The Temporary Return to Keep the Lights On

I’m forever grateful for the opportunity I had to maintain the part-time position with that small company through 2018 and 2019. The 15-20 hours I spent with them each week helped build systems many smaller businesses never establish, but it also provided us with a bit of stability while we built momentum in our business. That momentum quickly became something neither of us ever really expected - or imagined.

When I filed the initial paperwork to establish the business, I pictured providing some light support to a handful of small, local companies; companies that likely wouldn’t have access to much of what I experienced over twenty years in a large, global manufacturing organization. I never pictured the interaction we were beginning to have with other large, global organizations. All I had ever seen during my two decades inside that world was top-down initiatives through something called “global supply chain” contracts, which typically meant someone at the corporate office had a friend on the company they picked for a service, then forced those of us at the facility level to work with. Since our business was just us, and we didn’t have those high level corporate relationships, the thought of playing in that space never crossed my mind - until it happened.

Turns out, relationships matter! And so did our boots-on-the-ground experience when it came to connecting with the frontline supervisors and managers we delivered training for. We weren't reading from a script or regurgitating something we had read in a book, everything we built into the lessons we shared was based on experience either or both of us had lived. That opened doors we never expected to even knock on.

On March 10, 2020, we delivered the first of what was scheduled to be four on-site sessions for a large manufacturing organization, which was coincidentally just a few miles away from where we hosted that second event in the fall of 2017. Immediately after that session, we drove to Alexandria, VA to meet with Carly Fiorina and her team about work we agreed to do with them in supporting the Wounded Warrior Project in California a few months later, then we closed the day in a meeting with gentleman who owned a large construction company just outside Washington DC. 

As excited as all that way, there was a bit of uneasiness in the air. I remember shaking hands with Carly like it was yesterday, but it wasn’t really a handshake. That was the same day the media announced what we now know as COVID 19. We joked about being unsure as to whether we could still shake hands, if a fist bump would be more appropriate, or whether we should opt for just tapping our shoes toe to toe. That interaction with her was in jest, but the days, weeks, and months that followed were anything but a joking matter. A packed schedule with more opportunities lining up by the week was all put on hold within the next few days. “Two weeks to flatten the curve,” they said… 

Leading into March, I had started working through plans with the small business I had been supporting to hand off much of what I had been doing. We built a plan to ensure others on their team could maintain the systems I had developed, and identified the end of May as being when I would step away from the 15 or so hours I was with them each week. Let me be clear: I haven’t been willing to watch a news outlet of any kind for decades; they’re paid to sell advertising and don’t give two shits about you or me. I wasn’t willing to allow all the noise they were creating to interfere with the momentum we had built in our business, and I stuck with the plans we had put in place.

During that same time, I had also chosen to decline other clients looking for safety and human resources support. I was very effective in that work, but I found no fulfillment in most of it - with the exception of helping a few companies that I worked closely with on what had become the clear purpose driving our business: developing their leaders. Sometimes making the best of a bad situation requires a short-term step that feels like retreat; doing more than paid for in the temporary role while protecting the long-term vision builds both cash flow and character. We’ll look at what that required me to do next. Before that, I’ll challenge you to think of a time where you had to accept a temporary or “lesser” role to stabilize. What blind spot in pride or long-term vision did that expose?