When do you know to stop an endeavor?  History is replete with stories of individuals and nations in politics and war who fought on long after any hope for victory, as they saw it, ended.  Such can happen commercially as well.  We ask for a little more time, seek a little more investment, on a direction that no longer makes sense.

Sometimes, despite the best efforts and strong IP, a present direction no longer makes sense.  When such times happen, a useful exercise is to decouple the IP and knowledge gained executing the approach from the approach itself so that you can surrender the approach, and take the IP and knowledge forward.  Even if you personally cannot take your documented IP forward, you always have the knowledge.  Then find another approach.

We discuss a number of white flag events in our Mieza books.  A key message within those books, however, is to test your approaches in advance so that you do not find yourself raising white flags because of strategic blunders.  While a good strategy cannot guarantee success, a bad strategy can all but guarantee failure.

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