HH 002 - Together Goodbye. Reteamed.

Everything went silent. I was removed from the slack channel and the regular, weekly meeting. I was reteamed. 

It wasn’t just me, others were along for this ride too.  Through a series of one-on-one meetings, we all learned that we had been shifted - our cheese was moved. And to tell you the truth, I know it made sense that this happened, at least on paper.  I could rationalize it. It was a logical change, I mean, we had a new leader. That’s how it works, right? Our group was splitting in half.

But the team. The team as I knew it, was gone. Part of me couldn’t accept that. It felt like a huge loss.

We had heard the news through a series of one-on-one meetings. And the thing was, since we were all reteamed separately, we didn’t talk about it together.  The signal turned to static. The vibe was different. I found myself in this new space, “effective immediately.” I felt alone with it.

It was a team that didn’t sit together, but gathered in the same meeting rooms for regular rituals. The team would go for regular weekly lunches at the local breakfast spot. Pancakes were eaten. The owner knew us. We were regulars. 

With this sudden team shift, we didn’t have a “together goodbye.” What we had until that point, was a controlled distribution of messaging and then radio noise, the kind you hear when you’re switching stations.  

I probably talked with my dad about it, and I’m sure he told me to “move on.” “Look forward,” is what he would say to me.  I try to listen to his advice. Yet it’s hard for me to shake off some things. Can you relate? This team meant something to me.  I was emotionally connected at some level. But at the time I felt like I couldn’t be snapped into the new reality of the post team split quite so quickly. I couldn’t teleport.

Time passed. Maybe a week or so, and then I was happy to get invited to a meeting with the “former” team and an outside consultant. This consultant had met with our group in the past to help us become a team when we started.  So I was glad he was back.  And really, I don’t recall exactly how long our meeting was, or what was the exact agenda, but I do know that I got a useful tool in that meeting which I’ve used ever since.  It’s a tool to bring perspective and almost a map of “you are here” and it’s also a tool that helps me feel like “it’s not just me” having trouble with imposed changes that I didn’t want.

The tool is one from William Bridges. In his book, Transitions,  Bridges talks about the ending, the neutral zone, and the new beginning. That’s the tool.

For context, here it is layered on to an ecocycle from my book Dynamic Reteaming:

The ending is when the old thing, the condition, the state, the relationship, or in this case the team is declared to be “over”. And Bridges acknowledges the fact that if you choose the ending, it's easier than when the ending is imposed on you. Many of us can probably relate to that.

The neutral zone is that unsure, uneasy, liminal state that we traverse until we find ourselves in the territory of moving on, of acceptance, of processing, which is the new beginning. Bridges talks about the neutral zone as “the perilous passage across the ‘nowhere’ that separates the old life situation from the new.” (p. 13)

Yeah, I was in the neutral zone. For the ending of my team, as you recall, we were reorg’d via one on ones. But really for me that didn’t feel like a complete ending.  It was a change, for sure, but since it was so quiet, so silent, and almost so “closed door,” I didn’t feel closure. I had been reeling for a while in that liminal state.  I probably was woken up by the situation in the middle of the night.  And what about our pancakes?  I was sad. This reteaming marked the end of an era. 

When our team came together and talked about what had happened, though, I started to feel better, like I was moving forward through the in between of the ending and the new beginning. In other words, the” butterfly zone” in the image above. That helped me.

I don’t blame the leaders for carrying out the reteaming like they did with the one on ones. I’ve done them that way too. Deliberate reteamings are difficult to do, and there are a lot of challenges especially when people feel loss. In this case, loss of status for some who found themselves reporting to peers, loss of the dream of being in a particular leadership position at this company, loss of information for those who as a result of this change found themselves a level down in the hierarchy as a new one was created above them with this change. I don’t take these things lightly.

So what does all this mean?  I think a combo of one on ones plus a group closure activity can help people transition out of the old reality and into the newer one. Getting together to talk as a team can help people at least speak together about the changes, and appreciate each other for the accomplishments they made as a team together.  On page 193 of the paper version of my book Dynamic Reteaming (second edition) this topic is discussed further and there are suggested activities like what to do when you meet together as a team. 

That’s it. That’s my newsletter for this week. If you want more, here’s how I can help you:

1. If you want to learn more about Dynamic Reteaming and how to apply the 5 patterns of dynamic reteaming in your software company, sign up for my live zoom cohort course. The course runs for three 2 hour sessions April 18, 19 and 21, at a discounted rate since it’s my first cohort on Maven.  Sign up here.
   

2. As an executive and career coach, I have a limited number of one on one coaching slots open now. I can help you go through change, and also mentor you on how to catalyze team change. If this is of interest to you email me or reach out on Linked In.

Notes, credits & inspiration:

1. This article references the book Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes, 2nd edition by William Bridges published by Da Capo Press in 2004.

2. Another reference is my book Dynamic Reteaming, 2nd edition by Heidi Helfand published by O’Reilly Press in 2020.