.svg)
Who Checks on the Person Who Checks on Everyone Else?
They say that being a Founder/ CEO can be a lonely job. Very few actually realize, and even fewer say, that being a CPO can be an equally lonely job. Is it ironic that CPOs don’t get their due recognition even here?
This episode is different. No framework. No blueprint. No download. I just need to tell you what happened this week because I don't have anyone else to tell. And maybe you might find a part of yourself in my experiences.
__________________________________________________________________________________
I lost my train of thought in front of Noor on Tuesday.
We were in her office going through the last meeting of the day - the AI governance rollout plan. I was mid-sentence, explaining how we'd sequence the employee communications, and my brain just went blank. Not a pause. Not a "let me think about how to phrase this." A full system shutdown. I stared at my notes and the words looked like they were in a language I used to speak.
Noor waited. Then: "Kelly, are you okay?"
"Yeah. Sorry. Long week."
It has been a long week every week since February.
__________________________________________________________________________________
After the meeting I sat in my car in the parking garage for twenty minutes. Not because I was upset. Because I didn't have the energy to merge onto the highway. I just sat there with the engine off, staring at the concrete wall in front of my parking spot, thinking about nothing.
That's when I knew.
I've seen this pattern in other people a hundred times. The high performer who keeps delivering but stops being present. The leader whose work is still excellent on paper but whose eyes are somewhere else in every meeting. Physically there, mentally gone.
I pulled up my own calendar. The two hours of "protected thinking time" I put on my schedule after building the Manager Operating System? Overwritten with meetings. Both of them. For three weeks straight. My 1:1 with Claire? I cancelled two of the last four. My own development time? I can't remember the last time I read something that wasn't a policy document or a survey result.
I built the STOP / START / PROTECT framework for Meridian's managers. Then I violated every single PROTECT item on my own list.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Here are just some of the things I've done since February.
Redesigned the org structure for every function at Meridian. Discovered three of my best managers were burning out and built a system to fix it. Responded to a legal crisis because a hiring manager plagiarized a competitor's JD with ChatGPT. Built an AI governance framework from scratch. Presented to Noor four times. Ran two company-wide surveys. Had more "difficult conversations" than I can count.
I did all of that while also doing my actual job: running the People team, advising the exec team, managing Claire, handling the fifteen things that land in a CPO's lap every day that nobody sees.
Nobody asked me how I was doing. Not once.
And here's the thing I need to say out loud because I think a lot of you are carrying the same thing: nobody is going to ask. That's the job. You are the person at the company who asks everyone else that question. You are the one who notices when someone's engagement signals drop. You are the one who builds the wellbeing programs and checks in on the managers and holds space for people having hard days.
Nobody holds space for you. Not because they don't care. Because it doesn't occur to them. You're the CPO. You're fine. You're always fine.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Claire texted me Wednesday night.
I stared at that text for a long time. Claire is the only person at Meridian who has ever asked me that question and actually waited for a real answer.
She called me immediately. We talked for an hour. I told her everything. That I feel like I'm running on fumes. That every morning I sit in my driveway for five minutes before I can make myself go inside the office. That I'm proud of what we've built in the last three months but I have nothing left to give to the next three months. That I keep catching myself staring at nothing in meetings and hoping nobody notices.
Claire said something I'm going to carry for a while: "Kelly, you built a retention risk system that watches for these exact signals in everyone at Meridian. Have you ever looked at your own?"
I haven't.
__________________________________________________________________________________
I'm not writing this because I have an answer. I'm writing this because 61% of HR professionals say employee burnout has increased in the past year, and nobody is counting the HR professionals in that number. We measure everyone else's wellbeing. We build everyone else's support systems. We notice everyone else's warning signs.
We don't notice our own. Or we notice and we keep going because there's a governance framework to build and a manager crisis to solve and a CEO who needs an answer by Friday.
So here's what I'm doing. I'm taking next week off. Not a "working from home" week. Not a "checking email from the beach" week. Off. My phone will be in a drawer. Claire is covering for me. I told Noor and she looked at me like I'd said something in a foreign language, which tells me she hasn't thought about this either.
When I come back, I'm going to run the Manager Operating System on myself. STOP: the things I'm still doing that should be delegated or automated. START: the things I need for my own sustainability that I've been skipping. PROTECT: the non-negotiables that I keep negotiating away because something else feels more urgent.
If you're reading this and you recognize yourself in any of it, I have one question for you. When was the last time someone asked you how you were doing and you told the truth?
If you can't remember, that's your answer.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Kelly: This is the one where I actually need to hear from you. If you're carrying this too, reply and tell me. Not because I can fix it. Because sometimes knowing you're not the only one carrying it is the thing that keeps you going.
Take care of yourself this week. Somebody has to.
- Kelly
.svg)
.svg)