How Teams Can Overcome the Challenge of Always Feeling “Spread Too Thin”

One of the most consistent and stubborn issues for teams is overcoming the challenge of feeling that they are “stretched a mile wide and are only an inch deep”. A constant barrage of urgent issues and day to day work makes it easy for teams to become overwhelmed making it difficult to achieve anything except the status-quo. The dilemma usually sounds something like this, “We know focusing on this goal, project or development is strategically important but we are already spread too thin and……

• Our customer is always at our door
• We continually receive new projects without taking anything off our plate
• We spend all of our time in meetings
• I have 500 unread emails in my inbox

Research has shown that splitting focus over many tasks causes team members to lose focus, lower the quality of their work, and increases the time it takes to achieve targeted goals. In today’s changing and complex world, teams must establish clarity and feel empowered to successfully delineate between their urgent daily activities and the goals that must be done or nothing else will really matter. Below are the 5 characteristics of teams that excel at focusing their best time and energy on their most important work.

1.    Aligned to the Organization’s Strategic Goals

A clear understanding of the organization’s strategy is the guiding compass for when teams need to make tough decisions regarding prioritization. I am surprised by how often people are not able to articulate a clear connection between their team goals to the priorities of their organization. Without this awareness, it is impossible to discuss, prioritize or measure the team's positive impact on the organization's most strategic goals.

Clear connection of the team’s goals to the organization’s most important goals enables teams to assess what current team activities have meaningful impact and what parts of their current workload are not having a meaningful impact.

2.    Laser-Like Focus

Too many teams have the mindset that everything is a priority. The problem with that approach is “if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority”. The best teams are adept at continually assessing, clarifying and prioritizing their fewest, most important goals for strategic success.

Team members must understand the difference between their urgent daily activities and their most important strategic activities.

• Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else’s goals.
• Important activities have an outcome that leads team to achieving their most goals.

A team must define what must be done, or nothing else they achieve will really matter.

3.    Empowered To Say “No”

Teams must feel empowered to say “no” to good projects, tasks, and requests that steal their energy and focus away from accomplishing their most important priorities. For a team to have laser-like focus on accomplishing its important goals, leadership and key decision makers will need to agree that the team is focused on the right priorities. Without leadership’s support teams will never feel safe to say ‘no’ to the ongoing urgent requests and emergencies that will steal the team’s time and energy from accomplishing their most important goals.

Teams must be responsive to urgent requests, just not at the expense of moving forward their most important goals. 

There will be times when a team or team member will need leadership to provide shelter and safety for a team member that needs to “use their Noes to protect their Yeses”. Leadership buy-in and support is critical!

4.   Ability to Quickly Reset

During a continuously changing business environment, teams need to regularly assess how they are performing in relation to their shifting context and environment. Teams must develop the capacity to continually reset their direction and priorities to meet new challenges and remain on-track for success. The following questions help teams reflect and adapt to best serve their core purpose.

• What has changed? / What is still the same?
• What have we learned?
• How do we need to change or shift our team goals, priorities or processes?
• What is the one big thing that gets in the way of focusing on our highest priorities? 

 5.   A Leader that Focuses “On the Business”

A useful way for a leader to look at their leadership role is through the lens of In and On the Business. The “In the Business” activities are the day to day operational aspects of a leader's role. These are the urgent activities that come to the leader’s door and, if they let them, it will devour all available energy and time. The “On the Business” activities are the more strategic leadership responsibilities that are focused on making sure their teams are focused, innovative and evolving to meet future challenges. The leader is the only member of the team who is positioned to ensure that the “On the Business” activities are being addressed.

For a team to be effective at focusing their time and energy, they need a leader that can effectively create a team culture and environment that supports team success.

What is your team doing to ensure that the urgent day to day tasks and constant emergencies are not getting in the way of accomplishing your most important team priorities?

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About the Author: Tony Gambill is the CEO of ClearView Leadership, an innovative leadership and talent development consulting firm helping executives and managers bring their best leadership self to their most challenging situations. Tony is also the co-author of Getting It Right When It Matters Most: Learning to be Your Best Self in Critical Business Moments that will be released in April, 2021.