The Strategic Stop: An Overlooked Maneuver That Is Critical to Your Organization’s Success

In September, my husband Scott and I set out for a long-awaited backpacking trip on Mount Rainier.?And let me tell you, gaining the privilege to backpack on Mount Rainier is no small feat.?The territory requires permits, and those are won via a lottery system that opens each year in February.?Even if a backpacker is lucky enough to be drawn in the lottery system, winners are then scheduled for a short reservation window during which they can select campsites and stitch together a route.?If a trekker’s reservation window is later in the “access period,” the campsites left are sparse, and it becomes more and more difficult to create a workable plan.?That said, we did our best, and we trained all summer to prepare for an epic figure-8 adventure over seven days with an itinerary that approached 20,000 feet in cumulative elevation gain.?

Days One and Two of our trek were even more spectacular than we’d imagined.?We saw mountain goats, marmots, wildflowers, pristine mountain springs, dense mossy woods, and unbelievable views of Rainier’s gleaming glaciers against a vivid blue sky.?Despite carrying a quarter of my body weight, I felt light, burden-free, and truly happy.?Our adventure was exactly what we’d hoped it would be.?

Day Three started in the dark at 0400, because we knew it would be our longest and most challenging yet.?The campsites we’d been able to stitch together were very far apart on this leg of our journey, and we would climb 5,200 vertical feet before the day was done.?After dawn broke, and as we climbed to a feature known as the Yellowstone Cliffs, we rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a bear.?He was quite large and stood up to investigate us, but he casually went back to his huckleberry feast and then lumbered alongside our trail for about a quarter mile.?At that point, we reached a stunning viewpoint and, as I snapped a pic of the bear below us grazing next to a stream, I gleefully declared, “I could stay out here forever!”?It was just overwhelmingly beautiful, rugged, and wild.?I didn’t have a care in the world aside from making it to our next camp, and I joyfully embraced not having a single bar of cell service.?

After we descended a steep slope and crossed the Carbon River, things took a turn.?We noticed Rainier’s peak suddenly looked hazy, and there was a very faint scent of smoke in the air.?Before we reached camp, we’d have to climb daunting Ipsut Pass, and we had many miles to go before reaching its rocky, exposed switchbacks.?Still motivated and eager to conquer the challenge, we trekked relentlessly uphill until we reached Ipsut.?At that point, our legs ached and our shoulders were screaming, but there were more pressing things to worry about.?Dense, choking smoke had billowed in.?It was so thick that Rainier was completely obscured, and we couldn’t even see far up the trail.?We climbed slowly, one tired foot in front of the other, until finally reaching the top of the pass.?Our lungs burned, our eyes watered, our throats hurt, and our noses ran.?This was bad.?We weren’t sure where the fire was, and that only added to our alarm.?We just knew we needed to get to camp, still a few miles away, since it was situated at a lake.?When we finally reached camp by headlamp, we threw our things onto the ground, pitched our tent, and climbed in still dressed in the day’s dusty clothes.?We didn’t eat, wash up, work on our usual camp setup, or even speak.?We were desperate for rest.?

The next morning, things looked bleak.?Sickly brown smoke had settled in, and a ranger told us that it was from a wildfire burning nearby in Goat Rocks Wilderness.?Thankful that the fire didn’t pose a threat to us, we were still apprehensive.?If the smoke stayed, we knew trekking another four days would be miserable.?Both of us were fighting terrible headaches and coughing already, and we watched as other hikers packed up and hitched rides out.?You see, this camp was the ONLY camp on our itinerary that was accessible by forest road, so it was our one and only chance to bail.?I didn’t want to leave.?So much effort and planning had gone into this trip!

• We’d taken time off work.
• We’d arranged a pet and house sitter.?(If you knew our dogs, you’d be impressed.)
• We’d gotten drawn in the lottery on our first try, when others can wait for years.
• We’d agonized over charting just the right course.
• We’d spent hundreds on ultralight gear to make the week as easy on our knees as possible.
• We’d pored over maps and books and photos.
• We’d trained and trained to condition our bodies for the challenge.
• We’d counted down months, then weeks, then days, and then hours.
• We’d packed, weighed, unpacked, packed, and re-weighed our backpacks.?More than once.
• We’d really pushed ourselves and had trekked 33 arduous miles already.
• We’d spent money on a comfy AirBnb for the day we were scheduled to complete the trek.
• We’d been so proud to embark on this journey, and we anticipated great pride and satisfaction when we completed it.

Yet we chose to stop. It was time to leave.?A ranger gave us a lift out to the main highway, and our wonderful son drove five hours at a moment’s notice to pick us up and drive back to our parked car (just a few miles, as the crow flies, but nearly two hours away on the road).?Our grand adventure was over.?

How is this in any way applicable to the workplace??

I’m getting there, I promise.

