Lia (00:03)
Your favorite team member just told you, I think in about six to twelve months, I wanna move to New York and live my dream as a Broadway star, whatever. They tell you essentially that they're gonna leave eventually. And it just is a punch in the pit of your stomach because this person is great. They have a fantastic attitude, they're proactive, they're getting their stuff done, they they bring up the energy and the enthusiasm on the whole team.

And when this person leaves, you know it's gonna be a real loss. But the thing is, that person didn't give their two weeks' notice. They told you eventually they're gonna be leaving. And I want you to tune into that because what happens more often than not is we hear that and we think to ourselves, all right, this person's out of here. It's not salvageable, and we give up. But the truth is that just like we don't know if someone who didn't say anything is actually looking for another job.

We don't know if we have the ability to actually keep that person. And that's what we're talking about today. How to re-engage folks that may be looking for something else if they really do like working with you and why it's so important not to give up.

So first and foremost, I want to acknowledge how much it sucks to hear that because you had this whole vision for this person. Okay, they're in this role now, and because they've been crushing it, in a two or three years, they could take over this thing. Maybe they're gonna be a manager, maybe they become your right hand, maybe they offload a bunch of work from you and you had this whole plan mapped out. So when the person comes to you and says, Yeah, in a year I'm thinking this, it kind of takes the wind out of your sail.

And it's completely understandable to be disappointed, to feel like, well, should I even invest in this person anymore? Like, we what is this? And I say that first because it is a total natural tendency to think, okay, you know, you want to be responsible. You don't want to be hostage to someone that like ends up leaving, or you have all these systems that you need to get back from them and and you are kind of like didn't figure that out first.

So you want to be smart about it. But I gotta tell you that what I've seen over and over again is that people's plans change. And just like people might leave for another opportunity, they might stay, they might figure it out. Maybe in a year's time you find that there's a little bit more flexibility in location that there wasn't before, right? There might be all sorts of things going on. And when we don't actually give someone that chance to like figure stuff out.

And we write them off because they have some goal for themselves in the future in a in a distant time. Like, what are we doing here? So if someone is a great employee and you want them to stay, this is the conversation to have that, or this is the moment, I should say, to have that conversation of, hey, you've been doing a great job. You have been crushing it. I love working with you. Let's talk about what this could look like.

I call this the sit-down. It's the conversation that re-engages your team members. It's sometimes a conversation to share feedback. Sometimes it's a conversation around expectations. In this case, the sit-down is your place to start to say, okay, what could the future look like? Now, I want to be real clear again that your team members that have not said they might be looking for something, or maybe they're starting a family, or they've got, you know.

They want to live on another part of the country or they're doing something else. Just because I didn't tell you doesn't mean they have some plan of leaving in six to twelve months or two years or five years, whatever. It's just so why are we penalizing the person that told you? And and that's the thing is if you want to have a culture where things aren't blindsiding you or people can tell you that openly, then

that allows you to have the time to actually make a backup plan. So it's actually a real gift that that person gave you. And so again, that's why we don't want to punish them by writing them off and being like, well, a year, why are you giving me a year? Why don't you just leave today? Because that person didn't have to tell you. They wanted to give you a ton of runway. And I've been in both situations and it sucks when your manager, you try to be nice and and and helpful and give a lot of notice.

And they're like, you're dead to me now. Like, and they start boxing you out and and and just inviting you for meetings, even though you've given a lot of notice. Yeah, I've been there. And then I've been on the other side, right? Where I gave notice and my manager was super excited for this goal that I had in the future. And they worked with me. And I ended up staying like six months longer than I would have. So they actually got a lot more time out of me.

And I did great work. I wasn't checked out. I didn't have senioritis. I wasn't like over it because the the person was really still invested in me. So when someone gives you notice of some sort, it is not over. Someone gives you two weeks' notice, sure. But like if someone gives you a long period of notice, this is a moment where we still want to, you know, utilize them to the best that we can. Now, the thing here though is I mentioned we don't want to be

you know, irresponsible about it with every single team member because yeah, someone could at any point decide that, you know, they're they're moving on. We don't want to have systems and kind of processes in people's minds. We don't want to have all of important critical files on individuals' computers that can't be accessed. Like this is just basic hygiene of running a business or having a team that's collaborative.

Okay, I'm talking about this whether when I worked at Apple, we all had to have all of our files on the server. When I worked at Google, it was the same. When I worked in a small creative agency, it was the same, right? We have to have our files somewhere other people can access them. If someone's sick the next day and you have a deadline, right? It's it's common sense. We don't want to have things where if we couldn't get a hold of someone or if they never came back, that the entire system breaks down. And it it sucks because I hear that a lot. Like I have business owners come to me and say, I have to rebuild.

This whole role, someone left and they took everything with them. And it's like, why did you get in that situation at all? Like, sorry, but yeah. No. Everything needs to be shared. It is so easy to share files these days. Always have things shared. Does that mean you have one shared pooled email address? No, not necessarily. I think there might be, there's gonna be things to hand off, and maybe email conversations is one of them that is not something that you're gonna have like full visibility into.

But shared files, processes, tracking sheets, budgets, things that have multiple hands on them, all of that should be in the shared place. And that's what I mean when I talk about systems. What is the process? What is I always say process? I get everyone gets like, what it what's your kind of policy? Even worse. How do people know where to put stuff? How do people know when to put that thing there?

What happens at the end of each day or each week? That's a process. That's a system. At the end of every week, we update the budget tracker and put it here. At the end of every day, we put our working files on the server. We track all of our work in this shared system. That is all I'm talking about. It doesn't mean you're introducing a million different bureaucratic things. It's we always should have the ability to find where things are at. You know, like that's what Simpets is about.

