Two Important Actions to Setting Team Priorities

0:10 - And we're back here. Kimberly.

0:15 - You always shock me.

0:17 - What's going on? What's going on over there, man?

0:19 - What is going on? I think I maybe I didn't sleep well or I don't know.

0:24 - I just feel like little out of sorts a little bit. Oh, man. And last episode, I just remember, like, you were energized.

0:31 - I'm energized. Don't get me wrong, I'm on it. Energized. But you know, like, when you don't sleep at night and you're just a little wake up, a little fuzzy. I know that where I'm at this morning. Little fuzzy. But I am still feeling energized, pumped, motivated, ready to go. Got my priority straight.

0:47 - Oh, priorities. That's right. We're going to talk about priorities today.

0:49 - Yeah, that's what I think. We talked last time a little bit about our own personal priorities and getting those straight. And we talked about the same thing needs to happen at work. So I feel like this would be a great conversation if we talk about how do you get your priorities straight at work? What does it look like?

1:08 - I like this conversation. I think it's an important one. I think as leaders, we should constantly be thinking about what are we messaging to our team? What do they think is the priority? Are we shifting too quickly? Are we no longer talking about do we even talk about priorities and set up the year? So I think this is timely, obviously, but I certainly think this is something that all leaders should be constantly thinking about in terms of what are the priorities of my team. I like it.

1:36 - All right. There's one other thing that it's, like, not just the priorities for the team, but how does that help the team? When you do have the priorities and the priorities are straight, how does that help the team? I think we ought to have that little discussion somewhere anyway. Can I just start with a question for you?

1:53 - Of course. I love it when I get interviewed. Yeah, come on.

1:58 - When we just go off script, usually you're asking the questions. I'm asking the questions today.

2:01 - Pepper, you're in control today?

2:03 - Yeah, I'm in control because I want to see as the leader, right. You're a leader of a large department, lots of people under here. And I just want to know, for you, as that level, how do you determine the priorities? Because sometimes it's just you're like, here it is, and it's pushed down. Sometimes it's a collaborative effort. But how do you do it? How do you do it? Because this year can I just back up and say this year feels way better than last year.

2:33 - Oh, good. That's good news. What feels better?

2:36 - It just feels like the priorities are crystal clear, and it feels like we're all aligned in the beginning of the year, whereas last year we had priorities meetings, and they're January, February, March. And we're having this conversation in a room with all the leaders, and it's this giant list of priorities, okay? Right. And the conversation when we left the room was like, yes, those are the priorities. But it just was like, that's not possible. It's impossible. So this year just feels so much smoother to me. So I'm wondering, what is it that you're doing? What is different about this year for you? I don't know.

3:15 - Those are all good questions, and I think what is important? Number one, the first thing I think about for leaders setting their priorities is the leader really has to think about, am I a person who stretches priorities? Do I try to take on the world? Am I trying to solve everybody's problems? Am I trying to just do more than what's realistic? And this year for me, I really, during my break time, kind of did a little bit of my own personal time out of saying, okay, look, you tend to me I tend to overdo things like, I want to do more. I'm constantly like, let's do more, let's do more, let's do more. Let's do that faster. Let's do ten training classes, or whatever it is. Right. I'm constantly pushing myself, which then it trickles down the organization. And so I appreciate the comment, the feedback. I appreciate the feedback very much that, hey, look, it feels a little bit more realistic. And I entered this year with that. I wanted to be more realistic and really think about the resources that we have on the team, thinking about the number of projects and what can we get done. Certainly we can get a lot of work done, but you end up burning people out. You end up stretching people so far that now you have some mistakes. And I think for me, I looked back on 2022, and I felt like within my team, we had some mistakes, and I had to think a little bit about, why are we having these mistakes? The mistakes are you can certainly isolate the mistake to break down in process, breakdown in communication, breakdown in somebody's capability. But I'm the one person who says, look, this is my problem. I have created this. I have to figure out what is driving the problems. And for me, during the break, it was, I'm trying to do too much. I need to slow it down. I need to get realistic about what this team can handle and what they can't handle. Right. And again, I can push, push, push, push, push. But the outcome of that is you leave people laid out. You're like, I can't do anymore.

5:27 - Bodies are scattered.

