Keeping Your Charlie Happy: Lessons from Visa CEO’s Resignation
Visa CEO, Charlie Scharf, stepping down to spend more quality time with his family is a powerful wake-up call for people and organizations.
Charlie loves his job. It challenges him, he makes an impact, it pays well. Charlie gets recognition for doing a good job. Everything’s great. Until one day, Charlie quits. Why? Because he’s not as effective as he could be. Because he’s tired of travel and being away from his family. Because he wants to be more present at home. There’s no balance in Charlie’s life. So he takes a tough decision and prefers his family over his job.
This story is all too common. So many of us struggle to balance career and family. But when the story is about Charlie Scharf, CEO of Visa, it gets interesting. Here’s an excerpt from Forbes:
“Scharf said he resigned because he could no longer commute to Visa’s San Francisco headquarters and do the job effectively. Scharf’s daughters and extended family live on the East Coast, and his resignation was “entirely personal.” … “I love working and running this great global company and I am sad to have reached the conclusion that I should step down, but running a San Francisco based company just doesn’t work for me personally right now and wouldn’t be fair to Visa,” Scharf said in a statement.”
Charlie Scharf’s resignation is nothing less than a wake-up call for people and organizations. In a way, we’re all Charlies — at some point in our careers, or several times a week, we consider quitting our job to have a life. If we’re managers, we have Charlies in our teams and they too consider leaving because it “just doesn’t work for them.” So what lessons can we learn from this story for our lives and our companies?
Lesson One: When Talent Leaves, The Company Pays
The day following Charlie Scharf’s resignation, Visa’s stock price dropped 1.4%, reflecting a $2.7 billion lower valuation for Visa. You read it right. The stock goes up and down obviously, but Visa’a expenditures are just beginning. Charlie deserves a generous retirement package given his good performance. Recruiting a replacement is an expensive process. Training the replacement takes a lot of time from a lot of people, and the replacement, though smart and capable, needs time to get his head around everything. During this time, his productivity is lower that Charlie’s and the productivity of everybody else who interacts with this position goes down as well. Everybody’s waiting for the dust to sink so decisions are stalled, which slows the organization and makes people frustrated (to the point that they might decide to leave as well). It all takes a lot of time and costs a lot of money.
You’d say “Well, sure, he’s the CEO of a $200 billion payments giant.” But it’s like that for any talent’s resignation — replace Charlie’s name with any talent on your team — and you’ll see it’s exactly the same. When a talent leaves, the company ends up paying in average a sum in the magnitude of 9 monthly salaries: on hiring a replacement, training, and the effects of lower productivity. Every talent is expensive to lose. So as a manager, you want to keep your Charlie happy.
Lesson Two: Physical Presence Still Matters
Charlie was quite vocal in his statement about the need to be physically present in the San Francisco headquarters of (global) Visa. I wonder why. He’s the CEO of a global multinational and cannot possibly be everywhere Visa operates, so why couldn’t he work more out of the New York branch next to his home? Oh, he needs to meet his management team… why not through telecommuting? Visa can surely afford the best conferencing technology out there for its CEO and management — audio, video, VR, even 3D holograms that convey a person’s after-shave scent at a different location, can’t it? You know what, why does location matter when someone brings results? Why should Charlie feel it’s “unfair” to Visa if he delivers profitable growth from the East Coast? Who cares where he does that from?!
Well, somebody still cares. Despite all advancements in technology, flex-place and work-from-home HR policies, and management focus on results rather than face time — being there, in person, at the office, in 2016, still matters. And if Charlie, a powerful and successful CEO, had to deal with it, so do we. Needless to say, there are good arguments to support any view on this topic. The only fact to consider is that companies lose valuable talent when it’s about the workplace more than it is about the work.
Lesson Three: Work-Life Balance Is Priceless
Charlie made a good living at Visa. In 2015, his compensation was $15.8 million dollars. A considerable part of Charlie’s compensation over the years was in stock options. So when Charlie quits, he makes a conscious decision to forego both his huge salary and the non-vested portion of his stock option pool. He’s giving away many millions of Dollars. Nevertheless he quits — his Work-Life Balance is worth more than that, it’s priceless. Enough is enough.
“Wait a minute!” you’d cry. “Charlie has enough money, so he can quit!” You’re right, he probably does have enough money. But guess what — it turns out that Millennials, with or without money, also think like Charlie. For many of them, work-life balance is more important than compensation. And they’re not alone, many Generation X professionals, who now raise toddlers and teenagers, also make career changes to make more time with their kids.
And by the way, Charlie is not retiring. There are a lot of companies to manage on the East Coast. You got it, you and your talent have options too.
Lesson Four: The Impact at Home Matters Most
“It’s not only about the money!” jumps the Chief HR Officer, “Millennials and the rest of us also care about meaning and making an impact. We let our employees change the world through their jobs!” That’s indeed compelling.
But it wasn’t enough for Charlie. He managed the world’s largest payment network, employing over 11,000 people, processing over 100 billion transactions a year for purchases worth $7 trillion by millions of people and businesses across world. I guess you can say that Charlie had meaning and impact on the job. But he quit nevertheless to spend time with his family.
Why? Because the impact you make on your family is ever greater and more meaningful to you than the business you generate. You know it’s true. If you’re not sure, ask successful people around you. Read Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” Read Steve Jobs’ biography and his regrets as a father. Not enough? Ask your son or daughter.
Do the Charlie.
There are jobs that let a professional make a decent living, and have meaning at work, and be present enough at home for family quality time.
If your job is not like that, you’re probably considering frequently to “Do The Charlie.” You probably know people who have Done The Charlie and never regretted it once.
And maybe you’re CEO, or VP HR, or manage a team, and you expect your employees to enjoy their awesome jobs, although they have to sacrifice family time and private time for work too often. Just remember that sooner or later, they too might “Do The Charlie.” You don’t want that. So pause, think about your people’s wellness and well-being, and take action to keep your Charlies happy.
