53: Strong Opinions on Leaving Well and other beliefs to share with you
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:
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.
On this episode, I'm going to share with you some of my strong opinions, and it feels a little uncomfortable to share them with you. Although I've said them all at some point or another, but I've never like lumped them together. Into one body of work, if you will, and I've never labeled them as strong opinions.
I've always just kind of had them live as part of conversation or, you know, passing the time, kind of a, you know what else I think, comma, uh, before I end a statement, I wanted to start, um, with sharing the five values of leaving well. And then I want to go into some of those strong opinions, the things that I feel very strongly about, but I haven't yet really said.
There is a fear, I think, of what will people think when we share our opinions with the world. There's also a fear from a financial standpoint that if your opinions and your belief systems aren't upheld or tolerated by those who perhaps write your paychecks, um, that that will, you know, come to bite you in the rear end.
And so, um, I have kept quiet about some things that I have strong opinions about because there is some of that fear. What if the folks that support the nonprofits that I work for, um, by donating and funding their mission and their, their operations say at some point, you know what, we don't really care for that specific consultant's belief system.
We don't care for her strong opinions because that could impact my bottom line and my business So I've noticed recently that I've kind of held those a little bit at bay, and I've kind of held my strong opinions under wraps. Recently, I posted on LinkedIn a comment about stay interviews, and I started it with a very strong statement, but it didn't faze me much.
I just said, if you manage people, you need to use stay interviews as part of your retention strategy. And that's gotten some incredible feedback. Um, both feedback left in comments on the post itself. Um, I've gotten some emails and I even got a phone call. Which is interesting from someone who I've known in my past that wanted to talk about it.
They wanted to challenge the fact that they don't believe in stay interviews, that they think that most managers do them incorrectly. Um, so anyway, I wanted to share that example with you because it's something that I have thought for a long time, that it's an ethical Absolute necessity that you hold stay interviews as a part of a strong retention strategy, but I've never said it out loud I've said it in the podcast episode when I talked about stay interviews.
It's episode 41 But I haven't said it really on social media in that way and so it was a practice moment for me to kind of stretch my muscles and see what would happen and Maybe someone took offense to it. Maybe someone has their own version of strong opinions that they didn't share with me But what it did is it reminded me that I do have strong opinions and that it doesn't hurt me, um, to share them as long as I share them with accountability and authenticity.
Before I go into those values, uh, that I have for Leaving Well, I wanted to share a book that I really have loved. Uh, it's called The Third Perspective by Afrika Brooke. You can hear Afrika interview with me on episode 38 of this podcast, and I will have show note, uh, links to purchase this book. I highly recommend that you listening to this, go get it right now.
Uh, there's a link, Amazon or Bookshop. That's a strong opinion. As she opens the book, Africa has this quote, Life is much more enjoyable when you live it as though you've already been cancelled. I'm curious what that did for you in your body as you heard me say that quote from Africa. If you're anything like me, there is a great resistance to the idea of being canceled.
It's highly uncomfortable to think about what if someone cancels you? What if a whole industry cancels you? However, dipping your toe into the world of strong opinions is something that I'm starting to do more of. Uh, and I would encourage you to think about whether you can also start to do more of that In this book, she goes through a guide.
It's basically a guidebook. It's a toolkit on how to have your opinion. And the reason it's called the third perspective is because, uh, she says they have their point of view. You have yours. And somewhere in between is what Africa Brooke calls the third perspective. It's all around, uh, the six core challenges of limiting beliefs and behaviors, confinement within comfort zones, public speaking, issues of comparison and self worth.
Fear of exploration, et cetera. And so it really is a literal guidebook to go through Africa's own pillars, which are awareness, responsibility, and expression to build your own courage. I would say, okay, so my five values for leaving. Well, this is not a strong opinion. It's just something that I feel is helpful to kind of start this whole conversation on this episode today.
My five values that I operate with. Uh, inside of my Leading Well work and when I work with clients, are these trust, courage, accountability, delight, and transformation. If you know me outside of my work, you might recognize a couple of those as probably pillars of my own life that I try to ascribe and subscribe to.
Uh, if you only know me through my work or through this podcast, you likely resonate and resonate with Recognize some of those through the different episodes or the different interviews that I've had, but I want to dig a little bit into those five before I get to my strong opinions. So for the first one, trust, um, that is a huge component of navigating workplace transitions.
It's a huge part of what I bring to the clients and the organizations that I work with. Organizations that choose to work with me for their organizational health, succession planning, sabbatical policies, knowledge transfer, The literal, uh, navigation of a workplace transition for an executive leader, or even when I come in as an interim, they have to know that they can trust me.
There has to be also a trust bridge and how the client came to me. So either I am building trust by these podcast episodes. As you listen to them, you get to know me a little bit. You get to know, uh, my core tenants, how I operate, how I speak, how I behave. If you have been referred to me, you are. leaning on that trust bridge, the trust bridge that was extended when someone recommended that you work with me.
