“There is something to be said for keeping at a thing, isn’t there?”
~Frank Sinatra

I was listening to a client the other day, as he described a challenge he was facing at work. There was someone on his team that he couldn’t seem to get a strong, effective relationship with, and he was getting fed up.

“Do you think I should just give up?” he asked me.

Of course, my answer wasn’t the answer he was looking for. “What do you think?” I replied.

He looked at me and laughed. “Why do you always answer that way?”

“Well,” I began, “I’m not you, and it’s not my challenge. I don’t know the situation as well as you do, and I don’t know how important this relationship is. But maybe that’s what you need to think through. How important is this relationship? How much do you need it to work out?”

My client paused. “I do,” he answered. “I do need this to work.”

“Then keep at it. Let’s talk about how.”

There are times to walk away – from problems, from people, from situations. But there are times to keep at something, at someone, when we really want it to work. We may have to change our stance or our approach. Insanity, I’ve heard it said, is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It probably won’t help us to keep saying the same things, or trying the same tactic, but if a successful outcome is important, than it’s probably worth our while to keep going at something until we figure out how to get to the result we need.

We may have to change our expectations, or our communication style. We may have to walk away, just for a bit, so that we can come back refreshed. We may have to be willing to see things, and ourselves, differently.

But keeping at a thing, or a situation, or a relationship, may be just what we need. There may be something to be said for it.

Where do you need to keep at it?
Click here to comment.

If you enjoyed this post, you can read more like it in our book, The Power of Thoughtful Leadership: 101 Minutes To Being the Leader You Want To Be, available on Amazon.


If you want to keep at things more, contact Robyn at rmcleod@chatsworthconsulting.com.

Click here to receive The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog posts via e-mail and receive a copy of “Ending Leadership Frenzy: 5 Steps to Becoming a More Thoughtful and Effective Leader.”

Photo Credit:nickjoo/Bigstock.com

New York: 212.537.6897 | Pennsylvania: 610.254.0244