Howie
“If You Can’t Let Go, You can’t Move Forward
”
I had been with the company for eight years and was the top sales rep for three years. I started when the company was basically two round tables. I was one of the first top 12 salespeople covering seven states, and in my first three years as a sales rep, I was the top rep. Nobody had grown and driven more business than I had as a rep. Not only was I rep of the year two of the three years, but the other year, I was also in the top 5 of 40. I was a Sales Trainer for two of the three years. I was promoted to the sales manager position. I built three regions with top performance, consistently had steady growth, and built a lot of respect within the sales organization, various departments, and the executive team. I think some big changes happened because we started growing too fast, which was at the cusp of COVID. When COVID hit, the whole world changed. They changed. We went into furloughs, which wasn't necessarily the downfall from my perspective.
The executive team started changing and started looking at things differently. They started bringing in new people, and the culture completely changed. When I started, we had an organic culture built from hiring a lot of really good, smart, competitively driven people and a bunch of very team-oriented folks. Our culture was born from everybody wanting to win and feeling part of the same machine moving forward. That drove that collaboration and the winning spirit if you will. Once we started bringing in different people to run the company, it was suddenly a culture for the sake of culture. And the winning and the focus on collaboration began to change dramatically, and all of a sudden, that created a lot of deficiencies in the organization.
The people who had been there a long time, my boss, my colleagues, and me, were looked at as the people who understood the market, knew how to identify and fix the deficiencies, and had a voice to try to make these changes and speak on behalf of other people. It was a clash of people who wanted to continue to do things as is for the sake of just getting along in the corporate office while we watched things starting to fall apart. We had people who cared about our teams' success, had a vested interest in the company, and wanted to continue moving it forward. My boss, whom I was friends with, was extremely frustrated with his conversations with the marketing director, general manager, and customer service manager. He asked if I would get on a video conference call with him to address these issues, and I was happy to do so. The conference included me, my boss (National Sales Director), the general manager, and someone from the director of client services, and we started rolling through issue by issue with examples. We had pushback from the client service director, and my tone was, "Look, we're all frustrated in the field, but we have to figure out how to improve this. Our goal is to identify the issues and then collaboratively develop a solution to make this thing work.” There was pushback, and some responses were, "Oh, yeah, we can do that. We can flip a switch." And then the reality set in: why didn't we do that already if it was that easy to flip a switch?
To make a long story short, once we got off the call that night, the client service director felt that she had been beaten up and posted a note on LinkedIn saying, “Essentially, when do you know it's the right time to quit. When you have an abusive colleague who doesn't value your worth, well, I'm ready to quit.” In our organization, when you post something like that on social media, that's the terms and grounds for termination. We had another person who had been terminated because of something that was posted on social media. The only thing you're supposed to post, especially on LinkedIn, is if the company posts something, you can like it. You can't comment on it. They don't even want you posting anything on your own. You're welcome to share what the corporate office communication team puts out, but you're not allowed to comment. You can share, and you can like. That's it.
My phone started blowing up, and people asked if I had seen the post. I called my boss and asked what the post was about, and he had no idea. Little did I know that the chief financial officer, the CEO of the company, the chief compliance officer, and the corporate attorney saw it. They contacted the director of human resources to find out what happened. HR contacted the woman who did the post to find out what happened, and then they contacted our general manager, who participated in the call but never stepped in to say we were out of line. When I identified specific examples of various issues, the GM asked the director of client services if there were any solutions. He understood the issues and the frustrations it was causing in the field and was appropriately asking for solutions. Clearly, the discussion was justified and, while frustrating, constructive. Directly after the call, I spoke with my boss and asked him his thoughts about the call. He thought I was direct, constructive, collaborative, and solutions-oriented. He also thanked me because he felt I handled the frustrating call calmly and professionally while he wanted to scream on the call. However, after the call, the director of CS fell apart and blamed everyone else for her team’s failures. She pointed to us on the call for being too critical. Once the executive team began to investigate and asked the GM what happened, I think to cover himself, he threw me under the bus because I was the one leading the call and asking what could be done. So that was the final piece of it.
When I started at the company eight years ago, the culture was collaborative, one for which we held each other accountable. We always had an open forum in a professional way to call out what we thought was not working and then come up with solutions. Even in a group setting with the sales directors or colleague to colleague, we always felt comfortable. We were encouraged to have critical conversations about what was going on to address it, come up with a solution, and move on. Everybody accepted it, and no one took it personally. The thought was that this is how we get better by addressing things quickly and collaboratively and knowing that we are all doing it for the benefit and betterment of our group, our teams, and individuals in the company. As we started having those conversations with some of these new folks, comments started coming up, such as you're not making me feel safe. What happened to being understanding and compassionate about what might be happening in someone else's life? And again, these are all comments made when not addressing somebody in a personal fashion. It was all about work. It was all about why things weren't being done or what we could do to ensure they were getting done.
