A common pattern: the strategy deck lists eight strategic initiatives. The budget lists forty cost centres. The two documents don't reference each other. Each initiative is "everyone's job," which means it is funded out of the slack that exists in some team's existing budget — which means it doesn't get funded at all.
The two questions every initiative must answer
- Which budget line is this drawn from? Not "the run-rate." A specific line, with a specific euro amount, that someone signed for.
- Who is the cost owner? Not the accountable executive. The person whose budget shrinks if this initiative grows.
If an initiative cannot answer both questions, it is not an initiative. It is a hope expressed in present tense.
Why the gap exists
Strategy is set by the leadership team. Budgets are set by finance with cost centre owners. The two processes happen in adjacent rooms with a coffee break between them. The link is implicit and therefore unenforceable.
What to do this quarter
Walk the top ten strategic initiatives and answer the two questions for each. Expect three or four to fail. Those are the initiatives that will quietly evaporate by Q3 — better to know now and decide deliberately than to discover later through a post-mortem.
The Vindaris view
Strategy without money is a wish list. Make the cost link mandatory in the system and the wish list shrinks to the things you'll actually do.