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Six Signs They're Planning To Replace You

This article is more than 7 years old.

One of the first things I noticed as a young business person was how awkward and uncomfortable business people become the minute they run into a sticky human situation.

They fall apart, if we are honest. Most business people can't make it through a simple conversation if the topic veers into even mildly sticky territory.

That's why so many leaders and even HR people can't talk about awkward things like performance issues, lateness or absence, fearful behaviors, anger, conflict, competition, emotions, illness, romance, pregnancy, lactation, sex or a million other topics that naturally arise at work.

People are the only species that populate most workplaces, so it's not surprising that the full range of sticky human topics shows up in the workplace. We should be more adept than we are at talking about sticky situations at work.

We have to learn how to talk about sticky topics, but because we hate to talk about them, we never get better at it!

One of the topics we avoid like crazy at work is the notion that a person and a job might turn out to be a bad match. We don't know how to say "You are a great person and this is a reasonable job for someone, but you and this job are not well-suited to one another."

We can't choke those words out, so we typically begin one of two fruitless patterns. One is to not speak about the mismatch at all - to wish it away by ignoring it.

The other path is to see the mismatch and label it a Performance Problem and put the employee on a Performance Improvement Plan. That way we can wash our hands of the problem and say "That employee didn't work out -- that's all!"

We can hire someone new and start the process all over again. We never have to look in the mirror that way -- so everything is neat and tidy!

Here are six signs your manager is planning to replace you, but doesn't have the guts to talk to you about it.

You can bring up the topic with your manager and ask him or her "Are you planning to replace me?" but I wouldn't do that unless you are also ready to launch into a Third Path conversation like the one illustrated here.

Six Signs They're Planning To Replace You

Sure - Now You're Curious

Your boss has never shown task-level interest in your job before, but now s/he is full of questions about how you do one part of your job or another.

That makes sense -- your boss is going to be the connective tissue  between you and the person who will replace you, so s/he wants to soak up as much detailed information as possible while you're still here!

Guess What -- You're A Mentor!

Your boss gives you a junior employee to mentor. You ask "How do you want me to mentor her?" and your boss says "Teach her your job."

Did I Imagine That Plan?

You had a plan for your role over the next 12 months. You put your plan in writing and your boss has already signed off on it. Now you can't get your boss to talk about your plan, or to listen to refinements in the plan. That makes sense if your boss doesn't expect you to be here to carry out your plan.

Photo: Dr. James Campbell

You're Off The Grid

You were just telling someone how you could hardly keep up with the big projects you're involved in at work, and then suddenly, you're not involved in any of them.

You aren't even dis-invited from status meetings; you just aren't told when the meetings are taking place, or where. You ask your boss what's up and your boss says "Um, what?"

Sure, And Take An Extra Week if You Want

You ask your manager to approve your one-week vacation  in October and your boss says "Sure!" without asking you for the dates. Your boss has always given you a hard time about your vacation requests -- until now.

If They Ignore You, Maybe You Will Disappear

You can't get your boss to respond to an email or voicemail message, and the stream of requests from your manager also dries up. You could be playing video games at your desk all day long and your boss wouldn't notice. "Gee, that's odd," you think. "Normally my boss is all over me about my deliverables."

What's changed? If your name already has a red slash through it on the organizational chart posted on the wall in HR, there's no reason for your manager to hassle you anymore.

What should you do now? First off, get your personal belongings out of your workplace and get any files that belong to you off the hard drive of any computer the company issued to you.

Next, get your Human-Voiced Resume ready and start a stealth job search.

The more advance notice you have of your manager's plan to replace you, the more time you'e got to practice asking him or her for a severance package when your boss finally works up the courage to talk to you directly.

That could take weeks. Those weeks will come in handy as you practice the Third Path script.

Between your preparation for that meeting (which will only be sticky for your manager -- not for you!) and your under-the-radar job search, you'll be growing muscles like crazy starting right now.

That's a good thing!

It's all onward and upward from here. Remember this -- only the people who get you, deserve you.

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