How I Changed the Focus of My Life From Business

Are you spending your leadership time on changing things you care about the most? I was not. So I quit a well-paid management job and embarked on a wild adventure. When Pepper asked me to contribute to his newsletter with something I know that other business professionals might want to know, I guess my lessons from this adventure might be it.

But first, let me share with you a story.

I have recently met an old friend of mine, now a partner at a respected global company. He is upset with the political situation in the Czech Republic and wants to move out with his family. At that moment I had a deja vu back 15 years ago, when many Slovak leaders were doing the same thing: leaving my country, running away before corrupted political leaders and mafia, leaving me and millions of families there to deal with all this alone, without their help and experience. What a strange reaction of leaders, I thought.

I didn‘t like the picture of my kids telling me one day -- dad, the situation here is terrible, we are leaving, bye-bye. So I decided to fight the odds of growing corruption and collapsing schools and health-care. But I had no clue how to do it. I just felt that building a new retail bank, improving ROE for the shareholder, selling more credit cards to people and other business engagements I was occupied with are not helping at all. So I quit my career, and set myself to swim into the unknown.

At first I was afraid. Could I  add value outside the world of business? But quickly I realized that exactly the skills I have gained in business are valuable and actually very rare in the non-profit world. Just try it for yourself: are you good at sales and marketing? Great! You would be a successful fundraiser increasing the impact of the organization you consider important. Are you passionate in leading teams and developing people? Join its management and bring its effectiveness to a new level. Do you have entrepreneurial spirit to design and launch new things? Start your own initiative.

Yes, working out of the business world has its drawbacks at; at times you can feel your work is less effective and „sexy“. But having lived in both worlds, I think it is worth it, as the excitement and contentment after improving things you care about the most, will far exceed any over-achieved sales targets, profits, fancy office, or exotic car.

Looking back, I see 3 things, that I would recommend to anyone who want to change job, from business into politics, education or charity. But before we start, let’s make one thing clear. Anyone can do it. You say you don’t have the money? You don’t have the political power? You are not a recognized public figure? None of it matters. I was exactly in this situation years ago. You will build all you need over time. Actually, the only thing I guess matters is the human element leadership – the power within you that will keep you going no matter what difficulties, while building relationships, listening and engaging with other people on your way.

If you are ready to embark on a mission to change what you care about the most, here are 3 lessons from my journey:

1. Unless you are superman, take a sabbatical first

Even if you know what you would like to focus on, usually you would not know how. And if you have a challenging job, it would be mission impossible to find, in-between meetings or weekends, enough time to engage with the people you need to engage, to think over your strategy, or just to wait in silence for inspiration.

I have taken sabbaticals already three times that between were between 3 to 12 months in length. Each sabbatical leave allowed me to lift anchor and sail a little bit out of the harbor, even if I hadn’t yet found a map to a specific destination or had enough fuel –so that I could see over the horizon in order to construct the map and find the fuel.

My hint: Even if you are skeptical, try a sabbatical once, we’ll discuss it afterwards. There is nothing to lose. Even if you do not find an enlightenment, you will definitely enjoy extra time with your family or for your hobbies that you would never regret.

2. Engage with leaders sharing your mission

One person can change the world, but cannot accomplish it alone – says the famous wisdom of an unknown author. And in the world of philanthropy, it is so easy to engage with other people on your projects.

Actually, this is what I appreciated most about philanthropy, having come from business: it is not based on competition but cooperation. You just Google other philanthropist in your topic, mail him/her and say: hey, let’s meet, maybe there are lot of synergies between what we are doing, or there is something we can do jointly. This way I approached two of the most respected philanthropists in Slovakia, and now we cooperate on several initiatives.

And it’s not only about other philanthropists. It works for everyone. I  never ever had access to, or time with some of the most respected leaders from many different fields as I do now. The thing is, that if you are not working for your own interest, or interest of your company, anyone from an advisor to the president to the most successful CEOs or a media star is willing to help you on your mission. people will be ready to join your mission only if you are ready toTo get that support, all you need to do is to forget your ego and share ownership.

My hint: The problem you want to address could be huge. Invite to your mission the best people you can imagine. If you don’t have your idea yet, join someone else’s. (As amusingly illustrated by Derek Sivers in his short TED video – those who join a leader, are often more important in starting a movement then the leader himself).

3. Start small. Start now

This is the most important point. When I first set out on my mission, I could not get onto anything i felt was „big enough regarding my CV“. Of all my ideas, the only opportunity that materialized was to teach evening classes at my university. I was not super-excited, but I took it. At least I will give back something from what I have learnt, I thought. Not knowing it will lead into creating what is today one of the largest philanthropic education organizations in Slovakia. I can connect the dots backwards, but I couldn’t foresee it: two years after I started teaching, I was approached by two former classmates because they considered my student and academy connections unique and important in their new Manageria project.

And also Manageria was nothing colossal the first year. It was just a small project, a series of business guest speakers we brought to universities. Nobody could foresee, that in 5 years, it would evolve into a values-based leadership program reaching thousands of students that is now preparing a new generation of ethical leaders for business, politics, education and justice (you can read more about Manageria here).

My hint: If you do not see something big, there’s no need to quit a job or panic. Start small first by committing to give 10% of your time and 10% of your money over the next year into any best thing you would find. And start now. If it turns to be a dead end, you can anytime go for better alternative. Don‘t settle, keep looking.

These would be my 3 hints on „to how to do the transition. But, as told by Simon Sinek in his famous TED speech, the power always come from the „why“. So why should you endure the hassle?

Because it matters a lot where we channel our energy. I believe, we will never improve our country, its health-care, education or politics, without our best leaders getting engaged in these topics.

Let me end with a positive example I experienced last weekend. I attended a meeting of Teach For All leaders, where I was amazed how people from various countries articulated the same urgent message: „There is no silver bullet in changing the most difficult issues of our society, such as education. No single great law, lucky elections, good reform will ever make the change. The only thing that works, is to engage a country’s best talent to work on this issue“. These people were not enthusiastic amateurs. Teach For America started, started 20 years ago by Wendy Kipp, a young Princeton graduate, is now the largest non-government education movement in the world – engaging almost one hundred thousand leaders in 30 countries in educational change. To grasp the idea in practice, see a short video from 20th anniversary of Teach For America.

There is no doubt that in the Czech and Slovak republics our best leadership talent is concentrated in business. However, I am afraid that the most important issues that we need to solve lie outside business, - in areas of a desperate need of ethical and capable leaders. I believe that if we wish to improve our society for our children, we need to redirect part of our energy to these areas.

What is the issue you care about the most?

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PS. My career transition would never be possible without generous support from many many people. People such as Pepper de Callier who gave me a lot of mentoring time during my career transition or currently 52 people who are sending 1% of their salary every month to finance Manageria activities. I want to give back what I have received to anyone who would need a counsel or support in career transition. If I can do anything for you, please write me at stanislav.boledovic@manageria.org