Send the right signal

Once a year I go through my closet and pull out clothes I haven’t worn for years. They are just taking up space. I look around my office periodically and focus on items that have faded out of awareness. Is it time to remove some knick-knacks? Recycle printed articles I will never read? Throw out coupons that expired last year??

August is a great time to clean up as many of us look ahead to fresh starts and more projects in September. Take a look around. A good look. Does anything look a bit retro? Not in a good way.?

Check out this sign near my home:

As you can see, no construction in sight! While it was posted in good faith, it is now a mockery of this company’s ability to deliver on time.?

The Strategy Accelerator?identifies five key levers required to drive change successfully. Lever number four is Credibility. As I tell every client, “If you excite people with a an attractive picture of the future, create capacity, and clearly illustrate what will (and will not) change, but run the project with a leader no one respects, people will not get on board.”?

No one wants to follow a poor leader. If they do (you can coerce anything!), you certainly won’t get the most energetic performance. Credibility matters.?

Credibility is also one of the easiest qualities to destroy and it doesn’t take much. A broken promise, a track record of little failures, or messages that do not reflect reality.?

When leading change. Every signal matters. Everything communicates – words, images, frequency of updates, how much you say, and how you say it. Even silence says a lot.?

Take a hard look around. What is sending a signal about your project, and what does it say? Don’t get caught sending a message that’s out of step with your goals.