The New Contract
What happens when companies stop hoarding talent and start growing people
When Ryan walked into my office and said he had an offer from another company, every corporate instinct I'd ever learned screamed at me to panic.
Ryan was my unicorn—visual designer, software developer, problem-solver, voice of reason all rolled into one. We were 18 months into building something amazing together. His timing couldn't have been worse. We were deep in a product build with a hard deadline. He was my only developer. Without him, the project would collapse.
Every playbook said: throw money at the problem. Match the offer. Promise him the world. Make him too expensive to lose.
But instead, I asked him what he actually wanted.
Turns out, Ryan needed more complex challenges. He needed a community of other developers. He needed growth opportunities that my team simply couldn't provide. No amount of money was going to change that. No title bump was going to create what didn't exist.
So I did the thing most managers are terrified to do: I told him to take the offer.
Not with resignation. With celebration. I walked him through why it was the right move. I helped him see what I couldn't give him. I made his departure about his growth, not our loss.
Here's the radical part: this only worked because I'd built a system that could survive Ryan's departure. The team didn't fall apart—they reorganized and grew stronger.
His departure didn't damage our relationship. It deepened it.
Because I treated his career like stewardship, not ownership.
We've built our entire employment model on a fairy tale: that the best relationships last forever. That loyalty means staying. That leaving is betrayal. That if we're doing our jobs right, people will never want to go anywhere else.
That's not human development. That's codependency with benefits.
The "forever employment" myth emerged post-World War II when companies sold a new deal: cradle-to-grave employment in exchange for unwavering loyalty. It worked for about thirty years until the 1980s brought layoffs and "right-sizing." Companies broke the deal but kept expecting the loyalty.
We created a system where people stay not because they're growing, but because they're scared. Scared of starting over. Scared of losing seniority. Scared of admitting they've outgrown the place that once felt like home.
And here's how the system actually works: HR measures retention rates, not growth rates. Managers get dinged when people leave their teams, regardless of why they left or where they went. We built incentive structures that reward hoarding over developing.
When someone gives notice, watch what really happens. The manager calls an emergency meeting for damage control. "How do we keep them?" is always the first question. "Should we let them go?" is never asked. Then comes the counteroffer theater—match the salary, promise a promotion, anything to avoid the inconvenience of "losing" someone.
Meanwhile, the team watches. They learn that wanting something different makes you a traitor. That growth beyond your current role is selfish. That the company's need to keep you matters more than your need to grow.
That's not retention. That's resentment with benefits.
What if we stopped pretending forever was the goal? What if we built a new contract—one that assumed change, planned for growth, and made transitions a celebration instead of a crisis?
Here's what the new contract looks like:
We will invest in your growth—even if it grows you beyond us. Not just the growth that serves our immediate needs, but the growth that serves your long-term potential. We'll give you stretch assignments that might make you too good for your current role. We'll fund education that might open doors we can't offer.
We will have honest conversations about fit—before it becomes a problem. At years two, four, and six, we sit down and ask: Are you still excited to be here? Are we still the right place for your next chapter? If not, how can we help you find what is? Not as punishment. As partnership.
We will make leaving as intentional as staying. When someone decides it's time to go, we won't treat it like a betrayal. We'll treat it like a graduation. We'll help them transition their knowledge. We'll recommend them to our network. We'll celebrate what they built while they were here.
We will build systems that don't require anyone to stay forever. No single points of failure. No knowledge hoarding. No "only Sarah knows how to do this" situations that hold everyone hostage. We'll document processes, cross-train teams, and share context because we want people to be free to grow.
The companies clinging to the old contract will tell you this is dangerous. "You'll train your competition." "People will take advantage." "You'll become a revolving door."
But here's what actually happens when you stop trying to control people's careers: You become a magnet for the people you actually want. The ones who choose growth over comfort. The ones who stay because they're excited, not because they're trapped.
Most managers, when their star player gives notice, immediately reach for the desperate counteroffer playbook. But what if that panic about people leaving is exactly what's keeping them stuck?
When you help someone exit well, they become your best recruiters. Not because you're nice—because you're real. The story someone tells about leaving your company affects every hire, every partnership, every reputation conversation for the next five years.
Do they tell people you fought them when they tried to grow? Or that you cleared the path? Do they say you made them feel guilty for wanting more? Or that you helped them get it?
Supporting someone's departure—especially someone great—requires emotional maturity most leaders have never been trained for. It takes identity separation. Too many managers wrap their self-worth in their team's retention. You need to decouple your ego from your org chart. Their career isn't your scoreboard.
It takes true performance discernment. A-Players don't check out—they outgrow. And if you can't see the signs of someone who's ready for their next chapter, you're going to miss your moment to be the bridge instead of the roadblock.
Most importantly, it takes emotional generosity. The kind that says, "I want what's best for you, even if it's not best for me." That kind of leadership doesn't just earn loyalty—it builds legacy.
The hardest part isn't building the new contract. It's letting go of the old one. It's admitting that the loyalty you've been demanding might have been dependency in disguise. It's accepting that the people who stay forever might not be your strongest players—they might just be your most comfortable ones.
But once you make the shift—once you start seeing tenure as one data point instead of the only one—everything changes. You stop promoting people just because they've been there longest. You start promoting people because they're still growing.
And yes, some people will leave sooner than you'd like. Some investments won't pay off the way you hoped. But what you'll gain is trust. From the people who stay because they want to be there. From the people who leave because they're ready for something new. From the people considering whether to join you—who now know you'll invest in their growth, not just their output.
That's the new contract. Not forever. Not ownership. Not control. Partnership. Growth. Trust.
Because the best people don't need to stay forever. They just need to know they'll be treated like they matter—especially on the way out.
In the end, the companies that try to hold onto people forever are the ones that lose them fastest. The companies that set people free to choose? Those are the ones people choose to stay with.
Until it's time to fly. And that's exactly how it should be.