WHAT MATTERS

I can ask that question repeatedly with a different tone of voice and be asking very different questions. What is bothering you?  What is most important to achieve success?  What are your IDEALS?

In the past year or so I’ve used the word MATTER in many posts, often to signify a focus on WHAT MATTERS.

A year ago today, with a focus on ALIGNMENT at the individual level, I wrote about the THREE R’s – Requirements, Return, Reward – as a way to consider WHAT MATTERS to ALIGN one’s goals and actions, one’s objectives and position, and one’s efforts and results.

Personal ALIGNMENT (individual ALIGNMENT) is still a core concept, at the heart of WHAT MATTERS, and I can think of many individual discussions over the past year helping people improve on this for OPTIMAL results.

For WHAT MATTERS to me today I am thinking about the more complex concepts of organizational ALIGNMENT.  When collaborating between organizations (partnerships, relationships, shared efforts, shared results) WHAT MATTERS to guide and reach and OPTIMAL state?

Perhaps the THREE R’s work for organizations just as well:

·      What is REQUIRED? What prior contracts or legal restrictions set minimum requirements? What is necessary from an organization for a partnership to function?

·      What gives the greatest RETURN?  This of course can be viewed financially as return on investment (ROI) but beyond the math for one organization is there an ROI for both organizations? If not will the ROI ultimately be limited because it won’t be sustained?

·      What gives the greatest REWARD? What are the non-financial goals? Many organizations (for-profit and not-for-profit) are now social enterprises with major goals beyond the financial return.

WHAT MATTERS to exist? WHAT MATTERS to grow? WHAT MATTERS to matter?