This is an excerpt post, see the full piece as it originally appeared on Wired.
The leadership forces behind SEER Interactive and Moz broke records on the spectrum of innovation and collaboration for a week when they swapped work lives. That's right, they assumed each other's professional identities, emails, and lived in each other's homes. They did not, however, swap wives or their Twitter accounts. Rand Fishkin is the CEO of Moz, a nine year-old venture-backed software startup headquartered in Seattle, Washington with offices in Portland, Oregon. Wil Reynolds is the CEO of SEER Interactive, an eleven year-old bootstrapped search marketing agency headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with offices in San Diego. Each day, Reynolds walked from Fishkin's apartment on Capitol Hill to Moz's offices in downtown Seattle. Likewise, Fishkin walked from Reynolds' home to SEER's offices in a refurbished church in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia. Fishkin even took Reynolds' dog, Coltrane, to work one day since that's what Reynolds does.
You want to walk a mile in someone else's shoes? Try replying to 100 emails from someone else's inbox.Rand Fishkin, on assuming Wil Reynolds' role at SEER Interactive
Lastly, I asked them: Would you recommend others try this? Fishkin replied, “Yes, I would recommend this, you just have to be prepared to see how daunting the task really is.” Reynolds added, “Who you're doing the CEO swap with matters, I'm in your inbox so I know everything about you and you have to be comfortable with that.” Swapping roles is a challenge because you have to be willing to reveal all to your counterpart and vice versa. In Fishkin and Reynolds' case, the empathy and insights gained will continue to outweigh the minor awkwardness of baring it all.