28 October 2024 - Retirement? An end or a beginning?

Now I become myself.
It’s taken time, many years in places.
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces.
Parker J Palmer

I took early retirement from the Civil Service after 40 years of working for the same employer. I started work at the age of 16. At my first annual appraisal I was told I should expect no more than two promotions in my career. When I left HMRC in 2016 I had been blessed with seven promotions, which on reflection had less to do with my ability and more to do with being in the right place at the right time, and mostly being surrounded by the right people. People like Horace, Mike, Janet who took an interest in me and sponsored my development.

Now at the age of 65 I am considering the question, what next?

When I left the Civil Service, I began my own Organisation Development & Design practice, One Peter Four, using the words of the Apostle Peter, recorded in 1 Peter Chapter 4 as my founding principle,

“Use the gifts you have received to serve others”

(The Bible, 1 Peter Chapter 4 v10)

Since I left full-time paid employment, I can truly say I have been “dissolved & shaken” and most certainly “worn other people’s faces.” As a consultant, I have had the opportunity to work with amazing people and others who have used and abused me. Yet there remained a deep sense of dissatisfaction with what I was doing. It was seductive to be asked to offer my solutions into the client world, yet there remained in me a sense that something was missing.

William Stafford in his poem “Ask me” includes this line,

“ask me what I have done is my life”

I arranged to meet with three people who I considered had retired well.

John, Senior Civil Servant, David, Director of a multinational business, and Parker Palmer using the wisdom in his book, ‘Let Your Life Speak’. 

As I listened to their stories three key themes emerged about my life:

• I do not need money.
• Retiring is not about leaving the game. It’s about playing a different game, with different rewards and values. Time with my family.
• My joy is found in building capability in the lives of people.

Parker Palmer taught me that vocation “is not a voice out there calling me to be someone I am not. It comes from a voice “in here” calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfil the original selfhood, given to me at birth from God.”

Now I move out of the shadow and into the light of who I am. As I do so, Palmer warns me of five monsters to be aware of:

1. Insecurity about identity and worth – My identity is not found in my role description. It is found in who I am.
2. My world is a battleground – It isn’t, it’s a playground of exploration.
3. Everything depends on me – It doesn’t, chill out!
4. Fear of chaos – Life is messy, it’s ok.
5. Denial of death – It’s a lie, all things, institutions and people will one day die. 

In his book, ‘Start With Why’, Simon Sinek uses a model he calls the Golden Circle to explain how impactful leaders were able to achieve what others could not.

As a public servant I often began with ‘what’ I was being asked to do, and then to explain ‘how’ I was going to do it. Rarely was I asked ‘why’ I was doing it. The relationship between what I was doing and the social outcome, the impact upon the citizen, was at best blurred, and often invisible.

Here I discover or maybe rediscover my ‘why’ – use the gifts I have received to serve others. This is what gives my joy. I can shape my ‘what’ and ‘how’ in the light of my ‘why’.

I received many gifts in my forty years of public service, which being gifts, have their origin in someone other than me. The gifts of experience, expertise and wisdom.

Simon Walkers book, ‘The Undefended Leader’ embodies my ongoing leadership journey under three headings

Leading out of who I am

Leading with nothing to lose

Leading with everything to give

This is a place of self-liberation, nothing to lose, nothing to prove.

nihil perdere, nihil probare

My team at One Peter Four will contine to provide amazing team, leadership and organisation development, not as consultants but as practitioners, building capability, never dependency.

My focus will be on supporting the team and exploring opportunites yet to be discovered in this new place, some refer to as ‘retirement’.It maybe best described, not as the end, or the beginning, but my next chapter with the title, ‘Now I become myself.’

Now I move out of the shadow and into the light of who I am