You can't live in the airport

Photo by Pixabay.

You know that thing where you hear a word and then suddenly it's everywhere? Several months ago we were languishing. Before that, doomscrolling.

Right now, we're staring down a fourth wave. Companies are pushing out their return to office schedules. Places with high vaccination rates are bringing back masking. It feels like everything is on pause again.

The word of the moment is liminal. The space between. Not at the beginning. Not at the conclusion. The transitional part. Parking garage. Hotel hallway. Airport terminal. The place you pass through on your way somewhere else.

Herminia Ibarra wrote a very good essay last week about making major life changes. And in it she references William Bridges' work on the three phases of transitions. Separation, liminality, and reintegration.

Separation, at the beginning, when our habits are interrupted by some major change. Reintegration, at the end, when we start to lock in new habits, as our new/evolved selves. And liminality -- the space in-between.

Oh shit.

Leaders are in a different headspace these days. Everyone is still talking about burnout, and that's definitely part of it. But there's something more to it. It's not only that they're fried, it's that they're rootless. They're skimming along the surface. Have you noticed this, too? With others, or with yourself?

Dr. Ibarra's essay had the missing piece of the puzzle. We've all been pushed through separation and into liminality whether we like it or not. And now that we're here. Well. You don't put down roots in an airport.

What happens when we're all free agents

A lot of people did transition within the past few months. The great talent reshuffling means there are loads of folks onboarding into new roles. There are managers meeting their teams for the first time. A bunch of us feel like we just did the upheaval thing. Why doesn't that count?

It's not that it doesn't count. It's just that it's not done yet.

Maybe yours is an organization that's benefitted from some of the talent reshuffling. Maybe you've doubled in size. And maybe you feel really good about the caliber of folks you were able to attract. We're not here to push you off of that.

But in this game of musical chairs, the record hasn't stopped. The $10k salary bump people got when they left their old job to come work for you at the new place? Well, you're not the only company adjusting salary bands.

The thing a lot of folks are trying to figure out is whether it's a single bounce or a double. The conditions that allowed me to leave the last role are still true. Still largely remote. Still disconnected. Still burning at both ends.

A quiet, nagging voice with a familiar refrain: Maybe I won't be here for very long.

Things that don't work in the in-between

A lot of management biases towards the long term. No one expects to spend 30 years working for the same company and get a gold watch anymore. But most orgs still anticipate some tenure. And for someone in a liminal place, there are three places those long term assumptions are gonna fail you.

Engagement surveys. Engagement surveys look for signals of sense of purpose, and signals of dissatisfaction. You want to draw the conclusion that if the scores look good things are healthy. It's an appealing conclusion. But how is it possible to have high scores one quarter followed by 15% turnover the next?

If you're in an org for the long haul, some of the small stuff will bother you. The all hands meeting being well run. That the OKRs make sense. Other leaders doing their part. In a usual setting, these things are important because you expect to have to live with them long term.

Unless you don't.

Career conversations. At the best of times, career pathing discussions can be sorta awkward. But this is especially true right now. When the employee is new. Or the boss is new. Or both. And we're trying to talk about an imagined future when everything keeps changing.

And it makes sense to talk about a plan that lays out a future within the organization.

Unless it doesn't.

Hiring. Hiring usually has some heat. For the hiring manager. For the team. But lately they feel sorta sterile. A bit procedural. Managers know they need to hire, and do care about taking the load off the people burning out. But, "will this candidate be the best long-term fit for my team?" is a more theoretical question when I don't plan to be here long-term.

The go-to-the-mat nature of hiring discussions has been replaced by a dispassionate "aye". Because managers are deeply invested in how they construct their teams. And team members are deeply invested in the people they'll work alongside.

Unless they aren't.

Not every interaction will feel this way. Not every employee is reinventing themselves or eyeing the exits. But if you're seeing the same, detached thing we are out there, this is why your regular tools aren't working.

You can't live in the airport

A lot of us thought we'd be okay by now. We thought we'd be deep in reintegration. That spring vaccines were a ticket to summer normalcy, either the "new" or the "back to" variety. But we're somewhere else.

While we're here, it's not going to work to try to pin us down on a long term plan. It's not that we don't care. It's that we're trying to figure out what we care about, now. 17 months of having life turned upside down has put us in a strange headspace. Everything is on the table.

We both travelled a lot for work in past lives. Maybe you did, too, before all this. And if so, you know that the best run airports aren't the ones that try to keep you there as long as possible. They are the ones that make the experience of being there delicious, so that you'll want to come back. Munich, not Frankfurt. Singapore, not Chicago. Pearson T1, not Pearson T3.

Now's a bad time to lean on your employee's sense of loyalty, but a good time to lean on their sense of possibility. New opportunity, high-quality networking, exposure to different ideas. That's what people in a liminal space can actually engage with.

It's not a guarantee that they'll stay -- we can't sell you that right now. But until we all get to reintegration, meet people where they are. It's the best management option you have.

- Melissa and Johnathan