Practice 3

Make It Real

Strategy without execution is wishful thinking. This practice turns priorities into systems.

Why This Matters

Our teams don’t experience our priorities, they experience the systems we build. If transparency matters but all information flows through gatekeepers, the system teaches the opposite of what we intend. If development matters but there’s never protected time for learning, the system teaches that development is optional.

The people we lead deserve systems that make the right thing easy, not systems that require heroic effort to do what matters.

Leaders who worked through this practice in Think Tank sessions reported a consistent shift: they stopped relying on reminders and started building triggers. One county administrator redesigned her weekly schedule with a simple rule: “Strategic thinking happens Tuesday mornings before email.” Six months later, it still happens automatically.

The goal isn’t to work harder on priorities. It’s to build systems where priorities execute themselves.

The Core Challenge

Good intentions don’t change organizations. Systems do. Every leader has experienced the gap between what they want to prioritize and what actually gets their attention.

This practice closes that gap by building systems that make priorities automatic, not dependent on willpower, memory, or the hope that we’ll remember to focus on what matters when the urgent crowds in.

What This Practice Looks Like

Environment Design

Shape the context so the right behaviors are easier than the wrong ones. If we want more strategic thinking, block calendar time before the urgent fills it. If we want better communication, change the meeting structure. Don’t rely on willpower, change the environment.

Default Settings

What happens when no active decision is made? The default path is the most likely path. Design defaults that align with priorities. If transparency matters, make information sharing the default, not something that requires extra effort.

Trigger Points

What events or conditions automatically activate the priority behaviors? Link 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 to identify where systems need to be built:

What priorities do we consistently intend to focus on but rarely actually address?
Where are we relying on willpower or memory for things that matter?
What’s our default path when the day gets busy, does it align with priorities?
What environmental changes could make the right behaviors easier?
What existing habits or events could trigger priority actions?

One thing to try this week: Pick one priority that keeps getting pushed aside. Don’t add it to your to-do list, that hasn’t worked. Instead, attach it to something that already happens: “Before I check email in the morning, I spend 15 minutes on [priority].” The trigger makes it automatic. Test it for one week.

The Connection Forward

Make It Real creates the execution engine. But systems drift without attention. Reinforce the Change builds the rhythms that detect drift and correct course before initiatives quietly die.

This practice often reveals that we weren’t as clear on priorities as we thought. If we can’t build a system for it, we may need to return to Define What Matters for sharper definition of what actually matters. That’s not failure, that’s the methodology working as designed.

Continue the Methodology

Define What Matters

Reinforce the Change →

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