Sabbaticalist: Tom Freston

How’s this for a final (yet not final) corporate act: September 5, 2006, 1,500+ Viacom employees crowded the corporate plaza to wish Tom Freston a goodbye when he was released from his contract by Sumner Redstone. Since that fateful send off, Freston has visited over 30 countries on what some would call a “$60M Sabbatical,” i.e., the amount of severance he received after serving 19 years at Viacom. Add to that, Freston became “non-committal” – not in the typical sense (he still helped causes and companies he admired), but more in the sense that he didn’t need a job as many came calling. He became “The Sabbaticalist.”

His world tour, so to speak, afforded him a moment of perspective that few execs, or entrepreneurs for that matter, ever take to release a little bit from the system. On working with studio heads, startups CEOs and bonafide technology giants, I’ve been taken aback by the lack of time-off taken by senior management.

For some it’s a mark of honor; for others, they just don’t know any other life than that behind the desk. Their day-to-day is their month-to-month and oftentimes their year-to-year grind. With success, the vacations get more expensive, i.e., the quality goes way up, but the quantity of time away only recedes.

According to a recent Fortune overview, Freston’s now consulting the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), a network on ‘the meaningful life,’ but only after Oprah pursued him around the globe.

Tom said this about the opportunity, which again allows him to consult and not sit full-time:

It’s taking beachfront real estate and putting a better house on it [re OWN, which will takeover the Discovery Health channel both in terms of positioning and subs]. It is as big an idea now as MTV was then. It’s the first network about empowerment and life purpose. A great fit for our economic era.

He also picked up some work recently with Bono’s Project RED, chairing ONE and sitting on RED’s board, after restructuring both companies, but again, not taking a senior executive position. The overall sense was he was able to give back, while not becoming tied to another behemothic organization.

With Oprah, it will be interesting to see how he possibly creates a channel in OWN as relevant as MTV was a few decades back. My friend, mentor and colleague, Robert Tercek, has joined OWN as President of Digital; so I’m perhaps already seeing Freston’s MTV hand (Tercek was at MTV in marketing) at play.

But, back to Tom’s moment when it all could have become a terrible conclusion, e.g., when Sumner flexed his ownership muscle. At that moment, Freston took a breath, and then a sabbatical that many can only fantasize about. His time away from the “action,” or so it’s called, allowed many to conjecture about his next step as opposed to him having to make a “CEO” statement immediately.

The firing was truly a punctuation mark. When I got fired, I had a feeling of loss because Viacom had been a passionate long-term relationship. But I got my balance back. I guess it’s like getting jilted by a girlfriend, a serious girlfriend. You move on.

According to Fortune, Jeffrey Katzenberg also counseled him on recovery:

Having walked the walk before him – getting myself inelegantly, and with great fanfare, fired – I felt I could offer him a good shoulder to lean on. I told him, ‘It ain’t fatal. The amazing thing is, one door closes and another opens.’

Personally, I take many meetings with execs in various states of position, who are looking to jump back into the job market; and I always remind them to leave the door open to try something new, or at least enjoy some deep thinking before you dive back in. I.e., if you’ve worked full-time all of your life, try consulting or build a new business, blog, reconnect with yourself, friends and family.

Take the breath to rebrand yourself in a way that makes you unique to the market you have passion for, or to bridge to other industries.

Freston’s rebranding came in the form of diving back into his wanderlust for exciting foreign adventure. That ‘abandon’ allowed him to find perspective and realize he had options.

Given a 7.6% and rising joblessness number, Freston’s story is relevant – yes, even with the ‘golden parachute’ metaphor included – when you consider that a down market slows everyone down, including the high-paid Medici class.

One cannot necessarily take a sabbatical from hard times, but one can take some time to redesign their intentions.

Many argue that a downturn allows new companies to blossom – to accel when bigger companies freeze hiring and innovation. However, I think this rhetoric also encompasses personal identities (personal brands); these too can blossom and transform.

As a very high profile sabbaticalist, Tom Freston finds himself free to return to his roots – which appear to be in Afghanistan of all places – but the potential for more personal brand ownership and the ability to control and influence his next big move are good ‘sabbatical’ lessons for everybody.

In any case, define the ‘sabbatical’ term loosely for yourself: does it require personal time, place or both to re-engineer your individual brand?

1 Comment

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  Neal Lenarsky February 18, 2009 at 11:13 am

  Loved your article re Freston…timely and great. Neal