Guiding Principle: Caring Deeply About the Right Things and Ignoring the Rest
In summary, this principle is intended to
Keep the team, and yourself focused on getting the right things done and done better than just done.
Open the conversation about what are the right things and why are they the right things (prioritization) and how will we know we did a good job (success criteria), and when we need to make adjustments to our plans
Give permission to respectfully decline work that the team shouldn’t be doing or someone else can do better or that delivers less impact than current work
Rationale
The world has evolved into a real-world Wanka Factory (think of Willie Wonka and his chocolate factory with the room made of edible goodies where Gene Wilder encouraged us to live in a world of pure imagination).
Abundance is everywhere
More access to opportunity
More connection to people
More resource availability
More content to learn (or unlearn) from
More technology to use (or misuse)
But with access to abundance comes great responsibility. This means you and your team need more
Protection from distraction (your own and others)
Focus and clarity on what matters and why
Clear statements of what success looks like and how it will be measured
This principle about caring deeply about the right things and ignoring the rest is a nod to how as much as things have changed, two crucial things have lagged on the change curve.
One of those things is management. Many management principles used today harken back to the years of the industrial revolution where people just started working in hierarchies, and management of people in groups was novel. A command and control approach was the quickest way to get lots of things done fast.
The second thing that still seems stuck in years past is how we measure the value represented by the work, especially knowledge work.
In summary, the error is that we continue to use industrial aged management practices for knowledge world problems and measure knowledge world results with an industrial ruler.
Why this matters Part 1
If you are in something like manufacturing or industrial work, the metrics of quality + quantity remain acceptable co-leads.
If you are in sales, revenue growth (a quantity measurement) is the key identifier of success and is easily measured. In sales, even as technology has changed the quantity and quality of calls, appointments, or interactions as a determination of progress towards growing revenue still holds true.
But what about if your job is to solve current problems? Predict or anticipate future needs? Or, as Wayne Gretzky said, see where the puck is going and get there first.
In knowledge work, it is essential to pause and consider are measures like the quantity of work or speed of work true anticipators of value creation or impact delivered?
If speed is a measure, is it speed compared to other work or speed compared to the overall market or speed compared to solving the problem before it reaches “x” size?
If quantity, how much is enough? How did we determine how much was enough? If we had to choose between doing ten things and saving $1MM or doing one thing and saving $10MM, which would we choose?
If you align with my beliefs that postindustrial (knowledge) jobs were created to deliver impact through solving problems (current or anticipated), you can follow the math. If you solve one multi-million-dollar problem, your impact is more significant than someone else who has solved 1000 problems where the impact is irrelevant or negligible.
But in some workplaces, the person who solved the 1000 problems is seen as more valuable even though they had less of an impact.
Why? Because the measurements haven’t evolved. Someday I could see value in writing an article on how wrong measurements hinder innovation, but that would be a distraction today.
How to stay focused on the right things and ignore the rest, even when it hurts?
Questions are the key to unlocking the door to successfully focusing on getting the right things done, at the right time, in the right way, and to the right degree.
I tend to deploy some straightforward questions when considering new opportunities that are presented.
What problem are we trying to solve?
What does success look like?
Why does success matter in this? Or Why is this a problem worth solving?
Why do we need to get the thing done by that date/time? What happens if we don’t?
Do we think this is a momentary problem or something that will continue without intervention?
If you had to choose between project “X” or “Z” which would you choose? Why?
These questions can be used to create clarity up and down an organization or a team. They create clarity on
Priorities
Success criteria
Timeline (or false timeline)
They also help to quickly identify what are potential distractions and what are the essential things and help us to know when it is appropriate to challenge and/or change a priority because something more important has appeared.
The moment you have all been waiting for, yes, asking these questions gives you the opportunity to respectfully decline work.
Saying no is rarely well-received, but helping people make informed decisions is typically seen as a value additive. Let’s say that someone asks you to do “X.”
If you haven’t asked questions like the above or don’t know the answers to the questions, you have two uninformed options.
If you say yes, you have no idea if that was the right thing to do. And the result, like any bet you place, is out of your hands. Leaving your success to the fates is silly and unprofessional.
If you say no, you stand to have to justify your no on the grounds of… because I said so. And depending on who you say no to and how political/hierarchical your organization is, that typically ends up in the range of uncomfortable conversations to career-limiting moves. Saying no because you said so is also silly and unprofessional.
So what would a professional do?
If someone asks you to do “X” and you asked the right questions, you can help the person asking for help self-discover their priorities and potentially refine yours. Something like this…
I am currently working on project “Y.” This is the value represented by “Y,” and it matters because… What I heard from you is that project “X” represents this value (smaller than Y). Are there some other measurements we should be using to determine which of these is more important? Based on what I know, I think I should continue to work on “Y.”
That this goes one of four ways
The person recognizes the logic and looks for alternatives (someone else to do the work, a different timeline to do the work against, a different solution)
The person provides more information that changes the evaluation of which is the right thing
The person asks you to reconsider your evaluation
At this point, it is wisest to get all parties in the room (or ask your leader to help) and have the competing parties come to a consensus on what are the priorities
The Fourth way: And if your boss or customer is unreasonable and still says both, great news. It’s the gig economy the power has shifted (from the corporation to the professional). You can take your skills to another opportunity where they appreciate thoughtful prioritization and people who act like professionals. But as I tell my team, sometimes we have to do things that aren’t the wisest, so look for patterns of behavior don’t overreact to isolated instances.
Why this matters Part 2
Solving problems in sustainable ways that deliver impact takes time. Time is a finite resource. If you don’t learn to prioritize, you will never be a successful human being. One of two things will happen
Give up increasing amounts of personal time to get the “yes” that should have been a “no” done, so your personal life suffers
Give up quality on the right yes so you can get the should have been a no done. So your quality of work suffers, and you fail to deliver the impact you are capable of
Eventually, either of these options leads to discomfort, discontentment, and disengagement in some area of life which eventually spills over to discomfort, discontentment, and disengagement in others. And eventually, you become discontent and disengaged in life, and living in that state of mind for long periods of time has physical, mental, emotional, and relational consequences.
Conclusion
Caring deeply about the right things and ignoring the rest is about recognizing that your job was created to add value and impact, not just to do things. In a world full of opportunities, the ability to prioritize for yourself and your team or helping your client/customer prioritize is a game-changer, but it takes a lot of effort. Reason one because the world is still ruled by manufacturing era management principles and measurements. Reason two it is full of an abundance of opportunities.
Standing up and just saying no is not what professionals do; they help people discover the wisest course of action and then execute against that path to the best of their abilities.
Asking quality questions and saying no to distractions are keys to becoming not just a professional but an impact-driving professional.
Bonus Insight: Six months from now, no one is going to remember how you did what you did or whether or not what you did happened exactly as promised. What they will remember is what the experience working with you was like and what the data says the impact of the work that got done. Making people feel valued and delivering positive impact are things worth caring deeply about.