I don’t think it’s possible to stress enough, the value of learning to correctly set (and execute) SMART goals. I also remember one of your previous posts on priorities and it might be prudent to put that link here now. One of the most valuable things I learned from you is that there can only be one priority at a time. When a leader embraces that truth it brings everything else into focus, and keeps the whole team from becoming overwhelmed.
Yes. And I like the bullseye process. I’ve been on teams where there was enough trust and communication for this to work. The hardest part to me, though, seems to be how to get to that level of trust where people actually do talk honestly.
That is definitely a challenge! You could always bring in a 3rd party to run this for you. Or if you’re a consultant, this is something you could do. If a team can’t complete this relatively simple exercise, they won’t last very long.
I especially liked this for offering a meaningful way to cultivate linkages between individual responsibility and organizational success. In my experience, that’s a place where things easily go south.
One of the first posts on The Distro was about linking individual responsibility and organizational success. Doing that was the foundation of almost all of my early posts.
This is a useful rubric that I will use in some way, as I am going to be portraying a Partner Force (1st Arnland Division) Division Chief of Staff with 4th SFAB in a couple of weeks at JRTC and we are not supposed to be a capable force...not buffoons, but not really good. And a war is about to start on our border with Torrike and Donovia.
I think the exercise of imagining the best and worst versions of an organisation broken down in 4 domains, is a great starting point. It creates some context. Then getting consensus on where we think we are would bring about group buy in. Making one step at a time is now very obvious.
Last week we had a day off site creating our quarterly plan for Q3 and I can see how the team want to jump to perfect and everything is fixed within a few weeks. It never happens. Making small incremental adjustments is what I have been after but have not been able to convey through illustration.
I can see how I would use this to make a more bite sized continuous improvement plan that is more visual, over a typical left to right project management view.
I think I know what I am going to do next. In a few weeks, I will repost how we got on if its of interest to anyone...
Thanks again for the material. Each of your posts are timing so well against the problems I am trying to solve.
Ash
Uk based regional contractor building fibre networks across the south. Highly operational.
I'm saving this one for future reference. I've had bosses to were highly competent individuals but who struggled to transition from leadership platitudes to coaching. The bullseye exercise bridges that gap.
Left a comment on the post, but to clarify here what I meant referencing DKE... you are extraordinarily competent. Most of your peers are not. Their lack of competence ensures they will not be capable of realizing the quality of your insights and recommendations. Put another way, your stuff is intuitive and obvious to those with a certain degree of competence. To incompetent leaders shielded by an environment more or less entirely divorced from reality testing and accountability for performance failure, everything you say is heresy.
I think people can be competent and disagree with a lot of, if not most of my stuff. My opinion is that their organizations won’t be optimal as they could be. I’ve also found a lot of people disagree with me in theory, but in practice they agree (even if they don’t think they agree).
I don’t think it’s possible to stress enough, the value of learning to correctly set (and execute) SMART goals. I also remember one of your previous posts on priorities and it might be prudent to put that link here now. One of the most valuable things I learned from you is that there can only be one priority at a time. When a leader embraces that truth it brings everything else into focus, and keeps the whole team from becoming overwhelmed.
Indeed! It’s one of the most important things I’ve written: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedistro/p/focus-subscribers-only?r=qm122&utm_medium=ios
Yes. And I like the bullseye process. I’ve been on teams where there was enough trust and communication for this to work. The hardest part to me, though, seems to be how to get to that level of trust where people actually do talk honestly.
That is definitely a challenge! You could always bring in a 3rd party to run this for you. Or if you’re a consultant, this is something you could do. If a team can’t complete this relatively simple exercise, they won’t last very long.
I especially liked this for offering a meaningful way to cultivate linkages between individual responsibility and organizational success. In my experience, that’s a place where things easily go south.
One of the first posts on The Distro was about linking individual responsibility and organizational success. Doing that was the foundation of almost all of my early posts.
Check out: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedistro/p/failceeding?r=qm122&utm_medium=ios
This is a useful rubric that I will use in some way, as I am going to be portraying a Partner Force (1st Arnland Division) Division Chief of Staff with 4th SFAB in a couple of weeks at JRTC and we are not supposed to be a capable force...not buffoons, but not really good. And a war is about to start on our border with Torrike and Donovia.
Good luck! Hopefully things go well during the exercise l!
I really like this.
I think the exercise of imagining the best and worst versions of an organisation broken down in 4 domains, is a great starting point. It creates some context. Then getting consensus on where we think we are would bring about group buy in. Making one step at a time is now very obvious.
Last week we had a day off site creating our quarterly plan for Q3 and I can see how the team want to jump to perfect and everything is fixed within a few weeks. It never happens. Making small incremental adjustments is what I have been after but have not been able to convey through illustration.
I can see how I would use this to make a more bite sized continuous improvement plan that is more visual, over a typical left to right project management view.
I think I know what I am going to do next. In a few weeks, I will repost how we got on if its of interest to anyone...
Thanks again for the material. Each of your posts are timing so well against the problems I am trying to solve.
Ash
Uk based regional contractor building fibre networks across the south. Highly operational.
I am really glad you’ve found my writing helpful! Yes, if you end up doing an exercise like this do let me know how it goes!
I'm saving this one for future reference. I've had bosses to were highly competent individuals but who struggled to transition from leadership platitudes to coaching. The bullseye exercise bridges that gap.
Great stuff! I'd wonder why your work and perspectives aren't more popular if it weren't for the Dunning-Kreuger effect.
A lot of my stuff seems very intuitive and obvious to some people. To others it is heresy and they provide shallow, first-order objections.
As far as Dunning-Kruger: https://thedistro.substack.com/p/confidence?r=qm122
Left a comment on the post, but to clarify here what I meant referencing DKE... you are extraordinarily competent. Most of your peers are not. Their lack of competence ensures they will not be capable of realizing the quality of your insights and recommendations. Put another way, your stuff is intuitive and obvious to those with a certain degree of competence. To incompetent leaders shielded by an environment more or less entirely divorced from reality testing and accountability for performance failure, everything you say is heresy.
You are too kind, sir!
I think people can be competent and disagree with a lot of, if not most of my stuff. My opinion is that their organizations won’t be optimal as they could be. I’ve also found a lot of people disagree with me in theory, but in practice they agree (even if they don’t think they agree).
Some of my seems very obvious and intuitive to a lot of people. For others it’s heresy and they propose shallow, first order objections.
As far as Dunning-Kruger: https://open.substack.com/pub/thedistro/p/confidence?r=qm122&utm_medium=ios