Don't Burn Bridges - A Short Story

Don’t burn bridges.

Burning bridges might feel good in the moment. It makes you feel alpha, like you got the last word, gives you a nice adrenaline rush, and a good dopamine hit.

But that’s all it’s good for - a dopamine hit that lasts for a few minutes at best.

From there, it’s only downside.

I’ve seen it time and time again where folks burn a bridge - whether they’re candidates I work with or my coworkers who move on to something else - only to have it bite them in the ass down the road.

Might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but it can come back to cash in anytime later on.

The thing is - most folks think the only people who burn bridges are individual contributors.

But managers can burn bridges, too.

In this week’s newsletter, I’ll tell you a story of someone I personally know who was in a position of power for years, burned bridges every chance he got because he was in good relationships with upper management.

Some of my OG followers may recognize & remember that I didn’t get along with my very first manager in the business.

So yes, this story is about him & his current situation.

Let’s dive in…

Story Time

Let’s call this guy John.

John was a good dude outside of work, definitely someone I’d grab a beer with and have many times.

But inside work he was an absolute menace.

I started in the biz in 2014. He was recently promoted to Recruiting Manager, and I was one of his first hires as the new RM (he oversaw about 8 others who he inherited). He got this job because he was the main recruiter supporting our Managing Director when he was a sales rep, so he was the natural choice when the opening came about.

He was a solid recruiter as an individual contributor who billed $500k+ a few times. For those who don’t know, let’s just say he was “above average”.

He had a no-nonsense, smashmouth demeanor, and came from a sports background.

Burning Bridges with Me

Keep in mind this was pretty much my first corporate job after college

He was responsible for training me, which I thought was helpful. He would sit next to me and help me with search strings, listen in on my calls and provide constructive criticism.

What he did not like was two things:

• When he criticised me - which I welcomed - I would dig deep and ask why. At least for me, understanding why/how something works helps me learn better. He didn’t like explaining the “why”, just had a “listen to me and do it” attitude.

• He didn’t like me seeking out other mentors. He thought he used to be the best recruiter in the company so why would I ask other folks their advice?

As the OG readers here know, I attribute a lot of my success to a few mentors in the biz. When I started learning from those two, I really started to experience rapid success.

It’s just the way I learn - being able to listen and watch people do the job in real time helped me learn more than someone telling me what to do.

I quickly rose the ranks and smashed through his ATH within my first 18 months of $500k/year, meanwhile it took him over 5.

My biggest mistake with my relationship with him is that I didn’t give him credit. When peers, management, and the exec team gave me praise, I took credit myself and gave credit to my two other mentors, not him. He thought this was a direct shot at him.

Note: This is where I learned the hard way you gotta make your direct manager look good. I made myself & mentors look good but not him, hence the animosity towards me, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.

He ended up making my life a miserable hell. Adding me to crappy clients and job orders, and giving his two favorite recruiters the best ones. Although I was still making deals and climbing the ladder, I wasn’t doing it at my previous pace and it was hard to catch up to those two.

Long story short - I complained to the President & RVP of the company that I needed to transfer or I quit, and they let me transfer. Once I did, I became the top recruiter in the company.

Burning Bridges with other folks in the company

It wasn’t just me he burned bridges with, he burned bridges with other people too.

He stole ideas from people and gave no credit. For example, myself and another recruiter were tasked to help him create a new recruiting model. Won’t bore you with the details, but we did all the work, but he presented it without us and took credit. When our managers found out,

He was difficult to work with, and it was either “his way or the highway”. If people didn’t follow his process, he’d do to them what he originally did to me and give them bad projects. Multiple people quit or got fired with no notice.

He only had one style of communication. Different people require different communication methods. Some need to be coddled and laid down gently, some people you need to be direct and to the point. He was always brash and didn’t know when to ease off.

He had a smashmouth demeanor to the extreme. Sometimes when he had a critique about someone, he was right. Issue was he’d scream at them and even curse them off. Whether it was a direct report, or even peer managers, and sometimes even the execs, you’d hear “WTF are you doing?” from his desk.