It's a place that you have that bird's eye view of at the end of each week. Do I know what got done? And do I know what people are working on next week? And do I know what to celebrate so I can say, hey, good job on that thing? That's all it is, right? It's not heavy-handed. It's the lightest touch possible to give you the information you need. And when we shouldn't ha realize we need this when someone is quitting. Like that's what I'm trying to say here.

The person that gave you six or twelve months, that's awesome that you did, because you can be like, gosh, I gotta like scramble, put that together. But the person who didn't give you notice and just like didn't come back to work the next day, you don't wanna be screwed about by that, where you're having to like get their computer and retrieve all their files and may or maybe not get it because they use their own device. Like that's not a situation you've gotta be in. Doesn't and and that's part of day one setting up your team, the the way that

you know, is sustainable. So we want to be w smart about it. We want to always have the ability to access, you know, the the information that we need. But we don't want to when someone gives us this kind of notice, we don't want them to feel like, again, that they're punished for being thoughtful and wanting to let us know. Now, I love to bring the devil's advocate perspective in. I spent way too much time at Google and working with engineers.

to not have people always throw in the, but what what if this? So I know what you're thinking. Well, what if that person tells you that to try to get paid more or to try to get a promotion or try to have some leverage over you? They know they're a great employee, and you felt like really excited about that person. And now they said, Yeah, I think in you know six months I'm gonna try to get another role because I want this thing, and yeah, it just doesn't seem like it's available here. And that changes your perception of them because you think, wait a second.

I thought they loved it here and now they're kind of dangling some thing over me that I really can't do. I'm not able to give them a promotion this year. I'm not able to pay them more, right? Whether we're a middle manager in in the corporate world, a an HR leader or a business owner, we're all we might all might be on the other end of that conversation and we're like, mm, I can't really do anything about this. Or the way they went about it is not how I'm comfortable with that they said they're leaving because of something that I can't do.

That is a conversation that could be a sit-down, right? And saying, hey, I appreciate hearing what your goals are. Let's talk about what's realistic to do, you know, here in this company, what the promotion timelines look like or what the raises, you know, look like or whatever it is. And here's where I see you going. And here's, you know, what what do you feel comfortable with or what's exciting to you? And you have a conversation and you still show that person, like, I really value you. I want to make this work.

And I but the way that I make the way that we make decisions about promotions is based on XYZ and it's not based on this timeline. Right? And if someone leaves and it truly was not possible for you to meet their needs, it's it's just like a mutual bummer, but okay, we'll move on. I really want us to never feel like thinking.

Never feeling like people are irreplaceable is not really the what I'm trying to say, but you know what I'm getting at. I think there's there's fantastic people for a role. And they could be the person that is crushing it and is doing an amazing job. And they may have needs that don't meet what you can achieve. And I I think getting stuck and thinking, if I don't do this, then I lose this person that I will never find again in my life.

If that, if that decision, if the this, whether it's paying them something or giving them title or something like that, if that's gonna cause resentment, then your whole dynamic just changed when you agreed to that thing. So if you have a person that says, you know, I'm leaving because I need this thing, and in that conversation, you're like, my gosh, I didn't even realize you wanted that. Let me give that to you because heck yes, you are crushing it. Let's go, then that's a fantastic outcome.

But if you get in a situation where they ask you for something, a raise, a promotion, and you're thinking, I'm only agreeing to this because I don't want them to leave. And you feel like it wasn't time or you didn't have the money or it wasn't warranted, agreeing to that, you've got to be able to agree to that and not resent it. I'm not saying you can't do it. I'm saying it's tricky. I'm saying it's hard. I'm saying it might shift the perception of them.

And it might give them a new standard to uphold. And so if you do that, because I love giving you your advice, if you do that, have a conversation around what new expectations come with the raise or the promotion. So as simple as, hey Sarah, I the having a promotion in your current role is not, you know, based on the current responsibilities. It's not, you know, I can't pay that more.

I understand that you're wanting to take on this new thing because you know it offered you this salary. I think the way to be able to meet that would be shifting your role into this, taking on these additional responsibilities. And so this is the way success is measured there. Would you want to shift into that role? Is that something that you're excited to do or eager to do, able to do, whatever? That's the reset. Now you don't get in a situation where you

Have agreed to just pay the person more because they made an ultimatum, right? So we can always adjust to these things. We can always be flexible. What I'm trying to sh to sort of illuminate here is how to avoid situations where you got in your own way or made a decision you weren't comfortable with or couldn't sustain. So the first one is.

Writing someone off when they haven't even quit yet, right? We want to avoid that. Then the second one is when someone asks for something, feeling like I'll never be able to replace this person ever. If it's the time, if it's not possible, then that's okay. And then the last one, as we just covered, is like if someone if they if there's a new expectation to be set around a shift, then set the expedition, mutually agree on it, and then boom, we're good to go.

So I I think it's really important to have an environment on your team where people can share future plans because that is how you reduce being blindsided. That is how you get that that another opportunity to get your all your systems in order and make sure that you have all the, you know, the data that they've been dealing with, all the handoffs, all the conversations on the clients, so you don't get screwed on the back end. This is a gift when someone tells you in advance.

So then it's about how do you continue to leverage that person, not see it as an ultimatum. And then if there is a need that you can meet, provided XYZ happens, then explore it. All right. So someone giving you that long notice, it's not the kiss of death, don't write them off. But think through some of these questions, and then you will be feeling like you are not blindsided, you're still in control of the situation, you're still collaborating through how to go forward. And I gotta tell you, a lot of times.

That person stays so much longer than they would have if you didn't handle it so gracefully. All right. See you next time.