As the page turns on another season, I eventually tune into the fact that we are losing some AWESOME people. Graduation, in my line of work, takes our finest people, without fail; Pun intended… Fear associated with losing a great person is real. How are we going to fill that spot? How are we going to replace that amazing thing that only they are capable of? Their XYZ quality was second to none and now it’s gone!?  

This worry has often gripped me when looking ahead and planning an upcoming season. I found I was focusing on what strengths we were losing. Not focusing enough on the strengths of the people coming up. I have been under valuating our past weaknesses and under valuating the strengths of our returning roster. For better or worse these people will be filling the gaps vacated by the ones moving on.  

So far, I have learned that with hard work, consistency, and the development of ALL of your people, you will continuously raise the bar. The key here is developing all of your people. We have been incubating amazing individuals over the last year or two. They have observed, studied, seen the standard and they become something greater than I could ever have imagined. Their personalities flourish when given the space to make it theirs. 

 This turnover has been a constant reminder of the importance of developing your entire roster and ironically enough, caring about your people who may not impact the bottom line for a year or two. Caring about these people actually makes this year’s culture more robust. If they matter, their role matters and the more likely they are to own it, which in turn, allows them to own this new role they are bequeathed. Additionally, we have no rebuilding phase, we constantly reload with our talent that has been taking root.

People leaving a community, no doubt, leave a space to be filled with new mindsets/patterns/voices etc. When you develop your entire roster, you already have everything you need to fill those spaces…Your people.