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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People


Are About To Quit -- And How You
Can Keep Them

Eric Jackson
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)
Contributor

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If you believe all the headlines on the evening news


or in the Wall Street (http://www.forbes.com/wallstreet/) Journal, youd have to conclude that the US
full bio
Opinions expressed by
economy is continuing to struggle. Unemployment
Forbes Contributors are
remains stubbornly high. Employers seem to be
their own.
reluctant to hire new people to their full-time
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payrolls, even as corporate cash levels are at record
highs.
I cover the business
of technology.

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If youre a boss, it would be easy for you to conclude


that the people who report to you are lucky to have a
job. If you ask them to work longer hours or take on
extra responsibilities, they should be grateful
shouldnt they? After all, they have a j-o-b.
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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

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So, you would probably be surprised to know that more Americans are
quitting their jobs today than at any point in the past 4 years. In March
(http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t04.htm), 2.475 million
Americans quit their jobs. This has been steadily increasing recently
from a low in late 2009 (just after the financial collapse finally bottomed
out) from a monthly rate of 1.7 million quits a month.
Just think about that for a second. Even in the darkest days in the
aftermath of the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression,
1.7 million Americans each month were willing to tell their bosses to take
this job and shove it.
The world has changed. Although were not back to the pre-financial
crisis quitting levels of 3 million a month (in January 2007), people are
more confident in their job abilities than theyve ever been since 2010.
The Forbes eBook To Succeed In A Brutal Job Market
(http://www.forbes.com/ebooks/the-millennial-game-plan-career-and-moneysecrets-to-succeed-in-todays-world/?
utm_source=articlelink&utm_medium=direct&utm_campaign=millennialebook)
Dont let a rotten economy spoil your goals. Use the career and money advice in The Millennial Game Plan to get and stay

How To Build A
ahead for good. (http://www.forbes.com/ebooks/the-millennial-game-plan-career-and-money-secrets-to-succeed-inLeadership Funnel At
todays-world/?utm_source=articlelink&utm_medium=direct&utm_campaign=millennialebook)
Your Company
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/02/03/howto-build-a-leadershipfunnel-at-yourcompany/)

So why are almost 2.5 million Americans a month these days or about
30 million a year willing to quit their jobs?

Eric Jackson
Contributor
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)

Theres an old saying: people quit their bosses, not their jobs.
If you want to keep the most talented members of your team, its time you
started looking in the mirror and realize the biggest reasons why people
quit have to do with you.
Here they are:
1. Youve overloaded your best people with too many responsibilities. At a lot of
companies in America, there have been waves of layoffs over the past 6 years. In cut after
cut, theres a constant job staffing question: how do we get the same amount of stuff done
with fewer employees to do it? The simple answer has been to get the remaining employees
to do the jobs of 2 or 3 old employees, in addition to the regular job responsibilities they
used to have. And then a lot of bosses never revisited staffing responsibilities 3 or 4 years
later. Its time to take a fresh look at whos doing what in your group and probably
redistribute how work is getting done on the team. Your best people need to be doing higher
level stuff, not just getting lower level stuff done. Your best people will quit if theyre just
continuing to be asked to do the same boring stuff years later.
2. Youre a micro-manager. A lot of bosses get promoted because theyre perfectionists.
They were able to get a lot of work done in their old jobs to get noticed. Now, in their new
jobs, they keep wanting to make sure that whoevers doing their old job is doing it just as
well as them. Plus, they are into all their direct reports business as well. Having your
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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

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fingers on the pulse of whats going on (or not going on) in your group is good management.
But, at some point, you cross the line into micro-managing. Your worst people are probably
happy for you to tell them what to do constantly. But your best people will be driven up the
wall by this tendency. They want to know you give them a task and then enough rope to let
them do it rather than doing it for them.
3. Youre never around. The opposite of a micro-manager is a drive-by manager. This is
the boss whos perpetually never in the office. Theyre not around. They dont check in.
They give you a job to do and then check back with you 3 months later on if its done yet.
Lots of bosses protest that they have an open door policy for their people to come in and
89 Business Cliches
That Will Get Any MBA
talk with them whenever they need to. But, if youre never around or when you are you
Promoted And Make
zip in to grab something off your desk and zip back out or get on a conference call for an
Them Totally Useless
hour and then take off to a meeting, thats not going to invite a lot of your staff to come in
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/06/19/89business-cliches-thatand shoot the breeze with you.
will-get-any-mbapromoted-to-middlemanagement-andmake-them-totallyuseless/)

