What Happened to You?
“Some places aren’t for me. Sometimes it’s not about me? I’m not the one failing here. And, sometimes, you don’t have the language or experience to discuss and identify what’s happening to you.”
Above are snippets of a conversation I had with a close friend recently. She described being fired from a role after ten months, how the experience affected her, and years later, how she views it. Her hindsight view isn’t through the lens of “What did I do wrong or what’s wrong with me?” Instead, she views it as, “What happened to me?”
In this context - new role, hiring manager left before she started, interim manager not invested in her success, a new manager with something to prove, looking for quick wins to hide their lack of skillset, no support, left in the wilderness. Fired. There are variations of this story in your friendship group, and it might be you or someone you know.
There are so many angles to view this situation through:
- How to know when to leave a job?
- How to plan your exit? (Do you have an exit strategy?)
- How to be an advocate for yourself at work?
- How to identify and manage micro-aggressions and race-related behaviour in the workplace?
- How to recover after exiting?
Let’s talk about the latter – how to recover? We’ve all been there, whether you were fired, put on a PiP (Performance Improvement Plan), forced out, or burnt yourself out then left. At least once in your career, you will exit a role unwillingly. So what you do next is incredibly important.
- Negotiate/take a break. Many people don’t do this or plan for a gap between roles. Yes, it’s a privilege but one I believe can and should be an achieveable goal. A general rule of thumb is 3 – 6 months net salary; one to two months recovery, three months job search, one month preparation.
- Tell everyone or someone. Leaving a role in these circumstances is sometimes accompanied by a level of shame and failure. It’s in these moments, leaning on your support network becomes essential.
- Cut ties with your old colleagues. Not forever, but in the interim. Keeping in contact in the aftermath of your departure is likely to keep you tethered to the situation.
- Self-reflection – “what happened to you in this role?”
Seriously, what happened to you? What signals did you miss? What was the first situation your work spidey-sense tapped you on the shoulder, but you ignored it? What conversation(s) were you afraid to have that could’ve changed the eventual outcome? When did you stop paying attention to the list of goals you had for this role/organisation and got lost? When did fail to advocate for yourself because you didn't feel safe doing so? When did you stop taking meeting notes? When did you notice your boss wasn’t supportive? When did you become an unsupportive boss? When did you realise your values no longer aligned with that of your boss/team/company? When did that personal issue seep into work, and you felt you couldn’t tell anyone or take a break? When did you know it was time to go but was too afraid to leave? When did you start to mentally check out? The list can go on.
In addition to therapy and coaching, the exit mind map is one tactic I found helpful when I exited a role unwillingly. I’d love to say this is my idea, but it’s that of my Type A sister. The idea is to create a mind map but backward; start with your exit at the bottom right-hand corner – draw a circle and write EXIT. Then begin drawing arrows away from the circle with situations connected to your exit and then situations connected to those, etc., etc. Next, on a separate sheet of paper, draw two columns – situation and lessons. Pick the big ones and complete the columns. Remember – “what happened to you?”
Once completed, self-reflect on the lessons learned. Note these lessons and, if possible, identify any connections to feedback received in the past. The purpose of this exercise is to a) identify the lessons to take away and b) to ensure that the experience doesn’t derail your confidence and minimise your experience thus far.
After a break and a period of self-reflection, my friend came to the realisation that regardless of hard she'd worked, the organisation wasn't for her. It wasn't about her. She hadn't failed. She took the lessons learned to her next role where she later became the Head of Social for one of the largest FMCG companies in the UK.
This summer I downloaded Oprah's book - What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilence and Healing. She discusses the how healing must begin with a shift to asking 'What happened to you?' rather than 'What's wrong with you?'. If the concept of asking this question is foreign to you, I suggest listening to the book.