It started when I was 49.
After I had been both an internal and external consultant for 18 years, I was asked to run the trade association for the consulting industry as its CEO. This was a unique opportunity to be a focal point for the approx. $300+ billion industry I had been part of.
The association only had 6 weeks left of cash reserves to keep the lights on. Within two years we had cash reserves equal to 50% of the annual budget and ran close to 50 programs a year compared to about 15 under my predecessor with three times as many members.
Feeling good about everything I had accomplished, I began thinking about leaving and pursuing other professional interests until something happened…
The association’s annual meeting was always held in early December and the stress and tension within the team leading up to my third one was tremendous.
About 10 days before the event my second-in-command asked me if her assistant could take time off to visit her grandfather who had just been admitted into hospice care. I said I’d think about how best to solve this timing problem over the weekend.
I came in on Monday morning with a solution. The only other person in the office was the assistant, so I took the opportunity to tell her what I had come up with. I had barely opened my mouth when she started accusing me of being a terrible boss for not allowing her to go see her grandfather.
The more I tried to explain that was not the case at all, the more upset she got. I was getting angrier by the second and started yelling. In tears, she handed in her resignation.
And then I did one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done: I told her she couldn’t resign because I was firing her!
She sued me and the Board. They didn’t fire me, but I was given a stern lecture and the whole team was put on remedial training to decrease the tensions in the office.
But that event was nothing compared to what happened a year later at the association’s annual meeting the next year.
The meeting was going well…until the member awards ceremony in the afternoon.
Our presenter was very funny and kept our audience laughing. But he suddenly went off track and inadvertently started insulting many of the large corporate clients who had come as guests of our members.
When it ended, I stepped off the podium prepared to do damage control when a senior partner at a large consulting company confronted me, saying I was not fit to be CEO and I was an embarrassment to the profession. Another partner, a member of the Board, chimed in.
I was instantly triggered and flew into a rage. All I could think of was I should have listened to my instincts a year earlier and resigned.
And then I told them to go f**k themselves.
I walked over to the Chairman of the Board and announced I was resigning. I turned around, grabbed my coat, stormed out of the room, and went home.
So ended a corporate career of 23 years.
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