Challenge #1 Leadership change is tough. Once a project starts how often is the same senior management team in place when the benefits are evaluated ?

Is the player bigger than the game, if so is the CEO bigger that the company ?

There are 2 issues here

1. Wanting to be the new broom. This may seam like a cop out, but actually i believe often these projects are successful (at least to there original aims) – its just the new management does not want to recognise the successes of the previous management & executives. The new management team should accept the real benefits of what the company has achieved and that the share value has grown, even if it’s not because of them ! It’s actually to their personal advantage to ignore the improvements and imply and suggest that the same results could have been garnered before the project and therefore belittle the previous executives initiatives and highlight their personal impact impact.
2. Not invented by me. The new management team often simply do not value the investment, they never saw the issues before, or lived with the pain. During this transition they have trained a new class of high powered SME(subject matter experts). How familiar a story is that, do the project, let the project team go – All that knowledge leaving your company, that you have just paid for. At this point you are killing your children and the value achieved truly starts to wane and the share holder loses out. Now the benefits of the investment are not being retained they are being discarded.

In summary –  Project success or failure, a new executive team only document failures in the previous management team irrespective of the actual gains. They never had the original vision and so can’t buy in the same way, to the people, or the process and just assume the technology is a constant. This destroys the benefits gained in the company already, shareholder value is reduced as you neglect the asset and it is detrimental to those left behind in the legacy organisations.

I am not sure how to resolve these issues for shareholders, I can only look to Chairman of the board & Non Execs to be stronger and keep the vision between management teams. Don’t let them get away with either of the two scenarios above as they destroy the investment and if you want a successful project you have to see it through management reshuffles – Don’t let the player think he is bigger than the game.

Challenge #2 coming up soon …