The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan

Chapter 6Drive Operational AccountabilityEmbed Milestones by Day 45 and Early Wins by Day 60.

The real test of a high-performing team's tactical capacity lies in the formal and informal practices that are at work across team members, particularly around clarifying decision rights and information flows.¹ The real job of a high-performing team's leader is to inspire and enable others to do their absolute best, together. These leaders spend more time integrating across than managing down. This is best achieved by implementing a straightforward milestone management tool that focuses on mapping and tracking who is doing what, by when. High-performing team leaders exploit this milestone management tool to hold each other accountable and enable people to work together as a team!

Early wins are all about credibility and confidence. People have more faith in people who have delivered. You want team members to have confidence in you, in themselves, and in the plan for change that has emerged. You want your boss to have confidence in you. Early wins fuel that confidence. To that end, identify and jump-start potential early wins by Day 60, and overinvest to deliver them by the end of your first six months—as a team!

Capture the Milestones

Milestones are the building blocks of tactical capacity that turn a Burning Imperative into a manageable action plan. Your team's milestone management ...