Three things I learnt from changing jobs

About 9 months ago I left a very friendly, value-driven and modern work environment with exiting projects and great people. Making the decision to switch jobs is not easy.

Having settled in at my new gig and having had some time to reflect, I want to share the three biggest learning I took from changing jobs.

1) Have clarity about your priorities

I knew exactly what I wanted out of this transition and it helped me tremendously when the process got hard at times.

It starts with what needs to be your top priority in all of this: You want to leave your job. And with this comes the question you will be asked over and over again, as soon as you tell anyone about your departure: "Why?". Knowing exactly why you are leaving your job, makes all the difference in the world, because you don't have to have that constant inner fight with yourself "am I doing the right thing here?". If it's a noble reason like learning something new; perfect! If you found an exciting new challenge which attracts you like gravity; great! But even if money or any other less noble reason is your prime motivator; be honest with yourself. It will give you all the reassurance you will need during this transition. Or it makes you think long and hard before you make a big move.

The other question is how do you want to leave? There was no question in my mind that I wanted to leave my previous position in as good a shape as possible and to tighten the relationships I valued as much as possible, so they would survive my transition. Even in this intention though, I notice I had to make tough choices, like who I could still meet before I left and who not. Which project I want to push to the next milestone and for which project this will just not be possible. It's great to have clarity.

2) People behave differently around you once they know you will leave

After I handed in my notice I had a rather long "lame duck" period of several months. One thing I noticed from the day my departure was announced, was that people behaved differently around me. Here are the most common changes I noticed:

• People became extremely open about their actual opinions about anything and anyone. This one was striking! While I thought I had fairly open relationships with peers, my team and managers, several co-workers started being a lot more open and direct with me and about how they felt about things. It is clearly attributable to the fact that they did not see me as a future colleague anymore, but as a bystander.
• People assumed I don't care anymore. Again: That's due to the bystander perception. Many meetings or discussions ended with people telling me: "well, lucky you this is no longer your problem". I did care though. And more importantly: I cared about the people who would take over from me. So I never leaned into any of those comments.

3) You learn a lot form changing your job

I'm not saying you need to change jobs to learn a lot. Any kind of change in function, leadership, location or industry has the potential to push you out of your comfort zone far enough, for you to acquire new skills and knowledge.

I noticed for myself that the change that made me learn the most in the last few years was to join a new organization with new people, new priorities, new processes, new customers etc..

This is my number one motivator, whenever a thought of "oh but the old job was so comfortable" comes to my mind: The speed and especially the dimensions in which you are learning when changing jobs are remarkable.

This is a personal experience report, so I'm not claiming those learnings will apply to anyone else necessarily. Clearly there are many factors who influence the experience of changing jobs a lot. E.g. why you are leaving, what's next for you, how long your notice period is, the relationships you have with your colleagues etc..

If you found this summary from my experience interesting, let me know! What have you learnt from switching jobs in the past?

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