Are you in an “ejector seat” role?
I recently spoke with three separate people in very different roles and organisations, but each having work issues with some similar themes. Each person is finding significant challenge in their role. They are working extremely hard. Each is very highly skilled but having difficulty making an impact. And each is increasingly unhappy about it.
On digging a little deeper, it also became apparent that each of them had landed in their role to fix the “failures” of a predecessor and, in two of the three, the failures of the person before that.
This bears all the hallmarks of what John Whittington calls the “ejector seat syndrome”. This happens when the role itself does not have its place fully settled in its system. People come and go, none able to change the dynamic or break the pattern. In his book Systemic Coaching and Constellations he says this often happens when someone “has left quickly, in a negative way, or the real reasons are not explained, or when the organisation doesn’t acknowledge that person’s contribution to the company”.
When a person does not have a good leaving (see my earlier post on “good leavings”), the impacts are real and lasting.
The new person in the role struggles and, inevitably, blames themselves for that struggle when in fact there are bigger forces at play. Eventually, they too leave – reinforcing the revolving door dynamic and, from the organisation’s perspective, driving costs and conflict up and morale and productivity down.
It’s a key principle of organisational systems work that everything and everyone that exists in a system needs its place in that system acknowledged and respected.
If this doesn’t happen, the system itself will seek to balance this out, often resulting in significant dysfunction.
Where you find an ejector seat role, you will often find a culture of secrets, silence, attempts to erase past events or people from the organisational memory, and a desire to override the discomfort and dysfunction that is coming up and press forward. What is needed is the opposite.
Taking time properly to acknowledge the past people or events allows the system to settle and release. Whittington says:
Everything has a place. In order to let things go, you must ‘re-member’ them fully first, acknowledging what they were able to contribute. Then they are free to leave.
Take care of yourself and others,
Madeleine
I work with clients from executive leadership teams to the front line, helping them to make clearer decisions about what they want, and adapt faster and more easily to change and transition. I use deep purpose as a key to unlock powerful thriving in work and life.
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