Exit Strategies

"I quit!" Admit it: Those two simple words are on your mind and maybe even the tip of your tongue at least some of the time. And apparently you're not alone. According to a recent poll conducted by CareerPath.com, 40% of the 1,400 workers surveyed said that they planned to change jobs within a year. In these days of megamergers and startup mania, we'd be less than honest if we said that we rarely think about taking off.

Trouble is, although we spend a lot of time planning our next move, we rarely think about an exit strategy for the job that we'll be leaving. Yet the way we leave speaks volumes about the way we value our work, our colleagues, and our reputations.

"Your last impression is almost as important as your first," says Mark Oldman, 31, cofounder of Vault.com Inc., an online career-information site. "It's important to leave behind an impeccable record, because it's a small world and you never know whether you'll work with -- or for -- some of the same people again."

Mary Lawton's first exit wasn't her best. Lawton was just 26 years old when she quit as plant manager at AMP Inc., an electrical-devices manufacturer based in Greensboro, North Carolina. She'd planned to take two weeks to wrap up her work and say goodbye to her coworkers. But her boss told her to leave on the very day that she gave notice.

Lawton was shocked. She didn't even have time to clean out her desk. "It looked as if I'd quit abruptly, and that's not who I am," says Lawton, now 40 and a vice president of a division of Sara Lee Corp. Looking back at the way she left AMP, she says she should have anticipated the company's reaction, given that the plant made a proprietary product.

Lawton's story shows that there's no one right way to go. Each of us must deal with different cultures, different job constraints, different bosses. The key is to plan a strategy that's right for you. You can, however, learn from others. That's why we found five talented people who left their jobs under various circumstances and who were willing to pass on their experiences. Remember: Even when you're leaving on a high, you still need to exit gracefully.

Scene One: When you're leaving and you don't have another job lined up

Protagonist: Maxine Clark, 51, formerly president of retail chain Payless ShoeSource Inc.; now chief executive bear of Build-A-Bear Workshops LLC.

Maxine Clark is a rarity. In an age when spending two years at the same job makes you a veteran, she spent nearly 25 years at the same company, May Department Stores Co. Although the upper echelons of retailing are typically male dominated, she held an enviable spot as president of Payless ShoeSource, which was at the time a $2.3 billion chain of 4,500 stores and a division of May. By 1995, however, Clark felt "financially full but psychologically unfulfilled."

Shoe retailing was a mature business. Squeezing growth from such a saturated market meant that Clark dealt more with numbers than with people. She hungered to work directly with the people she cared about -- the frontline workers and the customers whose business supported the stores. "My ability to connect with people wasn't being tapped," she says. "I wanted a place where I could run the show but also be in the stores, making retailing fun again."

Clark knew it was time to go, and she took a radical step: In the fall of 1995, she shared her intentions with her superiors -- even though she didn't have another job lined up.

But the executives at May were her friends and mentors, not just her bosses. "They'd known me since I was a kid out of college," she says. "I had to be honest with them." By January 1996, the company had found a replacement for her, enabling a smooth transition. Their only request: Don't go to a competitor.

That wasn't an issue, because Clark had outgrown the shoe business. The time had come to build her own company. So, with no specific plan in hand, she left a high-six-figure salary and a big chunk of prestige. But she protected herself by harnessing her network of contacts. She also continued to serve on several corporate boards, and she stayed in the retail loop by speaking at industry conferences and being interviewed regularly for trade magazines.

Additionally, she made sure that she was financially secure. Her mortgage was paid off. She wasn't in debt. She didn't have children. In fact, her financial independence was her "no-excuses motivation" to strike out on her own. Now she runs Build-A-Bear Workshops, a retail chain that allows kids to buy and make teddy bears in stores and online.

Clark earns just a fraction of her former salary. But she has never regretted her risky departure. "The job didn't feel right, and I had to move on," she says. "I couldn't let myself feel trapped, just because I didn't have another job lined up."

Coordinates: Maxine Clark, maxine@buildabear.com