100 Business Days Out: Day 18 - No Boss

Yesterday afternoon I met with Erick Hachenburg, who I worked with at EA. He is now the CEO of MetaCafe. As we were sitting at Tamarine in Palo Alto he said something that stuck with me. He said, “You have no boss to answer to”. While in my status, that is blatantly obvious, the implications are profound when you allow the statement to sink in. It is true, I have no earthly boss (I have to make the distinction about earthly because I always like to think that I have a heavenly boss) right now and because I have no boss, it is that fact that ultimately leads to the freedom that you experience when not working. I have worked for great people. At SNOCAP I had a good Board and an awesome Chairman in Jeff Mallett. Serving a Board is different than having one boss, but the same feeling of accountability, need to communicate, and being responsive, was there just as when I had one singular boss. Larry Probst at EA was a great boss. His way of managing let me set an agenda for him and then he expected me to deliver that agenda with lots of latitude to do so. And he was great about never micromanaging and he set the boundaries between work and life as well as anyone I have ever seen. As such, he didn’t impose lots of stress or demands on me. But what I have been finding out about myself is that it never was a boss, the company, a board, peers or subordinates who brought on the stress. It was me who self-imposed all of it. The realization of “no boss” for me is the realization that the worst boss I have ever worked for is me. It has been me who has made me feel as though I was falling behind or not keeping up. It was me who laid the guilt trip on me when I wasn’t in the office by 7:30AM. It was me who caused me to worry about whether or not the project would go flawlessly and then criticize when it wasn’t perfect. It was me who demanded that the email inbox be always below 100 messages or I couldn’t go home at night. Why I couldn’t objectively see this before is beyond me. I have always been a “driver” and Type-AAA worker and I would shrug my shoulders and tell others that I am just the way I am, but down deep inside a lot of what drove me was the need to please and prove myself to others. So, when all is said and done, it is me who I needed to let loose of as the boss to get to where Erick said, “You have no boss to answer to”. In all honesty, that is going to take some time….