When to Walk Away From a Transformation Project

When you have the role of teacher, mentor, facilitator, coach or all of the above at any given time, you may find yourself in an engagement that just isn’t working. In this article we will examine what “isn’t working” means and when it is time to walk away.

Each of the roles above has its own definition, and they are not interchangeable. Any given person may take on more than one role - but we should always be clear on which role we are embracing at any given point, and what the circumstances are that led us to that role. 

When You Should Keep Going

So what happens if you are hired as a coach and you’re adhering to the definition of a coach; but find that the organisation or teams do not have the prerequisite knowledge of the approaches that they are trying to employ? Or what happens if you are brought in to facilitate, and discover that there are a lot of underlying currents that require one-to-one coaching to help people arrive at their own paths or journeys? Or that there are some junior staff that really do need the benefit of a mentor?

None of this means that something isn’t working. What it does mean is that those engaging your services likely didn’t have an understanding of the four roles, or didn’t have a solid picture of what they needed you to do. At that point, I would recommend that you work with leadership to ensure that your work agreement or contract is either revised, or is made broad enough to allow you to utilise the techniques needed to accomplish the stated goals. Transparency is essential to us helping an organisation transform. After all, if they had all of the answers, we as coaches or consultants would not be needed.

And When To Walk Away

However, there are circumstances where a situation is just not going to end well. The first step in any engagement is ensuring that everyone involved at all levels is clear on what the problem is that needs to be solved. Here are a few scenarios that should give you pause:

1. They Disagree On The Actual Problem

If, after working with the organisation, they are firmly in a different direction on what the problem is as opposed to your analysis, you may not want to continue the engagement.

2. The “WHY” Isn’t Right

Additionally, if a firm says something along the lines of “We want you to teach us Scrum” without any background or knowledge of why they chose Scrum beyond seeing it printed somewhere or hearing it at a conference, you need to ask questions. If their answer to why they want you to teach them Scrum is not clear and the right direction to go based on that answer, you may not want to engage in this arrangement.

3. They’re Not Ready For More

A coaching engagement may be going well. The participants are growing and moving forward, but all of the sudden there’s a wall that you can’t seem to help them move. Remember, that you can only bring a coachee to the edge of their cliff and their comfort zone. You cannot drag them over the cliff or into your comfort zone if they are not ready. It is important to recognise when you have taken someone as far as you can take them, and know when it is time to stop and move on.

4. Leadership Is Not Engaged

If you are discussing a coaching engagement with a group and there are any hints that senior leadership is not engaged or more importantly not on the same page, then you need to ask yourself if this is a situation that you want to take on. It’s a giant red warning sign if all levels of an organisation are not cohesively interested in making change.

5. Decisions Aren’t Made With Transparency 

And finally, senior levels of an organisation or board of directors making a decision that is like a hammer coming down regards a sweeping change - thus meaning lack of transparency - is another warning to step cautiously before wading into the middle.

Of course, we all know the companies or consultants who will take any job because there is a check. We also know those who promise results before even taking the time to identify the problems. I would hope that our readers are not those people. 

I’d hope we’re all making informed decisions to work with an organisation, and even better informed decisions about when it is time to walk away - even if we have achieved the intended results. This is one of the reasons why we don’t sign long contracts immediately at Agility for All. We recommend a short engagement to set the stage for change. Then, when the stage is set and all stakeholders are on the same page, we enter a longer engagement to implement the change. More on that next week.

Learn more about the work that we do and the programs that we offer. Set up a call to start planning how you want to change the culture of your organization.

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About the Author:

INDRA A. BOOKS

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