50: Long Runways for Leaving Well
If you’re new here, Leaving Well is the art and practice of leaving a place, role, title, or thing with intention and purpose, and when possible … joy.
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Transcript:
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the reality of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible, joy. I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. Season 1 of this podcast features guests experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace, and Season 2 features solo episodes sharing my best practices and Leaving Well framework.
Expect to be inspired, challenged, and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world.
So in today's episode, we're going to talk about knowing when it's time to go. So I'm going to try something a little bit different. Typically I have pre written the episode transcript or the blog post, if you will, and then I kind of read it. Uh, and that's the podcast episode. for these solos, but this time I'm going to try just riffing.
I've got a couple of notes, bullet points that I want to cover, but I thought it would be the most interesting to just see where this conversation goes between you and I here as I share my thoughts on knowing when it's time and also share my thoughts on long runways for leaving well. So the first question is to just talk a little bit about how do you know when it's time to go?
And when I meet with clients, some of the first questions they ask are around that topic. Is it time? Should I go? Should I stay? How long is long enough? Um, how do I know when my time is finished here? And my questions back to them often include such things as have you achieved everything that you set out to?
I ask, you know, when you first started this job, when you first took the assignment, uh, or the role, what are the things that you were excited about getting done at your organization? Thank you. Go back and think through how many of those things you've been able to do and accomplish. Another question that's really good for times like this to think about, is it time?
Um, what else do you want to do with your life? I know that sounds really basic, but what are you not able to do because of your current role? Another question to consider is maybe the role is maybe it's time for you to leave that role, but it's not time for you to leave the organization. Maybe there's something else that you would rather give your impact and your time and your energy to at the current organization.
Maybe there's a project that you have been really, really hopeful that you would get across the line. Is that something that you can kind of pin a timeline on and focus to that end? I also believe strongly that we all know when it is time. If you have a set of emotions that constantly linger with you when you get up and go to work or log on to the computer from your home office, If you're anxious more often than you're not, if you feel that you are not being heard, all of those kind of things, we know.
Our intuition and our gut always tells us the truth. Although there's an episode, uh, that you can go back and listen to around knowing yourself and, uh, being able to fuel your gut and your intuition so that it's strong. But I do believe that we know when it's time. So once you know when it's time, the next set of questions often comes, well how long is long enough?
How much notice should I give? This is particularly important for folks that are in executive leadership roles or folks that are on frontline staff roles where you are really responsible for a program or a project or a group of constituents that you serve to think about not leaving people quote high and dry.
I think it's interesting to think about this question of how long. Is long enough, but actually asked this question instead, how long is too long? Because I think if we think about our exits and our transitions away from the workplace in more of a timeline or a spectrum, so to speak, we can look at things like what projects, like I said before, what projects do I want to see finished?
What do I want to see come to completion? What relationships have I started that I want to be able to wrap full circle or make introductions to others so that that work continues? If you think about it from that perspective, what things do you want to get done before you leave, then you can map out and determine what that timeline looks like.
The secondary piece of that is, let's say, for example, you have a project that you're halfway through, and it's going to take, after you do some thinking about it, it's going to take you six months. to wrap up that project. That does not necessarily mean that you want to give notice six months from now or at this time for a six month date in the future.
Maybe you want to start working on wrapping up that project and then give notice closer to the end of that six months. It's rarely actually when we think about notice about the departing executive leader or frontline staff, whoever it is, as you're listening to this, whatever role you sit in, it's really actually about your departure.
And it's more about how you're setting up the work to continue after you leave. Of course, there's the typical two weeks notice that we, we hear. And we talk about as, Standard or traditional. Oftentimes when it comes to folks that are in leadership roles, we tend to expect four weeks notice, but really beyond that, like notice period that you're giving to HR and to your employer, dig a little bit deeper and think about what it is that you want to accomplish.
I know I keep saying that over and over, but it's really important to keep that front and center. If you don't have a deep desire to wrap up a project, have your timeline be shorter. If there are not big projects that require your absolute attention and focus on it, delegate that to someone else. Let your timeline be shorter.
What I've seen time and time again, when clients come to me and they have anything longer than a six month timeline that's been publicly shared out or shared even internally with their teams, it can cause more confusion. frustration and friction and sometimes harm than it's worth. I think that most folks desire to give people as much adequate notice as possible so that planning can happen and so that the structure of transition can come into play.
But the reality is none of us really know how to actually have a really powerful transition period and so just giving yourself more time doesn't automatically mean that it's going to be a better transition. My recommendation, if I don't have any other details to help me make this conclusion or come to this conclusion, would be that three months is an adequate runway for leaving.
Six months, if you've got big projects, if you have capital campaigns, if you have a big fundraising effort that you're undergoing, if you have a big, huge thing that you're trying to launch, six months might be a little bit more appropriate, but I rarely, rarely ever recommend anything longer than six months.
Going up to a year, uh, just really can cause heartache, honestly, for everyone involved. There's also kind of this interesting mental shift that happens when we think about the leaving, and for some reason, someone leaving a room, if you think about an event or a function, someone leaving the room and departing doesn't seem to have as much impact to the energy of the room as someone entering.
And I like to use the concept of a dinner party when I am working with teams, um, because it's something that we all do. can relate to I suppose maybe not a dinner party you can think about any kind of function that you normally go and Go to and my question for teams that I work with on this is how do you normally leave a dinner party?
This is actually also one of the questions in my quiz the workplace transitions archetype Which if you have not taken it yet, you can do so at Naomi Hadaway comm forward slash quiz there are four archetypes and You'll get a really beautiful page that shares a little bit more about your archetype and how you handle workplace transitions.
