Have you ever been involved in a project that seemed doomed to failure almost from the start? Yet it limped along painfully for months or years before someone had the courage to put a bullet in its head.
If the horse is dead, get off it. The faster you get off the wrong horse, the faster you can find the right one.
Innovation requires risk. Taking risks produces both successes and failures. And refusing to accept failure consumes time and resources that could have been invested in the next success.
You don’t have to look back very long to see this in our economy. Consumer electronics. Steel. Textiles. Automobiles. Each of these industries spent more than a decade failing before they began to make serious changes.
Financial and estate planning is no different.
Ever made an investment that just isn’t working out anymore? Maybe it’s not working financially. Maybe your objectives have changed. Or perhaps those past plans that seemed so good at the time are no longer attractive because your feelings about political or social issues have changed. Does your will or a trust contemplate things that just aren’t happening? Or maybe things happened differently than you anticipated when you signed those pieces of paper years ago?
If your plans aren’t working out, get off the dead horse and find another one to ride into the sunset.
And better be prepared to change horses a few more times before you finish that ride. Because, to paraphrase an old proverb, if one thing is certain, it is that life is uncertain.
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From my experience, and that of others, I would offer the following suggestions for avoiding a business “crash”:
1. Develop and listen to 2-3 qualified mentors, individuals with broad business experience, who perhaps have both success and failure in their past. When most of them express concern about the opportunity, it is time to listen and pause.
2. Be honest about trends in your industry. If the industry is in trouble it may be impossible to turn your business into a success.
3. Accurately evaluate your position in the marketplace. You truly must have a strong value proposition, a compelling message, to break into a new industry. Existing momentum can be very difficult to redirect. Me-too doesn’t bring success comparable to those at the top of the industry.
4. Don’t allow an open-ended amount of time to become profitable. Do small tests. If a venture can’t become profitable in the first few months, I am not interested in the opportunity. A business with huge amounts of venture capital could be an exception, but there are plenty of businesses which once had large amounts of initial funding that are now carcasses.
5. The management/owners must realize that they cannot “make any and every business a success.” There are things that just won’t work. It is not a reflection on the management/owners, it is just the way things are at that time. Sometimes, perhaps frequently, the best ideas fail to gain market traction.
John Power Founder/Consultant, Biltmore Franchise Consulting: Development, Consulting, Compliance, Sales from the Official Brigham Young University Alumni Group on LinkedIn
Good comments and I agree with the premise that staying with a failed or failing project is wasteful. My question is how do you know? The reason for asking is simple. I’ve had failures I refused to recognize and wish I had dumped them early on in the sales cycle. I’ve also had great successes that appeared to be going nowhere but I stuck with them. When the winners came through the results were more than worth the extra effort of hanging on. I am interested in hearing more details. Fortunately for me, I don’t have everything tied up in one basket like the restarurant owner.
By KW Norris Owner, Technology Consultants, Inc. at the Brigham Young University Alumni Group at LinkedIn.com
Staying with a dead horse too long is a mistake that many business owners make. I have done this in the past and now see that it is important to recognize early when a venture is unlikely to succeed, and get out.
A friend opened a very specialized ethnic restaurant, against the advice of another friend who is an experienced restauranteur. Before she closed the store she had poured every resource she had into it and was left in a much worse position financially than if she would have limited her losses much earlier.
John Power Founder/Consultant, Biltmore Franchise Consulting: Development, Consulting, Compliance, Sales from the Official Brigham Young University Alumni Group on LinkedIn
I’ve got to admit that I was acquainted with a horse that refused to budge. It took me a while to realize he was really, truly dead– the poor, dear thing! One thing’s for sure: you can get there a whole lot faster walking vs. riding a dead horse!
Zorka Kovacevich Virtual Administrative Assistant & Professional Organizer. Comment made on the Deloitte group on LinkedIn.com. See her blog.
that’s a great article, Walter. i’m getting tired of advisors saying “stay the course” because it’s easy, safe, not complicated, and Wall Street banks on the “buy and hold” strategy, even when circumstances have changed that make their current portfolio irrelevant. keep up the great thoughts!
