Slalom, Thank You for Letting Me Go

You didn’t see it coming. However, you could intuitively sense that something was about to shift in your career. No one likes to be let go from a job where they have given their blood, sweat, and tears.

Like many other companies, Slalom recently let go of one thousand people.

Personally, I know what it feels like to have a job, a title, and a desk in a cubicle farm and the next day be on the street looking like a deer staring at headlights. When I worked at Disney, I knew that my name was on the guillotine list for being invited to find my happiness elsewhere. I could sense it in my gut that my days were numbered. As I began to read the tea leaves of what was not being said to me directly, I proactively started working on my exit strategy.

To all the brilliant individuals from Slalom who were let go, and to those of you who are waiting for the other shoe to drop in your place of business, with your permission, I want to pull up a seat right next to you and put a mirror in front of you so you can reflect back on this tremendous gift that you’ve received.

First of all, welcome to the Brilliance Age, where you shift from retrenchment, retirement, and redundancy to rewirement.

You are retiring from a job that defined you to rewiring to work that ignites you.

In the Brilliance Age, rewirement means you write the algorithm that leverages you as a whole being.

In the Brilliance Age, you decide that you will no longer bring to a place of business your mind, but you coat check your heart at the door, virtually or in person. You are a whole person with a whole life choosing to thrive in a community where there is no “hole” in your soul.

In the Brilliance Age, you are seen, valued, and understood for being different so that you can make a difference.

Here are three ways to Thrive in the Brilliance Age…

1. Love Who Are Becoming – I often thought that my Godiva-chocolate skin was a curse in America until I started studying history and listening to the seemingly unknown speech by Dr. Martin Luther King on YouTube called “The Other America.” I saw things differently. Furthermore, my father, on his deathbed, preparing to take his last breath, said to me, “I love you and I believe in you. Whatever you do, put God first.” For me, in that instance, my father’s words and Dr. King’s words gave me permission to control the controllable and grow past the noise of being a hostage to limitation. Take a minute and go old school with a sheet of paper, or take out your smartphone, and write down why you love yourself and what you love about yourself.

2. Assess Your Core Skills and Superpowers – I know firsthand that Slalom asked team members and leaders to identify their superpowers to drive internal collaboration and external value for customers. What are your superpowers? How did they add value to your team, department, division, and company? Determine how you will continue to grow them.

3. Forgive Your Boss and the Company – Let go of the drama swirling around the layoffs. Yes, do an autopsy of your career. Examine it deeply, but come to a place where the drama doesn’t turn into professional trauma. You were divorced from the company with no recourse for saving the professional marriage. Forgive them and move on. Refrain from building up a story about should’ve, could’ve, would’ve. It happened. It’s real. Feel it. Scream it. Honor it. Refuse to suppress it. Let it out.

Write the next chapter of your brilliant future. It’s going to be epic. That’s how you can roll into the Brilliance Age.