I'm sure many of you would have had the dubious pleasure of experiencing a botched 'new initiative' at your workplace. The new ERP / Performance Appraisal system / Cost Reduction drive …

As a management consultant, I'd seen plenty. Consultants are probably second only to lawyers on the unpopularity stakes, if the number of 'did you hear the one about the consultant…' jokes is anything to go by. We used to laugh those off as one of the things that go with the job. Nevertheless, the unavoidable fact was that there were plenty initiatives which consultants were involved in, on which good money had been spent, which were far from successful in terms of business results.

When I moved on from consulting into a corporate position, I found that corporates can do a great job of launching-new-initiatives-with-desperately-poor-results all by themselves. When an internally launched initiative would fail spectacularly, the matter would be quietly buried, and the think-tanks would work on the next wonder idea.

Now, the unfortunate part is that the core idea that people were trying to implement would often be a really good one, both in consultant facilitated initiatives and in internally driven ones. The fault almost always wasn't in the idea itself, but in the manner in which it was being implemented. The most common reasons why great ideas don't necessarily translate into great results on the ground are as follows:

Inadequate planning

A good idea by itself is not adequate. Sometimes, people who come up with the idea get so enamored by the 'wow' factor that they rush headlong to stick it in, without appropriate review / feedback / critique. For an idea to develop into a workable solution, it needs to be stress-tested and refined based on identification of potential issues.

One company wanted to reduce its travel costs by moving from a setup where every manager picked his own preferred airline to one where everyone would fly one of two designated airlines. Now as an idea, it was not a bad one – the reality was that because the volumes were split, the company lost out on volume based discounts it could avail by pooling its total travel requirement. However, before a policy change was announced, someone should have looked at potential issues impacting implementation – how would people react, did the selected airlines provide adequate network coverage and flight schedule flexibility, would the savings be offset by cancellations and so on. Unfortunately, this was not done, and within a month of the policy change, the company was forced to revert to the earlier system due to issues which cropped up. When this happens, people tend to believe the idea is fundamentally bad – throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Proper planning involves a lot of detailing – the devil lies in the details, always. This includes identifying resources that would be required (personnel, funds etc.), getting appropriate sign-offs from concerned departments and preparing back-up / contingency measures. The sooner a project stops being a 'separate initiative' and ties in with routine financial reporting, the better, at least as far as funding requirements and benefits assessments are concerned.

At one organization, an internal team had completed a diagnostic assessment, identified several new initiatives, prepared detailed plans and were ready to roll. They'd forgotten to get their resource requirements approved by Finance, though. Oops. While they were busy with their planning, the organization had separately approved the next year's corporate budget. Where were those funds going to come from now?

Absence of buy-in / consensus

The most successful initiatives are those where everyone impacted believes they have been part of the process. Ideas shouldn't remain brewing within a closed set of people for too long. If the wider organization believes that an initiative is imposed upon them, their natural resistance to change of any type will be strengthened.

Somewhere between the origin of an idea and its execution, the idea has to be shared – exposed, if you will. Organisations (and individuals) sometimes hesitate to do this – fearing adverse reaction, not wanting to share the credit, or out of plain indifference.

Obtaining buy-in should not be seen merely as a process to be 'tick-marked' or as an unavoidable burden to be carried. The buy-in process can be hugely value adding, because it ties in neatly with the first concern – adequate detailing / planning and anticipation of issues. When you air out the idea, you will get adverse reaction, but that provides you an opportunity to improve / refine the original idea by taking care of the specific concern raised. At the same time, because a wider set of people have been involved, their support for the eventual initiative can be assured.

No ownership

An initiative needs an owner – someone who'll take responsibility for making it happen. Any implementation involves countering barriers to change, keeping people motivated and at times escalating issues / kicking people on their backsides – all of these require effort and attention from an owner who associates personally with the success of the initiative.

When ownership is loosely defined or is shared, chances are that the execution will suffer from lack of direction at some point. It is preferable that ownership is voluntarily taken up, rather than assigned to individuals, though this may not be always possible. If initiatives are assigned, then adequate care must be taken to ensure that the group that planned / thought through the initiatives takes the owner on board and adequately transfers knowledge, including the relevant details. Finally, the owner of a major initiative must be adequately empowered – a lightweight, with all the goodwill in the world, may not be good enough.

I have seen organizations include initiative success on the KRAs of senior 'initiative leads', believing that this is good enough to motivate these owners to take on the project success as a serious goal for their performance year. Initiatives-on-KRAs are surely necessary, but may not be sufficient, though. The problem is that senior leads often have multiple KRAs, and may decide early on to cover what they consider their 'must-do' KRAs at the expense of the lesser ones, reasoning that if they have to slip up, they'd rather slip on a non-critical KRA. So, just as Finance approval is critical to a project ensuring its access to funds, the active involvement of Top Management / HR is critical to ensuring that leads treat their project related KRAs seriously, in addition to their line responsibilities.

Improper staffing

Where is the implementation team staffed from? Typically from line departments / functions who depute operating personnel for the duration of the project initiative, either full-time or on a part-time basis. When the call goes out for nominating personnel, line department heads shy away from deputing good / capable personnel – anyone who's good would usually be handling some serious responsibility and the department reasons that it cannot do without them. Thus, projects are all too often staffed by whoever can be spared (personnel who are often available for a good reason), rather than whoever is best positioned to execute their responsibilities on the project. Likewise, within departments, line personnel often see project postings as career limiting moves, and refrain from volunteering for such assignments.

The best project teams I have seen are at those organizations which have clearly defined career plans in place for their employees. At one such organization, people on the project team saw the assignment as a logical progression, picking up skills and capabilities which they could put to use on subsequent roles. They were clearly informed in advance that their performance on the project would be treated at par with their peers' regular line performance, so they never felt threatened.

Loss of focus

Sometimes a project can fall by the wayside for no reason other than sheer boredom. When an idea is fresh and a project is launched, there is plenty of excitement. People are energized, posters put up, newsletter articles written, initial reviews well attended and so on. Six months into the project, that sense of excitement is reduced, and the initiative has to compete for attention with all the new ideas that have come up subsequently. A CXO at one client once told me that every time his CEO went abroad to attend an event / conference, he would remain in a state of apprehension – invariably his CEO would pick up the latest management fad while chatting with his fellow business class travelers on the flight back home, and insist that they implement it in their organization! For complex initiatives that have lengthy implementation timeframes, building in mechanisms to sustain organizational interest is as essential a part of good planning/detailing as any of the other, more obvious project workstreams.

Change in conditions

Lastly, conditions can and do change between the time an idea was originated and the time it eventually got executed. Changes in the overall economic and specific market climate, changes in organizational priorities, government regulation, senior personnel and so on can all result in a once-good idea being no longer relevant or effective. Execution teams have to periodically re-affirm that the initiative they are implementing in the organization continues to remain current.

Looking at all the factors which can throw a spanner in the works, it's a wonder initiatives succeed at all. A proper appreciation of these 'watchouts' helps you in two ways:

a)You could build in processes and mechanisms to address each of the issues upfront, rather than discover each hurdle as you go along.

b)You tend to be somewhat circumspect about the next wonder idea / initiative you hear. This doesn't mean you become negative or excessively skeptical, it simply means you guard against 'irrational exuberance'. Of course, a potential downside is that you may end up being the naysayer in a room full of excited go-getters!