If you didn't know me though before, and you came across because of a Google search or because of something that you heard someone say and you decided to look up what leaving well meant, I, fully believe that it is one of my, um, sole duties is to extend trust to you and to practice trust building exercises so that you can continually continuously over and over and over build more trust in the fact that I can not only deliver expertise and those services to you, but that I can do it in a calm caring and compassionate way that leaves your team and your organization better than before we worked together.
Another one of the values of living well is courage. So there are often opportunities where I am faced with a situation where I can either speak up or I can stay silent. And oftentimes this comes into play when we're talking about power dynamics, when we're talking about shared power, when we're talking with philanthropic funder, maybe they have lost some of their, Support of an organization because of an executive leadership transition, and I have opportunities to step into those spaces and say the truth out loud, say the hard thing out loud, and then to also help encourage the leaders that I'm working with to also build their own courage muscles.
So an example of that would be, uh, Working with perhaps a founder of an organization who has been around for decades, maybe that founder holds immense privilege from a wealth status, a class status, a race status, a gender status, a disability status. Maybe the person who's coming in as a successor as the incoming executive leader.
Holds none of those privileges. It is my duty to lean into courage, uh, in that moment and to say the big things out loud and to, to share the reality of what this new leader is going to face and to tell the exiting leader, tell the board of directors, maybe tell the funders why it is important that they suspend their belief system on power dynamics and even the ability to fail.
But That comes up a lot in the work that I do with organizations, especially as an exiting leader who holds those privileges, assumes that the incoming person who may not hold those privileges, they don't see what the problem is. They don't see why they're worried about success or why they're worried that people might not view them in the same strong light, may not even think they'll be successful.
So, being able to lean into and, uh, really pull from my own courage to be able to say those things out loud, especially when it comes to race and especially when it comes to cultural biases and racism and equity around disability. Those are some areas that I have come up all the time that I, I really need to lean into my courage to say the hard things out loud.
There's also been opportunities for me to stretch my courage muscles when I have, um, fired a client. And said that because of the culture, because of their, uh, values not being upheld, or because of a lack of values that align with mine, I no longer can work with them. That also impacts my bank account, uh, but that's one of the values, uh, that I hold Tight to in leaving well as courage and then accountability accountability is something that I Seek for myself, but I also require it from the organizations that I work with so often One of the first questions I will ask when an organization is seeking to work with me is how involved will the board of directors?
Be during this workplace transition work that we're doing together if there is a hesitation or a pause or if someone says, well, our board doesn't really need to be involved or doesn't want to be involved. That's a moment for accountability for everyone involved. So I won't go into that anymore. Um, but accountability is another one of the strong values for leaving well.
Delight is the fourth one. I strive to bring an element of delight to The engagements that I am asked to come alongside, whether that is interim executive leadership or a very specific project or organizational health, maybe it's succession planning, maybe it's a role review and a hierarchy reorganization of the structure.
I aim to bring delight. Some of the small ways that I do that are with my wonderful earring collection. I tend to have a couple of fun types of pairs of earrings that I'll wear from time to time. Um, I'll name why I think that they're delightful. It always gives a little chuckle. I also strive to bring delight to every interaction that I have with team members when I'm working with them.
And so that's a value that I encourage others to also think about. How can you bring joy and ease and delight to your work? And the last one is transformation. I don't want to have a part to play in an organization's health and in their culture and in their ability to navigate change and transition if it doesn't come with some transformation.
One of the things that I'm stretching my own self. Over this next year is to build in moments of transformation into the customer journey map. I talk about journey maps all the time. It's in my book. I talk about it with clients. I recommend that everyone do one for their workplace, but it's something that I need to also this.
Here's a strong opinion. I'm not perfect, right? So I need to, and I'm telling myself, as you're hearing me say this, I'm not perfect. I need to lean more into the transformation that can come by naming it and putting it on a timeline so that clients know when they can expect different versions of transformation along the leaving well process.
Okay. That's a quick introduction to the five values of leaving well. And now I want to share with you some of my strong opinions. So the first strong opinion that I have is that everything in life is better when it's non traditional. What I mean by that is that when I look back at my own life, um, it's not been very traditional.
Uh, I was homeschooled, uh, in Nebraska before it was legal, before the Nebraska Board of Education recognized homeschooling as a viable and legal form of education. So there's all sorts of stories I could tell you about how that was so non traditional, including some legal challenges and, um, A story as simple as going down to the mailbox, um, to get our mail.
We lived out in the country and one of the, one of our mailmen was on the board of education or maybe it was on the board at our local school. I'm not sure. I can't remember. But either way, our family always had some practices in place around like one of us kids going down to get the mail in the middle of the school day, because it would be, Very, very obvious that we weren't in school, which could cause all sorts of alarms.
