When people and leadership programs look active on paper but are already failing in practice
Everything is running and reporting, but participation is dropping, decisions are stalling, and outcomes are not shifting.
On paper, this reads as stable delivery.
In practice, the pressure shows up between sessions, decisions, and follow-through.
But under day-to-day pressure, it is not holding, and the risk is quietly accumulating.
If you are accountable for a people or leadership program and something feels unstable, that instinct is usually correct.
That instability often shows up as constant chasing, unclear next steps, or leaders quietly burning out despite “support” being in place.
What you are seeing is rarely disengagement or poor attitude. It is a design and decision problem that has been pushed downward and absorbed by individuals.
When this happens, extra work is carried informally, recognition drops, fatigue builds, and people eventually disengage or leave.
Leaders describe this moment clearly
“It exists, but no one really knows what it’s for.”
“It only works because someone keeps chasing.”
“It’s turning into another initiative people quietly stop prioritising.”
You are seeing …
Participation is declining, and progress depends on individual follow-ups rather than a system. If the chasing stops, the program stalls. What looks like leadership is actually personal effort holding it together.
This is where a program becomes dependent on one reliable person, not a repeatable structure.
Program leads, mentors, or facilitators are doing unpaid, informal work to keep things moving, absorbing load, smoothing friction, and quietly managing risk so it never escalates. Fatigue turns into resentment, then disengagement or exit.
Goodwill becomes the operating model until it cannot.There is no shared answer to “what happens next?” because the decision has never been properly owned or locked. Issues circulate in meetings, but nothing resolves, and confidence drops.
Programs stall without ever formally failing.Decisions are stuck across executive, People and Culture, or operations, leaving responsibility diffused and risk unmanaged. The program sits in organisational limbo, visible but unprotected.
When scrutiny increases, no one can confidently stand behind the current design.Reporting shows activity, not viability, creating false reassurance. Dashboards look healthy while delivery is fragile, delaying intervention until the failure is louder and more expensive.
Delay itself becomes part of the cost.You doubt the program would withstand turnover, restructure, funding pressure, or scrutiny because the risk is sitting with individuals rather than the organisation. When it breaks, it lands as a credibility problem, a people problem, and a leadership problem.
And it often lands on the program lead, even when they never had the authority to fix it.
This is not underperformance.
It is a survivability gap, where the program only functions because capable people are absorbing structural risk. Goodwill is being used as infrastructure, and leaders are left carrying exposure they cannot formally resolve.
That exposure is rarely visible until the program is already failing.
What this fizzle is costing you
The people leading these programs are usually your internal and external champions. They carry the projects that support retention of new staff, build culture, and develop leadership capability.
When those champions burn out or leave, the program does not just slow down, it loses trust, continuity, and momentum.
If those program leads are under-supported and the program stalls or collapses, the costs escalate quickly:
Retention impact: participants disengage, new team members lose connection and confidence, and turnover risk rises. People stop believing development pathways are real.
Development starts to feel optional rather than credible.HR load and documentation: burnout, grievances, performance management, and psychosocial risk concerns surface, pulling HR and senior leaders into formal processes.
Informal strain becomes formal workload very quickly.Replacement and onboarding costs: recruitment fees, vacancy cover, onboarding time, productivity loss, and operational disruption. Even small programs carry real replacement cost when they fail.
Contagion effect: remaining staff absorb the gap while a replacement is found, increasing workload and accelerating further attrition. Load spreads before it resolves.
Credibility damage: the organisation becomes known for launching programs it cannot sustain. Uptake drops the next time you ask people to opt in. Future initiatives start behind.
Programs like these rarely fail neatly. They fracture. Knowledge walks out the door. Handover becomes rushed or impossible. The next person inherits unresolved decisions and accumulated fatigue, and the cycle repeats.
“We’ll fix it later” often becomes “we’re rebuilding from scratch.”
What this is
The Anti-Fizzle Survivability Check is a guided decision-support tool for people and leadership programs, including leadership development initiatives, mentoring programs, peer learning, and internal capability efforts.
This is not training and not an online course.
It does not replace facilitation, redesign, or implementation work.
It is a short, structured decision check designed to surface risk, clarify ownership, and force a clear call before goodwill is exhausted.
The purpose is decision clarity, not insight for its own sake.
The check is completed using a guided assessment that you work through in one sitting. The workbook is the mechanism, not the product. The value is the decision it produces.
Time required: 60–90 minutes
What you do in the Check
Map what the program is actually asking of people, not what the framework implies
Confirm ownership and decision rights, so responsibility stops leaking downward
Identify boundary breaches and scope creep that are driving burnout
Stress-test survivability under real operating conditions
Land the decision and lock follow-through. So the program no longer relies on informal effort to function.
What changes as a result?
You walk away with:
A clear explanation of what is actually going wrong, in plain terms you can use with leaders, not theory or HR language.
A decision you can stand behind, stabilise it, redesign it, pause it, or stop it properly, instead of letting it drag on and drain goodwill.
Ownership that is written down, so the risk stops landing on the program lead, the coordinator, or the one reliable person who always fixes things.
A short list of specific fixes, the few changes that will materially improve viability, not a long action plan no one has time to run.
Less chasing and fewer repeat meetings, because the next steps are locked and everyone knows who is accountable.
A program that can survive a handover, so it does not collapse the moment someone goes on leave, changes roles, or resigns.
Continuity becomes structural, not personal.
What you get
The Anti-Fizzle Survivability Check
A guided decision-support assessment delivered via a structured, fillable workbook.A one-page survivability summary (PDF)
Plain-language insight into what is unowned, what relies on goodwill, and what will fail under pressure.30-day follow-through support
Support to brief leaders clearly, name capacity limits safely, and prevent informal load from creeping back in.
Run the Check
Before your people and leadership programs become box-ticking exercises, burn out your champions, and quietly undermine retention, trust, and credibility.