If your business or team has limited resources, then a lack of prioritization could cost you a client, a valued team member or the ability to conduct a project that fits your business. Team members don’t want to guess with what is important in the big picture when everything seems important. Prioritization maximizes your resources to engage in the most important tasks and problems first.
A team or a business that lacks priorities lacks direction. You will lose focus and lose money, which means a loss of more resources. When priorities are established, you will notice productivity improvement, increased individual motivation, and a more likely chance of success because you are communicating what you need done.
Every Army officer knows about “priorities of work.” When you are on patrol in enemy territory, you already know what the most important tasks are when you halt. It is communicated, and it is a shared vision of what each individual must do to ensure the mission is successful. Without priorities and communication, the team may be destroyed, and the mission will fail, which means that other parts of your organization will be affected negatively.
The following are issues to consider when establishing priorities:
- Maximize the resources you have. Do the best with what you have. Don’t complain to the team about lacking resources, but do plan and acquire new resources within the ability your team does have. Prioritizing your limited resources means making hard choices and directing your team through a complex set of tasks. Choosing the correct tasks in the right order is what you must do as a leader; this doesn’t ever go away.
- Communicate. Ensure you communicate your priorities to your team and all stakeholders that may need to know. Communication of what is important is key to having everyone synchronized with their work. This includes how team members must interact to complete joint tasks or a group project.
- Protect your team. Any interference from the outside could derail your priorities. This is especially important with limited resources. Any work on something not that is important right now could cost your business greatly.
Prioritization can deliver you from disorder to an environment of a shared vision for what needs to be done to best execute the strategy. It will require communication and choices. These are leader tasks. It is not for team members to guess big picture priorities.
“The bottom line is, when people are crystal clear about the most important priorities of the organization and team they work with and prioritized their work around those top priorities, not only are they many times more productive, they discover they have the time they need to have a whole life.” –Stephen Covey, author and educator
How do you establish priorities in your organization, and what is the outcome when clear priorities are communicated?
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Copyright 2016-Stephen McLain