Thinking Of Quitting?

If you have ever worked in a technical position with a non-technical team member, or felt like dropping your job because of an uncompromising co-worker, then you just might relate to this.

Have you had to choose between following the best practice from an earlier experience and adopting a different idea, when you stand to take the major blame when things go wrong? That’s specifically what happens when people of varying professional perspectives have to collaborate.

Let’s say it was a typical Lagos Monday with the city’s space drenched in a stream of activities and flux of persons scampering in different directions at very quick strides. After overcoming the familiar but ever-exacting challenges of traffic, I made my way to the office. There, I met an unexpected guest. Mr Tony was a business consultant contracted to assist in bolstering our company’s brand and to source for investors.

I had liaised with other technical experts to map out the approach and curriculum hinged on the global industry expectation for such process and shared with our CEO and Mr. Tony. But, apparently, Mr. Tony had other ideas: He argued that a chunk of the last phase of the recruitment process be truncated to reduce cost and make the process scalable. To the best of my very informed understanding, the already designed process was the minimum industry’s expectation as cost was also considered making every splinter of the now available process very essential. Obviously, we had fundamentally opposing interests: he wanted to make obvious his effect on the process, which meant speeding things up; but I wanted to make sure we recruited the best technical talent, and this meant slowing things down.

There was an interesting twist to the already twisted tale: it turned out that the CEO was already in agreement with my perspective but wanted me to convince my non-technical partner. This was a really daunting task when one counts the fact that Mr. Tony did not exactly open to a two-way communication channel. Maybe it was just me, but it did seem like too many hasty assumptions were being made about my statements, which were barely allowed to be completed. I had to figure a way out immediately.

After tackling this challenge for a while, I figured out a compromise which could marry both the technical and non-technical expectations. I turned the table around by insinuating how my screening plan could help him achieve his target, while supporting his idea to reduce the screening time. Within 24 hours, it became his idea to keep my initial plan; ending up defending my initial proposition with the CEO on our next meeting. All I had to do was sit and listen. What’s more? Tony and I have since become the best of partners.

There is a factor of individual interest in most human endeavors in and outside work. Winning people over becomes a lot more feasible when you can present your case in a way that benefits them. Still looking for a one-liner on how not to quit your job? Well, here it is:

Be the last to give up on most things! Peace!!