4. Youre not in touch with how some of your hires or promotions are driving
your best people nuts. Its human nature to want to be around other people we like and
trust. Why would we choose to be around and hire people we dislike and dont trust?
However, we usually like people who like us. Even though we think were good at spotting
Eric Jackson
Contributor
people sucking up to us, its awfully tough when youve got a direct report telling you how
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)
great you are. Big problems arise when we promote based on who we like instead of on
merit. One promotion or hire like that is ok, but two or three can sabotage a teams morale.
If youre out of touch with whos really talented on your team and who youre promoting or
hiring, its a matter of time before your best people tender their resignation. Why stick
around if the bozos get promoted?
5. Youve never given your people a sense of where they can go in their careers.
Nobody takes us aside out of college or even in business school and teaches us how to sit and
talk with our direct reports about upward career progression. As a boss, most of us just want
to make sure all our work gets done. But how much do you care about getting that next
promotion? It turns out that your people care about it just as much. So take the time to talk
to them individually. Ask them where they want to go in their careers it turns out many
wont have a clue but will appreciate you showing an interest. Talk to them about how they
can get there, including what kinds of experiences and successes by them would make them
stand out to your bosses.
6. You run terrible meetings. Even one of the most successful CEOs in the world today,
Google (/companies/google/) GOOGL -1.02% (/companies/google/) s Larry Page
(http://www.forbes.com/profile/larry-page/), wasnt born with a keen understanding or
respect for being a good boss as this account describes
(http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4). Page a recent
doctoral student at Stanford, when he started Google thought the ideal way to run
meetings was to instigate a big argument among a team. Whoever had the best idea, he
thought, would rise to the top. Instead, he created anarchy and a lot of hurt feelings. There
are plenty of other way to run ineffective meetings including never calling them or letting
them go on and on with no real action items coming out of them. All these approaches are
tremendously morale-sapping.

The 7 Reasons Why


360 Degree Feedback
7. You communicate that you care more about yourself than the team. As a leader,
Programs Fail
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/08/17/theyouve got to show your reports that you have done in the past or would be willing to do now
7-reasons-why-360anything that youre going to ask them to do. If you seem above it, youre likely going to turn
degree-feedbacktheir support away from you. Youre going to communicate to them that you care more
programs-fail/)

about yourself than you do them. Its tough to win back their support after that. So, show
more than your own. Show that you want

Eric Jackson
them that you care about their career progression
Contributor
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)
the team to win more than you want you to win.

8. Youve never given them the big picture vision of where your group is heading
or you are constantly changing the big picture. Some bosses are great at strategy but
theyve got their head stuck in the clouds or like to change the groups strategy every
quarter. Some bosses are about as strategic as a banana. Either extreme is bad and
debilitating for your staff. As a boss, youve got to tell the group where their North Star is,
the direction theyre heading in and why. Then, youve got to give them everything they need
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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

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to get there. Sometimes business conditions change and the strategy changes, but that
should happen infrequently. If you worked for yourself as a direct report, what would you
think of the strategic direction youre setting?

Its not too late. Before your best people quit and
join the other 2.5 million Americans who will this
month, why dont you take control as a boss and
prevent that from happening?

The Most Under-rated


Key to Long-Term
Career Success:
Staying Power
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/07/16/themost-under-ratedkey-to-long-termcareer-successstaying-power/)

Public Speaking
Tips
dalecarnegie.com

Dale Carnegie's free guide


teaches you essential
public speaking tips!

Also on Forbes:

Eric Jackson
Contributor
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)

What It Takes To Retain Your Top Talent


1 of 11

(http://www.forbes.com/pictures/egmm45ljkh/salaryincrease/)

What It Takes To Retain Your Top Talent


Planning to quit your job this year? CareerBuilder asked 3,008 workers that very question-and found out who is most likely to change jobs in 2014, what employees value most in the
workplace, and what ultimately entices them to stay.

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How To Build A Leadership Funnel


At Your Company
Comment Now

Eric Jackson
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/)
Contributor

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I cover the business


of technology.
full bio
Opinions expressed by
Forbes Contributors are
their own.

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The Sales Funnel is one of the most tried and true tools in business
today. For every prospect you put into the top of the funnel, only a small
percentage will drop out of the bottom of the funnel as a closed sale.
Unless the funnel is constantly replenished at the top, it will experience
moments when no sales drop out of the bottom. Every CEO, VP of Sales,
and sales rep understands the importance of constant vigilance over the
funnel or else deal with the consequences of dry spots as they go on.

