Make It Real
A strategy without execution is a wish. Make It Real is the practice of turning a priority into a system that runs without reminders.
Why This Matters
A team does not experience its leader’s priorities. It experiences the systems the leader builds. If transparency matters but every piece of information flows through a gatekeeper, the system teaches the opposite. If development matters but no time is ever protected for learning, the system teaches that development is optional.
People deserve systems that make the right thing easy, rather than systems that need heroic effort to do what matters.
Leaders who worked this practice in Think Tank sessions reported the same shift: they stopped relying on reminders and started building triggers. One county administrator rebuilt her week around one rule: “Strategic thinking happens Tuesday mornings before email.” Six months later, it still happens without a reminder.
The goal is not more effort on the priorities. The goal is a system in which the priorities carry themselves.
The Core Challenge
Good intentions do not change an organization. Systems do. Every leader knows the gap between what they mean to prioritize and what gets their attention by Thursday.
Make It Real closes that gap with systems that make a priority automatic, so it no longer depends on willpower, memory, or the hope of remembering what matters when the urgent crowds in.
What This Practice Looks Like
Environment Design
The leader shapes the context so the right behavior is easier than the wrong one. More strategic thinking means calendar time blocked before the urgent fills it. Better communication means a changed meeting structure. Willpower is not the tool. The environment is.
Default Settings
What happens when nobody makes an active decision? The default path is the most likely path, so the leader designs defaults that match the priorities. If transparency matters, sharing information is the default and withholding it takes the extra step.
Trigger Points
Which event already on the calendar can carry the new behavior? The leader ties the new pattern to something that already happens reliably. “Before every staff meeting, I review the strategic priorities” works better than “I’ll think about strategic priorities regularly.”
Diagnostic Questions
Five questions that show where a system is missing:
- Which priorities do I keep meaning to work on and rarely reach?
- Where does something that matters depend on my willpower or my memory?
- What is the default path when the day gets busy, and does it match the priorities?
- What change to the environment would make the right behavior easier?
- Which existing habit or event could trigger the priority action?
One thing to try this week: Pick one priority that keeps getting pushed aside. Leave it off the to-do list. Attach it to something that already happens: “Before I check email in the morning, I spend fifteen minutes on this.” The trigger makes it automatic. Test it for one week.
The Connection Forward
Make It Real builds the engine. Systems drift without attention, and Reinforce the Change builds the rhythm that catches the drift and corrects course before an initiative quietly dies.
The practice often shows that a priority was less clear than it looked. A priority that will not fit into a system usually needs a sharper definition, which is Define What Matters. That is the method working. One trigger, tied to one event already on the calendar, tested for one week, is where to start.
Where is the pressure showing up?
The four practices work together. One of these situations may offer a useful place to begin.
- People are acting from different versions of what is happening. Begin with Face the Truth
- A decision keeps returning to unresolved priorities or tradeoffs. Begin with Define What Matters
- Progress is visible, but older habits or routines are beginning to return. Begin with Reinforce the Change
The work rarely stays inside one practice. Adaptive leaders draw on all four as a system, starting where the pressure is clearest and returning as conditions change.
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Rob Duncan, who founded Imagine That Performance, drew the four practices from more than 250 sessions with city managers and county administrators.
If one thing keeps surfacing, it is usually worth thinking through out loud.