Transitions and the System

Some time ago, I wrote about my transition out of the company I had worked for, for 17 years.  There were some ups and downs, plenty of fears and doubts, plus hope.

What am I losing, what am I taking with me?

Changes in our work and life need to be addressed at a human level, not just a transactional level.

I’ll be talking more about how to make the best transitions for ourselves and how we can support others to make great transitions.  But today, I wanted to focus on something that I learned this week about the effect on the System when someone leaves an organisation, particularly when there is a lack of transparency about why and where a person is going.

I think I knew this, as I had sensed it in the past; but I didn’t know that there had been research to back up my hunch.  Let me quote John Whittington from his book Systemic Coaching and Constellations:

“Systems don’t tolerate ‘moving on’, ‘forgetting’ or otherwise excluding and will entangle another person in the resulting dynamic until the issue is properly attended to.  Yet organizations around the world still give people more money to leave than they did to join, believing that this will help them to leave the organizational memory.  It has exactly the opposite effect on the system, which will ‘re-member’ them.”

What this means in practice is that a person replacing the person who has left will face the same issues that person faced, because the System is holding on to those issues.

Had the original person been transparently thanked for their contributions, and the barriers to achievement acknowledged, the System can let the memory go, as it has closure.

I know, I know, it all sounds a bit spooky that something that only exists as a result of the people in it is an entity in its own right – a System, that has memories of its own that get in the way of the people in it.  Of course, it’s the people who feel it – but they might not know why they experience it in this way.

Let me give you an example.  I’ve been in situations where I have found out days or even weeks after a team-mates’ departure that they have been let go (they were in a different city and I didn’t work with them every day or even every week, so this wasn’t about my lack of observation).  There was no good-bye, no thanks, no good luck in your new life.  I felt robbed of the chance to say my own good-bye to them.  Ok, so they might have wanted to slink off quietly; some people don’t like others knowing that their job no longer exists.  But I suspect that this only made it harder for them to make a good ending emotionally – and I know it made it hard for me to make a good ending.  That also led to questions in my mind about how to protect myself from it happening to me – that does nothing for productivity in a company, when people fear for their jobs.  And the people left behind often take up the slack too, and end up spreading themselves too thin – again, not good for productivity.  Then there are the people who come into the function, perhaps to replace the leaver.  They can’t seem to get stuff done, despite their previous good record.  Odd, but true.

If you sense that someone is still a part of your System, even after they have departed, reflect on whether they had a good ending at the company.  Did you treat them with respect?  Did you publically (collectively and individually) thank them for all that they did to hep the organisation?  Were you truthful with them and with each other about the reasons for departure?  Did everyone get a chance to say good-bye?

If not, you might find that you still have a cloud hanging over you that is preventing the organisation and individuals within it from moving forward.

What stories do you have about this?  I bet you’ve noticed it too, but didn’t know it was a real phenomenon.