What to Think about When You’re Thinking about Your Legacy
Spoiler: It’s not you
It’s common for professionals on their way out of a company, especially if they have had a long-term and prominent role, to start thinking in terms of “legacy” — that is, the mark they will leave on a place of business and what they want to be known for.
This tendency, however natural, is misguided. There is another way to imagine how you should spend your final days at a company.
First and foremost, don’t leave any messes, especially if they’re of your own making. This could include everything from budget deficits to personnel issues. Don’t be so focused on going out on a high note that you put off fixing any problems. You want your successor to come in with as much forward momentum as possible, but with a clean slate.
At the same time, don’t hamper your replacement with any new commitments or initiatives. You don’t want your successor’s primary role to be implementing (or undoing) whatever you started during your retirement party. The people who come in after you are going to have good ideas, some better than you could have imagined. In fact, the better you have done your job, the more talented people will want it. They need room to make their mark.
This includes making new hires in key positions. New employees, especially managers, might be the best way to quickly alter the strategic direction of a business, and the person who comes in behind you will have a greater chance at success if she or he can bring in some new people sooner than later. It’s also an opportunity to demonstrate to existing employees what the new boss values and how things will be similar or different.
Moreover, don’t get involved in the selection of your successors, even if it’s as part of a group. Stay out of it; don’t even let your opinion be known. Your task is to prepare the people on your team for what comes next, not to select the people who will be at the helm when you’re gone.
Instead, dedicate your finals days to helping your successor start strong. Meet with your replacement as soon as you can — and more than once. The first meeting should be more about you giving your replacement an overview of pressing issues and what will be waiting in her or his inbox. Be candid and thorough. Now is not the time for spin. The truth will be found out soon enough.
Also, be prepared to provide resource materials and documentation. Any diligent professional will want to review materials to familiarize herself or himself with the key points of an issue in order to come to an independent opinion. Meeting other key members of the team, especially any assistants, can also happen at this time, although it should perhaps be kept to introductions and sharing contact information. The substantive meetings can begin after the official start date.
A second, later meeting would be an opportunity for your replacement to delve more into the immediate priorities and ask questions about details. There should be a lot of questions. This is your chance to offer counsel, with an emphasis on non-obvious consequences and landmines to avoid. You could also make yourself available to your replacement for a reasonable amount of time, perhaps even scheduling a time to meet a month or so in the future, to make sure such a meeting actually happens.
After you depart, you should make yourself very unavailable to the members of your former team. If you were friendly out of the office before, there’s no reason why you should distance yourself from them, but refrain from substantive conversations about the workplace when you meet. Everyone else, you might want to ignore, at least for the time being. Your replacement is not helped by having a former authority figure lurking in the distance, even when you’re supporting what she or he is doing. Simply put, you need to get real gone.
If you’re still employed by the company, you’ll need to abide by the organizational structure and keep out of politics and gossip. You should be too focused on your new position not to concern yourself with your old one. That is someone else’s now.
In any event, consider your succession as your final project. Hopefully, as it was with your other contributions to the company, you can look back on it as a job well done.
