It’s estimated that of the $255 billion spent on IT projects in the United States, nearly one quarter of the money’s wasted because the projects fail or come in over budget.

That’s about $63 billion down the tubes — some of it probably your organization’s cash.

And the problems of project failure don’t just rest with IT. A recent Business Week survey of 1,000 employees found that 8 out of 10 people said their company had some organization-wide initiative underway that they believed was likely to fail.

The respondents seem to be speaking from experience, not conjecture. The study found that 78% also reported that they currently were working on a “doomed project.”

The report confirms the overall findings on corporate initiatives: Sustained research shows that across the U.S., estimated failure rates for corporate projects range from 66% to 91%.

The Business Week researchers identified all the usual project problems most every leader knows and can spot  — things like sponsors wandering off the reservation, team members underperformance, and pressures to make unrealistic commitments.

But their conclusion was that it’s not these problems that doom projects. It’s how leadership reacts when they occur.

An antidote the researchers recommend: Talk about the problem and address it, instead of trying to ignore or work around something that seems inevitable and too tough to tackle.

To read the complete Business Week assessment, visit here.