Exit Strategies

Scene Two: When you want to go -- but your company wants you to stay

Protagonist: Dawn White, 41, formerly a senior engineer at Ford Motor Co.; now an entrepreneur-in-residence at North Coast Technology Investors LP.

What are the right reasons to leave a job? When is the right time? And is there any way that a less-than-ideal job situation can help you chart a better career path?

Those questions plagued Dawn White for more than 18 months while she was at Ford. By all counts, White, a materials engineer, had a great job. She worked in Ford's research lab, where she could freely explore and suggest new ideas for improving production. Yet her projects, which included finding ways to reduce the cost and length of time to produce auto-body tools, moved slowly. Her research was underfunded. And her proposals generated little feedback from Ford's senior people. From White's viewpoint, Ford didn't move fast enough.

"I had to admit to myself that I fundamentally wasn't suited to the organization. Ford is large and sluggish, and I wanted to work with a company that was small and nimble. I wanted to make an impact."

White knew it was time to move on. She also knew that in a world where projects are king, her project results would be her legacy at Ford. Having invested untold hours in her work, she didn't want her research to die after she left. So, over a six-month period, she set clearly articulated milestones and tracked her team's progress, building a platform from which she could leave "with honor." She also identified potential successors, essentially preparing her team for her departure -- without them knowing it.

But her farewell didn't play out the way that she had planned. Her boss was spending most of his time in Germany, so she booked a meeting with him during one of his U.S. visits. But, at the last minute, unaware of White's agenda, he canceled. Worse, he rescheduled the meeting as a videoconference from his office in Germany.

So, on a Monday morning, White found herself staring at the instrument of her departure: a PictureTel video camera. Her boss kicked off the conversation by asking about her project. She quickly stopped him and announced, " 'We need to talk about something else: I quit.' Four anxiety-inducing seconds later, he popped forward in his chair and said, 'Oh!' It was horrible -- like talking through a tank of molasses."

Although that meeting was pretty unpleasant, other Ford managers tried to woo her with counteroffers. "They'd say, 'Let's find the kind of job that would make you stay,' which was tough to turn down." But the job at North Coast Technology Investors presented White with a unique opportunity: the chance to work at a boutique venture-capital firm, developing her own ideas and helping its partners identify investment opportunities in the materials sciences and in manufacturing technology.

"It would have been easy to stay at Ford," White concludes. "But I'd already turned down other chances to work at small, fast-moving companies. I couldn't let another opportunity slip by."

Coordinates: Dawn White, dawn@northcoastvc.com

Scene Three: When you're leaving to work for yourself

Protagonist: Nayan Patel, 28, formerly a producer at Yahoo!; now co-founder, OneCenterPlaza (www.onecenterplaza.com).

What job is worth turning down $10 million for? For Nayan Patel, it was the chance to work for himself. Patel, a producer at Yahoo!, stood to gain $10 million in stock options if he stayed put until May 2000, when his options would be fully vested. But the adrenaline to start his own business was pumping through his veins too swiftly. "Once the switch to do my own thing flipped on, I had to leave," he says. "I just couldn't wait around for the money to kick in."

Let's not kid ourselves: Money is a big deal. To some, it's the biggest deal of all. But Patel had already made good money from stock options that had previously vested. And in these times, when investors are frantically chasing after the Next Big Thing, Patel knew that his startup wouldn't leave him starving. So he asked himself, How much is enough? He decided that an additional $10 million shouldn't keep him from taking his great leap forward.

Patel's family, however, thought he was nuts. He had already rocked the boat in 1996, when he left IBM for Yahoo! His father and uncle were lifers at Big Blue, which had funded Patel's college education. Just when his family had finally begun to see the merits of his working at Yahoo!, whose market value was nearly half that of IBM, Patel had decided to shift gears yet again.