According to Gary Vaynerchuk, you should quit if you can’t answer yes to the following questions:

1. Are you happy with your present job?
2. Do you work for a company that allows you to have a public persona?
3. If you’re not allowed to develop a personal persona at work, are you allowed to do so in your personal time?

In today’s tough economy, it is probably unwise to quit your job outright. However, Vaynerchuk makes a good argument. If you are not able to build your own personal brand, you will be left in the dust, and should at least start preparing your resume. Chances are, there’s a better job out there for you, one that will enable you to prepare for your own future success as well as the company’s.

What do you think? When is it appropriate to quit your job? Let me know at edwardviator [at] evil-marketer [dot] com

Notable quotes from this chapter:

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Reading an article on Seth Godin’s page, “The Why Imperative”, you wonder if there are two reasons people are asked to change. One, it’s an extension of what they do and it is needed because of changing market conditions, and two, it’s a change for the sake of change.
In other words, “Change” can get out of hand. People change because it is something to do, as opposed to something that is the right thing to do. These changes then affect everyone in different ways and can cause people to be more reluctant to changes (because of the poor history of success).
So, when do you change and when do you not? The first step is to ask, “Why are we changing?” The second step is to have a way to properly evaluate that change and to evaluate with the proper objectivity that also takes into account the costs to overcome the challenges. Changes have to deal with three challenges: strategic, political and cultural.
Ideally, its purely strategic decisions: is it more economical? However, the reality is that change costs time, money, and political clout. Sometimes it does not make sense to do the change because of the other elements.
It never should hurt to ask why but it could hurt to do it. This could be an opportunity for someone else. Or, it could identify the selling points to get people to change.

Those that handle change better often do better because they know how to come out on top.

Rather than going into a lot of detail right now, I want you to think about the most likely change that could happen to you over the next six months. What are the likely outcomes? How will you prevent the bad outcomes? How will you take steps to insure the better outcomes? What if nothing happens?

When you get it in your mind that “change happens” you can often deal better with it. Be prepared is the Boy Scout Motto, for good reason, because change happens.

It is a political article. The title is “If you love America, Why Transform it.” Prader’s point is that if you love America you should not want to transform it, and those people that have been saying Tranform it (i.e. Obama and Democrats) really do not love America.

Sarcasm alert à What a wonderful statement!!!  Obviously, if you really HATE America you would want to change it.  Same thing must apply to a company: if you love a company, then no matter how bad things get, you should just keep doing the same thing.  Maybe when bankruptcy happens, people will still pay you because you loved the company so much?

Prader also talks about the LEFT loving a “vision” of America more than the “reality” of America.  He then asks how can someone love his country and want to remake or transform it.  He goes on to equate the thinking with such people as Karl Marx and equating loving the future as anti-religion. Quite frankly, I find such narrow thinking very disappointing.

Obviously, Prader must be living in a different country. In the country I live in, we have an energy issue, health care issue, social security issue, terrorist issue, an unemployment/economy issue, and a number of other issues.  Can these issues be resolved? I hope so. Can we just sit around and do nothing?  No. That was tried and the issues are getting worse.  Action is needed.  That action will be change, transforming, remaking…whatever you want to call it.

Our country has a long history of transforming itself, remaking itself, and improving.  What about the time after the Civil War, the Depression, post WWII, and throughout the last 30 years.  I recall the Republicans under Reagan talking about changing Amerca.  Prader and people that think like him do not admit there are problems that need fixing.  Why?  It could be that in his position he has none of these problems and cannot understand or imagine that someone else could. He probably thinks that all these issues of the last year have been faked and are not that big.  Obviously, if we just let things go as they are, everything will be okay.  Things will get back to normal, but they really are not that bad.  Sorry, should have another “Sarcasm alert”.

These cultures of denial and then attack the changer persist in any company that needs change.  Change for the sake of change is not good, but change for the sake of overcoming new obstacles is good.  Whether or not people like Prader have an agenda depends on each case.  Usually, in a company, it’s a power struggle, or a perceived power struggle. The way a change agent gets people to change is she shows them how the change can benefit them and how it can be done to their advantage.

Are you part of the solution or part of the problem?  Don’t be like Mr. Prader. Be a change agent.