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The Power of Prioritising

Written by: Geoff Flemming

Article Overview: As we reflect back on 2009, it was a year of change and uncertainty. Many organisations could be compared to a sporting team under pressure. When the market is going their way then everything is working and confidence is high. However when the pressure is on the weaknesses become very apparent and the cracks starts to appear.

The Power of Prioritising

So it is a whole new day! December andJanuary are the best times to lay the foundation for 2010. Often thechallenge with developinga plan iswhere to start,and what to do to really define a process that will keep itsimple, easy to follow and actually help toget results!

The key in creating asuccessful plan, apart from crystallising purpose and vision is to clearly describeyour mission or 'critical success factors'. Yourmission will define yourbroad strategy that will help you achieve your organisation's overarching objective whilst fulfilling your purpose.

The secret in maximising the plan is for management to elicit, or clearly articulate to all employees, based upon your mission,the handful of absolute priorities that must be addressed or achieved to move the company to the next level.

Verne Harnish, the guru of fast growth companies,emphasises the importanceof mastering organisational alignment and focus. What is critical to results is aligning team members' priorities with the company's, and creating the clarity that is crucial for top performance.

We ashuman beings have a natural ability to get very busy and at the same time will go to great lengths to avoid what needs to be done. In organisations this regularly extends to dealing with personnel issues. Whilst our peoplecan be busy and verydedicated they can at the same time be just maintaining rather than growing. Very busy but just not going anywhere!The organisation with too many priorities, has no priorities!

The first step is to define from the plan the company'stop 5 priorities and then your top 1 of 5. Your top 1 is usually the one that causes the most pain! Your top 5will then become part of the daily and weekly 'metrics', or measurements that will let us know we are on track - or not.

The next step is the most difficult yet will yield the greatestreturn. Work with everyone to define their own top 5 priorities, aligning them with the company's top 5. Thisis a process of defining or redefining individual KPI's so that every team members' prioritiesandactivities are focused on growth.

The final stepwill requirediscipline. Create a weekly 'rhythm' of meetings where every team member gets to align with their peers whilst reviewing priorities and results. The second step istostructure regular performance appraisals to help team members to clear bottlenecks and distractions that prevent them from their top 5 and top 1 priorities.

When everyone in the organisation has clarity and is focused only ontheir priorities you have alignment! When you have everyone aligned, everyone at every level sees what you see and aspires to what you aspire!

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Article Tags: Business Coaching, Crucial Conversations, high performance teams, leadership training, motivation, organisations



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