The courage not to continue: when persistence stops being a virtue and becomes a hostage of pride

At the first meeting, nobody mentioned the word closure.

The project had started with enthusiasm. The calculations had been done, the investment approved, the people chosen and a plan built that looked reasonable.

A new shop. A new market. A chance to expand the business.

The opening had brought the kind of optimism that goes with every beginning. There were expectations, targets and the belief that the effort would be rewarded.

But the results did not come as predicted.

The first months were explained by the usual difficulties of a start. Later the prices were reviewed, the way of promotion was changed and the working hours were adjusted.

At the next meeting, more time was asked for.

At the one after, more investment.

Then another effort.

People went on working. Managers went on reporting. The board went on believing the situation could be turned around.

Until the day someone asked a simple question:

“What if we close it?”

Silence fell in the room.

Not because nobody had thought of it.

But because, for the first time, someone had dared to say it.

The manager who had backed the investment leaned back in his chair.

“We've spent too much to pull out now.”

And within that sentence lay the whole problem.

Because the money already spent would not come back just because the project went on.

But pride, reputation and the need to prove that the original decision had been right had begun to take part in the decision-making.

Without appearing anywhere in the report.

A person has a strange relationship with the things he has built.

The more time they cost him, the harder it becomes to see them impartially.

A project that was at first simply an idea takes on another meaning over time.

It becomes proof of our judgement.

Of our ability to foresee.

Of our courage to take risk.

Sometimes it even becomes part of our professional identity.

We have spoken about it in front of colleagues. We have persuaded people to invest. We have defended the decision at meetings. We have made promises about the results we expected to reach.

Then, when reality begins to contradict the expectations, we no longer face only an economic problem.

We face the possibility that we were wrong.

And that is much harder to accept than a table of negative results.

Because a project may lose money.

But the person who backed it may feel he is losing a part of himself.

At that moment, analysis begins to become dangerous.

Not necessarily because the data is missing.

But because we may no longer be willing to read it without trying to defend a conclusion decided earlier.

In management, one of the costliest mistakes is the belief that the earlier investment obliges us to continue.

We have spent a lot.

We have worked long.

We have sacrificed.

We cannot give up now.

This way of thinking has great emotional force. Nobody wants to see his own effort end without the result it set out for.

But economics does not know our pride.

Part of the past costs cannot be recovered, whether we continue or stop.

They are part of the history of the decision.

Not necessarily a reason to take the same decision again.

The question to ask is different.

If we had in front of us today all the information we have learned along the way, would we decide to invest in this project again?

Not if we wanted yesterday's investment to have been a success.

Not if we would be sorry to close it.

But whether, looking at what we know now, future resources would have a reasonable use in it.

This question can change everything.

Because it shifts attention from what we can no longer change to what we are still responsible for.

The future.

Yet we must be careful.

Not every weak result is a reason to stop.

And not every project that has not yet reached its targets is a failed project.

There are investments that take time.

There are markets that develop slowly.

There are products that need a few changes before they find the right customer.

There are strategies that may look unsuccessful in the first period but rest on a sound long-term reasoning.

A manager who closes every initiative as soon as difficulty appears is not necessarily realistic.

He may simply be impatient.

Persistence has value.

Indeed, some of the most important achievements require precisely the ability to continue when results are not yet visible.

But persistence must rest on a reason.

What have we learned?

What has changed?

What is the problem we can still solve?

What proof would show us we are going in the right direction?

And how many resources are we ready to invest to get that proof?

If there is a clear answer, continuing may be a reasonable decision.

If the answer is constantly “we need a little more time”, without defining what must change during that time, then we do not necessarily have a strategy any more.

We have a hope.

And hope, however important to a person, cannot replace the responsibility of decision-making.

There is a difference between patience and postponing the truth.

Patience accepts that results take time, but goes on weighing the evidence.

Postponing the truth uses time to avoid taking an unpleasant decision.

From outside, the two may look the same.

The organisation goes on investing.

The managers go on believing.

People go on working.

But in the first case, every period brings information that helps decision-making.

In the second, every period brings a new justification for postponing the decision.

And a project can survive for a very long time not because it still has a credible chance of success, but because nobody wants to be the person who admits that chance has shrunk.

This is one of the quietest forms of mismanagement.

There is not necessarily deception.

There is not always bad intent.

There are people who have become so attached to their decision that they can no longer tell commitment to the project from commitment to their personal reputation.

And the organisation goes on paying for this lack of clarity.

When a project does not work, managers often ask for more effort from the people working on it.

More sales.

More activity.

More discipline.

More control.

Sometimes this is necessary.

A project with real potential may fail because of poor execution. In such cases, improving operations may change the result.

But there is also the other possibility.

That the problem is not a lack of effort.

It may be the wrong location.

A market that does not have the expected demand.

A product that does not answer the customer's need.

A cost structure that cannot be supported by the possible income.

Or a business model that works in theory but fails to work in the concrete conditions where it has been placed.

In these cases, to keep asking for more commitment from employees can become a way of avoiding a review of the strategic decision.

