Bill Canady explains why 80/20 growth programs fail: companies add new initiatives without removing old work, so leaders end up doing everything they did before plus the new agenda. The fix is simple: free capacity before you reallocate it.
This is where most 80/20 programs die and they die quietly. The analysis is right. The deck is good. The new growth initiatives get assigned and nothing gets removed. 6 months later, the leadership team is doing everything they were doing before. Plus, now they have a growth agenda and the CEO cannot understand why a team this strong is moving so slowly. You have to free capacity before you can reallocate it. Let me say that again. You have to free capacity before you reallocate it. All right, free it first, then reallocate it, in that order every time. We like to reallocate, we like to give more and then say, well, we'll figure out how to get rid of the old. Doesn't work.
