The beginning of a beautiful friendship
Dear reader. Welcome.
I’m happy, grateful and scared that you’re reading this first text of mine on the topics of Corporate Sobriety and Loving Leadership. I’m happy that you’re brave enough to read this without really knowing what it’s going to be about. Believe me, I’m not one to waste my precious time on reading nonsense articles published on Medium. And if I ever do, I feel genuinely offended. I hope that you will find something that resonates with you in what I’m writing, and that we can continue exploring these topics together from here on.
During the fall of 2015 there was something that didn’t feel right. I was at the top of my professional, social and relational “career”. I had a fantastic job, great friends, a wonderful girlfriend, an apartment right in the middle of where it’s all happening, a social life with lots of parties, travels and a bank account that made the whole setup financially possible. I was “successful”. Or at least I appeared to be successful on the outside, it just didn’t feel that way on the inside. I felt empty, as if something vital was missing in my life, yet I had no idea what it was or where I could find it.
Six months earlier I’d been promoted to Senior Manager at Cordial (a Scandinavian management consultancy firm). Becoming Senior Manager was a huge milestone and something that I’d worked really hard to accomplish over the course of many years. This was a role that meant (a lot) more responsibility , both in terms of sales (with a pretty hefty sales target), leadership and development (with both clients and colleagues) which gave me confirmation that I’m actually good enough to be a management consultant. Note: Management consulting is something I’d spent the last 6–7 years on learning and growing into, and I hadn’t missed a single target since I started and received above average evaluations in our annual performance management reviews from the start. Finally, I had been given the ultimate evidence that I fit in. Or so I thought.
The hardest and most stressful part about my long sought-after role that I’d just been promoted to was that it was uncontrollable and unpredictable. During my earlier years as a management consultant I could just use my work capacity to put in the hours needed to perfect whatever it was that needed to be done: a presentation to the Executive Management team, a business case on a multi-million-dollar investment etc, a pitch-deck etc. It seemed that the more hours I put in, the better the result would be, at least in one way or another. That was no longer the case here. Not at all. When it came to sales the end result was out of my control. I was in the hands of others and forces that I couldn’t do anything about. I could work like crazy to get a deal, but the whole thing could turn into nothing over some minor and insignificant factor (or so I thought anyway). I could no longer connect cause and effect. This whole non-linear logic and my own incapability of dealing with it resulted in a lack of sleep (4–5 hours a night instead of my normal 8 hours) and an even greater longing for the moments where I could really relax and escape from the constant stress and responsibility, by sliding into the forgiving, soothing and welcoming world of alcohol and intoxication, and finally becoming myself.
Come the summer holidays in July, I didn’t even allow 24 hours of rest and recovery before heading out on adventures. I wanted to get away, I wanted to party, I wanted to run. “I’ve deserved to have some fun, with all that work and stress during the spring”, I thought to myself and acted accordingly. I didn’t even dare to think about resting, taking a week off and maybe allowing myself to get grounded.
In the fall of 2015, when work season started all over again, I didn’t have the same recharged batteries that I’d had during previous years. I felt tired, confused and empty, even though I was, as mentioned, in the very epicenter of “success”. Instead of recharged batteries I came back from five weeks of summer break with new perspectives. During July and August, I got the chance to experience my first participatory festivals, at something called The Borderland (in Denmark) and Burning Man (in Black Rock Desert in Nevada). To try on living in accordance with principles that build on myself being fully responsible for my own well-being, on giving unconditionally and on putting the event and the experience in the very center could of course be regarded as a grandiose and phenomenal midlife crisis (which it probably was as well), but it gave me perspectives that I didn’t have before. It taught me that the norms that I live and lead by can be reconstructed and changed, if I want them to.
The whole fall of 2015 was a struggle for survival. New insights from a steaming hot desert full of hippies were mixed with a tremendous stress over not reaching sales targets. The parties became longer and longer and the nights with sleep shorter and shorter. Finally, I thought I was about to go crazy, which is probably more accurate than I wish to acknowledge. In the middle of November, I reached out in a final cry for help and met my CEO for a dinner. I wanted to tell him about my plan to “fix everything”, which is to take a 9–12 months leave of absence (which would have turned into Armageddon of course). Instead, Linus presents me with an offer to go on a week of intense therapy in Las Palmas, a sunny Canarian Island. Of course, I was scared to death, but gratefully accepted the kind invitation the day after. Only three days later I found myself on a plane to Las Palmas, wondering what the hell just happened and what was about to happen.
During my week of 100% therapy (and nothing else) I got to meet the person that I’d been running away from my entire life — ME. I got to learn about alcoholism and how addiction works. I learned that taking responsibility sets me free and that I need to have a loving relationship with myself to have a loving relationship with others. I learned that control is dysfunctional and that my quest for perfection is an escape from my fears. In short, it was a week full of insights that would forever change my life.
With a new-found truth about my alcoholism, a beginning of a beautiful friendship with myself and an action plan that changes pretty much everything about my everyday life, I arrived back in Stockholm on a cold, grey and rainy afternoon on November 22nd knowing I will soon be going back to “normal”. A “normal” that has to be totally rebuilt, from scratch, because the previous “normal” didn’t work at all. In fact, my “normal” was killing me. In this action plan I’d promised myself (and my therapist) to not work more than 40 hours a week and not to change jobs during my first year in recovery and sobriety. Immediately, the question arose:
“How (in the hell) will I ever manage to perform in my role as Senior Manager on a measly 40 hours a week, with all the pressure and stress that I’ve previously felt?”
To make a (very) long story (very) short; 2016 became the year where I would answer that question, among many others of course. The answer: “Working ONLY 40 hours a week, is more than enough to achieve tremendous results. It even gets better than before”. The more present and rested I am, the easier it is for me to prioritize, delegate and dedicate focus to the right things. First and foremost, I’ve let go of the connection between my own self-worth and the business values I (co)-create, which makes my thinking more long-term and sustainable than before.
During the last three years I’ve learned that sobriety is not only being free of intoxication, it entails so much more. Being sober to me means accepting the world as it is, not wanting to change it or blame it for how I feel. Being sober means taking responsibility for what I feel, think and do, instead of running away from it. Being sober is acting out of love instead of acting out of fear. Being sober is to be vulnerable and allowing others the privilege to be vulnerable as well. Quite simply, being sober is to be free, and the only way that is sustainable for me.
During these years I’ve also realized that self-leadership is the most critical key to attaining and maintaining a long-lasting sobriety. A self-leadership that embodies a genuine and honest responsibility and love for myself.
Now, if sobriety is so (very) important to me and self-leadership is key to attaining and sustaining it, then the following questions have arisen with me:
“Can we translate sobriety to how teams and companies act (and react), and what are the effects if we do? I.e., is there such a thing as Corporate Sobriety?”
“What does a loving self-leadership really mean and can that be translated into a loving leadership?”
With these two main questions as a starting point I would like to invite you on a journey of discovery where we together explore the areas of Corporate Sobriety and Loving Leadership. Some of the articles that I already know I will write about are: Perfectionism, Vulnerability as a management principle, The illusion of control and Sobriety and its effects on a team. But, there are of course thousands of perspectives and facets within these areas, and I would therefor love to hear your input, reflections and opinions so that we can explore and co-create them together.
I’ll keep posting on Medium, LinkedIn and Facebook and if you want, you’re more than welcome to connect with me there. If you prefer to send an e-mail you can find me on johan.reunanen@cordial.se.
Until we meet again, Johan
