Change, Accept, or Leave

A practice to stop you "Quiet Quitting".

Way back in the 1970s in the UK, we had the "Winter of Discontent," a period of labour unrest in the United Kingdom that took place in late 1978 and early 1979. It was marked by a series of strikes by public sector workers, including refuse collectors, hospital workers, and transport workers, among others. The strikes were a result of widespread dissatisfaction with pay and working conditions, as well as broader economic issues such as inflation. The strikes caused widespread disruption, with piles of uncollected garbage on the streets and hospital services severely impacted. How far we've progressed...

Anyway, back then, the American economist and sociologist Albert O. Hirschman developed his "Exit, Voice, Loyalty” Model. It's a framework individuals use to respond to dissatisfaction with an organisation or system. When people are unhappy, as they are in toxic workplaces, they have three options:

Exit: Individuals leave or withdraw support from the system in response to dissatisfaction.

Voice: Individuals express their discontent and attempt to bring about change.

Loyalty: Individuals remain within the system despite dissatisfaction due to various reasons.

In a recent podcast with Brené Brown and Simon Sinek, when talking about "Quiet Quitting" the organisational psychologist Adam Grant suggested a fourth option:

Neglect: Doing the minimum requirements of one's job and putting in no more time, effort, or enthusiasm than absolutely necessary. 

One of my favourite questions of all time is: How is that working out for you?

It’s a question I ask anyone I talk to who is getting by at work doing the bare minimum. They're never usually that happy. So, I don’t recommend Neglect.

A Better Model: Change, Accept, or Leave

It's an upgrade from Hirschman's model and is inspired by the entrepreneur, angel investor, and author Naval Ravikant who said:

"In any situation in life, you only have three options. You always have three options. You can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it. What is not a good option is to sit around wishing you would change it but not changing it, wishing you would leave it but not leaving it, and not accepting it. It's that struggle, that aversion, that is responsible for most of our misery."

In this order:

Change: Can I change the immediate culture around me? What will it take to do that? And who is with me? You can read a step-by-step guide I wrote called How to Start a #WorkKind Revolution.

Accept: Can I put up with this? Embrace the situation as it is, recognising that it cannot be changed. (Therein, I suggest, probably lies misery.)

Leave: Is there any possibility I could get a better job that won't demean me and damage my health? You know what to do...