Is Your Company Suffering from Initiative Overload?
From HBR On Leadership by Harvard Business Review
April 8, 2026 · 23 min · Episode 156
About this episode
Rose Hollister and Michael Watkins discuss the challenges of initiative overload in organizations and provide strategies for prioritization.
Most organizations struggle to kill initiatives, even those that no longer support their strategy. Rose Hollister and Michael Watkins, consultants at Genesis Advisers, explore the problem of initiative overload and how it can trickle down to employeeds who are already dealing with more projects than they can handle or do well. They offer practical tips on how to truly prioritize your company’s most important initiatives—or risk losing top talent. Hollister and Watkins are the authors of the 2018 HBR article “Too Many Projects.”
People in this episode
Guests: Rose Hollister, Michael Watkins
Topics covered
- initiative overload
- project management
- employee retention
- organizational strategy
- prioritization
Keywords
- initiative overload
- project prioritization
- employee projects
- organizational strategy
- top talent
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Genesis Advisers, Harvard Business Review
Books & works: Too Many Projects
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