One co-founder recounted how a single, well-timed question helped her retain a valuable employee who suddenly decided to quit. Writing on LinkedIn, Preeti Malik, co-founder of Digital Creativs, said she was taken aback when she received the resignation. “He was a good employee. Reliable, bright, great culture fit,” Malik noted, explaining that the employee walked into a scheduled one-on-one meeting with the intention of quitting while she planned to discuss concerns about his performance.
But before she could raise those issues, the employee asked to speak first. “I won’t be able to go on,” he said. Malik then decided to put aside his agenda and approach the situation differently.
“He didn’t leave for more money”
Instead of focusing on the performance, she asked a question that changed the course of the interview. “If you could design your ideal role, what would it look like?” she asked. The answer, she said, clarified the underlying problem. “He wasn’t leaving for more money. He was leaving because there was a role mismatch.”
Malik explained that the employee initially liked the automation-oriented duties he was hired to do. However, over time, repetitive tasks were added that required constant context switching and reduced his engagement.
“It turned out the automation work he came in for, things I never had a single problem with…he loved it. The tedious work we layered on top? He hated it. Because it made him switch contexts every two seconds and distract him from the work he enjoyed,” she wrote.
With that in mind, Malik said she returned the next day with a modified role that better suited the employee’s strengths and interests. After taking a moment to think it over, he accepted the offer. “I’ll take you in,” he told her the next morning.
Reflecting on the episode, Malik said that the company could have lost a key team member if they had only viewed the resignation as a performance issue. She highlighted what was at stake, including “a cultural fit that’s really hard to replace, months of business context sitting in his head and someone who’s really good in an important role.”
This experience changed her perspective on retention. “Keeping your team is not about perks or pay inequities,” she wrote. “It’s about whether your team feels like they’re doing work that matters and helps them grow.”
She concluded by emphasizing how crucial the moment was. “I almost missed it. One question changed everything,” she wrote.
