Overcommitted. Part 3.
As a leader, it took all my energy to combat busyness.
I wanted to create safety for my teams, prevent chaos from destroying productivity, and shut down pet projects full of politics.
But no matter how hard I tried, my teams still got bombarded with requests—some justifiable, and some a complete waste of time.
I know you may be experiencing the same frustrations. That’s why three weeks ago, I launched this mini-series, Overcommitted. Here’s a quick review:
The punchline from week 1 is to label busyness as a dysfunction. And this priority dysfunction is the true problem or enemy—not missed deadlines or budgets, which are merely symptoms. If we want to solve this problem, we can’t talk around it.
The punchline from week 2 is you have less capacity than you think to launch new initiatives. In general, most teams need 80% of their total hours to keep the lights on. That leaves 20% for new projects.
This week, let’s consider the biggest punchline yet. Not every request you receive is worth pursuing!
There’s a key dynamic in the world of work that keeps us spinning on unimportant, non-urgent stuff. It’s especially pervasive for support teams like IT, HR, Marketing and Finance. We call anyone outside those support teams “the business” and treat them like customers.
This puts your co-workers in the driver’s seat and empowers them to make unilateral calls about the work you do. Because of this, there’s a lack of judgment on what’s feasible or truly creates value.
Your co-workers are colleagues, not your customers.
While it’s true they’re beneficiaries of your support, a healthier relationship is when you create shared vision and shared commitment for work that gets done.
When one party overly controls the vision or exerts heroic commitments to get work done, the relationship is out of balance. And it’s then we start mindlessly plugging away on requests that aren’t worth pursuing.
After many years of experimentation, I developed a simple scorecard to create shared vision and commitment with my stakeholders. I used it to help people get aligned on priorities. It was a quick “back-of-the-napkin” score on four dimensions equally weighted.
1) Strategic Alignment. Is there clear evidence through CEO memos, town hall meetings, earnings calls, etc. that the project request aligns to the strategic plans of the company? If the first time you’re hearing about a strategic imperative is when someone is communicating a request, be skeptical. Find evidence.
2) Payback. Is there clear evidence that this project has an ROI and the payback is near-term? If it takes 10 years to get ROI, the dog doesn't hunt! Remember, your CFO has many investment options to consider with the same money. Beware of the “it’s hard to measure” crowd. Why would you ever invest in something with undefined outcomes?
3) Likelihood of Success. Does your stakeholder have a clear vision for the future? Do they have budget? Do they have resources? Do those resources have experience implementing something similar? All of these questions map to how well your stakeholder has thought out and planned their ideas. Of course, some of this is a judgment call. But the best decisions are always a mix of facts and judgment.
4) Positive Process Impact. Beyond the payback and strategic reasons you should do the project, will the outcome result in people’s work getting easier? If it just makes things harder, it’s not a good investment of time or money because people will outright reject it.
Each dimension gets scored on a 0-25 basis. Highest score is 100.
This process is best with a small “alignment team” of cross-functional leaders. Notice: I did not call this a “steering committee.” Again, we want shared vision and shared commitment … a.k.a. alignment. We don’t need others deciding (steering); we need people aligning so we overcome priority dysfunction.
If you want this process to be credible, remember it doesn’t result in yes/no decisions. Instead, it simply delivers a score. And with this score, you can stack rank your opportunities.
This process never makes uncomfortable conflict easier. But it does help reveal whether something is worth pursuing.
Make it a great day!
P.S. There are some big changes happening in next week’s newsletter. If you found me from yesterday’s LinkedIn post, future content will be tightly aligned with that message.