5:28 - Yeah. And you kind of mentioned that during our last episode about how towards the end of the year, you felt like it was a little more check the box. Like, yes, I'm listening. Yes, I'm paying attention. But I'm really engaged. So overdoing it over committing identifying too many priorities and getting unrealistic with the amount of work it has a negative impact. And I think a good leader, a wise leader understands just how I'm all in on that. You push your employees, but there's overdoing it. Sure.

6:02 - The one thing I would say is if I look at last year and I look at this year, I can't see that we're going to do any less work. So it's like the same amount of work is cranking out, but it's how the team is focused and how where they're putting the majority of their efforts in. It just looks and feels different this year.

6:23 - Yeah. So I did, I wanted to get real clear with the team out of the gate and say, okay, look, just so everybody's on the same page, these are my priorities personally as a leader. And I lined those out. Right. I explained them 1234. I had a personal priority for myself that I explained and then I also had work priorities. Then I said, hey, these are our team's priorities. So you all as team leaders are going to have your own priorities. I would like to know what those are. Let's talk a little bit about them. But as you message what the whole team is working on, these are the things that I want you to focus in on. And some of those priorities, they might be in one specific area. Maybe we work in a training organization. Maybe they're all in computer training. Right. Hey team, we are going to all get invested in computer training for the organization. Or maybe it's all in new employee onboarding. Hey, this is a priority for our organization. No matter where you're at on this team, if you're a CBT developer all the way to a person who's actually facilitating a class, I want everybody to know we got a rocket on this new employee thing or if it's a technical thing. Right. Depending on what the priority is. I really wanted the entire team to understand no matter your role, no matter what you're working on, no matter what your day to day function is as a team, these are the top five things we got to knock it out on this year. So hey, look, if somebody needs help in one of those top five, we all got to step in. So I'm a big team, you know, we're all a team. I'm big on that. We collaborate, we help, we pitch in. We never leave anybody behind. We're always going to support. So that is important to me. Right. It is messaging. This is it. I'm laying it out and I want everybody to be real clear. Does anybody have any questions? So I know I've already gotten to the whole how do you communicate it? And I want to step back because you asked me that question. You asked me that question about how do you set them.

8:25 - Yeah, that's where I'm like, all right, because we are a little bit in the now it's getting down to the team level. But like in the very beginning, you've got a lot of, I would say, requests coming from around the organization, from customers all over. And how do you say yes to some and no to the others and make which ones bubble up to the top?

8:49 - Yeah, I think fundamentally, any leader should really think about what is our core business, what is our core function as a company. So any leader understands what the organization is there for, what is the mission of the organization. And then my function, I'm going to think a little bit about how do I contribute to that mission, what does my team do specifically in order to reach that mission, how do we contribute? And I think very broadly, very big picture on what is the priority for this year. And really the follow up question for me is why now? Why does it have to be 2023? Why can't it be 2024? Why can't it be 2025? Why does it need to be this year that this is the priority in order to support whatever the mission of the broader organization is? So I sit down and I do that work that's my own kind of quiet solo work that I think about, and I put some things on a piece of paper. Now I do look at my team leaders and I ask them that question, hey, what do you think the priorities are? Right? I want to hear a little bit from them. They also are in tune to the organization. They have customers and I want to hear what they think. And once I kind of have a pretty good, okay, I'm feeling good about this, these are the priorities for our team for this upcoming next twelve months. I'm going to sit down with my boss and I'm going to have a conversation and I'm going to say, here's what we think the priorities are. I'd like to hear what you think. So it is a lot of conversation, it's a lot of back and forth at different levels. So I think you're spot on when you say you got customers coming to you, you have the mission of the organization, you have your boss, you have the people who work for you, all of those things. When I think about it, there's this common theme, this thread that is threaded through all of those conversations, all of those people, and a leader is sitting there really looking for that thread. They're trying to be really smart about. Do I see it? Do I understand it? Am I listening to it? Can we execute on that? Does it make sense that does my team have the capability to do that this year? All of those things? Yeah, you're just trying to find the common thread or the tune, right? Me, I like music, so it's like, what's the common tune that is the chord or whatever exactly right. That everybody is singing to? And I'm like, okay, that's it. There it is right there. That's it. And then I'm going to make sure that we're aligned across the organization. Is there a clear alignment? And does everybody understand the tune? Does everybody hear the tune? Does everybody on pitch, does everybody agree with the tune? That's right.

