The "closet cleaning" approach—killing one initiative for every new one started—is too rigid and ineffective. It fails to account for the vast differences in resource requirements between projects. Swapping a major program for a minor task ("a wool coat for a pair of socks") does not solve overload.
Senior leaders underestimate how a small number of individual initiatives from different departments converge and multiply at lower levels. This "magnifier effect" creates an unmanageable workload for those responsible for implementation, like store managers, leading to burnout.
Executives often lack visibility into the cumulative negative impact their combined initiatives have on lower-level employees. This "impact blindness" stems from poor feedback loops or personal agendas, preventing them from recognizing employee overload until significant damage occurs, like talent attrition.
Standard prioritization techniques fail because departments optimize for their own goals in silos (e.g., marketing, IT, HR). Without a senior leadership team taking a "balcony view" to assess the cumulative demand on employee time across all initiatives, the organization inevitably becomes overloaded.
Killing projects is difficult because they often become "zombie initiatives." Even after being officially canceled, they persist because individuals with vested interests or strong personal beliefs find hidden resources or pockets of time to keep them alive, undermining the entire prioritization effort.
To truly understand an organization's workload, a top-down inventory is insufficient. Leaders must begin by assessing the reality at the "base layer"—the frontline managers. This bottom-up view provides an accurate picture of cumulative demands and interdependencies that executives are often blind to.