Bill Canady explains why leaders create 25-item initiative lists: each item represents a different department, so all eight functional leaders feel included. It feels politically safe, but it destroys prioritization and actually makes the plan less effective.
Long list is safe. I want to be fair to it before I take it apart, because nobody arrives at 25 initiatives by being stupid. They arrive there for 3 reasons, and all 3 of them are reasonable. That's the tough part about it. Reason 1 is inclusion. You have 8 functional leaders, and if the plan has 1 item on it, then 7 of those 8 people are not on the plan. And you're new, and you need them. And you can fill the room when you get to the end of the list. And quality isn't on it. So quality gets one. Well, IT's got to have one. Don't forget HR. They need 2 because HR always gets 2. And now you have a list that has the enormous political advantage of being a list that nobody has to fight about.
