Why Do Good People Leave?

Think about a team, company, or workplace you know well — you are going to diagnose its real retention problem.

Name the tension

Write down one specific reason you believe talented people leave this organisation. Be precise — not 'bad culture' but what exactly about it.

What is truly at stake?

If this problem is never fixed, what does the organisation actually lose? Name one concrete consequence.

Sort the forces

Sort the factors below into the two zones — which ones the organisation controls, and which ones it cannot.

Within our control

Outside our control

How urgent is this, really?

Mark where the problem sits on this spectrum. Then write one word explaining why you placed it there rather than at either extreme.

Manageable → Existential

high

The obvious answer

What would most managers say is the solution? Write it in one sentence — the answer anyone in the room would immediately suggest.

Attack the obvious answer

What does that solution cost, ignore, or make worse? Look back at step 3 — does your obvious answer actually address the forces you can control?

The hidden trade-off

Name the one thing this organisation is unwilling to give up in order to fix the retention problem — the real reason the obvious answer never gets fully implemented.

Why that word?

Discuss Tell your partner: if you could change one decision the organisation made in the last year, what would it be?

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