If You Think You Can Do Better

There are only three choices available to you when you don’t believe in your company and you disagree with the way the company is being run.

Leave and start your own company

There are a lot of people who started their business because they didn’t believe the company they were working for was doing good work or that it was poorly run. Plenty of people have disagreed with their leadership’s way of doing business and set out to do better.

But leaving takes courage. It takes the courage of putting your real money where your mouth is. You have to take a risk on yourself and your beliefs. If you believe you can do better, no one is stopping you from trying but you.

In the apartment complex where I grew up we used to say “If you feel froggy, jump.”

Lead the change you believe is necessary.

It isn’t easy to lead up. Or sideways. Or down. If you believe that change is necessary, you can choose to lead change within your organization. It’s messy. It’s political. And it’s hard as Hell.

It takes courage to challenge the organization you work for to improve. Countless people have done so. But doing so means you have to have the courage of your convictions. Once you start, you are leading.

Find a company you believe in.

If you believe the grass is greener on the other side, go see for yourself. The grass may look greener because the people there are doing something different to take care of it. Maybe you’ll like it, and maybe you won’t.

I once had an employee quit my company to work for another company where he was promised more money. He came back and asked for his job back three days later. That’s all the time it took him to realize that he wasn’t going to be happy there.

A lot of people leave a situation they don’t like and find one that suits them. You deserve to do work you can be proud of, even if it takes you a couple tries to find a home.

The choice you cannot make.

But the one choice you cannot make is to hang around and complain without really doing anything to make a difference. You gain nothing by staying with a company you don’t believe in and becoming the poison that infects the rest of the organization.