To Stay or Leave — Part Two

Chalk it up to smug satisfaction or something, but when I found Jack and Suzy Welch’s article on the four questions to ask to decide “To Stay or Leave,” I thought I had the definitive answer for analyzing when to leave your current position.

Until the next morning.

Then I started having that brain thing that says that one is missing a thing or two. I shouldn’t have doubts, of course, since these four questions to ask are pretty good:

1. Do you want to go to work every morning?
2. Do you enjoy spending time with your co-workers or do they generally bug the living daylights out of you?
3. Does your company help you fulfill your personal mission?
4. Can you picture yourself at your company in a year?

But they bothered me…as incomplete. Finally, I realized what was bothering me about the four questions…there were more questions to ask. Three more, to be precise. And here they are:

1. What is the probability of your position being outsourced?
2. What is the probability of being laid off in the next six months?
3. What is the probability of your company taking heavy financial losses in the next year?

If the probability is more than 50% for any of those three, you run a significantly higher risk — totally out of your control — of losing your job and needing to find another.

Jack and Suzy talk about what you can control. My questions add in the very real things that you can’t control — but need to watch.

Scot

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