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Perficency on knowing when to walk away

Letting go, knowing when to walk away.

In my experience working with business leaders and sales professionals, every one of them, at some time has gotten stuck holding on to something that was definitely "dead." Either holding on to a deal that’s going nowhere or trying to get an employee to be someone they are not and are never going to be.

We all have our perspective on what is "supposed" to happen and what we think is best. Sometimes other people’s perspective and motives are the same, and sometimes they are different. One of the biggest time wasters for business owners, entrepreneurs and sales professionals is holding onto a potential deal (or employee) too long. Most are afraid to walk away, to let it go. They feel like if they don’t keep pushing that it won’t happen. This may or may not be true. There is of course a time and place for being persistent, focused and working hard to make things happen. That being said, most ambitious, well-meaning people hold on way too long to things that are obviously dead. Sometimes the most humane thing to do is to walk away, to move on. There are people that want to work with you, that are a good fit. Spend your time finding and cultivating those. And when it’s clear things are not working out, move on. I know very few people that do this well.

Why do people hold on too long to things (relationships, deals, employees)? Well, from a new business perspective it’s because they don’t have enough else in their pipeline to work on. Another reason is they are in denial. They think if they keep pushing that this is time well spent that will pay off. They are afraid to move on, afraid of the unknown and what’s next. When searching the phrase "Barking Up a Dead Horse" which is the mixed metaphor title of my upcoming book about the time we spend Barking up wrong trees and Beating dead horses in business and sales in particular, I found this great reminder of our absurdity below.

Riding a Dead Horse

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that, "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount and get a different horse." However, in government, education, corporate America, more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

Buying a stronger whip.
Changing riders.
Appointing a committee to study the horse.
Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses.
Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.
Reclassifying the dead horse as living impaired.
Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.
Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.
Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse’s performance.
Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.
Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead and therefore contributes substantially more to the bottom line of the economy than do some other horse.
* author unknown

As you go throughout your week, ask yourself, one or both of these questions:

In my new business development efforts, what am I holding onto that I need to let go of for now?
In regards to my team, who do I keep trying to get to change to no avail?

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Friday, June 22, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Perficency on knowing when to walk away