What do you do when you know an initiative is doomed?
Our reader poll today asks: When you know an initiative is doomed regardless of what you do, how does your organization respond?
– We immediately cut our losses, learn from it, and move on: 38%
– We keep trying to make it work through heroic efforts: 24%
– We stop working on it and let it wither without explicitly killing it: 19%
– We make some effort to make it work but eventually declare defeat: 19%
Losses are painful to take. I applaud the 38% of you who see the lost cause and act decisively. Throwing good money (and time and effort) after bad only compounds the problem. Try to look at the problem objectively and realize it is a sunk cost. Ask yourself: “Knowing what I know today, is it a good investment to put another dollar or hour into this project?” If the answer is no, step up as a leader and stop the bleeding. Go invest your resources in other more promising ventures. Your organization will be better off when you do.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC
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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.
I agree with letting go and accepting your losses! When you start an initiative, it’s important to watch the numbers and project forecasts closely and to make sure you’ve budgeted the project for the time you expect to get it off the ground. As soon as you see the numbers start to veer off course with the projected costs, it’s time to re-evaluate the project and make a determination whether to proceed ahead or kill it in its tracks. We just made that decision this past week on an initiative that would have allowed us to grow and expand our business but the timing was not good. The costs versus projected time to completion became so misaligned that it was necessary to terminate the project. We took a huge loss but had we attempted to try and re-align the project it might have put us out of business altogether. It was best for us to take a big step backwards, put off expansion and growth and focus our energy on keeping the business on level ground. Disappointing as it was and costly as it was, sometimes it’s just not the right time for certain initiatives and best to just hold a steady course until new opportunities dictate otherwise.