T’was the very season in which most people slow their normal pace and scatter joy, as Emerson espoused, when I was frantically racing around the grocery store aisles. Muttering under my breath, “I need this, and I need this, oh and this…and oh yeah this…” I quickly found my arms filled with just one item too many, and more than I had come into the store to buy. I scrambled to the checkout counter when “SPLUNK” happened. Slipping out of my not so handy elbow-to-hip grip, my jar of spaghetti sauce exploded, spraying almost everything within reach with a red festive paste!
Almost immediately thereafter, as I juggled and reorganized the rest of my items to try and help clean up the mess, my mother’s voice echoed in my head, “That’s the lazy man’s load.” Yep, Mom, the apple of your eye is still doing it at age 42. What am I doing? I’m looking for what seems to be the easiest, fastest route to get my requirements met with an approach that is in deep deficit of forethought, preparation, or planning. Sometimes what seems to be the easy way just doesn’t pay.
Of course, this is not unusual to say the least.
I’m sure you know what I mean. Much to my chagrin, it is not an uncommon practice in my life―just as painful, it is also fairly ubiquitous in business.
One recent example is a customer who is getting increased pressure from a new boss to flawlessly execute the business strategy as a priority for 2012. What if the strategy and plans are based on the specter of seasons past? He’ll pass to his go-to people, and keep over-tasking the same direct reports with as much as possible, especially those items critical to executing the strategy (we call this “box-checking” as opposed to realizing business benefits and the strategic intent). Do these direct reports have any special skills? Probably, but none more important than just the willingness to sacrifice much to get the work done; sometimes too much. The problem is that these team members just get overloaded with tasks―an approach that is not only not sustainable, but also counterproductive. In fact, it’s the fastest route to burnout for the employee and the quickest trip to things going “SPLUNK” for the company.
As an example, ask the large consumer products company being dogged by repeated errors in their supply chain, struggling to move product out the door, that may be losing strategic placement opportunities on their customer shelves and, maybe even worse, could be losing the faith of their consumers.
Your biggest boss may not declare that “Excellence in Execution” is what creates competitive advantage for your organization, but guessing, hoping, and taking what appears to be an easy road can lose your hard-earned, coveted ground. As you enter 2012 and conduct strategic planning for your life, your career, your business, consider what measures you are taking to execute flawlessly on strategies you put in place.
Are you starting with Why? Are you developing a sense of purpose, clear intent to be built upon as the foundation for success? Do you have a framework for identifying obstacles that can inhibit reaching your intended goals? Allow me to share a favorite quote attributed to Unknown: “There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it’s easy.” That’s the bad news.
The good news is that you’re not doomed to do things the way they’ve always been done. Click here to learn more about how to fundamentally change the way work gets done in your organization and achieve more success in 2012.
