Seth Godin:  New organizations and new projects are so crisp. Things happen with alacrity. Decisions get made. Stuff gets done. Then, over time, things get soggy. They slow down. Decisions aren’t so black and white any more. Why?

Here are some things that happen:

1. Every initiative, post
launch, still has a tail of activity associated with it. Launch enough
things and over time, that tail gets bigger and bigger.

2. Most projects either succeed or fail. Successful projects raise
the stakes, because the team doesn’t want to blow it. There are more
people watching, more dollars at stake, things matter more. So things
inevitably get more review, more analysis and slow down. Projects that
fail sap the confidence of the group. They want to be extra sure that
they’re right this time, so, ironically, they slow down and end up
sabotaging the new work.

3. The paper isn’t blank any more. Which means that new decisions
often mean overturning old decisions, which means you need to
acknowledge that it didn’t used to be as good as it was.

4. And the biggest thing is that there is a status quo. Something to compare everything to.

I’m not sure you can eliminate any of these issues. But, you can
realize that they’re there. And you can be really strict about
priorities and deadlines… it’s so easy to let things slip, rather
than confronting the fact that you’re stuck and probably afraid. Speak
up, call it out… and ship!

Via Seth Godin