Monitoring and Following Up

As implement your decision, keep track of how things are going.

The following practices can help:

Clarify expectations and acknowledge incentives. For example, if an account executive is going to start managing the company’s largest client, explain what this client means to the organization and your expectations for managing the relationship. Determine whether the increase in responsibility should result in a pay increase or change in title, and follow up with your human resource department to make that happen.

Provide feedback on the implementation. Give your employees feedback on the progress of the implementation plan. You input should be constructive and focused on accountability and execution. Set a time for daily or weekly status meetings. This will help you stay informed of your group’s progress during implementation.

Take a look for yourself. Check in with people informally. Ask them how the project is going and whether they have any concerns about it. Be interested in not only issues related to implementation, such as schedule and budget, but also whether your employees believe that the project is effectively addressing the problem it is intended to solve.

Recognize people’s contributions. Implementation often goes unnoticed unless it fails. If things are going well, recognize individual contributions and celebrate successes.

ACTION POINT: Keeping abreast of progress during implementation will enable you to fix problems before they become major crises.