11:33 - Okay. I love that. I just think of, wow, that's really cool. That even at your level, right, you have people that you still report up to, and you do have people that are below you. And so when you say there's a lot of conversations, man, I can just start ticking like, okay, because you had to have that think time for yourself. Then you had to have conversations with the leaders below you, and maybe even those leaders had to have leaders have had conversations with the leaders below them, and then all that has to come trickle back up. So here's what we've come up with. Then you've got to decipher all that, take it back up, there's another conversation. Then you got to come back down, right? And all those things have to be communicated back down. That's a lot of conversations.

12:14 - It is. There's a lot of communication that is happening. And what is important here is this is not happening over months. This is happening over weeks, days even. But to me, when I start this conversation with my team, I'm probably starting the messaging november of the previous year, hey, what did we accomplish? How did we do? What are we thinking about the next year? What's going to roll over? Right? So I'm really starting that conversation with them. November, but it's the holidays, right? People are wrapping up things. They're out. Yeah, they're kind of checking out a little bit. They're wrapping presents. I mean, everybody is just they're going to parties. Everybody is really being pulled in a lot of different directions. But I do like to have kind of that little tweet tweet there's just a little voice over there. Hey, remember priorities next year. Think about that. So I do. I like to message that. And then once January comes and we're back, there's a very, hey, where are you at? What are your priorities? And in that moment, I know if my teammates have spent some time thinking about it or not. And I really get clarity for myself on who do I need to continue engagement, because I might not engage with everybody on my team. Maybe they don't have ideas, or maybe they can't. Maybe they don't have ideas around what broadly we need to be thinking about. So there's some of that in my own job that I really have to be thoughtful around who I'm listening to because frankly, not everybody might be thinking at a broader level. So I'm going to listen. I'm going to listen to them. I'm going to know who I'm listening to. I'm going to pay attention to all of that. I'm going to stew in my own kind of marination, and then I'm going to go and talk to my boss and I'm going to come back down. You're right. There's clear flow of information. I think what is important here, what is important here with this is it is not a month long activity.

14:19 - Yeah, it can't be. No, it can't be. And why, right? Because you wasted a quarter of the year or half the year trying to figure out what the priority is.

14:26 - That's right. Then you'll be messaging to the broader team. It's March, and we have outlined our priorities. You burned, what, three months, right. Or eight weeks? And you don't want to lose time, and you want people very clear around what the mission of the team is and where they're going and what we're trying to accomplish.

14:44 - Yeah, it just it creates chaos. It wastes time. There's not as much productivity. And then I think people are just they're not as happy when they don't have a clear mission, right. When there is a clear mission for them. They know what they're doing. I think they're just happier as well as productive.

14:58 - It's that whole piece of engagement, right? It's the piece of engagement. They're adding value. They're contributing. Those priorities meet that expectation from our team members, the people who are working and trying to bring their best every day I'm there, right? I want to bring my best every day, but I also don't want the priority switching on me all the time or being unclear about what I'm supposed to work on. Because you're like, oh, man, I spent all that time on that. Now that's not even important anymore, or, that was never important. Why was I working on that? So it is important. We owe that as leaders, we owe that to our team members to say, this is the mission. This is where we're going. Everybody all, you know, everybody good? Any questions?

15:42 - I agree. I think that's excellent. So it brings up another question then, right? Because you do have these customers and you have the business, and you have requests coming from all directions. So how do you decide who you're going to say no to? Because you can't do it all.

15:56 - You're right. You can't do it all. And there is a bit of understanding how many resources are on my team? How much can we get done? There's some negotiation that goes on, and the negotiation around these priorities can be things like, hey, we can't do that whole entire thing you're asking for. We can't deliver on all of those requests for widgets, but what if we deliver on 25% of the widgets or 50% of the widgets, and then we do the other 50% in the next year or in two years, and let's get realistic, right? I think I'll say that word quite a bit this year, just internally to myself, but let's get realistic around, are you really going to use 100 widgets this year? Are you really going to do that?

16:43 - They're just going to sit in the storeroom?

16:44 - Exactly. Or is it just nice to have the 100 widgets? I want you to use whatever widgets we give you. I want them to be used this year. So I'm thinking it might be 50. Based on our previous history of us working together. I think 50 is rightly tuned. What do you think? So there is some level of negotiation back with the customer and we could go off into a whole another tangent. In order to do that, you have to have great customer relationships and that's a whole nother so that the no.

