AIM LOW
I helped my clients set Rocks (key quarterly initiatives) 111 times during the past year, and the majority of those sessions yielded at least one rock aimed at bringing a new employee into the business. That’s not surprising; great people make a great business, and the labor market is tight. But Recruiting Rocks are notoriously difficult. Even if you do everything right – prepare a great job description, work your network, engage a talented recruiter, etc. – you have little control over whether a person that fits your core values and the skill set needed shows up during that 90-day period. So what do you do when confronted with a goal like this, where a key element of the outcome is out of your control? My advice is to aim low, and before you break out in cries of heresy, give me four minutes to explain.
What if, instead of creating this Rock: “Fill the Marketing Seat,” you created this Rock: “Launch the recruiting process and interview three candidates for the Marketing seat”? That’s what many of my clients have done recently, and a funny thing has been happening: they have been getting the seat filled faster than the clients that set the more aggressive Rock of filling the seat. Why would this seemingly low bar create faster results?
We prioritize things we can get done. We all have more on our plates than we can do, so no matter how well we believe we prioritize, we sort our list for things we can get done, some way to earn a little serotonin hit. I can get the first step of a manageable Rock done today. And tomorrow I can probably do the next step, and on and on until it’s finished. On the other hand, if the Rock is too daunting, I’m likely to never get started.
Focus creates tunnel vision. The pressure of a big, outcome-oriented Rock creates a level of focus that crowds out the creative thinking required for most complex problems. This effect is exacerbated if the Rock owner fears the repercussions of not successfully completing it.
More manageable Rocks tend to be system focused. They effectively install the disciplines that will make us successful, so even if we don’t make it this quarter, we have a process in place that will eventually get us there. The more aggressive, outcome-focused Rocks encourage rifle shots that don’t create an ongoing system of progress towards the goal.
If you’re still not with me, ask yourself this question: Can I trust my people to give their full effort for the greater good of our business? If you answered “yes,” you don’t need a big, aggressive Rock. You just need to get them started and let them do the rest. If you answered “no,” you have a people problem that no Rock, regardless of how well it is crafted, will address.
And if you’re still not sold, give it a test run. Take a “portfolio” approach where some of your Rocks are low-risk, system-oriented Rocks that create dependable improvement and the rest are of the high-risk, high-reward variety. After a couple of quarters, you should find your sweet spot.