Take a More Strategic Approach to Work...Every Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being strategic — that is, making a coherent set of choices to help you pursue an ambition or goal — is a nonnegotiable skill for leaders. But it can be hard to practice, and strategies are notoriously hard to design and deliver. Sometimes we blame organizational obstacles. For example, micromanagement dampens enthusiasm for trying something new. Incentives encourage us to stick to the status quo. Poor communication makes it hard to know where to focus.

But often it’s our mindsets and behaviors that are the most limiting. At the extreme, burnout inhibits our ability to make decisions. Anxiety limits our field of vision. Overwhelm makes it harder to figure out where to start. Lack of confidence encourages us to focus on the near term. As a result, we switch on autopilot as we default to habits that help us focus on the familiar. But this is often not what the strategy requires or what we want for ourselves. It’s no wonder we get frustrated by the lack of progress toward our goals.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Even when it feels like the odds are stacked against you (especially in the most bureaucratic organizations), you have more choices than you may realize. Small decisions about where to focus and what to do throughout your day may feel inconsequential, but their impacts accumulate. Master those small decisions and before you know it, you’ll overcome the obstacles as you pursue your strategy with greater clarity, determination, and ultimately success.

Here are five ways to incorporate strategy into your daily practices.

1.       Identify the actions that matter

Every day there are opportunities to focus more attention on events, situations, or activities that make a disproportionately positive contribution to a strategy.

To do this, first first write down your team’s strategy, including how it contributes to the organization’s strategy. Second, select a window of time to focus on, such as the week ahead. Third, write down the best actions you could take (or encourage others to take) in critical moments to increase the chances of your strategy succeeding. As you put your ideal schedule together, set aside time to focus on these impactful actions:

• Making critical decisions, such as where to focus, how to win, where to deploy resources, and how to incentivize people.
•  Identifying and interpreting signals from customers and employees, then figuring out how to respond.
• Convincing colleagues to think and act in new ways — for example, anticipating the needs of future customers.
• Tackling difficult behaviors that impede progress, such as complacency or overconfidence, and rewarding exemplary behaviors.

Next, add in time for being visible with employees and stakeholders as well as for the management tasks you can’t get out of, such as making approvals and attending meetings. Include a buffer for emergencies, and whenever possible, learn to tactfully say no (Or not yet) to anything that could be an unhelpful distraction.

Finally, prioritize important work, not just urgent work.

Use the powerful Eisenhower Matrix popularized by Stephen Covey to map your team’s workload and define a course of action. This framework will help you neutralize an “always-urgent” culture, eliminate time-wasters, and make more space for deep/ strategic work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once you’ve captured all of your work in the respective quadrants, use this as your guide:

·        High Urgency & High Importance: These are your highest priorities. They demand that you act quickly.

·        Low Urgency & High Importance: These tasks have a much greater impact on helping you achieve your long-term goals. This is the sweet spot – you’re proactive, decreasing the number of pressing problems and making time for meaningful work.

·        High Urgency & Low Importance: These are everyday distractions – daily fires that suck your team’s focus, energy, and time. Delegate to others or deprioritize – especially when someone else has imposed the urgency.

·          Low Urgency & Not Important: These tasks shouldn’t be on your team’s to-do list right now. Get rid of them!

     This activity is a wake-up call for managers. It provides a clear picture of the actual workload, promoting a conversation about what’s rewarded: Being busy and running from one fire to another, or doing impactful work that matters?

Focusing on what’s important minimizes emergencies, allowing them to be treated with the proper importance before they become a fire.

Pro Tip: If most of your projects fall in quadrant 1 (e.g., High Urgency/ High Importance), try using the Action Priority Matrix. Click here to learn about it.

2.     Focus on the most important problem

Focus on the biggest problem that needs to be addressed, then consider how overcoming the problem will make a positive contribution to the strategic outcomes you want to enable.

To do this, ask these types of questions:

• ·        What’s the real challenge here for me/us now?
  
• What is the biggest opportunity we have to address? (Notice how this question frames problems as opportunities.)
• Why does it matter? In other words, how does addressing this help us achieve our strategy?
• What do we need to do to address this opportunity?

3.     Explore the choices you face

In any moment — a task, conversation, email exchange, or meeting — there are more choices about what you can do and how you can show up than you might realize, all of which can contribute positively to the strategy. These choices relate to your:

• Role: What does the moment and problem most need from you, such as an idea, challenge, insight, or experience, in addition to any formal role you play? For example, while you lead on the growth agenda because of your chief marketing and sales officer role, you might also want to wear a risk “hat” as you consider a new business opportunity.
• Distinctiveness: What can you bring to the moment that others can’t?
• Impact: What do you want people to feel, think, and do because of your intervention? What impression do you want to leave through what you wear, how you hold yourself, and what you say?
• Learning: What do you want to learn more about, whether in relation to the topic, situation, or the people involved? What should you be looking out for in the interaction?

4.     Master the capabilities required

In each of these moments, consider what you need to master to make the best possible contribution. It could be a new way of thinking or a skill you need to demonstrate, such as presenting, decision-making, or negotiating. Apply a good attitude and plenty of grit and focus on the specific improvements you can make. This could involve:

• Learning lessons from previous efforts.
• Asking people who know you well for advice on what you should do better.
• Observing people (or even better, working with people) who operate at a higher level of proficiency.

5.     Assemble the resources you need

It’s hard, if not impossible, to make smart choices about where to focus and what to do day in and day out if you’re depleted. But many people are, as they run from meeting to meeting, chase deadlines, and pursue a never-ending list of goals.

Use two types of resources wisely. First, develop the foundational resources you need to perform at your best, which include healthy nutrition, good exercise, enough sleep, personal interests, and strong relationships with your spouse, family, and friends. Second, develop these additional resources to help you make wise choices in the moment:

• Mental: Use visualization, memories of past successes, and your sense of purpose to encourage positive thinking.
• Relational: Surround yourself with people who amplify and complement your contribution.
• Environmental: Create the best possible place to get your work done, whether in an office or at home or elsewhere.

While we often focus on organizational obstacles, our personal limitations and practices also prevent us from translating intent into strategic actions. The good news is that there are plenty of opportunities to make systematic choices throughout the day that increase your chances of making your strategy a success.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

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