Navigating Change: How to Keep Your Best Ideas Alive When Everything Else is Shifting

Organizational change is an inherent and constant reality of the modern business landscape, with some studies suggesting that 70-90% of large organizations are undergoing some form of transformation at any given time. Restructurings, reductions in force, mergers, and shifts in leadership are commonplace. While change can foster innovation and growth, it often poses a significant threat to even the most strategically and meticulously planned initiatives, particularly those related to revenue technology and customer experience (CX).

Over the years we have partnered extensively with marketing, sales, revenue operations, and IT teams within large organizations. We have observed firsthand how crucial projects—those often acknowledged for their value and anticipated returns—are frequently stalled, deprioritized, or outright abandoned during periods of significant organizational change. Ironically, these are the very initiatives companies most desperately need, such as optimizing marketing operations, upgrading customer relationship management (CRM) systems, developing intelligent personalization tools, or ensuring seamless cross-channel customer experiences.

The consequences extend beyond the immediate financial and effort expenditure; they encompass the loss of invaluable opportunity and speed of innovation. When companies lose momentum on these critical projects, they not only delay the operationalization of new processes and technologies but also cede competitive advantage, demotivate their teams, and disrupt the continuity of the customer experience.

This article aims to clarify the underlying causes of this phenomenon and, more importantly, to present five highly actionable strategies that organizations can implement to safeguard their most vital initiatives amidst periods of change.

The “Reorganization Effect”: Why Strategic Projects Are Sidelined

When a company reorganizes, everyone naturally focuses on getting teams to work together, figuring out who reports to whom, and aligning with new leaders’ goals. This often leads to the following situations:

• Loss of Project Champion: The executive sponsor who was the project’s strongest advocate departs or shifts roles, leaving a critical vacuum in leadership.
• Budgetary Freezes: Funding is often suspended, sometimes indefinitely, while finance departments re-evaluate spending priorities.
• New Leadership Resets Priorities: Incoming CMOs, CIOs, or CXOs may choose to discontinue projects not initiated under their tenure.
• Ambiguous Project Ownership: Key personnel may be assigned new roles, laid off, or experience uncertainty regarding their responsibilities.
• Inward Focus: Organizations frequently become so engrossed in internal survival mode that customer-centric projects are relegated to a secondary status.

Individually, these factors may appear justifiable. However, their cumulative effect creates a perfect storm that derails the very initiatives designed to enhance organizational agility, effectiveness and customer focus.

The Tangible Cost of Project Abandonment

When organizations change, new strategies often get lost. This causes real, negative problems:

• Erosion of Competitive Advantage: Competitors rarely pause their digital transformation efforts, thereby widening any existing gaps.
• Degraded Customer Experience: Delays in improving CX and marketing technology lead to customer frustration and diminished brand trust.
• Decreased Team Morale: The cancellation of a project after months of planning, budgeting, and advocacy can severely undermine team confidence in leadership.
• Wasted Investment: All previous research, vendor selection processes, planning workshops, and architectural work represent sunk costs that rarely translate to new projects.
• Accumulation of Technical Debt: Postponing crucial integrations or allowing “technical debt” to accrue invariably leads to increased complexity and greater difficulty in future remediation.

These issues are not confined to marketing and IT; their repercussions permeate the entire business ecosystem.

Four Highly Practical Strategies to Protect Strategic Initiatives During Change

Based on observed successes, here are four strategic approaches that enable organizations to sustain momentum on their most critical projects, even in uncertain environments:

1. Embed Strategic Initiatives into the Operating Model, Not Just Leadership Structures

Too often, projects are structured around individual leaders or existing teams. When this structure undergoes change, the project’s foundation can crumble.

Instead, deeply embed strategic programs into your operating model. Make them an integral part of how the business functions—cross-functional, driven by clear milestones, and accountable to measurable business outcomes, rather than dependent on specific individuals.

For instance, instead of stating, “The Head of Marketing Operations is leading the customer data platform (CDP) rollout,” frame the CDP initiative as a comprehensive, cross-functional business transformation with objectives tied to metrics such as customer segmentation accuracy and campaign launch velocity—supported by multiple team leads and a dedicated steering committee.

Action Tip: Develop project charters that unequivocally define the initiative’s value, intended achievements, and management framework, independent of specific personnel or roles. Utilize these charters to maintain consistency throughout reorganizations.

2. Secure Buy-In from Multiple Executive Sponsors

Reliance on a single executive sponsor introduces significant risk during periods of change. If your marketing technology roadmap or CX transformation hinges on a solitary champion—typically the CMO or CIO—and they depart or shift their priorities, your initiative is at risk.

Instead, cultivate a team of sponsors from diverse departments such as marketing, IT, operations, and even finance or sales. This broadens the initiative’s support base, significantly enhancing its resilience. Should one leader change, others remain to ensure continued advocacy.

This approach is particularly vital for technology-driven transformations that span multiple departments, such as establishing campaign orchestration, analyzing customer journeys, or building personalization engines. Such programs necessitate extensive, multi-departmental endorsement to thrive.

Action Tip: Establish a cross-functional executive sponsor group that meets quarterly to review progress, resolve blockers, and consistently reiterate the business value of the initiative. Ensure this group’s involvement is clearly documented and communicated in all project materials.

3. Articulate Business Value—Frequently and Clearly!

One of the fastest ways for a project to be sidelined during change is if it is perceived merely as a “tech upgrade” or “marketing initiative.”

Avoid this by consistently articulating the project’s objectives in terms of tangible business value: how it will contribute to revenue growth, customer retention, operational efficiency, accelerated market entry, or risk mitigation.

Especially when new leaders assume roles, ensure your team can quickly explain the initiative’s significance in language that resonates with their priorities. New executives are evaluating numerous priorities; make your initiative easy to champion.

Action Tip: Create a “business value brief” for each major initiative—a concise, single-page document summarizing its strategic alignment, anticipated return on investment, the risks of inaction, and key milestones. Update this document regularly and communicate it broadly.

4. Maintain Roadmap Flexibility While Preserving the North Star

Finally, it is crucial to differentiate between adjusting timelines and abandoning the overarching vision. At times, organizational changes will necessitate a re-evaluation of scope or prioritization. This is entirely acceptable, provided the core strategic objective remains intact.

Incorporate flexibility into your roadmap to accommodate different phases, alternative sequences, or hybrid execution models (e.g., piloting in one region before a global rollout). However, remain steadfast in the initiative’s ultimate value proposition.

This approach demonstrates executive maturity and helps to avoid the false dichotomy between “full steam ahead” and “project termination.”

Action Tip: Employ scenario planning during roadmap development. For each major initiative, define a “core” version, a “phased” version, and a “deferred” version. This enables leaders to make informed adjustments without entirely negating prior progress.

Organizational change is an intrinsic aspect of growth. However, it does not need to be the demise of your most critical projects.

Marketing, IT, and operations leaders who proactively and intelligently safeguard their strategies can ensure that their vital marketing technology and customer experience transformations not only endure but also flourish through change.

The objective is not to stubbornly resist new leadership or strategic shifts. Rather, it is to ensure that your highest-impact initiatives are robust, demonstrably valuable, and adaptable enough to persist.

Because in today’s market, the true victors are not merely the companies with the most innovative ideas—they are the ones capable of actualizing those ideas, even amidst shifts.

If your organization is navigating a transition and requires expert assistance in preserving momentum on key initiatives, our team at SH/FT specializes in strategy continuity. Contact us today.