“The Great Resignation,” or “On the Bus!”

I wanted to take a minute and write about the unfortunate reality that not every employee I value, will work at Mason forever.

I had the pleasure of working for Court Cunningham at Yodle.  Court recommended that I read Good to Great, by Jim Collins.  Collins writes that great businesses are like buses, and that leaders “start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats.”  I am flattered by Court’s implication that I was the right person for that bus.

Yodle was sold for somewhere around 350 million dollars.  That’s a heck of a bus.  I had gotten off several stops before, but I don't regret a second of it.  I was not a good fit for that bus at that time, and that’s fine!

Now, 15 years later, in the midst of The Great Resignation, I think about Yodle, and my time there. We’re at 35-ish people here at Mason, and can’t hire fast enough. In the last 30 days, about three people have left. I will miss those people (one in particular whose fantastic attitude and strong empathy makes them a constant pleasure to be around) but I can’t view it as a failure of leadership that 3 out of 35 people left A) as we mandated a one-day-a-week return to office, especially when B) 2 of the 3, live more than 1.5 hours from the office.

I appreciate their time on the bus, I will miss them, and I wish them well. There’s no deep flaw in any part of this that made them leave. It’s my job to get new people on board, self reflect on what we could have done differently, and keep the bus on the path.

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Post Script: I was hired at Yodle as Director of Search Engine Marketing, my wife was 5 months pregnant, and I reported to the founder. Within 3 months, the founder was out, I reported to no one, and I was sent to Charlotte to conduct a training session on Search Engine Marketing, But nobody told anybody in Charlotte that I was expected, so I sat alone in a hotel for three days, totally unable to reach anyone, and flew back to NYC without having met a single colleague. That’s why I left that particular bus.