The room is hot, not from the weather but from pressure. It is Monday morning, 9:07 am, and the executive committee is reviewing a proposal that everyone agrees is “brilliant.” New revenue line, strong margins, low capital requirement.
The intern who built the model is glowing. The long-serving manager is nodding slowly, protecting his territory. The CEO is impatient, pushing for quick approval. Then the internal auditor asks a question: “Who will kill their current work to make this succeed?”
The idea is sound, the numbers hold, and the board will love it. But nobody owns the sacrifice. The organisation is a crowded bus; everyone is trying to get on, nobody is willing to get off. And so the idea joins the pile; approved, celebrated, and quietly abandoned under operational pressure.
Most leaders believe good ideas fail because of poor execution. That is lazy thinking. Good ideas die because of incentive misalignment and capacity denial. You reward people for maintaining the current machine, then ask them to disrupt it in their spare time. You call it innovation. They call it career risk. “An idea without protected capacity is already dead.”
And another, from my grandfather, said so casually it felt like a joke: “Ekintu ekitali ky’okulya, tikyahurwa ha munwa.” (If something is not meant to be eaten, it is not kept at the mouth.). Your organisation does this daily, holding ideas close, never committing to consume them.
Back in that room, I stopped the discussion and redraw the conversation. I asked each executive to write down their top three commitments for the quarter, with real numbers tied to bonuses. Then I place the new idea on the table and say, “Which one are you dropping; today?” The CFO resists. The Head of Operations hesitates. The intern looks confused. Now we are honest.
We cut two legacy initiatives that were politically protected but economically weak. We reallocate budget. We change one KPI. Suddenly, the idea has oxygen. Not because it got better, but because the organisation made space.
The lesson
“Ideas don’t compete with other ideas. They compete with existing commitments.” “If you don’t remove work, you are not serious about adding value.”
- The intern learns courage; good thinking must demand trade-offs.
- The long-serving employee learns relevance; protecting legacy is not strategy.
- The overbearing executive learns humility; authority cannot manufacture capacity.
I recommend you implement the Kill List Protocol. Use this in your next EXCO or board session.
- List your top five active strategic initiatives with clear owners and KPIs.
- For every new idea, identify two existing initiatives to stop or pause. No substitutes. Real names.
- Reallocate capital and incentives within the same meeting; budget, time, and performance metrics must shift immediately.
- Assign a single accountable owner for the new idea, with authority to say no to legacy work.
- Review after 30 days: what was truly stopped, not just discussed.
This tool forces honesty. It exposes governance gaps, incentive conflicts, and cultural decay in one sitting.
I say this with respect, having failed at it myself early in my career; I loved adding ideas because it made me look smart. It took time to learn that leadership is subtraction.
If you act on this, your organisation will execute fewer things but deliver more. If you ignore it, your pipeline of “great ideas” will keep growing; and so will your frustration.
Good ideas do not die in bad markets. They die in crowded calendars.
Copyright Summit Consulting Ltd 2026. All rights reserved.