Posted by Paul Tran, Small Business Owner, Wealth Insurance Advisor, Estate Planning Professional & Client Ambassador on the Estate Planner Legal Group on LinkedIn.com
My Dad, whom I respected and loved, had some attitudes as a tradesman that served him well. Those attitudes were reflected in a couple of “catch words” he used. 1.) “It all pays the same.” and 2.) “It beats not working.” Both reflected a passive attitude toward career tasks and did not show leadership. That was OK for him in his place.
I think it takes courage to look at a program doomed to fail and say “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but this is not going to work.” It takes much care because some may be heavily invested politically in the program, and many may reflect my dad’s attitudes. When we speak of “shooting the horse” some involved may think they ARE the horse.
Comment by Don Schultz, Distribution Sales Manager, Sales Training Pro on the theMeatBall / GE Alumni group at LinkedIn.com
I think anyone who’s had a significant career has experienced this. If one is used to success after success they may be unprepared to recognize and react to failure, in oneself and/or ones manager and/or the organization. They may fail to recognize how to minimize the damage caused to oneself over a period of months or years.
Working at a job that’s not the right fit sucks the life out of a person.
Usually, things do not get better just by working harder. Powering through does not always work. Sometimes we avoid confrontation in the false belief that it will result in a negative outcome.
Once I noted the behavior of an executive after one of his colleges was promoted to CEO. His former CEO friend was gone and he wanted out too. The company reminded him that he had signed nondisclosure / noncompetitive agreement. Later, during a meeting, he purposely embarrassed the new CEO with an outburst directed at him. Shortly after that he was released from the company sans the non-competive agreement…
Posted by David Nicholas, Manfacturing & Systems Project Engineer at Caterpillar on the LDS Professionals Group at LinkedIn.com
This is what Seth Godin’s The Dip is all about (just google that). It’s a super easy and quick read.
Posted by Jason Alba LinkedIn for Job Seekers DVD on the The Official Brigham Young University Alumni Network group at LinkedIn.com
I once inherited a project that was 3 years old that should have been completed in about 1 year. Company leadership did not want to admit to failure. I asked my leadership if I could place the project on hold so that I could assess it to validate the scope and requirements. I was told no, that I just needed to make progress. With the help of a small team who was dedicated to completing the project, we “made progress” while we performed our own assessment and got the project on the right track, eventually completing the project.
My point, however, is that failing projects often continue because an individual or group of people are not willing to admit to failure. It could be that they are afraid it will make them look bad, or worse than they already do; I am not going to delve into the psychological or company cultural/political motivations of this behavior. I just know that it happens – both being unwilling to admit to failure and being unwilling to reassess a situation because doing so could imply that the project may have been going in the wrong direction for a long time, and there could be concerns about becoming a scapegoat. These situations can lead to questions that people do not want others to ask, even though they should be asked.
Posted by Aaron Porter, MBA PMP Experienced BA/PMP/CSM in the LDS Professionals Group on LinkedIn.com
Walter, I respect what you’ve written.
What about those who love the project so dearly that they can’t let it go.
What is your opinion on euthanasia?
How do you think people who believe in patience and persistence would react to such thoughts.
Posted by Rajiv Chelani, Mediator and Restorative Justice Facilitator on the Happy Lawyers group on LinkedIn.com
There’s nothing wrong with hanging on to a lost cause — as long as you realize what you’re doing. And sometimes miracles do happen and a lost cause turns around. Most often, however, there comes a time when most people need to let go. That point is different for everyone. As you suggest, that’s often an emotional hurdle not an analytic one.
As Kenny Rogers sang in The Gambler:
You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
In fact, The gambler is one of my favourites.
Being a mediator, 360 degree view is important to me without bringing in my own prejudices. I keep trying.
Though mostly emotions get packed in the cover of logic; separating the two becomes difficult.
Anyway nice to have interacted with you.
Cheers
Walt, I also worked as an Advanced Planning attorney, for about 5 years with Gary Underwood at Provident in Philly and have been a T&E attorney for over 25 years.
Let me know if you are now in private practice in VA and if not, what are you doing after leaving GenWorth? Regards, Philip