Making Sure the Job is Completed

A final meeting of those involved can help ensure that the job is completed. People can draw together the loose ends, making certain that any handover is clear and that the work is all done. This work can be done face-to-face or virtually. We've conducted some very successful endings using telephone conferences and web-based or e-mail discussions.

Final get-togethers can have the quality of a rite of passage. We all know those important events in our lives when we transit from one stage to another: a marriage, a funeral, a baptism, a bar mitzvah, a graduation. At the ending of involvement, we need to let go and move on. This often requires a ritual.

Ritual can express how we feel and help us to change. It can be highly symbolic or very simple. We might recognize simple ending rituals such as clocking or signing out at the end of a workday. (We probably all remember Fred Flintstone's dramatic daily ending ritual, punctuated with the cry of "Yabadabadoo!") Most people have been to a TGIF party to ritualize the end of a workweek at least once. Actions like this help us deal with the ambiguities of endings. We are both relieved and grieved to see things end.

The art of a final gathering is to combine a review of the work with the symbolism of ritual. Share stories and look for connections and patterns. Look at the events in chronological order, considering similarities and differences in people's experience of the events. Identify what was done well. Discuss what still needs to be done. Hand over outstanding and emerging work to new people. Honor people for the contribution they have made.

People need to be welcomed for a final time. It's often a poignant moment. Set the scene creatively as you did for the first gathering, creating an environment where people can be honest, nondefensive, and celebratory about the work they have done together.

Start off with simple reflections; for example, you might ask people to describe the high points and low points of the project or the funniest moment. People connect with each other quickly as they share their experiences. One ritual you can use here is to ask people to bring something that symbolizes being involved in this work.

The blueprint for meetings throughout the work makes space to look at how things are. In this closing, look backward at the ways things have been and around you at the way they are now as a result of your work. To build up a common picture, share stories in detail and make connections among them. You'll find that almost everyone in the room will learn new things about the work and what happened as it unfolded. This can be a powerful experience, especially when the team had become a community with strong mutual attachments.

A bank had conducted several reengineering projects simultaneously. When nearly all the projects were completed, they gathered the participants to identify what worked well and what they could do differently in the future. What made the meeting particularly rich was the fact that different reengineering approaches had been used in different projects. When the participants reviewed the projects, they not only brought closure to the work, they were able to learn from each other so that future projects could go more smoothly.

Key events can be acknowledged by all and ritually honored for their value. Look beneath the facts. List the key events and facts, and then unpack them. Try to make sense of why things happened that way. What assumptions did you make, and how did these affect people? What kinds of unintended things happened? Use this as an opportunity to talk with other people to see if they had the same experience as you.

Discuss what still needs to be done. Not everything ends. Often the work just moves to a new phase with new people. The work could be ongoing and you may involve different people all the time. Yet for those who are leaving, this is a form of ending. There is a sense of "handing over the baton" to a new team. Give advice to those who will be involved in doing it. Allow those who have been involved to let go and hand over to someone else.

Sometimes there is no clear ending. The work just fizzles out. Maybe no one told us it has ended. Or maybe people stopped being involved without telling us. An example of something fizzling out is a couples group that met for twenty years. They raised their children together and met for rituals and holidays. After twenty years, when the children had left home, people dropped out. Finally they called the group together to ask what people wanted. They found that the group had outlived its usefulness and ended for most. They made sure the work was completed and moved on to other things.

Even the simplest of shared work can have its ritual final gathering. There may only be two of you. You might only talk on the phone the day after you are done. That conversation can include the space to deal with the difficulties of working together, the value of both contributions, and any lessons for involving each other in the future. It can be well worth developing your own ritual for doing this. Include things you like to reflect on and talk about those things that will help you to be better at involving others next time.