In my video training series, 7 Days to Becoming a Great Manager, I share a quote from Patrick Lencioni that I love. In his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team he writes, “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

That sounds attractive, doesn’t it?

The problem that I encounter in many organizations I work with (as well as my own at times) is that the one direction they want everyone rowing in either hasn’t been defined, or hasn’t been communicated very well. Or, just as damaging, there have been so many directions given that no one is clear on which one is the priority.

Organizations often have no stated goals or too many. Either situation leaves people without a clarity of priority. That leaves them each to decide the direction they will take on their own. Can anyone say, “chaos?”

Some of your people will enjoy this lack of clarity, because they are free to do whatever they want. Others will feel a sense of paralysis, because they are not visionary and strongly prefer to implement the visions of others. Either way, the outcome is not good, because the team’s energies are not all focused on the same thing.

As a result, your team or organization will achieve far less than it could.

There are four simple disciplines you can implement that have the power to turn the tide and get everyone focused.

 

The Four Keys

In the book, The Four Disciplines of Execution, the authors lay out four pillars of execution that, if implemented in a disciplined fashion, will significantly affect your team or organization’s ability to produce the kind of results you want.

Let me summarize in my own words and then strongly recommend you add the book to your reading list.

1. Limit the number of goals/objectives. The point is to have a goal (or two), but to keep the number very, very small…so as to create a clear sense of focus on what is really important. Having stated, communicated goals is important.

In their book they call this the Wildy Important Goal (WIG).

Many organizations that actually do create goals, create way too many. Not only does this make it hard to focus, it makes it hard to accomplish anything. When you’re trying to make a little progress on a lot of things it’s very easy not to make any progress on anything.

Pick the very most important thing for your business right now. The book suggests asking the question, “If every other area of our operation remained at its current level of performance, what is the one area where change would have the greatest impact?“

Wrestle with that question and give your folks a clear, focused target at which to aim.

2. Get people talking about and measuring the one or two lead indicators (measures) that will directly impact the achievement of the goal. The point here is very simple. Most of us can’t directly produce the kinds of results we want.

For example, if we want to increase revenue from $10 million to $20 million in the next year, we can’t just go out and increase revenue. People have to buy from us. The question is, what can we do to influence them to buy?

In this case the lead measures might be things like “phone calls attempted” or “sales appointments,”or “proposals sent.”

The main point is that lead measures possess two qualities: 1) they are directly within the control of the people on your team and 2) they have a predictive relationship with the ultimate goal you’re trying to achieve. From my example above, the more proposals I send out, the more sales I should generate. No guarantees there, but you get the point.

The important issue at stake is that you need to make sure your people are measuring and working on the things that are directly within their control and that will move the needle towards your goal.

3. Create a visible scoreboard that clearly shows if they’re winning. People love games and they especially love to win. This discipline capitalizes on this part of human nature in a way that is both fun and effective.

The authors give some great anecdotal evidence demonstrating why it’s important for people to have a clear line of sight to whether or not they’re winning the game. If they can’t see the score, and know they’re winning, they’ll eventually become disinterested and get sucked back into the “whirlwind” of the day-to-day.

They make another important point. This needs to be the team’s scoreboard, not the leader’s. The team should create the scoreboard and they should update the scoreboard. This creates ownership, which is crucial in the achieving of goals.

Your scoreboard should include the goal (lag measure) and the lead measure(s) so the team can see whether or not they are winning; i.e. if they are succeeding with the lead measures, and whether or not the successes with the lead measures are having the kind of impact on the lag measure they thought it would.

4. Establish consistent, team-level accountability sessions. According to the authors, this is the lynch pin to the whole deal. Without it, all the great work put into disciplines 1-3 will ultimately fall short.

This is intended to be a weekly, hyper-focused meeting that lasts only 20-30 minutes.

In this meeting three things happen:

• Each team member gives an update on the commitment they made in the prior week’s meeting
• The team reviews the scorecard
• Each team member makes a new commitment for the coming week

All the team member commitments should be focused on activities related to the lead measures. And, this meting needs to stay completely focused on the WIG and lead measures, not the “whirlwind.”

 

Take the Ball and Run With It

I encourage you to get a copy of the book because it’s an incredibly helpful and practical field guide. Then, I challenge you to work with your leaders to select one WIG. That will start the ball rolling and you can take it from there.

Don’t sit on this. Take action. Your people want and need focus. The proof will be in the pudding!