Jolted

The new science of why we quit, whether we should, and how to make the right choices for our work and lives, by a leading organizational psychologist Most of us are just one event away from leaving our job. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that the decision to leave secure work is the result of an uneven trade-off between our paychecks and benefits, and the time and effort we put into our jobs. But in reality, quitting is most often triggered by a single event, inside or outside the workplace, that causes us to stop and reflect on our relationship with work. These events are what organizational psychologist Anthony Klotz calls “jolts,” and they are the most underacknowledged realities in our work lives. In Jolted, Klotz breaks down what makes a jolt, and helps us navigate these inevitable disruptions, keeping us from being thrown off track by quitting when we shouldn’t—or spurring us to make the career change that can improve our lives.

Anthony Klotz is a professor of organizational behavior at University College London School of Management. He has written for the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News, and he has been featured on Bloomberg Businessweek, CNN, CNBC, the Today show, in The New York Times, the Financial Times, the BBC, and NPR. A leading researcher on the psychology of work, he has been published in the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, and Personnel Psychology.