The Road of Ten

"Enough is enough!"

How often have we heard our colleagues, our family, our friends utter those words? ~ Often accompanied by the throwing of hands in the air and followed by the slamming of a door (or chair against the cubicle wall in these modern day boxless offices).

According to Gregory P Smith, renown author and founder and President of Chart Your Course International, a talent management firm located in Atlanta, Georgia, here are the top ten reasons why good people quit their jobs:

1. Management demands that one person do the jobs of two or more people, resulting in longer days and weekend work.
2. Management cuts back on administrative help, forcing professional workers to use their time copying, stapling, collating, filing and other clerical duties.
3. Management puts a freeze on raises and promotions, when an employee can easily find a job earning 20-30 percent more somewhere else.
4. Management doesn't allow the rank and file to make decisions or allow them pride of ownership.
5. Management constantly reorganizes, shuffles people around, and changes direction constantly.
6. Management doesn't have or take the time to clarify goals and decisions. Therefore, it rejects work after it was completed, damaging the morale and esteem of those who prepared it.
7. Management shows favoritism and gives some workers better offices, trips to conferences, etc.
8. Management relocates the offices to another location, forcing employees to quit or double their commute.
9. Management promotes someone who lacks training and/or necessary experience to supervisor, alienating staff and driving away good employees.
10. Management creates a rigid structure and then allows departments to compete against each other while at the same time preaching teamwork and cooperation.

My current job is my 9th in a span of 10 years and I can say for certain that all ten reasons above have been my own reasons for leaving. And often than nought, when these reasons are made known to Management, it comes a step too late for THEM to change OUR minds. These ARE the points of no return.

As pioneering American psychologist and philosopher William James once said: The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated. And if we examine each of these reasons closely, we'll be able to identify an underlying trend: APPRECIATION.

In these wee challenging times, when unemployment rates from country to country are soaring to levels never before seen in the last century, these reasons will still be the straw that broke the camel's back; the reasons where one would rather starve than drag themselves off to work for a bunch of sods!

As I step day-by-day, month-by-month towards the point charted out for me, I have to unlearn many of the ways of managing people that I have come to adopt as my own. Simply because, each company has its own culture, and each person requires different motivators. What works for person A might not work for person B, due to their background differences and value-chain. Just so the people I work with feel their worth in its weight of gold.

So go on ~ if you have good people reporting to you currently - be the good guy more than once. Cos a working relationship is still a relationship - much like that of a husband-and-wife, a boyfriend-and-a-girlfriend, a parent-and-a-child: It needs to have that appreciation affirmation done. No matter how tedious it may be.

And if you are finding it tedious: Maybe it's time you sit down and reflect if you are 1) ready to be a boss and 2) heading down the Road of Ten yourself!