Consultanting engagements, like projects, have a beginning and an end.  Sometimes engagements can span multiple projects -- so multiple beginnings and endings.  The Project Management Institute (PMI) emphasizes that projects have a formal close out -- that is, review what you did, what went well, and what could have gone better.

That is fine for the project -- but what about the close out for the people.  Besides project success what did you leave behind as a leader in the way of relationships?

In the current economy, many people are experiencing "close outs" in their careers, jobs, and sometimes, long-established relationships.  After you depart, how are you going to be remembered?  How many skills and how much knowledge did you pass on?  Were your successors able to successfully follow in your footsteps?  Even if the transition was abupt, was the transistion of your responsibilities seamless.

Many people hoard information hoping that it will make them indispensible.  In reality, that information hoarding deprives a person from leaving a very real, lasting and positive legacy.  If, after a closing, you are remembered fondly, then who knows from where your next job or assignment might come.

There are many places in the Tao where Lao Tzu talks about the legacy of the wise person.  The end of Verse 2* expresses the idea of the silent, but positive legacy in some of the best language of this timeless work.

"The Sage acts without action
     and teaches without talking
All things flourish around him
     and he does not refuse any one of them
He gives but not to receive
He works but not for reward
He completes but not for results
He does nothing for himself in this passing world
     so nothing he does ever passes"

*Tao Te Ching, The Definitive Edition, Lao Tzu with Translation and Commentary by Jonathan Star, Jeremy P Tarcher/Penguin, 2001, page 15