Sometimes the hardest things for businesses to do is consider harvesting or divesting assets that no longer have a useful life. Usually managers are faced with choices, none of them favorable…
1. Continue to throw good money after bad, understanding market share will continue to erode; aka kicking the can down the road
2. Try to reinvent yourself… rebrand, vertically integrate, reduce head count… these typically always fail as you just can’t keep pace with existing or emerging competitors
3. Acquire new assets to grow yourself out of the issue… brings in new talent or sales, but the culture that got you into the mess will probably kill the new organization
4. The hardest one to do…. STOP. That’s right; understand your place in the world; understand you made poor decisions in the past, and decide to move on and that precious resources are best used elsewhere and can perhaps lead to new innovations
Of course, these problems are not just exclusive to business. Universities, and their athletic departments face them too. I give credit to UConn for making a bold decision. It takes a lot of courage. I’m sure Temple leadership is wrangling with these now too; question is…Which path do we choose? If we ask ourselves the painful questions, are options 1-3 really ever achievable? I’m starting to think option 4 is most viable. So explain to me why I’m wrong.