Individuals and organizations with a positive track record of change and serial innovation of change and not only think and see the world differently. They approach the process of introducing change and innovation differently. They understand that brilliant ideas aren’t always so brilliant once they’re released into the wild. So along with their game plan, they have something most leaders don’t think about. They have an exit strategy. They keep an ejection button close at hand, and they’re not afraid to use it. They know that a viable exit strategy is just as important as (and sometimes more important than) a good implementation strategy.
A GRACEFUL WAY OUT
An exit strategy is simply a planned, graceful way out.
Think of it as keeping your options open. It can include everything from an escape clause to simply making sure that there’s enough wiggle room for some serious midcourse corrections if things don’t go as planned.
For example, consider the way a seasoned developer purchases real estate. Knowing that the pathway from a grand dream to a grand opening is full of potholes, experienced developers will “option” a piece of property rather than buying it outright. They pay a fee to keep it off the market while they confirm that they can get the funding and approvals necessary to complete the project.
To an outsider, these option payments may look like a waste of money. But if things go south, it provides a quick way out. After all, it’s much better to lose some money on option payments than to own a useless piece of property you’ll never be able to build on.
When North Coast Church needed to acquire forty acres in Southern California for a main campus, we paid nearly thirty thousand dollars a month in nonrefundable option payments to keep the property off the market while pursuing full entitlement.
Some folks thought we were nuts, especially since the approval process looked like a slam dunk. The land was already zoned for commercial use, and our project had strong support from the planning department and city council. With everything apparently lined up for success, why not just save the money and close escrow?
Here’s why.
At the eleventh hour, a small group of neighbors filed a NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) lawsuit. No one saw it coming. They had lain low and waited until the last moment they could file suit. With only five minutes left on the clock, they turned in their legal papers.
They were also skilled and tenacious opponents. They delayed the project a couple of years. They forced us to jump through legal hoops that cost money and time. For a while, it was dicey. We weren’t sure whether we’d get our approvals.
We eventually won the right to build our campus. But in the meantime, our leadership team’s credibility (and my sleep) greatly benefited from the fact that we had an exit plan in place should the city or the courts decide against us. While it would have been horrible to lose all the money we’d spent on option payments, it was nothing compared with the cost of owning a multimillion-dollar, forty-acre white elephant. Had we lost, it would have been money well wasted.
Now compare that with the experience of another church I know. When a large parcel next to their campus became available at a fire-sale price, they were convinced that the timing and price was a God thing. They hurriedly put the property under contract, sold the vision of expanded parking and new buildings to the congregation, and bought the land.
Unfortunately, after acquiring it, they learned that the city leaders didn’t share their enthusiasm. Instead of approving their project, the town council laid down a boatload of onerous requirements and costly upgrades as a condition of approval.
Today, that land still stands empty. The church can’t afford the required upgrades to build on it, and they can’t sell it for anywhere near the price they paid for it. Prospective buyers have deeply discounted the value knowing that they’ll have to spend a ton of additional money before they are allowed to build.
But the greatest loss here wasn’t to the church’s bank account. It was the loss of trust and credibility the leadership team suffered. Though the bank account eventually was replenished, the pastor and his board have very little congregational trust to this day.
NEVER MAKE A CHANGE WHEN YOU CAN CONDUCT AN EXPERIMENT
There are several ways to keep your options open. Sometimes you may have to buy an escape clause. But more often than not, all it takes is carefully chosen words, using the right language and terminology to describe your vision. Whenever possible, describe any change or new initiative you propose using the language of experimentation. In other words, never make a change when you can conduct an experiment or a trial run.
Experiments provide you with lots of wiggle room. People expect that experiments and trial runs will need midcourse corrections. No one is shocked if they fail. And when they fail, the cost in lost trust and credibility is essentially zero.
Contrast that with what happens when a new initiative or major change is oversold or overhyped. The harder you push and sell, the more position papers you write and distribute, the less wiggle room you’ll have.
Unfortunately, this is a hard concept for many leaders and organizations to grasp.
For most of us, once we’ve decided to move forward with a major change or initiative, we immediately move into sales mode. We use the language of persuasion. We try to convince the unconvinced, treating naysayers as obstacles to be overcome, and we become obsessed with proving we’re right.
As a result, we tend to see any hint of compromise or retreat as a sign of weakness rather than as a sign of wisdom. And when this happens, we’ve effectively backed ourselves into a corner. There’s no way out.
The language of experimentation provides exactly what unproven and untested ideas need most: plenty of room for midcourse correction — and sometimes, an escape hatch for bailing out altogether.
REDUCING RESISTANCE
I’ve already said this, but it bears repeating: people and organizations have a natural, knee-jerk resistance to anything that is new or different. Leading people through innovation and change is hard enough without galvanizing this natural resistance. But that is exactly what happens when a new idea or program is oversold.
The language of experimentation disarms much of that resistance.
Here’s why.
Most people (even late adopters and Luddites) will interpret the language of experimentation as a request to try something. They will always be far quicker to grant permission to try something than approval to change something.
I’ve found that many people who would fiercely object to anything that smells like change will passively step aside and let me try an experiment or engage in a trial run. Admittedly, they fully expect to see my attempts fail. But I don’t care. All I need is the chance to see if it works.
The language of experimentation turns these potential opponents and saboteurs into bemused bystanders. If I’m right, I end up a hero. If not, I’m just a researcher who tried one more experiment that didn’t work.
However, there is a time when it’s best to move full speed ahead, to abandon your exit strategies and forgo this approach. It’s when you’re out of options and about to go under.
THE HAIL MARY PASS
Sometimes a desperate and dying organization needs to make the leadership equivalent of a Hail Mary pass. A Hail Mary is what happens in the final seconds of a football game when the losing quarterback fades back and heaves the ball down the field in the hope that something good (and lucky) will happen.
It seldom works.
But it sure beats giving up.
If your church, community organization, or company is about to go under, I’d encourage you to heave the ball down the field. Make whatever big and bold changes need to be made. You might as well do it right now, before the clock runs out.
Who knows, it might save the day.
Odds are it won’t. But it might.
But remember this. Outside of a desperate situation in which failure is imminent, a Hail Mary pass is just a wasted play. For most leaders, the clock isn’t running out. We have plenty of time. It’s our patience that’s running out. And a lack of patience is no excuse to neglect crafting our language so that it provides us with the wiggle room we need.
Hail Mary passes seldom work. But long passes, set up within the framework of the game plan, not only work; they often produce touchdowns.
EIGHT EXIT STRATEGY QUESTIONS
To help you and your team carefully think through the key elements of a viable exit strategy, I’ve put together a list of eight questions. You can use these questions to develop an appropriate exit plan before launching any new project, initiative, innovation, or major change in your organization.
But I want to be absolutely clear. I’ve never met a leader, a leadership team, or a governing board that uses exactly these same questions. In fact, I don’t slavishly use them either. If you ask me at a conference or seminar to recite them, I won’t be able to do so without a cheat sheet. But that’s not because the questions are bogus. It’s because they’re the result of reverse engineering.
I’ve taken the thought processes and benchmarks that serial innovators typically use and reframed them into these eight questions. They represent an amalgamation of the most important factors serial innovators use to decide when it’s time to move forward, put on the brakes, hit the gas, or bail out in order to live and try again another day.
You can apply these eight questions to any new endeavor or major organizational change you propose. If you take the time to work through them, you should have a basic, viable exit strategy in hand (just in case your latest great idea doesn’t turn out to be so great).
Here they are.