There are a lot of “soft” concepts associated with work that we should probably pay more attention to — compassion and patience come to mind — and another one I recently started thinking on is “the goodbye.”
Here’s a great article — one of the better I’ve seen on HBR in a while — about Andres Iniesta and his farewell from Barcelona, a club he’s been associated with for 22 years. The article makes a lot of powerful points about goodbyes, both personal and professional, and how the goodbye should be a crucial part of the modern career arc, especially since there’s so much fluctuation — we’re leaving jobs in 3.6 years on average, so don’t we need to think about “the goodbye” more?
We do, but as the article notes:
At many workplaces, we often lack the rituals and spaces to end projects and tenures. This is why we cannot be fully human in organizations that have few rituals and little space for stillness, silence, sadness.
Indeed.
This whole thing is kinda what I never “got” about work
We spend a lot of time at work. To many of us, it defines our self-worth in some ways. And yet, the way we structure organizations and treat people within them is not human in the least in many respects. Oh, and PS — the department tasked with “Human Resources?” That’s usually the least human silo of all. It’s automated to the hilt and largely ignored because it’s not a revenue-driver.
I’m not arguing for “humanistic workplaces” or anything like that; those terms are just buzzwords. They mean nothing and will never be enacted. Instead I’m arguing for people to be treated like people, respect to be more normative, and us to think for a second about goodbyes.
“Grief is an art, not a science”
I did a little research on the personal side of loss/goodbye — i.e. death — and came to this Psychology Today article about “the art of saying goodbye.” This is a good portion:
She says that grief is an art, not a science and we make sense of what happened and find purpose in our own individual ways.
I would never compare “a loved one dying” to “a person leaving a job,” no. But there is a degree of “grief” in both, yes. And the idea of grief as an art, and people pausing to reflect on purpose, seems like something we should embrace more.
The hiring example
When someone does leave a role — has their “goodbye” — what often happens is a rushed process to “get a butt in that seat.” This is horribly insulting to the person who just left — they were just a butt in a seat? — and also usually doesn’t get a good person to come in and fill the role. Usually the process is marked by hiring managers not understanding what recruiters do, recruiters not understanding what hiring managers need, both sides talking about how slammed they are, and a lot of “post and pray.”
What if we thought about the idea of goodbye differently in jobs? What if your final week was a series of sit-downs, discussions, and high-context discourse about the role, how it evolved, how it didn’t, what’s really needed, etc? Most people spend their final week at a job (a) checked out and (b) checking their final boxes and transitioning their task work. That’s all transactional. It has the mirage of “shit’s getting done” but in reality it’s just box-checking and the organization (and the people) aren’t growing, processing, and reflecting on how the team/silo is about to change.
I don’t think everyone needs to sit around and hum guitar ballads or anything, but we could have a bit more reflection on the person, the role, and the future as we’re saying goodbye to a team member. It just might make the hiring process for the eventual replacement better, too.
The project example
When you just spent weeks/months on a big project — late nights, grinding, missed flights, clients yelling, etc. — what happens when it ends? How do you say goodbye to that project?
In most companies: maybe you take a three-day weekend, then you’re tossed into another project that might be the same thing.
This is folly.
Again, what if the goodbye to a project involved significant reflection, context, discourse about:
- What went right
- What went wrong
- What was learned
- How we can do better the next time
- What it taught us about our ideal/not ideal clients
- Process points
- Bigger lessons
- How we work together
What if the project goodbye was rooted in reflection, as opposed to simply reacting and moving to the next deal?
The bottom line
The basic life path is changing.
The way careers are structured is insanely different now than ever, and we still largely manage from a place of Industrial Revolution thinking. It’s very confusing to many people.
People change jobs, on average, 11-12 times across the course of a career. That’s a lot of “goodbyes” and “hellos.”
Projects shift all the time — you might be on four big ones/year, or 15. Again, a lot of goodbyes.
We need to root these moments of goodbye, of transition, in reflection and contextual contemplation on what’s next in light of what just happened. We need to live in those in-between moments instead of just rushing/diving for the next thing.
Wouldn’t it stand to reason that would make work feel more “human?”
100% Ted. I can relate as someone who recently left a job and as someone who experienced witnessing a friend leave for another company, a friend who was integral to my team’s operation and played a big part in helping me get my job/training me.
At my last job, putting in my 2 weeks was seemingly no big deal. That was one of the longer jobs I’ve had in my career, and while I wasn’t really all that integral to the operations of the firm, I was on good terms with most people there. The framework was there for me to be an important part of the org’s future, though no one really seemed to give a shit that I was leaving.
At my current job, losing my friend should be treated as a much bigger deal than it has been thus far—maybe it is and I’m not quite seeing it as I’m remote, but the feeling I’ve gotten thus far is that management feels turnover isn’t a big deal and he’s just another addition to the long line of people who have cycled out of the department over the years.
I worry that behavior like this stumps orgs’ ability to learn and adapt properly. Too many people (I see this a lot in nonprofit resource development especially) get caught up in the day to day of pleasing external stakeholders, rushing to respond to requests that aren’t really urgent, and, well, bullshitting about things that don’t matter (too much time is spent in my org talking about alcohol during departmental meetings). Then, whenever something doesn’t go right or someone leaves, the blame always gets placed on the wrong person, when management has done little to properly reflect and respond.
Granted, management has done a LITTLE adaptative thinking in the wake of people leaving/resources shifting, but it’s usually reactive and not well thought through. The result of this is a series of “band aids” that last 6-8 months and are only as good as the next staffer leaving, necessitating another dramatic re-structuring that on the surface seems reasonable but isn’t really well orchestrated and leads to another major breakdown several months later.
Cheers as always
Yes, spot on Ted (and Dan D). I too recently left a place after 15 years (by far my longest tenure) and served as the longest-tenured ever in that position. I’m still waiting for my exit interview…
I gave over 5 weeks notice and took cues from another manager who recently left and on my own initiative put together a “transition plan” of sorts, with project timelines and status points. Sounds heavy on being task oriented, but it was actually helpful to make sure key projects were not left floundering and also highlighted key gaps that hadn’t yet been filled but hopefully could be with a new hire.
I think it worked out well in the end (despite no exit interview or real sit-down with my supervisor) since the company ended up combining some other duties and hiring a person with a different skill set for a different approach, and not just another “butt in the seat.”
It’s important for the exiting employee to take some effort to build their own good-bye as well. I’m not saying mine was ideal, but I gave PLENTY of time to my employer (what can anyone really do about building an effective transition in 2 weeks? Think about two weekends ago and realize how that just seems like yesterday…I think your notice should be relative to your tenure–5 weeks after 15 years sounded reasonable), and I was proactive in building a consolidated information “hub” for those I was leaving and (hopefully) for my replacement.
Still, it would’ve been nice to strum some guitar ballads that last week…
This is great stuff, Scott. Thank you.