Advice
Management Sabbatical: Maker Time
For the last couple weeks I’ve been on a “Management Sabbatical” – a term I came up with for a stretch where I’m still working full-time, but on none of my typical leadership/management work.
Instead, I’m getting to explore ideas and reconnect with some IC work. Almost no calls or meetings – just Maker Time, for nearly the whole summer. I couldn’t be more excited about it!
This is different from a traditional sabbatical, where the point is to rest and step away from work entirely. Here the point is to step away from one kind of work so I can go deep on another.
Why now?
The timing seemed perfect:
- We split our big Product/Engineering team at Close into 6 smaller teams at the end of last year (I’ll write more about this re-org later), and those teams are now fully up and running.
- We recently got back from our Paris all-company retreat, where the whole company got more clarity and alignment around our product vision & roadmap.
- Some key leadership hires on my team recently finished onboarding, and they’re doing great.
- With AI, there’s never been a more exciting time to just build!
What am I working on?
- Deeper exploration of AI coding agents
- Getting re-acquainted with more modern coding practices – and actually shipping code at Close again
- Exploring other creative ideas that may be impactful to the business
- Whatever else seems interesting :)
I expect this time of being less busy will be refreshing, give me better perspective, and ultimately help me come back as a better leader.
I’m very grateful to Steli & Anthony, as well as my fellow EPD leaders, for fully supporting me and giving me the space to do this!