When Speaking Up Starts the Conversation
My recent walk with Kevin Haughey came about serendipitously. Kevin reached out after commenting on a post about my Dialogue Miles™ walk with Neil McDonough. It just so happened he was headed to Nashville, where I live, at the time. We had overlapped at Standard Register from 2011 to 2015 but hadn't connected since.
The timing couldn't have been better: I was traveling to San Jose, near where Kevin lives, on the very day he was returning from a business trip. We made plans to meet up at 6:30 a.m. for a walk along the river and through the short streets of Little Italy before my flight home.
What struck me most was how easily this reconnection came together. A comment on a post led to a conversation; a casual mention of meeting up turned into a solid plan; travel schedules aligned, and we actually followed through. Too many reconnections stop at “we should catch up sometime.” This one didn’t.
Our walk also uncovered unexpected professional ties. Kevin now works at FLEXcon, a company that was important to my early career. As we talked, more shared experiences surfaced: material science, labels, printing, and people we both respect, like Rob Assini. It was a powerful reminder of how careers and industries often weave back together through shared people and experiences in ways we can never foresee.
This walk uncovered a few key lessons:
Careers rarely move in straight lines. They reconnect through people and experiences in ways you can’t predict.
We own our careers. Sometimes that means telling people what you’re interested in instead of assuming they already know.
Transparency matters most during difficult periods of change. People remember whether communication stayed honest when things got hard.
One of the rewards of leadership is seeing people from earlier chapters of your career continue to thrive.
That’s what I continue to appreciate about Dialogue Miles. The walk is rarely just a walk.
Who from your past have you been meaning to reach out to?
