Moving from Policy to Practice

Most employers already have policies in place, but it’s not about the policy. What counts is the day-to-day execution by employees, which comes down to the individual manager interpreting policy.
Your job as leader is to develop a way to deploy your policies throughout the business.  It’s the employees job to read, understand and make the necessary changes to comply.   In effect you need a system of making sure things get done.    There are three main building blocks of execution:-

 1. The Essentials

·         Know your people and understanding their ability to cope with change in your business processes.  Create a sense of urgency so that everyone understands why the changes, the policies are vital.

·         Set priorities and clear goals: insist on realism by ensuring they are SMART: specific, measureable, achievable, realistic and time framed.

·         Follow up and follow through.  Provide feedback, and correct poor procedure or bad behavior immediately.

·         Reward the doers actively look for people doing the right things.

·         Expand people’s capabilities.  Move from priority to priority but only after you have successfully launched deployed and demonstrated success.

·         Know yourself.  What style of leadership should you be adopting in order to support the change…..are you a walking role model.  

2. Creating the framework for cultural change

Making a change in a strategy or structure will only take a company so far.  Give your people the context of why decisions are made and the direction you are taking.  Reinforce the values or beliefs that create your culture and the behaviors you hold everyone, including yourself accountable to.

3.Ensure that you have the right people in the right place.

Managers need to be committed and engaged to both their recruitment and performance management process.   Choosing new team members based on a strong fit of skills competencies and cultural fit is vital: if they don’t seem to be a good fit at interview they generally won’t be a good fit once aboard.  Managing performance is about setting clear expectations and then providing the tools to meet them. 

Life is not black and white, the policies guide an organization with where they need to be at, they can be seen as strategic objectives for the organization, however the foundation of putting these policies to work, is by making the right moves.

“Unless you can make it happen, it’s not going to matter”