I feel like I’m at a bit of a cross-roads.

For now, I’ll ignore the personal side of my random confusion, and focus on my professional dilemma. Peeling the onion one layer at a time 🙂

After (it seems like) too many years of working within advisory / professional services across both M&A and consulting, ~2 years ago I went “in-house” and worked for a corporate that I have a strong affinity for, having been a long-time customer of this company.

In many ways, initially it feels like I lucked out: i) I was working on interesting, high profile projects for “my company”, iii) with two of the best bosses I’d ever worked for (two in a row… one had left ~3 months after I joined, I got an informal ‘mini-promotion’ and reported directly into his boss), iii) I had fun working with some of the folks who joined roughly the same time I did – we formed a rough “peer group”, they were smart, and we had reasonable chemistry, iv) things looked hopeful – the team was on an upwards trajectory, and my boss, who was and is big sponsor, wanted to get me – and my 2 peers – formally promoted on merit at the end of last year, ~1 year after we joined the firm.

This was when things started to go pear-shaped very, very quickly. The firm was due a restructuring anyway, the way many big corporates restructure periodically I suppose. So there was a promotion freeze end of 2019, partially also because 4-5 layers above me, a new COO was hired in, and therefore he wanted to review his entire org, and didn’t want to make any hasty promotion decisions, while the outgoing COO didn’t want to promote anyone before he left either.

And then COVID-19 struck. An already unstable company became even more chaotic. An announced restructuring, which in a normal org should result in some form of clarity (size & shape of org, roles & responsibilities), within a quarter (a surely!!), has dragged on and on and on…

In the last 10 months though, the following happened:
i) AS moved into a different, smaller, division within the Business Unit she was working for; her replacement was someone we hadn’t worked with before,
ii) JB didn’t get the job, that he had been loosely earmarked / applying for since Feb / Mar this year – and this was the best bet for us, because we would be starting a new and exciting chapter of the journey – instead the COO decided to hire in someone else, who only landed earlier this month,
iii) multiple announcements of upcoming org and business unit changes / vacancies were announced, with some commitments that the appointments will be announced in “weeks not months” (we’re still waiting, ~20 weeks, a.k.a. 5 months later…),
iv) external announcement of big headline cost and headcount cuts have been made, nonetheless, with every team’s boss saying: “not our team”, with frequently conflicting updates on promotions / pay from week to week, and between bosses and HR folks. And perhaps best of all, for me personally… given my org rolls up into the COO – the COO, when asked about redundancies, said that annual “natural attrition”would get us to a large percentage of the headcount cuts (when natural attrition often means, in practice, that the most well-equipped and qualified folks, would find it the easiest to get jobs externally in a down market!),
v) the CEO of the Business Unit we are closest to, and the boss and sponsors of AS and JB, had also since left the company (!), and…
vi) my boss has also found a new role, and is also leaving the company.
(And I have also been feeling a bit bored / unchallenged at work…)

The good thing is, in many ways, I am in a relatively good position, despite the giant mess the company is in:
i) I got the best possible performance rating within my broader team, my boss’s boss, who “loves” me (according to my boss) has indicated to me that I have a good chance of getting my boss’s role once they advertise the role, likely in Q2 next year (a few wrinkles being: 1) there is another person who technically outranks me within the team, 2) my boss’s role and implicit promotion / pay rise isn’t demised as part of general cost cutting, 3) this assumes my boss’s boss keeps his job and our broader team’s reorg doesn’t affect him and our team, 4) I have heard from some sources that my boss’s boss can be a bit unreliable and sometimes doesn’t deliver on promises. Although I have also heard otherwise),
ii) Our team has a great reputation, and the Business Unit we work for is out to poach folks from our team… my boss has introduced me to RG, the main poacher-in-chief of the moment, and had already introduced me to TT (AS replacement) in July this year, when he was hiring – I had wanted to meet him to create optionality in case I needed an escape route if / when my boss leaves the company (as he now has), and he had loosely invited me to apply for his vacancy which I then politely declined to apply for (a few wrinkles being: 1) I have heard RG is completely chaotic and a nightmare to work for, and likely to exit the org within 6-12 months max, 2) TT was a strong right hand and “fixer”of Business Unit CEO who has since left the company, so he may be in a precarious position, although he is also a veteran of the company and might already know his new boss, 3) the new Business Unit CEO has a reputation for being a slash & burner, and the entire business unit org under him may be at serious risk of deep cuts),
iii) I have an exit route to another sub-division that I’ve been working closely with this year, with the CEO of that division (because he also “loves” me, but I might have accidentally offended him – oops), albeit at a flat grade (no promotion), because the division is technically a bit specialised, although I disagree (!),
iv) my boss has opened the door to working in the new area that JB had wanted to head up, with the new external hire that has just landed, by introducing me the existing folks within that space (who will be trying to impress their new boss and keep their jobs), and trying to set up a meet with the new external hire, a direct report of the COO… (let’s see if she agrees to meet me, and the problem is, she is currently in the process of establishing her remit, and will like take until Q3 to decide her org, and meanwhile the clock is a-ticking…),
v) my boss has also introduced me to some headhunters with roles which might fit me, and his network where they are looking to hire. Things are promising with one company I’m interviewing with… I am pending a final interview. And the situation with another guy, looks fluid and unlikely to become real imminently, and finally…
vi) my boss has also said he would be more than happy to hire me to work directly for him, or to make introductions to the broader leadership at his new company for “the right role” for me. Initially, the timing we discussed was for him to land at his company officially and then potentially find a place for me, but I think because he is shaping up his team and needs to make decisions quickly, he is keen to get my thoughts sooner rather than later.

