39: Leaving Well, Practice, Ritual, and Capacity
In this episode, I dive into a discussion about practice, ritual, and capacity, and how those things intersect with the idea of organizational health and 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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This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
In today’s episode, we are going to talk about practice, ritual, and capacity. 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.
I’ve recently started prioritizing a very specific movement protocol for strength building. After going through menopause “early” in 2017 (I put that in air quotes because every body is so different), and my motor scooter accident in 2019, I’ve had a difficult time with my weight. Recently, I decided I wanted to focus on strength training and an intentional movement practice that would allow me to work with the body I have (I have long-term damage in my right leg and knee that causes challenges when doing things like squats, kneeling, and I can no longer run). Simultaneous to that, I wanted to be more consistent and thoughtful about my food and drink consumption. I quit smoking ages ago in 2009 and quit drinking in 2020. My next “quit” is sugar, wish me luck!
All of these things that I want to do will require a deep devotion to practice and ritual. It requires that I experiment with how my body responds to certain foods. It means that as I ramp up my protein intake (goodness gracious, SO much protein), I need to think through how to incorporate that intake with my real day-to-day life, not just something that nutrition gurus preach. It also means I need to ritualize things like my bedtime in order to have the type of morning that I most desire.
Another important component of this is to track my efforts … not as much so that I can see progress, but so that I have data to give me both a baseline and … to make adjustments along the way.
I’ve always loved yogurt and granola, but as I increase my protein and work to decrease my sugar intake, I realized —- through tracking and seeing patterns — I noticed two things. First, that both my granola AND yogurt choice had much more protein than I would have ever guessed, and second, that they both had a ridiculous amount of sugar in them. What we consume, surround ourselves with, and practice becomes who we are.
In Episode 21 of Season One with Carrie Melissa Jones, she shared a relevant quote about her experience of closing things down and leaving. She said: “There are no definitive metrics that are going to tell you whether something's working or not. And so we often are going off of our gut. Unfortunately, our gut is often influenced by outside culture and all these other things. And outside culture is telling us more is better, try harder, rest is not productive, all these things.”
This has stuck in my head and come back to mind as I’ve been paying so much more attention to my own gut - both my actual stomach and my intuition. When we are influenced by outside things, our internal culture can be impacted. When we allow outside culture to interrupt our ritual and practice, we don’t reach the desired outcome we have for ourselves.
I always say “We decide” and it’s so true. It’s true when it comes to the way we practice and embed ritual into our lives. It is also true when it comes to choices that involve our workplaces. If your gut is telling you that you need something different, what practices and rituals can you start working on today to help support that future decision? Can you track and notice where you have Worthy Work or Warm Fuzzies moments? Can you create a set of data points around any opportunities that exist in your current role (more on that in an upcoming episode when I share my thoughts on job descriptions and annual reviews)? Can you begin to notice what ways you can practice injecting new rituals into your mornings, or the way you schedule meetings, or how you navigate hard conversations with your boss or team?
Another big topic that I love working with clients to uncover is their relationship with capacity. I believe capacity requires a combination of these four things: time, interest, skillset, and energy. When you think about your capacity, it helps incredibly to ask whether you have, #1 - the TIME to do the thing. #2 - do you have the interest in the project or role? #3 - do you have the skillset needed? And lastly, #4 - do you have the energy (emotional, mental, creative)? In the absence of any two of those things, I offer that you likely do not have the necessary capacity. You could have the skillset and interest, but if you don’t have time or energy, it won’t be fruitful. If you have the energy and skillset, but don’t have time or interest, the project may fail. If you have the energy and time, but don’t have the skillset or interest … you get my point.
Burnout is one of the most common reasons individuals start to think about a career change, and it doesn’t often matter whether the burnout is self-inflicted or as a result of the workplace.
A quote from Bethaney Wilkinson from Episode 30 of Season One is also relevant here: “Part of the reason transformation takes so long is because people are already at capacity in life, typically. We are leading full lives with partners and kids and homes and communities and things happening all over the globe. I think that our capacity tends to be limited, at least in modern times. The amount of space it takes to think deeply about the shifts needed in our organization, that space tends to not be there unless we create it.”
If you’re listening as a manager, you’ll want to listen up. What do you do when your team is obviously struggling with burnout? Some of my recommendations include an understanding and acceptance that this isn’t an easy fix. Getting to the bottom of workplace culture that may be causing or contributing to overwhelm and burnout will take a lot of time. It will take a lot of listening and navigating multiple sets of needs and expectations.
If you do nothing else, spend some time individually with each of your team members and find out the main sources of their stress and overwhelm when it comes to their role and responsibilities. Putting on your detective hat, think broadly about where there are intersecting dots and connections. Does one employee feel underutilized and undervalued when it comes to their work, while another employee has shared a consistent feeling of having too much work on their plate? Can some of your unfinished projects be navigated as a sprint with new team members joining to round out the skillsets brought to the completion?
As it relates to delegation, we stymie finding additional capacity, because of some of the following issues:
Trust, and the lack of it with those we maybe should delegate to
Trust, and the fear of losing it or having it degrade from strong relationships
Reliability
Competence
Sincerity
Deliverability
Even though some of those things I’ve listed off may feel scary, consider the power that comes from the reasons TO consider better delegation such as efficiency and scale. Another way to think about growing your capacity is by inviting folks in to your work to support needed outcomes. Consider the following folks:
Advisors - people who agree to leverage their expertise and brand to support your org
Ambassadors - people who help raise awareness for the org, ask for donations on your behalf, and/or increase connections to community / interested parties.
Junior board members - people who offer time, skills, and services to help increase awareness and resources for your org
Strategic partners - other mission-aligned orgs that leverage their resources alongside your own to achieve a program objective
In the instances where you’re ready to grow your organization’s capacity by introducting or elevating your delegation muscles, consider these questions:
Consider how you will need to assess readiness? What needs to be in place to feel confident in this person’s ability?
When you delegate, what are you offering re: support to the person who is taking on the project?
How much context should be provided with regard to the reason for the project, or what’s already been done?
What expectations do you have, and what expectations do they have?
What worries come up, what is the best outcome and the worst outcome?
What needs to be deprioritized in order for this person to take on the new project?
What values does this offer to the work, when effectively delegated?
As I wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with the idea of documentation and written policies. When we think of practice and ritual, something they both have in common is a requirement to notice, track, and assess what’s working. As I’m working to increase my strength, more intentionally consume foods that fuel my body, and prioritize sleep and movement, it doesn’t do me much good if I am not paying attention to the outcome of this effort. It also doesn’t do me much good if I’m not tracking the effort to begin seeing those patterns and then making adjustments as needed.
The same goes for our impact together in the workplace. Documentation of our practices and rituals allows us to have a record of our efforts, as well as provides opportunities to manage TO the agreement we have with each other about what work we will do, how we will do it, and what the finished product will look like. Another benefit to documenting our procedures and policies is that it provides and allows ease, and enables trust building and reliance on each other.
As you’ve listened to this episode, what correlations are you noticing between the idea of practice, ritual, and capacity? What connections can you draw to your own work? I’d love to hear from you.
Thanks for listening, my friend.
