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“Bobby, I don’t think you’re a good business person. Since you don’t seem to know what a good director looks like, we’re going to put you back into a sales role.”

Those words stung and infuriated me beyond belief. I’d been promoted to a regional management role overseeing the West Coast region of a big company. I had five hundred people reporting to me from fifteen offices. I’d built a strong reputation in prior years running offices in two key markets.

I was certain I could handle the new promotion, but less than a year into my new role, the financials plunged across the board. I was called to corporate headquarters for a reckoning with the boss. I was in good company, at least. Six other regional managers hadn’t hit their targets either. They were reassigned as well.

I replayed my boss’s comments in my head, countering them. “I don’t know what a good director looks like? What the hell did that mean? I had been considered one of the best before my promotion!”

I kept going. “Not a good business person? Don’t you know about my finance and accounting background? Of course not . . . you don’t know anything about my story. You only called me twice in the year I reported to you. You didn’t teach me a freaking thing about the job!” I was finding every reason to blame.

As disappointed as I felt, I was too angry to quit. I didn’t know why I was so upset, but I knew I didn’t want my story there to end that way.

My new lesser role still had a steep learning curve. I was a pretty good salesperson, but I knew I needed to hone my craft. My new boss was similar to my old boss, so I wasn’t expecting much help there. Determined not to repeat history, I had to be honest with myself.

I reluctantly admitted I hadn’t been insistent about asking for help. Instead, I relied on calls to my struggling peers that were more about venting than learning. Though a more experienced peer had taken time to show me the ropes when he could, I’d been too proud to admit I needed more guidance.

A few months into my new sales role, I became aware of a VP of sales at an up and coming start-up who had an amazing reputation. After learning more about her, I called to ask if she would become my mentor. It took five calls and numerous letters, but she finally agreed to meet for breakfast. I made the right impression and earned another session with her.

She quickly figured out that I had virtually zero experience in this type of sales role. By the end of that first meeting, I recall thinking, “Maybe I’m not as good a business person as I thought?” She recommended that I attend a week-long sales executive course at the University of Chicago.

I made the request to my new boss. It was quickly denied, but I was still determined to find a way to attend the course. Using my vacation hours and my own money, I flew to Chicago for the week. When I returned, I met with my new mentor, and she helped me put what I learned at school into action. The harder I worked at applying what she taught me, the more I found her willing to help me. My confidence rebounded, and the results showed in my work.

The Gift:

Own Your Part

In 2011, PG was hit with a wave of attrition that lasted for eighteen very long months. I was anxious to be losing people like we were. I started hating going to the office on Fridays because it meant someone was going to quit. I vividly recall having a conversation with a person in the company, a friend of another employee who had unexpectedly resigned. She offered the great kindness of being candid with me. “Bobby,” she said, “I’m very thankful for everything you and PG have done for me, but you don’t see what we see. We know you care, even though you’re intense, but at PG it often feels like it’s all about getting stuff done and hitting our numbers.”

She was right. It was hurtful and hard to hear, but I knew that somehow I was at fault. I was at a decision point again, just like when I was demoted, only this time, I couldn’t quit the company I cofounded—even if I wanted to. But more important, the demotion struggle had given me a gift: it showed me we all play a role in any problem or conflict we deal with. We may not be solely responsible for it, and we can’t control everything, but rest assured that in some way or form, we contribute all the same.

As leaders, we set the tone for how everyone in the organization is guided. I was modeling a style of leadership that failed me earlier in my career. Patience didn’t come easily for me. I wanted to think I was different from other aspiring leaders, but as I reflected on what she shared, I realized that in the early years I was inconsistent, moody, and lacking in empathy. I genuinely wanted to help people improve and achieve great things, but when I handed off a new responsibility to someone, I expected them to dive in, suck it up, and be fearless.

I was experiencing the dilemma an early mentor had taught me: intent versus impact. What my employee shared with me wasn’t what I intended, but the impact I was making—and what I was teaching my leaders by default—was too much like that of my former boss. My leaders were left to sink or swim, as I had been, and the fall-out was cascading throughout the rest of the organization.

I braced myself for the course correction I was about to make and went to work. First, I made a list of the last ten people I’d promoted and asked myself the following simple questions:

• How did I set up a new leader to succeed?

• How did I start their leadership journey?

• How did I transition the teams?

That exercise told me everything I needed to know, presenting a clear picture of how we guided people. My leaders were frantically trying to get things done, but I was tossing them overboard without a life preserver. I may as well have said, “Here you go! A new title and more responsibility—good luck!” As a result, we were making too many tactical mistakes, teams weren’t communicating, and my new leaders weren’t developing their people. The mistakes were frustrating our customers and impacting the trust we had worked so hard to earn.

I had no choice but to be patient, a monumental task for me in and of itself. I had a lot of well-intentioned people who were new to their leadership roles. It wasn’t fair or realistic to think that I could change things overnight. I needed to slow things down and teach them exactly how I wanted them to behave, which meant doing more than just telling them. It meant showing them too.

I invested more time with my leaders and really got to know them. I made sure everyone understood the impact I wanted us to have on our teams. I worked hard to model, albeit imperfectly, how helping someone with good-faith generosity was a better way to meet our goals than the hardcore approach I had demanded. What I set out to prove was that two seemingly contradictory goals were possible—that a caring and compassionate management strategy would be rewarding for us all and that we would still grow the business.

Over time, I eliminated or streamlined the training and tactical competencies that came with leadership promotions. While I believe competency matters, it doesn’t matter as much as compassion and generosity. I made sure my leaders understood that compassion and generosity come first, and competency follows closely behind. As a leader, you must model this attitude for other leaders in your organization. You must be very curious about what people want in life, and help them build a plan to get there. It requires learning the best way to communicate with every person so you can find ways to stretch their potential without overwhelming them. Challenge people to do more than they believe they are capable of. Tell them the unvarnished truth while also telling them how much you believe in them.

Finally, and I can’t over emphasize how important this is, encouragement and celebration every step of the way is critical, even when your people stray off course. Make them feel like you are always investing in their well-being. In my experience,  the best way to do that is to catch them doing things right and recognize them over and over—recognition builds courage and confidence. As Patrick Lencioni often says, “People need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed.” Leaders often lose their way by focusing more on the bad than the good.

Ultimately, I switched my mindset. Just like when I was demoted, I had to take responsibility and own my part of the problem. Doing so helped me learn that leadership amounts to wanting more for our people than we want from them. At PG, that means generosity and compassion  is the way we work. It’s the best way we know to cultivate great leaders and maintain a healthy bottom line.

Own Your Part

Chapter 6

The Demotion