Failure: To Keep a Quitting Team Member in the Company

A failure I had in 2021 was I did not listen to a team member when they wanted to change roles and it resulted in them leaving the company with the skills built while on my team.

Situation

The team member was on my team for about a year and a half and during their break, they reconnected with their former classmates. From the team member’s conversations, they realized they did not like working as a programmer.

Role Change

When the team member told me they wanted to change to a different role in the company, it flabbergasted me. I invested a lot of effort in developing them for the team. At the same time, I started working on getting them a promotion going from a junior to mid-level programmer. 🤦

Persuading

I did my best to persuade the team member to stay and at their current role. They role they wanted to change to is not a direction the company or industry as a whole is taking.

I even introduced them to others I knew in the company to talk about the role they wanted to take. With the idea to give a better picture they were better suited to not change and stay on my team.

Result

Eventually, the team member let me know they found a job at another company doing what she wanted in a different role, not even the original role change.

The kicker: the team member got the new role because of all the experience from being on my team. 🤦

Own Realization

This experience hurt a lot. Losing a team member always hurts - this one hurt more because I realize I could have done a better job of keeping the person at the company instead of taking their skills and experience to another company.

What did I Fail at?

Keeping the team member as a valuable resource in the company, regardless of the role.

How did I Fail?

Instead of whole-heartedly letting the team member pursue another role, I attempted to keep them in the same role.

Why did I Fail?

Ultimately, my pride - I could not accept a person on my team wanting to do work that was not programming, the skill I actively trained them for. I also wanted to promote that person and invested a lot. I did not want to lose either by a role change.

What did I Learn?

My pride hurt me, my team, and the company by losing a great resource. My concern focused on my own investment, not the company’s.

If I listened, there could have been a chance the team member staying and succeeding in a new role at the company - not taking their experience and skills and succeeding at another company.

How will I Integrate These Learnings?

Just like I want to help team member’s accomplish their goals by asking them, I need to be open to any kind of goals that benefit the company, not just ones that benefit me or my team.

Why won’t this happen again?

I accept that everyone has their goals and they can align with me, the team, or the company.

• If goals align on all four, great!
• Three, better.
• Two, take it!

Even if the winner in the situation is team member and the company, it’s a better win than only the team member winning at another company - heaven forbid the other company is a competitor..

This is one of the lessons from Andrew Grove’s High Performance Management - “Only you can save your team member from quitting” -

Even if you will lose them to another department, you owe it to the company to keep them in the company. Karma will pay you back someday. source

If I could do it all over again

Tell myself about the bigger picture and there’s a way for everyone to succeed, even when you lose - you will win in the longer run.

Step back and look for the greater-than-you wins.