Being an accidental CEO: it's a journey.

When I started my professional career, I never set out to become a CEO nor expected ever to be one. Yet, today, I find myself in this position. It is not that I don't want to be a CEO. In fact, I suggested, nay demanded, it when we founded The Collective, almost five years ago. Being quite strong-headed (stubborn, if you will), I believed it made me the best-suited person for the job. Little did I know what I was getting myself into.

I regularly refer to myself as an accidental CEO: I have no formal training or education in business administration/management. While I see (some) benefit in, for example, the coveted master's in business administration (MBA) education, leading an organization is much more than one could ever learn in a classroom. It's about building experience, making mistakes, and correcting as you move along. Business performance is one thing. The heart of our organization, the vision for the future, is much more critical.

When we first set out to create The Collective, our vision was to create an organization that would not follow the beaten path others followed. Having been consultants before, all founding partners knew exactly what we did not want, and still don't. We do not want to hold our consultants responsible for their billable rate nor use it to measure their performance. We do not want to sell services; we want to solve problems. Above all, we want to bring back ethics in business. Not to quote Google, but we want to do the right thing for our customers, our colleagues (competitors, if you must), and – foremost – our employees. Those principles are perhaps not always the smartest from a business performance perspective. However, they define us and reflect our vision for the future. I might be chastised for the following statement. Still, I believe what we do and how we do things is more important than our financial performance. Don't get me wrong, building a healthy and financially sound organization is also essential! But if numbers become your primary goal, you will eventually make bad decisions.

I believe in a future where our top priorities are to lead our industry by continuously investing in knowledge, expertise, and - thus - our people. By being experts in what we do. By striving for lifelong employment, and solving our customer's challenges together. After all, the IT services business evolves around people, through technology. The people who work at The Collective and the people at our customers are the ones that define our business in the first place.

Over time, new insights have changed how we do things from when we first started. For example, while we still do not want to become a number-driven, let alone a sales-driven organization, our approach to finding new customers to help has become more professional. Instead of relying upon inbound leads, we're actively reaching out to see more businesses that could benefit from our help while staying true to our core principles. 

The Collective is not massive. We're not growing at the proverbial speed of light like some other businesses. Growth is not a goal for us. Yet, our growth is what challenges us; challenges me. Constructs we've created in the past now suffer from increased pressure. The responsibility of keeping almost thirty (30) people busy weighs on me and gently nudges us to fall into the trap of doing things like everyone else does because it seems the easier way. We will not. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. Continuing to perform while continuously transforming our business is not easy, but it's the path we chose. A course I firmly believe to be the right one. 

Building a business, leading one, is an ongoing journey. It will never end. I don't have all the answers, and I'm trying to learn as we move along. I do not know whether I will always be the CEO of The Collective. In the future, I may take on other responsibilities within the organization, like focusing even more on setting out a (technical) vision and strategy while leaving the day-to-day operations to someone else, someone with a different skill set. 

In these past five years, through my struggles and challenges, I've discovered a newfound appreciation for many managers and CEOs with whom I have had the prerogative to work. We also might not always have seen eye to eye, but I can only appreciate them for everything they do and have done as a business leader, (ex-)colleague, and person. Although I probably forget a few people, I want to thank them for influencing my career one way or another; even if they are not aware of it. So, thank you Jochen Maertens 💙, Luk Denayer, Luc Neysens, Koen Rutten, Peter Hoffmann, Bert Teuwen, Inge Van Roy, Tom Costers, Melissa Delissen, Hans Hofkens, Tony Redmond, Johnny Waterschoot, Ilse Van Criekinge, ilya Dunsky, Greg Taylor, Nico Sienaert, Geert Baeke, Jay Gundotra, Serge Bridoux, Emile Beckers (Axima), my partner in crime Sven Mattheus, and - of course - my partner in life: Laurence Van Severen.

No matter how many 'gurus' try to convince people you can start or run a business in only a few hours a week, in my experience, the opposite is true. It takes a lot of effort, time, and energy. It may be because of my lack of talent that I need to work harder than some others. Who knows?

What I do know is that I'm due for some downtime. My batteries are depleted. And that is to no one's benefit: not the organization, not myself, not my girlfriend.

I'm on my way to what I like to call a mini-sabbatical: I'm taking almost a month off to recharge, ponder about the future of The Collective, and enjoy doing nothing for a change. Do you know what the best thing is? Being able to trust my team. Knowing they have got everything covered. Knowing they have my back as much as I would have theirs. I am eternally grateful for that level of trust. Thank you, everyone, at The Collective Consulting for being awesome coworkers and for your intricate and beautiful work. I could not have hoped for a better team, and I cannot wait to conquer the future with all of you.

See you all in a couple of weeks,

-Michael