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ISSUE 168
Brutal prioritization
“Clarity about what matters provides
clarity about what does not.”
-- Joseph Parker
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I oversaw a tiny, brilliant PR team drowning in work. We were all losing our minds, because the work was never, ever anywhere near done.
Here’s what I told my Java PR team back in the day:
“We can do 10% of our jobs in 50 hours a week and 12% of our jobs in 60 hours a week. We can NEVER do 100% of what needs to be done.”
I paused to let that sink in.
“So the crucial skill for us is prioritization. Our jobs are like running a three-legged race with a dozen raw eggs in your hands. You are FOR SURE going to drop ten of those eggs. Because you have to run SO FAST if you are going to win.”
“You will lose the race if you stop and try to clean up any of those broken eggs. So you have to just cope with seeing that some eggs broke on your watch and keep running.”
This part was especially hard for my team, who hated failure. They wanted to do everything to the highest possible standard. Leaving those broken eggs on the field was almost harder than grinding themselves til 2 am every night to try to save them all. I went on.
“You have to get to the finish line. You’ll only have two eggs left in your hands, so you’d better be sure you held onto the RIGHT TWO EGGS.”
I paused to let that sink in too. And then, the mindset shift.
“Our most important task is not execution, it’s choosing the right two eggs. We must brutally prioritize and then we must socialize/justify/defend our prioritization decisions to everyone with power, so that when people complain about their broken eggs, we can say, ‘Hey, I know that your egg broke, but leadership and I agreed that this other egg was more important.’ You’ll always get complaints about the broken eggs, but you’ll have backing that the two eggs you chose were indeed the right eggs.”
Then I wrapped up with this.
“Running this race takes so much energy. You have the drama of being hobbled by being in a three-legged race in the first place, the horror of dropping ten eggs, and the tiredness of still running as hard as you can to get to the finish line. Give yourselves a break. Go home. Rest. Come back Monday with a fresh mind so we can choose the right two eggs for each of you.”
The end.
My holiday wish for you is that you can identify your right two eggs. I hope that your break is restful and lovely. See you in January!
"You bring something really special to the table,” said a CMO assembling her SWAT team.
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