The Shocking Way to Motivate Teams to Set Better Priorities
Emotional, heartfelt connection is needed more than data to change people’s minds.
Most organizations don’t have enough organizational capacity so we must prioritize. As leaders and managers, we often chase the initiatives-of-the-day, shiny lures, and guru-driven improvement methods that seem good at the time but which we simply shake our heads when we reflect on it several years later. Some of us chase more shiny lures than others.
Tim Adams and John Rider joined me during the pandemic to discuss practical aspects of prioritization. It was a good time for reflection given that our daily grinds had slowed down a bit. There was also a lot of good experience - ranging from making life-saving drugs to launching humans into space.
Here are a few thoughts:
“The only way to get buy-in is to involve people.”
“Start simple first.”
“Keeping aligned with the ultimate decision maker is extremely important.”
“Timing is a reason prioritization cannot be standardized or too formalized across all applications.”
The power of connection — the power of the story — was the unexpected gold nugget of the day. “Unexpected” in the sense that it is a bit of an age-old truism, but one usually expressed by non-numeric, narrative-type professionals. These guys make their livings by the numbers.
“You can present data all day long, but it really takes that emotional, heart-felt connection to get people to change their minds.”
The full article provides many insights if you are in a leadership position and ask your team to prioritize their activities. See more at https://www.jdsolomoninc.com/post/prioritization.
