Quit. Why Persistence at all Costs Can Be Deadly.
What do Allstate Insurance, Discover Card, Coldwell Banker, Craftsman tools, Kenmore appliances have in common? They are all successful brands created by Sears, while Sears itself went bankrupt. Allstate alone has a market cap of $34 billion.
According to Annie Duke, The story of Sears is the story of not knowing when to quit. Or more precisely, ignoring all the signs that you should quit something.
While successful for many years, Sears was trapped in the no-man’s land between high-end department stores like Nordstrom and super discounters like Walmart and Kmart.
But the executives kept saying “we need to go back to our retailing roots and give Sears the success it deserves” yet they could have fully pivoted to the more promising ventures.
(This may have been Steve Ballmer’s problem at Microsoft with Windows. As it was his baby, it blinded him and he missed search, cloud and mobile.
There was apparently a “Valentine's Day massacre” one year :) when the leadership heard that Xbox would not run on Windows, a decision made so that the games could utilize more of the processor and appear more life-like)
This book is the anti-Grit (popular book by Angela Duckworth that preaches persistence at all costs).
The author is a former professional poker player (once the top earning female player) and shares lots of examples and stories, as well as a tools for deciding when to hold em, fold em, walk away or run--be it a job, relationship or business venture!
Highly recommend it.
