No Take Backs

I recently handed off a project I’d been running for a couple of years. It’s not the first time I’ve gone through this sort of transfer. Sometimes it’s leaving and taking on a new job. Sometimes it’s managing a team temporarily. There is a tension as you give up something you invested a lot of time in. You want it to succeed but you also had a vision. Your successor may struggle or choose a different vision. But there are no take backs.

It’s a growth experience. It’s a good opportunity for you to take a look at yourself and how you handle it. It’s important to be able to discern between “that’s not good” and “that’s not what I would have done.” It’s healthy to move on. If you have regrets, turn them into goals and find a way to accomplish them in the future.

Jobs

When you start a new job, you are frequently following someone else. They may have taken a new job, inside or outside the same organization, or retired. Sometimes you are the person who has left the role.

It can help to remember how you felt in either position. When I leave a job and take on a new one, I tend to be very focused on my success in the new spot. I’m curious about how my successor at the previous position does, but a job is a big, complicated thing. Unless I was awful or there’s a sudden mission change, there’s a good chance that a lot of the things I was doing will change slowly over time. One thing is for sure: once you move on, change will happen whether you like it or not.

For that reason, I’m happy to leave my successor alone . Sometimes I’ve heard from someone, particularly if we knew each other before we engaged in a hand-off. There can be questions that don’t arise for a year or more. It’s never too late to get input or advice from someone with experience.

It’s also why I tend not to keep in touch with my predecessor when I take on a job. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do. The tricky thing with advice or hindsight is that it can be colored by experience, positive and negative. I spoke to someone recently about a context and I was reluctant to share my experience, in part because my perspective is negative.

I would absolutely share a negative perspective if it was context and not just my perception. That’s the strength of whisper networks because there may be situations where, even if you are worried it’s just you, that it’s not.

It can be hard to determine whether the negativity is actually part of the situation or just your perception, in which case someone else might not experience it. It’s not fair to them, or the organization, for you to color the context if it will inhibit their success.

Roles

Sometimes you take on a role temporarily – a secondment or an acting role – and then relinquish it. This can be tougher because you are still in the same organization. If you had wanted that role permanently, it’s even harder.

One experience I had was to run a web development team for about 6 years. I’d taken on the team when the CEO had asked me to, even though it was a corporate IT unit, not part of the library. The team had rolled out a pretty ugly web site redesign and it was felt new leadership was necessary.

That sort of situation can provide some clarity. Continuity is not a desired component. But you should still have self-awareness. If you prefer to be a change agent, you may make every situation into one of change. This situation required it. But many situations don’t, and if your go-to MO is to create a burning platform (which can make a predecessor look bad), you can create unnecessary new problems.

The team ran well, based on our performance reviews and delivery. It was an opportunity for me to hire in some new talent. And, after about 6 years, I asked for them to be transferred back into the IT unit, which is where the operation belonged. This transfer had to wait until we’d stabilized the team and web site, and the IT team had management that could provide continuity. It was a change years in the making.

I was once in a meeting with C-suite person as a subject matter expert, meeting with a consultant. After the meeting, she asked me why, at one point, I had opened my mouth and then closed it. “I didn’t agree but there wasn’t a way to express that constructively,” was the gist of my response. We had a good laugh but it’s worth remembering. Don’t bad-mouth your former job, role, project, just because it’s not what you would have done. If you can’t say something nice or supportive, then don’t say anything.

In the time since, there have been a lot of choices or directions that I would not have made with the web site, had I been the decision-maker. But, as an outsider, you can’t possibly know all the reasons behind choices. You can help your former colleagues, and yourself, by moving on. If you’re all in the same organization, then people will still know they can call on your expertise if they need it.

Tasks

Perhaps the hardest transfer is the project or task. It’s the most discrete of transfers and, more than other transfers which involve other peoples’ participation, it can be a reflection of your sweat equity.

The project I recently passed off is once I’ve handled for a number of years. My role was mostly as a back stop and to provide continuity if there was a catastrophe. It had offered some opportunities to grow but mostly I was glad to be able to hand it off. In general, once something has been operationalized, unless it’s my direct accountability, I’m happy for a more appropriate person to own it.

In any transfer, the goal tends to be continuity. Ideally, it’s continuity between what’s going on and what will happen going forward. In a crisis, you’ve already lost continuity so the goal is to bring your operations back to the stable level they were, to climb out of whatever chasm you fell into. It may not be a return to the same workflow or context, but a return to some sense of stability.

This expectation has a number of built-in expectations. It assumes that the transfer will happen to a successor that has the skills – not necessarily your skills – to be successful. Unless you hire your successor, you can’t really know (a) whether they have the skills or (b) whether the skills you think they should have are the ones they really need (different mandate, for example).

When a project staggers after a transfer, there can be an impulse to get involved again. This is particularly acute because you probably know exactly how to fix whatever is broken. But you should still stay out unless you’re asked in. A stagger can mean a learning opportunity for your successor. A stagger can mean a changed mandate; in other words, not a stagger at all but a new direction. Repeated staggers can flag a bad hire to an employer.

One thing I’ve been glad about in my career, which has involved lots of change, is that you’re constantly reminded that you are just one of many with expertise. When you move on from a job, or role, or project, the best thing can often be to look forward, not back. Be available if you can add value, but not just to try to keep things develop the way you would have them develop. Other perspectives, and the opportunity for others to have their own growth, are important too. If you want a project or law library to succeed after you’re not involved, letting it grow without you can be the most valuable thing you can do.