Exit Interview Insights That Can Drive Change

The exit interview wasn’t the surprise. The lunch conversation afterward was. I had just wrapped a debrief with my CEO, one of those quiet, mutual decisions where a high-performing leader exits after less than a year. Smart. Driven. Clear cultural fit. Or so we thought. The CEO asked me to lunch right after. I assumed we’d talk succession, backfill strategy, maybe a search firm. Instead, halfway through his grilled chicken salad, he looked at me and said: “I think I missed it. All of it. And I don’t want to miss it again.” That changed the conversation. Because the truth is: You don’t lose top leaders in exit interviews. You lose them in silences, in shifting body language, in the meetings where they stop fighting for the future. So we unpacked what happened. Together. 🔹 Our vision had gotten blurry. What was once a big, energizing mission had turned tactical and reactive. The “why” they’d joined for got buried under the weight of daily ops. 🔹 Strategy became survival. Every conversation was about fires, never the future. Their calendar became a triage board, not a blueprint for scale. 🔹 The room got quiet. They stopped challenging ideas. Not because they didn’t care, but because it stopped feeling like it mattered. 🔹 Our values frayed. We’d made compromises. Small ones. But enough that it felt like the soul of the company had shifted. 🔹 Recognition dried up. This leader had gone above and beyond, again and again. And somewhere along the way, we stopped saying thank you. 🔹 Decision-making slowed to a crawl. Red tape crept in. Every move required buy-in from five other teams. They felt stifled and stuck. 🔹 Burnout became the baseline. We noticed the fatigue, but not the toll. And they didn’t complain. They just got quieter. 🔹 Their voice went unheard. Ideas were raised. Some bold. Some uncomfortable. Few went anywhere. 🔹 And finally - ego replaced curiosity. Not theirs. Ours. The exec team had started nodding more and questioning less. Real talk vanished. So did innovation. By the time we “noticed,” they were already gone. And it wasn’t about comp. It was about purpose. About being seen. Heard. Trusted. About building something that meant something. My CEO sat back, quiet. Then he asked: “How do I make sure I don’t miss it next time?” Here’s what I told him: You don’t wait for the exit interview. You (we) build a culture of ongoing feedback, curiosity, and conversation. You notice energy shifts. You check in when a voice goes quiet. You treat your top talent like partners, not passengers. Because when your best people leave, they’re not walking away from a job. They’re walking away from a story they no longer believe in. Your job as a leader is to help them keep believing. He looked me in the eye and said, “From now on, let's not just build a company, let's build a place where no one feels they have to leave to be heard.”

The most expensive conversation in business? The exit interview you didn't understand. Last quarter, a Director gave their notice at a Fortune 500 company. Exit interview: 'Better opportunity.' Real cost: $213,000 in replacement costs. Actual reason: Found in their team's quiet resignations three months later. Let me decode what's really happening in your exit interviews: When they say: "I found a better opportunity" They mean: - "I couldn't see my future here" - "My ideas died in meetings" - "I watched mediocrity get promoted" When they say: "Work-life balance" They mean: - "My boundaries weren't respected" - "The urgent always beat the important" - "Burnout was treated as dedication" When they say: "Higher compensation" They mean: - "I don't see my value reflected here" - "I had to leave to level up" - "Someone else saw my worth first" When they say: "It's not personal" They mean: - "It's deeply personal" - "I stopped believing in the mission" - "The gap between what we say and what we do is too wide" Here's what nobody tells you about Employee Value Proposition (EVP) work: Your real EVP lives in these translations. Not in your job posts. Not in your careers page. Not in your culture deck. It lives in the space between what people say and what they mean. Want to build an EVP that works? Start with truth. Want to keep your best talent? Learn to hear what they're not saying. What's the most common exit interview response you've heard? Drop it below - let's decode it.

Ever had an ideal candidate reject your offer someone who seemed like a perfect fit? It’s easy to assume they left for more money or better perks. But after conducting hundreds of exit interviews, I can tell you: compensation rarely cracks the top three reasons. Top talent is leaving because they see deeper issues. • Technical leaders without real authority Engineers notice when product decisions are dictated by non-technical execs. When their expertise is overridden without reason, they’ll walk. The best engineers want to build, not battle for influence. • Culture where politics matter more than performance High performers look for environments where results are rewarded. If internal advancement is based on relationships or face time instead of impact, they’ll move on to a company that values what they deliver. • No clear technical vision If your team can’t articulate where you're going in the next 12 to 18 months, it signals disorganization. Ambitious engineers want to build toward a future not guess at it. Here’s the kicker: these are issues of clarity, alignment, and respect. Not money. So what can you do? Start by giving your technical leaders real decision-making power. Establish and communicate promotion criteria rooted in measurable outcomes. And most importantly, define and share your technical roadmap even if it’s still evolving. Here’s a quick test: ask your hiring managers to explain your tech strategy for the next year. If they hesitate, your candidates will too. The best talent sees red flags long before you do. The question is can you see what they see? #techleadership #engineeringculture #hiringstrategy #talentacquisition #scalingteams #startupgrowth

Stop asking 'How do we hire better people?' Start asking 'Why do our best people leave?' The real reasons top talent quits (from 500+ exit interviews): 1️⃣ 'Exciting opportunities' = No growth path ↳ 76% leave because they can't see their next step 2️⃣ 'Different direction' = Poor leadership ↳ 82% quit their manager, not their job 3️⃣ 'Better offer' = Felt undervalued ↳ It's rarely about money. It's about recognition 4️⃣ 'Personal reasons' = Toxic culture ↳ 91% left because they couldn't be themselves 5️⃣ 'New challenges' = Burnout ↳ They asked for help. You didn't listen Every exit interview is a postmortem of: • Ignored feedback • Broken promises • Missed signals • Silent struggles The BIGGEST Reality Check: The cost of replacing talent = 2-3x their salary The cost of keeping them = Actually listening Stop the cycle: 1. Ask before they leave 2. Listen when they speak 3. Act while they're still invested Your best hiring strategy? Keep the talent you already have. ↳ Share and Repost to protect your team. ↳ Follow for more leadership insights.

What 1000+ Netflix Exit Interviews Taught Me About Why People Really Leave After years of conducting exit interviews at Netflix, I learned something uncomfortable: Exit interviews are performance theater. People tell you what they think you want to hear. They're already gone—mentally, emotionally. They're protecting their references, their reputation, their next opportunity. The real truth? It lives in the conversations they had with their partners at 10pm. In the texts to their best friends. In the moments they decided to pick up the recruiter's call. Here's what those 1000+ conversations actually revealed: • The "official" reason was rarely the real reason • People sanitize their feedback to avoid burning bridges • By the time someone's in an exit interview, it's archaeology—you're digging up decisions made months ago The most honest feedback I ever got? From people who stayed but felt safe enough to tell me they'd been looking. From skip-levels where someone trusted me with their truth. From the patterns in what people didn't say. Exit data is like reading yesterday's newspaper. If you want to know why your best people might leave, ask them while they're still here. Create the safety for truth-telling before it becomes past tense. Because once they're sitting in that exit interview? They're already gone. #Leadership #TalentManagement #NetflixCulture #WorkplaceTruth #ExitInterviews