Coffee #17 was with Jonathan. Jonathan is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Systematic Revenue. The same place that Jamie with coffee #13 works! Oddly enough, neither one had mentioned it to the other, they'd both found me organically through the Techli article written about my concept.
The easiest way to sum up Jonathan is with a question..."why?" Our 45 minute conversation revolved around this theme. Why do what you do? Why leave your family everyday to go to a "job"? Even talking to Jonathan for 5 minutes, one can pick up his passion for what he does at Systematic Revenue. It's his passion for his team and for helping small business owners grow their sales. Why is he so passionate about this? Because he gets to help other people spend less time at work and more time with family or generally doing what it is they love.
Jonathan has been with this company for about 3 months now. Before this he worked with another company that believes was a family to him in many ways. In talking about this and the research behind bottom-up management, he told me that he "eats culture for breakfast"! I agree that company culture is absolutely essential in making happy employees. He said that only 1 in 5 people are engaged at work and that 90% of people who leave their jobs, actually leave their bosses. He strives to be a servant leader. Why strive for this? Why not just aim for profit related goals? Jonathan's been eating his culture for breakfast for a few years now and has seen that outside of a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse relationship, the working relationship you have with your manager is one of the most important relationships. And the top-down culture that most organizations create is a part of the reason that many of them are failing.
He thrives in a purpose driven company, one where he can wake up every morning and kiss his two daughters and his wife goodbye and tell them, "Dad's going off to change the world". He and Systematic Revenue are doing that in a few ways, not the least of which is the partnership they've formed to sponsor an entrepreneur in a third world company with every new customer they sign up here.
Meeting Jonathan was better than a caffeine fix to get my day started! He began our meeting with a high five and to complete the circle, I threw him a long distance high five as we climbed into our cars and drove away.
The easiest way to sum up Jonathan is with a question..."why?" Our 45 minute conversation revolved around this theme. Why do what you do? Why leave your family everyday to go to a "job"? Even talking to Jonathan for 5 minutes, one can pick up his passion for what he does at Systematic Revenue. It's his passion for his team and for helping small business owners grow their sales. Why is he so passionate about this? Because he gets to help other people spend less time at work and more time with family or generally doing what it is they love.
Jonathan has been with this company for about 3 months now. Before this he worked with another company that believes was a family to him in many ways. In talking about this and the research behind bottom-up management, he told me that he "eats culture for breakfast"! I agree that company culture is absolutely essential in making happy employees. He said that only 1 in 5 people are engaged at work and that 90% of people who leave their jobs, actually leave their bosses. He strives to be a servant leader. Why strive for this? Why not just aim for profit related goals? Jonathan's been eating his culture for breakfast for a few years now and has seen that outside of a boyfriend/girlfriend or spouse relationship, the working relationship you have with your manager is one of the most important relationships. And the top-down culture that most organizations create is a part of the reason that many of them are failing.
He thrives in a purpose driven company, one where he can wake up every morning and kiss his two daughters and his wife goodbye and tell them, "Dad's going off to change the world". He and Systematic Revenue are doing that in a few ways, not the least of which is the partnership they've formed to sponsor an entrepreneur in a third world company with every new customer they sign up here.
Meeting Jonathan was better than a caffeine fix to get my day started! He began our meeting with a high five and to complete the circle, I threw him a long distance high five as we climbed into our cars and drove away.
Insights: A lot of what Jonathan and I talked about I was lucky enough to feel like I learned through my six years at Massage Envy. While I do think (and hope my employees from that time would agree) that I created a culture that allowed ideas and new procedures to be tried, I don't think I made myself as approachable as I could have. Even the way I phrased that, "my employees" shows that I practiced a good degree of top-down management.
I also am beginning to learn that although I've always wanted to be stand out and achieve everything faster than my peers, I pretty much stick to the rule book for careers. I make logical progressions instead of taking some risks. I also have never specialized and that's something I need to take some time to think about. Where should I specialize? And, as Jonathan has taught me, why?
Things are staying steady with my free coffee meetings, however, I'd really like for the pace to pick-up.
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