Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work for some great people and some great leaders. When I moved into consultancy during my time at Nokia, I worked for a divisional Vice President. Now, I was never one for deference in corporate hierarchies, I was respectful of course, but before I was prepared to really ‘rate’ a manager they needed to prove their worth. I mean, managers expect it of their staff, so why not the other way around?
As I bedded into my new role, having just come out of nearly 12 years of senior sales leadership roles on an account generating close to a billion euros per year, I realised both how much I knew and how little too. My manager, was older than me and had spent time in very senior roles in media, entertainment and consultancy and frankly was a stickler for focus and discipline. Rightly so. Every two weeks we would have a one-to-one call - just 30 mins if I was lucky - and during these calls we would discuss high-lights, low-lights and key activities for the coming weeks ahead. Eager to show activity and progress I would join the calls with a ready prepared list of everything I was working on. I was a hard worker and in my mind nothing gave me more comfort than a packed activity schedule. The last thing I wanted my new manager to think was I was spending my time twiddling my fingers.
About 3 months into my new role, we were on our usual bi-weekly and I was reeling off my expansive activity and project list. I was pretty determined to cover all the bases and the various opportunities I had uncovered - after all I had worked like a Trojan in those first 3 months to get off to a flying start. After a while and most likely mid-sentence - he was Dutch - he stopped me. ‘Jim’, he said, ‘these are admirable and worthy activities but how are you going to deliver them all?’. He waited for my response and I sat there on the call slightly nonplussed. Assuming he wanted the background thinking on how I would do all that I had reeled off, I started explaining my plan for execution. After a couple of minutes the insanity of what I was proposing dealt me a depressing sucker punch. It was, if you like, a complete reality check. I stopped, conscious by now of how daft my plan for success seemed.
After a moment’s silence, he said this me: ‘Jim, I would like you to think about the 3 activities on your list that you consider most vital to the businesses success. Take a few days to think about it. I do not want a list of 3 before the end of the day. In fact, if you send it to me by the end of the day, it will be wrong. Think about it please and put some time in my diary for early next week.’ We closed the call and dutifully I began to do what he said. I finished my first list of 3 in 10 minutes. I knew something was wrong.
I sat there and thought about each item in turn, then returned to my original list. I started to assess which of my projects would indeed add most value to the business and which were most feasible in terms of execution. It was not as easy as I had originally thought. I revised the list based on ‘business impact’ and over the next 48 hours reassessed the list based on further thought and analysis. Eventually, satisfied, I put time in my managers diary for a follow-up.
When my boss joined the call he asked me how I had got on, whether I had identified a suitable list of 3 and how I had approached the task. Listening to my recommendations and approach he seemed satisfied. Then he said to me, ‘OK Jim. That seems reasonable. Now all I want you to do now is execute those 3 and make them a real success. That might take you some time, but let’s review where you stand in a month or so.’
Over the course of the next few weeks I applied myself to executing. I quickly realised how much work was involved in executing them successfully and that any more than 3 projects would have been utterly unfeasible. Eventually, some months later my projects were up and running and gaining significant traction throughout the organisation.
Focusing on only 3 things was the best advice I ever received in my career.