How a moment of truth revolutionized this co-founder's outlook

It’s a rare and courageous thing when a respected business leader admits change is needed. Speaking to John Stix, co-founder of Fibernetics, he talked us through how a feeling of detachment had him revolutionise his entire company, his mind set and his life.

“In 2002, my two good friends and I launched a business out of my basement – and decided to take on the ultra-competitive telecoms market. We started with lofty ambitions of being more software based, and effectively expanded across the nation to become the fifth largest phone and internet company in Canada.”

However, despite Stix’s impressive corporate success, something was wrong.

“Three years ago, I hit a big wall,” he told us. “I felt disengaged from the dream I’d helped to create, and I just couldn’t understand why. I had my best friend, the business I always wanted, a family and lots of close friends – and yet I felt detached.

“And this sinking feeling started to creep into my personal life. I couldn’t pinpoint why I was feeling the way that I was, what was causing this feeling of unease and unrest. So, I started asking questions to people in business I respected – some suggested I take time off or plan a vacation, but nothing helped.”

After feeling like this for several weeks, Stix decided to stop looking outside for answers, and take a closer look into his own core.

“I took a trip to Vancouver and let’s just say after a series of events, my life was changed forever. I realised when I retuned that I hadn’t been the authentic leader I wanted to be. I was never being transparent or revealing who I was as a person. The leader that everyone knew me as was a false representation – and that scared me. I was trying to fit a mould, one which didn’t make sense.  It wasn’t the meetings or the spreadsheets that connected me to this business I’d helped to create.

“Somewhere along the lines I’d forgotten that I genuinely love people – I care about their dreams, hopes and overall happiness. And I wanted this to resonate with our staff. I decided in that moment I was going to revamp our entire company. I was going to start showing how much I cared about our employees through revolutionising our workplace culture.”

In his new-found mission, Stix was determined not to let other people’s idea of leadership influence his purpose – and to this day, he’s never read a workplace culture book.

“I wanted to lead intuitively and authentically. So, rather dauntingly, I embarked on this journey with hundreds of employees across multiple offices. In just one afternoon, after gathering together the leadership teams, we had totally revamped our corporate culture.

“We came up with a new mantra of ‘I’m in’. This was born from the fact that we’d grown so much and so rapidly that we needed a way of representing our entrepreneurial roots – ones which allow employees to really get behind each other’s ideas. This led to us launching our new company purpose; to deliver happiness and connections everyday by being awesome.”

To hear more on how Stix successfully transformed his company culture, and went on to inspire hundreds of other business leaders to do the same, register to see him speak at our upcoming HR Leaders Summit, in Vancouver on 17 April.