So education, uh, I believe strongly in non traditional education because of my background and my experiences and where that comes into play with leaving. Well, is that I would encourage you if you still require, uh, Degrees for your hiring practices. I would encourage you to think very long, deep and hard about why that's required.
Um, can you swap out and include, maybe it's a degree and or relevant experience. Um, if you can't do away with the degree requirement altogether. Another non traditional thing that I think is better, um, is marriage. I recently celebrated in 2024 my 21st wedding anniversary with my husband, and the reason that our, uh, wedding, uh, our marriage is non traditional is because we've spent a lot of time inside of our marriage living in two separate households.
The reason for that is because of either his career or mine or both, or it's because of his career moving him and me staying behind with the kids. There's always a different set of reasons for it, but we've spent almost 50 percent of our marriage in different households or with one of us actively commuting for the better part of a year.
That's super non traditional and people have all sorts of questions when they try and figure out why we live in two different places, uh, the majority of the time. Yeah. Yeah. But for us, it works better. And so I think my whole point of this is that think about, even though it might not feel like a strong opinion, where are there places in your life where you can think about outside the box and non traditional opportunities like collaborations, how can you think about your work in a more non traditional way?
Another thing that is a strong opinion that I wanted to share with you is that I believe strongly that it is not the individual's obligation or responsibility to address workplace transitions one individual at a time. When I first started doing Leaving Well work, I primarily focused on the individual.
I thought that the best way to support and have impact in the workplace transition space was one executive leader at a time, and so I did that for about a year. Many, many, many executive leaders would come to me and say, I need to leave my job. I would work with them for about three months and support them during that transition, and then off they would go, and I would rinse and repeat.
What I came to learn though, the more I listened to Clients those individual executive leaders and the more that I leaned into my own accountability. There's a value for you. And my own desire for transformation in this work and in this sector of workplace transitions, the more I began to realize this should not be on the shoulders.
It should not be a duty or set of obligations borne by the individual. It is a hundred percent the organization's Or the industry or the sector or philanthropy, if we're talking about nonprofit, it is y'all's obligation and responsibility as an entity to address workplace transitions. And what I mean by that is if you are part of a family foundation, or you work at a community foundation, or you're in any way, shape, or form involved with public health.
granting funds, maybe it's government funding, to a nonprofit or to a social impact organization, and you are not also thinking about the capacity building aspect of their work, and you're also not thinking about supporting succession planning, or Or leadership, executive coaching, those kinds of things you're failing in your mission to support their work.
If all you're doing is, um, programming, um, and funding programs and not operations, and then one layer deeper, if you're not also, um, being insistent about funding, capacity building and leadership transition and organizational health, you're failing. And so it is your responsibility to address those things.
If you are a board of directors member. It's your responsibility to make sure that you have a conversation with your CEO to say, Where are we at with our organizational health? Where are we at when it comes to succession planning? I just recorded an episode. I believe it is episode. I don't remember. It's 50, 51, 52 that talks about succession planning and the importance of a team that And the executive leadership being the ones to develop the succession plan.
But that doesn't mean that as a board of director member, you can't, or you should not bring it to their attention and say, how can we support you? How can we support you in the process of building the succession plan? Also, if you're a board member, it is your duty to have a conversation at executive committee level or at the full board level about what you're doing to support the staff and their wellness.
Maybe that looks like sabbatical policies, maybe that looks like wellness retreats on a regular basis. It is your duty. As the keeper of the foundation, the governance, the well being of the organization, keep that in mind, keep it at the forefront of your mind. How well is the staff doing? How well is the staff prepared for workplace transitions?
And if you're the ED or the CEO, then it really also does rest on your shoulders to make sure that you have planned for workplace transitions so that you know how to navigate change and transition inside of your workplace. So that's my strong opinion. It's not the individual's obligation or responsibility to navigate their own workplace transition.
Of course, two weeks notice. All of those things, of course, but overarching as a sector, um, if we want to see change and if we want to do better when it comes to workplace transitions, it needs to be at the organizational level. Speaking of two weeks, here is another strong opinion that I have. I believe that two weeks notice is like so yesterday.
The reason I think that is because it goes back to that non traditional thing. If you have a project that you want to wrap up, If you have something that you want to see launch, if there's something that another team is working on that, you know, that you could provide impact, think about more than just giving two weeks and think about how you can wrap up with the bow, your legacy and your time at that organization.
I often say in this kind of. Parley's and Segway's into another strong opinion. I often say that we are in charge of the legacy that we leave and we can work it backwards. If I want to have people say about me that I was kind, I need to work that backwards into today. What are the actions that I'm doing today to express kindness and to inject kindness into everything I do if I'm thinking about leaving a project or I'm thinking about leaving a role, how do I connect back to my values to say, how can I make sure that as I leave, I'm kind?