People may work better.

They may become more efficient.

They may improve the service.

But they cannot create, by their will alone, a market that does not exist.

And it is not fair for responsibility for a wrong strategic assumption to be turned again and again into an accusation against those who try to carry it out.

A manager must know how to tell a failure of execution from a failure of the idea itself.

Because the answer to the first may be better work.

While the answer to the second may be a change of direction.

There is another cost that is often left out of the discussion.

The lost opportunity.

A company does not have unlimited resources.

Money, time and the attention of managers can be used only in a limited number of efforts.

When a project goes on taking resources without a credible reasoning, those resources are not available for other alternatives.

Another department may need investment.

A working process may have a chance to expand.

A more promising idea may stay waiting because the budget is tied to a project nobody wants to close.

And this is the least visible part of the decision to continue.

We do not pay only for what we keep alive.

We may also lose what we have no chance to build.

A manager who is emotionally tied to a project risks seeing only two alternatives: its success or its loss.

But the organisation has a wider question.

Where can our resources create more value from this moment on?

The answer may be to continue.

It may be to change the model.

It may be to reduce the investment.

Or it may be to stop.

None of them should be excluded just because it makes the history of earlier decisions uncomfortable.

There is a reason why decisions to close are especially hard for managers who started the project themselves.

Because it is not simply an investment.

It is also a public promise.

They have spoken about the opportunity.

They have persuaded colleagues.

They have won approval.

Perhaps they were the very people who asked others for courage.

And now they must stand in front of those same people to say that the road they backed is not giving the expected results.

This may feel like a loss of authority.

But we must ask what kind of authority we want to protect.

The kind that rests on the belief that the manager never errs?

Or the kind that rests on his ability to correct course when the facts change?

Because an organisation has no need of a manager who is always right.

It needs a manager who does not sacrifice its future to defend the idea that he was right yesterday.

And that takes a form of courage far rarer than the enthusiasm of the start.

To stand in front of people and say:

“I believed in this project. We had reasons to try it. But the results and the information we have today no longer support continuing in this form.”

This is not necessarily an admission of incompetence.

It may be proof that the person is able to learn.

But only if the sentence rests on an honest analysis and not on the wish to find an elegant way of leaving responsibility behind.

Yet there is something that makes the decision to stop far heavier than it looks from a distance.

People.

On a strategic table, the closing of a unit may appear as the rationalisation of a network.

In a financial presentation, as portfolio optimisation.

In the language of management, as a reallocation of resources.

But for the employees who work there, it may mean something quite different.

It may mean uncertainty about income.

A change of workplace.

The need to look for another job.

Or the end of a professional relationship in which they have invested years of their lives.

This is why an economically reasonable decision does not automatically become a well-managed decision.

How it is carried out matters.

Employees must not be given promises that managers know may not be kept.

They must not be left in needless uncertainty just to avoid a hard conversation.

They must not be treated as if the closing of the unit were automatically proof that they did not work well.

If there are real possibilities for transfer, training or support, they must be examined seriously.

Legal and contractual obligations must be respected.

Communication must be clear and dignified.

And managers must accept that a decision that may be right for the sustainability of the organisation can cause real pain for the people affected by it.

Both these truths can exist at the same time.

A serious manager must not use the second to avoid the first.

Nor the first to deny the second.

It is not necessary for every unsuccessful project to end in closure.

Sometimes the idea is good but the way of carrying it out is wrong.

A shop may not work in one location but have potential in another.

A product may not have found the right customer.

A technology project may have begun with an overly complicated architecture, while the real need could be met with a far simpler system.

A process may have been built on assumptions that can now be corrected.

In these cases, stopping the current form is not necessarily abandoning the purpose.

It may be the best way of protecting it.

But changing direction also needs proof.

It is not enough to call a failed project a “transformation” and go on funding it without really changing it.

A new strategy must have a new reasoning.

It must show what has been learned from the earlier attempt.

Which assumptions have been changed.

What is expected to work differently.

And at what moment we will review the decision again.

Otherwise, the change may be only a new name for the same stubbornness.

A manager who wants not to become the hostage of his own decisions must set some limits on the project before getting too attached to it.

What result do we expect?

Within what period is it reasonable to expect it?

Which signs will tell us the initial assumptions are not working?

How many resources can we invest to test a change?

And what would convince us that continuing is no longer the best alternative?

These questions must be asked even when the project excites us.

Indeed, especially then.

Because at the start it is easier to judge an idea from some distance.

Later, when names, budgets, relationships and reputation have been placed on it, every discussion becomes more complicated.

A limit set in advance does not remove the need for judgement.

Circumstances may change. New information may justify more time or a different investment.

But that limit obliges us to give reasons.

And reason is a better defence than pride.

I find particularly dangerous the culture that treats every stop as a personal failure.

In such an environment, people learn not to admit negative results.

Projects change names.

Deadlines are pushed back.

Targets are rewritten.

Results are compared with new expectations.

And every year the organisation manages to find a way of explaining why success is still a little further off.

Perhaps nobody lies openly.

