We are about six weeks into the new year and many of you in leadership rolls are looking for some early detection on the impact of your new year strategic plans.  Will the new org structure facilitate communications, will the new sales team perform, will your new social media strategy drive leads to the top of your sales funnel?   In order to make some of these changes stick in your company, try this approach.  For example, if you have a team member who has influence with others on the team, get that person on board and others will follow. The gist is that you have to get many others working actively with you to make the change happen.

Vince Lombardi, the famous football coach, must have instinctually known this. Legend has it Lombardi once coached a player named Tony who was not the sharpest crayon in the box. Lombardi used to develop each play at a level that Tony could understand. If Tony got it, it meant the whole team got it and would execute the play.

Napoleon, the great military leader, did something similar. Folklore suggests he had his battle memos written at a second-grade level so he could be sure all his troops understood and followed his orders. The creation of an alliance is critical.

But even with your alliance in play, you must never forget to continuously communicate a powerful vision of the change and your strategy for achieving it. Use every channel: your internal portal, social media, town hall meetings, a well-crafted elevator speech. As a leader, your job is to communicate your vision and be excited about it all the way through the process, not just at the beginning