If you knew Jose, you would have been WOWed. Jose was one of our best employees! Brilliant. Creative. His skills were impeccable. He was consultative and polished. Clients loved to work with Jose.
Not only that, but Jose showed leadership ability. He was able to inspire others. He was able to paint a vision and get others excited and motivated around it. He was a little bit unpolished in his leadership techniques but he was rapidly learning them.
Jose also had vision. Lots of ideas! Tons of ideas! The passion and commitment to make sure he pursued them.
Unfortunately, some of these ideas simply weren’t in alignment with our company. And while several of them were, it was obvious that Jose’s passion was pursuing these other ideas. He wouldn’t stop at anything before they were accomplished. It began to create a disturbance within the organization. In a couple of instances, instructions would be ignored as he passionately and almost blindly pursued these ideas.
I went to Jose, and after several months of trying to reign him back in, had a blunt conversation. “Jose, I think you need to be an entrepreneur. It’s time to leave. You can have the time you need. Let’s figure out a plan. Let’s transition. Let me help you start a business.”
And that’s exactly what he did. Jose is an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He’s built a fabulous company, one that I am super proud of.
I don’t talk with him much, but I often stand back and admire what he’s done. And frankly, seeing his progression has given me tons of proud moments.
In business, it’s easy to want to keep everything for yourself, to want to protect your talent. In the grand scheme of things, I helped the organization by getting rid of a wild card prone to distraction, while helping an employee become a successful entrepreneur who is totally fulfilled by pursuing his passion.
There are often times when employees or others I know will ask what I think about Jose’s success. It’s almost tongue-in-cheek, where people are expecting me to be sad or disappointed, upset that Jose is no longer with us. Quite frankly, many people don’t know that I was the one who encouraged him to leave the nest. They just see it as a failure on my part to retain talent. I smile and I share how proud I am of him.
It’s not disappointing to me when somebody else is successful. I take great pride in the fact that this individual was able to hopefully learn a few things while with us and that I was able to give him that little nudge and a runway to start a successful business of his own.