Corporate Amnesia: Why your company keeps forgetting its own plans

“How many times have you left a meeting thinking, ‘Have we not talked about this exact issue six months ago?” Only to hear the same thing again next quarter. Nothing done. Just another meeting.

In the life of an organisation, this is what can be referred to as a case of Strategic Amnesia; the corporate tendency to forget its own decisions, promises, and plans shortly after making them.

It is a quiet, invisible epidemic in modern organizations. Strategic plans are made with fanfare, meetings are held with colourful decks and bold declarations, and yet, months pass, and nothing changes. The same issues resurface, the same debates are rehashed, and everyone experiences déjà vu; only that it is not your memory playing tricks on you. It is your organisation.

This is not just a process problem, it is a peoples problem. When employees repeatedly see ideas discussed but never executed, three things happen:

• Burnout: Rehashing the same problems without progress drains energy faster than overwork.
• Distrust: People begin to question whether leadership is serious or even competent.
• Disengagement: Eventually, employees stop offering ideas, assuming they will go nowhere.

Do not point fingers, lets collaborate to address this.

To beat Strategic Amnesia and escape the damage it causes, companies must shift from meeting-centric cultures to execution-focused ones. Here is how:

• Assign clear owners: Every decision must have a named, accountable person who drives it forward no shared or vague ownership.
• Follow up in 24 Hours: Decisions made in meetings should be followed by documented actions within a day. Delay kills clarity.
• Track: Measure execution, not just attendance. Track whether agreed actions actually happen. A common tracking document can assist with a dashboard of traffic lights. At a glance, you can see how well we are doing with execution.
• Audit recurring meetings: Once a quarter, clean house. Kill off any meeting that is not driving clear outcomes. If it is not useful, then it is a waste of time and resources.

Corporate Amnesia is not just a nuisance, it eats up a promising culture. Like all memory loss, it gets worse the longer it is left untreated. The good news is that you do not need a consultant to fix it (don’t go wasting money. It can only be solved from the inside brick by brick). You just need discipline, accountability, and a ruthless bias for action.

It is time to stop the rehearsal and start the performance. Business Performance Management is essential.