How long should you work for a company or brew a cup of tea? "Not too long" is the right answer

By George ILIEV
CorporateNature Metaphor Series, No 113

This piece of science is shocking: if you keep the tea bag in a cup of hot water longer than 5 minutes, your tea will start getting weaker. "Steep Tea for a Short Time to Get More Caffeine" seems to be the scientific advice to tea drinkers who like their tea strong. If you keep infusing the tea bag, compounds called thearubigins start to seep out and bind to the caffeine, which weakens the tea.

Have you noticed that the same principle applies to employees who stay too long with the same company? When you start a new job, everything is novel, challenging and interesting. After a few years, you start working on "auto pilot": the enthusiasm fizzles out and boredom wades in.

What is the ideal duration then? Five minutes for a cup of tea, five years for a human employee, perhaps?

Tea bag (Source: Wikipedia)