A launch is only the beginning

Yesterday I was sitting in a board subcommittee meeting reviewing the company's policies. Good governance and policies matter because they help organisations operate thoughtfully, create clear guidelines for employees, stay within both the letter and spirit of the law, and act in the best interests of all their stakeholders.

As we worked through the detail, including things like delegation of authority, how leave is applied for and so on, I found myself thinking back over my corporate career. I've read countless policies, contributed to them, debated them, edited them, signed them off and watched them disappear, often beautifully branded, into an intranet somewhere, never to be seen again.

So I made the comment that whilst it's completely essential to have these things, we must remember that it doesn't end with getting the policy written and loaded onto whatever repository the company has. That's actually the beginning. That's when it has to be communicated, referred to, explained, embedded and kept alive. How do you know to go looking for a policy if you don't know there is one?

But this isn't really about policies. It reminded me of something much closer to my day job over the years, and something that's been on my mind for a while.

I've been involved in many campaign and brand projects where every ounce of energy is focused on the launch. It might be the beautiful TV commercial that goes live after Carte Blanche on a Sunday night (that dates me ), a big staff event, a media launch, or the unveiling of a new strategy or identity. Everyone works flat out towards that one milestone. Then the day arrives, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief, congratulates each other, and disappears back into their day jobs (perhaps hoping never to see the thing again!).

The thing is, a launch is only the beginning.

Your audience is only just encountering your idea for the first time. You, on the other hand, have been living with it for months. You've discussed it, refined it, changed it, argued about it and probably can't bear another meeting about it. They're seeing it with completely fresh eyes.

We didn't create the campaign, policy, product or initiative simply to have a good launch. We did it because we wanted something to change. We wanted people to behave differently, buy something, understand something, adopt something or believe something. At the point of launch, none of those business objectives has been achieved yet. If anything, you've only just given them the chance to be.

Over the years, I have seen that we mistake milestones for outcomes. We pour our energy into getting to the launch, the presentation or the go-live date, and then behave as though the job is done. In reality, that's when the real work starts.

Whether it's a policy, a new brand, a product, an internal campaign or change initiative, what happens afterwards is what determines whether it succeeds. It's in the conversations, the reminders, the reinforcement, the examples people set and the thousand small moments that turn something from an announcement into the way things are simply done around here.

So when you're putting together the project plan, don't just give all the attention to the run-up to launch. Build the post-launch into it with just as much passion, and put as many names next to the action items afterwards as you do beforehand.

The launch isn't the destination. It's the point at which the journey really begins.