Part 2 - Leading in the Now and Post Pandemic
As we continue, more than ever, to adapt to a world of uncertainty, leaders will need to help their people find certainty in the things they can control, provide direction and a centre of focus through prioritisation, and most importantly set boundaries that allow clarity and provide a sense of control over their experience. But how do we find certainty when we are surround by so much uncertainty.
In exploring, what I believe, are 3 fundamentals every leader must focus on to balance the success and wellbeing of both themselves and their people; being priorities, certainty, and boundaries; we will discover how at the intersection of these, leaders can bring back a sense of control, clarity, and a centre of focus for their teams, ensuring they, their teams and their organisations continue to thrive.
Part 1
In Part 1 we explored the important role boundaries play now that we are ‘living at work’ and how, when clearly communicated assist you and your team in gaining an increased sense of control and clarity. We now continue to build on that clarity for you and your teams through defining your priorities.
.
A familiar story?
Does this sound familiar? With finite resources, you're being consistently pressured to deliver more and deliver faster. Each day, more and more work comes your way. Everyone is exhausted. You've got pressure from the top. You've got pressure from your staff. You've got pressure from stakeholders wanting to know where things are at, what's getting done, and when will it be delivered.
Without clear priorities, you're going to be spinning your wheels, working on all the urgent things, and not getting anything of importance completed. You're simply putting out bush fires. You're in a state of reaction.
Power of priorities
But when you are clear on what your priorities are it gives you the leverage to negotiate. And for your team, when they are clear on their priorities, they have a clear center of focus, which means they're going to be more effective and use their time wisely. Morale increases and ultimately so does productivity; and this results in the team delivering on impactful and important work efficiently and effectively, instead of splitting their time across multiple urgent things.
Now I know you are going to tell me that it’s impossible to be clear on your priorities because in an environment of uncertainty and complexity your priorities can change in a minute; and I agree with you, however, let’s explore this further.
Urgent vs Important - knowing the difference
But first, let me ask you, can you distinguish the difference between what's important and what’s urgent? It can be difficult and if you're not clear on what your priorities are, then it's almost impossible because often, ‘urgent’ is dressed up as ‘important’. How many times have you dropped everything to work on something ‘important’ only for the direction to change and the work redundant?
My challenge for you … if you do not have clarity on what is most important for you and your team - your priorities - I am confident to suggest that greater than 80% of your work is someone else’s urgent. Am I right? You and your team are chasing your tails delivering work for whoever is making the most noise, reacting to their ‘urgent’ at the expense of your ‘important’.
I can remember a time when I was on two weeks leave spending quality time with my family in an area where the mobile reception was sketchy to say the least. We had returned to our accommodation only to find seven missing calls from my leader and a couple of text messages asking to call as soon as I received the messages. My initial thoughts were “This must be important to contact me while I’m away on leave”, then thoughts like “What’s happened?” “What could be wrong?” “Is everything ok?” “Have I done something wrong?” I returned the calls; however, it went to voice message. This increased my anxiety levels even more, so I reached out to one of my team. And guess what? The matter was resolved, it wasn’t important, it didn’t need me to be involved to resolve it. It was a reaction to someone else’s urgent and after all the upheaval, it didn’t end up being all that urgent either.
In this scenario my leader wasn’t clear on their priorities or those of my team and as a result when someone else’s urgent was disguised as important a flurry of unnecessary work was created, boundaries were crossed, and time wasted. You must ask yourself, how does this type of culture impact morale?
“Priority is giving you clarity, and courage, and the confidence to say NO.”
What next?
As a leader, how can you ensure you and your team are clear on the priorities and working on what is important, not ‘urgent’ disguised as ‘important’?
Get Clear! What are your priorities? If you're not sure then seek clarity from your leader or stakeholders. Keep asking them, "What is the priority? Which one of these will have the greatest impact on the delivery of our strategy? What do you want us to focus on?" If they can't answer these questions, then create your own priorities and read them back. "This is what I think the priorities are. Do you agree?"
Communicate! Once you have clarity, communicate them to your team so they're clear what they're centre of focus is. This also empowers your team with the courage and confidence to say ‘No’.
Be Flexible! We know that priorities can and will change and change very quickly, so you and your team need to be agile and flexible. However, it is not about increasing workload and simply piling a new priority on top of the others. It’s a conversation around what needs to pause or even stop, so you can shift your focus to this new priority?
Reset and clear the decks. The most effective way to achieve this is to implement the ‘4 Ds’; Do it now; Date activate it (also known as Defer); Delegate it; or Delete it. At the same time introducing the Important vs Urgent matrix.
Re-evaluate! Schedule time as often as required to re-evaluate your priorities because they will and do change.
With a clear priorities and clearly set boundaries, your people have clarity on what they're producing and how they're producing it. With clear priorities and a sense of certainty, you begin to create a center of focus for your people so that they can perform at their best.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.