But every interpretation tries to keep the same conclusion alive.

We must continue.

In a healthy organisation, the ending of a project must be a legitimate strategic option.

Not a moral stain.

If people know they can recommend stopping without being automatically treated as incompetent or disloyal, they have more reason to report the truth.

If managers know their reputation does not depend on defending every earlier decision, they may be readier to correct course.

And if the organisation learns from the efforts that did not pay off, the investment is not necessarily worthless.

The money spent does not come back.

But the knowledge gained can help future money to be used better.

This has value only if the lesson is real.

Not when a closed project is declared, in fine words, an extraordinary success, just to avoid the embarrassment of admitting that the results were not reached.

At this point, I want to make a distinction that for me is essential.

Not continuing does not always mean giving up.

It can mean refusing to spend more time on a road that no longer leads to the goal.

It can mean protecting the resources that remain.

Creating the chance for another attempt.

Not asking for new sacrifices from people when you no longer have an honest reasoning for what you ask of them.

And sometimes it can mean accepting a limited loss today to avoid a bigger loss tomorrow.

But this choice takes character.

Because it does not always bring applause.

It is easier to present the opening of a new unit than its closing.

Easier to announce the start of a project than to explain why it should not go on.

Easier to talk about potential than about limits.

The opening has photographs, optimism and promises.

The closing has questions, consequences and people waiting for explanations.

But leadership cannot be a profession that asks only for the courage to begin.

It must include the ability to finish.

There is something I respect in the person who perseveres.

The ability not to give up at the first difficulty.

To defend an idea in front of scepticism.

To work when results do not come at once.

Not to change direction every time an obstacle appears.

These are valuable qualities.

Without them, many important things would never be built.

But persistence is not the same as refusing to learn.

And self-belief must not become the belief that reality is obliged to prove us right.

A manager must be strong enough to stay when there is reason to stay.

And free enough from pride to leave when those reasons no longer exist.

Because consistency of character is not measured by the number of decisions we have not changed.

It is also measured by the ability to change a decision without losing the principles on which leadership must rest.

Let us return to that meeting.

The shop had not delivered the expected results.

Changes had been tried.

Money had been spent.

Efforts had been made.

And now, in front of the managers, stood the question nobody wanted to take on.

Should we continue?

The answer could not be taken from one month of weak sales alone.

The potential of the market, the cost structure, the alternatives, the obligations of closure and the consequences for people had to be examined.

Perhaps after the analysis it would turn out that another investment made sense.

Perhaps a change of model would create a real opportunity.

But it might also turn out that continuing no longer had a credible reasoning.

At that moment, the manager would have to accept something hard.

The original decision might have been reasonable with the information they had then.

Or it might have been wrong.

But neither of these could by itself determine the decision that had to be taken today.

The future had no obligation to defend the past.

And employees, investors and customers should not have to pay indefinitely for someone's need to prove he had been right.

At the end of a career, a manager may remember with pride many things he has built.

A team.

A company.

A project.

A change that once seemed impossible.

And this pride is deserved when it rests on work and responsibility.

But I believe there is also a category of decisions that deserve just as much respect.

Those that produced no photograph of success.

The decision not to open another unit.

The decision not to go on with an investment that no longer had justification.

The decision to change direction before the cost became heavier.

The decision to admit that an idea, however dear, was not the right solution.

These decisions are not always fine to tell.

But they may be among the most responsible a manager has taken.

Because sometimes what we did not build, what we did not continue and what we decided to stop may have protected more value than another project we would have added to the list of achievements.

I do not believe courage is only the ability to set out towards something we do not know will work.

It is also courage to go back to a decision you have defended for years and examine it again, without asking the truth to do you any favours.

To accept that time has brought new information.

That circumstances have changed.

That experience may have taught you something you did not know when you began.

And that you do not owe the past the continuation of a decision just because you invested a lot in taking it.

You owe the future an honest judgement.

This does not make stopping easier.

It does not remove the consequences.

It does not bring back the money.

It does not take away the uncertainty of the people who may be affected.

But it puts responsibility where it belongs.

In the decision we can take today.

Not in the decision we wish we had taken yesterday.

And perhaps the hardest test of professional maturity is to understand that you do not need to declare everything you have started a success to be a capable manager.

It is enough not to betray the facts to protect your pride.

It is enough not to demand new sacrifices just to justify the earlier ones.

It is enough to know when an effort deserves more time and when time is no longer the solution but part of the problem.

Because there are two ways of betraying an idea.

To abandon it before giving it the chance to be tested.

Or to keep it alive long after you have understood it does not work.

The first may come from a lack of courage.

The second, from an inability to accept that courage is not always enough.

A manager must not be loyal to every decision he has taken. He must be loyal to the responsibility of taking the best decision he can, with the truth he has in front of him today.

And when that truth tells him he must stop, then stopping is not necessarily a loss.

It may be the most mature act of the whole effort.

Because sometimes the greatest failure is not closing a project that did not work.

It is sacrificing everything that could still work, just to avoid admitting that a project should have been closed.