Leadership Matters

CHAPTER 12PLAN YOUR EXIT STRATEGY FROM DAY ONE

At what point in our journey do we plan for our exit, whether from work, from the business we have created, the charity we launched, the movement we built over the years or the inescapable exit from life we all face? What does our ‘redundancy’ look like and how much energy do we commit to planning for it?

Starting a charity, building the foundations leading to the provision of services and to growth, is an interesting case, because the ultimate goal of all charities should be to cease to exist. Consider your favourite charity or a cause that is close to your heart and receives your financial and emotional support. Whether its focus is on caring for the homeless, feeding the hungry, supporting cancer survivors or, as in my case, supporting kids without parents who can care for them in either the short- or the long-term, the ultimate success would be for the problem itself to no longer exist.

For a charity that supports women surviving breast cancer, is the measure of their ultimate success that they are able to support twice the number of survivors they did the previous year or that they supported only half the number because advances in research were leading to earlier diagnosis and preventative care? Perhaps the remit of the charity is focused solely on supporting the survivors rather than on cancer research, but wouldn't they cheer any reduction in the need for their services and celebrate the day they closed their doors for ...