Getting Your Hands Dirty to Ensure Success

Fred Wilson is a VC out of New York that has a great blog I read daily. Today he wrote about "rolling up your sleeves and getting your hands dirty". Fred is writing about VCs, but I think this applies in any strategic implementation. You can't successfully implement a strategy without truly understanding the ins and outs of that business and its strategy. At the end of the day:

• YOU are accountable for immersing yourself in business, you are accountable to make the strategy a reality.
• Your STAKEHOLDERS expect you to understand the business and embrace the strategy.
• Your TEAM expects you to understand the business and communicate the vision and strategy in an inspirational way and insure they are engaged and motivated.

You can't expect your stakeholders to give you their full support and you you can't expect your team to be motivated and engaged if you don't roll up your sleeves and get dirty along side them. I should note here that there is a fine line between getting your hands dirty to understand the business so you can help your team plan and remove roadblocks, and micromanaging the team. You do NOT want to do the latter.

In 2000, I was asked to put the Target registries online when I joined Target.com. I had used the registries at a department store when I got married 10 years prior, but I had never used the Target registry. I had 2 choices, 1) ask the team to start working on a plan and a timeline to implement the registry strategy or 2) personally understand the registry business before working with the team to create a plan. I chose #2.

I spent my first week meeting with the registry stakeholders to understand their wants and needs. I spent my second week out in the field actually creating registries and working with the Target team members and guests to understand the experience. I got my hands dirty and it was invaluable.

By taking the approach of getting my hands dirty to truly understand the business, 1) I gained credibility with the stakeholders- they trusted that I understood their business and they were extremely cooperative in all phases, 2) I gained credibility with my team- they saw me doing the work, understanding the business to be able to help them plan the project and remove roadblocks and 3) the project was delivered on time, on budget and with rave reviews.

Take the time to get your hands dirty- the outcome will be more successful!