Let us say you know someone in a situation where they are not succeeding at work as much as they were hoping to. They have hit the proverbial brick wall and are unable to make progress. If they come up to you and tell you like The Clash did in their rock song title, “should I stay or should I go”? What would you advice that person? Now, it is important to note that the situation is one where there are no issues with the supervisor or coworker that can possibly be resolved by going to another group in the organization. We are talking about the general line of work and what it takes to do that job.
There are numerous books and articles written about motivating people. Your first instinct would perhaps be to motivate the person and tell them that they can do it, they have the skill, the passion, and the knowledge to do it. You may even give a lesson on grit and how important that is. The ability to look at the long-term and somehow overcome the short term difficulties. You may even be tempted to quote the little engine that said “I think I can”. In fact those are good first things to ask to be sure the person is not giving up easily. Let us say that the person has tried everything, now what?
Although the supervisor may not be the cause of the employee hitting the brick wall, it is important for the supervisor to have realized this. By having one-on-one meetings, it would be possible to identify and understand the mismatch. Next step is to discuss with the employee how they can overcome the situation. One option is for the supervisor to allocate different tasks or find a setting that the employee can thrive in. However, if the employee lacks am important skill or ability without which functioning in that role would be impossible, then that must be identified early on and communicated.
Let us come back to the situation where the person is seeking your advice of whether or not they should quit. You could easily tell that the person would be quite stressed and would be experiencing some burn out. But the person also checks all the items Adam Grant says one should consider before starting a project: whether the project is interesting, impactful, and one can make a novel contribution. However, after embarking on the project, they hit a brick wall. Usually, one of the three requirements is no longer satisfied. Also, the person has tried but now wants to move on. What would you advice?
There are several situations, both with and without a supervisor (and/or coworkers), where someone hits sucha brick wall. As an example, many a time I have had students that feel there is no way they are going to complete their degree as there are some insurmountable tasks along the way. As another example, say you join a company and your group is in charge of creating a vaccine, and repeated trials are not resulting in a success. In a completely different setting, say someone has tried several ad campaigns to improve the sales of a product but the sales is not picking up, and the person has run out of ideas.
In any of these or a different situation a person comes to you saying they have hit a brick wall and are considering quitting. What are some things to find out?
What is their alternate plan?
It is important to assess if the person is going to thrive in the alternate scenario. Sometime grass appears to be greener on the other side. It is your responsibility to point out that the person thinks deeply before taking up the alternate plans. But oftentimes you may see that the person can really succeed in the alternate scenario such as a change in career plan, or change companies, or just change groups.
Are they skilled for that?
It is important to do some self reflection, and identify what caused the brick wall. Also, it is crucial not to make the same mistakes again, but learn from the current experience. Then they need to check if they have the skills for the alternate plans. For that they may have to reach out to people familiar with those roles to clearly understand the skills needed to succeed. If there is scope for some wins, then the switch can be a good option.
What do they see themselves doing in 10–15 years?
It is important to have a reasonable long-term vision with the alternate plan and not be a short term fix or a bandage. But it also helps in finding one’s why (as Simon Sinek would say) or purpose. Then they could check to see if the alternate plan would lead them to that purpose, and doing so in a manner consistent with their values. The alternate plan could certainly be a stepping stone with opportunities to upskill.