Between Thoughts -Intellectual Musings

A mentee asked me for my exit decision framework. Six resignations in 28 years, and I had to admit — I didn’t have one. Until I went looking.

My mentee came at me sideways. He didn’t ask for career advice. He issued a fact.

“You have resigned six times — Unilever, UCT, Nike, Vodacom, Google, Canva. You live in your head. You must have an exit decision framework. Can I borrow it?“

He was right about the facts. Twenty-eight years. Six exits. Average tenure of five to six years per organisation. I am, by any measure, a deliberate leaver.

But here is what surprised me about myself: I did not have a crisp framework that rose to the surface when he asked. No mental checklist. No scoring rubric. Nothing in my mind’s eye that was ready for export.
The first thing I said to him was honest and slightly embarrassing.

It depends.

It felt like a cop-out. But I meant it.

“The first question is not when to leave. It is who you are as a professional.

Are you a Lifetimer or a Switcher?”

Framework One: Lifetimer vs. Switcher
He is a football man, so I spoke football.
There are two categories of greatness in the game. The first: Messi, who spent seventeen seasons at Barcelona. Alex Ferguson, who managed Manchester United for twenty-six years. Arsène Wenger at Arsenal for twenty-two. Diego Simeone, who has made Atlético Madrid his life’s work. These are Lifetimerss — professionals whose loyalty is their competitive weapon. They win everything there is to win in one place, and they leave a legacy inseparable from the institution.

Then there is the other category. Pep Guardiola. Jürgen Klopp. Mourinho. Carlo Ancelotti. Cristiano Ronaldo. Three to five seasons at a club, then a new challenge, a new league, a new problem to solve. They do not stay until the soil is dry. They move while they are still winning — and they win wherever they go. These are Switchers.

Both categories produce legends. Both fill trophy cabinets. The difference is not quality. It is preference.

I am a Switcher. I knew it the day I watched my grandfather receive his long-service award after forty years at the same company. The award was a kist — a wooden chest — a cheap wall clock, and a certificate. No equity. No bonus. No meaningful recognition of four decades given. I made a silent promise to myself that day: I would never overstay my welcome. Not at a company, not in a role, not even at a friend’s house. Leave while they still remember you fondly.

So the first question for my mentee — and for you — is not when to leave. It is who you are. Are you a Lifetimer or a Switcher? Neither is wrong. Both win trophies. But you need to be honest about your preference before you pick up any framework, because the framework serves the person, not the other way around.

Framework Two: EVLN — The Academic Scaffolding

After the football conversation, I went looking for the intellectual architecture I knew must exist. I found it, as one often does, by following a podcast down a rabbit hole.

Brené Brown and Adam Grant. The Curiosity Shop. Episode: Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy. Grant referenced the economist Albert O. Hirschman and his 1970 framework, later expanded by Withey and Cooper in 1989. They called it EVLN: Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect.
Here is the architecture.

THE FRAMEWORK EXPLAINED
Exit
You end the relationship. You resign, you leave, you walk. In competitive markets, Hirschman called this the “economic” response — the clean cut. It is active and it is destructive to the relationship, but it is honest.
Voice
You stay — but you speak. You raise concerns, challenge decisions, propose alternatives. You try to repair from within. Voice is the activist’s response. It costs courage and requires an environment where speaking does not cost you your career.
Loyalty
You wait. You trust the institution to self-correct. You hold your tongue and hold your position. Hirschman called loyalty a “brake” on exit — it buys the organisation time to improve. The danger is when loyalty becomes passivity dressed in a noble costume.
Neglect
The fourth option — and the most insidious. You stay but you stop caring. Chronic lateness. Reduced effort. Increased errors. You quietly let things burn to the ground around you. You have heard it called quiet quitting. This is its formal diagnostic name.


Withey and Cooper went further. They mapped the conditions that predict which response you will choose:

Exit
Low exit costs. Attractive alternatives exist. Low belief the organisation will improve. Loss of tenure, network, institutional knowledge — but freedom gained.

Voice
High exit costs, but genuine belief the organisation can change. Reputational risk if voice is punished. Exhaustion if unheard.

Loyalty
High commitment. Belief that waiting is safer than speaking up or leaving. Erosion of self. The suitcase and cheap wall clock risk.

Neglect
High exit costs + low hope for improvement + low commitment. Trapped. Reputational damage. Skill atrophy. A slow professional death.


Cooper added one more dimension that struck me as deeply true: Locus of Control.

If you believe you can influence your circumstances — internal locus — you gravitate toward active responses: Exit or Voice. You act on the world.

If you believe the world acts on you — external locus — you gravitate toward passive responses: Loyalty or Neglect. You endure.

The framework is not a prescription. It is a mirror. It shows you where you already are — and whether you are there by choice or by default.

