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11: Exit Strategy

The author opens with an anonymous Chinese proverb that advises gamblers to know three things before entering into a game: the rules of the game, the stakes, and when you will quit.

The author stresses that quitting your job is not the first option, or the second, but the very last - even so, it is an option. Sometimes, you will do everything that you think is possible and still achieve no success, and continuing to fight a losing battle will not only leave you spiritually drained, but will be damaging to your professional reputation.

His first hope is that the advice in this book will make you less likely, rather than more, to quit a job without making a patient, earnest, and persistent effort into changing your situation without leaving. But ultimately, that time may come, and you're better off if you have the end in sight and can terminate your relationship with a firm in a controlled and graceful manner.

There is a deeply-ingrained cultural resistance to quitting a job that is internalized by many people. The notion is that quitting is a negative choice and a sign of personal failure. Unless a person is leaving a job for a better one, there is a great deal of uncertainty and fear, particularly over their loss of income and the impact to oneself and one's own family.

This is the same fear that tyrants count upon to make a person tolerate abuse for the sake of keeping their job: the treat of being fired, whether covert or unvarnished, is the ultimate punishment a tyrant can dole out, and the underlying threat of any lesser form of manipulation.

And it is for precisely that reason that a person should consider the prospect of quitting, to be realistic about the difficulty of making the life change, and to be more rational and less emotional about the prospect of losing - or leaving - their current position.

Bad Omens

The author describes signs that the relationship with your boss, and your employer, is "sinking fast" and it may be time to move on: your communication process never improves, your job satisfaction suffers, and you begin to stumble into "career limiting moves."

Communication is critical to any relationship: it enables you to express your expectations and understand theirs, to bring up concerns, and to discuss a mutually agreeable solution. When communication has broken down entirely, none of these things are even possible; and even when communication simply decreases, the chance of being able to get it back on track also decreases. You can make no progress if your are dealing with a tyrant who is utterly dismissive and turns a deaf ear.

Job satisfaction is a pre-logical indication of your emotional state. You "feel" poorly about your work, even if you don't know the exact reason why. Over time, the sense of being tired and irritated compounds, and it's difficult for you to break out of the pattern of behavior that results. The first step to take is to identify the source of your discontent - it may be your relationship with your boss, or it may be that you don't like the job itself. In the latter case, changing jobs, or even careers, is the only solution. In the former case, you may be overwhelmed by an ongoing series of negative experiences - if you are frustrated with a lack of progress, and taking a vacation doesn't recharge your batteries, a more permanent change of scenery may be in order.

The author also speaks of "career limiting moves," behaving in ways that are dysfunctional in order to cope with a negative situation. The problem is that, in spite of the temporary relief from petty acts of revenge or disobedience, they can do long-term and serious damage to your professional reputation and your ability to find work elsewhere. If you find yourself tempted to engage in such actions, or if you can't seem to help yourself, it's definitely time to move on before you make a mistake, get caught, and damage yourself in a way that's more long-term than simply walking off of a bad job.

Leave Gracefully

When the time comes to leave, do so gracefully: do not use your resignation letter or exit interview to be used as a method of venting your pent-up emotions. The satisfaction of getting in the last lick is outweighed by the damage you do yourself should you ever have a good opportunity to leave; and if you're thinking that the company will realize the error of its ways when it loses a good employee like yourself, this virtually never happens.

Giving formal notice, in writing, to the HR department as well as your supervisor, is prudent to avoid being accused of simply walking off the job. However the notion of "two weeks notice" is not a legal requirement and often not a contractual requirement. However, it is considered a matter of professional courtesy and a tyrant can damage his own reputation if he appears to retaliate against you for giving notice. (EN: However, it's worth noting that many companies do not accept extended notice - an employee who is intending to leave has no loyalty to the firm, and there may be a policy to make the resignation effective immediately for security reasons.)

Of importance: avoid second-guessing your decision to leave. If you have thought it over in advance, you will realize it was the right thing to do, and that your negative experience at one firm was simply a "blip" in the course of your career - and that, given the situation was bad enough to make you want to leave, it was a wise and warranted decision to "move on" to other things.

Exit Preparation Activities

The author provides an "exercise" that is really just another section of nuts-and-bolts details about the tasks you should undertaken when quitting or preparing to quit a job.

Review your employee manual or similar documentation to learn the procedures for quitting your job. In some companies, there is an explicit and written process that explains what is expected of you. Even if there is not, there is likely instructions for leaving - turning in a ID badge and corporate cards, completing benefits paperwork, and the like. You will be able to handle the termination process elegantly if you know what to expect and are prepared to take the right steps.

If you are leaving without having another job to go to immediately, take some time to prepare yourself: brush up your resume and interviewing skills so that you can immediately begin your job search the day after you leave.

In addition to informing your supervisor and HR, you should also communicate to your colleagues and contacts that you are leaving. It gives you the opportunity to put a positive spin on your reasons for leaving so that your reasons for leaving are not distorted or misrepresented by your boss or the office gossips. It's also a matter of courtesy to make a clean hand-off: let people know that you are leaving in your voice-mail and e-mail signatures and provide information about how to handle work-in-progress and routine tasks after you have left to make the transition easier for others.