The company priorities

In a recent post - we looked at The Huddle, a quick 20 minute company wide meeting that works wonders in keeping everyone up-to-date and involved with the company. In this Huddle, you review the numbers of one or two KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that are specific to your company’s well being as well as the numbers from the priorities that you have set.

The Priorities that we set are for the period of 3 months, and we have no more than 5. We also rank them, so the first priority is always the key priority for us that quarter.

Each Priority is broken down into a series of projects, and each project is assigned to a member of staff – that project then becomes their responsibility. Each week, they update their progress of that project on to a spreadsheet (this is done in the simple form of percentage complete). The spreadsheet then calculates the total achievement of that project and the corresponding priority.

So, at each meeting we can see how complete a project is, and how complete the priorities are. Each team member is then accountable to everyone else for what he/she has achieved that week.

How to set the priorities

You look at what things are really important for your business over the next three months. It could be sales, developing a new Facebook page, moving office, getting a new computer system – there could be a million-and-one things on your list, but you are only interested in the top 5.

I have done it where this list comes direct from the senior leadership (i.e., me or the board of directors) based on our knowledge and assumptions. In this scenario, we tell the team what the priorities are, and therefore what their specific projects are. The downside to this method of deciding and delegating is that you don’t get as much buy-in from the team as you would hope to get.

So, I have also tried it where the team, as a collective, choose the priorities. This way you get more buy-in, but I have found that the priorities can be a little easy to achieve and also that they aren’t always what’s important to the business at that time.

The best option then is both, where there is guidance from the leadership but with the input from the team. This way you have maximum impact, and maximum buy-in.

Priorities based on Values

One of the things that I am playing around with at the moment, which is a deviation from the norm, is setting priorities based on the company values. Each priority is based on a value and the projects all drive that particular value forward.

The obvious problem here is that it ignores what’s important now. You have to put aside what is in front of you (unless it relates to a value) and focus on values instead, so this changes from a short term focus to a much longer term strategy. You still plan priorities and projects that can be achieved in three months, but you are focusing on culture rather than potential problems or fires that are currently coming your way.

I haven’t got too much empirical evidence yet, but I have to say – on the whole, I much prefer setting priorities on the basis of the company’s values than I do the company’s needs. Maybe I’ll look at merging the two ideas in the future, but for now – I will stick with values.

Set Priorities around your values

If you have more than 5 values, you are a little stuck if you follow the “no-more-than-5-rule”. It is up to you how you deal with this of course. We just look at the values we need to promote that quarter.

I look at each value, and think about what we can do as a company to drive the value over the next three months – is there something pressing or an opportunity coming up that I can use? Talking to the team about this also produces great insight (as does talking to some of your customers).

This idea takes the values from just being a pretty piece of paper on the wall to becoming something that you are creating real action to try and achieve. You are steering your company culture and everyone is a part of achieving it. There is peer accountability for the culture of the company and shared success when the priorities are achieved. For me, this is a real winner and it is working well.