Why Estate Strategies Die

And how to keep them useful when difficult decisions begin

In brief: Estate strategy rarely fails because no one cared about them. More often, they lose force when ambition is not kept connected to implementation, funding reality and the current condition of the estate. In a climate of constrained capital and competing priorities, a useful strategy needs to help senior teams make wise decisions about what to protect, pause, stop, sequence and test further.

More than one estate strategy has ended up as little more than a paper exercise: a shelf-filler, nice to have, but practically useless.

That is not because estate strategies are easy to produce. They may take months, sometimes years. They may involve consultation, evidence, modelling, workshops, governance and considerable effort. But effort is not the test of strategy.

The acid test is whether the strategy leads to action.

More precisely, it is whether that action produces a better outcome, the same outcome for less effort, or some combination of the two. Results count. Failure through inaction is still failure.

From our work on estate strategies over more than 20 years, the same problems recur. In this article, we focus on three that are particularly relevant in the current climate: poor implementation planning, lack of funding and neglect of maintenance.

Each is different, but the pattern is the same. The strategy may contain ambition, evidence and serious thought, but it loses force when it is not sufficiently connected to the decisions, resources and changes needed to make it real.

1. Poor implementation planning

Roger Martin nailed one of the biggest weaknesses in strategy-making: “You cannot have a good strategy badly implemented because implementation is strategy”.

The idea that strategy can be conceived in isolation from implementation planning is comforting. It gives ambition a free rein. It allows institutions to imagine a better future, challenge assumptions and break down barriers to change.

All of that is useful…in theory. But it is not enough…in practice – especially when it comes up against the organisational culture.

There is a tremendous amount of inertia built into organisations, especially education institutions. Even in the teeth of crisis, there can be a tendency to respond to change with the attitude dissected in Brian Rosenberg’s book: “Whatever it is, I’m against it”. Operational pressure, term-time intensity, limited leadership bandwidth and resistance to change all conspire to protect the status quo.

Strategies that do not recognise what has to change, like a battle plan, are unlikely to survive first contact with the enemy – and in many institutions, the enemy is business as usual.

Before an estate strategy begins, two questions therefore matter:

• Do we understand the performance challenge we need to meet?
• Are we prepared to change what needs to change to meet it?

The full answer may only emerge through the strategy process. But if there is no appetite for change, implementation will not become easier later. It will simply be deferred until the strategy loses force.

2. Lack of funding

Cash is king may be a truism, but it remains a strategic reality.

Funding determines a huge amount of what an organisation can achieve, and it is the decisive factor in both making and implementing strategy.

We have seen no examples where clients have every pound they need for every idea, ambition and project on the table. It is not unusual for us to work with institutions who have less than 25% of the capital they would need at various points in strategy-making. Prioritisation is therefore not an unfortunate interruption to strategy-making. It is part of strategy and often the measure of the organisation’s grit.

The problem is not only that capital is constrained. It is that the constraint is not always sufficiently understood across the senior team. Without large reserves, an endowment, significant borrowing or some combination of these, future capital often has to come from the organisation’s own revenues. Yet outside the finance directorate, awareness of how scarce that capital really is can be limited. This is especially the case if sustained margins over the longer term are thin or non-existent.

This matters because many estate strategies begin with bold vision and energy, then run into the hard yards of tough prioritisation decisions on capital allocation later. New buildings, maintenance, infrastructure, wider change initiatives and increasingly IT infrastructure all place demands on constrained capital envelopes. If those demands are not fully surfaced during the strategy process, the strategy may overstate what is possible and understate what must be sacrificed.

In those circumstances, everything cannot remain a priority. If everything remains a priority nothing is, the strategy is not yet doing its job.

This is why we developed our six tests: To amplify the leverage senior teams have over these tough moments. The aim is not to avoid hard choices, but to surface the points in the strategy process early and pursue them with tenacity to a rigorous decision.

Without that discipline, the chance of a good estate strategy failing for lack of funding becomes much higher than it needs to be.

