Sabbatical Insights:
Interview with Dirk Bischof, Founder and CEO, Hatch Enterprise, U.K.
“There was the before and after phase. To me, the four months in Japan were life-changing.” — Dirk Bischof
We sat down with Dirk Bischof, Founder and CEO, Hatch Enterprise, U.K., to talk about his sabbatical in Japan, which took place from April to July 2023. As a seasoned practitioner of kobudo, an ancient form of martial arts in Japan, Dirk already had pre-existing ties to Japan and paid visits to the country over the past 15 years. But, this was his first extended stay, which started with a one-month cycling journey in Kyushu, the southern region of Japan, followed by a three-month collaboration with ETIC. We asked Dirk about his experiences and the lessons he learned during this stay. He also shared practical tips for anyone who might be interested in taking a sabbatical from work.
Designing the Sabbatical
-Why did you decide to take a sabbatical in the first place?
I have seen leaders from non-profit organizations take sabbaticals and when I then researched it, I realized it is more common than you think. It works differently for anyone and it can boost personal and professional development, as well as finding new ways of doing things, whilst also broadening the horizon of both, the person taking a sabbatical and the host organization. But the idea of a sabbatical is probably more embedded in the U.K. and the U.S. than it might be in Japan or other places.
I tend to look at life in five and ten-year intervals and, in 2018, I was re-evaluating my work and life as it was five years since founding Hatch and I made a long-term plan for the coming five years, including a sabbatical. I wanted to make sure that I am still fresh, creative, and aligned with the mission and vision of the organization. When you take a break, it makes you reevaluate all those things. Having had my sabbatical in Japan and remaining involved with supporting entrepreneurship through my work with ETIC, I could gain new perspectives and the distance from home was helpful, too. Before starting my sabbatical, I read somewhere that no sabbatical is identical to somebody else’s, so you have to do everything on your own accord. What you want to get out of it, how to arrange it, what to do, how to finance yourself and how to re-enter into ‘normality’.
-How did you prepare for it?
My sabbatical was on the table for a while and was expressed to the board members in February 2022 and then to two of my immediate colleagues who were also the most senior leaders in the organization, with the view of covering my areas of work, whilst I’m away. We had over a year to prepare for it. In hindsight, we went through a lot of prep work but I would say 25–50% of it was irrelevant in the end as the organization itself went through some big changes right before my departure so we just needed to improvise at one point. However, I would recommend anyone interested in taking a sabbatical to prepare for it mentally, structurally with colleagues, those you work with like partners, your family, and friends. I was over-prepared in some ways and underprepared in others, but I think that is quite normal.
Overall, I had to adapt my sabbatical to the external reality of Hatch going through a lot of changes, which led to an organization-wide restructuring in March, just one month before I went on my sabbatical. And, it was critical to have the confidence that the changes, the strategy, and the plan we had was going to be successful without me being there full-time. I got to build up that confidence over a year with my colleague Rebekah, who became the interim CEO during my sabbatical and even now, since coming back to give her a full six months in total. The two of us had meetings every two weeks and we also talked to and engaged board members, investors, donors, and colleagues for over a time-period of six months pre-sabbatical. This was critical to figure out who’ll be doing what and also which things might not be done or completed.
-Did you have any goals or objectives?
As I prepared for my sabbatical, I also started to reflect on what I wanted to get out of it. I don’t think a good sabbatical is about going on a long holiday, spending time on the beach and getting drunk every day, and not working anymore. It might be nice for a few days but it’s not a long-term strategy or something I could identify with. I love my work and I love figuring things out and the prospect of me joining Japan’s longest-established social enterprise support provider was a once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity. Also, as a kobudo practitioner, I wanted to focus on my training while in Japan. I started martial arts in 1998 and started going to Japan in 2009. As I studied with some amazing teachers over these years, I had to consider their age and the preciousness of their teaching, especially post-COVID, where nobody was allowed to visit. I knew them for many years and I also imagined that, in five years, they will be five years older. In five years, they might or might not be teaching or be there anymore. Already some teachers I knew had passed away in the last 15 years and it was such a big loss for the community. I had a sense of urgency and all I had to do was to take the plunge and go to Japan to study with them. I also knew that I was going to hit the road again and cycle for a month and completely detach myself from work. This was my mental, emotional and physical break from my ‘normality’ in London and all the break I actually needed. I was so excited to then do some work for ETIC in Tokyo afterward. I wasn’t meant to also continue working for Hatch initially but with the re-structure still in full swing, I felt like I wanted to be helpful where I could and ‘be around’, especially helping with specific things like fundraising and developing new programmes, something I really enjoy! The overall plan played out well. We got lucky 🙂
On The Road
-Tell us about your cycling trip to Kyushu that preceded your stint with ETIC.
