Ari and I were recently training a group of retailers and producers, and Ari asked this question: “How many of you have, or ever had, an implementation plan?" Amid several head nods and groans, there was one individual who said, "They’re not worth the paper they are written on!”

Ari paused and said… ”You’re right! Plans really aren’t worth much, unless they are implemented.” Our cynical friend gave us a sheepish grin and nodded that he got the message. Implementation plans are like visions; they aren’t good or bad, right or wrong. But if you don’t do anything with them they are worthless.

There are probably as many good excuses for not implementing a plan as there are failed businesses. Examining the root cause of inaction around implementation plans might be illustrative for some, but it only delays what is really needed and that is–action! Here are some hints and tools for successful implementation.

1) Make the Implementation a Priority
Creating a plan, or vision, takes a lot of work and organizational energy. The key to keeping it alive and fresh is in shifting the energy from planning to gathering the fruits of your effort. What leaders can do, once the plan is in place, is set a reasonable time frame for an update of progress. Set a date 30–60 days in the future to review the plan, identify what's going well and what needs adjustment. This sets that expectation that the implementation is a priority.

2) Pick the Low-hanging Fruit
In any implementation effort there are many low effort/high impact actions that can be taken immediately to demonstrate the plan is working and that the leadership is committed to action. Your staff is looking at you to model the behavior in order to confirm your commitment to change.

At the end of an all-staff planning effort that culminated with a long list of critical actions, I remember the leader asking ”What can I do in the next week to help all of you succeed?” The immediate and passionate response from 2,400 plant staff was “get the bugs and the rats out of our workplace!” Surprised at this unexpected response, the leader took a few seconds to digest what they were asking for and said “Today is Friday and when you come to work on Monday the whole plant will be clean!” Before he left the podium, his plant manager was on the phone to the exterminator. That is action. Another leader in a hospital setting had her 600 employees make of list of “low hanging fruit” and symbolically put a ten foot high drawing of an apple tree in the staff break area. The tree was filled with construction paper apples–each with an action written on it. The focus of the first two months of implementation was to “pick” all the fruit.

3) Communicate Lavishly

Not every employee is as connected to an implementation effort as the leader. Let others know the progress of the plan. Take every opportunity to let staff know what has been accomplished and use as many different media as possible. Not all employees have equal access to your favorite communication tool. Use print, graphics, voice & electronic means of sharing progress.

4) Celebrate Success
In step one, above, you set dates for updates to measure progress to the plan. Make it a celebration! Create some fun to commemorate the success. If you are a person who is not motivated by celebratory events, that’s ok. Let someone else plan it. Just show up. The purpose of celebratory events is to create visible and emotional recognition of success and the opportunity to make minor corrections to future plans. Step #5 of the Bottom-Line Change process (see ZingTool) is Implementation: Plan, Do, Check and Adjust. Take the opportunity, while celebrating, to Check and Adjust the plan.

5) Keep the Flame of Change Burning
Roland Loup, one of my co-authors in the book “Whole-Scale Change,” developed a formula for keeping the flame burning. It is: Meaning x Hope x Power = Energy. He writes…”Ensuring that people always have a sense of meaning, hope and the ability to influence (power) the decisions that affect them ensures that the fire never dies.”

Meaning is created by developing a connection between an organization’s mission, vision, and/or long-term strategy and the current project. At every opportunity the leader makes this connection, reminding employees why the “change” is important. The leader ensures that the organizational structure (how people are organized around the work) is flexible and nimble so that the right people are engaged in the right work.

When the leader shares the results of the change efforts, these results build organizational hope through the realization that the organization is living its promise of thoughtful action and measurable results. Hope grows when the organization provides clear indicators of success that all can see. Power occurs when the decision-making process is pushed down as far as possible into the organizational ranks. This “sharing” of power with individuals in the organization drives a sense of ownership of the business and the shared responsibility of success. Sustaining change and momentum becomes easier when there is shared responsibility for the “power” to decide and to take action.

Going back to the formula:

Meaning x Hope x Power = Energy. Since this is simplistic algebraic formula, the resultant Energy for sustaining change will be non-existent if any of the elements are zero (0)!

My mentor, Ron Lippitt, would say that leaders need to have a “multocular” view of sustaining change. When applying and using the above formula, the leader is observing change through the metaphoric “eye of the fly.” The ordinary house-fly has eyes that have many lenses (multocular) and can focus on multiple objects at once. Leaders need to keep their eyes on all aspects of the “keep the flame burning” model and ensure that none of the elements approach zero!