In the first part of the series, I gave an example of how one company had a lot of great ideas which turned into a lot of priorities to take on in one year. I used the analogy of shooting fish in a barrel. You ruin the barrel and generally miss the fish—you might even shoot someone else who happens to be standing by barrel. So how do you decide what’s important and what are the implications of organizational overload?
The implications are that you move forward with all your plans, but all that activity may cause inactivity. In other words, time and attention may move people from core roles and responsibilities in order to execute the plan. If you’re lucky, it’s not enough time to be counter productive. As in systems thinking, every action has a reaction. “Reaction” might be corrective action, clarification, change, etc. So the amount of time taken up by any reaction will further extend the inactivity.
Another implication is the eleventh hour halt. I have seen strategic programs pulled at the eleventh hour because people got panicky—and rightly so. The chatter of the prior quarters finally bubbles up from their subconscious. By then, it is a last minute realization that the simultaneous priorities would not feed sales growth, operational enhancements, product differentiation, or customer satisfaction, but harm it. The unfortunate consequence is that the program that often gets cut is the one that should be the priority. But it is too late to fix it in time for a successful implementation.
The things to think about as you develop your organizational priorities are: do they enhance your product or service portfolio, profits and sales, or your people? And which 2-3 things are the greater priorities for that fiscal year? Anything that doesn’t fit into these buckets probably isn’t strategic and anything more than three objectives might undermine your plans.
Change IS good. Don’t get me wrong. But when the organization’s actions and accountability to 5-10 priorities compete with the day job, then the collective value of those programs is likely to diminish. Truthfully, it may take more than a fiscal year to recover. The questions you have to ask of your organization are: are you asking—and listening–so that you can make the best choices for your company and ultimately your customers? Companies should move in the manner they intended—strategically, not defensively.
Can you have too many priorities? ABSOLUTELY!
Frankly, it’s leadership’s job to drive that focus and far too many leader abdicate that responsiblity, leaving organizations spinning in a variety of directions and then wonder why people aren’t “getting things done”!
Funny, I learned this lesson from a great leader in my early days at P&G working on the coffee business. The leader at the time was Jurgen Hintz who gets a lot of credit from moving Folgers from a West Coast regional brand to the leading retail brand. Jurgen was known to trumpet in every hallway, meeting and venue – “Build Red, Double Green, and screw the tea” Jurgen’s laser like focus on what was critical was a great lesson that has been reinforced many times in my 20+ years as a business leader. Focusing on the critical few is often missed by key leaders of organizations. But trying to do too many things, often means you end up doing too many things very poorly.
Just my humble opinion and thanks for raising the discussion!
Rob Jelinek
Managing Partner at JENA Leadership