The best-laid plans are undone by poor implementation. So many great ideas get presented, pitched, and green-lit into actualization, and then, in an instant, they go up in smoke with everyone wondering what just happened.

For the most part, implementing a new plan, project, or program within an organization is done with good intentions. Innovation is exciting; it’s one of those buzzwords you see on websites when companies tout their environment. In interviews, recruiters say they want innovative minds to help move into the future, all of that until they realize it’s more than just a bunch of great ideas on paper. These ideas require actual work.

No shock — America loves a quick fix. When something sounds good, people want to go with it because if it works, they will all be hailed as geniuses who signed on to the next great thing.

But what happens when it doesn’t work out that way? Ego, stubbornness, miscalculating costs or logistics — all of these can play a role in a great idea failing. However, what kills most projects is poor implementation.

In sports, we called it execution. We spend all week game planning, watching film, understanding the tendencies of the team we are going to play. After all that work, come game time, everyone lays an egg and completely forgets why we spent all that time doing what we did leading up and why suddenly things aren’t going as planned.

An example in the workplace could be a new payroll system, one that has been in development for a few months and is supposed to make the submission process significantly easier. In the old system, supervisors needed to go through a series of checks to ensure accurate time cards. With this new system, supervisors have fewer codes they have to input as the time auto populates. Payroll is able to do a quick scan to ensure accuracy, and a few button clicks later, everyone gets paid.

But instead, the system was rolled out too quickly and doesn’t have all the codes your organization uses to auto populate the timecards. Supervisors were never informed of the system change, so they input their timecards like it’s the old system which makes time cards show double shifts on the same day. The amount of time spent doing payroll related job tasks has now doubled during pay week because of organizational negligence. The payroll staff is now spending their time making code corrections and is now slipping on other aspects of their jobs because they are doing an entirely new job function without any notice.

Easy fix though — return to the old system until there are practical steps taken to streamline the new process. Unless that’s too easy of a fix. Perhaps the better option is to double down because you don’t want to admit the giant mistake made and don’t want to tell your CFO that you wasted a ton of money. So, let’s try to make it work in real time.

The issue is that never addresses the actual problem. Trial by error works in a controlled setting. It’s measured in the sense that there is support to develop in real time, which is typically predetermined. In real time, when there are actual implications, the “let’s just get through it and survive” model is not one that works and is organizational malpractice.

Rather than hastily rolling out major change organization-wide, leaders should take a phased approach to implementation. Start with small pilot projects first to work out any issues on a smaller scale. Set reasonable timelines for each phase — planning, preparation, training, controlled rollout, and evaluation.

Throughout the process, actively solicit employee feedback through surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one conversations. This identifies pain points and boosts buy-in for the changes. Provide thorough training and communication to equip employees to adopt the changes. Be prepared to adjust timelines and processes based on feedback.

Look at the light bulb, the printing press, cars, computers — innovation is supposed to make lives easier. If whatever is being implemented is making life harder, not only did you fail, but it’s the organization’s job to hold themselves accountable and admit that fault for the current situation. Messaging matters because there are likely employees saddled with the organizational lack of attention to detail and it is having a real time impact on their work.

View implementation as an ongoing process, not a one-time event. Set up mechanisms for continuous improvement after changes are in place. With thoughtful staging, strong communication, and readiness to modify based on feedback, leaders can effectively implement impactful changes without unnecessary disruption.

People want to be successful; they want to feel like they are being put into a position to develop, not set up to fail because of lackluster decision making by leadership — and certainly not because that same leadership decides to dismiss what’s clearly in front of them and not acknowledge the glaring mistakes in implementation.

The latter costs organizations employees, and it should. No functional operation with any real standards would do business this way, and those that do, it shows in their workforce when they begin hemorrhaging their best assets.

Brandon is a HRD doctoral candidate at Drexel University and he brings his perspective with a decade of experience coaching volleyball from the youth to collegiate levels. Brandon is also the host of “Outsider Information,” a podcast with the goal of bridging the world of athletics and business.