How to resign
Resigning, for me, was quite tough. When I resigned from my first job, I was absolutely sure I was making the right decision – this time I wasn’t so convinced.
Moreover, my boss had been in a very difficult situation of having three or four underlings who wanted to get some management experience. He’d juggled the limited management opportunities very nicely such that we all got a slice of the pie. I was impressed – so it felt like a bit of a personal insult to throw it back into his face and say I was leaving. Especially since it was these management opportunities which had prompted me to have a hard think about what I wanted to do, and thus indirectly prompted me to leave.
The good news was that I had been doing a management training course (more of a negotiation and personal skills training course). The week before we had had a session about “how to deliver bad news”.
We were taught two strategies. I decided I should put them into practice…
Strategy one – giving somebody bad feedback, when the situation can still be resolved
Use the “DESC” method. That means, structure your conversation in these stages:
- D: Description. Describe the problem, describe the history; describe where you’ve pointed this out before.
- E: Emotion. Say something like “this is making me upset” or “this is making me very worried”. Apparently using emotional words in a business context really makes people sit up and listen, and take you seriously. Makes sense! A highly cynical* ploy of course.
- S: Suggestion. Suggest how they can solve the problem. Or, ask them how they think they can solve the problem.
- C: Consequences. Identify the consequences if they do make the change suggested. It’s important to try to be positive – don’t say “you’ll be sacked if you don’t make this change;” say “if you make this change the whole team will be more productive and we can go to the pub earlier”.
Unfortunately, I had already decided I was going to leave – more or less – so I couldn’t use that strategy. I had to use…
Strategy two – giving somebody bad news, when it’s too late
The idea here is to come up with a short script of 3-5 sentences, stating clearly and explicitly what the bad news is. Don’t leave ambiguities.
Then, sit back and take the flack. This is the counter-intuitive bit. Don’t say sorry, or give concessions, or anything. The more you say, the longer it takes the recipient of the news to assimilate it and get used to it. You want to minimise the time they spend dealing with the bad news, for both your sakes, so try to give as little response as possible.
Eventually, they’ll come to terms with it (there were some body language clues to look out for – but you’ll have to go on the course to find out what). Then you can move onto a more reasonable discussion of “what happens next”.
I tried to follow this plan more or less exactly, as I knew my boss would be surprised and upset. He was. He didn’t get used to it too quickly, as I think he was suspicious I had some “real reason” or ulterior motive for saying I was leaving. Still, I think following the plan made the actual resignation conversation easier for both of to deal with.
Anyway, I shan’t be quoting any more excerpts from the (excellent) training course. If you have loads of staff you want to send on it, leave a comment and I’ll put you in touch with the guy who ran it. (Unfortunately I can’t find a web page for him).
* = Yes, I hate it when people use the word “cynical†this way too. Oh well. It seems to be an acceptable modern usage.