How to lead a team through a change of course
And other musings on the career-version of the hero's journey
I wrote this post almost a year ago to touch on the prolific lay-offs happening in the tech industry, and unfortunately, a year later the industry is still in a similar place. I saw this graph the other day and it’s pretty stark.
To have hundreds of thousands of people laid-off means that hundreds of thousands of people are now processing their experience of being laid-off, and working to get closure. Unfortunately, the way companies lay off employees typically centers the employer and not the person going through the change. The TikToks of people being let go this week were super cringy yet at the same time real and I’m glad people shared them 🤷🏻♀️
As a builder it’s sometimes your job to carry out team changes of this kind (and others) and centering the humans while you do it is a skill you need to build. Read on for a primer.
-Nickey
As a builder, you’ve likely already been impacted by the tech recession we’re sailing through. I hope the impact has been small and inconsequential for you but in reality, it probably hasn’t been. Over 200,000 people have already been laid off in the tech sector alone which is ominous. [Editor’s Note: I updated this number and somehow we’re already at 7,000 in 2024 alone!] Where does it stop?
As someone who has been playing the tech game for 13 years, this ain’t my first rodeo. A normal part of walking the path of a long career is a side quest (or several), that centers around tackling an unexpected challenge that you need to complete to get back on the path. It could be a team change, a role change, a reorg, a layoff, or any number of things that people in our industry are going through right now. You are on your own hero’s journey and it is guaranteed that you’ll encounter some unplanned for shit at some point. It’s a part of the game.
Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is used as a storytelling tool, but if you squint it also describes the arc of a good career. On my hero’s journey, a lot of the trials and failures have happened around having to change course during fluid times, like the beginning of covid (which I’m still processing tbh!). That first brush with hard decisions and changes-of-course breaks you. But as with all hard things your skin gets thicker with practice and by the fourth time it still sucks but you are at the very least better at doing it. If only more people talked about how to do this stuff well.
Your job is to land the plane safely and help people process the experience
As a builder, times like these can be extremely stressful as you’re responsible for both delivering business results in an unpredictable market, all while keeping spirits up so your team can ship. You’re also making hard decisions and then having to implement those hard decisions in a hopefully human-centric and thoughtful way.
Making hard decisions like sunsetting a team, changing strategic direction, or having to lay off someone, is gutting. And doing this while keeping the wheels on the bus for the rest of the team is just really fucking hard. To me, doing any of the above with grace and style happens when care about the humans involved and consider their well-being in your decision calculus.
If you read anything about helping people process change or loss, a big theme that continuously presents itself is how to create closure when change happens. Helping people process change so they can move forward is incredibly important, yet we rarely do it as managers. The majority of us are not therapists or psychologists, yet a lot of that foundational knowledge comes into play during change moments and we lack the training to do it well.
I can’t tell you a time I’ve sat in a meeting about a big change that will impact a team where someone asked, how do we help this person or team process this experience and get closure after it’s done (that wasn’t coming from me 😌). There’s a lot of room for builders to get better here.
Why help people process an experience?
Helping people go through and then process an experience has simple knock-on effects that will help your team be high-performing down the road. It’ll also help people leaving hold their heads high. High-performing teams have trust, psychological safety, and morale so they can innovate. To keep a team humming, it means you have to manage them through crises in ways that aren’t dispiriting.
So why is closure important? And why should you create it intentionally?
It keeps team morale high: Creating closure can help improve team morale and prevent any negative feelings or unfinished business from lingering. This is especially important if the project was particularly challenging or stressful.
It keeps velocity high: When team members have closure on a project, they can move on to their next work with a fresh mind and be more productive as they move forward.
It allows you to be better next time: Reviewing and reflecting on the project can help identify any lessons learned that can be applied to future projects. Build smarter, build better next time!
It preserves the hard-won learnings: Documenting and archiving the project's process, outcomes, and lessons learned will preserve hard-won learnings and allow them to be passed along to make future teams smarter.
It builds respect for the leader, team, and company: People leave companies, don’t let them leave with a bad taste in their mouth.
In order for forgiveness to happen, something has to die. - Brené Brown in Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
How to create closure for teams
So how do you actually help a team process an experience and get closure so they can move forward? Here’s a punch list:
Ace the communications: It is so important to be transparent and upfront about what is happening and why it’s happening. This will give the team time to mentally prepare for the end and allow them to wrap up any remaining tasks. Don’t slack on perfecting who knows, when they know, and how they are told, and what you say. This matters a great deal and in my experience, people often fuck up the hardest here.
Carve out time to review and reflect: Host a retrospective as a team to look back on the work that was done. Review and reflect on your successes and challenges. This can help team members feel a sense of accomplishment and closure. It can also help identify any lessons learned that can be applied to future projects.
Celebrate achievements: Recognize and celebrate the team's achievements and contributions to the project. These exercises make people feel seen, make their work feel valued, boost morale and give team members a sense of accomplishment that they can carry to other things.
Document and archive the project: Document the project's process, outcomes, and lessons learned in an accessible way. Make sure the project's work and knowledge is not lost and can be accessed by future team members or stakeholders.
Thank the team: Show appreciation for the team's hard work and dedication to the project in company-wide forums. And don’t be stingy with bonuses, baby.
Required reading during the dark times
Finally, I’ll leave you with some more reading on changing course and building better during times like these:
Matt Mochary on Lenny’s Podcast - Great words of wisdom from a CEO coach who helps CEO process/act on some of the things above!
Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown - Need to reread, it’s been too long!
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - Seminal, everyone should read this.
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Dan Heath and Chip Heath - Helping people want to change is another helpful frame on making course changes.
Building layoffs on a Healthy Foundation by Kellan Elliott-McCrea - Used to work with Kellan at Etsy long ago and can confirm he cares deeply about the humans
Article image by Veranika Zhuraulevich
I’m glad you’re writing again Nickey!