I embarked on a month-long solo cycling journey, deliberately opting for solitude. This allowed me to immerse myself fully with cycling, the daily adventure of figuring out where to go and what places to visit. Cycling on my own is physically strenuous and gets me out of my comfort zone. I never train or prepare much for such trips, knowing that I’ll get fit on the road. Solo traveling also means that I intentionally create opportunities to meet with new people, whether it’s on a campsite, in a cafe or on the road. Building relationships and understanding other people’s problems and challenges and sometimes even solutions to those challenges has always given me ideas and inspiration to find other solutions or look outside the box of how things are working. Cycling with some 20kg luggage, tent and everything you need with you also gives you a new minimalist mindset. How much do I really need to be happy and to go from one place to the next? It turns out not much. Cycling by myself generates immense feelings of happiness when, for example, you arrive at your campsite but there’s no-one apart from a group of deer that then decides to head back into the woods and you can get busy with making a fire, eating your last onigiri (rice balls) and an orange for dessert before falling asleep under the stars.
-What are the things that you saw on the roads that you remember vividly?
As I cycled through the remote regions of Kyushu, I saw many beautiful, untouched forests and nature reserves but I also saw desolate rural areas. I came across communities with businesses having shut down where hotels lay unused and overgrown with vines, which were probably thriving businesses 10 or even five years ago. The pandemic had something to do with this, for sure, but also the major trend of people moving to bigger cities in search of work. I also heard that wages are not keeping up with the increase in the cost of living. If residents lost their employment due to the closing of businesses, they probably needed to move to urban areas. I’ve seen rows and rows of houses where nobody seemed to have lived for many years. I almost felt that my romantic views of the Japanese countryside were less romantic the further south I went. When you cycle, it’s different from being in a car. You get to observe things at a slower pace. This sparked an interest to find out what was happening in rural Japan. I penned an article about it and also interviewed an author, who wrote a book about his experience in rural revitalization.
I was also struck by the environmental destruction, especially of forests in some rural areas, for example around Cape Toi where whole strips of land and mountains were cleared of trees and then replaced with mono cultures. It made me think about what happened in Germany. The forests in Germany are dying with about 80% of all trees being sick now. Climate change is in full swing and most German forests that were grown quickly as mono cultures are now destined to be cut down. Japan has amazing countryside, of course different from Germany or the U.K., so it was a pity to recognize what was happening here too, with people cutting down whole mountains in search of wood, livelihoods and profit.
In July, I took time to go to Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, for a week. I visited Higashikawa, where the local government succeeded in increasing the town population by encouraging migrants from urban areas. The town population dropped down to 8,000, but it then steadily increased back to 10,000 residents. However, the town is facing growing pains with the lack of housing to accommodate the incoming residents along with the tension between the newcomers and the long-term residents. I met up with my friend, who lives there, and she spoke about how women can play a role to be the intermediary to facilitate the integration process of newcomers. However, Japan is a patriarchal society and, in reality, gender inequality is hindering such progress. I have read about gender inequality in Japan, but I also got to listen to the voices on the ground, through friends and colleagues alike. To me, there is a huge (missed) opportunity to not progress gender equity and inclusion more quickly. We know it from our niche (entrepreneurship), where more diverse teams will make better decisions and gender diverse teams outperform non-diverse teams.
The Mystery of ETIC
-Could you tell us about your time with ETIC since this was the first time you collaborated with a Japanese organization?
As I started to work with ETIC, I thought I would be able to figure out the inner workings of the organization relatively quickly, especially as it’s an organization in my niche and its around 50 people. However, a couple of years ago, ETIC dismantled its hierarchical structure and became a self-managed organization. I have said this before, but ETIC remains a mystery to me today, despite working there for 3 months. I just couldn’t figure out how things were working, even though the work and outcomes achieved through work were positive. I gave two training sessions and, including the logistics and setups, the execution was perfect. In that sense, I realized that things are working, without me understanding how they do. I tried to put things in my context. For example, I entrusted someone to take on the role of the CEO in my absence at Hatch. She has proven to be exceptionally competent in her new role. I realized that I would have never known how capable she was unless I had passed the reins to her. This is neither needed nor desirable in a self-managing organization. It just continues, with a devolved team with someone or a group of people filling in for someone who’s leaving.
