My grandfather ran the general store in Buchans, a mining town in central Newfoundland. It was such a company town that you could not own property or operate businesses inside the town limits. So, when my grandfather retired in June of 1974, he and my Nana left town. They spent that summer renovating the old family home in Harbour Grace and planning their retirement adventures.
Except, that fall my grandfather was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Then as now, glioblastoma is a very hard-to-treat brain cancer; after initial diagnosis, life expectancy is measured in months. My grandfather died eight months after his diagnosis and less than a year after he retired.
This all happened before I was born. I don’t remember being told about it — it feels like something I have always known. It wasn’t a morbid thing, but perhaps something that instilled in my family a strong sense of carpe diem. We’re going outside for a hike today, because the sun is shining and it might not tomorrow. We’re going to have all the crowd in for a party because all the crowd is here today, and they might not be tomorrow.
Which is all by way of preamble to say that I am taking a sabbatical. It’s the eight-month kind of sabbatical, the travel-all-over-Europe kind, the retirement-dream-but-we’re-doing-it now kind. In less than two weeks, we will be on a plane to Germany. We have filed home-schooling paperwork with the school board. We have arranged for a friend to live in our house. And we have an itinerary that will see us visit Germany, Austria, Italy, the UK, France, Sweden, and Newfoundland between now and the end of August.
Although the trip has been in the works for a while (my husband signed up for his work’s deferred-salary leave plan four years ago), until this fall, it’s been an abstract thing we were doing “someday.” But now it’s really here, and we are on the cusp of a grand adventure.
Are we ready? I guess so. We have plane tickets and health insurance and places to stay for the first six weeks. We have a spreadsheet that maps ten different day-by-day itineraries with formulas to make sure we don’t overstay our Schengen visa limits. We have reached new heights of fanaticism with our Google Maps.
But in very real ways, we don’t know what we’re getting ourselves into. How will the kids handle such an extended time away from home? Should we go slowly and spend multiple weeks in a few places, or speed up the pace to see more? What will happen with Covid? With energy rationing in Europe? With war in Ukraine? As much as we have plans, we’re also treating everything as an experiment. I think we’ll be in Belfast in April, but only time will tell.
What I do know is that our kids’ idea of a perfect day is to spend a morning exploring some museum or park and an afternoon chilling with some books. So, we’ll do a lot of that, and try to sneak in some home-schooling curriculum without them noticing. We’ll visit with far-flung family and friends who we mostly haven’t seen since pre-pandemic days. We will see new places and try new things. We’ll revisit old haunts and delight in sharing them with our boys. We will surely also have hard days where patience frays and we want to hurl our children into the surface of the sun. But most of all, we will treasure the adventures we are having today, and be glad we didn’t put them off until some unknown, unpromised tomorrow.
The magic of co-leadership
It is, shall we say, unorthodox to incorporate a new business and then set off on an eight-month sabbatical a year and a half later. In a traditional organizational structure with a single leader at the top, it might not even be possible; certainly it would be massively disruptive.
The good news for me and my sabbatical is that Workomics is not organized on traditional lines. We have very deliberately set about establishing a shared leadership model, where ultimate decision-making authority rests not with one person, but with several.
Co-leadership is sort of all the rage in the not-for-profit sector right now. In large part, this is in response to high levels of of burn-out in the sector, and the belief that with shared leadership models "the stress and responsibility previously placed on one individual is now distributed across a few.1” Leaders who are working in a co-leadership model talk about so many benefits:
Sustainability in terms of the impact of the work and the well-being of the people doing the work
Having someone to catch the ball if you miss it
Being able to lead more often from a place of strength
A feeling of community and expansiveness
Those were all things I wanted with Workomics — to have co-conspirators, and share in building something that would be better than what any of us could build alone. You know, and also to have people who could run the place while I went gallivanting in Europe.
Co-leaders at Workomics
And so, a few months back, we signed the paperwork to make Workomics a joint venture between me and two of my favourite colleagues. Michelle McCune and Terri Block and I have worked together for years. Professionally, we’ve shared great wins and a few crushing blows. We complement each others’ skills and share the same values. And it’s just a delight to come into work every day and get to spend time together.
Of course, co-leadership is not a free lunch. In a webinar I watched on the topic, they talked about vulnerable communication being so important. It’s a tricky one, because it’s not a muscle we exercise often. As a trio, we are pretty good at some aspects of that — taking accountability, admitting uncertainty, circling back if we think we said or did the wrong thing. We are not always so good at asking for help. We tend to keep more on our individual plates than we should, or to push through sickness rather than handing off work to focus on rest and recovery. But truthfully, communication is hard no matter what, so it’s also an advantage that co-leadership provides so many opportunities to build those muscles.
More importantly, there is a wonderful alchemy when we get into a room together. The work itself is better for having three perspectives, and the experience of work is improved because we enjoy each others’ company so much. Few things in this world bring me as much joy as three hours in a room with Terri and Michelle, a whiteboard, some markers, and a problem to solve. I feel so fortunate and grateful to share in the leadership of Workomics with them, and to be leaving the company in such capable hands while I’m away.
What I’m working on
Amidst the Christmas prep and trip prep and finishing up projects, one of the things I’ve been working on is next year’s newsletters. While I’m away, I’m planning to keep up the newsletter, but change the format a little bit. In 2023, I’ll feature a series of interviews with women who own or co-own businesses. I’ve been conducting the interviews over the last six weeks, and it’s such a delightful mix of companies and experiences: businesses that are brand new and ones that have been around for twenty years; firms with 50 employees and firms with just one; people who make products, people who sell services, people who do a little bit of both.
I’ve loved learning from these women and the businesses they’ve built, and I can’t wait to share the conversations with you — alongside, no doubt, the odd trip photo or two. But first: Christmas is imminent, and there is a not-inconsiderable to-do list of final trip preparations. So, thank you for reading this year, and I wish you all a wonderful festive season and all the best in 2023.
In comradeship,
S.
As described in future scenario 3 from Embracing our Future: Social Purpose Leadership in 2030.