A few months ago, a former client called me in a panic: Her CFO wanted to start several process simplification projectsimmediately — and she needed a proposal to review with him the next day.

Straight away a colleague and I dropped everything and scrambled to meet her request: We pulled together a set of talking points and backup material that she could use and got it to her that evening. The next day we identified resources from our firm that could help, assuming that this work would get started right away. We then waited to hear from our client about next steps — and continued to wait. Read complete Harvard Business Review blog post.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.