Plan fully and then execute fully

This is Part Two to Plan Fully Then Execute Fully

You can find Part One at here

Once you’ve completed your planning fully, you’re ready for execution. The execution overview is simple, but that doesn't mean the steps are easy.

The steps are straightforward but, in many cases, getting the answers you need takes time. Getting the time you need is even harder. With that in mind, the planning and execution process are designed to help you prioritize actions with the understanding that you have limited personal time and resources. That's why you prioritize stakeholders by the ones that have the highest impact first. That's also why you need to plan for what your expected outcomes should look like (and when you expect to see them). This is how you strike a fine balance between giving an initiative enough time to show progress versus waiting passively until someone else calls an end to your project.

Execution Steps:

Develop your communication strategies:

• What stakeholder?
• What outcome? (More support? Less resistance? Information? Awareness?)
• What communication style?
• What method and approach? (In person, after weekly status meeting?)

Execute on your communications strategies:

• Prepare (Make sure you know what you’re going to say, and that it matters to the stakeholder you’re addressing)
• Practice (Make sure you can deliver the message as you intend)
• Execute (Deliver the message)
• Evaluate and Adjust (Did you get the outcome you needed? If not, what did you learn about your stakeholder or yourself that you can use to refine your argument?)
• Execute again as required (May be with the same stakeholder, may require you to shift to other stakeholders)

Manage the tasks and processes:

• Current tasks and processes (Running the business – if you have responsibilities there)
• Change initiative related tasks (Once the change has been green-lighted)

Review the changing situation (Has anything changed since your last assessment?):

• Assumptions that the success of your change rests on?
• Capabilities (internal or external)?
• Your environment (market, regulatory, governmental, internal policy changes, other projects)
• Resources available (money, skills)?
• Is the problem you’re trying to solve still a problem?

Update your plans and shift your strategy as required:

• Even though we talk about Planning and Execution as two different phases, it's not linear
• You will switch between planning and execution throughout the life of your change initiative

There are two quick notes to add:

1. Realize you’re going to need more than one conversation to get anything done. You need to consider your talks/meetings with your stakeholders as part of a larger conversation, one that you have generally charted out.
2. The other technique you need to master is the one on one discussion with your stakeholders.

Group meetings are often used to increase organization efficiency. That does the exact opposite for the effectiveness of the conversations you need to have with your stakeholders.

Look back to Part One of this blog article where you conduct your stakeholder analysis. Each of your stakeholders may have different motivations, different priorities and different perspectives on the changes you’re proposing. You need to be able to pitch your proposal to each key stakeholder individually in order to get their buy-in.

Put another way: You never want to go into a group vote without knowing what the final decision is going to be in advance. That’s not a strategic approach to anything.

For larger organizational change initiatives, Dr. Kotter has produced some great books and articles on change leadership (one of our favorites is Leading Change). In our classes, Kotter’s work generates a lot of excitement (and a little bit of pain) when our students see how clearly their organizational change failures can be traced back to the missing preconditions that Kotter so clearly highlights. Maybe that’ll be the topic of another blog post.

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!