Jason is a principal officer in a city office of a large consulting firm. The regional vice president recently met with him to offer a position as a district manager. For two hours or so the regional guy talked about the district, its strengths, its few weaknesses, and offered Jason the job. It was an offer that carried some prestige, and for a short time, Jason considered accepting it. But in the end, he turned it down.

Why? When I discussed it with him, I learned there were three reasons why he declined.

First, there was the challenge of finding a successor. The office Jason managed ran like a well-oiled machine, and all the numbers were up over the previous year. Jason was concerned that there would be too much disruption to simply move on unless a suitable successor could be found. There was some flexibility as to when he would need to move up, and had that been the only issue or even the major issue, he would probably have accepted the offer. But there were two more challenges.

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