Dear Boss i Quit. Written on old typewriter
Quitting. It's a word full of negative connotations. To be labelled "a quitter" is a powerful insult. But former professional poker player and decision-science consultant Annie Duke's latest book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, makes a persuasive case for how getting better at quitting can lead to more success in the long run. In a time where employees are increasingly evaluating their career choices and businesses are double-guessing their strategies, it's time for us all to get better at making decisions on when to quit.
"We have a bias against quitting," says Duke. "With The Great Resignation, people haven't talked about that as a celebration of those who quit. Nobody's saying 'This is amazing.' But we need to celebrate those people! When you're in a job, you're not necessarily doing a lot of re-evaluation of the other things you could be doing with your time." Her point is that we're missing an important trick if we don't.
The first thing to unpack is why people stay in less-than-desirable work situations. As Duke explains, often by the time we've decided to leave, it's past due. So what gives? Uncertainty. "When we start to think that it's a close call between leaving and staying, we'd be happier if we had just walked away at that moment. But the reason we don't is that we need a lot more certainty around the decision before we're willing to consider it."
Beyond uncertainty, we struggle to quit for a variety of psychological reasons. There is a fear that the time, energy and money invested will be lost, a phenomena known as the sunk cost fallacy. We also love the status quo, largely because it's a comfortable place to be — all the uncertainty has been squeezed out. Sometimes, a reluctance to quit is related to our identity. If we define ourselves by our jobs, what does quitting then mean for how we view ourselves?
Society also overromanticizes the opposite of quitting — perseverance. One of the most classic examples of perseverance and grit is mountain climbing, with Everest being the ultimate peak. Duke shares the story of three climbers, Dr Stuart Hutchison, Dr John Taske, and Lou Kasischke. Never heard of them? That's because they survived the 1996 deadly Everest climbing season. They survived because they quit at the appointed time and turned back around having not reached the summit. Those who died ignored the quit rules and it ultimately cost them their lives. This is called escalation of commitment, where we double down on our course of action even in the face of overwhelming information that what we are choosing is not working. As Duke writes, "Grit is what gets you up the mountain, but quit is what tells you when to turn around."
Stripped of emotion, quitting is ultimately a forecasting problem. Having the option to quit is what keeps us from being paralyzed by uncertainty or stuck for all time in a decision that we've made. So, how do we better recognise the signs that indicate we're failing? And, more importantly — make better decisions on when it's time to pack it in.
Four techniques to make better leaving decisions.
1: Hire a quit coach
Because quitting is so hard to do, one piece of advice is to not go it alone. To that end, hire what Duke calls a 'quit coach.' This is the person who offers a fresh perspective on your situation. Because the hardest time to quit is when you're already in it, this objective outsider can help you to see reason.
This is especially important for a situation where our escalated commitment is on overdrive even when staying the course is a losing proposition. Because one of Duke's most important lessons from her poker days is that when we're in the losses, we want to double down our efforts to climb out of the red and into the black.
2: Identify the hardest obstacle to success first
Duke's book talks about the philosophy the famous Google X team takes when evaluating which ideas to pursue. Their philosophy is one of monkeys and pedestals. A pedestal is easy to build; humans have been doing it for centuries. But training a monkey to stand on a pedestal to perform is considerably harder. It's easy to focus on the easy thing first — in this case, building pedestals — to feel like we're making a sense of progress. But if we instead first identify the hardest thing to do — training monkeys to perform on it — and then realize we can't do that, then we need to quit.
X starts by identifying the monkey. If they can't solve it, then they shut down the project as quickly as possible.
3: Don't set inflexible goals
Duke argues that goals that are "pass-fail' in nature, meaning you either pass the finish line or you don't, are very demotivating as the progress one makes along the way matters very little. These inflexible goals don't allow you to pivot in a world that's ever-changing — making you more likely to pack it in at the moment you experience a setback.
4: Make a quit list
This is your kill criteria, so to speak. This should be a list of all the signs that, if you see them in the future, will lead you to exit the road you're on. In the book, Duke uses an example of a sales rep who stops pursuing an opportunity if they can't reach an executive decision-maker within the first three calls. What this does is identify the signals that something isn't working. "If we wait until the signals are upon us, we'll rationalize them away."
The first question on your quit list should be defining your timeline. "The first step is to sit down and define in advance how long you're willing to tolerate your current situation," says Duke. "Ask yourself 'how long can I take this? How long will I be okay?'"
One final, important note: be picky about what you stick to. And if you are going to quit, "Quit out loud and be proud of it! Anything else is a disservice to your co-workers."