So anyway, uh, going back to leaving a dinner party, there are some ways that we all leave events or functions and how you do that actually says a lot about your relationship to change and transition in the workplace. So here's, I'm going to read through my list of different ways that you could leave a dinner party.
One, you might send the host a text message, give a business card to the folks you've networked with, and then slip out the front door. You also might say goodbye to everyone loudly, make plans to see folks again, and offer to host something in the future. You might also take this approach, and after making sure that no one has been left out from having someone to chat with during the dinner party, you say goodbye to the people on your left and your right and make sure that everyone has a ride home.
You might also clean up the kitchen, clear out the dinner table, and find the recipe of the dish that everyone is raving about to share with the other guests. You also might leave without saying goodbye and just sneak out the door. If you're a Midwest person, you might step talk talk, which is talking excessively with everyone all on repeat while stating, I really have to go now.
You also might use a fake reason for needing to depart. You might make a huge announcement about where you need to be next so that everyone knows not only that you're heading out, but where you're going as you exit. You might just quietly bid adieu to your close friends. You might not go in the first place.
There's also the Italian way, which someone shared with me on a recent post. When I shared this leaving a dinner party analogy, they said you say you're leaving for about an hour ahead of when you really need to go. And you keep talking to this person and that person while the auntie packs up food for you to take and tells you that you didn't stay long enough.
There's also something to be said about the relationship to the person hosting the event. If it was a personal invite, you might let the host know that you're leaving. If there wasn't a personal invite and it's just a public event, you might just ease on out. So as you listened to me kind of going through those different ways that you can leave a dinner party, I'd love to have you think about which ones of those correlate to the way that you behave in the workplace and how you might consider leaving when it's your time to go.
If you need to rewind, I don't know, a minute or two in the, back in the episode to re listen to those, I really would encourage you to think about what is your natural propensity to leaving a place. For example, if it is that you are going to step talk talk, you're going to talk to everyone and keep talking to people and keep talking to people all while saying, I really need to go.
That's often what happens when people have a long runway, too long of an exit runway. Right. That's also what happens when we think about that dinner party exit where it's like making sure that everyone has, um, a ride home and making sure that everyone had someone to chat with during the dinner party and saying goodbye to every single person.
Sometimes that can also happen when there's too long of a runway. On the flip side, when there's too short of a runway, that's like the leaving without saying goodbye and sneaking out the back door. It's also like not going in the first place and never fully being engaged in your job. How you leave something is just as important as how you begin something.
Yet, we pay very little attention to any intentionality when it comes to the leaving, and that's what I help my clients with. Whether you're an organization that you work for doesn't have any departures in the future, Or whether you have one that is currently happening, or you're on the back end of one, I can step in with your organization to help you navigate that workplace transition.
We use a variety of things from my framework, including knowledge transfer, including stability and continuity for services to make sure that you're not leaving your community. In the dust, as you navigate this transition, we also work really closely with your staff to make sure that they not only understand how they handle change and transition, but so that they know who to go to on the team when they need support.
Some people get to say goodbye when they leave in a really thoughtful way and have celebrations and other people don't want celebrations. So, Another piece of advice that I would give you as you are thinking about setting up your exit strategy is that you think about whether you want a celebration of any kind, whether you want a gathering or an event in your honor, or whether you would like it to be a quiet little shindig with the people on your team.
Celebrating is really, really important as a part of closure for your exit strategy. Not only is it important for you, but it's important for the people that you are leaving behind. Another couple of things that I wanted to share with you about the long runway for leaving well is that there are some specific pieces that can come into play when it comes to telling the community or telling your, um, interested parties.
Um, I don't use the word stakeholders anymore, but interested parties. So that might be donors. It might be board members. It might be partner organizations. One thing that's really important as you craft your communication to those external parties, and I include board members as external parties here in this case, because they're not involved in the day to day operations, is that you think really clearly about what message it is that you're sending.
Are you going to share in your exit message the important things that you were able to get accomplished? Are you going to, and this is something that I do recommend, are you going to have a secondarily supported message by perhaps the board chair or the executive director, if you're not the executive director, to just really support that this person was meaningful to this organization and that we are celebrating them as they go on to their next thing.
That can really help, especially if you're an organization that has a lot of public facing work, or if you need to send a communication out to the community that you serve. Communication is also really important internally with your staff. It's important that you, if you have determined what your exit date is, which is important to consider when you're sending out your communication, don't state that it's on, for example, July 1st.
You could say, currently planned for July 1st. And that gives you, even though that's a small little tweak, it gives you the ability to navigate an earlier departure if that's what's best for you and, or the organization. I'm going to wrap up now. Um, I could talk for a long time about, uh, runways and how to know when it's time and all those things, but really this comes back to you.
How do you know when it's time? What do you want to get finished before you leave this role? And then how are you going to communicate and how are you going to navigate the exit? If you would like support for your organization, reach out. You can visit my website, Naomi Hadaway. com or send me an email.
Naomi@8thandhome.com. That's Naomi@8thandhome.com. I would love to support your organization as you navigate your next workplace transition. Thanks for listening. If you've not yet taken the Workplace Transition Archetype quiz to discover your natural relationship to change and transition, you can do that at NaomiHattaway.com forward slash quiz. To learn more about living well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace, visit NaomiHatttaway. com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide, to shift culture and to create transformation.
Until next time, I'm your host, Naomi Hattaway, and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.
