Free Your Teams From Stress To Do Their Best

Be more productive by being more focused. 

Do you find yourself or your employees or colleagues often saying they don’t have enough time? Isn’t it more that we want or are asked to do more than we have time for?  

We have to learn to say no to ourselves. To cut, to let go. This doesn't have to be done with a baseball bat; it can be done with a scalpel.  

Don’t just cut initiatives by some random number using estimations or gut feelings to determine the priority (although this is better than nothing). Instead gather data on the potential impact to the bottom line. It’s human nature to believe what we want to be true so sometimes this can’t change until faced with objective data.  

Use the Soar With Your Strengths approach (Donald Clifton and Paula Nelson) and focus on where there is greatest potential.  If you have a project that you would like to do but it only affects a minimal amount of revenue, and it is competing with projects that impact ten times that, let it go!  This is similar to the 80/20 rule to some extent. You know what the top drivers of your revenue and costs are (or find out if you don’t). Focus your valuable and finite time on where it can have the most impact.  

It’s even better to find overlap with the initiatives that excite your teams and that have eager leaders, as those employees are the ones who will ultimately drive the success through the actual daily implementation.  

You may want to get it all done and even really believe that you can, but look at what the data tells you. If you are consistently only completing a portion of what you planned, then either find ways to be more efficient or cut your plan by that portion.