So, how did this all affect him down the road?

He was with our company for over a decade and resigned to join a smaller company. Our company essentially reorganized team members, promoted other leaders, and gave him the smallest team. He hit his ceiling so he left.

At this smaller company, he didn’t learn from his mistakes. He “wow’d” them on their interview, did show them a few best practices, but ended up getting laid off.

He started reaching out to people asking for help, including me. I personally told him I’m not sure I’d be comfortable referring him to people I know.

Our group chat at work started blowing up “Did John text you guys?” and no one really wanted to help him.

He posted on LinkedIn saying he was out of work for a few months, and asking for help on his job search and he was considering all types of roles to director, manager, and even just a recruiter.

While the recruiting industry is down, it’s not that hard to get a job in our business. If you can bill $$$, someone, somewhere will take you on.

I know a decent amount of people laid off - from directors, to managers, to just average producers - and all find gigs within even a few months.

The thing is what’s probably affecting him most is backdoor reference checks. Our industry does them all the time. Even if he got close to an offer, I’m not sure someone would give him a good one.

What can you learn from this story?

1: Don’t overstep your boss

This was my mistake. Although it ended up working for me, my first 2 years in the biz were brutal. I should have given him credit and maybe that would’ve made life easier.

2: Realize nothing lasts forever

He thought he was going to be king of the mountain in a position of power because of the relationship he had with the managing director. But as more people bubbled up their negative experience with him, he had no choice but to listen and do what was best for the overall business and promote others further.

3: Different people need different communication methods

It’s not a one size fits all approach. Some people you need to be direct and to the point. Some people you need to really “tell them how it is”.

Then with others, you need to sort of coddle them and really ease up when giving constructive criticism or pushback.

If you use the opposite approach on the wrong person, you’re going to experience a lot of friction.

4: The world is smaller than we think

Will burning a bridge always come back to bite you? No. But the more you do it, you sure increase it’s odds.

The more people you burn, the more enemies you create. Our industry isn’t as big as we think it is. Someone is always one, two, or three connections away from getting “the scoop” on us.

So don’t give somebody ammo to use against you.

5: It’s not worth the mental real estate

If you’re leaving to move onto another opportunity, just realize “you won”.

You did it. You found something better and can leave whatever toxic environment you’re currently in.

Don’t let them “own” your mental energy & well being.

Wish them well, move on, and carry on with life.

As the saying goes, “the wolf doesn’t lose sleep over the opinion of sheep”.

6: Networking is more important as you get into manager/exec roles

As you climb the ladder into management, networking in referrals matters more and more. People in power want to work with people they trust. Whether it’s by first, second, or third degree connections, they want to work with folks where they can call someone and ask “how’s it working with this person?”.

So if you’re burning bridges with people, the more you lose out on these opportunities. Even if you burn a bridge with someone you don’t like working with, you never know who they know, and if someone asks them about a backdoor reference on you, you can kiss that opportunity goodbye.

7: You never know who you truly pi** off

Let’s pretend you’re this manager and you burn a bridge with a direct report. That person can go to the rest of the team and talk smack to you, or event to any clients they serve.

Or let’s pretend you’re an individual contributor and you burn a bridge with your manager, say by not giving a proper two weeks. You may think you’re targeting your manager, but you’re really targeting your peers by giving them a ton of work to do out of nowhere.

As you’ve heard me say time and time again, the best way to network is use the people you’ve already worked with, since when they leave a company chances are they’re moving onto something better. So truly think about the total ramifications of everyone else, not just the person you’re targeting.

TL;DR

So just don’t burn burn bridges.

You’re better than that. Just remember the saying, “you catch more bees with honey than vinegar”.

….

I put together a guide on how to navigate your job search, you can check it out below:

If you’re looking to book a call with me directly, you can check it out here.

Note: I’m only doing 30 min calls (can be coaching calls, resume/linkedin reviews, or anything in between) due to being busy at work and with my newborn!