Transition

I left my job a month ago. As much as I planned for leaving my job, the transition proved to be much more revealing than I would have thought. Leading up to my leaving the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance I worked at making sure things were complete at the office. This meant much more than just making sure my desk was clean, reports done and notifying partners and volunteers of my departure. It meant creating an opportunity, a possibility for something new to grow in my absence. It is easy and convenient for negativity to grow as people leave an organization. The work the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance does is to important for this negativity to creep its way in.

In order to create a possibility of a powerful transition and an opportunity inside this change I had many conversations.

Starting at the top, with David King the Executive Director and Brad Donaldson the Associate Director of Operations (and my boss) I let them know how important my time spent at the Alliance was to me. How much it had given me as a developing professional; how their guidance, patience and support allowed me to have 15 years of experience in the 5 years I was actually there. I also let them know about the possibility I wanted to create inside this change and what I saw as possible breakdowns in the interim.

I also met with my staff, Anna Karena the Volunteer Specialist, Andi Billig, Graphic Designer and Phil Gonzales, Public Awareness Associate. We met as a team and through the facilitation of Phillip Rand from Landmark Education, we genuinely and openly talked about what this transition means to each of us. We looked at what was there, positive and negative and who we can be in that space. It is a conversation I would have liked to have had years ago because it opened up a new level of relationship for our team and I believe, if I wasn't leaving, would have allowed us to see the humanity in each other clearer, bring us closer as a team and be able to serve people with brain injury better. A great lesson in not putting conversations off.

Most of these conversations were great, powerful and moving. I had other conversations that were powerful and much more difficult to have. Part of leaving the Alliance complete was making sure I became complete with people I had the most confrontation and conflict with. These conversations, while difficult, offered a tremendous opportunity for myself to reflect on who I am inside of work. I realized in mis-communication, tension and silo building that sometimes happens within organizations I was a cause in those happenings. I also realized we really can't separate our work life and our outside of work life. Who we are at work is who we are in life. Life is life. Early in my career I thought you could separate the two. How this appeared in my work is in not seeing the humanity in my coworkers. Probably in to many conversations I approached them as "this is business", I could have instead brought more compassion to those conversations. In this space I realized there is way more that connects us than separates us.

Through all these conversations I received a new respect and admiration for my coworkers and the work the Minnesota Brain Injury Alliance does. I had always enjoyed the work, mission and success of the Alliance, but now I saw how passionate and dedicated the staff at the organization truly are. Through these conversations I got to see who I was to many different people and it was incredibly humbling. I felt completely honored that people opened up and became incredibly vulnerable to express who I am to them. I really got that I am an important part to many people's lives. I say this with complete humility because what it means is I need to appreciate more the responsibility I have when it comes to building and maintaining relationships and community. This is a lesson I will bring into all my future endeavors and to each person I meet, it was an amazing gift.

If you are in a similar transition I encourage you to work tirelessly at making the community you are leaving as complete as you can, have the fun and easy conversations and have the difficult ones too.