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Yet, most organizations approach the


issue of succession planning and
leadership development as if it was two
weeks before the end of the quarter and
they realized they needed to close some
business. You could make a few calls to
drum up some sales just as you could
tap the executives that are immediately
closest to the position that requires a
new leader but your odds of being as
successful with the last-minute
approach are quite low, compared to if
you had been working sales
opportunities and future leaders for
many weeks or years in advance of
needing them.

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Image via Wikipedia

Developing leadership benchstrength


within an organization follows a process
remarkably similar to that of the sales funnel: the Leadership
(http://www.forbes.com/leadership/) Funnel. Just as not every prospect
will turn into a closed sale, not every employee you hire into your
company will be a leader. However, unless your organization institutes a
structured process to track and develop future leaders from the lowerlevels up to the executive boardroom, you are jeopardizing the continued
growth and success of each division and your corporate performance
overall.
Michael Eisner:
Although Oscar Wilde famously said that all publicity is good publicity,
Michael Eisner would probably disagree. In March, 2004, he received one
of the strongest rebukes from shareholders compared with any previous
CEO in history: Forty-three percent of those shareholders withheld their
votes of support for him at the Disney Shareholder Meeting. Why?
The business press was quick to point out Disneys and Eisners
deficiencies in the months leading up to the vote: a lagging stock price
relative to Disneys peers, the risk of becoming a takeover target (which
turned out to happen, when Comcast
(http://www.forbes.com/companies/comcast/) launched an unsolicited
bid a few weeks prior to the meeting), a breakdown in negotiations
around distributing future motion pictures co-produced with Pixar, a
falling out with Roy E. Disney and Stanley Gold and their departure from
the board to canvass institutional shareholders in favor of Eisners
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ousting, declining attendance at Disneys theme parks, ABCs continued


last place performance in network ratings, and the complaints that
Disneys board was packed with too many of Eisners friends.
One of the least mentioned reasons, which, ironically, might undergird
the other complaints, was the matter of Disneys persistent bleeding of
senior talent. Observers commented that this was a 10 year issue for
Disney.
Steve Burke, who used to run ABC, left to join Comcast (now Comcast
EVP and NBC CEO). Paul Pressler left running Disneys theme parks
(now criticized by Roy Disney and Stanley Gold as being in disrepair) to
become Gap (http://www.forbes.com/companies/gap/) CEO in 2002.
Steven Bornstein left ABC Sports to become Chairman of the NFL. Steve
Bollenbach left as CFO in 1996 to assume the role of CEO at Hilton
Hotels. Richard Nanula Bollenbachs successor left in 1998 to become
CFO of Amgen (http://www.forbes.com/companies/amgen/). And who
can forget Jeffrey Katzenbergs infamous falling out with Michael Eisner
in 1993 to go on to co-found Dreamworks SKG? This, of course, was
followed up with Michael Ovitzs arrival and departure (with a $100MM
in severance) in less than a year based on Eisners selection of his best
friend.

The rate of so many executive departures is much less among companies


that have instituted and built a Leadership Funnel.
The Leadership Funnel:
You often hear the expression in sales: Its a numbers game. As a sales
rep, you know that, as long as you are tracking the steady stream of
opportunities through your funnel, you will ensure consistent, highpaying commission checks for you and your family. You also know that, if
you ever lose focus on all parts of the funnel, and spend too much time
harvesting opportunities at the expense of continuing to fill the top, you
put at risk collecting a commission check down the road.
The Leadership Funnel operates in exactly the same way. Yet, leadership
is sometimes still treated as a bit of a black art. Most organizations do
not see the direct link between developing leaders today and an
immediate pay-off in terms of sales or profit growth tomorrow. Therefore,
leadership development gets ignored until there is an urgent need to be
filled. Most commonly, someone in senior management quits and that
role must be filled immediately for the sake of continuity of that function
or division. The CFO quit, who can we get to replace her? A quick scan
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of her direct reports is usually made, and probably a couple of calls to


different search firms. How can you expect one of those direct reports to
step up to become the best possible leader in that CFO position, if your
organization has done nothing significant to that point to prepare him? It
is unrealistic to expect latent leadership abilities to appear from that
candidate.
The Leadership Funnel is a systematic process to address this issue and
ensure that there is always abundant supply of leaders growing
throughout an organization. Whats more, if this process is followed
religiously up and down the organization, not just in the office of the
CEO it is going to protect against potential leaders leaving once they hit
a certain point.