3. Neglect of maintenance

Kurt Vonnegut’s line still holds: “Everyone wants to build, no one wants to do maintenance.”

Maintenance backlogs are one of the great strategic banana skins in estate strategy. They are often a blind spot – under-priced, under-reported and insufficiently visible in corporate risk profiles. Yet they can compromise the very foundation on which future strategy depends.

It is easy to see why senior teams are drawn towards the sunlit uplands of new builds and digital transformation, rather than the reality of an estate in poor condition needing investment simply to maintain the status quo. Those uplands are visible, positive and easier to rally around than constraint, prioritisation and compromise.

But the harder conversations are where the real strategic value lies.

In one complex strategy project, long-term neglect of backlog had raised the corporate risk profile immensely. After twenty years of new builds, long-neglected liabilities had put 10,000m² of space at risk of imminent failure, with major research capacity also exposed. The senior team’s vision was focused elsewhere, and there was real devastation when the facts were revealed. The emotional cry of “why us?” was visceral; the answer – “because if you don’t now tackle this, no one else will” – was equally forthright. The institution rapidly needed to start communicating difficult messages and preparing its people for the hard yards ahead.

Poor condition, backlog, capacity planning and space efficiencies may be less exciting than a new building. They are also often the factors that determine whether an estate strategy survives contact with reality.

A strategy that is not grounded in the current condition of the estate is fragile. If the existing base is weaker than the strategy assumes, that needs to be understood before the institution commits too much energy to what comes next. Otherwise, the hidden fundamentals will eventually surface – usually at greater cost, with fewer options and more emotion attached.

What better estate strategy looks like

The better approach is to treat estate strategy as a live decision-making framework, not a finished document.

That means connecting strategy to implementation from day one. It means testing ambition against capital, capacity, backlog, risk and the institution’s practical ability to act. It means making prioritisation explicit, not hoping it can be resolved later. It means using technical evidence not as a separate exercise, but as a way of informing senior leaders and improving the quality of decisions.

In practical terms, institutions need to know where they are now, not simply where they would like the estate to be. Senior teams need time to think properly about the organisational challenge, the capital position and the consequences of different choices. Getting people on the same page takes serious choreography, but shared understanding creates collective responsibility and gives the strategy a better chance of surviving resistance. Prioritisation needs a framework strong enough to support difficult decisions. And ultimately, the key numbers need to be visible – the dials in the cockpit – so the senior team understands the readings before committing to a route.

None of this should feel extraordinary. It is the discipline good estate strategy should make routine.

A useful estate strategy should help an institution decide what to protect, what to pause, what to stop, what to sequence and what to test further. It should help leaders communicate why some choices are necessary, especially when they are uncomfortable.

The institutions that navigate the next few years well will not simply be those with the most ambitious estate strategies. They will be those whose strategies lead to action, shift resources to the right priorities and help leaders make wise decisions when resources, time and confidence are under pressure.

You can have a good strategy well implemented.

A useful starting point

If your estate strategy is being refreshed, challenged or quietly overtaken by events, the useful starting point may not be another list of projects.

It may be a clearer conversation about what the strategy needs to help you decide, and what needs to happen next.

What to take from this

• Estate strategies lose force when they are not connected to implementation from the beginning.
• Funding reality is not a later constraint; it is part of strategy-making.
• Maintenance backlog and estate condition can undermine even the most ambitious plans.
• Prioritisation is not an interruption to strategy. It is often the clearest test of an organisation’s resolve.
• A useful estate strategy should help leaders make wise decisions about what to protect, pause, stop, sequence and test further.

In our next Insight article, The pain of discipline versus the pain of regret, Bryan Thomas explores three further reasons estate strategies lose force: Lack of commitment, overambitious vision and failure to shift resources.

Share with a colleague through LinkedIn or email:

About the author
Bryan Thomas is the founder of CPB Projects, a specialist consultancy helping education institutions make better long-term decisions about estate strategy, space and buildings. CPB’s work combines deep technical insight, sector understanding and independent judgement – helping senior teams protect scarce resources, reduce risk and make decisions that stand up over time.