Running Out of Time

Margin leaders may need to buy time for margin initiatives to succeed.

Time in the margin is limited. The lag time between the start of a margin initiative and its maturing into a formally recognized program may be too long for the patience of corporate executives. As time runs out, additional requirements and constraints imposed by the formal organization will inhibit progress and further reduce the likelihood of success - ultimately leading to initiative failure.

Margin leaders must balance the demands of unrecognized strategic activities with the need for formally-recognized performance measures. Corporately-accepted signs of progress may not be strategic to accomplishing margin initiative goals and can actually distract from achieving real progress. However, margin leaders must use these indicators of success to push back the organizational entanglements which hamper success and buy the time needed for margin initiatives to mature.

While these efforts may temporarily delay preemptive initiative closure, managers in the margin must make rapid progress. They must find ways to accelerate development cycles to speed up the realization of results. This will rarely be pretty. Margin leaders might need to move forward with the trial of an effort not yet ready or proven, increasing risks while lowering valuable preparation time. They may need to pursue opportunities under sub-optimal conditions. Alternatively, they may need to pursue the wrong, but accepted opportunities at the cost strategic margin wins.

Top-down pressure exists throughout the life of a margin initiative. It is when those pressures start to consistently increase that margin leaders must consider methods of delaying negative corporate action while accelerating initiative progress. However, this should be taken as a sign that time is running out.

The longer this situation persists the less likely the margin initiative will be successful. The increasingly risky and non-optimized efforts reduce the chances of success while keeping corporate actions at bay consumes valuable resources. Over time, this feeds a downward spiral to disaster. Only three exits are possible:

1. Corporate closure of the initiative,
2. Abandonment of the initiative by the manager, or
   
3. Initiative success through the achievement of corporately-recognized results.

If you cannot achieve exit option #3, consider taking #2 as #1 is inevitable and fast approaching.