*This month’s post is written by our COO, Diana Hutchinson*

If you are a founder or long-time employee, a sabbatical can have benefits for your organization that go beyond the rest and renewal you experience on your time away.

After returning from a successful, 4-month sabbatical this summer, I’m sharing my perspective to inspire you so you, too, could decide to take time away from your important role in the business.

Stepping away

As one of Trebuchet Group’s longest employees, stepping away from my role wasn’t easy. Turns out I unintentionally keep quite a lot of how I do things in my head! (Maybe you do too?) In many ways, I’m the person that holds the big picture, making connections and running behind the scenes operations.
Chris and I stepped away from the business with intention - both for ourselves and our organization. We knew rest and renewal were important, and also were curious about what our pause would mean for the business. Stepping away helped me make sure I wasn’t a single point of failure for the business, and it gave me a chance to really look at the work I was doing.

Going away for longer than a couple of weeks made handing things off essential, rather than cramming before I left and digging out when I got back! As I was planning my sabbatical, I reached out to other leaders who had been on sabbatical and who had a sabbatical policy for their organization. Their advice helped me prepare for and have a renewing time away from the business in a way that benefited Trebuchet Group as well. One unexpected benefit of our sabbatical is that my team and I grew before, during, and after the time away.

Here’s what I did and a few of the impacts:

Before

Months before we left, I captured a list of what I do, and together, our team identified who would do those tasks while I was gone. After I taught the person taking on each task, I let them take over doing the work while I was still in the building. I wanted to be around while we tested how well everything worked. We saw where things weren’t clear and tweaked the systems. We rolled out new systems to capture information from parts of the team to communicate with an outside support group for some of the tasks.

During this preparation time, it was hard for me to feel less productive as I sat on my hands and let others give it a go for some time before I left. However, this choice gave me the confidence to be able to step away for 4 months, especially since we identified triggers for when our team should reach out to us. These triggers included cash flow levels, employee struggles, or other crazy happenings like if our landlord suddenly told us he was selling the office!

Part of my preparation also involved looking at the email I got. Some mail was already going to a shared mailbox and didn’t need to change. Some things I wanted to send to a personal email address instead. I took the opportunity to unsubscribe from many lists and notifications.

Another vital part of preparation is our long-term practice of creating financial reserves in the business. Having enough reserves allowed the team to keep the business going while Chris and I continued drawing our salaries. Our several years of playing the Great Game of Business meant everyone was familiar with the drivers and measures of success for running the business.

During

During the sabbatical, I didn’t check the metrics or the books. Does that surprise you? With the preparation we did ahead of time, and the agreement on triggers when they would reach out, I felt confident things were going fine. We sent each other monthly email “postcards” with a few highlights, which also added to my confidence that things were running well in our absence.

Returning

We’ve been back in the office now for a full month. After some reflection, I’m happy to share that the sabbatical was helpful for my own renewal and also had upsides for our business.

Some of the benefits of the changes we made include

I got to look at my activities and get beyond my fear that it would be too hard to hand some things off
Team members are much clearer about what is happening with our finance systems and feel more ownership
We are capturing information in a better way that lets everyone see what’s happening
I unsubscribed from a lot of email, and organized what I am getting in a better way
Our team increased their level of peer accountability, teamwork, and confidence they could work through challenges
It gave others a chance to try some new activities and find some they like and some they were happy to hand back!

If you are wondering how or if you could ever have a sabbatical, I would be happy to share more with you! Send me a note here.