He has said he will try to arrange things so that I have all options open to me, whatever I decide to do, and he has more than kept his end of the bargain. He has done an incredible job of clearing every possible path that he has access to internally at our current company (my current team and beyond) should I choose to stay, introduce me to external options, given me good career advice, and opened the door to me at his new company.

He says I need to think 2-3 jobs ahead to what I want to do, and think about what I need to get there. That I probably need to pick 1 thing to do for the next 10 years. And I need to be very clear about what my perfect role is, what money I will move for, what the trade-offs are.

Have a vision, work backwards, commit then get in the dog fight, scrap around, and move forward… knowing that no move will be perfect, and each have its own benefits, and will incrementally take you towards your vision

This is good advice. Now I just need to decide what I want to do, how much I want it, and what I need to get there. I know he will create space for me in his new org if he can, if I want to.

Problem is… I don’t really know what I want to do. Ideally I would like to do something that I find personally meaningful, intellectually interesting and challenging, which I can be good at, with people I generally like and respect, which also pays well. The specifics matter less to me… which is probably not very helpful.

In many ways, that is why I had so much hopes when I accepted the job that “my company”. I had chosen it over other job offers because I was a customer of the company, and therefore working for it would give me a sense of personal purpose. And when I liked my boss and immediate colleagues, it was a major win. And in my wildest of day dreams, I would like to be able to be the boss of this company one day in the distant future…. even though I never seriously thought it was a realistic.

What I’m gutted about is that:
i) my boss is leaving, and potentially my immediate colleagues as well; and I don’t really rate or like the broader team, unless I have the opportunity to reshape it,
ii) I am seriously disappointed with “my company”. Despite my natural and stubbornly persistent optimism, I think the lack of decisiveness and organisational paralysis (someone commented that people underestimate the firm’s ability to “outslow everyone”) is an indicator of cultural rot. The Boy commented that the firm seems almost Byzantine in its structure and probably is due for a decline like the Byzantine empire. I sometimes liken it to Titanic. While part of me is still hopeful – and the senior leaders talk a lot about resilience – I also don’t have endless wells of patience, and don’t want to risk getting culled as part of random senior leadership changes resulting from the Game of Thrones. I have already spent most of 2020 fighting the fight as a group (jointly hedging ourselves), while holding my breath. I don;t feel like going through a few more months or years (a natural extension of “weeks not months”) while the firm’s senior leadership continue navel gazing, while mouthing meaningless platitudes to the rest of the troops.

I’m confused because I don’t know if I should give up on the firm now… or should I wait? Indicator since I joined have been promising, with a number of senior external hires to bring fresh ideas, and new momentum to shake up the org. Nonetheless, there have been many negative indicators too. Unwillingness to make difficult decisions, including decisive moves to simplify org, reward outperformance and prune underperformers. And if I have a path out now, I guess I should take it? And maybe return in future when I can, if the org changes? Or should aim to be part of the change? Part of me thinks working from within is futile because I am so nested within the org. And Game of Thrones feels pretty random and irrational. On the other hand, we can sometimes have surprisingly outsized influence given we are part of such a large org. The issue is that there is so much internal politicking that it feels exhausting – it feels like more effort is spent fighting the internal machine than delivering meaningful outcomes. It feels like the UN, or politics (UK Tories or Trump Republican)…. and I don’t know if I want to bother… I think there is politics everywhere. But I think the ratio of politics to delivery is just too skewed in the firm. Although some people have said there is politics everywhere, even in small firms, and others have told me this level of churn and randomness is par for the course in most big corporates… (which, if true, is pretty depressing).

Anyway, I need to take this time over the Christmas break to reflect, be ready to review all options, make a decision soon. Because while my boss and 2 peers have implicitly given me the “right of first refusal” apply for my boss’s vacant role vs. joining him at his new firm vs. other options, they will probably expect me to take a decision soon, instead of occupying all the space. Because they will need to stake their corners and start fighting again too.

Decisions, decisions, decisions…