One of the many times people chose to stay

The chess board and the pieces are the same, the power lies where they are placed

In the previous post I told you about a case where being a servant leader and doing everything humanly possible still was not enough to help a person in my team. In this post I will tell you about another case, but this time a successful one!

Initial situation

Client in continuous growth, 5 teams, about 35-40 people in total, using one of the newest and coolest technologies in the industry.

Lad with almost 20 years of experience, with incredible potential. He was very unmotivated, his role was very rigid and he was barely using 20% of the extensive experience and the potential he had, his intention? Resign.

Final situation

Customer happy for the increase in performance on our side, 7 teams, about 50-55 people in total, using the same technology but with more optimised processes and lower cost.

Lad with a new role, in this case tailor-made to take advantage of his full potential. Very motivated with the change, performing much better, the previous role covered by a different person who was very motivated by this new opportunity too.

Journey from the initial to the final situation

I don't know if you have ever played chess, it doesn't matter, but for the sake of the article, you just have to know that to play you need:

• A chess board
• Pieces for player 1
• Pieces for player 2

As a leader, you are one of the players, the client is the board. You always start with the same pieces and they are all the same at the beginning of each game.

Each piece can move in a specific way, the horse moves in L, the bishop in diagonal… and there are strategies where sometimes it is better to move the horse, while in others it is better to move the bishop… you get me right?

What determines whether you win or lose the game, is the ability to move the pieces wisely and anticipate the movements of your adversary.

As you might be guessing, the pieces are the members of your team, the positions are the roles they play on your team and in clients.

Well, let's get into it, how did I manage to go from the initial to the final situation?

When I started in this client, as usual when I land on a new account and there is a team in place, I go and chat with all of the members of the existing team.

When talking with one of them, it triggered a red alarm. The guy did not tell me in that initial chat that there was something wrong, but I noticed, his non-verbal language was clearly asking for help, but as it was the first chat I had with him, I did not want to pressure him.

After a couple of weeks, I had another chat with him again. I wanted to check if he was just having a bad day the first time we talked or if he really needed some help.

We started the call, I noticed he was a little better, he was talking more than the first time, but I still couldn't see that he wasn't doing well at all. Like a good servant leader, sensing that something was not right with him, I went straight to the point, "Is something wrong? Although I don't know you very well yet, I can see something is bothering you and maybe you wanna talk about it?"

At that moment, the lad pulled himself back in the chair, more upright, cleared his throat and said to me "Jose, I don't wanna complain to you, you have been with us just a few weeks, but from what I have seen in the group calls so far, you are trying to support everyone, so I think I can trust you to tell you this."

I quickly told him "of course man! Please what is going on?" He told me: "I feel empty on a day to day basis, if you look at my experience I have almost 20 years working in this. In the role I play here I feel wasted and unmotivated, in fact I am thinking of resigning."

Before our chat, I kind of knew what may be going on and done some homework. I had looked at his previous experience and I had asked some of the members of the team about him, all of them spoke very highly about him, they were saying: "he is a proactive person”, “he helps the rest of us very frequently”, “Great knowledge and always unblocks many situations", etc...

I always try to help everyone in the teams but with a profile like that, more reason to not let him escape. I told him: "If it is just the issue with the role, that can easily be fixed, you don't need to resign, trust me on this"

He told me that he had already had this conversation with the previous lead and that they had not helped, a few months had passed and that he was becoming more and more frustrated, to the point of wanting to resign, he told me: "I am happy with the team, with the technology, but I need a more challenging role, I think I can contribute much more to the account"

My answer was easy and direct: "Give me a month, I need to make some changes in our structure, if in a month you are still in the same role, resign. I can assure you that you are not going to get to that point."

He gave me a little smile and said: "Wow! You are saying it so sure that I will make the effort to wait that month extra. Anyway thank you very much for listening to me, it is something that no one has done so far since I have been with this client"

So I got down to business. As we were in a growth phase for the account, I designed a new role for this guy, where he had more responsibility and flexibility, and where we were taking 100% advantage of his extensive experience and potential.

I spoke with a less senior member of the team to take on this now vacant role. This other person was also pushing hard and this would also be a great opportunity for him.

I basically killed two birds with one stone, one move with the knight, another with the bishop and the game was in my favor.

Apart from that, I made more role reassignments to satisfy more needs, we added around 20 more people to the client at that point. It was a very challenging but also very successful 3 months.

The learning I took away from this is that with the same pieces in the game, but in the right positions, you can turn the game around, not lose a piece and win the game.

Some leaders think that everything can be fixed by offering more money, let me tell you that this is not always the case.

If you simply offer a better salary but you keep a person in a role that is not a good fit for them, after 3-4 months, most likely they are just gonna end up leaving you.

Disclaimer: if you can improve their salary you do it too!

That's why it is so important to be a servant leader, because if you talk to them, listen to them and put yourself in their shoes, you can give them the best possible solution to keep them growing and motivated.

Now it's your turn, have you ever been demotivated and thought about giving up rather than talking to your leader? As a leader, have you ever had the situation of someone who would like to resign due to demotivation? Let me know in the comments :)

Today, more than ever: Lead with heart, lead with purpose.