I Just Decided to Stay
Today I had lunch with one of my colleagues at NMAAM. As we finished our barbecue at Jack’s, I asked her if she ever thought that we’d complete and open the National Museum of African American Music. Before she answered she asked me if I ever thought it wouldn’t get done. I paused before I responded that I never thought it wouldn’t get done, I just didn’t know it would take so long or be so hard… I just knew that I had to stay in the fight to make it happen.
She then responded to my questions, saying that she
always thought it would get done, but confessed that there were times that she
wasn’t sure how. Then she added a coda;
“I just decided to stay.”
Those words would turn out to be prescient.
As we returned to the office, I was scheduled to meet with another teammate for a 1 on 1 update conversation. I knew this was the meeting I’d been dreading when she came into my office with a yellow folder, in addition the more common notebook she carried. We discussed several curatorial, marketing, and operational updates before I asked how her family was doing.
At that point, the letter she protected was relieved from its folder. I was invited to read a letter of resignation. A key member of our team had deduced that it was time to move on… time to get closer to family.
I probed to see if there was something that could be done or said to reverse the decision. I suspected not, because I understood that, in this case, the pull of home and family was strong. But in addition to those matters, I wanted to understand if there were cultural or operational issues that were chronic, egregious, or would otherwise cause someone to rush to leave our team. In that vein, what I heard was a series of challenges that might be expected of a complex start-up like ours, or that otherwise pointed to the inescapable fact that we are an imperfect place to work. Altogether these disagreements and complaints, along with our unfortunate geography, added up to
a reason to leave.
I could relate, maybe more than my departing colleague would realize. In fact, this might well be a good summary of the first half of my career. “I like this place. I like these people. But I also have a list of complaints that’s pretty long. Those issues are “their” problem.
I don’t have to put up with this.
I’ll go find somewhere else to make use of my underappreciated talents!”
Right or wrong, that approach took my family on a journey up and down the east coast, and along the way I made an interesting discovery. Those new places had problems, challenges, and issues too. It didn’t take more than a couple of years before I had a list of complaints about those places too. Along the way I also discovered that more and more of those problems were mine – either personal growth, skill gap, or professional development challenges that I needed to face, or business challenges that I was now responsible for fixing. “Their” problem was increasingly becoming
“my” problem. And, as a result, there
was no place else left to go. I wasn’t
very good at running from myself and, if I wanted to be a leader, I had to face
and fix the very challenges that I had once been able to leave to others. This was important for my own professional
satisfaction and development, and for the benefit of the business.
All of this played in my mind as I held on to that
resignation letter. I wanted to share
with her my own leadership journey, ask her to shorten her own path, and compel
her to stay, take more responsibility for the business and cultural challenges
that our organization faced and make us better, while she also became a better
executive. But the letter was neatly
typed, signed in blue ink, she’d shared her decision with several others before
coming to me, and there was the call of getting closer to parents and
family. I accepted her resignation with
thanks.
Every day we trade our time and expertise for
compensation. Sometimes we lend our
heart to the task as well, in exchange for personal gratification and,
hopefully, a dose of loyalty. Along the
way there are challenges, problems, and opportunities – big and small. Some can be overcome easily, others take
time, strategy, and effort to work through.
But ultimately, we make a decision: “I just decided to stay.” Or “It’s time for me to go.” And no circumstance is ever permanent – the
“cheese” always moves.
There is no right answer.
Every situation is a little different.
What I have come to appreciate though, is that the first place to look
when seeking to solve a series of problems is in the mirror. What is more problematic, the issue or my
response to it? What is better for the business,
my effort to work through an issue or my leaving it to someone else? What will better satisfy my professional
aims, working to improve where I am or moving on? What better suits my spirit or addresses my
calling, fighting on this battlefield or moving on to another?
Disappointed though I was, I understand why my colleague
decided to leave. I’m also glad that my
lunch partner decided to stay.
