This Week: Adding ≠ Integrating

How are those New Year's resolutions going?

There are three big reasons why resolutions to do something new fail:

1. Oversimplification - confusing a multi-step process with a single one
2. Overcommitment - taking on too many new multi-step processes at once
3. Adding vs. Integrating - adding tasks instead of integrating them

This week, we're focusing on #3 because it's right around this time of the year when activities start to pick up after the post-holiday lull. And that means the commitment to resolutions starts fading.

We approach our resolutions by adding them to our schedule instead of making space for them. Going to the gym isn't simply blocking off an hour on the calendar and heading to a workout (don't let anyone tell you that it is).

Good personal trainers will be the first to tell you that the longest distance to the gym is from your bedroom to the front door. It turns out that "going to the gym" is an oversimplification of being rested and hydrated, having clothes and shoes immediately at hand, and, most importantly, infusing it into your day instead of adding an extra commitment to your calendar.

If we've been too busy to go to the gym for a while now, then without removing something else from our calendars, we're still too busy to go to the gym. Trying to cram one more thing onto what we must do daily isn't sustainable. Time is a zero-sum game: an hour added here is lost somewhere else.

This is why Numentum has annual and semi-annual programs. Why does my team have to wait until six months into a program before they learn outbound prospecting to 3rd-degree connections? Because social selling effectively is a multi-step process, and giving sellers the space to master one step at a time is the key to lasting integration.

Salespeople consistently cite productivity as an issue. How can I sell when my attention is being pulled a hundred different ways by my manager, our VP, enablement, product, marketing, and others? And now I have to learn a new technology. And tomorrow there's a mandatory training on a new product feature launching next month. Now they're telling me we're starting sales training. I only just got a new account list. But my target isn't being adjusted lower to accommodate these demands.

So what happens? Not ROI.

Great leaders fundamentally understand that asking something new of their people includes taking something old off their plates. Zero-sum game. This is the difference between genuinely integrating a new activity into our daily lives and bolting something onto what already exists. Because when pressure increases, the easiest way to relieve some of it is to unbolt and remove the extra.

A Word From The Team:

Take a look at what you've asked yourself to do. Is it a simple task or is it actually a multi-step process? How many of these multi-step processes have you inadvertently added to your week? Give yourself some time this weekend to examine your calendar. If there's a goal you'd like to achieve this year, what can you remove comfortably from your current commitments to make it happen?

There's still plenty of time to make your number one resolution a reality without overburdening yourself into failing it.