When to Quit & When to Stick

I'm not writing reviews of this excellent book or book one should read.

I'm pen-downing my thoughts to convey the idea that occasionally a small book can impart some really valuable life lessons.

Prior to discussing the things I have learned as a coach and my experience, let me quickly go over two or three of the book's highlights.

• Despite your superiority, remember that "BEST" is a personal opinion & subjective. I, the client/consumer, make the final decision—not you. It's a selfish world. It is defined by me, not by you. I define the world according to what suits my needs and tastes.
• The lie of diversification: A woodpecker can tap twenty times on a thousand trees and get nowhere, but stay busy. Or he can tap twenty-thousand times on one tree and get dinner.
• "Never Quit" - spectacularly bad piece of advice: Quitting short-term strategy is a bad idea but for long-term vision it is boon
• Decide in advance when to quit! The biggest lie: The harder you work, you will be at the top.
• Serial Quitters spend a lot of time in Line
• The Opposite of Quitting isn't " Waiting Around"- its rededication. It's an invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart.
• It's Okay to quit, sometimes or quit often, you should quit if you are on a dead-end path. you should quit if you are facing a cliff, or there is a project when there will be no reward at the end that you know... but Quitting as a tactic or Quitting a Strategy to be well understood...
• Never give up or abandon your long-term strategy ( a career, income, relationship, sale, business...) but quitting the tactics that are not working

How is it applicable to an Agile Coach?

three questions to ASK before quitting

Am I Panicking - Panick is the momentary and situational that grabs our attention and it's dangerous and expensive to quit in this scenario. Wrong time and quitting in DIP without a compass or plan may seem easy but least successful. So write all such situations and if they occurred more than X times, then it is a situation to act

Who AM I Trying to Influence -

If you are trying to influence one person/situation/area/market - persistence has its limits. It's easy to cross the line and misunderstand the scenario, like quitting for a specific person, a specific client, manager or Boss and ruining your entire worth build so far

and my favourite

What sort of measurable progress/value AM I Making?

There are three choices - moving forward, falling behind or standing still. Light is at the end of the tunnel in many situations and you need atleast one step forward

Now if we apply it to our transformation journeys we take

When you are trying to influence an entire enterprise, the value of not quitting early is high. Yes, you should probably be eager to look at the pace and products launched may not be appealing but this kind of success takes time and as a team, you should have decided that point or as a Coach.

Quitting a specific area team or enterprise does not mean you are giving up, it's just you want to spend time with that group where you feel that you will be giving maximum outcome. Dead-end transformations, hybrid ways of working and iterative agile are the illusions. It's better to do a planned iterative waterfall with monthly/quarterly outputs in a year-long milestone-based delivery.

Deciding in advance when to quit as an agile coach from a transformation

Write it down - they will be unique to you ..

Here is a quote from Dick Collins

Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You dont want to be out there saying, "Well gee, my leg hurts and I am dehydrated, I am sleepy, I am tired, it's cold and windy" and take a path of quitting. if you are making decisions based on HOW YOU FEEL AT THAT MOMENT - you will probably make wrong decisions.

this pinched me as females we make many emotional decisions and that hurts in professional life

here is my sample, Circumstances and scenarios in which i have a strategy to quit

• I gave my best shot, i tried to move my Cul-de-sac into Dip - I persistently worked for x number of days/months as extra
• Its not a person or two but an entire group's culture that is impacting my values so its valuable to work with where we have better alignment
• I am not Engaged to deliver value but just add lipstick on the face of a pig
• Have I tried my alternatives? Open your toolbox and try your RAMBAAN ( special tools) once again. Fresh day, fresh perspective and few more choices
• What effort I can make to make this transformation to be the best in the world? Suggest some more experiments, probe people, ask questions and give a courageous shot again
• What's the "Best " - rephrase for this group again? Put another effort into asking what the definition of success or best looks like NOW
• As my long-term strategy is to be a world-class executive coach - Will it worth trying and putting in more effort OR should I quit?

Though in past I have made a couple of choices, this framework is a great decision mechanism. Will apply more and share examples

In my next DOJO - Will use this framework to experiment.

IF IT SCARES YOU, IT MIGHT BE GOOD THING TO TRY>>>>>