I am going to put together several phrases that marked me when I heard them for the first time. One of them is from one of the main Spanish businessmen. An entrepreneur who started alone in a workshop working with iron and who today employs more than three thousand people. He told me on one occasion: “Nothing lasts forever, Fernando, nothing. And it is essential to keep it in mind in business management.”
The second phrase was told to me by a good friend following a romantic breakup: “Our education has not included teaching us to say goodbye, to say goodbye.”
The third sentence is from a former professional cyclist with whom I have had the opportunity to agree: “Fernando, you have to know how to read the stage endings. And I'm not referring to those in a cycling competition. I am referring to the final stages of professional stages.”
The three phrases are different, but all three are related. They tell us about the importance of knowing how to close vital, business or professional stages in order to be able to open others. Let's notice that none of the three were referring to ending forever. The first industrialist was referring to the fact that it is absurd to extend a certain product, or a service, or an alliance or the relationship with a client beyond what is logical and natural. He said that nothing is eternal, and that accepting an end is inherent and consistent with the nature of things. My good friend did not intend to try another relationship with another person. What she was telling me was that she had prolonged the previous one too much because she had not been polite in saying goodbye. But saying goodbye does not mean not welcoming something new. And finally, the retired athlete was referring precisely to the end of the stage, implying that, after another stage, another comes. But if one does not know how to read the end of the one he is running, he will choke or he will not face the next one free of constraints.
In management, both in one's own professional career (how curious that we use a term from sport!) and in the evolution of a business, it is essential to know how to close and open stages, close and open initiatives, close and open alliances, close and open opportunities .
I have always admired the British for their quickness and courage in accepting and assimilating mistakes and losses in business. They do not persist and anchor themselves in the business error, when it has become evident. They close the folder and move on to something else, butterfly. The greatest exponent is the British Richard Branson: he has closed more than two hundred businesses and created more than five hundred. Currently he has about 360 live businesses. If he had wanted to keep them all alive, he probably would not have survived.
