I’m going to say the unthinkable: fifteen. Fifteen weeks left in this year.
If you’re like me, there’s some version of “oh sh&t” going through your head when you read this.
And this might be for different reasons depending on where your business is located in the world.
For my Australian colleagues, we’re now just one quarter into the June 30 financial year yet clearly looking down the runway to the halfway mark. You may be thinking, are the priorities and strategies we just set being executed at the pace we need? Are we moving in the right direction?
For my North American and EU colleagues, this is it. You’re in the countdown to your business’s year-end in line with the calendar’s. You’re probably looking at the objectives and targets you set, wanting to nail down what will be achieved and dial up execution on any potential shortfalls.
And for those friends based in the UK, you’re somewhere in between looking towards March 31. You’re wanting to see clear evidence of results showing up.
Yet regardless of your timeline, here are three clear steps you should take over these next fifteen weeks.
- Review your business priorities and how they’re being interpreted across teams. There’s a good chance that due to the realities of business and running hard, you’ll see a drift of focus. How the team actually talks about their priorities won’t line up with the business focus. First, rather than assuming and quickly jumping onto this, pause and understand the drift. Is this actually a hidden problem to solve? Or, is there a legitimate shift that you and the team should consider? Only after considering these causes might you conclude that the off-piste focus is a problem of translation from business to team. Then, you course-correct where needed.
- Convert priorities into specific and precise actions. You’ve learned in step one what may need to be re-aligned and where there’s a gap. The key question to answer is, “what will we specifically do to achieve our Dec 31 outcomes?” These actions must be specific and precise, not directional. So, “resolve outstanding customer queries” is directional and, for purposes of the next fifteen weeks, too vague. Specific would be, “resolve 90% of outstanding customer queries by November 1st.” Then, to make it precise, specify who owns this. Not just the team, the person. If no one owns it, execution becomes optional.
- Review progress together, across the business. This process isn’t done separately, with each team working in isolation. Every team is represented. I’ve seen repeatedly that there is as much value in what the other teams and functions learn.
I recall a reinsurance client where we brought several teams together to improve an end-to-end process. When one team identified a problem behind a performance gap, one of the others would say some version of, “we didn’t know you needed that. We can fix it.” This conversation transformed the process.
Bonus step. If you want to double down on the next fifteen weeks, repeat an all-team review once or twice more as a check-in to support the team. Check in on the very specific actions you’ve taken the time to establish. Those actions are where execution happen. Be clear, this is not to monitor and track. Keep their discussion going and think of it like nurturing the action. This increases the attention on the outcome and moves execution. The intent of collective review should be to learn together.
As the leader of a business or team, adopt the mindset that collaboration solves problems and lifts performance. Rather than reaching first for a reward or incentive, dial up attention on people working together. Collaboration improves problem-solving and execution. Bringing people together and creating connection around the things that matter is a simple idea, yet a powerful one.
Fifteen weeks is enough time to change an outcome. But not by asking people simply to run harder. Re-establish what matters, make the next actions unmistakably clear and bring people together often enough to learn what is and isn’t working.
Alignment isn’t something that you set at the beginning of the year. It’s something you keep creating in the work.
This article was inspired by my earlier post, Alignment Is Decided In the Work.
