and here's another article published in Advisor Perspectives:
http://advisorperspectives.com/newsletters11/Your_Top_Priority_Should_Be_Your_Top_Priority.php
Your Top Priority Should Be Your Top Priority
As an author and speaker on issues of management, I of course read many books and blogs on the subject. I also read lots of stuff about how to be a better marketer. I agree with some of what I read, I also disagree with a lot of what I read, but in this vast morass of advice on how to be a better leader, manager, and marketer, there’s one question that doesn’t get high enough priority, and that is, “what is your highest priority?”
The top priority is often both simple and obvious, but many times it is also glaringly difficult or frightening to deal with. These fearsome difficulties lead to an entire economy of lower-level alternative approaches that promise faster results with less effort. With so many people earnestly selling so many tips and tricks that promise a simple and easy fix, it is very easy to eagerly latch on to one of them, and fall into what I call “the rut of the if-then statement.”
For example, a common if-then statement will go something like this : “If we remove all defects, then our customers will be thrilled.” This sort of thing sounds great on paper. It guarantees success without too much nasty introspection, and it sounds even better when you realize that it removes the requirement to actually listen to what all those pesky and terrifying customers have to say.
Unfortunately, all too often, when a policy like this gets adopted, everyone curls up into an individual ball of removing defects, and everyone forgets the highest priority, i.e., actually thrilling customers. Your customers may not care about minor defects. Instead, they may want the widget in a different color, or maybe they just want someone to talk to them. Sadly, the if-then statement makes us focus on a lower priority, i.e., defect removal, and so we lost track of the highest priority, i.e., customer thrill.
When I was a professional double bass player, I often found myself playing for conductors who had gotten stuck on an if-then statement. It would become the basis of everything. There was one conductor who had adopted a truly wacky one, which I admit was totally unique: he had developed some sort of fetish about bass players vibrato-ing on every note. (Vibrato refers to moving the left hand to create voice-like oscillations in pitch.) His theory: “If the bass player is vibrato-ing, then the whole show will be better.” The problem was, this was a ballet performance of Swan Lake, and in a ballet pit orchestra, vibrato by the bass players is meaningless. It is far more important that the bass players crank out as much volume as possible, so the violas and the dancers can hear the downbeats. Vibrato actually cuts down on the amount of volume you create, and when you’re playing a low F on a string bass in a pit, no one (myself included) can hear any vibrato anyway.
Never mind all that. This guy watched me like a hawk, and if I didn’t rock my fingers back and forth on every single note, he got on my case. He was convinced that double bass vibrato was the key to success. So, I did what he wanted. Neither the dancers nor the violas could hear the downbeat, the audience did not have as good of an experience, and he was fired at the end of the season, but I did a great job of looking like I was vibrato-ing. He had completely lost track of the highest priority.
I am not immune to the siren song of the if-then statement. When I decided to become an author, I truly believed the “if-then” that all the wannabe author books told me: “If you want to be a published author, then you have to get an agent.” I am embarrassed to report that after 2 years and $400 spent on postage, I got absolutely nowhere. (To be honest, I was really avoiding the horrific possibility that no one would want to buy my book.) At that point, since my if-then approach had already produced massive failure, I sat down and reexamined my priorities. The highest priority was to get published, so I dropped the if-then statement. Ten minutes later, I sent the files to a local print shop, and three weeks later, I was published. (fyi, three months later, I was sold out.)
I heard a very convincing lecture today about managing change in organization, and this guy said, “If you wish to institute organizational change, then you have to make people feel uncomfortable.” There is some occasional truth in that, but when I heard it, I cringed. I knew there would be some freshman manager out there who was going to fall in love with this very impressive sounding “if-then” statement, and would spend the rest of his/her career constantly making people feel uncomfortable 24/7 simply as a matter of policy. Like that conductor who had fallen into the belief that “if the basses vibrato, then the rest of the concert will be fabulous,” it is very easy to fall into one of these oh-so-appealing and simple “if-then statement” states of mind. They create an illusion of control and power, and they also conveniently save us from having to face the tough reality of the highest priority (which is usually serving the endless unpredictable variations in customer desire), and so you see it happening everywhere.
The primary job of a leader or manager is to establish the highest priority. Sometimes you add processes to serve it, but a bigger part of it, I have learned, is eliminating procedures that get in the way of it. People who don’t see and serve highest priorities, and instead just follow a pet theoretical procedure whether it works or not, quickly lose their way, as well as the respect of the people working for them.
So as you read all the many thousands of books on being a better manager and leader, or as you read the tens of thousands of blogs, PowerPoint presentations, and well-meaning twitter platitudes about being a more effective leader, just remember, all advice is not created equal, nor is it all universally applicable, and all of it is secondary to your highest priority. If getting the primary job done means ignoring all of my excellent advice, not reading my blog or my books, and not hiring me as a speaker, then that’s what you should do. Real success comes from serving your highest priority, not from fervent devotion to any one element of the process.
© Justin Locke
Justin Locke is an entertaining speaker. Call him at 781-330-8143 to discuss having him appear at your next event.
