Preface
The First Step
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
By December 2011, my professional life had reached a turning point. Over the previous five years, I had changed jobs five times, working in some of the companies for just a few months before moving on in search of a “dream job” that would satisfy my aspirations at work, and possibly improve my family life as well. At that time, my overriding feeling was that in many ways this job was my last chance, if it didn’t work out on this occasion, I would have to seriously rethink my approach. I had been working as sales director for several months, and on paper, the position ticked all the right boxes: an organization with a very clear history and culture, a challenging role in the international arena, and a market whose dynamics and interests would have allowed me to exploit my diverse skills to the full. Yet, as I sat smoking in the garden of the venue chosen for the directors’ year-end meeting, I could feel that things were not right this time either. That night, as I looked out over the surrounding hills, I tried to sort out my sensations.
After starting the new job, I had spent time analyzing both the market and the competition in order to gather data I could later use to back up my operational decisions. My desire to gain a better understanding of the environment had been interpreted as excessive caution, and even as a lack of thrust. I was interested in exploring the boundaries of the world in which the company moved, investigating its strengths and weaknesses in order to grasp the dynamics of the market. Yet from the first week of work, certain colleagues had been pressing me for results—results that the company had failed to achieve in the last 10 years it had been in business. To avoid conflict I felt forced to suppress my values and to push ahead, even though this created an unacceptable level of stress for both my team and me from the moment I took up the position.
All the events of the previous day were running through my head as I sat there alone. I had spent almost 12 hours closeted with my working group to define sales targets for the coming year, and in the end, we had achieved our objective. The next day, we would have to present our results to the Board of Directors. We had shortened lead times, inflated numbers, and forced the results of a market analysis that evidenced a continuing economic recession that was clearly unable to sustain a hefty growth in turnover. The result was formally correct, and although it was pushing the limits, we believed it contained a logic that would render it acceptable. I was exhausted by the effort involved and had capitulated on many fronts, sacrificing not just a figure or an opinion, but something deeper that I was still unable to identify.
Despite all our hard work and endeavor, the following morning, when I made the presentation to the company’s shareholders and directors, our business plan was ripped to pieces and I did not have the strength necessary to defend it; perhaps I was ready to throw in the towel. Someone suggested that to remedy the situation, we should be more aggressive with customers while cutting personnel and downsizing roles, thus abandoning any pretense of a medium- to long-term strategy. I sat passively in front of the president of the board while he lashed out with aggressive language and negative judgments, and with each word, my sense of detachment grew, like a boxer who is so punch-drunk as to feel no pain. While his barrage continued, my mind wandered to thoughts of my wife and to the teachers I had known, conjuring up the best moments of my career; it came back to me that in the past I had loved my job. That marked the turning point when I realized it was time to change and to adopt a completely new approach to my professional life.
Alberto
I was attempting to handle similar feelings in the same period. For over 10 years I had invested all my resources of time, money, energy, and enthusiasm in my marketing services agency and found myself, paradoxically, ever more involved in a world from which I felt increasingly distant as a person. A glance at the events of my past would help clarify how I’d got to this point. Looking back, I realize that my life has always developed in original and unexpected ways: At 19, I gave birth to my son Riccardo, and one month later, I finished high school. Then, five years down the road, I graduated from college with my degree. The tumultuous and challenging events of my early youth initially forced me to adapt to circumstances as I found them, adjusting my behavior to suit my situation rather than planning my future.
I had set up my company without consciously weighing up all the consequences, rather I was buoyed up by my innate optimism and reacted against the unease I experienced in my first and only job as an employee. Once again, I was caught up in events, a scenario that would repeat itself when I was managing my company. I had convinced myself that it was both right and “inevitable” to act according to the demands of the market. So I forced myself to follow the rules of a world of which I disapproved deep down, certain that there was no way I could express my real style or give voice to my own values. I was not yet aware that my own input could help change the rules of the game.
My attitude swung erratically between the rampant aggression of a “career woman” and certain naive and clumsy reactions that clearly indicated a crisis that we would easily recognize today as a profound identity conflict between my professional role and my inner self; my behavior, in fact, revealed a restless soul that was not geared to certain dynamics.
With my 40th birthday looming on the horizon I was aware of a voice in my head whispering, “If not now, when?” Gradually, I realized that the path I was following and the environment I worked in were increasingly removed from the real me. I wanted something different for myself—I wanted to dedicate my energies to a profession that would enrich me in the broadest sense and not just guarantee money in the bank. I wanted to be myself, to express my skills and my professional expertise to the full, while also giving free rein to my other talents and my deeper passions. I was ready to make this change even though it meant breaking away from the people with whom I’d shared my working life till then. I was no longer willing to compromise.
What was to be the next step? I was convinced that there had to be a different way to work and that I could fulfil myself both as a professional and as a woman; I had faith in my own ideas and my skills and was further supported by the trust of my husband Alberto and my son Riccardo. I had not yet found my voice, but I knew I had a lot to say!
Alice
The idea for this book took form during this period, in the conversations we shared each day at home, as we discussed our lives and our work. Shortly afterwards, Alberto decided to turn down the board’s business proposal and to resign from his job, and Alice liquidated her company. Several months later, we founded our consultancy and training agency together. This book explains our vision and our approach. It was our first step and we had no idea where it would lead.