How Far Have You Come?

Do you ever give pause to the big picture? I ask with absolute sincerity, not a rhetorical question. I can become so embroiled in my daily task list (those items I categorize as “red” in Outlook) and the inevitable minor catastrophes that transpire during the day that it’s often a challenge to give real attention to my “need to do” items. The things that will make bigger impact, and invariably require a lot of energy. I keep a list of short-term and longer-term tasks or initiatives of more significance, and try to keep those in mind when attacking the everyday. This helps me complete immediate, important tasks in a manner that hopefully facilitates the more term issues a little more successfully.

I think companies (really, just organized groups of individuals each suffering the same malady) are challenged with essentially the same problem. On an executive level, you’re charged with shepherding and growing the business. That may imply a number of direct and indirect metrics including new product development, client satisfaction, product delivery, human capital investment, and so on. Moreover, the persons charged with these roles must not only meet their reporting team obligations (at a minimum) as working managers, they must also meet the obligations of their steering or higher committee teams.

So how does growth happen? In the sense of fiscal growth, talent growth, resource growth, operational growth. How can a company in today’s economy afford to work on their end game when their now game is in dire straits [How can I get that white paper developed, the one we need for showcasing thought leadership, when I don’t have the staff to complete the demands of the clients today]?

They can’t afford NOT to (meet the steering team obligations). Any modicum of success achieved in the short run by plugging only today’s dam holes will be significantly overshadowed by the collapse of the entire dam in the long term.

I think the key to achieving marked results is said simply, but accomplished only with constant diligence. It’s about identifying areas of improvement or opportunities, and selecting an initiative based on priority or necessity determined by sequence. Get that ball moving in the air while the other balls are being picked up.

Some ideas, based on principles of Lean Six Sigma and Scrum agile development:

1. Identify and write down the short and long term initiatives that should be accomplished. Do this on index cards, using different colors to categorize them into groups. We’ll call those story cards.
2. Identify which members of your reporting team are best suited (skills, talent, aptitude) to manage each different story card.
3. Prioritize teach team member’s story cards in order of importance. While you may instinctively wish to mark them all as top priority and due “now,” you must really think about when the story could actually, realistically be utilized, and any impact there may be in the broader sense (all of the cards for the team).
4. Weigh the daily work of the team with the anticipated amount of work to accomplish their stories. Then establish delivery dates that are reasonable, but would require that they not procrastinate. Think of the stories in terms of course projects from college days; there’s a semester to complete the project while there are still regular class assignments along the way.
5. Make charts that can be visibly displayed – both in your office as well as each team members – to communicate a sense of accountability and commitment.
6. Set a few mini-check points along the way to ensure that measureable progress is achieved in a way that will help the team member succeed at their deliverable story.

To recap, this process matches team member’s strengths with short and long term deliverables, with clear expectations for demonstrating incremental progress, in a time frame that can reasonably be accomplished through self-discipline and commitment, yet ensures maneuverability for daily tasks. It pushes your reports to research, analyze, process, and produce quality, cogent work. It can provide them with subject matter expertise and a sense of contribution and accomplishment.

The end game? Break big games down into a series of strategized plays. You’ll come out victorious.