Before you choose a job, see if it’s compatible with this four-step system I developed for my clients: the LTTL SYSTEM.
I first used this system in a small Scanner workshop, and it was so successful at overcoming commitment phobia that I now use it with many of my Scanner clients. I think you’re going to like this one. The letters stand for Learn, Try, Teach, Leave.
In your Scanner Daybook, write up a one-page plan for every career or interest you’re considering, using the LTTL System. For example, let’s say you’re considering a job overseeing operations for a large company. You’d write something like this:
Step 1: Learn. For 6 months, I’ll learn how to run the central office of a national graphics firm, coming up with new systems—but only on paper.
Step 2: Try. After the learning curve levels out, I’ll try to get my new systems implemented, perfect them, make sure they run, or build the prototype to iron out all the kinks. This might take 2 more months.
Step 3: Teach. When it’s clear that everything I’ve designed works brilliantly and the company wants me to stay and run it, I’ll explain I can stay only long enough to teach someone else to do the job. Maybe this will take a few more months, and what I teach each day will go into the employees’ manual I’ve arranged to write for the company. (I’ll naturally be very well paid for these services I’m rendering.)
Step 4: Leave. On this day, I’ll have my farewell party, at which I’ll receive tearful good-byes and be given a severance package, which allows me to live for 1 year without working. I’ve arranged for this by showing the bosses how much money I’d be saving them.
During my free year, I’ll pursue my own interests and keep an eye out for the most interesting job opportunity in a different field entirely, at which time I’ll repeat the entire process.
For the purposes of illustration, I haven’t kept this explanation 100 percent realistic, but I know for certain that the LTTL System is completely doable in a form you’ll find useful. Just reading it might have given you a new perspective on the whole issue of commitment, as it’s done for so many other Scanners.
If "commitment" looked more like the LTTL model, I doubt you’d mind making one. Signing up for a dreary work life is something no one should have to do. And no one should blame you, a Scanner, for loving only the designing and learning aspects of your job. Scanners need to learn, to invent, and to tinker with things. That’s how they’re wired.
Rarely will a Scanner be happy sticking around to turn the switches on and off or keep the system humming. To require execution and maintenance of Scanners is not a good use of their ability. Talent is hard to find. A smart boss knows and respects it.
In your Daybook, write your one-page LTTL plan. If you are thinking of multiple jobs or activities, go ahead and write a few of them. In a new comment on this page, tell us about your experience with the LTTL System. Any insights? Any change of heart about commitment? Will you implement your plan? Tell us! Then read the rest of the comments and see if you would like to reply to any of them. If someone else comes up with a great idea for how to Learn, Try, Teach, and Leave, give them your thanks and feel free to borrow it.
Please be sure to subscribe to future comments on this exercise or to check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.
Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to What I Learned from Chapter 4 after you are done adding your comments.
this lines up well with a project I’m trying to get myself to tackle
Learn – setup the system
Try – start using
Train – hire someone
Leave – minimize time
I had similar thoughts previously
I’ve been thinking for years that after I retire from my corporate gig that I will continue coaching as a solopreneur. Engaging in this exercise (in my Daybook) has me thinking that there is an additional skill I’d like to pick up and that I might do that by using the LTTL System. The skill I’m looking to pick up is “resume writing.” So, after doing this exercise, I’ll need to research some of the details of resume writing and certification so that I can create a plan.
The best thing I’ve learned from Learn, Try, Teach, Leave is the Leaving part. I tend to stay in situations long after I have lost interest and this makes me irritable and unsatisfied. I think I need to put post it notes all over my home saying “It’s ok to LEAVE”!
I did something like this in real life a few years ago when I worked at a metal shop. It’s just a shame I didn’t ask for a years’ severance package so I could pursue my dreams. Now I know better…
I wonder if there was anything else you could take from your experience at the metal shop? How did it feel to leave? I hear you about the year’s severance but I’m guessing most folks can’t get that even if they ask 🙂
It felt great to leave. I worked there for two years and I was grateful for the opportunity. I left because I didn’t get the promotion I wanted because the interview was a formality–they already had the candidate they wanted and they wanted to do their former role. So I made an outrageous salary ask, they couldn’t do it, and I didn’t feel guilty putting in my notice.
I am so impressed by this story. You really turned what could have been a disappointment into a win