Presenting Issues vs. Underlying Issues

November 2021

Something I’ve made a point to observe for more than a decade is:

a)     red flags that people are going to resign 

b)     reasons people actually give for resigning

I have also watched if a and b are in congruence as well as other people’s reactions and responses to both a and b.

Turns out that most people are massively uncomfortable with the truth

For instance, a former manager of mine, who remains a friend, was told point blank in an exit interview that the staff member was leaving entirely because of her. 

Can you imagine the amount of cognitive re-frames that occurred after that? Can you imagine the deflection and denial as well as the multiple, sometimes contradictory, excuses given? 

But there were changes in the manager’s behaviour that gave the game away. She started bringing in afternoon teas, adopted a faux, easygoing attitude (when we all knew her to be a passionate, driven, obsessive person) and asked the odd question like, “You still like me don’t you girls?” All of which revealed, deep down, somewhere, she knew the truth of why that staff member had left. 

Management are unsurprisingly the worst for this denial because they will inevitably feel a level of underlying guilt, even if the resignation has nothing to do with them and they got on well with that staff member, but for failing to notice and/or implement any necessary changes to have a healthier workplace and retain them. 

They also typically would have heard and seen far fewer red flags, as staff usually reveal more to colleagues than they do to management. 

I remember when a colleague was very unhappy and had even admitted to her supervisor that she’d been to see a doctor for anxiety due to stress at work. She had been applying for similar jobs around the local area just to get out, though of course did not disclose this extra information to him.

When she hadn’t been successful locally, she then applied for, and got, an internal transfer to another state where she had a family member living, citing family reasons for the move. 

The benefit of using that excuse was that she got a good reference and a smooth transition. However, her silence on her real reasons for leaving neither left things any better for the next person who took the role, nor did it benefit her colleagues who were facing similar levels of stress. 

Management gleefully clung to her “family reasons” excuse as it absolved them of any accountability for the unhealthy culture that led her to see a doctor and apply for other jobs.

Obviously, no-one was going to throw our colleague under the bus by revealing she’d been applying and interviewing for local jobs and had only looked further afield when she hadn’t landed a comparable role. 

Management certainly weren’t going to go sleuthing for the truth as that could not only indict them along with workplace practices that were harmful to staff, but would also require an investment of workload and time. 

Further to this, getting to the bottom of the issue and implementing changes involves leadership skills, investigative skills, foresight, insight, strength, courage, tenacity and a level of innovation that many are simply not in possession of. 

As a result, nothing changed, nothing improved and management continued to operate under false beliefs and understandings while remaining firmly in denial whenever the issue was raised.

So the revolving door continued, and management themselves are not immune…

I recall a time when a member of management returned from leave, switched on his computer, saw the utter onslaught of emails and openly stated to the entire room, “Maybe it’s better if I just resign.” 

I turned around and knew from that moment we’d be counting down the weeks or months to his resignation, which I considered a shame as he had a real talent with people.

When that time came, I wasn’t surprised when he also stated family reasons as his grounds for leaving. What did astonish me was how others seemed to fully accept this reason, including ones who had been present the day he declared his intentions to the entire room.

Some staff had also been commenting that he had been working fewer hours and travelling less. He had also made a couple of comments along the lines of not getting on that well with other management. He was also sighing, putting his head in his hands at times and was less guarded than usual, letting the odd frustration slip occasionally. 

Other staff could see the same red flags I could. So why is it more palatable to accept “family reasons” as the basis of a resignation than say, exhaustion and burnout, cliquey culture or job dissatisfaction, all of which were factors for him? My observation over the last decade is that when “family” or “personal” reasons accompany a resignation, they are generally true or mostly true in that they are a significant stressor in that person’s life.

Except… they aren’t their reason for leaving.

Work is so highly valued in our civilisation many will push through extreme ill-health, caring for a family member, homelessness, addictions, eating disorders, commutes, divorce, domestic violence, miscarriage, bereavement or caring for children with special needs to go to a job they want or need to go to, or at least see potential in. 

People do not leave jobs they love or are happy in unless they don’t see a future there.

This loss of hope can be due to their relationships with management or colleagues, feeling under-utilised, feeling used and burnt out, a lack of growth and opportunities, lack of fairness or injustices, and concerns around organisational malpractice, incompetence or ineffectiveness. 

Not feeling seen, heard or valued is the biggie, especially if they have raised concerns and nothing has been done…

I can recall another instance where a staff member said at a team meeting in front of everyone, “Well if I’m not valued, I’ll leave.” It was the third or fourth time I’d heard her say something similar. 

I spoke to management about her comment, explained what an epic red flag it was and even told him word-for-word what he needed to say and do to retain her, as she was a strong performer with education and training very difficult to replace. When, as usual, nothing was done, her resignation came in two weeks to the day after publicly stating her discontent.

And, despite all the concerns she had raised about that workplace, I’ll let you guess what reason she gave for leaving. 

She got her reference, a smooth handover period and everyone just had to ignore the elephant in the room: the un-actioned issues she had raised that ultimately made her give up on that workplace.

