I’ve never been away from work a month before. This last vacation was the longest in my career and also, the most disconnected from work. This was the case because of how far we were (Japan) and because we chose to disconnect.
This trip with my wife, gave us perspective, time to rest, and to think. Here are 3 things that I wanted to share from this experience:
Time provides a different optic: This is like growing a beard: you can’t notice the growth looking in the mirror every day, but go away for 1 month, look at the mirror, and try to identify who the bear in front of you is. I experienced the same when thinking about an organization, or Open LMS in my case. Things like “this issue with this team”, this “MQL reporting improvement”, and “this thread with legal on product notifications” look different, like points in a line that is being traced and that is in our hands to help shape where it is going. Other things like “enabling our team’s ability to do their best work” or “providing a common language to unlock clarity and focus” just became more visible and impactful under the lens of time.
Expanding our knowledge is advancing: One of my North American colleagues from the Executive team shared a reflection on the 4th of July. “Countries, like families, are imperfect”. I agree with it, and also, there are some things among countries that could be considered as “better” objectively. Better because they treat each other with more respect and dignity, better because they create more utility for citizens, or better because 2 people with the same job and equivalent income could have “more in life” (health, security, accessibility, arts, etc) in one country vs the other. As we traveled to Japan, we learned about things that “could be better”, and got exposed to that. And now, we are different and could behave differently, could talk about this with others, and might share a vision of why we would want something like that for us in our communities. We could see, with more details in our heads, what better could look like because someone already walked that path, and although it could be different for us, we can now discuss what we might need to do and adapt to get there.
In the same sense, “Organizations, like families, are imperfect”. And also, there are some things among organizations that could be considered better objectively. So, what are those? how do we get exposed to those things? how do we learn about what “better” could look like so we keep striving towards it? My personal belief is that this is something we do through education. That’s why education is so exciting to me, both in our mission in Open LMS and also in the role it has in developing our teams. I’m thrilled about things that expand our understanding. This to me feels like advancing.
It’s all about mindset or “This feels weird”: On a more personal note, this is the first time I’ve been away in which I don’t feel I need to connect to help solve “a fire”. Possibly you have experienced that yourselves when transitioning through roles, but to me, this was a first. And it created discomfort, and worry, “What if I’m not needed?”, “What if this irrelevance?” “What if I don’t have a place here?”, etc. The mind can go to dark places pretty fast and stop the vacation fun for an entire morning.
Yet, I was able to reflect on how fortunate I actually was of being able to operate in a company that has reached a maturity point in which I was able to disconnect and not be dragged to a fire. The progress we have made on hiring, simplification, and processes, is shaping the next level of our operation, and is allowing leaders and individual contributors to have more focus and spend less time on fires. Rather than feeling worried, I then felt relief and energized about what this level of operation actually means: a capacity gain.
Pablo Borbón 