Cessation

You're seeing it when a company maintains a product line that hasn't grown in three years because "we've always had it." No one made a decision to keep it — they simply never made the decision to stop.

You're seeing it when a weekly meeting continues to run even though its original purpose was resolved months ago. The meeting persists because cessation requires an active decision, while continuation is the default.

Build a "stop doing" list alongside your "start doing" list. Every quarter, identify one initiative, process, or product to cease. The resources freed are almost always more valuable than the resources spent sustaining something that's run its course.

Chouinard built Patagonia by knowing when to stop as much as when to start. His most famous cessation: ending Patagonia's profitable piton business in 1972 when he saw the tools were destroying the rock faces climbers loved. He killed a core product line — the company's origin — because it no longer served the mission. Later, Patagonia ran "Don't Buy This Jacket" campaigns, actively asking customers to cease unnecessary consumption. Chouinard understood that cessation isn't retreat; it's alignment. Founders should learn that the willingness to kill what's working but misaligned is the highest form of strategic clarity. Stopping the wrong thing creates space for the right thing.