First, know this: I am not a quitter.?Neither are you, no doubt.?Executives are relentless, because we wouldn’t be where we are today without inner drive and determination.?On most days, it’s part of what makes us strong and effective leaders.?But you know what??We suck at stopping.?When we lead a business initiative, we see it through, come hell or high water.?Or come unanticipated problems, budget overages, vendor failures, staffing strain (and exits), organizational fatigue, extended and re-extended rollout dates, unforeseen technology barriers, or new and inefficient manual tasks to “make it work.”?With our sights so rigidly set on completion, we mistake it for success.??

A key concept to grasp is that quitting and “strategically stopping” are two very different things.

Here are three red flags to consider when you’re leading a business initiative and it might be time to strategically stop.

1. Your peak is obscured.?

If you’ve been a leader for a while, you’ve experienced a project or business initiative that sounded great at first but then deteriorated to a point where it was difficult to even recall what the original goal was.?This can happen in numerous ways, but a common and costly one is scope creep.?Can you still visualize what your goal was, or has it become hazy??Ask yourself, “What did we hope to achieve by completing this project??How do we get paid??What, specifically, was our anticipated outcome?”?If you can’t quite recall, or if your goal changed during the course of the project, stop—at least temporarily.?Carefully evaluate the merit of your project today and both the upside and downside of continuing, and consult with stakeholders.?You might be surprised to hear some of their feedback if you request a candid (and safe) conversation.

2. Your route becomes a logistical nightmare.?

I attended a conference recently and heard about a credit union with a new digital banking experience.?While the new experience didn’t differ much from the old one, the project was sold to executive leadership on a promise that it would save one department many hours of work each week.?“Efficiencies galore!”?More than halfway through the project, however, it was discovered that the new experience would open a back door to certain high-risk transactions that could not be filtered out or blocked.?The project bulldozed ahead anyway, and those transactions are now being manually reviewed each day by another department— costing the credit union many hours each week.?See where I’m going with this??If you find yourself creating manual processes to make your project work, stop—at least temporarily.?You’ve changed the equation.?Ask, “Are these manual processes sustainable??How will staffing look as we grow??What happens if this chore isn’t completed each day??What is the potential for human error??What is the potential impact to members?”?Creating inefficiencies to roll out a project is perpetuating a game of whack-a-mole, and it ultimately doesn’t save your organization a penny.

3. You’re throwing good money after bad.?

Most of you have probably experienced a project that became the proverbial money pit— when one thing after another wasn’t working, so your organization’s wallet was opened again and again to remedy the issues.?When we first evaluated leaving Rainier, I kept thinking about the money I’d spent on our non-refundable AirBnb and how much PTO I’d carefully scheduled.?But if we had stayed on the mountain, I would have wasted four days of PTO being miserable rather than using those days for something better in the future.?Projects are often extremely expensive, particularly when there is a large implementation fee and/or technology investment, but forcing a project to work by throwing more money at it can result in a mediocre outcome—or, worse yet, a complete failure—that costs twice as much to your organization.?If you find yourself modifying your budget (again) or biting your nails over skyrocketing costs, stop—at least temporarily.?Carefully evaluate your vendor contract(s).?Consult with your attorney to evaluate the risk of exiting if the vendor has failed to meet promises.?Have an open and honest budget conversation with your CEO and key stakeholders.?Sometimes walking away is the least costly option, and you’ll hopefully do it with some new perspective and valuable experience for the future.

So, what could have happened had we continued our course on Mount Rainier?

• The smoke could have cleared.?
• We could have had four more days of epic sights and experiences.
• We could have had four days of dense, choking smoke and zero views.
• We could have become disoriented without landmarks to keep us on course.
• We could have become ill and required a costly rescue.
• We could have developed heart or lung damage from breathing unhealthy air during heavy exertion, costing us future adventures.
• We could have ended our once-happy journey with four grueling days of regret.

Leaving that mountain was tough.?Tears were shed.?My husband looked at me and said, “We didn’t quit, Rach.?We made a strategic decision to stop.”?This was not a failure to persevere.?We had carefully weighed potential costs and benefits and reached a sound conclusion.?And it was the right move for us.

In your own organizations (and lives), you’re inevitably going to lead initiatives that don’t go according to plan.?I’ll be the first to urge you not to quit in the face of adversity.?Having said that, I urge you now to define triggers that would cause you to evaluate whether or not to strategically stop your plan.?A classic approach to triggering such a pause is recognizing changes to budget, timeline, or scope— the “iron triangle” of project management.?You can and must build upon these within your organization.?Watch for the red flags I mentioned.?There are more.?While a project pause may not evolve into a strategic stop, it’s crucially important to think through these scenarios when authoring a plan.?Have a well-thought-out exit strategy.?Our operating environment is dynamic, and it’s on us as leaders to be responsive, humble, and wise.