Sponsorship Evaporation
The initiative didn't lose its business case. It lost its bodyguard.
The great fear small company. The small surround themselves with it. Valluvar distinguishes leaders by who they keep close. The great are selective. The mediocre are indiscriminate. Three years ago, your executive sponsor led the change initiative. They were visible, vocal, and invested. Their name was on the deck. Their presence was at the workshops. Then the quarterly review happened. A new priority emerged. The sponsor’s attention shifted. The initiative didn’t lose its business case. It lost its bodyguard.
When AB InBev acquired SABMiller for $100 billion in 2016, the 3G Capital playbook was immediate: zero-based budgeting. Every expense justified from zero annually. I traced the cultural impact through employee accounts. SABMiller had traditions: annual brewery festivals, long-tenured brewmasters, community programs in African markets. AB InBev eliminated them as ‘non-essential spend.’ The talent exodus that followed wasn’t about money. It was about grief. Change without mourning is surgery without anesthesia. The patient survives, but never trusts the surgeon again.
Change needs sustained atmospheric moisture to survive. In meteorology, evapotranspiration is the process by which water returns from the surface to the atmosphere: it evaporates. When more water evaporates than precipitates, drought follows. Executive sponsorship is the atmospheric moisture of organizational change: it creates the conditions for growth. When sponsorship evaporates, attention, resources, political support, and visible commitment dissipate from the initiative. What remains on the ground is the same team, the same plan, the same urgency. But without moisture, nothing grows. The drought doesn’t kill quickly. It dries slowly. By the time anyone notices, the roots are dead.
If you’re sponsoring a change initiative, put one thing on your calendar: a monthly 15-minute conversation with the initiative lead. Not delegated. Not rescheduled. Your presence is the rainfall. Cancel it twice and the drought begins.
That vanishing champion has a name. Sponsorship Evaporation. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
Untie The Knot
Uproot
Sponsorship evaporated because executive attention is a finite, competitive resource. The sponsor didn’t abandon the initiative. A new priority claimed their attention, and the initiative lost its atmospheric moisture.
Navigate
Every change initiative has a sponsor who maintains monthly visibility. Sponsorship is a calendar commitment, not a title.
Tool
DMG / Sponsorship Protocol: the governance standard that makes sponsorship a trackable, auditable commitment. When sponsorship has a cadence, evaporation becomes detectable.
Implement
If you are sponsoring a change, put one thing on your calendar: monthly 15-minute conversation with the initiative lead. Your presence is the rainfall. Cancel twice and the drought begins.
Emerge
When sponsorship is rhythmic instead of episodic, initiatives maintain visibility, resources stay allocated, and the organisation stops killing initiatives through neglect.