Also posted on LinkedIn if you’d like to get in touch or comment
I have recently made the hardest decision of my career. On March 1st, I resigned from a job that I love, at a company that I’ve helped to build for the last eighteen years.
Building up to that nearly impossible decision has given me many hours to consider what the right time to leave a job is. In the past I have considered leaving for other reasons – being tempted away by something new and shiny, or through the growing pains of most young businesses where the team were unhappy and discontent. But, new and shiny is often an illusion, and the dark times were when the team needed leadership the most. I stayed then because things weren’t so good. Now, logically, when things are exciting and positive it’s the right time to leave.
Believe it or not, I consider what I do to be very nearly the perfect job. At Reed, we encourage our staff and the rest of the world to Love Mondays, but I have genuinely loved every day of the week, for the last wonderful, tumultuous, energetic eighteen years.
Not only have we created Europe’s largest recruitment brand (or so the marketing team tell me), but we have helped hundreds of thousands of people find work. We have helped tens of thousands of managers find their perfect new hire. I’ve scaled a business from five people to 350, learned to code, design, architect, administer servers, outsource, procure, scale teams and, hopefully to serve and lead well.
In recent years, we’ve been at the forefront of innovation with technology, pushing every last business system into the cloud and creating a truly mobile workforce years before most other businesses. We’ve created a world class product team, a group of amazing data scientists, our own innovation lab, several start ups and a brand that is renowned for its trustworthiness.
I’ve been honoured with both awards and recognition in technology leader lists, but the real work was done by an incredible team, and enabled by a supportive and forward thinking board – all I had to do was put on a suit and accept the award in their name. I’m exceptionally lucky that I’ve been given the rich, fertile environment to succeed and to work for people who, frankly, put up with my outspoken nonsense.
So, given that it’s that perfect, why would I ever move? Primarily, because I’m inquisitive, curious and need to keep learning. I think, honestly, I needed to bring a little fear back into my life, because it’s only by pushing past our boundaries, by free-falling a little bit, that we exceed our own limits. I want to leave while the company is in a good place, and before I become surplus to requirements.
The situation that I find myself in now is enjoying the free-fall and the sense that the future is no longer written. At some point I’ll need to check to see if I actually bothered to wriggle into the parachute; with no job to go to, I’m acutely aware that the ground is starting to appear a lot closer.
I’ve had it pointed out to me recently that I often used to tell people that I’d only work for Reed, myself or Google. I’m pretty sure that I’d not get past a Google interview, but I’m now also less certain that it would be the right environment for me. Right now the challenge is to take a risk, do a lot of learning and find a job that at least matches reed.co.uk for excitement and opportunity. It’s a big ask.
There has to be a reason to post this, of course. As my last act of service to Reed I want to find a replacement who can do a better job than I have, who is worthy of the team that I’m leaving behind and that I’m so very proud of. If you think that might be you, or you think you know someone that can lead, innovate, excite, inspire and care for a team of designers, developers, data scientists and analysts, please do get in touch. I’ll buy you a coffee and we can chat.
Finally though, I wanted to publicly thank my incredible team, the board of Reed Online, and particularly our MD, Martin Warnes and Chairman, James Reed, without whom I’d never have had the opportunity to misbehave.
Thank you all.