Consigliera College: How to leave one job and start another
How to learn from leaving and set yourself up for success at a new job
Ritualize goodbye
I’ve been fired and I’ve quit, but the leaving still has some similarities. There are goodbyes, there is the packing up of things, actual or digital, and there are the feelings.
In some cases, goodbyes are not allowed. I was fired once and had to go in at night to get my things out of my desk. I remember looking around the workspace and thinking of the people I’d hired, the team I’d built, and feeling bereft that I wasn’t allowed to see them and tell them goodbye in person. It was quiet, I was alone, and I remember seeing a pair of shoes someone had left outside an edit suite. The specificity of those shoes, the small domestic touch, undid me.
The kinds of personal goodbyes you make are your choice, depending on your style as well as the circumstances. I’m a big fan of sneaking out without goodbyes, but that upsets some people. If they want to celebrate you, let them.
Make time for grief. Even when you choose to leave a job, it can make you sad. More so when the job ends an era; if you are leaving for a new career, or a new part of the country, if you are at your last job and retiring. Make space for the fact that even positive changes can create grief.
Recent huge high profile lay-offs have meant lots of articles about managing the specifics of that kind of job loss, so I’ll just add that focusing on anything that makes you feel competent can help that transition. If you’re a laid off engineer who is great at baking, your kitchen should be full of cakes right about now. Find a thing you do well, that brings you joy and make sure that’s a big part of your week. It doesn’t matter if it’s fly-fishing, karaoke, interior decoration, or making pottery with your kids – find whatever it is and do that as much as you can.
To paraphrase Dan Savage, closure can be a gift we give ourselves, not something that needs to come from another person. Here are some rituals I’ve tried or recommended to get closure when leaving a job.
•Journaling or listing what I learned and was given at a job, as well as what hurt or was taken from me. What do I want to carry forward?
•If there was hurt, what ritual symbolically works for you? Burning something related to work in your fireplace or barbecue? Shaking metaphorical dust off your actual shoes? Writing and not sending the missive of lament or anger?
•If there was joy, honor that. I have creative work products from jobs that I had decades ago, to remind me what I was part of – fancy pitch books, spec creative, newspaper clippings and recordings of radio shows I did.
•I intentionally keep in touch with the work friends I made, or the people I mentored informally, and remember that those relationships can last outside of any specific job. Mentoring brings me lots of happiness, and I follow the women I mentored on social media and watch them get better jobs and stride up the corporate ladder with great pleasure.
Be intentional about hello
When I was growing up, we moved frequently. And every move meant a new school. I was an awkward, anxious, weird kid, so I liked the chance to start over every few years. I would ask myself, who do I want to be next?
I’ve also played that game with new jobs, asking myself how I want to show up differently. How do you want to show up? Are there habits or ways of interacting that you want to leave behind? Did you, for example, use gossip to feel connected to others? Were you impatient with people, or resistant to new ideas? This is a great opportunity to try to show up differently.
My advice to clients who are starting new jobs or new roles is this
•Get clear goals for your first 90 days. If you don’t get them from your new boss, write up your own and run them by your boss or key stakeholders. I like to break them into goals for 30, 60 and 90 days.
•Track those goals. Check in with the stakeholders to see how you’re doing.
•Ask for feedback often. Be especially sensitive to culture. The person who holds the culture won’t always be senior, but they will have been there for a while. Find that person and try to understand where the guardrails are so you don’t inadvertently challenge a norm that works.
•Tell people how to work with you. Ask them how you can work with them. Do this in 1:1s and in leadership team meetings. Things to cover are
o What is the best way to communicate with you? Email, Slack, text?
o How quickly do you expect a reply? What about nights and weekends?
o How do you manage or how do you like to be managed? Get specific – how much oversight or checking in do you want? What motivates you?
o How do you learn? By seeing, hearing, doing or moving around?
o What are your work pet peeves? If you hate it when people show up late to meetings, or interrupt or don’t acknowledge receipt of a message, then this can be useful information to share.
Remember, this is a two-way street. At the end of this process, you should understand how to communicate with, teach and motivate every person who reports to you. It’s your roadmap – use it.
•Be clear about your expectations. Too often new leaders assume that people have similar values or approaches and don’t explicitly detail how they want their direct reports to show up. If you want autonomy and decisiveness, say that. If you are trying to repair mistakes made by a previous leader and want oversight on even small decisions, be clear about that, and maybe let people know how long that short leash is going to be in play and what they can do to get more freedom.
•Check that your messages are landing. When you talk about these things, check back in that people understand what you are saying and to see if there are feelings that need to be addressed.
•Talk to people. Meet the stakeholders and team members. Ask them what they want, for their careers and for the organization. Demonstrate curiosity and openness.
•If you are going to be in executive leadership, pay attention to every aspect of your onboarding so you can improve the experience for others. Good onboarding isn’t just about showing people where on the server they can find things. It’s about welcome, orientation, wayfinding, signposting, creating belonging. How oriented and welcome do you feel? What might be missing?
Feel all the feelings
Leaving a job, especially if it’s not your choice, can be wrenching and disorienting. For a while. Be kind to yourself.
Starting a new job is also hard. It’s exhausting – your brain is processing so much new information that it can be draining. I tell myself that the first 2 weeks I’ll be exhausted so I should take it easy where I can outside of work. The first six months are going to be hard.
If you’ve come in with a mandate for change, or if you are replacing a leader who was loved, you may not be liked. I wrote about that here.
And that is hard.
Rituals, symbols and storytelling are age old ways that we humans make meaning of suffering, loss and challenges. The more you can engage these ancient ways of processing, the more effective and rewarding these life transitions can be.