other one that joined us briefly who was on a rotation between jobs was somebody who I had worked with for eight years and was in all ways at the top of her game and had lots of connections in the Seattle area having lived there for a long time and she had joined us on a project I think for Washington State and just did fantastic work and mentored several people who were less experienced consultants.
[00:12:40.77] Ken: - What was the impact on staff when she left?
[00:12:43.44] Jim: - You know, I don’t think it was. I don’t think it was bad because I think she was open about being there for a short period. Some people knew it, so there was not the reflection of, “Huh, that person’s good. Why are they leaving a good company? Is the company not good?” You know, that’s what you worry about if staff will kind of have that impression.
[00:13:07.73] Ken: we could have done better either in identifying staff who, I’m not saying we wouldn’t have hired them, but either in identifying staff who were gonna be temporary or in mitigating the impact of staff departure.
[00:13:30.26] Jim: - I don’t have any real insight to that. I almost feel like I was too close to it. I mean, right, I was part, I could have been part of the problem or I could have been part of the good, so it’s.
[00:13:47.74] Ken: - Yeah, kind of my only takeaway here in my summary would simply be, The world is different than I kind of grew up with, and I would anticipate at some point staff will leave, and just be sure your organization is prepared to handle the impact of that, be it the psychological impact, the cultural shift or whatever. distribution of work or whatever, but also just accept it as a fact. I think it was a little bit my naivety that I assume people would join our organization, love it and never leave unless we asked them to leave.
[00:14:29.55] Jim: Yeah, absolutely. because I could think of– at least three or four people right off the top of my head who left, and I was a bit discouraged and disappointed that they had left, but I had found out later, just through people who knew, that those people who who did an excellent job for us, had left for very personal reasons, and it would be wrong to expect them to share that with us as their employer.
[00:15:12.12] Ken: I mean, they were things, you know. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[00:15:15.82] Jim: - Health or family, you know, whatever. So, yeah, you’re right. I was naive that way. way too. I just thought, you know, if somebody’s here today and committed and doing great work,
[00:15:29.75] Ken: Well then that’s going to continue forever. Right. Right. Yeah, and some of it was, you know, the old trope, well, we’re a family and, you know, we all, but that’s not true. We were a business and no matter what allegiance is. you held to our business, even you and I, which probably had to have the highest allegiance, you know, I could foresee reasons that I would have left that had nothing to do with, you know, the people around me or the business or things like that, and that does happen. But again, just assume, you know, nobody’s going to be there permanently. you’re not family, and it is what it is. I should mention one other thing. We did lose a fairly senior individual who passed away on us, and darn him, I still blame him for that.
[00:16:22.30] Jim: - Yeah, I do too.
[00:16:25.89] Ken: - But that was kind of the same thing. There was a cultural shift, you know, a redistricting. distribution of his workload and huge psychological and cultural impact because he was in many ways the heart of a very rationalist approach to our work, you know, kind of numbers based and things like that, and that was a hard recovery, but we did, but it was still, you just got to anticipate
[00:16:52.82] Jim: Yeah, and just to add to the accolades, he definitely left a mark on our company. I mean, so much of what we stood for and sort of rested our conclusions on were a direct result of this.
[00:17:12.42] Ken: Well, and you and I purposely, when he did pass away, UNI purposely tried to keep that going, both by hiring, nobody was quite like him, but by hiring individuals who kind of fell in his shadow, and by UNI kind of reinforcing the work he had done as best UNI could. Again, neither of us were in his league with what he did. but all right.