Because of COVID and the ability to integrate virtual and in-person business models, there were many people within the organization that I had never met in person. Mind you, we had never seen these people in person. These very people were commenting on how we were doing this because we were all virtual. These were the things leading up to what I was hearing and what others were hearing. You could see that the culture of the company was dramatically changing. I guess the best way to put it was that it was becoming a touchy-feely kind of environment versus this hard-charging, do-what-you-got-to-do start-up company that really cared about high growth, and getting everybody on the same page versus let's talk about our feelings and blah, blah, blah, blah. When I say hard-charging, it didn't eliminate being professional, compassionate, and empathetic to people and what was going on; it just meant we all accepted that we would be open and critical. And when I say critical, I don't mean ticky-tacky. Sometimes, we had to have tough, professional conversations, but they were productive and constructive, which led to positive outcomes for everyone, and things would change.
The layoff:
After that incident, we had our national sales meeting, where I was asked to lead three sessions in front of the entire sales group to get them to buy into the new technology, science, process, and selling practices. They knew the sales team respected me because of my experience and successes. I presented three different times. We got home on Friday, and they let me go that following Friday.
Being laid off was devastating. I had found a place that I loved. I loved what I was doing. I was passionate about it. I had built three different teams from scratch with great people. We all loved being together. We loved collaborating. It wasn't just a job for me; it was my career. It was a place where I finally found where I could retire from. And to have some new people come in and change everything and turn my world upside down was just devastating. The reason I was given for letting me go was that "You're no longer a cultural fit." That was the only thing that was told to me. I was the only one they let go.
I asked, "What do you mean no longer a cultural fit? I've been here for eight years. I've been the most successful person at this company. I've hired 26 people, 20% of the salesforce. I'm responsible for hiring. People come to me for answers in all different departments. You had me on the stage in front of the entire group three times a week ago, representing this company. And now I'm not a cultural fit. What is that?" They refused to respond. The general manager who let me go clammed up and wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't answer a single question.
Looking back, I don't know if they could have said anything differently. Because how they did it was horrible. If you need to do a better job, every company I've ever been with will typically put you on a performance improvement plan. Performance was never my issue. They told me it was about culture. If something were brought to HR's attention, I would expect that I would be contacted by HR or my boss about a complaint through HR. I never had that in eight years; HR never contacted me with an issue. Honestly, I don't know if there was anything they could have said to make it better or to make me understand it any differently.
After that phone call I told you about with the customer service director that led to the LinkedIn posting, there had been a commotion for a couple of weeks. My boss was trying to get involved and find out what was happening, and they were shutting him out. I found out from him that five minutes before my call with the general manager and the HR director to let me go, they called him and said, "We want you to fire Howie." After a couple of weeks of him calling every single day saying, "I want to talk about this, what's going on?" He refused. He said, "No, I don't agree with this. I've been trying to talk to you guys. I am not making that call. We need to talk about this." Their response was, "Look, it's a done deal. If you do not do it, we will do it."
He called me later that afternoon, broke down in tears, and said, "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. They cut me out of this whole process. I'm the national sales director, and I had no say. They didn't even ask for an opinion on this." I told him I was devastated. As far as I know, they didn't call anybody who had worked with me, my colleagues, or the other sales directors. They never called any of my people to find out if I had ever been abusive and if I wasn’t a cultural fit for them. Nothing. My boss was devastated, and I found out later that he started seeing a therapist right after that.
Looking back:
I was thinking back at all the signals, signs, words, and comments when I was doing the presentations at the national sales meeting. I was getting huge raves from salespeople and sales managers about the messaging I provided and how the teams didn't believe in this thing before, but now they do because of how I explained it. I remember looking at the back of the room; the general manager had a sour look on his face the whole time, and the marketing manager who asked me to do the presentations didn't even thank me or say anything. If I look back at it now, these are all clues that the two of them were in alignment to move me out, and I didn't see it then. Maybe I saw it, but it didn't register.
It's hard to put a finger on any one big thing. I should have paid more attention to the little things. The best way to put it is this: something happens when you're used to a successful culture that starts switching on its head, and people start asking you to talk and act differently. When in your heart, you are still being respectful, compassionate, empathetic, and constructive. When that hasn't changed, but people want something different than that, you start seeing the writing on the wall.
My transition and transformation:
I still get calls from people on my team and colleagues asking me for advice. The people calling me are the ones I had a vested interest in their success, and I'm friends with them now. I care about them and their families and their success and want to help them as much as possible. Now, if one of the executives were to call me, that's a different story, but not my colleagues and the people on my team.
