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…good bosses express empathy and warmth when delivering bad news and implementing change.

Quitting is the tool that allows you to make that different decision when you learn [about] new information. It gives you the ability to react to the way the world has changed, your state of knowledge has changed, or how you have changed.

We’re not omniscient. We don’t have crystal balls or time machines. All we have is our best assessment of an uncertain and changing landscape and the hope that we have honed our quitting skills enough to walk away when conditions turn against us.

We are much more bothered by the downside potential of changing course than we are by the downside potential of staying on the path we’re already on.

…once you step back and think about it, you realize that deciding not to change is itself a decision. At any moment, when you’re pursuing a goal, you are choosing to either stay on the path you’re on or change course. Sticking with the path is as much of a decision as choosing to quit.

To achieve the things we want to achieve, we have to be responsive to the way the world is changing around us and the way that we ourselves are changing.

All businesses operate by some set of unstated rules and sometimes these rules change – often in very significant ways.

Middle managers – especially those who deal with the outside world, like people in sales – are often the first to realize that what worked before doesn’t quite work anymore; that the rules are changing.

…we need to expose ourselves to the winds of change. We need to expose ourselves to our customers, both the ones who are staying with us as well as those that we may lose by sticking to the past.

Timing is everything. If you undertake these changes while your company is still healthy, while your ongoing business forms a protective bubble in which you can experiment with the new ways of doing business, you can save much more of your company’s strength, your employees and your strategic position.