The Executive Checklist: A Guide for Setting Direction and Managing Change

We know this sounds like an overly simple approach to the complex business of managing change. But the author has used this checklist successfully for years with his biggest clients, which include Home Depot, IBM, and JP Morgan Chase, and he has seen it work.

The book is written for executives, and those aspiring to become one. It's useful for people leading transformations in large organizations, and for those who just want to stay on top of the new normal of constant change.

James Kerr is an author, international lecturer, and management consultant who's worked with many Fortune 100 firms. He also teaches at the Lally School of Management, at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York state.

So, keep listening to find out how to develop a strategy to deliver your vision of the future, two simple ways to build trust in your organization, and some tips for keeping younger colleagues engaged in your initiatives.

"The Executive Checklist" is not a long book. It's divided into 10 chapters, one for each item on the executive checklist. For each of these to-dos, there's a supplementary checklist of eight steps. These smaller checklists help you stay organized and on top of what needs to happen for successful change to take place.

We thought this was a smart addition to the book, because these smaller lists help you understand and implement each element on the master executive checklist.

Here are the 10 to-dos on the executive checklist: establish leadership, build trust, set strategy, engage staff, manage work through projects, renovate the business, align technology, transform staff, renew communications practices, and re-imagine organizational design.

Let's look at some of these elements in greater detail. We'll start with the first item on the checklist: establish leadership.

As a leader, it's up to you to inspire your team to dream more and do more. And, you can't do this unless you make everyone feel like they're working towards a common good. If your team doesn't feel like they're part of something greater, then any organizational change you try and implement will probably fail.

This is why establishing leadership is the first to-do on the checklist. And, as you heard, the author provides an eight-step smaller checklist to guide you through this first step.

First, you need to have a dream. Any organizational change or transformation has to start with a dream or vision – some big idea that you and your team can all share. And, you've got to communicate this vision in a way that engages your team and makes it seem real.

Once that's done, you've got to set the direction. This means having a strategic plan in place to achieve the goal.

To develop a good plan, make sure you understand what a potential strategy is intended to deliver, and how it will help you achieve your vision.

Another step to establish your leadership is to use "management huddles." This is when key managers and experts come together to do some immediate problem solving or planning.

These huddles are a great way to communicate with your management team, because their purpose is to solve a specific problem, so they cut to the chase. But, don't use them too much. They're not meant to stand in for in-depth meetings or discussions.

There are six more strategies to help you establish your leadership. All of them are practical, useful, and relevant.

The next item on the executive checklist is to build trust with your team.

Stop and think about the trust levels in your organization right now. Do people feel comfortable coming to you with problems, or do they feel wary, and keep that information to themselves?

Organizations with high levels of trust are more efficient, productive, and successful than organizations with low levels of trust. And, the reasons are simple.

When people feel they have to look over their shoulder, they have less time and energy to focus on work that matters. And, when people don't feel safe enough to point out problems or inefficiencies, the organization as a whole suffers.

So, trust is pretty important. But, how do you build it?

Start with leading by example. Your behavior and attitude has enormous influence on the people you lead. So show everyone what trust looks like. Be forthright. Don't avoid conflict or encourage it. Be honest. Be accountable for your actions, and show courage when things get tough. Your team will follow your lead.

Another way to build trust is to stay focused on the outside. This means focusing on the real work your organization does – whether that's wowing customers, developing new products, or defeating your competition.

Organizations that let internal conflicts sap the time and energy of their teams often find that their outside work suffers as a result. Every moment your team spends fighting among themselves is another moment your competitors are spending with your customers.

Always remind your team that the competition is outside, not inside. And, do your best to keep them focused on that idea.

Increased trust helps with staff motivation, and the author takes this further with his section on engaging employees. Your change initiative might be real and exciting to you, but if your staff isn't on board, then it will never see the light of day.

The author offers up several strategies for engaging your staff. One that we particularly liked was to plan for Generation Y.

The term "Generation Y" refers to people born between 1980 and 2000. These young professionals are now joining the workforce, and getting them engaged with your initiative might require a slightly different approach than with other workers.

Research shows that Gen Y is the most stressed-out generation, at least in the United States. This is an important trend for leaders to know about, because it can – and should – influence how you staff, train, and offer benefits to these people.

