The Career Lesson It Took Me 20 Years to Understand
A few weeks ago, I submitted my resignation. As often happens, conversations followed. Leaders reached out. They asked me to reconsider. They told me I was valuable to the organization and that they wanted me to stay. While listening to those conversations, I found myself thinking about a discussion I had nearly twenty years ago—one that completely changed how I view careers, organizations, and professional success. At the time, I didn’t fully understand it. Today, I think I finally do. The Frustration Early in my career, I was working in India and becoming increasingly frustrated. I had joined the organization with enthusiasm. I wanted to solve problems, challenge assumptions, improve processes, and move quickly. I was ambitious and impatient in equal measure. But over time, I found myself constantly running into resistance. Decisions felt slow. Change felt difficult. Ideas that seemed obvious to me often required endless discussions before they could move forward. The frustration was...