“I’m struggling with my to-do list,” Sarah sighed. “Very depressing.”

I nodded. “And?”

“Two days ago, I had ten things on my list,” she started. “At the end of the day, I had twelve things on my list. The next morning, yesterday, two more things were added overnight. I finished three items during the day, but that was replaced by three more. I never seem to make headway and it is getting me down.”

“How do things get off your list? As a manager, you have a lot on your plate and we can’t have depressed managers walking around infecting everyone else.”

“I just work really hard. I come in early, I stay late, take work home with me over the weekend, but, my list stays full. I have trouble knowing what’s important, what to do next, if I am going to miss a deadline. There is no rhyme or reason to my priorities.”

“When you look at your list, how do you decide what to work on next?” I asked.

“Whatever I think I can get accomplished. It feels really good to get something off my plate that day, but all the other things on my list pile up, distract me, make me anxious.”

“Would it feel good to get some things off your list? Not get them all done, but get them off your list?”

“I can’t just cross stuff off the list. It ALL has to get done, eventually,” Sarah complained.

“There are three ways to get things off your list,” I explained. “You are only using one, that is the do-it-now strategy, which works but leaves you depressed. Here are two other strategies to get things off your to-do list. Schedule the task on your calendar. Commit the necessary amount of time in the future, before the deadline to get it done. Cross it off your list.”

Sarah thought and finally replied. “If I do that, I can see my priorities clearer. My deadlines show up, but are under control because I know I have committed time to complete. But, what if my calendar gets full? I have more tasks to complete, but no more committed time.”

“Yes, and you said it ALL has to get done. If you have no available time to commit, and it ALL has to get done, you have no choice but to delegate some of the tasks out to other people on your team. This is management, it all has to get done, but you have to use the other two strategies –

• Do it now, get it done, myself.
• Schedule it on my calendar, with committed time, before the deadline.
• Delegate it.

“Now, when you delegate, it doesn’t mean it’s done. You still have to check on it, but don’t put the check-in on your to-do list. Where do you put the check-in?”

Sarah smiled, looking way less depressed. “I put it on my calendar.”

“I am sick and tired of the government putting things in the way of our growth,” Rory said. “We’ve got a good business, but all the regulations are killing us.”

“Indeed. I see that,” I replied. “So, why did you decide that this was the business to be in?”

“Because we are good at it,” Rory beamed trying not to show too much pride.

“May I use some exaggeration?” I asked, then continued without waiting for a response. “If you were good at manufacturing music CDs with the highest quality, at an operating cost lower than any of your competitors, would you choose that as a business model?”

“Your example is absurd,” Rory smirked. “An operating cost lower that any competitor is ridiculous, there would be no competitors.”

“And, why is that?”

“Because nobody buys CDs anymore,” he explained. Then stopped. “I wouldn’t be in that business, it would be a poor choice.”

“Rory, the most strategic decision you make is to decide what business to be in. Your market, market demand is an external system in which you have little control. Government regulation is an external system over which you have little control. You are fighting the headwinds of your market, fighting the headwinds of regulation. Pick (or adapt) your business model that doesn’t fight these external systems, but takes advantage of them.”

Seventeen year’s ago, (Nov 2004) we began this writing sojourn. I want to thank you for taking a precious minute out of your day to observe those events around you, reflect on your impact and think about the next move you make.

Management Blog will be back next Monday. Don’t eat too much turkey. -Tom

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You talked about structure being the way we define working relationships related to accountability and authority. What is accountability? measuring expectations or consequences that can come with results?

Response:
Accountability is an agreed upon output for which we are held to account. It contains four parts –

• Quantity of something, could be a quantity of one or quantity of many.
• Quality standard, must meet some qualitative standard or measurement.
• Time, either a specific deadline or a specified evaluation period.
• Resources, within a set of limited resources or constraints.

The output must be agreed upon. I like formal agreement on important accountabilities, even signatures on a contract. For which we are held to account. Not for which we are held accountable, because I cannot hold anyone accountable for anything. But I can hold someone to account, meaning the person holds themselves accountable for the agreed upon output. I like the accounting part to be held in a regularly scheduled 1-1 meeting with the person’s manager.

Here is what it sounds like in a role description’s key area.

Prior to the end of (period), a report will be published counting all of the finished goods that meet our quality standards, including the quantity of rejected goods, within the constraints of our assembly line. That report will be reviewed monthly in a regularly scheduled 1-1 meeting with (role’s) manager.

Prior to the end of the project timeline, a report will be compiled and published of each of the project’s components related to the standards specified by the architect and its inspection (sign off) by the building inspector. That project report will be reviewed three times during the project, after mobilization, midway (50 percent) and post punch-list in a regularly scheduled project review meeting with the (role’s) manager.

“I can’t believe they matched our pricing,” Sarah said. “We have taken great pains to reduce our cost structure, so we can offer a low price without cutting our margins. I know our competitor isn’t willing to make the changes we have made, so they must be trying to buy the business. They probably don’t even know they are losing money.”

“Why don’t you call and tell them,” I asked.

Sarah laughed. “If they are losing money, why should we tell them?”

“And what if they are not losing money? What if, while you were cutting your costs in one way, they were cutting costs in a different way? So, you both show up at the same price point?”

“Impossible,” she replied.

“Two questions,” I said. “How are you going to find out? And, when you do find out, what are you going to do about it?”

From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
You seem to challenge the name of our annual planning exercise that we call Strategic Planning. We are clear that exercise is conducted away from the office, off-site, so we are not dragged into the minutiae of the day to day. We do our best to be strategic.

Response:
One reason I know that most Strategic Planning Meetings are not strategic is by a quick examination of the action item list that emerges from the meeting. Rarely is there a single action, goal, objective with a due date further out than 12 months. There is nothing wrong with tactical plans, we need them, but don’t mistake a strategic session just because that is what it’s called.

Looking at Elliott’s framework –

• S-I – 1 day to 3 months – Tactical
• S-II – 3 months to 12 months – Tactical
• S-III – 12 months to 24 months – Tactical
• S-IV – 2 years to 5 years – Transition from Tactical to Strategic
• S-V – 5 years to 10 years – Strategic

Some would push back that there is no point in planning 5 years out because so much will change by the time we get there. Exactly.

Tactical planning is short term (up to two years) where things are knowable and we can call them by name. Strategic planning is long term where things are NOT knowable, where there is uncertainty and ambiguity. Yet, in the face of that uncertainty, we still have to make a decision today. Foolhardy to make a tactical move without a longer term strategy.

The biggest problem is in the language of strategy. When things are uncertain and ambiguous, we can only speak in terms of concepts. And, we don’t practice speaking conceptually very often. Most CEOs and managers, given a problem to solve, want to fix it. Fixing is tactical, so before we even have the conversation, we have to rethink the discussion.

Five years from now, we will have customers, we just might not know who they are. We will have facilities, but perhaps not our current facilities. We will have employees, but we don’t know who they are, how many or what they may be doing. We still have to think about markets, infrastructure and human capital even when we don’t know what that might look like in the future. Four years from now, your five year plan will be your one year plan.