Moving On (aka Letting Go)

A family friend recently asked me what she should do with respect to a predicament she has at her work. She is in her early thirties, a bright, motivated and very personable woman. She is happy but, in her words uncertain about her position in her firm. She is worried that she is becoming too comfortable. That she is no longer being challenged professionally.

Unfortunately, she does not see much opportunity to do anything about it at her current place of employment. People there either don’t see her value or they are unwilling to make the effort to open up opportunities for her. Or maybe there simply aren’t any opportunities left there. So she is simply biding her time, waiting for an opportunity to come up elsewhere. Hence her question to me: “What should I do”?

This is a common predicament for firms: employees that outgrow their positions and leave to seek better opportunities elsewhere. Or worse still, employees that outgrow their positions and don’t leave. Those employees can become complacent. They lose their drive. Their ambition. Or maybe they just settle in to the comfortable routine of “a job”. But they are no longer the superstars they once were. Not every employee needs to be challenged routinely, but for those that do, staying in a position that no longer challenges them is slowly killing what makes them special.

By now I suspect you already know what I told our family friend: find another opportunity, and fast, before your enthusiasm and motivation atrophies and withers. But I did not tell her to leave the firm, unless that’s the only way for her to find a new challenge. There are many opportunities for bright and motivated people that can challenge them and continue to advance their professional lives, some which can be explored concurrent with full-time employment. Continuing education programs, for example. But some times you do just have to move on. And I would have told her these exact things even if I was her manager, as a disengaged employee eventually becomes a problem. I have had many of those conversations in the past.

So what would I have said if my friend’s manager had approached me with the other side of that predicament? That he was worried about losing a great employee who he feared was no longer being challenged? My answer to that should be equally obvious – find her a challenge in his organization or be a good mentor and help her figure out what other opportunities exist elsewhere and push her out the door. Gently, like a mother bird does to her fledgling nestling as it embarks on its first journey from the nest. Unfortunately, too many managers don’t do that. They don’t want to lose their superstars, and don’t recognize keeping them is only hurting them and the firm.

Good people regularly outgrow their “nest”. Those people need to recognize often the only way to grow is to leave and that there is nothing wrong with that. It can be very tough to do, especially if they have made friends and connections, but those don't need to stop just because you have moved on to another opportunity. Managers and leaders need to recognize these points too – it’s the right thing to do and the only way their firm will grow. To quote John C. Maxwell - "A successful person finds the right place for himself. But a successful leader finds the right place for others".