Quitting – Cowardly Giving Up or Bravely Shaping Your Life?
Working with business leaders who are facing a talent war, we see them struggling to understand why (on earth) employees, both young and older, are leaving their jobs. They are even more puzzled because people are not quitting as a last resort, but as a natural and logical choice. Taking on a new challenge, going back to school, diving deeper into a hobby, a lifestyle change, the quest for work-life balance, traveling more and working less, care giving for a family member, early or semi-retirement . . . and these are just a few examples!
Julia Keller explores this phenomenon in her book “Quitting: A Life Strategy,” where she traces the negative perception of quitting back to Samuel Smiles’ 19th century philosophy that perseverance is the key to prosperity and fulfilment. According to Keller, we still live with Smiles’ legacy, with the expectation of keeping our ‘nose to the grindstone’, blaming ourselves for feeling frustrated and stuck, and experiencing guilt for wanting to jump ship.
The belief that quitting equates with failure is also reinforced by reproductive thinking in education. We are taught to reproduce existing knowledge as accurately as possible, often through rote memorization and intensive testing. Deviating from this path can be interpreted as failure.
However, in today’s rapidly changing world, it is not possible to survive or thrive on reproductive thinking and a rigid work ethic. Why do you think companies are adopting agile ways of working, encouraging disruptive creativity and innovation as well as exit strategies.
Quitting has become a viable strategy for coping with an increasingly complex and volatile world. It should be cultivated and encouraged! By embracing the quitting mindset, organizational leaders can step into a new, more fluid way of being in the workplace. Giving oneself and others the freedom to give it a try, throw in the towel and restart elsewhere may be the best path towards transformational change.
So here is my question to all those business leaders who judge their employees who are quitting: How can you expect employees to adopt an agile mindset , think creatively, take initiative and pivot at work but not for their career path or personal life?
Sarah De Greef
