Notes from the Field: The 2026 Fast-Start Question No One Is Asking, What Are You Willing to Kill?
Fast starts don’t come from new plans. They come from subtraction. Here is the exercise to clear your Q1 capacity.
Every team talks about starting 2026 fast. Almost no one talks about what they’re dragging into the year that will slow them down by February.
We assume momentum comes from stacking new initiatives on top of old ones. But fast starts don’t come from new plans. They come from subtraction.
Field Observation: The 120% Capacity Trap
Across partner and GTM orgs, the same pattern is showing up right now.
Teams have mapped out ambitious goals that require 100% of their available capacity. Then, they silently agree to “roll forward” all their 2025 programs.
The Result: You enter January committed to 120% capacity.
The Reality: When you try to do 120% of the work, you don’t get 120% of the results. You get fragmentation, missed deadlines, and burnout.
No one wants to be the person who kills a program that’s “kind of working.” So we keep them on life support, bleeding focus from the things that actually matter.
The “Zombie Projects” Slowing Q1
From the field, these are the biggest fast-start killers. They don’t fail loudly; they fail by absorbing attention.
Partner motions without clear deal ownership: If no one owns the number, it’s just noise.
Enablement initiatives with no ROI: If you can’t point to revenue, it’s just busy work.
“Strategic” partnerships that exist only in slides: If they aren’t generating pipeline, they aren’t strategic.
Marketplace listings with no sales motion: These are digital paperweights.
The Kill List Exercise
Before your Q1 kickoff, gather leadership and ask three uncomfortable questions about every legacy initiative:
If we didn’t have this today, would we build it again?
Can someone outside the team explain why this exists?
What breaks if we stop doing this for 90 days?
Note: If the answers are vague, defensive, or political — that’s your signal to cut.
The “Busy vs. Productive” Filter
When reviewing your answers to the questions above, you must force an honest inspection of what the motion actually achieves.
Most teams confuse activity with progress. To avoid this, apply a binary filter to every item on your list: Is this driving business, or just driving meetings?
The Revenue Reality: Does this motion explicitly create pipeline, accelerate stalled deals, or secure retention?
The Vanity Trap: Does this merely result in “good conversations,” busy calendars, and internal updates?
If a program generates meetings but no pipeline, it’s not a strategy. It’s a distraction.
How to Communicate the “Kill” (Without Panic)
The reason leaders avoid subtraction is fear of the political fallout. “If I kill this, will the partner team be offended? Will the PM be demotivated?”
High-performing teams don’t just stop; they communicate the trade-off. Use this script:
“We are pausing [Zombie Project] for Q1. This isn’t because it has zero value, but because we need to free up [Person/Team]’s capacity to go all-in on [Critical Revenue Driver]. We are trading a ‘nice-to-have’ for a ‘must-win’.”
When you frame subtraction as reallocating capacity to win, it stops being a failure and starts being a strategy.
What the Best Teams Do
High-performing teams don’t confuse effort with progress. They:
Kill programs before setting Q1 goals.
Make deprecation visible and explicit (celebrate the “stop” list).
Trade activity for clarity, not for headcount.
Closing Insight
If you want a real 2026 fast start:
Decide what won’t survive the year.
Free the team to execute the few things that matter.
Accept that killing work is leadership, not failure.
Most teams won’t do this. That’s why most fast starts don’t last.
One question for you: What is one initiative you are willing to kill right now to save your Q1? Let me know in the comments.