17:13 - Isn't such a blow. They trust you, there's some trust and they're like, you know what you're talking about. And I think there's the relationship but there's also the consulting piece that comes in. Right?

17:24 - You got to know your business.

17:25 - Yeah, you got to know your business and you kind of almost have to know their business just a little bit. And it has some honest conversations and typically in those conversations there's some meeting of the minds where even they may see that, listen, this is kind of what we're working on over here and this is how many people it's impacting versus this. And so is this really what you want us working on? Right. As an executive of this team, of this company, is this where you want our focus? Because we're going to hit 15 people over here and we're going to hit 250 over here with this.

17:57 - That's exactly right. So that ultimately is a negotiation process between me, my teammates and all the customers that we're engaging with. And you start to line out, okay, so how many customers are we talking? Let's just say it's 50 customers. Well, you can do 50 projects and so with some of those customers you're going to say, absolutely, we can deliver the 200 widgets or the 100 widgets and then the others you're going to have to have some level of negotiation and it all ties back to the mission of the organization, the broader organization. And, and I like your, your comment there about number of people, right? So it goes back to our businesses training. Are we going to spend two months working on a project that impacts seven people or are we going to spend two months on a project that impacts 2000 people? That's some of the level of negotiation that we go into and we really say as an organization, is this a priority? And they might be depends on who those seven are. But the key thing here around establishing priorities is talking about them.

19:05 - Yes.

19:05 - And getting real clear about the context. To me, context is so important. So we can't just say seven versus 250. There's got to be a little bit of who are the seven, what do.

19:15 - They do and what do they do for the company?

19:18 - What do they do for the company? That impact. Exactly. So you got to know your business. I think you got to be really good at whatever your Widgets are, and you have to know how to create your widgets. Maybe you're not creating them, obviously, as a leader of the organization, but you should have some sense of how long it takes the Widget to get created, the number of resources, all of those things, and then you're educating your customers along the way, and you're engaging them in the decision of, yes, I'm behind that. I am behind that priority, and I'm okay to let the whole entire organization know that that is a priority for us in 2023.

19:52 - Yeah, I mean, I can just see how that is just a great model or something to think about for any company, for all levels. Because let's just say you do have a customer that's within the company. Right. We're all reporting up to the same chain.

20:07 - Absolutely.

20:08 - And so when that top chain makes the priorities and what we're doing and what we're focused on crystal clear, then those conversations with customers become easier when you just start deciding yes and no, because you're all on the same page. You're all on the same team trying to make the same goals happen.

20:25 - That is such a great point. Right. So certainly I have a set of customers and a perspective within the organization and there are two layers that report in to me and I'm hoping that those two layers down that person who's actually cranking out the training guide or the presentation or whatever it is they're building because they know the priorities when they go to their customer. If our organization broadly is communicating about the priorities, their customer will go, I get it. I get it why you can only do 25 Widgets. Because I know as an organization, we're all focused on XYZ this year. So it takes lots of communication, lots of clarity around this is what we're accomplishing this year in this space. Everybody's lined? Yes, everybody's lined. And you're hoping that those conversations are happening broadly. Sometimes they are, sometimes they aren't. But I think for companies listening to this episode, whatever level that you're in, it really is a conversation of saying, are we all aligned? Not just my team, my function, my department, but are we globally aligned on yes. This is the priority or the number of priorities for the year?

21:38 - Yes. It's like accounting and Is and operations, like all the different functions within a company. If you all can all get aligned, I feel like that's where the magic starts to happen.

21:49 - Absolutely. And then it's oversimplified here, certainly. But there is this kind of working together as the team. You get through half the year, three quarters of the year, the whole year, and everybody looks around at each other and says, look what we did.

22:05 - Yeah.

22:05 - Like, that was our priority. We all knocked it out. We all got together, rode in the same direction and look at the outcome of that.

22:13 - Yeah, I love that.

22:14 - So one of the things I'd like to hear from you is give me some ideas of priorities you've set without getting into specific details of things that you're working on. Just generally, what should I be thinking about around setting my priorities? You got anything that you can help me do there, man?

22:35 - There's always kind of like categories of priorities for me that I like for people to think about and consider. And one is your own personal development. What is your own personal development priority? What are you working on? Because if people stay stagnant, right, they're not continually working. That's just not going to work for the long term of the business. Then the work, when it comes to your work and your projects, what are those priorities? And there probably shouldn't just be one, but there's like, can you rank them for me? Because you're going to have more than one thing, typically, that they're working on. So I like to see what's your personal stuff and then what's your work stuff and then the other kind of category. Even though they've kind of lined out their work, I want to know what are their top customers? Do they understand their priorities? And top customers, because you may have work going on here, that's your top priority right now, but then your highest priority customer calls, there's a phone call coming in.