Although management had been present in the room when she had expressed her thoughts about resigning and had had an in-depth conversation with me about preventing it, they took her resignation at face value and stated to the team that she had left for family reasons and that if she had other reasons, they weren’t aware of them.

Face palm.

Just to be clear, I’ll quote what she said in front of them one more time: 

“Well if I’m not valued, I’ll leave."

 Again, it is an extreme example as most people do not openly state their intention to leave but instead show red flags. But I’ve used it to illustrate the point that if management cannot act after being told, point blank, that someone is unhappy and wishes to leave, then what hope do they have of a) recognising and b) appropriately responding to red flags i.e. signs people are going to resign? 

 Again and again, you’ll get some of the most gifted staff left with no choice but to leave, sometimes altering their life path irrevocably as well as those of customers, clients and community who have to continually deal with new staff and disrupted service and care. 

 The organisation also needs to invest significant time and money in constant recruitment and often don’t stop to ask what it would take to simply retain any skilled staff they already have. 

 A lot of places recruit really well, but have trouble retaining people.

 Staff often don’t give much in the way of honest feedback as to why they are leaving, which exacerbates the problem.

 However, even the most mildly perceptive person will recognise that the presenting reason for resigning will often not be the underlying reason and it will generally take really hearing someone and accepting what they are saying to get to the truth.

 This distinction is relevant for human interactions generally and is not just applicable to resigning behaviour. 

 When I was volunteering for a crisis hotline, for instance, I became very aware of presenting vs underlying issues. Sometimes they would just come right out with it, but the majority of callers would start by talking about a peripheral issue in their life and would go deeper and deeper throughout the call until they could say what was really on their mind.

 If you weren’t able to fully hold space for that caller, or didn’t adequately empathise with their presenting issue, you mightn’t get to the real reason they called. 

 This is one reason many do not disclose their true reasons for leaving. Beyond the obvious reasons of self-interest and conflict avoidance, many simply feel as though saying something would be futile anyway - that they cannot trust management to receive that information gracefully or do anything with it. 

 And they’d generally be right. At the root of high staff turnover you can frequently observe:

-    A lack of managerial capacity to really hear staff or apply reflective listening skills so that they feel heard. Instead, there will often be resistance, denial and even blame

-    An unwillingness to then detach and look objectively and almost forensically at the issues that have led to multiple resignations. Many in “leadership” positions, who are really glorified admin assistants, will avoid getting to the root of things often due to a deep sense of inadequacy on their part

-    If, by some miracle, a diagnostic stage is reached, there will often be little to no action, changes made or follow up

-    Contagion can then occur and there can be a run of resignations after the first one or two due to this passive, head-in-the-sand approach. This will generally only happen when people have lost all faith in things being able to improve, which again comes down to poor management and governance

 A line of questioning I like to engage in goes something like this:

 Have people benefitted from working here?

Have people benefitted from me working here?

Are others happy or relieved knowing I’m on the job because they know that I’ll give it my all? 

Is what I’m doing really helping others?

Are we engaging in the best possible practices in our field and have I explored and experimented with what those are?

Is this what I was put on this planet to do, or at least an important part of the journey?

 Many will remain entirely closed off to this kind of exploration or receiving honest feedback as it may threaten their world view, everything they have been taught as well as their acceptance of established routines and norms. 

 Some will also fear they don’t have the skills to engage with new initiatives and up their game, so worry that they could be replaced by “subordinate” staff who are increasingly more knowledgable, educated, trained, skilled and experienced than those in managerial roles. 

Others don’t like questioning things as they just want to keep trucking along, paying off the mortgage as if that’s their reason for incarnating onto planet Earth.

 The main defence mechanism I’ve seen is just to remain closed off and pretend not to hear it, but so threatening is this simple line of questioning that I’ve also seen people go on the attack, almost twitching as they’ve tried to poke holes in someone’s great performance. 

 I’ve also repeatedly heard phrases like, “If you’re struggling…” which try to blame the person voicing the issue, instead of investigating how widespread the issue is. 

 Undermining the person leaving is an obvious strategy to deflect unwanted attention towards their own performance and to try to distance themselves from any culpability they may have in the resignation. 

 Is it then any surprise that so many will soften the blow when they give their reasons for leaving, knowing what management don’t want to hear? Especially when they have heard the subtext in management’s verbal and non-verbal messaging implying: toe the line, or you don’t get a reference.

 If this social dance works for you, then more power to you. 

If you are facing a crossroads like this, then a good psychic reading along with holistic counselling can help you to look at what the lessons are, where your energy is trying to guide you and how it might be best to invest your time and energy according to your purpose and life path. 

Some of you, dear readers, are meant to change a system from within, often in the face of massive resistance. And the more people like you in “the system”, the more the culture will start to tip favourably.

For others of you it would not be the best investment of your energies and if you genuinely want to improve things, do work that really makes a difference and get fed up with persistently gross incompetence, you may have little choice but to branch out on your own and pave your own path because deep-rooted, systemic change seldom happens quickly…

And excel-spreadsheet-loving yes-men who don’t question anything and are easy to control will keep getting promoted until the dawn of a new age.

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Emotional Triggers

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False Starts and Hang-up Calls