Lame Duck?
How to Gracefully Leave Your Job Better Than You Found It
This post is a follow-on from When is it Time to Leave Your Job?.
The minute you resign from your job, particularly if you’re in a senior leadership role, you are a lame duck. Watch your team literally adapt overnight and operate as though you aren’t there. It’s a microcosm of human evolutionary survival instincts, at its best.
Unfortunately, you still have 3-4-5 weeks or more left in your role. What now?
Obey the Campsite Rule*: Leave your company, your team, and your closest work friends better off than when you found them.
I doubt I received an A+ in my departure. I made mistakes. But I genuinely put a lot of thought, time and work into making sure I left on the best possible terms. I gave it my all and am proud of my behavior. Wishing you all the best, and that you are inspired to do the same.
Much love, -Beck
* Credit to Dan Savage for advocating for the campsite rule in romantic relationships. I’ve adapted his approach for work environments.
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Thoughtfully Own Your "Departure Communication Plan"
What you tell people about why you are leaving matters: particularly if you’re in a senior role. Employees read into your departure as evidence or insight on their own situations. I believe in honesty and transparency -but it’s OK to have different levels of detail flow to different people. You may want to share more specifics or “the raw version” with your “inner circle”. This allows you to be fully heard and seen by those who are your closest peers and friends. Like any ring framework, you can share more generalized messages with people who are further away from your inner circle. Outline “how” you’re going to communicate your message -In 1:1s? Small groups? Large org meeting? Over email?Be thoughtful about how you communicate in addition to what you communicate. Loud mouths, and every company has them, will talk. Assume the second you tell one person you have a ~24 hour countdown before everyone knows.
Practice what you’re going to say -and get comfortable answering these types of questions from your coworkers - Why are you leaving? What are you doing next? No really, why are you leaving? What does you leaving mean for me? Should I leave? What advice do you have for me?
Invest Time Crafting a Killer Succession Plan
Once you tell your manager you’re leaving, your opinion may not matter (Again, welcome to the life of a Lame Duck). BUT, there’s only upside in crafting a thoughtful and multi-optioned succession plan. Departures are one of the step-change moments to make necessary organizational change -take this opportunity very seriously. Write out a few organizational scenarios and advocate for the single solution you believe is best. In a perfect world, what should your organizational structure look like and why? Are there current gaps or challenges that can be solved with this reorganization? Will this reorg improve diversity in leadership? And if not, why? You have an opportunity to think about bold and creative solutions!
Workshop your ideas with your manager and advocate to stay close to the process. Push hard to promote employees who are taking on bigger roles now that you are gone. Get them what they deserve now, not later. This is your last opportunity to recognize and set your team up for future success!
Write and Review Development Plans with Your Directs (and Their New Bosses)
This is your last opportunity to coach and give feedback to your team. It’s also the baton handoff to give context about your team to their new leader. Be thoughtful, comprehensive, honest and both near term and forward looking. Have clear documentation on each member of your team -identifying their successes over the past year and highlighting gaps to the next level, eg. What will it take to get Billy from Sr. Manager to Director?
In the sessions with your team, determine what they would like you to share with their new boss. For example, individuals will have unique personal challenges either at work or at home, career desires, external passions, etc. It can be helpful for you to share some, all, or none of this information with their new leader. Act as the best possible conduit to ensure the new relationship starts off on the right foot.
Strategically Focus Your Time on Efforts You Care Most About
Drop stuff that's tactical and not overall useful for the future. Cancel or don’t attend status-type meetings to make time for longer-term planning around the initiatives you want to live on after you’ve left. Are you a leader or key contributor in any employee groups? Is there an initiative that you believe has a lot of value for the company, but may not succeed because it hasn’t been fully fleshed out? Do you have any unique knowledge or perspectives that should live on when you walk out the door? Talk to relevant co-workers about these initiatives and philosophies, and ensure you have a few sponsors who will see them through.
Cross Your t’s and Dot Your i’s
Finish the work you said you would finish. Document hairy outstanding issues to help your future team and the organization work more effectively. If there are buried bodies, now’s the time to fess up and clean up. Do the right thing.
Be in the Present with Your Co-workers
In your last weeks in the office, carve out time for long lunches, coffee walks, and genuinely valuable and connected conversations. I ended up spending 1/2 of my days every day having 1:1s, lunches, drinks, etc. with people I cared about. It can be emotionally exhausting, but it’s 100% worth fully investing your whole self in the people you care so much about.
Write Cards & Give Hugs (with Consent)
Let people know you are thankful for the time you’ve spent with them. You are grateful for what you’ve learned from them. You will think of them and miss them in the future. Be honest, open and vulnerable. I’ve received so many thoughtful cards from those who left before me. Self-plug, I’m really into writing cards. If you want to learn more about my philosophy of card writing, check out my post Write Cards. Show Love.
Don’t Forget to Take Care of Yourself
This following checklist is particularly important if you are taking time off before taking another job. If you are headed to another role at a new company, some of these suggestions are less valuable.
Build Your Future Work Toolkit
You can’t take or use proprietary work products. But you should absolutely set yourself up for success in future roles. Focus on personal documentation/information that will help you most in your next role.
Your goals and your self assessments from the past few years
Any 360 feedback, or broader feedback you’ve received
Write up a list of Key Strategic Work Products that you are most proud of and why
Write out answers to the following questions:
What were you most proud of? Why?
What are your strengths? With examples.
What areas are you working to improve? With examples.
How would you describe your leadership style?
How would your peers describe you?
What’s an example of a situation where you had to resolve conflict?
Provide an example of where you led or influenced a major strategic decision?
Describe a difficult employee situation where you had to fire the employee? What happened and how did you handle the situation?
Describe when you’ve had to make a major organization restructure? How did this come about, how did you think about and execute the restructure, what was the outcome?
Getting Your Future Life in Order
Health
Evaluate and finalize your healthcare solution. You can sign up for Cobra, which extends your employers healthcare through a relatively high monthly payment, or check alternate options.
Go to the doctors. Get all your dentist, eye doctor, basic appointments in. If your doctors are near your work office, and your office is not near your home, get yourself some new doctors.
Finances
If you’re in a public company and have equity, determine your stock selling strategy. Do you want to continue to hold stock for this company?
If you’re in a private company and have options, speak to a financial advisor, your HR department, and others you know who were in similar situations to evaluate up-and-down side scenarios in buying your options.
If you have a financial advisor, check with them about your 401K options.
Contacts & Connections
Create your digital contact book. Make sure you have work friends' personal email addresses and phone numbers <if they want to share them>.
Connect with co-workers on Linkedin, and/or other social media platforms depending on your interest in those connection platforms.
Digital Needs
Buy yourself a computer if you don’t have one :) Buy it before you give back your work computer. Add personalized shortcuts, passwords, favorited sites, etc. to your new computer.
Confirm that you do not have services (FB, 401k, personal email, bank accounts, etc.) tied to your company work email account. You probably don't have your work email as the primary email, but you may have it linked as a secondary back-up email. Example, I had my Princeton alumni email address forwarding to my work account.
Extras
Go pick up all your packages from the mailroom --Stop mailing stuff to the mailroom :) Make sure you don’t have any recurring subscriptions or packages that go to the mailroom.