Too Many Priorities

Domain: Strategy - Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Your executive leadership team just wrapped-up their annual off-site meeting and they're excited to share the seven priorities they've identified for the upcoming year.

Is that too many priorities? Yes. Do some of them conflict with one another? Probably. Is anybody feeling terribly inspired by the idea of seven priorities? Not likely.

So how many priorities should an organization have at any one time?

If you go by the original meaning of the word, "priority" was used as a singular noun for the one most important thing.

Of course, that's not how we use it today and telling you to only pick one would not be practical. What we will cover today are a few tips for selecting a focused and selective set of priorities for your organization…

Three, not five

Common modern wisdom says to choose 3-5 priorities. What then happens is people only hear the "5" and anchor to that. It's like telling a child they can have 3-5 cookies. They're going to pick 5 almost every time.

Over time, leaders are tempted to think "what's one more priority?". Then you end up with six, seven or eventually more.

Leaders feel inclined to add more priorities because they want to do it all. If the organization does it all, there's a stronger chance of being successful.

It's also easy to adopt new priorities because doing so only requires a verbal commitment in the moment. It ignores all the competing work that goes into each priority.

What happens in practice is that the results become diluted. The organization either does all five somewhat adequately or only completes some of the five very well.

Sticking to three priorities forces you to focus on what's truly important and also allows easier execution of those priorities by your team.

Remove conflicts

To help get you to three, start by pitting directly competing priorities against one another.

I worked with a leader once who claimed that both risk management and innovation where top priorities for their company.

In reality, these things were constantly at odds and risk usually won out. Managing risk was so imbedded in the culture that whenever anyone tried to prioritize any innovation, it was "mitigated" to the point where it was no longer innovative.

This is not a judgment on the companies culture of risk management. Instead, it's a judgment on their claim that both were equal priorities. There would have been far less friction and frustration if they had admitted to themselves that risk was more important.

Remove friction from day-to-day work by removing conflicting messages in your priorities.

Tell a story

The three priorities should come together to create a compelling story. Not only should they not detract from one another, as mentioned above, they should complement one another. They should feel so intuitive and cohesive that people know them without looking them-up because they completely fit with the purpose of the organization.

How they fit together will depend on the priorities themselves, which will be different for each company. With that said, using simple language to define priorities goes a long way. Avoid using so much corporate poster speak that they become abstract. Consider wording them in a way that you would actually describe to a friend or family member

Thank you for reading. My hope is always that you've found something helpful and easy to implement. If you have feedback, suggestions or questions, please reply to this email.

If you are interested in exploring one-on-one coaching to transform your leadership, email me at [email protected] and we’ll coordinate a free, one-hour discovery session.

This week’s action items:

1. Choose three priorities for your organization. No more.

2. Make sure the three priorities do not contradict or detract from one another.

3. Present your three priorities in a simple and compelling way that reinforces the purpose of your organization.