Applying Both Frameworks to the Career Decision

IF YOU ARE A SWITCHER

FOR
+  Fresh environments accelerate growth
+  Market value resets upward with each move
+  You leave before stagnation becomes identity
+  You build a wide network across industries
+  Each chapter has a clear beginning and end

AGAINST
−  Pattern of leaving can look like inability to commit
−  You sacrifice deep institutional equity and trust
−  High emotional and logistical cost per move
−  Risk of running from problems rather than solving them
−  Each exit requires a safety net — not everyone has one


IF YOU ARE A LIFETIMER

FOR
+  Deep institutional power and political capital
+  The compounding returns of long-term relationships
+  Ability to drive lasting, systemic change
+  Lower emotional disruption, clearer identity
+  Legacy — you become part of the institution’s story

AGAINST
−  Risk of confusing loyalty with stagnation
−  Market value can calcify without external testing
−  Overstaying erodes the mystique of the relationship
−  Loyalty is sometimes rewarded with a kist and a clock
−  The world changes; the Lifetimer must change with it


WHEN EVLN OVERRIDES PREFERENCE
Here is where the two frameworks intersect in a way I find most useful. Even a committed Switcher should pause before exiting if the conditions suggest Voice is the more powerful play. Even a committed Lifetimer must recognise when they have drifted from Loyalty into Neglect — and that recognition should disturb them.

The EVLN model also surfaces a question that most career conversations avoid: do you have the financial and psychological resources to choose Exit? Because if you do not — if your exit costs are too high — then Exit is not really a choice. It is an aspiration. And aspirations do not protect you from Neglect.

“Your feelings are data. They are not facts. And they are not a framework.”

The Questions I Refused to Answer for Him
Before handing him the frameworks, I asked him a barrage of questions. Not because I expected answers. But because a mentor who gives you the answer has robbed you of the work.

Do you have a safety net?

Did you save for emergencies?

Do you have enough financial runway to make this decision from strength, not desperation — what some people call f**ck-off money?

If it is only your emotions deciding — have you separated what you feel from what you know? Did you build the courage to speak truth to power and absorb the consequences? Did you try everything within your power to change the situation before declaring it unchangeable?
These are not rhetorical questions. They are the filters that determine whether EVLN is even a live decision for you — or whether circumstances have already made it for you.

One more caution I offered him, drawn from Genesis and from human psychology alike: be careful of people who constantly look backward. Lot’s wife was told not to look back at the burning city. She looked back. She turned to salt. People who cannot stop replaying the last chapter never fully write the next one. Whatever you decide — stay or go — make the decision and face forward.

The Framework, Assembled
Step One:  Establish your identity first. Are you a Ltep oneifetimer or a Switcher? This is not about which is better. It is about who you actually are, not who you wish you were. Be ruthlessly honest.
Step two:  Run the EVLN diagnostic. Where are you right now? Exit, Voice, Loyalty, or Neglect? Are you there by choice — or by default? Is your locus of control internal or external?
Step three:  Check your resources. Do you have the financial, emotional, and network resources to execute the response that EVLN suggests? If not, what do you need to build before the decision becomes real?
Step four:  Ask the hard questions. Separate feelings from facts. Confirm you have tried Voice before choosing Exit.
Step five:  Decide. And face forward. Do not look back at the city.


The coach’s role is not to give you the answer

I told my mentee everything above. I gave him the Lifetimer-Switcher spectrum. I gave him EVLN. I gave him the questions. I gave him the pros and the cons of each posture.

And then I stopped. Because the role of a coach is not to give the answer. It is to give clarity — and then step back.

He has to make a decision that he will not spend the next decade second-guessing. One he will not whisper about to himself at 3 a.m. while staring at the ceiling. A decision that belongs to him — not to me, not to the frameworks, not to what I would do.

Both frameworks I gave him are value-neutral. They do not tell you what to choose. They show you the landscape, name the terrain, and hand you the map. The walking is yours.

The only wrong decision is the one made without thinking.

PSA:
Bubble Gum Wrapper  – Did you Know ?
Peak month – January is  when the highest number of South African employees resign, aligning with a global trend often driven by new year resolutions, the desire for career changes, and reflection during the December break. Common Reasons – Better pay (5%), toxic environments (35%), career growth (53%), work-life balance (10%), and emigration (6%).

Choose the best  month to resign – wait till  your company’s financial year ends  – results vs APP ( annual performance plan)   announced – 13th cheque paid, performance reviews are done and dusted- ratings and calibrations final – stock allocation & bonuses & salary increases confirmed. Do not leave rands and cents on the table – they are yours and you earned them. If you resign before some of these are done – there is a forced normal distribution and you will be on the wrong side of the distribution, with a poor or average rating and low bonus allocation and no salary increase. It happened to me – do not let it happen to you. Do not trust your boss will do good by you – the boss needs to first serve those who are staying and keep them loyal and productive. Nothing personal!

Between Thoughts – Intellectual Musings | Dr. Mzamo Masito (PhD).

Where the uncomfortable questions get a seat at the table.

References:

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (1970).

Michael J. Withey & William H. Cooper, “Predicting Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect,” Administrative Science Quarterly (1989).

Brené Brown & Adam Grant, The Curiosity Shop podcast — “Uncertainty Is Not the Enemy.”