How to turn a setback into an opportunity? Attitude, remember!!!

So this is very apropos to my recent posts. Yet Another friend has jumped over the fence (let’s call him Bill), but he is with a vendor of ours (lets call them IT Support, Inc.), and the owner (let’s call him John) was in my office to let me know the bad news.

We outsource our level one and level two IT support to IT Support, Inc, and John was in my office to explain that we were losing Bill. His story was that Bill was being pressured by members of his religious community to fall in line and work for a more “correct” firm. In fact he went on to explain that Bill was taking a cut in pay.

Well, without even examining the truth of the statement (that will come later), let’s look at the facts here.

1. We REALLY like Bill. Our users like him and we trust him implicitly.
2. Bill was a valuable resource to IT Support, Inc.
3. Bill was valuable enough that this is bad news for all of us.

In fact, I want what is best for Bill here and I think a stint as an IT Manager is probably not a bad idea. On top of that though, I like John and IT Support, but I was not happy to hear the sour grapes. It made me empathize with Bill, not John. Remember, I have invested a lot of knowledge in Bill and we are losing that, but I like Bill enough that I wish him well.

John is in an interesting position here. He knows that his clients love Bill. So he should use that. He should have been telling us how happy he was for Bill. He should have been extolling his virtues and explaining how he hopes to have him rejoin IT Support, Inc., possibly in a more senior position once he has the new skills and experience gained from running his own budget.

He essentially has nothing to lose (he’s already lost it), BUT maybe everything to gain. This may not be very original, but sometimes it needs to be repeated, over and over. Negative is just negative. Remember, attitude is free! John should start reading more of Seth Godin.