Marcia's Leadership Q&As:

Q. In the next year or two, I plan to make a transition into retirement. How do I approach this?

A. There are two parts to consider. One is, create your legacy. What do you want to be known for, remembered for? What thinking and practices do you want to ensure is passed on to your managers and team leaders? What do you still need to teach or mentor? What is essential to help the business move forward smoothly? Perhaps you have the most significant relations with customers and vendors. Others need to develop those relationships. Perhaps you have unique knowledge about the business or products? Who do you need to pass it on to? Reflecting on what you need to share deeply so that the flow of business, information, and communication can happen after you walk out the door is critical. Some executives and owners call this succession planning; some organizations do it well; others do the minimum, but most don’t do it at all. Great leaders take this responsibility seriously, find a facilitator to guide them through this process, and begin to have the discussions until a plan is in place.

Part Two means looking forward. When you leave your job, retire, or transition to a new lifestyle, what is your plan? When you retire on Friday, have coffee with your friends on Monday morning, what’s next? Take several months to a year to work through the issues that you will face. Your aim is to create a satisfying, meaningful, happy life without your former career being at the crux of your central being. You shift when you also allow your feeling to emerge: there may both grieving the loss of work and your daily relationships as well as gratitude and celebration about a new transition and possibilities.

Have conversations with people who have recently transitioned and learn from their joys and mis-steps. Talk to people about encore careers if you plan to move into a job to give back or work part-time. List all of those hobbies or projects you want to do, but never had time for. How do you schedule them and connect with others who also pursue your interests? When you make transitions in life, you often need to create a new community to engage with. Where will you find yours? Create ideas. Also create options (many chose to travel, but the pandemic took those options away, or a relative gets sick and needs your support); what’s your back-up plan?