William Treseder

Founders are leaders. Leaders don’t get a pass. Any lapse in behavior or judgment WILL impact the company. This has been a bitter pill for me to swallow. I desperately want to take back some of my failures that ended up sending the wrong signals to employees. I saw how my negative behavior was replicated and normalized. These painful lessons force to hold myself to a much higher standard.

We have a “BMNT Bushido” document. New employees read through it on their own, then discuss it with a senior leader at the company and then again discuss it with their manager. This brings the mission alive to each person. They have to grapple with the mission from multiple perspectives and think through what that mission looks like to them. We’re still working on how to make it a living document. That is the last step to ensure everyone feels a sense of ownership.

Core values are what we do even when we are punished (i.e. the business risks money) for doing so. Every time we choose to live up to our core values, we should celebrate it. Gather as a group, tell the story, and write it down. We then get together (for off sites, etc) to tell those stories. They become the essence of who we are, guiding new employees as they ramp up. When he knew he was dying, Steve Jobs set up Apple University. He worked with a business school professor to tell the seven stories that defined Apple and its core values.

Think about why you want to change mid career. What is not working? Write it down somewhere. If you feel better simply by capturing it, then don't change anything. You're not doing anything wrong. You're just suffering some kind of low level midlife crisis! If, after writing down your concerns, they don't go away then that's a problem. Now you can shift to thinking about what sort of life you want to have in 10 years. How old will you be? Your kids? Where will you live? How will you spend your time? Drill down to specifics. Then start to plan backwards to specific changes you can make now.

Listen to niche podcasts. The sweet spot is an industry specific interview style podcast that is under an hour. You can listen at 1.25X or 1.5X speed, covering a lot of perspectives very quickly. Any time you hear someone who jumps out to you as wise or thoughtful, immediately reach out to them. If you can't get their contact info at the end of the podcast, go to their LinkedIn profile. If that doesn't work, Google search them. When you reach out (via LinkedIn, of course) you should reference the podcast you heard. Flatter them with comments about specific things they said. Then schedule a 30 min call to go over specific questions. That level of preparation is rare. It will set you apart and craft the mentor/mentee bond.

I have one tactic here that works very well. Don't reach out and ask to reconnect. That's too transparent and offers nothing to the other person. What should you do instead? Write them a LinkedIn Recommendation. Be honest and specific and thorough. They'll receive a notification once you submit the recommendation. You two will naturally reconnect after that.