How To Deliver On Your Promises As A Leader

Whenever we announce a change, whether to ourselves, our friends and relatives or our organizations, we make promises. The change might result in a better work-life balance, happily ever after, a greater market share, a larger stock dividend or maybe even environmental healing. We tell ourselves and others that the investment is going to be significant, but the return will be well worth it. If we are honest, we acknowledge that it will take hard work and there will be mistakes along the way -- we don’t know what we don’t know. But all of that will fade when we are experiencing the results that we are setting out to achieve.

Planning tends to focus on those things that need to be put in place. It might be a new organization structure, new policies and procedures or a new operating model. It might be a strategic shift or require new technology. Facilities might need to be acquired or built. Training might be necessary. Then plans are developed, resources are allocated and the change initiative is launched. Periodic reporting tracks progress against time and budget milestones. Problems are encountered and resolved. Schedules might have to be adjusted, resources reallocated and even target outcomes reset. Eventually, the plan has been fully executed. A subset of the project team remains available for a short time after the change “goes live” to troubleshoot any problems.

But the results never materialize. Perhaps we promised a better customer experience and ended up with a new customer relationship management platform; perhaps the promise results were based on the creation of an integrated service delivery model, but the only thing that has changed is the configuration of the silos.

What are we doing wrong?

More often than not, the problem isn’t for what was planned. Rather, the problem is in the incompleteness of the plan. Planning for and putting all those things in place might be necessary, but it isn’t sufficient. When the change is big to the people affected, it doesn’t just require that they learn new skills, procedures or reporting structures. It is also critical they change their attitudes, how they think about the work they are doing, and with and for whom they are doing it. It is not only the changes in "doing" that need to be planned for — it is also the changes in "being."

Making these shifts in being is often considered “the soft stuff.” But in fact, it is the really hard stuff. And it is the really hard stuff that will make the difference between success and failure. It can’t be delegated to human resources to handle. It doesn’t happen as the result of classroom training or town halls, emails and pep rallies. And it doesn’t happen because all the pieces have been put in place. People are emotionally invested in the status quo, whether they love it, like it, tolerate it or are just surviving it. They know what to expect. They know who to interact with and how to interact with them to get what they want. Letting go of knowing and stepping into the unknown might be exciting for some people; for many others, it is downright scary.

Just like the changes in doing, changes in being can be planned for. Those plans can be executed, and progress can be tracked. However, in this case, the milestones aren’t time and budget. They are shifts in how people show up and how they progress toward the promised outcomes. They are changes in the cultural levers that sustain the status quo. Here, at a high level, are the key steps to making the needed “being” shifts:

• Define the future state of being required to deliver on the promise.

• Inventory the gaps. What are the critical shifts in behavior that are required? What shifts in thinking need to take place in order to accomplish these behavior shifts?

• What “culture levers” can be used to drive the needed changes in thinking? How do you need to use them?

• How do you know you are making progress? What are the metrics?

For example, perhaps you are moving from individual performance to a team performance culture. This requires a shift in thinking from “my performance” to “our performance,” and a shift in behavior. Two of the culture levers that you can apply here are the compensation system (moving from individually based performance incentives to team-based) and replacing the employee-of-the-month program with a more appropriate team recognition system.

You will also need to put new metrics in place. Perhaps individual productivity is no longer measured, and new measures of team productivity are put in place. You also need metrics to ensure that you are making progress toward the promised outcomes of the change. Regardless of what the change is, if it requires significant shifts in being, there are two other things that are critical to success: First and foremost, the organization’s leaders need to make the changes that they are asking of others. As I have previously written, “You can’t transform your organization without transforming yourself." Second, you need to change your hiring from a focus on those who fit the organization you have to those who fit the organization you want. They will be coming in as outliers, so they will need leadership support until the rest of the organization catches up.

Delivering on the promise doesn’t happen by planning for and implementing all the “doing” pieces of the puzzle, nor does it happen when you run parallel or consecutive “doing” and “being” plans. Doing and being are interdependent pieces of the solution. Their plans need to be developed and executed interdependently as well. Shortchanging either one undermines the ability to deliver on the promise. Then who are you being?

Source: Forbes

 

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