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Rutendo Gwatidzo-Changing Perspectives
The project was late, the team was frustrated and the client was threatening penalties. Every Monday, they had the same two-hour status meeting with more slides, more blame and more pressure.
Sadly, nothing changed. Deadlines kept slipping, people stopped speaking up because they were tired of being shut down by senior executives. At one point, the project lead threatened to resign but, in the corporate world, reputation is almost everything.
For instance, if you fail to lead a project in one organisation, it’s almost as good as failing to lead projects in many organisations especially in the same industry. She then decided to do something different.
One Monday, the project manager cancelled the status meeting. Instead, she gathered the team into one room and addressed them by herself.
The first question she asked was, “If we were starting today, knowing everything we know now what would we stop doing and what would we do first?”
For a moment, silence hit the room before the team started responding.
They discovered that most of the reports they were producing were not even being read by senior management.
They also discovered that the three approval steps added zero value and that nobody actually owned the critical path. Somehow, everyone thought “someone else” was responsible for it.
The Beginning of Progress!
Long story short, they then reset the plan, removed unnecessary detail in the reports, removed useless approvals and reassigned ownership clearly. Then she gave everyone two days that extended into a long weekend off project work to breathe, think, and regroup. When they came back, they built a lean execution board with only three key deliverables for the month, task owners, deadlines and weekly check-ins. There was no drama, no stories. Just clarity.
They executed and finished ahead of the revised schedule not because they worked harder but, because they had reset and refuelled.
Reset
As we start in this new year, stop carrying yesterday into tomorrow, stop bringing 2025 into 2026. A reset isn’t failure, it simply means stepping back and asking relevant questions like, what are we doing that no longer creates value? Where are we overcomplicating work? What must end even if somebody likes it?
Example!
According to online reports, before Satya Nadella, Microsoft was brilliant but, stuck. Internal silos slowed everything. Politics trumped learning until Nadella hit the reset button and shifted culture. She shut down petty projects misaligned to strategy, refocused on cloud, collaboration, and customer value. The pivot unlocked growth and repositioned the company globally. Resetting didn’t weaken the business, it unlocked capacity.
Refuel
Energy is a strategic asset. Too many leaders mistake exhaustion for dedication. They shout, “Push harder!” while their best people quietly burn out, disengage, or leave. Refuelling means restoring clarity of purpose, psychological safety, right tools and training, realistic workloads and space to think, just to mention a few.
Example!
According to online reports, at some point at Starbucks, quality was slipping. Service felt transactional.
Then, Howard Schultz, the chief executive officer, did something bold. He shut thousands of stores for training. For hours, operations paused so that teams could reconnect with product excellence, customer experience and the brand story. Afterwards, performance improved because the people were refuelled.
While refuelling sounds like additional cost, it is crucial to realise that burned-out teams do not innovate. Tired leaders can make expensive mistakes.
Execute
Execution is where strategy becomes reality after resetting and refuelling. Execution is not about making noise, it’s simply about action. There are key five questions that matter when we talk of execution. What exactly are we delivering? Why does it matter? Who owns it? By when? How will we measure success? If these questions are unclear, execution fails.
Example:
Toyota Motor Corporation does well because execution is a discipline. There is a culture of continuous improvement, root-cause problem solving and accountability embedded in daily routines, just to mention a few. They don’t chase hype. They operationalise consistency.
Where most organisations miss it!
They execute without resetting. They push harder without refuelling and they damage or destroy the people. On the other hand, others reset constantly without executing. They hold endless meetings with zero delivery. Yet, sustainable performance follows one rhythm which is Reset, Refuel and Execute — In that exact sequence.
In order to deploy quick results, you need to regularly, for instance, every quarter cut what no longer serves the mission, re-rank priorities and escalate issues early.
Most teams that fail are not necessarily broken but, they’re just crowded with unproductive habits, drained of energy, and buried in noise. Significant progress is not by hype but, by structured action.
Burn out effects are usually not revealed quickly hence it’s easy to dismiss the importance of re-setting and refueling. My advice, do it before the cost of delay becomes irreversible.
Rutendo Gwatidzo is a Human Capital Executive as Managing Consultant at The HUB HR Consultancy. She is a Multi-Award Winning Leader, Transformational Speaker and Coach. She is also an Author of Born to Fight and Breaking the Silence books. Contact detail – 0714575805/ [email protected] / Rutendo Gwatidzo_Official fb public page.
