The Bait-and-Switch
The first time I bet on myself, I lost.
It was my second day and my boss asked me, “Does it feel like a bait-and-switch?”
“Yes, it does.”
I was brought in to lead a professional services success team and work through improving the onboarding experience for our tenants. What I found out on day one was that I’d be leading technical operations, tier 1 support, site reliability engineering, and platform configurations. It was an island of misfit toys who I spent our first team meeting introducing to each other.
I decided that people leadership was the best place to focus. I knew how to do that regardless of the function and it was the real gap in this organization.
Two months later, in my weekly 1x1 with my boss, he was given a different assignment in another division. He was no longer my boss, SRE was leaving also, and seven of my eight peers were moving to other divisions as well.
My new boss called me shortly after, “Well, are you excited?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
The next day, I had a skip-level with my boss’s boss. It was a quick connection meant to keep me in my role.
“We already see the value you’re bringing to the team and we’d love for you to stay.”
“If you decide to leave, would you tell us what we should fix before you go?”
Wait a minute, they think I’m a flight risk? Maybe I should be.
In that first failed role, I only made it one year and my biggest wins were getting other people promoted. I didn’t add value to the work.
Maybe it’s better to leave now, only two months in.
No, that’s his read, not mine. I almost gave up right there based on a one sentence encouragement.
So, the question for me is, what should I do next?
I knew this would be difficult. This work isn’t something that I have to do, it’s something I get to do. This is what a tech leader does, so I can do this too. This won’t be like the last time, that failure taught me what I need to know so I can win this time.
No, I won’t be leaving. I’ll be figuring this out.
This is my chance to lean into the not knowing how this will pan out because it’s a movie I haven’t seen before. I’ll do it for the first time and I’ll do it leaning on my values and I’ll do it the best I can.
Where did you make a decision based on someone else’s read of you?
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. –Marcus Aurelius