Decommissioning and recommissioning
- Brad
- Dec 2, 2025
- 2 min read
There is a process with boats. Most boats in the Caribbean seek shelter for hurricane season. Most of the time, this involves putting your boat on land, on stands in a boatyard. The yard I kept REIMAGINED at last year had over 400 boats.
The prep process for it is interesting. On the way out, called decommissioning —your mission is to clean the boat, remove everything, take systems apart (like fresh water wash the air conditioners), wipe things down, and store everything. It is a week-long process. You put stabilizer in your diesel tanks and bleach in your fresh water tanks. And on and on. The decommission process kinda sucks. It’s long. It’s often in very hot and dusty boat yards. But doing it right is critical. Even though you know that every day you wish it were over and done with, and you could move on. However, when done right, the commissioning process (the return) is easy. Items out. Systems on. Check for issues, and off you go. It is interesting because one might assume that commissioning is the hard part, but it is not. Decommissioning is where the extra effort is required. And that effort is paid back in the future.
This got me thinking. I spent a lot of my career in the services industry, which, by its nature, is people-based. At my last job, we probably hired over 2,000 people in ten years. And when people start, they are eager and keen to make a great impression. Get up to speed. Have an impact. But the truth is, onboarding is a process that takes time. And most rational organizations know this and give people the time they expect to have an impact.
The other side of the coin is more interesting. The decommissioning ;) Aka people resigning. I would often say to people that the exit is more important than the entrance. We all know the saying that people quit their managers. And when people get to that point, they are often “looking to make a point to those managers”… here is my 2 weeks. That’s all I need to give you. It’s in my contract. But the truth of the matter is, it is rarely the manager who is inconvenienced by short or unprofessional exits. It is often peers and teammates who suffer the brunt. People think they are “showing their manager,” but they are “hurting their teammates.” The exit of a job, like decommissioning a boat, is more important than starting a new job. And rarely, if ever, does the person need to “provide the minimum notice period,” and if they place you are going, or your advisor is telling you, “to just get out of there.” That should be a big red flag: either you have the wrong advisor or your new location has a bad culture. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule—very senior people with highly confidential information, etc, but for 95% of people. Take the time to do the decommissioning right. It will pay off in the long run.
REIMAGINED is back on the water and slowly moving. The commission was, for sure, made easier by the massive effort around the decommissioning.
