Trailhead Thoughts
“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”
- Yuval Noah Harari
Trail Map - Learn. Think. Act. ™
Busy Isn’t The Problem. Misalignment Is.
📚Learn
Teams aren’t failing at execution, or moving slow, because they are lazy. They are confused. They are not aligned.
And, they are misaligned because they lack clarity.
Alignment, when it comes to work and execution comes down to 3 simple layers:
Goal: What are we trying to achieve?
Strategy: How will we win?
Tactics: What work gets done daily?
When these don’t connect, people become busy, but not effective.
The fix is simple:
Every task should link to a strategy, and that strategy should link to a goal.
If it doesn’t, it shouldn’t be done.
🤔Think
Look at your current workload:
Do you know your team’s #1 goal?
Can you explain how you will get there? (the three pronged strategy to achieve results?)
Does your to-do list clearly fall into one of the 3 buckets?
Or…
Are you reacting, staying busy, and getting pulled in 10 directions?
Clarity removes overwhelm.
Confusion creates it.
If your team is going from task to task. If they feel overworked. If they seem distracted. You can address it with this simple approach.
💪 Act
Try this with your team today:
Step 1: Write 1 clear goal
→ We want to grow revenue by X
Step 2: Pick 2- 3 strategies - the paths you will take to get there.
→ i.e. We will achieve x through the combination of A, B, & C.
Step 3: Audit your tasks
And for each one, ask:
Which strategy does this task align with? (A, B, or C)
If the task aligns, keep it. If it doesn’t - eliminate it, or revisit the accuracy of the strategy.
If YES → keep it
If NO → eliminate it
Bonus:
Add 1 KPI per strategy, so you know if it’s actually working. A lagging outcome metric that you can use for the strategy to indicate success.
This Lagging Outcome is a leading indicator for your goal. (you can read more here)
Execution isn’t about doing more.
It’s about doing the right things in the right order. And, that starts with alignment.
Let’s get ready for that deeper dive…
