Leaders and Managers: 12 Tips to Help You Prioritize and Focus

In today's world of change, uncertainty, and remote work, the ability to prioritize what you work on, stay focused, and actually execute is critical.  It is critical not only to get work done, but  also to reducing stress.  it’s too easy in a remote environment, or a hybrid workplace for teams to lose focus and spread themselves too thin.

This leads to missed deadlines, stressed out employees, and subpar work. As a leader, it’s your job to keep your team focused and make sure their priorities align with key targets and goals

Here are twelve strategies, you can use to get in the zone and  set yourself and everyone you work with up for success…in a way fosters productivity, innovation along the way..

1. Rank Your Top Three Priorities

1/ Pick three priorities for the month. If you can be decisive enough to have one  - or use the ultimate focus of one, that’s even more effective.   If you have more than one, make sure they are ranked, in order of relative importance. These priorities are the  answer to the questions “what is keeping me up at night?”  and   “What are the make-or-break priorities that we must have done this month?” Say no to everything else until those rocks are moved.  It’s ok to spot other things you will need to address, but keep them on the list of potential things you’ll tackle next month.  After this month, you’ll confidence in your ability to get them done. 

2. Make Sure Success Is Measurable

For each priority, figure out how you will know - that is to say measure - whether you’ve succeeded.   Notice that as we work through these steps, you automatically check the boxes of having a “SMART” goal.  This is SMART-er.  Your measures need to either be a number - such as a metric you are trying to move - or a box you can check, such has delivering a version of website or collateral.

3. Add Some Teeth

Make the cost of failing to deliver something real and tangible. Don’t dwell upon it, but provide enough urgency to drive meaningful focus. Answer the question “What happens if we miss?” Imagine the consequences of not giving this your all, of allowing distractions to created excuses. Let that drive you. And importantly allow it to drive your team to say “no” when you are tempted to add more to their plate.  

4. Create Safe-to-Fail Learning Zones

Failures are always learning and growth opportunities. But there are some failures that you cannot recover from quickly enough to prevent them from taking down operations. Define the guardrails around the criical things in your business. You will need safe zones to fail and experiment in the next tip. So make it very clear where you cannot create risk or be careless when it comes to business operations.  The check-out portion of a web site (aka where you get paid) is a good example of something to use care with. Outside of the “do not touch” zones, are your “safe-to-fail learning zones”

5. Fail-Learn-Improve-Repeat As Fast As Possible

Outside of the “do not touch” zones, failure is your friend. These are places where trial and error helps you learn fast - without breaking something that you can’t fix.   Every business can create “safe failure+ learning zones”.   Failing fast teaches big lessons and gets you to the outcome.  They are the repetitions an athlete practices when, learning to make free throws in basketball for example.  Modern businesses cannot afford not to have fast fail-learn cycles. Embrace intelligent trial and error. 

6. Know How to Take Your Pulse

Progress needs pulse checks. Make the check-ins short and regular. Daily standups, weekly sprint and sync meetings.   Keep these checks highly structured - they follow a consistent format every time.  Allow them to become habits that are part of the fabric of your culture.  If your meetings suck, then learn to be great at them them. 

7. Know When to Take Your Pulse - and Do It On the Clock

Have your progress checks  in the  same place, same day and same time.  Just do it - build a habit and muscle for your team.  If you have to do it asynchronously because your team is disbursed, send out a weekly summary at the same time each week, and make sure progress is communicated in a central, visible location every single day.   These checks allow you to keep everyone aligned and hold everyone - including yourself - accountable.   And they let everyone understand what to expect from you, and what you will expect from them.

8. Problems are Inevitable. Here is How to Be Prepared

Be prepared for things to go wrong. They always do. So instead of hoping, or stressing, or creating unnecessary drama when things go wrong, be prepared. Do this by having an approach for tackling challenges. Divide and conquer them without letting them take up an entire meeting - unless they are the sole purpose of your meeting. Build the organizational muscle to handle the challenges that arise by having some simple processes for handling them, and creating a solution-oriented mindset.   Part of your cadence should include surfacing blockers and challenges and coming up with creative ways to work together to overcome them. Contact us if you’d like help or specifics on exactly how to do this. 

9. Be Consistently Great at Communication

To be great at communication, it must be concise and consistent.  In particular, every day, at the end of the day, everyone must summarize what was done, what’s next, and what’s blocked. It needs to be visible to everyone. This is a powerful practice. It’s proven to raise morale, motivation, and sense of meaning. 

10. Empower People (and Stay Out of the Way)

With the tips above, you’ve provided clarity on what needs to be done. You’ve set up some guardrails to keep moving forward in the right direction. And you’ve got a time and space to take the pulse, solve problems, and move on. So let people work.

PS: When these are alongside with good vision and core values defined can accelerate you even more. See the links at the bottom to learn more. 

11. Celebrate Progress as Tiny Wins

You get what you reinforce and tolerate.  So reinforce progress. Do this by calling it out and recognizing any meaningful progress and achievements. Recognition is rocket fuel.  All people want the feedback that we are helping and moving the ball forward.  Evolution made sure of that.

12. Create a Culture That Cheers Each Other On

Cheer each other on. Make sure everyone else is leaning into the previous tip. When employees can feel others gettiing wins - it provides a psychological and emotional boost for everyone. It enhances what researchers call “inner work life.” And this has been proven to lead to better outcomes, lower stress and burn out. And faster, better results.

Conclusion

This is how remarkable teams operate. You can find examples of teams that succeeded, but everyone hated.  You can find examples of teams where there was much love and hugs, but nothing got done.  

Get the best of both worlds.  Align on the vital few priorities, stay nimble when you have to take the marketplaces punches.  Work together to overcome the obstacles that always arise.  Communicate with clarity and consistency.  Empower smart people to do their best work.

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