I recently resigned from the company I had been employed by for over 5 years. The reason? It was time.<\/p>\n
During my tenure1<\/sup> I had the opportunity to re-define my career several times within the organization in a way that added value and kept life productive, challenging, and rewarding. Each re-definition involved a rather extensive mind mapping<\/a> exercises with hundreds of nodes to described what was working, what wasn’t working, what needed fixing, and where I believed I could add the highest value.<\/p>\n This past spring events prompted another iteration of this process. It began with the question “What wouldn’t happen if I didn’t go to work today?”2<\/sup> This is the flip of asking “What do I do at work?” The latter is a little self-serving. We all want to believe we are adding value and are earning our pay. The answer is highly filtered through biases, justifications, excuses, and rationalizations. But if in the midsts of a meeting you ask yourself, “What would be different if I were not present or otherwise not participating?”, the answer can be a little unsettling.<\/p>\n This time around, in addition to mind mapping skills, I was equipped with the truly inspiring work of Tanmay Vora<\/a> and his sketchnote project<\/a>. Buy me a beer some day and I’ll let you in on a few of my discoveries. Suffice it to say, the overall picture wasn’t good. I was getting the feeling this re-definition cycle was going to include a new employer.<\/p>\n A cascade of follow-on questions flowed from this iteration’s initial question. At the top:<\/p>\n The answers:<\/p>\n Of course, it wasn’t this simple. The organization changed, as did I, in a myriad of ways. While exploring these questions, I was reminded of a story my Aikido teacher, Gaku Homma, would tell when describing his school. He said it was like a rope. In the beginning, it had just a few threads that joined with him to form a simple string. Not very strong. Not very obvious. But very flexible. Over time, more and more students joined his school and wove their practice into Nippon Kan’s<\/a> history. Each new thread subtlety changed the character of the emerging rope. More threads, more strength, and more visibility. Eventually, an equilibrium emerges. Some of those threads stop after a few short weeks of classes, other’s (like mine) are 25 years long before they stop, and for a few their thread ends in a much more significant way<\/a>.<\/p>\n Homma Sensi has achieved something very difficult. The threads that form Nippon Kan’s history are very strong, very obvious, and yet remain very flexible. Even so, there came a time when the right decision\u00a0for me\u00a0was to leave, taking with me a powerful set of skills, many good memories, and friendships. The same was true for my previous employer. Their rope is bending in a way that is misaligned with my purpose and goals. Neither good nor bad. Just different. Better to leave with many friendships intact and a strong sense of having added value to the organization during my tenure.<\/p>\n The world is full of opportunities. And sometimes you have to deliberately and intentionally clear all the collected clutter from your mental workspace so those opportunities have a place to land. Be attentive to moments like this before your career is remembered only as someone who\u00a0yells at clouds<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0tilts at windmills<\/a>.<\/p>\n 1<\/sup> By the numbers…<\/p>\n 1,788 Stand-ups\n
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\n1,441 Wiki\/Knowledgebase Contributions
\n311 Sprint\/Release Planning Sessions
\n279 Reviews
\n189 Retrospectives
\n101 Projects
\n31 Internal Meet-ups
\n22 Agile Caf\u00e9s
\n10 Newsletters
\n5.5 Years
\n3 Distinct Job Titles
\n1 Wild Ride<\/p>\n