The other day a mid-level manager was talking about an 800-pound gorilla project that is looming in his pipeline. There are a lot of moving parts in the project, and a lot of people will need to be coordinated to complete the work. He is focused on doing effective enough planning that the project will come in on time, and on or under budget. There's only one problem: the strategy behind the project was never really explained to him. He knows that his project is going to cause ripples in other parts of the company. He is concerned about whether that is OK or not. Does the boss truly intend to shake up the business? If so, why?
He is not alone - your team members might be working like mad right now to accomplish goals. But let's look at a quick illustration: what if one person's goal is to refinish the floor and another person's goal is to replace the floor entirely? From their individual perspectives they are doing the right things, but ultimately they are working - very conscientiously, mind you - at cross purposes!
So what are "The Right Things"? They are determined by a few factors:
- Your BHAG - your big, hairy audacious goal for the business 10-20 years out
- Your 3HAG - strategic chess moves over the next few years that line you up to hit the big one
- Your annual priorities - what must get done this year to hit your 3 year target
- Your quarterly priorities - what must get done this quarter to hit your annual target
When you work from the context of your really big, long term aspiration and bring it down to more immediate building blocks, the right things are a series of 13-week races toward your annual priorities.
In any quarter you need to limit your priorities to 5 or fewer. Given that nothing is a given in the workplace, you also need to know which is the first priority of the 5 in case time, resources, etc. are not sufficient to complete all of them. The right things are those few things that are going to move you forward. Yes, there are also daily tasks, incoming emails, phone calls, meetings, etc. You likely have production goals that are the day in, day out activities for which you are accountable. Priorities as we describe them here are the projects that help to jettison the day to day items forward.
Annual and quarterly priorities are structured in the form of SMART goals - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistically HIGH, Time-deadline stated. When your priorities are formatted in this way you will be able to tell whether you accomplished them or not. (Which is, ironically, why some people resist setting SMART goals!) And you can plan them to be as granular as you want, meaning that you might decide to set weekly targets (your 13-week race) that will add up to the achievement of your quarterly priority. In general, the more crucial the outcome and deadline are, the tighter your planning windows should be.
Each person on your leadership team should have his or her top 5 and top 1 of 5 also. Build in accountability by meeting with your team to talk about progress toward their priorities on at least a monthly basis.
Business conditions change - I don't know any companies who had Covid on their radar this time last year. But amid all of the potential distractions and drama going on out there, priorities help you and your team sustain progress through whatever curve balls are thrown your way.
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