Use just two or three goals. Those who did not succeed used more goals than leaders who succeeded in accomplishing their goals.
Use a strategy planning process, but a fancy plan should not be the point. Seventy-five percent of the successful agencies used a defined planning process.
Manage within your organization, not just at 50,000 feet. Successful leaders focused half their time on efforts inside the agency. Leaders who didn’t achieve their goals spent just one-quarter of their time internally.
Use performance measures. Successes used measures to communicate what the leader wanted, to delegate, and to establish accountability
Build relationships with Congress. Successful leaders worked proactively to get Congressional support.
You may need to reorganize—even if you don’t really want to. Most successful leaders did reorganize their agencies.
Don’t be in such a hurry to set strategy that you neglect to gather data to inform your judgment, or to vet your choices. A poor process and ill-informed strategy choices almost never get implemented.
Don’t focus exclusively on the change. Almost every leader focused on managing change. However, unsuccessful leaders didn’t use important tools to manage their organization’s routine performance.