I'm still working through the devastated feeling, the shock, and the loss. After I was laid off, I couldn't sleep for weeks. Every day was self-doubt. Every day, I was replaying different moments. Did I do something right? Did I do something wrong? Could I have done it better? When you feel like what you've been doing was a huge part of you, and then it gets ripped away, I would almost compare it to a divorce. When you're giving everything you can into a marriage, suddenly, your spouse comes to you and says, "I'm out," and if you gave everything, that was me. That was who I was. It shouldn't be the same, but I loved my work. I was good at it, enjoyed it, and figured out a good work-life balance. So, it was devastating for months.
I got laid off in 2022, and every once in a while, I will wake up; although it’s not as bad, I'm still upset about the fact that it happened. I've done everything I can to compartmentalize this, and I understand there's nothing I can do about it. It was completely out of my hands. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was nothing I would have changed. I didn't do anything wrong, and it's on them. They created that scenario, and the people who did this are in positions they weren't qualified to be in. But that is not my problem anymore.
What I’ve learned from this experience:
It takes a long time to get over something like this when you're so vested in it, but it gets better each day. I focus on moving forward instead of looking back. It's like the difference between I love to win and hate to lose. I've really tried to apply that every day. As I have more conversations with new companies about potential opportunities, my conversations now are not about complaining about the past but learning from the past and how to have better interactions in the future.
When I play sports, I love to win, and I hate to lose, but I'm a humble loser. This is not one of those where I'm losing my shit or anything like that. Instead, I could have played better. I'm going to learn from it. But I didn't look at it that way. It was just I hated to lose. But the reality is, and this is why I was thinking about this too, it gets back to when you're in a leadership position, and how do you create a team that's willing to engage with you no matter the scenario? It's about providing an environment where if they try and they lose, it's a safe place to discuss how we learn from the loss and move forward. And they're not getting beaten up for the loss. They're encouraged to think about what didn't work, develop a new strategy, and execute it.
I'm super hard on myself. I've got to be more honest with myself and be more in the moment in scenarios where everything's not always rosy. Everything's not always going to be positive. And I've got to be more; I hate even saying this, more skeptical about certain things or maybe a little more realistic about what's in front of me. Not just think that, hey, because I'm doing a good job, and it will take care of itself. To be more self-aware and conscious of what might not be going well.
A big lesson I had to learn was that I needed help. I needed somebody to look at the scenario objectively and say, "Hey, look, you're still good. And what happened to you sucks, but it may not have anything to do with you. And we need to move on." I know I desperately needed that because I had so much self-doubt. You start thinking, "What's wrong with me?" By having a third party come in and talk about it, process it, and reflect on it, I realized there was nothing wrong with me. I had nothing to do with it. Sometimes, it's a gift, but it doesn't look like a gift then. I want to get a new job. I want to move on. However, would I still be there if I was not let go? Yeah, probably. I would have been pulling my hair out. But I would have been sticking it through because that's who I am. I'm loyal as the day is long. But I had to realize that there was nothing wrong with me. That was the hardest thing to get through. I learned a long time ago that to be successful, I can't do it on my own. I need and want other people's help.
I will be transparent and say that I still struggle with the shame and guilt of being laid off because it's embarrassing. It's my internal judgment because people don't have judgment around it, but that's what we automatically think. I am working through this and trying to take this experience, learn from it, and move on.
Advice you would give someone going through a layoff:
If you can look at yourself in the mirror and say that you really felt that you were doing a good job, that this was completely out of your control, and there was nothing you could have done about it, let it go. The quicker you acknowledge that this was out of your control and not about you, the better. This will allow you. Being able to quickly pivot and start looking for something that is a good fit for you, and not just the first thing, but one that's a truly good fit for you, the better.
The best thing to do is realize it has nothing to do with you; it wasn't your issue. And the quicker you realize this, the quicker you'll be able to pivot and focus on moving forward. It's much easier said than done, but the faster you realize "it is what it is," and there's nothing you can do about it, the easier it is to let it go. Learn from it and use what you learn in a positive way to move on to whatever it is you decide to do next. The hardest thing for me was letting go. It just holds you back; if you can't let go, you can't move forward. I became much humbler after this, which was another thing to acknowledge. I got so wrapped up in work that I didn't even feel like I had a good work-life balance. The wake-up call is that your family will be there, but the work comes and goes. So, whatever I do next, I won't allow myself to go so far to the work side. To your family and friends, you're human and an important piece of their lives.
Where are they now?
Since being laid off, Howie has been in a very good mental state and has a clear direction for his future. He has learned a lot of great lessons from this experience. With a lot of letdowns in the job search, one could easily be defeated, but he is not because his 30 years of very successful medical sales and leadership experience have value. As the interview was conducted, Howie started a consulting company, working for himself doing things the right way, the moral way, and the ethical way while helping companies and individuals realize their potential. Then, in March of 2024, he started a new job as an area director at a healthcare company.
