Perseverance and resilience are buzz words floating through the business world in the past decade. Leaders want employees who are resilient--bouncing back from a setback--and persevering--never giving up and pushing through a tough problem. I've done those things. I've done those things when I've had help to see other solutions. One early lesson in this was hiking along the Appalachian Trail but having an equipment failure on the first day. I thought the only solution was to look for the nearest "exit" back to civilization; however, my friend sacrificed a spare piece of equipment that substituted for the failed part. And we made it through the rest of the trip.
I've also quit. And then I'm told, "Never give up! Never quit! Quitters never win! Winners never quit!"
So let me describe a few times I have quit. There are personal/individual problems like fixing a household appliance. If it's not going well--taking 6 hours when a professional can get it done in 30 minutes because they have the right tools--it's time to quit.
There are professional times when I just didn't have any more to offer; I was not contributing any more value to an organization. When all the organization needs is a manager to maintain the current systems, processes...status quo, it doesn't need me who will challenge everything and look for the next market opportunity. It's like a sculptor being asked to stack bricks. It's a misfit of skills and aptitudes. It's time to quit.
There are other professional times when I've been using my skills and aptitudes appropriately but it was in the wrong type of organization. It could be a cultural thing where daring is not needed. The market doesn't require creative marketing, for example. I was in one industry where social media was not an effective advertising channel; old-fashioned person-to-person networking was required to get on the decision-maker's call list.
There are also organizational times when to call it quits on a project. Some projects are just ill-fated enough--wrong time, wrong technology, wrong market, wrong price--that no matter how much money and time is thrown at it, it will not ever recover the sunk costs. It's time to call it quits. A lot of companies have gone bankrupt--or had to be sold--because they weren't willing to quit before the project sink-hole swallowed them up. I have written about the "million-dollar machines" in another blog because by the time we developed the product, the company spent $10 million dollars and we sold 10 machines. The company was later sold to a larger corporation because it had run out of money.
There were also times when the personal toll was too great because of a toxic culture. In other places--and done some master's degree work on the issue--I've written that there's not much you can do to change a toxic leader. The top books on this topic give ineffective solutions. No system, policy or procedural change is going to change a toxic manager's behavior; they're in it for themselves and "to hell with anyone else". They view their behavior as the reason for their success. I suggest there are only two options: pray for a spiritual intercession; leave the company. When you're energy is being spent to overcome the dread of going to work, or maintaining some organizational peace in the face of a person who's emotionally unsafe to be around, it's time to quit.
Miracles can and do happen, but they're not a strategic plan that will win. We see this sometime in scripture: the paralytic by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years--you can calculate the months, weeks, days that he just lay there--until he was healed by Christ. Admittedly, a healing by angels was more the paralytic's plan than the appearance of the Messiah.
But then we have the apostle Paul, preaching in Jerusalem for the first time. He's preaching to the Greek-born Jews. Fights and riots are breaking out. The "brothers" (Jerusalem apostles) encourage Paul to return home to Tarsus. It says they helped him get home, but I imagine there was some conversation about it.
"Paul, it's just not working. People are trying to kill you. Maybe we should try something else."
"If I keep doing this, eventually it'll turn around. Persecution does not mean it's not working."
"Paul, we really think you should preach in your home town of Tarsus. You're less likely to upset the majority Jews. You'll probably be well-received among the Greek Jews. You're doing the right thing, but it's in the wrong place."
What was the result? Paul goes to Tarsus. "The church then had peace throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and it became stronger as the believers lived in the fear of the Lord. And with the encouragement of the Holy Spirit, it also grew in numbers." (Acts 9.31 my emphasis) The word "then" is not an English translation transition; it's there in the Greek implying a cause-and-effect, Because Paul was doing the right thing in the wrong place, it was not going well; it was time to quit.
Henry Cloud has written a book, Necessary Endings, to help discern the time to quit. If you apply some of the thinking above regarding a mismatch between available skills and effective skills, that will go a long way to knowing whether to persevere or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment