Having recently published Working with Apprentices (Part I), I am now saddened to be taking a new tack - What happens when apprentices leave? This post will, as ever, try to be brutally honest about where I am.
I talk a lot about how to address things so they go well. What happens when they don't? Sometimes, despite doing everything you know how to do (and learning new things, to try to help more); despite building an environment where people are comfortable; where there's no fear of failure; where saying "I don't know" is seen as an opportunity for learning, not ridicule; where coaching is a given; and where advice can be sought for any problem, things don't work out.
We recently went through this with an apprentice. Things didn't work out. Clients were happy with his work, he was curious, resourceful, and imaginative. He helped address problems in new ways, and was very popular. We worked with him for 18 months, and spent many days coaching, mentoring, teaching, and listening. We learned about his life, his problems, his challenges, and his plans to resolve them. We approached problems as learning opportunities, and to the full extent possible, worked with him to help him figure out how to resolve the issues that impacted him and us. We acted as a sounding board and raised red flags if something was a problem.
Given all of that, how did things end up where they did?
The truth is, I'm not sure.
The details of the case don't particularly matter, other than to say that by several measures, in spite of all the good stuff, parting ways was a reasonable choice, and nobody would have been surprised if it had happened 12 months before.
But it sucks. I work for a charity that intentionally hires people who may have had difficult backgrounds. People who may not have worked before, who may have difficult home lives, who may need help, and who have not inconsiderable challenges. Not everybody who comes to us faces those challenges, but they're not uncommon in the demographics from which we recruit. Part of what we do is to hire people as apprentices, and teach them how to become people-focused IT consultants.
At what point do you say, 'In this case, we have failed. We are not the right people to provide the help that's required?' The truth is, perhaps we could help him, if we did something differently, or were persistent. Perhaps if we'd spent a bit longer, approached work a bit differently, framed things slightly differently, given him more/less autonomy/responsibility/freedom/training, we wouldn't be sitting where we are now. But there's a conflicting truth that we must face, as well. It's the same one every charity faces - time we spend working with one person is time we can't spend working with someone else. Charities that we could be working with aren't being helped, because we can't schedule meetings reliably, can't count on having someone there who we need, and can't give them the focus and attention they need.
Assuming the goal is to meet the needs of our staff and our clients, maximise our impact, minimise our harm, and help as many organisations as possible get a better understanding of IT, then we have to recognise that sometimes things don't work. We choose to draw a line, which says, 'At this point, we are no longer working toward the same goals, and we are no longer a good fit for each other.'
I can no longer help this person, but perhaps this will serve as a wakeup call, and perhaps he will finally help himself. At this point, that is my sincerest hope, and I'd love to see him again, someday, when that has come to pass. Hope, in the face of adversity, is why we do what we do. So we don't say goodbye. Instead, we say, 'Until next time,' and we hope that our paths cross again.