23:34 - Yeah, what happens?

23:35 - What happens? Right? And so when they understand, hey, what am I working on right now? And what is that in terms of when other calls come in? Can't be like, well, I'm sorry, that's not my priority this year. You have to figure out, can you fit it in? Are you going to fit it in? What are the consequences if you don't fit it in?

23:52 - That's right.

23:53 - So those are the kind of the things I would want to know. What else do you have them focus on?

23:56 - I think all of those are great. I want to make one comment on that. Or do you go back to some existing customers and say, hey, look, we have to adjust, we have to adjust. The mission of the organization is adjusting. We now need to adjust, and you're going to be impacted. Can we again, it goes back to the negotiation and it goes back to the relationship. I love that you talked about trust earlier, because all of those things are important. Your customer has got to trust that you are putting them first. Right. All customers want a great experience, and they want to know that you're not just kind of like kicking them down the road, you're just letting them go. They want to know that you're still in their court. So as a provider or as a business, as a group, you absolutely have to keep all of those customers. You have to keep talking to them. You have to keep saying, I'm here for you. However things have changed. And how do you message that all of that is important? Some other categories that I think about them with you, I think about the work or the widgets. Right. It's like, how much are we doing on our widgets? But it's not just how much for me, it's the quality of the widget. Right. So when I'm thinking about priorities, I'm thinking about the quality, the accuracy, the excellence behind our widget, the number of widgets. So, yeah, the task certainly is a category. I think you talked a little bit about development. I think about another category of people development. How are we developing our people? Is that a need in 2023? What are the capabilities of our people? Do we need to focus there or not focus there? And then I mentioned it here, and it's that whole customer experience. That's another category for me. Is that a priority for your team? Do you need to think about your customer experience and do you want your team creating great customer experiences? Or are you like, you know, what not a priority for us? That's really low on the list. We really focus on the widgets. That's the other category for me. Yeah. So then my final category is really as the team. Do we need to think about our team? And I had people development in there. It's a little bit different for me than the team and the strength of the team, the health of the team. And for me, is there anything that is impeding our performance as a team?

26:08 - Yes, it's like what's blocking your kick?

26:11 - Exactly.

26:12 - So let's just say you've been focused on team development or employee development, and everybody's skills have been upskilled over the last three years. Do you really need to do that again this year, or is it the customer service aspect? What is it what is keeping you from getting where you want to be at the end of this year or at the end of two years from now? Like, what do you need to start working on will help you determine again priorities and where to focus.

26:37 - So as we wrap up this episode, kind of key takeaways for you, I'd like to hear your one or two. I'll give you my one or two. As leaders, you got to know, are you the one who's like, more, more? Do you have a realistic view of what priorities you can handle for the year? And that is a big takeaway for me personally. I know who I am. I know what I bring to the table. I also know the trickle down impact of that, the consequences to my broader team. So I'm trying to do a really good job this year of focusing on realistic priorities versus unrealistic or stretch priorities for us as a team. So that's my one takeaway that I want to have all leaders sit back, reflect, think a. Little bit about what drives them, what are they bringing day to day. What about you?

27:25 - Yeah, my biggest one is alignment, right? Once it's realistic and once it's doable or whatever is alignment, it's got to be aligned up the chain and down the chain to everybody on this team. And it can't be the one and done like it's January here's. The priorities, I mean, you've got to be talking about that as we go on. I think maybe that's another conversation. Let's just talk about the communication piece of it because I think there are some nuances in communication that you've really got to consider. If you're going to say, these are the top five priorities and there's a lot of people that are not working. On those top priorities, I love it. So let's talk about communication later.

28:02 - Those of you listening to this episode, we hope you have enjoyed this conversation on priorities and alignment and understanding who you are, what you bring to the table and how your own personality works might impact the broader team.

28:18 - Yeah. Then speaking of alignment, don't forget to get aligned with your other leaders in your circle. Don't forget to share this podcast with them. It'll help them out with their own alignment and their own priorities. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button that'll put us in your feed every week so you can come back again for an extra shot of leadership.