There’s not a week that goes by without an executive or leader who tells me about a very unpleasant situation. They feel like the company they joined doesn’t (or no longer) match their preferences, habits, culture, etc. Sometimes this comes as an immediate revelation after joining a company, other times you realize it after months or years. If that’s the situation you find yourself in, or if you’ve got senior leaders reporting to you going through this, there’s one process that’s critical to do. Assess and progress.

Being Active

I’ll be frank, too often when people report having this issue, the result will be that they leave (or be asked to leave) the company eventually. Nevertheless, the purpose of this straightforward process is to reclaim your agency and ensure that you’re not stuck in limbo. Life’s too short for that. And just because the process might strike you as ‘obvious’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit. Common sense is not common enough.

So, I ask you to consider the options below and choose one. Staying undecided when it comes to where you spend most of your waking hours, is genuinely unhealthy. I cringe every time I work with someone and realize they’ve robbed themselves of agency for months or years. Choose and act.

Your Options

Zone Out: Obviously the worst decision, and yet too often the one people pick, usually without even admitting it to themselves. You sense that the company is not the right one for you, and for sundry reasons, you don’t do anything about it. Perhaps you feel that the fight is useless or too hard. Maybe you fear ‘rocking the boat.’ Sometimes you just need to focus your energy on something else, like family. The remains that if you allow yourself to ‘mail it in’ over months, you effectively habituate yourself to be disengaged, unmotivated, and ineffective. Those damages can be incredibly challenging to undo.

Fighting the Good Fight: I highly value people who stand for what they believe in. Who don’t shrug and fold in the face of challenge, but find the energy to keep pushing forward. They’re always vocal, and rarely there’s someone in the executive team who doesn’t know what these fighters think of an issue. Every so often, you have to go into fight mode if you spot an urgent matter (like a tectonic shift in the industry that requires the company to change course). Be careful, though. If this is your strategy for too long without making real progress, you turn into Don Quixote. Forever fighting windmills in vain.

The Center of Excellence: Sometimes you have enough autonomy, and the issues are isolated enough, that you’re able to decide to rule your little realm in a different manner and do things the right way. If you have a few key collaborators and the right conditions, this can become a mind virus in the company. People start noticing that you’ve created a bright spot that operates differently, and that can, with time, attract interest and more people willing to collaborate. This requires a long-game sort of mindset, and is what you often see when people talk about being a ‘startup inside a bigger company.’

I always advise people who choose this option to refrain from doing so if they aim to eventually ‘fix’ the entire company, especially if it is a big one. It should be an effort that you find worthwhile by itself, and not only if you accomplish the transformation completely.

Changing: Lastly, we have to keep in mind something many ignore at first: You might be in the wrong. Sometimes the solution is not to fix everyone else around you but to accept that there’s a different but equally legit way of doing things (perhaps, gasp, it can even be better). After all, it is unlikely that you’ve finished learning everything and have all the right answers from here until you retire. It just might be that the company that attracted you and that you found interesting enough to join is worthy of learning a thing or two from.

Troubleshooting

If you’ve tried one of these options and things are still not working out, you are faced with another decision. The first is to consider whether you’ve picked the wrong option and try a different one. Second, you could be in need of help. You don’t always have to go it alone, and a good coach/advisor can make all the difference. Lastly, of course, there’s always the option of quitting.

I don’t like telling people that they are better off leaving their jobs, but sometimes that’s the best option. Especially when the alternative is to spend more months in a situation of despair or disengagement. To reiterate, life’s short and you only get a single ride. Do your best, and if you realize it’s not worth it, move on.