Hitting Your Own Brick Wall

A number of years ago, I went to a promotion luncheon for a former boss. The retirement luncheons usually contained a period where former co-workers and bosses got the opportunity to roast the person being promoted. On this occasion, a former Vice President that I had supported for a while was roasting my newly promoted former peer. The roaster’s name was Robert (not real name) and my former boss’ name was Albert (not real name).

Robert had had a roller-coaster career. He had been promoted to Vice President at an early age and was successful, though driven and somewhat ruthless in his methods. That was before I knew him. At some point, he had been given responsibility for a huge process and platform transformation impacting dozens of applications and an overall capital budget in the $100M’s over several years. Process had become a derogatory word on the initiative and it failed before it ever got completed due to numerous process and poor accountability breakdowns.

It had become a transformational period in Robert’s life and career. Like many early success managers / executives, he had never experienced failure. This failure caused him to re-examine his life, priorities, work methodologies, and personal interactions. He had a transformational spiritual awakening. Afterwards, people often made references to the old Robert and new Robert. From a work perspective, he became a pioneer and industry leader in quality processes, managing by quality metrics, and a kinder / gentler manager.

I only knew the new Robert. He was a supporter and was a huge influence on my managerial growth and personal development.

I have often stated that I never expected to work in an organization that was as quality focused, metric driven, and well managed as Robert’s IT organization. I never did afterwards.

That organization was the gold standard. We had several external quality audits that recognized the entire organization as one of just a handful of IT organizations in the world that met that level of quality. It was an objective evaluation audit and not subjective.

Robert often referred to the initiative failure that triggered his personal and professional transformation as his brick wall. He indicated that he would never have made the transformation without the brick wall failure experience.

At the promotion luncheon roast for Albert, Robert indicated that Albert reminded him of himself pre-failure. His exact analogy was that Albert was like a motorcyclist travelling 100 MPH down a road. At some point, Albert was going to lose control and run into his own brick wall (as he had done). He just hoped that when Albert ran into his own brick wall, he hoped that Albert would stop, re-evaluate, and make any mid-course corrections, as necessary. The brick wall had been life-changing for him, and he hoped that it would be for Albert too.

We all have our own life journeys. We all run into our own brick walls at some point. Not all of our brick walls are work / professional related. After college, I owned a restaurant with two of my college buddies. We were all young (late twenties / early thirties), inexperienced, and somewhat illusionary. The restaurant failed after 2 ½ years. None of the three of us had ever failed at anything in our lives. It was a sobering experience, but also a tremendous learning experience. I often referred to it as how I earned my MBA the hard way.

Life for all of us is a roller coaster. Ups and downs, good times and tough times, success and failures across all aspects of our lives. When we do experience those down cycles, we need to make sure that we stop, re-evaluate, and make any mid-course corrections, as necessary. Brick walls have a purpose. Be sure you do not waste hitting your own brick wall. Let hitting your own brick wall be transformational and life changing.