I think what I mean when I say two weeks notice is so yesterday is that we, we bundle it into this like nice neat little box and say I'm giving notice. There's more to it than that. There is more about relationships and closing those relationships. There's planning, how you want to say goodbye, how you want to be remembered, etc.
Kind of on those same notes is the strong opinion that more of us should detach our names from our reputation and our legacy. What I mean by that is that while I do feel strongly that we all have a legacy that we're leaving, that we are living ancestors, as Jaya John says, everything that we do today impacts the future generations, it impacts future employees, etc.
We also could do without the stronghold often that we attach when we think about our name and our reputation and our legacy. It goes back to the book by Africa Brook, like what would happen if we detached from our reputation? What would happen if we detached from the legacy that we're leaving and instead did it as though no one was watching or did it as though, as Africa said, we've already been canceled?
So I encourage you to think about that one. What would it look like for you to detach? Your name, your reputation from your legacy. I talked about this a little bit in episode 51 around my very strong opinion that board of director members should never serve as an interim executive leader. And I get pushed back on this all the time.
I get pushed back all the time. Uh, from other interims. I get pushed back from Board of Directors. The reason that I feel strongly about this is because there is a power structure and a dynamic in play with a Board of Directors, and I honestly don't think it matters how lovely and down to earth and How much nonprofit expertise they've had in the past etc a board of director member still comes with an innate and inherent power structure that staff does not have and So if you have a board of director member that steps into an interim board Space because of an executive leadership gap that power dynamic is really really challenging to navigate in the moment And it's really hard to restore the relationship either if it was a good relationship before it might falter during the interim if a board member steps in or There might be relationships that are formed during the interim space That's hard to kind of claw away from and detach once the board member goes back to their governance space.
So You can listen to that episode Okay, so I'm going to go back to episode 51 to hear me go into more about that. But strong opinion, a board of director member should never serve as an interim executive leader. The one caveat I will say here is that if someone is a recent outgoing member and is recently off boarded a board, That's okay.
The pushback I get a lot here is that a board member is intimately involved and has intimate knowledge of the organization, but my challenge there is that if you are a board of director member who is in a governance seat, you should not have that deep of operational day to day knowledge. And so that's kind of a wash.
That's not a challenge that I hold tight because I don't think it should be the truth. It shouldn't be the case. Okay, two more, two more strong opinions. The second to last is that more organizations should wind down and sunset. One of the things that I do when I go in to do an assessment or a non profit snapshot is I look at, um, kind of key indicators around, um, the potential that the organization might want to consider sunsetting.
Now, sunsetting doesn't always just mean closing down, it can mean merging with another non profit, it can mean handing over programs to another partner agency, it can mean a long wind down period, it can mean a short wind down period, but I strongly believe that more organizations and non profits should consider winding down and sunsetting, and taking an honest.
Honest, transparent look at the mission, um, whether it's being currently achieved, uh, and whether it's time to close down shop, I will link two fabulous resources in the show notes. One is the decelerator, which is a UK based organization providing support for civil society organizations that is run in part by Louise, who you can hear, uh, podcast.
And then also the wind down a set of resources from Camille. I'll link both of those in the show notes. They are incredible. And I highly recommend you either pause right now and go click those open or make sure that you do it after the podcast episode is over. The last strong opinion I will share with you is that death is inevitable and we need to actively plan for it.
So I'm talking about physical death, uh, of humans. And I'm also talking about the death, uh, feeling and the grief and the transition that can happen inside of workplace transitions. If you believe, like I do, that death is inevitable and that death will happen to everyone, we should plan for it. We should have our estates in order, and estate, um, doesn't have to mean that you have to own property or have children.
We need to have our estate plan in order, and we need to have our will, um, Power of attorney, all of those things in place. And the second piece is that you also then need to tell the people who are involved in that plan about it so that they know what your wishes are. It is the same when it comes to organizational health.
You need to plan for the inevitable exit of your leadership staff, your frontline staff, and everyone in between. You also need to actively plan for board of member transition. You also need to actively plan for the transition of your funding support. Foundations are sun setting, funders make decisions about not continuing to fund, have a plan, if we know it's inevitable, which we all do, strong opinion, but it's the truth, If those things are going to happen and come to an end, let's plan for them.
If you're an organizational leader who would like to work with me, go to my website, NaomiHathaway. com. You can find all the information there, including the contact form to reach out. If you're an individual listening to this episode, I would ask what your strong opinions are. I would love to hear from you.
There's a speak pipe link in the show notes where you can speak back and tell me what's one of your strong opinions. Thanks for listening. Bye bye. 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/quiz. To learn more about leading well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace, visit NaomiHattaway. 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.
