Don t Worry If a Few Team Members Choose to Opt Out

Don't Worry If a Few Team Members Choose to Opt Out

Even if you do everything in your power to keep others involved, you may lose a few recruits. If someone is determined to end their involvement, let them go with thanks for their past efforts. Spending lots of time trying to cajole them to stay will only make you frustrated and them feel defensive.

If people aren't free to leave something you've involved them in—no strings of guilt attached—then others won't feel free to join you. Instead of involvement, you've created a form of coercion. Trust the process when a team member asks to opt out. Believe in an abundant world. There's another fresh-faced recruit around every corner. Celebrate someone's departure as we talked about earlier. Learn from them what made for the best aspects of their being involved with you in this work. What was most difficult? Take what you gather from these "exit interviews" and apply the lessons to the work ahead. If you focus on the benefits of having people involved, you'll begin getting a good reputation in the organization or around town as someone people will want to get involved with. And that's a great way to keep people involved.

Chapter Checklist

The best ways to keep people involved are:

Remind them why they got involved in the first place.
Keep those people involved over time that you need involved over time.
Support people so they want to stay involved.
Stay open to who stays involved ("troublemakers" can be your best friends ).
Don't worry if a few team members choose to opt out.

Chapter 5: How do I Finish the Job?

Overview

At the end of a movie, most people get up and leave while the final credits roll. It's different, of course, if you worked on the movie or know someone who did; if your spouse or best friend was "Third Assistant Gaffer," "Foley Artist," or "Best Boy," you'll stay an extra five minutes for the fun of seeing their name scroll by. When you do, you'll be amazed by the long list of people who get mentioned by name . It takes the combined efforts of thousands of people to make a Hollywood production take shape.

In general, the arts do endings wonderfully well. In the theatre, the actors take a bow as the audience applauds. On opening night or at the end of a long run, the cast throws a celebratory party. At a concert, the musicians perform an encore as a way of giving the audience a little something extra—a special thank you for an appreciative crowd .

There is more to endings than final credits, standing ovations, and parties. We need to let people know the work is completed. We want to leave them ready to join us again. We have lessons we can share that will help us and them do a better job in the future.

If you question the need for a definitive ending, think about the times you were involved in something that just seemed to fizzle out. You may have been unsure whether you were still involved. You may have kept dates free in your diary only to find out later that the work was all over. When our efforts end with a whimper, we feel somehow cheated, as though the whole thing was less than worthwhile. It could easily make us cynical about future work.

One reason that endings matter is that they are opportunities to bring everyone and everything together. They matter because they make things complete. In the midst of any work, things get messy. You may lose track of who is doing what; you may lose sight of how far you have come. At the end, you can stand back from the work and look at it as a whole, reviewing what you've accomplished and how you worked together.

Finally, as with movie credits, the ending of your project expresses the appreciation of the organization or community for everyone who invested their time and energy. It's a significant reward in itself just to have your part publicly acknowledged and celebrated.

In answering the question, "How do I finish the job?" we focus on three things: