"After 20 years inside some of the world's most iconic companies, the moment I stepped out, what both sides were missing became unmistakably clear. As an executive, pitches never stop. Everyone believes they've cracked your problem - they just need a moment of your time to prove it. Each conversation starts with the same confidence: that they've discovered a capability you were oblivious to, one that will unlock what your own organization somehow failed to see."
"But inside any organization, few people ever say: "Let's cut 20% of my department because we've become 20% more effective." Efficiency is easy to celebrate in principle; much harder to act on when it means reassigning people, reshaping budgets, or renegotiating board expectations. In many organizations, incentives quietly reward footprint growing larger teams, bigger budgets, broader scope. Those signals tend to carry more clout than focus or simplicity."
Two decades of executive experience across Moët Hennessy, Diageo, Maersk, and Google showed that outsiders constantly pitch capabilities as simple fixes while internal leaders juggle commitments, history, habits, and risk. Resistance often reflects careful sequencing, limited financial, human, and cognitive capacity, and competing promises rather than ignorance. Efficiency gains rarely translate into headcount reductions because reassigning people, reshaping budgets, and renegotiating board expectations are politically and operationally difficult. Organizational incentives frequently reward growth in teams and budgets over focus or simplification. The resulting tension means that streamlining choices can conflict with cultural and incentive structures, slowing adoption of apparently obvious solutions.
Read at Fortune
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