Keys to the Top of the Funnel:


At the top of the funnel, your
concern is ensuring that enough of
the people that you hire into the
organization are going to be able to
one day take over a leadership
position. Of the total number of
people that you hire, its likely that
only 15 20% will be later
recognized as being a highpotential who could, one day,
assume a leadership position within
the organization. The vast majority
more than 60%, if your initial hiring
Image via Wikipedia
screens are good of early entrants
will grow to become tried and true
contributors. They will do an excellent job in their domains with good
attitudes but they will never be interested in, nor should they be given,
a promotion to a managerial or leadership position.
Most companies should assess for leadership potential among managers
at the 5 year mark of their tenure within the company. At the early-stage
of folks careers with a company, you want to be able to do some early
handicapping, without creating an elite group versus a passed over
group dynamic within the company.
Some ask: what about the late bloomers? For example Jack Welchs early
years at General Electric were not particularly outstanding. At this stage,
you want to be able to earmark those folks who are showing a tendency to
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be individually successful and who might be capable of making the


transition to management. However, just because someone misses a firstcut at getting in the funnel at this stage should not preclude them from
making their way in down the road assuming that their performance
merits their inclusion.
Keys to the Middle of the Funnel:
An old study by Hewitt Associates found that 49% of senior executive
respondents are within a decade of retiring.
High-potential candidates should be assessed for their strengths and
areas for improvement at the 7-year mark with the company in some kind
of Leadership Assessment. Out of this assessment, the participants
should receive a detailed report analyzing their strengths and weaknesses
and suggesting actions they should take over the coming two years to
improve their areas of weakness. All high-potentials should then be put
into an intensive two-year developmental plan, where they look to
improve or cover-off their areas for improvements. A major part of this
two-year developmental program should be an assignment of a coach and
a mentor from the company. They should meet with the participant
(separately) on a regular basis to discuss how she is progressing towards
their goals.
Keys to the Bottom of the Funnel:
Its not enough just to hire the right people and then invest in developing
them. One of the by-products of instituting a Leadership Funnel
throughout your organization is that you will keep your best people.
What drives good people awayy? Some CEOs believe that its money or
the simple fact that some high-potentials will simply leave so that they
can assume the top spot somewhere else. Its usually not about
compensation. If these people have risen to the top ranks of their
companies, they are almost always fairly compensated. Therefore, it is
usually the non-pecuniary aspects that figure most in their decision to
bolt.
Here are some questions to ask yourself about your top direct reports to
ensure you keep hold of your best and brightest at the bottom of the
Leadership Funnel:
Have you given your top leaders challenging stretch assignments that
test their ability to perform? What are the most critical business problems
facing the firm today? Do you have your best people working on them?
While you dont want to put one of your best lieutenants in a situation
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where she might be a poor fit or in an impossible situation that might tear
down her confidence, you need to ensure that they are adequately
challenged and solving problems that are important to the organization.
Are you shining a light on their successes or are you hogging the
spotlight? Do you mention their names when they do a stellar job on your
quarterly conference calls or do you characterize it as an organizational
achievement?
Are you providing them with enough discretion to run their businesses?
Many departing executives complain that the biggest reason for leaving a
position was that they felt hamstrung in making some of the decisions
that they saw as crucial to their divisions or the companys future
success. While some leaders clearly long to have the title CEO, most #2s
or #3s leave because they feel their current #1s dont give them enough
rope to do what they think is best. Give them the rope they want, but
ensure you hold them accountable for results as well.
Is your company and industry growing? Many executives will jump ship
when they feel that their current company has seen better days. The more
attractive the external environment is, the more important it is that your
company be seen as having an attractive growth curve ahead of it. If you
are not growing, how can you make your current senior management
team part of the solution to leading your company back to growth? Are
you asking them only to be responsible for downsizing or are you also
asking them to find small new ways for their divisions or functional areas
to grow?
The Culture of Change and the Leadership Funnel:
I would be surprised if your organization was not going through some
radical change at the moment and if your industry was not going to be
very different in 5 years from how it appears today. The most common
destabilizing threats include industry consolidation, introduction of new
technologies, price commoditization, automation, out-sourcing, offshoring, and larger adjacent players coming into the market.
Organizations are not abstract objects; they are a collection of people and
assets. Sometimes the people are the assets. Therefore, to change the
organization, you need to change the peoples attitudes, skills, and
behaviors and that is done through leadership not through changing
some numbers on the budget or through lay-offs.
Without an abundance of leaders, who will lead your divisions and
functions through radical change?
One of the pleasant secondary benefits of adopting a Leadership Funnel
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throughout your organization is that it changes your culture. Everyone


