The Last 100 Days: 4 Proven Steps to Create Urgency in Your Team
Plenty has been written about a leader’s first 100 days.
The concept of looking at a leader’s accomplishments over a 100-day period was introduced by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933.
The concept has spread beyond the nation’s chief executive and now is applied to any new leader’s first 100 days in a new position.
Turn that concept on its head and look at your last 100 days of 2013.
Sense of Urgency
There are fewer than 100 business days to get things done in 2013.
Do your colleagues feel your sense of urgency? If they do, how will you create urgency and focus their time to produce the greatest impact to your organization?
If they don’t, what must you do to get them moving?
When I interviewed senior leaders at The Container Store, Ernst & Young, Herman Miller, Marriott, Nucor, Southwest Airlines and Sony to find out what these successful companies do to create a high-performing culture, I learned that the leaders of each of these companies bring a very focused, intentional approach to working their plan.
How they do this will be examined in my upcoming book, Accountability: The Key to Driving a High-Performance Culture (February 2014, McGraw-Hill).
In the meantime, here are 4 proven steps to help you finish 2013 strong and start 2014 with energy and a single-mindedness to improve your organization’s performance.
Take Charge
Take these 4 proven steps to drive urgency, accountability and the results you say you want:
1. Redefine the status quo.
If you’ve been in your position for some time, ask yourself What would new management do if they were to come in and replace the existing team? What’s holding you back? Make the changes you know in your gut must be made. Declare open season on “business as usual.” At your next staff meeting, ask your direct reports to write down their five biggest frustrations. You’ll see patterns. Pick the biggest obstacle and work to remove it to help your colleagues increase their effectiveness for the home stretch of 2013.
2. Set clear expectations.
It’s your job to establish and communicate your expectations. It may sound paradoxical, but setting clear expectations provides a sense of freedom for employees because it frees them from making bad choices. Be sure everyone understands the rewards and penalties of acceptable and unacceptable performance. When you are clear about expectations, you improve performance and minimize the emotion that often swirls around issues of accountability in the workplace.
3. Make performance visible.
Your best players want to see how they’re doing and how their performance is helping the organization make progress against its objectives. Track, communicate and evaluate organizational and individual performance in a timely, consistent manner. And while it’s standard practice to track sales, profit, safety and units shipped, consider tracking soft indicators such as speed of decision-making, fun, pride, flexibility, etc. as a way to shine a spotlight on overlooked indicators that can improve your workplace culture. Make sure all of your employees connect – intellectually, emotionally and financially – to the things you’re measuring.
4. Honor commitments.
Back up promises with tangible evidence. When people perform, reward them. Failure to reward achievement in a consistent manner hurts your credibility. Likewise, employees that can’t step up must be asked to step aside. Failure to weed out under-performers sends the wrong signal to those who have embraced your new challenges, damages your reputation and hinders your ability to drive change. Your people are watching to see if they can count on you.
You’re in the last 100 days of 2013. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
Category: Business Growth & Strategy Leadership
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