Some people finish things. Some people leave things undone.

Once we an employee who was amazing. She stayed with us for several years and then went on to bigger and better things. She was our office manager/administrator.

She had one particular quality that made me think she was amazing. It’s a quality we could all use more of in our own lives.

She wasn’t that smart. She was smart enough. She wasn’t that great with people. She was good enough. She wasn’t a marketing expert, a management expert, a technology expert, or a finance expert. She was just good enough at all of those things.

Where she excelled was her unwavering willingness to finish a task. She would never, ever quit. She would stick with a task until it was completely finished regardless of how hard it was, how ill equipped she was for the task, or how long it took.

The Value of Stick-to-itiveness

A good example was a computer problem we were having. It has been so long that I have no idea what exactly was wrong, but I’m sure it was relatively complicated because it was back in the day when we had desktop machines we would open up ourselves, a wired network, and file servers. Everything was difficult back then.

Something wasn’t working right, and she was responsible for fixing it. She spent an eternity on the issue. I remember seeing her with a screwdriver and pliers. She had the computer disassembled and had some computer cards sitting on the table in front of her. She had no background in repairing computers, but she wouldn’t quit. She had the computer hardware, some tools, the manuals, and her willingness to stick to it until she finished.

She kept taking things out of the computer and putting them back. She’d boot up the machine after replacing the parts and do a test. Then she’d take it apart again. She’d change something and put it back together. Another test, another issue. Round and round she’d go.

After three days (and I think three nights), the computer was fixed. It was back up and running. She never quit. Her objective was to successfully complete the task no matter what happened. She wasn’t finished until she had achieved the objective.

Many would have quit.

• They would have decided that someone else would need to do it.
• They would have decided that it couldn’t be done.
• They would have decided that it wasn’t an objective worth pursuing.
• They would rationalize their decision to quit.

I’ve kept up with our former employee and watched, from a distance, as she has moved through life. Her commitment to finish has served her well. She has achieved every goal she has set. Her life has worked out as well, or better, than she planned. When she bumps into an obstacle, she persists until she overcomes the barrier. She simply won’t quit.