Should I Go?

I have been noticing that a colleague of many years has been behaving very differently of late. A perpetual frown, quiet behavior, furtive glances, nervy and generally upset. I know these symptoms from my several years of managing people. I sniff around. The grapevine manages to send me the message that the colleague has recently attended an interview call at another company. So I set up a chat over a cup of coffee with this colleague. I learn that the interview was motivated by a call from a head hunter and this colleague went to “test the water”, “understand the market value”, but “No, I am not keen to leave” etc.

I understand this very well. It always starts like this and usually ends with the person finding the offer attractive and quitting. I can’t let this happen this time again, can I?

What should I do?

I realize that I have failed more often that I succeeded in retaining the person who decided to leave. Sometimes I was happy to let the person go with a feeling “Good riddance! Now I have a chance to change a few things around”; at others I tried my best, in vain though, to hold on to the person.

The trouble is that by the time you learn that someone is contemplating a change, they have committed so far on the “I Quit” path that they find it difficult to retrace their steps. Yet, I feel miserable because I know that the new job prospect does not happen by chance but only when one looks around for it. The search for a “better” prospect starts when one suffers some sort of dissatisfaction with the status quo – unfulfilled expectations, lower salary, disparity within the team, lack of freedom to act and decide, stagnation, utter desperation of not being able to bring the change in the environment and sometimes simply boredom. I feel guilty that as a manager and as an organization we did not do enough to anticipate this and bring a change. Cajoling and convincing at that stage has generally failed me.

So what went wrong? I ask myself. I reflect. Reflection is a better teacher than any.

I analyze some past cases and find out that at almost all times, I was trying to convincing the person about pros of staying back, sometimes even showing them the negatives of the future job they had in mind ( not many really tell the truth of where they are going, do they?). I had long discussions with them. Yes, they agreed with me. No, they can not go back on their decision. Hell! It was frustrating for me.

What was going on? I reflected further. Hey, there, I found the problem. The problem was I.

The problem was that I was providing the arguments. They were my arguments. Not theirs!! I was convinced they should not go, they were not!!!

If they could convince themselves, they would stay. If not, then it is best they go! So they should build the arguments, for themselves. All I can do and should do is lead their thinking, maybe even provide a framework in which they can evaluate the options correctly. I might stand a better chance.

I decided to try this approach. I asked this colleague to build a 2X2 matrix as below and asked to list out all factors no matter how trivial against the question asked in black. Then analyze and answer the questions asked in red.

Of course I offered myself as a bouncing board if needed.

Do you want to know what happened? Well, I wouldn’t be writing this piece if I had failed, would I? It is now over three weeks and we did not have to discuss the topic again. My colleague found the answers convincing enough to stay.

I tried it with another colleague when he came up to me and very openly talked to me that he was frustrated in his current role. It worked again!

Yet, I am convinced that this approach may not work always if I employ it ONLY when I learn someone decided to quit. I should propagate this proactively to all my team members. Not necessarily the same format but maybe just the first column. This way, they will participate in collectively improving the work environment, help weed out our deficiencies by highlighting them to the management and own the changes that will be brought about. We will individually and collectively find out what makes us happy and build those factors further.

We will create a happier and better workplace. Amen!

All comments and suggestions are very welcome!