The job market is hot, and the temptation to change jobs is everywhere. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence, but when is it time to move? What are the reasons to look elsewhere? The decision to move will likely cost you many sleepless nights. Where can you turn for validation of your thoughts? In more than 20 years of professional life, I have held five different jobs. The averages, as usual, don’t give the true picture. While I spent almost half of my career at IBM, I have also held jobs for as little time as 10 months. Let me share with you some of the lessons I’ve learned.
With a voluntary change, the decision is usually driven by lifestyle or career issues. You may want to change jobs because you want to live in a different place, you want to spend more time with your family, or you simply feel overdue for a change. I’ll focus on career-driven changes, which are guided by the nature of your relationship with your current employer. Over the years, I’ve developed four cardinal rules of employment that govern this relationship:
• Never work for people whose professional or moral integrity is questionable. At some point in your career, you will likely have to do things you don’t agree with or, worse, things you believe are wrong. That’s life. But there is a point at which one is compelled to say no, even if it means good-bye. Some are obvious, if rare, cases, such as being asked to do something illegal. But even if a company does not ask of me anything questionable, tolerating such activities is enough to get me through the door as fast as my feet will carry me. Some of the “gray area” examples are unfair treatment of staff, discrimination, and cronyism. If I have to, I can work for somebody I don’t like, but I can never work for someone I cannot respect.
• Never work on projects that have no obvious future. We have all experienced failure at one time or another. If you have done everything possible to avoid it and you learn from it, failure is not a total waste. But at the end of the day, it is better not to have to explain away shortcomings. When you have to preface a chapter of your professional life with caveats, your bicycle is going uphill and against the wind!
• Never allow responsibility, authority, and compensation to get seriously out of balance. Responsibility, authority, and compensation are like the three legs of the proverbial stool. All is wonderful when they are equal, but make any leg shorter, and sitting will be an
increasing pain. (Can you guess where?) Make any of them too short, and you will fall over. Simply put, nobody can ask you to do something and not provide you with the tools to do it. Be reasonable, though. The harmonious balance remains a Holy Grail. There are never quite enough resources, there is always an unreasonable deadline, and those pesky users will always ask for something you have not developed yet. It is necessary to understand these realities and work with them. As for compensation, it must be consistent with the value you bring to your company. There are two important considerations in this area. First, think of compensation in the largest possible sense, including everything from material compensation to recognition to simply how nice a workplace you’ve got. Second, only on the lowest rungs of the ladder is compensation proportional to how hard you work. The further up you go, the more important it is to be able to articulate the value you bring to the table. After all, Mr. Gerstner is not paid 100 times more than the average IBMer because he works 100 times more hours each week!
• Never work for a company that does not provide for professional growth. Today’s hottest technology is tomorrow’s has-been, and the rate of change is likely to increase. Unless you hope to retire from your current job, the ability to acquire new skills is essential—not to mention that doing the same thing over and over is darned boring!
When any of these four rules is broken, it’s time to go. But if you decide to change, define your destination and stick to your goals. It is always better to go somewhere than to run away from a place. I’ve heard many times that “nothing can be worse than this place,” yet, invariably, it turns out otherwise. The grass is usually not much greener once you take a closer look!
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