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Take this job and shove it, or burn the boats and charge forward, but either way, make a decision.
My Boss Doesn't Care is a bi-weekly podcast based on the book of the same name, delivering insights, reflections, and thoughts about the tactical philosophy of changing your work culture.
Changing work culture is everyone's responsibility, not just the responsibility of people at work with titles and positions.
Donald Eugene Lytle recorded his most famous song in 1977, a country music anthem for all of those disaffected workers at the beginning of the long end of the Industrial Revolution. Written by David Allan Coe, the song, about taking a job and...well...shoving it...was the brainchild of a person who was naturally a rebellious outlaw.
However, time passed and circumstances in culture changed.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that 3.5 million people (or 2.3% of the total workforce) left their jobs voluntarily in the fourth quarter of 2018. And, the much talked about Millennials accounted for 51% of those voluntary separations.
So, the message today to all the bosses is to take note: We see you. Whether you think we’re paying attention, or not.
My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is the My Boss Doesn’t Care Podcast.
We see you.
We see you making excuses for why the company culture is the way it is.
We see you lamenting that employees, teams, and others in the organization won't change their behaviors.
We see you becoming frustrated with the pace of change coming that you didn't initiate.
We see you when you tell the employees, teams, and others who want change, "That's the way we've always done it here."
We see you when you ignore structural sclerosis, cultural issues, and fake conflicts that are surrounding the choices you must make to change the culture because of your position and power in the hierarchy.
We see you.
But we also see all of this, and more, for the excuse-making that it really is.
We see it for the hiding, the need for reassurance, the fear of risk, the lack of desire to expend political capital, and the need for validation.
We see all of this, and, when you then come to us and tell us to do the tasks that are necessary to move the organization forward; when you come to us to ask us to stop resisting; when you come to us with a posture of power, authority, and a threat; we become disillusioned, disgusted, and disappointed.
And, as the world of work continues to break down into ever smaller and smaller component parts, and as leadership at scale shifts from mass toward customization, atomization, and personalization, we become more likely to leave you, not less.
So, yes, you're the boss.
Trust us, we get that.
But we are leaving if you don't change what we see.
According to the Freelancers’ Union, one in three Americans (or 42 million working-age adults) is an independent worker. This includes Uber and Lyft drivers, babysitters, and the person doing your graphic design work.
The reason many of them will go back to work for someone else (or the reason that many of them won’t be millionaires or even hundred-thousandnaires) is that telling a person outside of you that you quit is a lot more satisfying, with less risk, than telling yourself you quit.
So sure, we see you as the boss at work that we left. We see you as the culture we eschewed for something better, but undefinable. We see you as the insecure person that we think we are.
We see all of that.
But mostly, we see it in ourselves.
People at work tell themselves a lot of stories about work. Mostly they are stories about being seen.
Occasionally, however, there are stories of a different variety:
The Spanish explorer, Hernando Cortez, burned his boats in order to prevent his men from retreating back to Spain in 1519.
The Muslim explorer Tariq Ibn Ziyad did the same thing 800 years earlier when landing on the Rock of Gibraltar in 711.
When you see your boss.
When you see her for who she is.
When you see the situation for what it is.
When you see your role in the workplace for what it is.
When you see the culture for what it is—and what it can be.
Then you have a decision to make.
Do you burn the boats and march forward?
Or do you quit and go do something else, somewhere else?