How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you manage…
John Borrowman, CPC
Borrowman Baker LLC
Gallatin, TN
Whether you’re already thinking about a new opportunity, or merely considering whether you should stay where you are, you want to make sure you’re making the best choice.
How to make the best choice? Make the informed choice.
If you’ve ever spoken with us, you’ve probably heard us preach about the informed choice being, by definition, the best choice. In fact, it’s the choice that no one – including you – is entitled to argue with.
Ah, but how do you do that?
If you were to watch from our vantage point, you would see that this decision process typically moves along two tracks at the same time. One is the objective track, where you gather information about type of engagements, compensation, benefits, etc. The other is the subjective track, where you consider more touchy-feely issues like will I feel at home here; what’s the potential for advancement; are these the kind of people I like to be around, etc.
The thing is that although the process moves along both tracks at the same time, it almost never moves along both tracks at the same pace.
As you are moving through the process, then, there are questions to ask yourself:
Which track am I further along?
What do I need to know to get to the end of that track?
What do I need to know to get to the end of the other track?
The answers don’t matter as much as the fact that you ask. And keep asking.
On the objective side, it’s easy to overlook the importance of certain information until it’s almost too late, and you look like a foot-dragger for asking. You don’t want to be standing at the altar facing the employer, with the preacher expecting you to respond “I do”, only to say, “Oops, I forgot to ask: How many weeks of vacation do I get?”
The subjective side can be tricky in a different way. Remember, that no matter how much you dig for this kind of understanding, there’s always 5% – or even 10% – that you won’t get until you’ve been there for six months. At some point, in other words, it becomes a leap of faith.
The entire process of changing jobs is highly emotional and subjective to begin with. Anything you can do to objectify that subjective process will be to your advantage. This decision-making construct can go a long way to doing that
John Borrowman
