Want to keep people motivated and committed? Always focus on what you have done and then what needs to be done
Why is strategy so important? As you can imagine there are lots of reasons for why strategy is so important.
I am not going to cover all of them here as I will lose the will to write and you will likely lose the will to read (anybody who has read Grant's paper on his resource model for analysing the internal corporate environment will know what I mean, if not, having just read this piece in brackets you will get a sense of what I mean).
The reason I was thinking of is less well documented but is one of the most crucial. Recent psychology research has shown that as human beings we renew our motivation and commitment to a goal through acts. First recounting what we have done, this demonstrates commitment and then reviewing how much we still have to do which motivates us to carry on. (http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=2008-00466-001)
The reason strategy is important in this renewal and motivation process is that it defines what needs done, gives a common purpose to direct efforts and helps you frame current and past activates in how they help towards achieving that strategy.
So if you are running a marathon you are better thinking about the training you have done, how far you have come and then immediately focusing on how much you still have to do to finish (probably mentally including the word “only” in front of that last figure is a good thing), rather than just how far you have already come.
Another point from this research is that not only are we more motivated by how far we still have to go but when we focus on how far we have already come on its own we look to create "balance" by doing other things. This is the classic "lots of irons in the fire" but none of them ever really get hot enough to be useful.
So when you just think about how far you have come you are more likely to start doing other things. Imagine the knock on effect of this, if you take this approach on 3 projects how long is it before you find yourself juggling 8 projects and more importantly how likely is it any of those get finished effectively?
There is another effect from this urge to seek "balance" when we focus on what we have already achieved, in a strategic context. This is where strategic drift starts.
We start picking up projects that are "nice to do" not "must do".
Now I can hear lots of people thinking in their heads "I must do all the projects I am working on now" well OK here is my suggestion, go back and read your strategy document (you know the one on your laptop that gets opened once a year when the yearly planning cycle comes around, that unwieldy and unreadable tome that your business made you fill in the template for).
List your top ten projects and then prioritise them one to ten where number one is the most important. Now ask yourself "If you put all your energy into achieving as much possible on the top 3 before moving on to the rest would you be more effect? Would you achieve more? Would your results be better?” Anybody who answered "No", go and wash your mouth out with soap for telling fibs."
So if you really want to get where you are going save your praise and congratulations for when you achieve your end goal and make sure you remind everyone that there is still a lot to do to get there?
Using this approach you will be more focused, more effective and, most importantly, more motivated to keep going.
Finally, if you have the above mentioned corporate strategy document. Once you have ticked the box for completing it get your team together and condense it into the most important elements.
Ideally this should be one slide (and not one slide crammed with size 8 font, enforce the rule that you can't use anything smaller that size 14 font) at the worst it should be 3 slides.
Now every month, quarter (whatever works for you) review it with your team and remind everyone that this is where you are going, "Are you doing what you “must” do to get there?" and make sure you ask “What do we still have to do to achieve that?”
I would bet that by doing this you will have already increased your use of your hard crafted strategic thinking by more than 100%, it will help you to keep focus and empower you and your team to say “No” when someone rolls up with a “nice to do” project.