throughout the company starts to talk the language of benchstrength
and building up a complementary team in different parts of the
business. Preparing those underneath you for one day assuming your role
implies that you will be moving on to a larger role within the company.
That movement suggests growth and change.
What to do on Monday Morning:
How do you put it in action? Here are some quick suggestions for Monday
morning:
1. Take stock of what your funnel looks like today. Do a quick inventory of
who you have today? Are you surrounded by A, B, or C players? Where
are the holes in the funnel? Is there one division or functional area that is
particularly weak? Why?
2. Are the right people currently in the right leadership slots? Are there
certain people within your organization that are driving away those that
work with them? Can they be moved into other positions or easily
replaced to help stop the bleeding?
3. Do you have a method of flagging someones leadership potential at the
top of the funnel? Leadership Assessments can help here.
4. Are you building the glue between your organization and your highpotential leaders who are currently in the middle of the funnel? Start
developing a culture of seeking and rewarding talent. Instituting a
Leadership Development program for these people can help here.
Establishing a coaching and mentoring program for these hi-pos with
others from within your organization can be the most effective tool at this
stage. Stretch assignments can also be extremely effective at this point.
Finally, delegation is important here. You want to ensure that they are
receiving not too much or too little delegation from their managers.
5. Keep the leaders at the bottom of your funnel challenged. Now that you
have made the investment in bringing along the most senior-level leaders
in your organization, make sure that you keep them cared for and fed
properly. Neglect and oversight at this stage can cause them to seek a
situation where they are more properly recognized. Ensure that you are
giving them enough discretion to implement the plans they want to, while
still holding them accountable for delivering results.
Conclusion:

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I believe that 5% of an organizations success comes through the effective


development of its strategy but 95% of its success is based on a zealous
focus on the execution of that strategy. Your organization will execute
when you have installed the right people in the right leadership slots and
you have developed a culture of leadership development using
a Leadership Funnel process. Leaders do not just appear when the
organization needs it most. They must be carefully developed over the
course of many years to ensure they will be able to operate at their
maximum level once called on.
The best organizations understand the weaknesses, as well as the
strengths, of their leaders. They then cover off these weaknesses with
others who bring complementary skills. To use a basketball analogy, you
can have a great point guard to lead your team, but he wont be as
effective without a big center. You need to have the full complement of
skills throughout your organization.
Every organization has a Leadership Funnel, whether they are conscious
of it or not. Take stock of what is in your Leadership Funnel today. If its
empty at the top, take steps today to start to correct that imbalance, so
that your organizations success is assured for years to come.
Here are Five Signs you need a Leadership Funnel:
1. You overly rely on external hires, rather than internal hires, for key
management positions.
2. You have been caught off-guard with a senior-level departure within
the last two years.
3. You feel as though a certain divisions leadership is weak.
4. You feel uncomfortable that your organizations performance would be
adversely affected if any of your senior execs (including yourself) was hit
by a bus tomorrow.
5. Although you have a few senior execs who value developing those
underneath them, you do not believe that your organization has a culture
of grooming those with high-potential for senior leadership positions.
Leadership Funnel Best Practices:
1. You assess for leadership potential among managers at the 5 year mark
of their tenure within the company.
2. High-potential candidates are assessed for their strengths and areas for
improvement at the 7-year mark with the company.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2014/05/11/the-top-8-reasons-your-best-people-are-about-to-quit-and-how-you-can-keep-them/

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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

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3. All high-potentials are put into an intensive two-year developmental


plan, where they look to improve or cover-off their areas for
improvements.
4. Internal coaches and mentors are assigned to high-potentials from
within the company and they regularly meet.
5. High-potentials continue to be tracked after they graduate from their
two-year developmental program and further developed.
6. The CEO backs the Leadership Funnel process, speaking out in its
favor, and holds the VP of HR accountable for instituting and tracking its
success.
7. The VP of HR receives buy-in and support from all division and
functional heads for the successful roll-out of the Leadership Funnel
process.
8. Regular communication by the VP of HR with the CEO and all senior
executives on the Leadership Funnel process.

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The Top 8 Reasons Your Best People Are About To Quit -- And How You Can Keep Them

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2014/05/11/the-top-8-reasons-your-best-people-are-about-to-quit-and-how-you-can-keep-them/

1/2/14 10:19 PM

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