In our blog series, our constant focus is on organizational alignment. In many cases, we review the macro issues of leadership, change, the role of HR, and using learning and development as a growth accelerator. While the macro issues are organizational levers, these issues impact individuals at the micro level. Every layer of every organization is, or should be, interconnected and aligned. So for the next few blogs, we are going to focus on the individual professional and how they fit into the organization. When it works, and when it doesn’t. Just like organizations shift and change, so do the people who work in them.
For this blog, May Busch is our guest blogger. May was formerly a Managing Director with Morgan Stanley and is now the founder of Career Mastery. In this blog, May addresses the question we have all faced in our careers, “What do we do when we are no longer happy with our career?"
“Is leaving ever a solution to a mid-career slump, or when you’re unhappy with your career?”
Well, my answer to that is: yes, under the following circumstances, and provided that you’ve made efforts to make it work where you are.
So, here are 3 circumstances under which I think it’s reasonable to consider leaving:
Now, before you make a final decision on leaving, I want to share with you the single best piece of advice I’ve gotten on this subject, and that was from my friend, Liz.
Now, I was often considering quitting, certainly in the first nine or ten years of my career, and definitely in that difficult middle part. What Liz said to me was – and Liz was a year or two ahead of me – she said, “May, you are not allowed to quit until you have tried to make it work on your own terms, and found that that was not possible.”
That was an epiphany for me. First, I’d never thought about what my own terms would be, so I had to stop and think about that.
I ended up having some really great conversations with my husband, and the people that I worked for. I learned things about what their expectations were, how they saw my career opportunities and options, and I also got to share with them my aspirations, and what my wants and needs would be.
In that process I also discovered that it’s not always going to be handed to me on a plate. Sometimes, I need to create my own options, and that meant things like looking for ways to increase the pie in the business; maybe it’s about products and services that can be sold to or shared with clients that we hadn’t covered before, or vice versa.
I also learned that it was about reaching externally to increase the visibility and the reputation, not only of my group and the firm, but also myself. So it was a win-win-win situation all around.
So the bottom line is, yes, you can leave – you always have that option – and sometimes it’s even the best option.
But, before you do anything hasty, you owe it to yourself to do your homework, make informed and conscious decisions, and give yourself that gift of seeing how you can make it work on your own terms before you take any other steps.
Now, I’m curious, I wonder what your thoughts are, and what your advice is on the difficult question of, “Should I stay, or should I go?”.
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In addition, we invite you to learn more about how you and other members of your team can achieve organizational alignment through our DiSC assessment. You can download our latest presentation on the importance of the DiSC profile from a recent presentation with the Arizona Technology Council.