Unlocking the Power of Strategic Prioritization at Work

Are Your Leaders Unlocking the Power of Strategic Prioritization at Work?

We know from our leadership simulation assessment data that resource constraints can be a significant obstacle to unlocking the power of  strategic prioritization at work and achieving key strategic objectives.  Most high performing teams start the year with a clear and agreed upon team charter that sets the team’s collective intention to maximize productivity.  Most low performing teams focus on daily and weekly tactics that are not tethered to common goals.

High performing teams review goals and accountabilities, set clear priorities, and feel confident about managing their workload. However, as the year unfolds, unexpected shifts in enterprise priorities can disrupt the most well-thought-out plans. The consequence? The power of strategic prioritization at work quickly deteriorates, and incoming stakeholder requests pile up, making it even more challenging to navigate the ever-expanding project list.

The problem isn’t busyness itself – after all, every team will always have a certain level of busyness. The real challenge lies in being busy with the right things. The power of strategic prioritization at work ensures that you and your team focus your valuable time and effort on the initiatives projects that truly matter.

The Fallacy of Busyness
Often, there’s a misconception that busyness equates to productivity, masking the lack of effective prioritization. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that there’s always room for more. But in reality, time is a finite resource, and your team can only accomplish so much in a day or a week. The power of strategic prioritization at work is the key to ensuring that your team dedicates time to what truly matters.

Perils of Neglecting Strategic Prioritization
Our organizational alignment research found that strategic clarity and focus accounts for 31% of the difference between high and low performing companies in terms of revenue growth, profitability, customer loyalty, leadership effectiveness, and employee engagement.  Neglecting effective prioritization can lead to a host of problems for your team. Here are some of the reasons why strategic prioritization is crucial:

• Dilution
  Without effective strategic prioritization, how do individuals and teams know what is really important?  When clear priorities are absent, external factors such as workplace politics, urgent but relatively less important tasks, and flavors of the month tend to dictate where people spend their limited time.  If you have more than two or three strategic priorities, you have none.
• Reactive
  When priorities are unclear, employees tend to go into reactive mode to survive.  The urgent overcomes the important and longer-term strategic thinking and projects suffer.  While quick wins matter and fires must be put out, both can prevent your team from addressing the right problems in the right ways.
• Burnout
  Teams, especially in high growth companies, often face an overwhelming workload with limited time and resources. By definition, not all tasks are of equal strategic importance. Failing to understand your team’s capacity can lead to stress and employee burnout.  Ensure that people spend 80% of their time on what matters most.

Strategies for The Power of Strategic Prioritization at Work
Effectively prioritizing tasks and projects is a skill that sets high-performing teams apart. Here are five strategies to ensure that your next team strategy retreat helps your team become better at prioritization:

1. Ruthlessly Focus
   It’s essential to distinguish between what truly matters and what doesn’t. Invest the time and energy in your next strategy retreat to identify the top two or three priorities that matter most. Then ruthlessly review investments, resource allocation, and current commitments to ensure that everything and everyone is committed and aligned to the success of the strategic priorities.

   One approach is to craft “even over” statements to clarify which aspects take precedence. For example, we will prioritize the launch of our new product “even over” a current customer issue. These statements can anticipate potential conflicts, making it easier for your team to decide what to prioritize.

   Focusing on essential work can lead to higher performance, reduced stress, and improved time management.

2. Proactively Monitor
   Create transparent mechanisms to monitor and evaluate how you prioritize and deprioritize work. Challenge people to concentrate on important tasks first and then deal with meetings or secondary activities.  Every time your team prioritizes a task agree upon what must be deprioritized to get the work done.

   Practice and reinforce the art of saying “no” or “not now” when necessary.

3. Consistently Support
   To maintain high levels of employee engagement, recognize that most employees who suffer from burnout report not knowing how to effectively prioritize, manage their time, and say no.  Provide psychological safety, training, and support to help employees better manage their time, careers, and stress.

The Bottom Line
The power of strategic prioritization at work is a cornerstone of productivity and resource management. It enables your team to make informed decisions about what to focus on, allowing you to move important strategic work forward. Remember that saying “no” is not uncollaborative but essential for maintaining focus and success.

To learn more about the power of strategic prioritization at work, download a Sample Team Charter Template