Plan fully and then execute fully

This blog comes courtesy of one of our students. At the end of an intensive course, he sat back and reflected that half of what we taught was based on getting aspiring and improving leaders to actually do the preparation work and the other half was following through on execution.

It was a great summary, but out of context, it doesn’t tell anyone outside the class much.

To make it more useful, we’ll dig a little deeper into each of the areas. The purpose is to give you an overview so you can build your own map.

Doing the preparation work is hard for some people. Some people are good at starting but not finishing. Others are good at finishing, but don’t know where to start.

The preparatory work happens on 2 levels: the big picture (the long game) and the immediate.

Big picture preparatory work includes:

1. Understand your organization, your customers and how value is created
2. Understand your role in the organization and how that connects to customer value
3. Understand the work that your group is responsible for – specifically what is high customer value work and what is not
4. Understand who your stakeholders are
5. Assess and develop your credibility with your stakeholders
6. Assess and develop credibility with your team

The immediate preparation work usually comes from identifying a change that is needed in your organization:

1. Identifying the problem, impact on value and options
2. Develop the vision for change
3. Understand the specific stakeholders impacted
4. Refine your stakeholder analysis
5. Evaluate your organization’s readiness to change
6. Develop your communication plan
7. Establish objectives and measurements

In order to keep this blog entry short and sweet, we’ll save the execution overview for the next one.

In the meanwhile, let us know if we’ve missed any key preparation steps in the comments. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any updates!