I remember when my brother and some friends were digging a hole in the back corral.  I think it was eventually supposed to be a well or discover treasure or build a fast track to China. I don’t remember exactly. I do remember that we had fun, learned some hard work and eventually stopped digging and moved on to other things.

Sadly sometimes, businesses or organizations start something or come up with an idea that is exciting and wonderful but doesn’t quite pan out.

Whether it’s lack of vision, tradition or some other missed insight, sometimes leadership fails to push the stop button on projects. While they’re never going to reach China, employees are left digging at something they know doesn’t work.

There comes a time that every person discovers when something is not working. It may be a project, a program, or a great idea that outlived itself. There comes a time when it’s time to stop.

Now I’m not saying to just give up, but if you reevaluate your goals and the project’s desired outcomes and find that it’s not worth it, then change the way it’s being done or shut it down and move on.

This doesn’t mean to just give up on a project but that after careful evaluation, if the goals and direction that you’re wanting to go isn’t being accomplished, you need to change what you’re doing and try to reach the goal in a new way. That may mean that you need to close something down, or stop doing something that has been “always done”.

Don’t be scared to try something new, but do be scared to continue doing something just because everyone is use to doing it. If it’s sapping resources and not providing a return or potential return, try getting a backhoe or fill in that hole and dig somewhere else.