This is Part 5 of a 6 part series on transformation leadership.  In part 1 of this series, I laid out five great New Year’s resolutions for Executives in 2013.  In this post, I offer some practical suggestions for Resolution #4: Finish What You Start.

When you fail to finish, you start to fail

I was visiting my mother over the holidays and we were looking at an afghan that I crocheted for her when I was in college.  As she was remarking once again on how beautiful it was and how much work went into it, I felt compelled to tell her the truth.  The actual crocheting time was only a few weeks.  The total project time, however, was nearly four years.  My original plan was to give her the afghan for Christmas my freshman year in college.  But, I did not finish it in time.  So, I set it aside, thinking it would make a great mother’s day gift.  And then it was a birthday gift.  And then it was Christmas again.  And so on.  Until I finally gave it to her for Christmas my senior year in college.

And while I am confessing, I will confess one more thing.  It is the only afghan project I ever finished.  I currently have three other projects in various stages of completion — at least two of them more than 10 years in the making.

I am sure that most of us have unfinished projects at home.  Maybe its the baby book you started for your first child.  Perhaps it is the old Chevy parked in your yard that you intend to restore one day.  Or maybe its the oil painting you started in a summer art class, that now sits in your closet gathering dust.  I know people who build new houses with the intention of finishing the trim themselves, yet the trim remains undone in the basement or utility room.  And nearly all of us have a list of “honey do” projects that “honey don’t” get done.

And we don’t really sweat these unfinished projects.  After all, the unfinished baby book is far less important than raising your son or daughter to be a good man or woman.  Someone else will buy your old Chevy as a project car. Most visitors to your home are unlikely to notice the missing trim in your utility room.  And, unless the project on the “honey do” list involves a working toilet, most of theses projects are simply not “mission critical” for your family.

But unfinished transformation initiatives in your business are another matter entirely. When you fail to finish, you are failing your customers, you are failing your employees, and you are failing your shareholders and owners.  And when you fail to finish several transformations in succession, your employees begin to see every new initiative as the “transformation du jour”.  They will happily play lip service to it in public and then equally happily ignore it in practice. Not only do you not gain the performance improvements that you intended with the transformation, you may soon find yourself falling further behind your competitors who have been more successful at finishing what they start.

Here are some things you can do to breathe new life in your important transformation initiatives in 2013.

Renew Your Commitment

If making the transformation is important to you and your business, then people need to see and hear you make it important.  If it has been more than a year since you started down the path of transformation, it may be time to renew your commitment.  One great way to communicate to your employees that you are still committed to the change process is to hold a 2013 Kick-Off event to celebrate successes and recognize the champions of the transformation.

Do something fun, like have an ice cream social in the cafeteria with you and your management team dishing up the ice cream.  Hand out promotional items that emphasize the message of the transformation, such as a coffee mug.  Or, if money is an issue, create certificates hand-signed by you to present to employees who have shown real leadership in moving the transformation forward.  To be honest,  it isn’t so important what you do — as long as you personally and publicly participate in whatever the activity might be.

Actively Monitor the Progress

One of the biggest contributors to stalled transformations is that they are “delegated” away from the executive suite, sometimes two or three levels below the executive management team.  If you want your transformation to be successful, you need to have an executive champion who sits at the table on an equal basis with the rest of the executive management team. In the most successful transformations, the CEO or President serves as the executive champion.

Once you have a suitable champion, you also need to include the transformation as an agenda topic at every management or staff meeting.  While it is important to have separate, formal progress reviews on a periodic basis, there is no substitute for sustaining an ongoing conversation about the progress of the transformation.  And the conversation needs to be very open and honest.  Encourage your managers to report both successes and failures.  Talk about the barriers that stand in the way of achieving your vision.  And work together to come up with solutions to get things moving forward again.

Finally, one of the most powerful ways for an executive to demonstrate  his or her commitment to the change process is to engage your employees in informal discussions by simply walking around and talking about it every day.  But instead of asking the usual, general question “how are things going”, ask a very specific question about the transformation process.  Are they seeing any improvements?  Are their ideas being heard?  What can be done to make it more effective?  The first few times, you may be deafened by the silence.  But once you make this part of your daily routine, you will open up a constructive dialogue that can help you and your management team keep the transformation moving forward.

Hold People Accountable

A few years ago, I worked with a company that had made a significant investment in developing an information system that would track and report overall equipment efficiency for every production line.  Two years after the system was installed, I visited one of the plants to see if the solution had actually resulted in improved efficiencies.  Sadly, it had not.  Why?  It turns out that overall equipment efficiency was not one of the metrics used to measure the performance of the plants or the plant managers.  Duh!

Every transformation initiative is justified on the basis of some kind of improvement in your organization’s performance.  A lean manufacturing initiative should result in reduced costs or more throughput.  A customer service initiative should result in improved customer satisfaction ratings or measures.  A quality improvement initiative should result in fewer rejects, repairs, and returns.  The fastest way to drive these initiatives forward is to measure the changes in performance and hold people accountable for the results.

Take a look at the performance measures you use for your managers and employees.  Are the measures you are using tied to the company you want to be after the transformation?  Or are they tied to the company you have been, reinforcing old and unproductive behaviors?  If the latter, then make 2013 the year that you bring your performance measures in line with your vision.  And if changing performance measures doesn’t change the behaviors of your managers and employees — then maybe it is time to change the people and replace them with people who are on board with the transformation vision.

Find a New Way to “Finish”

Transformation initiatives often take several years to move through all the stages from initiation to complete transformation.  And they seldom look exactly like the original vision when they are complete.  When a transformation process stalls out, it may be necessary to change some of the elements to make it work better for your organization.  If formal process mapping is too sophisticated or detailed for your organization to embrace, develop a more practical approach that your employees will use.  If you started off collecting so much data your employees no longer have time to look at any of it, then simplify your approach and focus on the top two or three metrics.

Remember my afghan story?  In fact, it took me so long to get around to “finishing” it, I was  unable to match the yellow yarn that I was using when I started the project.  What my mother always thought was a carefully planned use of blue, white, and yellows, was really the fortunate accident of having to adjust my plan in order to finish the afghan.  While different from my original vision, the result was actually more creative and more beautiful.

By finishing what you started in your transformation initiative, I am betting you will be pleasantly surprised at how much better and more successful your organization has become than you originally envisioned.