The golden goose of any initiative is implementation.
Starting out, it’s up to us to get ourselves to follow through on the work we know needs to get done. We have to work out what it takes for us to do the hard thing.
We find that ‘pushing through’ isn’t sustainable. Eventually we find a reason that drives us.
Whether it’s a diet, a new skill to learn or a formidable project- we each find our own way in to get it done.
When we lead others, we come up against the same challenge- how do we get people to follow through?
How do we get others to own outcomes and claim autonomy in their work? There’s a lot of things that help, sure; clarity of objective, clear milstone tracking, step by step systems, authority to make choices… all of these things contribute to the work getting done.
But those are all the tools- just like when we were doing it on our own we all needed tools. But if all it required were tools it would be easy.
Like you discovered on your own, you need heart. What do I mean? Well it needs to hook onto the thing that we value most. That’s how we bring heart to our work.
Why do I teach? I teach because I love bringing possibility to life for young people. I love learning and I love growing and I love contributing to something bigger than myself. Those are called values, by the way. Values are a steam train zooming off into the sunset and our outcomes are the things we hook on the back of that train.
Values are our own power source. The same is true for those we lead. It’s not enough to give excellent tools, protocols and outcomes- we have to hook it to their steam train.
What does this person value most? Don’t guess, get in conversation and ask them. It’s in the language; “My work is about X” or “The most important thing for this is Y”.
Find their values and align the job to that.
This is the never ending power source that gets the job done and has them fulfilled in the process. And that’s WAY better than merely implementing something.
We all want to work for a meaningful cause. Implementation… sure.
But doing meaningful work in the world with people that care?
That’s where it’s really at.