I had chances to sit in meetings and I made observations as an outsider. Despite removing organizational hierarchies, power dynamics still exist. I saw them play out in meetings where certain individuals spoke more frequently than others or played seemingly more dominant roles, whether it was based on their experience, length of time spent at the organization or gender. I can’t fully make a quality judgment on this.
In that sense, navigating a self-managed organization in a setting where I don’t understand the language was unsettling, although I have high tolerance for uncomfortable situations. In an organization that has very clear hierarchies, it’s very easy to figure out where the backstops are and who makes what decisions. In a less structured environment, whether rules are not so clear or aren’t quite as communicated, which is how it felt to me, I had to figure out how decisions are being made despite the absence of a rulebook. And as was the case for ETIC, I knew that anybody can make decisions, as long as they check with their colleagues and as long as they could do it.
From a theoretical point of view, their modus operandi is not as direct but more circular, which again might be a reflection of an Asian way of thinking and dealing with things. But the result was the same: programmes were being delivered, training and meetings happened, people came to events and highlights were celebrated online and in person (I got to be part of a few celebrations). So whatever the mechanism is, good things are happening. In many ways, I don’t mind not knowing, not being in charge, and just going from one day to the next. But it took me 20 years to be relaxed about uncertainty in a work context. For someone who might join the organization as a new starter, the first couple of months could be very unsettling as there’s no handbook and little guidance. You just get on with your job and hope it’s ‘good enough’. A culture of feedback as such, is critical. Alongside a strong feedback culture, most self-managing organizations rely on a highly developed coaching framework to keep things ticking over and to sort out interpersonal issues in a way that empowers people to find their own solutions.
At ETIC, eventually, I stopped asking direct questions and just got on with doing things, which in general is a better way of moving forward than trying to understand when it was not necessary to understand.
To me, ETIC remains a mystery around its workings as it is a distributed organization with flat structures and self-managing teams, with relatively little guidance that was available in English about ‘how things work’ or a staff handbook. A lot of my knowledge came from speaking to people, asking questions or reading articles on the internet or ETIC’s Medium page, especially on specific programmes or projects. But these are only historical data points and being a fully remote team, my opportunity to meet team members was mainly relegated to meeting immediate team members, Naho and Mitsu, and others usually during company get-togethers to celebrate new starters or say goodbye to leavers and one all company get-together. These really helped but they also contributed to the mystery of ETIC as I felt like it was more like a family or a tribe; you get to know them over time, build working relationships over time, work together, succeed, experiment, celebrate and mourn together. Most of these things escaped me as I wasn’t there for long enough and only for 1–2 days a week for the 3-months
-What can ETIC improve?
Speaking specifically about my experience, I think it would have helped if ETIC had a better strategy for the onboarding process. For example, at Hatch, we have designed a strong onboarding experience for a new member of the team. It’s meticulously laid out on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis, for the first couple of months. The new member will know exactly what is going to happen and when. We invested time in creating the structure for the onboarding process, have fine-tuned it over the last three years and keep on testing and checking with newcomers to the organization on how their onboarding went with nine out of 10 people saying they really got a great start to working at Hatch.
When I joined ETIC, I had very little of that. I had to find my way, despite having amazing colleagues who helped me get settled and told me what to do. I think there could be improvements to that. For example, I asked for a staff manual, but I was told that it doesn’t exist yet but that a staff manifesto is in creation. At the same time, maybe things are different if you are joining as a full-time member of a particular team. Some people might find it frustrating not to have the guidance and support that is necessary for them to succeed in a new organization, beyond having your role description. I wasn’t given a lot of assets such as handbooks, organizational strategy, impact reports or presentations that would help me orient myself in an organization that is quite entrepreneurial, with so many projects and programmes going on at any one time. I’ve tried to write about my initial impressions here (link) but I think there’s more that I feel can be said as clearly, the organization is thriving, attracting investment, delivering impactful work and EVERY organization is a work in progress!
-If you were to evaluate your sabbatical and your experience with ETIC on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate it?
For the overall sabbatical experience, I would give 10 out of 10. Including the cycling, I had some expectations, but these were either surpassed or I was just happy being in Japan and being able to live and work there. It couldn’t have been any better. And I received so much support from the ETIC team as well, meeting during weekdays and weekends, seeing and feeling people’s lives and seeing the impact they create through their work and through their lives. It was quite a humbling experience. There was always a solution that somehow just seemed to emerge at the right time.
