When is it Time to Move On?

Managing Change is a one in a series of books from the Harvard Business School Press, that presents interviews with top leaders from various fields. In chapter 12 is one such interview with CEO of GenSpring Family Offices (formerly Asset Management Advisors), Maria E. "Mel" Lagomasino.

Faced with a new merger that would change the culture of the organization, Lagomasino, then chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Private Bank, had to make a tough decision to step down at the top of her game and move on. Here are some of her thoughts on the process:

This is the toughest lesson, I think; after you devote yourself to a company and to a lifelong career, and you’ve been very successful—as I have been lucky enough to be—to be able to say, “We’ve come to the point where you need to step down.” This is the time when you have to know when to fold them.

For me, I think the big lesson here is that no matter how great the title is, how great the company is, how long you’ve been there, or how much you enjoyed the run, there are points in time—particularly cultural points in time—when you need to step back and reassess, and ask, “Is this what I want tot do for the next X number of years, and do I have a cultural fit?” And understand that even though it may have this—the company may have the same name it had before—the culture might not be the same as it was before. It’s time to step down and start anew.

I think at the end of the day, when your values and how you like to work are totally simpatico with the values and the culture of the organization you work in, you have a very high probability of success, because in a sense you’re swimming in your own element. If, in fact you have a disconnect between the two—and again, it’s not about better or worse, or good or bad; it’s just about different—then you really have to step back and ask, “What does this really mean, and do I want to put a stop to it here? Is it the time to fold them and move on and reinvent yourself?” And that’s what I did.