Setting & Defending Priorities

The mark of a good manager is commitment to the team. Managers that can guide and motivate a team have the ability to drive bigger efforts and achieve higher levels of impact - for longer - than an individual can. But only if they know where to focus.

Which leads to today's Monday Mantra: If Everything is a Priority, Nothing is a Priority.

Opportunity to drive sales exists everywhere. And with the advance of technology, leaders can identify opportunity at almost any level: region, industry, use case, company size, persona and more. We'd all love to capture every opportunity available, but the reality is that 'boiling the ocean' - focusing on everything - is impossible. And when everything is a priority, quality drops along with customers satisfaction and staff morale.

Good leaders understand this, but setting and defending priorities can be tough. Other parts of the organization - or senior leaders - may ask you to 'stretch' the limits (you can pick up one or two more tasks right?) causing stress inside and outside the organization. To stay on track there are 5 things you can do to set and defend your work priorities:

1. Show Me the Money: Consider which efforts are likely to deliver the most direct impact / revenue. Data from similar internal efforts and analyst / partner feedback can help you determine this. And yes, emotion / gut instinct is important, but if an effort doesn't have measurable ROI... Net - use revenue (except in gov) to create an initial prioritization.
2. Measure Non-Fiscal Risk Reward: Sometimes prioritization is about relevance vs. direct revenue (or mission benefit). Consider impact on brand, market penetration and route to market success (getting partners / alliances to work with you) if you don't execute on a priority. If a priority has major reward - or eliminates risk - move it up the stack rank.
3. Request a Plan & Skin in the Game: Hope, as they say, is not a strategy. If there is no plan, then there is no priority. Every team interested in a priority must be willing to help build a plan, set KPIs and commit resources for > 3 months. If not, drop it.
4. Tie Back to Company Purpose: It's easy to see opportunity and want to go after it, but does it align with who you are & what you are about? If an effort doesn't reinforce your brand / mission statement it is likely to be abandoned (M&A teams think about this a lot). So if there isn't an alignment to company purpose, move it down or off your list.
5. Ask Why It is a Priority: Always consider motivations. If you are being pressured to work on an item because it will benefit someone's comp plan or help them with a 'political effort,' it isn't a priority. Priorities should benefit the company, not an individual (unless it is your boss or your boss' boss - let's be realistic).

Ok. So you've got a priority list and stopped people from coming to you and shouting 'this 1 thing that serves 1 customer has to be done immediately!' But what happens if the priority list is too long? Then you have to draw a line in the sand based on what your team can do. For everything below that line, you need to be ready to say 'yes, I can take on that priority, but what should I drop to execute on it?' This is the best way I've found to help force deep thinking & prevent a system where everything is a priority.

With that said. Have a great week and be the leader your people need you to be.

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