In the workshops, retreats, and consulting work we do at The CLEMMER Group, the most common problem we encounter is priority overload. The vast majority of individuals and management teams we work with are overwhelmed. Everything is urgent. Their personal and organizational “to-do lists” of projects, team activities, daily tasks, crisis, strategic goals, and the like are jumbled together in a crushing weight of frenetic busyness. At the organizational level this results in reduced productivity, quality, customer service, innovation, and profitability/results. At the personal level, this hectic pace results in stress, health issues, reduced satisfaction, and lower personal and professional effectiveness.
Here are common causes of priority overload in my teams or organizations:
Too Much Time In the Business and Not Enough Time On the Business – many organizations are so busy dealing with daily issues and operations that there is no time for the “luxury” of progress assessment and planning. This leads to even more busyness and crisis management which means even less time for progress assessment and planning which leads to even more busyness which means less time for…
Weak Goal Deployment Process – most organizations have an annual strategic planning and/or budgeting process. Some put a huge amount of time and energy into the front end of the process. Very few organizations continue that same discipline into cascading those plans and goals throughout the organization. And only a handful of organizations have any disciplined follow-through and follow-up process.
Focusing on What’s New Rather Than What Works – most management teams are so busy asking each other “what’s new” or “what’s up” that we spend little to no time reflecting on what’s working. The energy of many meetings and planning processes is in launching new initiatives and plans, not in following up to learn what we should keep doing, stop doing, and start doing.
Bolt-On Programs Versus Built-In Process – strategic planning, The Balanced Scorecard, performance management, KPI (key performance indicators), and the like are programs used in many organizations. Most times they are programs run by staff support groups like HR and not part of how the management team actually manages the organization.
Unbalanced Measurements – what gets measured gets managed. Most organizations use lagging indicators like production numbers or financial results as their primary measures. Higher performing organizations balance those with leading indicators like customer service, quality, employee satisfaction, or market trends.
A Culture That Rewards Activities More Than Results – where programs are bolted-on and measures are unbalanced, “face time” (when a manager is at his or her desk), availability, and responsiveness become the key ways to judge a manager’s contributions and effectiveness. This leads to the unhealthy and unproductive 24/7 world of e-mails and voice mails that are overloading and stressing out so many people.
Disorganized Managers Trying to Build Organized Teams – many overloaded organizations or teams are led by managers with poor personal time management practices. This ripples out into poorly run meetings, highly reactive and constantly shifting priorities, poor operational processes, sloppy customer service and quality, and even MBW (management by whim).
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