Fight Or Flight: When Do You Stop Running?
09.12.2005 | Chris Bailey | Focused on CareerDavid Batstone writes for Worthwhile Magazine and produces an e-newsletter called The WAG, Worthwhile and Gain. In an August issue of WAG, David plucked a particularly relevant story out of Fortune Magazine. It was the experience of A.G. Lafley, the Chairman and CEO of Proctor & Gamble, who nearly left P&G twenty years ago. There are days when some of the typical work BS becomes annoying and I think of chucking it for another organization. Then, I consider Lafley’s experience and think again:
I almost left P&G in my sixth year. It was 1982, and I decided to go to one of those boutique consulting firms in Connecticut. I was getting out of P&G because I thought the bureaucracy was so stifling…I was an associate – between a brand manager and a marketing director – and I was running a bunch of laundry brands. Steve Donovan was in charge of the soap business, and I handed him my resignation.
He tore it up. I said to him, ‘I made a copy.’ He said, ‘Go home. Call me tonight.’ Which was smart, not to negotiate with me right there. When I called him that night, he said, ‘Don’t come into the office for the next week. Come and see me every night.’ So every night, I went to his home, and we’d have a beer or two. He kept working me over until he got to the root of my problem with P&G…He said, ‘You’re running away. You don’t have the guts to stay and change it. You’ll run from your next job too.’
That really ticked me off. I stayed. And from then on, every time something didn’t work, I spoke up. I realized that you can make a difference if you speak up and set your mind to changing things.
I think it’s a natural instinct to want to run from trouble. The only question is whether we have the ‘guts’ to stay and change it.
6 Responses to “Fight Or Flight: When Do You Stop Running?”
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If only Martin Luther’s bishop had done with him what Steve Donovan did with you…..imagine how unity could have been preserved!
Walter, your comment is a bit of a riddle and I say this in the best possible way. I think, in some way, it’s prodding me to think more carefully about when it’s time to hunker down and confront challenges on the inside and when it’s time to split tackle those challenges somewhere else.
Everyone’s threshold is different.
I’d be curious if you’d elaborate on what you’re thinking. I think there’s something juicy beneath your original comment.
Walter,
That’s an interesting analogy. There might have been no Reformation! On the other hand, if Martin Luther’s bishop had been that kind of person, there would have been no need for a Reformation.
Chris would have been less puzzled if you had said, “what Steve Donovan did with A.G. Lafley.
Great post and comments!
Wish I had read Lafley’s story 16 years ago — but thanks; it cleared some things up for me. Btw, I don’t think Martin Luther quit. He stayed in the Body of Christ, even though he left the Catholic Church (i.e. he remained a Christian). In my mind, in his own way, Luther spoke up and changed things. In other words, he had “darm” – which, I believe, loosely translated, means “guts” in German . . . at least I hope it does.
A.G. Lafley must have been pretty important to the company. Anybody else would have been let go as soon as the resignation letter came in. Many people have stood up an politely made their greivences and asked for change and they then get fired. This article needs a little more info on why he was so important to the organization rather than how he was able to spur change through sheer will power.
boohoo, that might have been another way to take the article. I can only make assumptions at this point, but I figure that Steve Donovan saw something in him – or something in the circumstances Lafley’s desire to resign – that he needed to probe further.
I do think that the actors are secondary to the theme in this case: if you’re going to run from trouble, have a good reason for it. Move on only when you’ve exhausted your options. There are days when my own work provokes a strong desire to pick up my toys and leave. Yet I’m reminded by Lafley’s lesson that if I leave my current organization because of initial frustration, I’ll likely run from the next place, and the next place after that. There will be a time to move on, but it needs to be on my terms and only when I have done all that I can to improve my current situation.