As for ETIC, I would say 8 out of 10. I am putting myself in the shoes of somebody else here who might just be a new starter and looking at the absence of structure and guidance at the beginning. To me, some helpful assets to create, alongside someone delivering the onboarding, would include an onboarding manual, a staff handbook, and an orientation to understand the organization’s operations, strategy, role expectations, tasks, and methods, including introductions to colleagues and their responsibilities. I believe these components are critical and will improve how someone new gets set-up for success.
Post-Sabbatical Musings
-Now you are back in the U.K., what are your thoughts reflecting on your experience?
I am someone who enjoys figuring things out, embracing challenges, and with a keen eye for data-driven approaches and research to ensure ideas or challenges are ‘backed by more than intuition’. I enjoy finding a way through a forest without a map, knowing I can use trees and stars to find out where North is. While in Japan, once I figured out that I could try and understand many things by using translation tools and asking people questions, and observing behavior, it all then helped me grasp that ETIC isn’t a normal organization and is still trying to define what it means to be a self-managed and self-designing organization. Once I knew that the organization and people are still on their way towards the next evolutionary step up, it gave me some comfort that it is one of those unfinished puzzle pieces that are designing and redesigning itself as it goes along. But interestingly, for somebody who hates structures, I wanted more structure (laughs).
After I came back, I had a good talk with one of my CEO coaches. He is a self-management expert, having guided and supported organizations similar to ETIC on their road to self-management. He said that, in a self-designing and self-managing organization, it is so much more critical that the problems and challenges are being brought to the fore. By openly discussing and understanding the issues, it contributes to personal and organizational growth although the process itself could be uncomfortable. It is much less of an organizational strategy than it is to make conscious issues, challenges, and problems and to allow and support people to find solutions to these from within the organization, which is basically a coaching approach. I heard that ETIC has four internal coaches to help people figure out their problems. I didn’t stay long enough to figure out how this is working out on a practical level.
My understanding of self-designing and self-managing organizations is still very limited, and I can see how it could be working, but I can also see that ETIC is still on its way to implementing some of those things, and it’s not quite there yet. People seemed content to say that they are just at the beginning of this process, and still have a long way to go.
My coach recommended a couple of books on self-managed organizations. I am more interested in learning and understanding how organizations like ETIC work. I think it will help me deepen my understanding and moving forward, I might as well apply some of the lessons learned in other contexts or another organization.
-What’s in store for you for the immediate future?
One of the immediate things that I’m doing or not doing, is I’m not going to go back to full-time working at Hatch. I’m going to preserve one or maybe even two days of my week to do other projects and I have already started that process. I want to see how I can do some more work with ETIC and what other work might come my way and what I can be doing to advance the ecosystem and the agenda of underrepresented founders in another way. For that, I need to buy myself time. I was able to do that during the sabbatical and I am continuing to do so. I also want to bring Japan and the U.K. closer together by figuring out collaborations, opportunities, exchanges of best practices and people, and finding funding to do these things.
The sabbatical experience overall has just been like a fresh wind in my life. The time in Japan gave me new inspiration, motivation, and a renewed call to continue the work that I’ve been doing for many years around entrepreneurship and diversity and inclusion. I can see with clarity where similarities and differences are in the ways things are conducted in Japan and the U.K. I think I can figure out how some solutions could fit here or there, which wouldn’t have been the case if I had stayed put. I wouldn’t have been open to those things because I just wouldn’t have known. In many ways, the experience inspired new ideas, insights, and ways of working. I also understood that I could make a positive impact on Hatch without being fully in control or in charge of it. I could never earn these perspectives if I didn’t design myself out of being the CEO and to go on this sabbatical.
I also think that what unfolded was useful from a governance point of view. In a way, It’s succession planning. The organization can be put at risk if something happens to the leader. As for Hatch, the experiment of putting somebody else in charge who wasn’t me during my sabbatical was an important experiment for the organization and the board members to understand that we have highly capable people who can step up when needed; Investing in your team to grow is important, no matter what we do. But, a lot of organizations don’t think about it, they’re invested into the immediate, the here and now; but good leaders need to have an eye on the future at all times, they need to make it their job to progress others around them, to invest into people’s personal and professional development. This is something I’d like to get better at.
