Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Leadership: Work the Plan

My friend, Brett Duncan, shares his marketing prowess via his blog, Marketing in Progress. I enjoy his posts simply for their leadership value. All those in leadership major in marketing as well. Leaders gather followers via good marketing strategies. Brett shared this idea via Twitter this morning,

It's time to press pause on the idea creation and start making some of them actually happen. Plan the work, then work the plan.


I find that most leaders live somewhere between hypothetical and reality, between theory and application. Most of the time, we can develop a great idea without understanding the cost of implementation. Part of developing an idea is what it will take to see it into reality. On a fundamental level, I believe this is the "tipping point" idea; taking theory and making it "practicable".

As you develop new ideas, what are you doing to see those ideas become reality?

In your leadership, how are you getting people to embrace the plan and then "work the plan"?

Answering these questions is the difference between hosting a think-tank and breakthrough leadership.

Thoughts?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the link.

I like the idea of "hosting a think tank." That happens a lot.

Of course, there always has to be more ideas than there are implementations. You can't, and shouldn't, implement everything. But I don't think that's the problem most of us deal with.

bd
www.marketinginprogress.com
@bdunc1

Stan Britton said...

Totally agree. I love the think-tank idea. I do believe that many people in leadership positions do struggle with moving from think-tank to implementation.

We shouldn't seek to implement everything. I think there are some who maintain business as usual and don't seek to implement new ideas and strategies. Others "rearrange deck chairs" and don't implement new ideas, they just repackage old ideas.

sb