Bringing Closure to the End of a Relationship

by Sam Sova

For most of us in Wisconsin, March 4^th was an extremely dark day after hearing the announcement of Brett Favre’s retirement. After 17 seasons, arguably the best quarterback in NFL history has called it quits finally.

Brett Favre is a brand. We are all our own brand, with the brand name of course being our name. Impressions of you from others are tied back to your brand. You build your brand by reading blogs like this and networking at our events. The actions that you do either help or hurt your brand. In the case of the Brett Favre brand, the value has dropped dramatically after yesterday.

The Favre brand has not dropped because he retired, but rather how he went about retiring. For those of you that don’t know the story of Favre, he has played his entire career with the Packers with the fans supporting him through everything from having the most interceptions in the league, to going to rehab, to supporting his wife through breast canceer. He is the icon of the Packers, and has helped re-establish the organization as a top tier team.

Take a look at the press conference announcing his retirement. See anything odd?

 

 

What’s wrong with the announcement? No Favre. Instead of him announcing his retirement, we hear from the head coach and GM that Favre has decided to hand up the cleats. There is a big problem with this picture. With hundreds of thousands of devoted Favre fans, the least that he could do to end the relationship is bring closure. 

All that he would have had to done is had a press conference, announce his retirement and why he was doing it, then thank the fans for their following and support throughout the last 17 years. Anything to get that closure that something great has ended – and that your fans mattered to you – because he did to them.

Because this was not done by Favre I have lost my devotion in the brand. It is not only unprofessional, but an extreme copout to have someone else end a relationship. The Favre brand is something that I have loved and hated growing up and has now been extremely hurt from this action. 

So think about this when you end a relationship with an employer, vendor, or even a client. There has to be the correct closure to the relationship – otherwise not only will your company’s brand be affected, but more importantly yours will.

Tags: Closure