Caught this on HN. “Exit, Voice, Loyalty, Neglect: Why People Leave, Stay, or Try to Burn It All Down,” by Brett & Kate McKay.
The exit, voice, loyalty, neglect (EVLN) framework will help you understand why people stay in or leave a relationship (including friendships), why people stay in or leave a job, why people stay in or leave a church, and many more of life’s interpersonal and institutional dynamics.
Definitely worth a read. I don’t agree with everything here but I think it’s a great starter point for discussions.
My observation is that people often use their voice when they are invested and want a situation to work. You’ve worked at Acme Corp for seven years, most of the time it’s been good. You like your job and co-workers, but growth and management changes have taken a toll. So you start speaking up trying to make things better. That is loyalty. Loyalty isn’t passive acceptance or blind hope that things will get better if someone else makes changes.
What this calls “loyalty” I’d call apathy, inertia, or lack of agency. “Things were good once, they will be again, so I can just wait it out.”
And neglect isn’t the same thing as “burn it down,” IME. I’ve seen both. Maybe it needs a section on sabotage…
Prolly going to write something longer on this for Dissociated Press when I have the time. A bit backlogged there.
