GTMcraft Plays · The Exit Ritual Play

Every departure gets rushed into a checkbox, so the culture and network value walks out with the person; run the 30-minute exit ritual that turns each leaver into an advocate, a referral, and a signal you can read.

Play visual

exit-ritual-signal.html

The 90-second read

Most teams treat an exit as an HR errand. You sign the paperwork, you run a form, you move on. That is a miss. How you say goodbye is watched by everyone who stays, and it decides whether a leaver becomes an advocate or a quiet detractor. The standard exit interview fails because it is transactional and comes too late. A specific, gratitude-led conversation earns the honest feedback and turns the exit into an asset.

• How you say goodbye says more about your culture than how you say hello.
• The checkbox exit interview fails, because the leaver protects the reference and holds back.
• A leaver is a future advocate, referral, or boomerang, or a detractor. The conversation decides which.
• Run the same conversation for every leaver, owned by the manager, not by HR.
• AI builds the contributions brief before, and themes the feedback across leavers after.

Read time: about 6 minutes. First step runnable Monday morning.

The #1 move this week

Before your next farewell, write down 3 specific things the person did that went beyond their results.

Not the quota, not the tickets closed. The judgment call they made, the teammate they lifted, the thing that broke and they fixed quietly. Naming the specific separates a real thank-you from a template goodbye, and it is why the conversation lands.

Start here: pull the leaver's actual work from your CRM, project notes, and peer shout-outs. Mark the 3 contributions worth naming to their face.

Ignore this week: the standard HR exit form. It comes later, and on its own it builds nothing.