One way to take care of your Gen Y staff is to promote location independence. Don't pressure them to show up at the office from 9 to 5. Instead, establish remote work locations that can be staffed by on-demand teams. Give them the flexibility to do their work how and when they want to. This flexibility and independence can help lower stress, and make your workplace more attractive to Gen Y.

Another way you can engage this generation is to redefine their job titles. You might need to change or even remove job titles to give younger workers the flexibility they want, which in turn will help keep them engaged.

The author also suggests you adopt some of Gen Y's sensibilities. This generation is looking for fun and variety in the workplace, so why not give it to them?

The author isn't suggesting you stir in a hefty dose of chaos, but he does suggest you find ways to make work a bit more lighthearted and fun.

We like this suggestion because – let's face it – we spend most of our waking hours at work. If the environment is fun, our morale and productivity are going to go up. And, that can benefit everyone working at your organization, not just Gen Y.

In the section on renovating your business, the author discusses how to become "of choice" through a process of planning and renewal. This might mean you're the employer of choice, the investment of choice, or the organization of choice within your market or industry.

Every organization wants to be "of choice," because these are the companies that attract the best customers, the best employees, and the best investments. To do this, you have to constantly renovate and improve your business.

Start by renovating to differentiate your business. By this, the author is warning against creating change for the sake of change. He means that if you're going to renovate, do it with the express purpose of differentiating yourself from your competition.

Being an organization of choice means offering the right products, at the right price, through the right distribution channels, all the while providing the right kind of experience to your customers.

Interestingly, the author says being "of choice" doesn't mean you have to have the lowest price, or the very best product. It's more about offering the best overall experience.

Your goal to renovate and improve needs to be folded into your organization's overall strategy, and then you have to choose an approach or model.

The author says that many times, conflict erupts within the leadership team because everyone has a different idea about which approach to use in renovation. For instance, one person might think that total quality management is best, while others might push for lean or Six Sigma.

According to the author's experience, it doesn't matter which approach you choose. At the end of the day, it's more important to pick one and move forward, instead of spending days or weeks trying to figure out which is the very best.

What the author's saying here is that you should spend some time thinking about your options. But, don't let this one decision take up so much time that it eclipses everything else.

Your next step is to diagram the whole process. If you're going to improve something, you first have to understand every step or handoff along the way. By drawing the workflow on a piece of paper, you can see which steps can be eliminated to make things simpler.

There are several more to-dos to help you renovate your business. Once these are accomplished, you can move on through the checklist, looking at how you use technology, and after that, how to transform your staff, so that they're more effective and aligned with your changing organization.

One way to do this is to focus your training on soft skills, such as creative problem solving and negotiation, not just job-specific skills. Soft skills enhance communication, strengthen teamwork, and foster collaboration and cooperation.

Soft skill training can also give your team a better understanding of the organization's vision, by helping them think broadly and see the big picture. This can prompt them to suggest meaningful changes to improve productivity, or improve current products or services.

Another way to transform your staff is to commit to "shared training" – by which the author means that the cost of training is shared between the organization and the staff being trained.

At first, some people might balk at this idea. But, here's why this is smart. Organizations that spend millions on training often find that their people are gone in a couple of years, and they have to start the process all over again. But, when you offer your staff training in skills that they want to learn, your people are more willing to shoulder some of the cost, because these are skills they can take with them when they move on.

You can offer shared training by splitting the cost of a class or program with your team members, or by giving team members paid time off to educate themselves at their own expense.

The last two items on the executive checklist are to renew your communication practices so that your organization is more transparent, and to re-imagine your organization to keep innovating for the future. Like all the elements on the master list, these last two have plenty of tips and strategies to help you make them a reality.

So, what's our last word on "The Executive Checklist"?

We think this book gives leaders a useful practical framework for tackling large-scale change in an organization. The sub-checklists that support each of the 10 to-dos on the executive checklist help break down the work, so it's not overwhelming.

The result is that by the end of the book, most readers will have a better understanding of what needs to happen to implement large-scale change. And, the checklists make it easy not to miss an important step or process.

It's really easy to skip around this book too, and the author says he specifically designed it to be like this. You won't have any trouble finding information about something specific, making the book a handy reference guide for busy professionals.

"The Executive Checklist" by James Kerr is published by Palgrave MacMillan.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.