I love puzzles!
I love jigsaw puzzles. We always have a puzzle on our kitchen table. My family loves jigsaw puzzle competitions (yes, there is such a thing). The largest jigsaw puzzle competition in the US takes place in St. Paul, Minnesota – we completed a 500-piece puzzle in 54 minutes and 28 seconds.
Recently while completing a puzzle, I had an a-ha on how doing puzzles relates to annual business goals.
Last month we tried something new – a puzzle Advent calendar. Inside the box were 24 boxes with 42 pieces in each. Like an Advent calendar, you open a box and every day for 24 days and put together the 42 pieces. When the 24 days are complete, you have a fully assembled puzzle. After about the 5th day, my daughter said, “this puzzle is easy”. Looking at the picture, the Advent puzzle was NOT an “easy” 1000-piece puzzle.
Puzzles and Goals Can Be Overwhelming
Typically, when you start a jigsaw puzzle, you look at the picture on the front of the box and dump out the 1000 pieces. Then the work begins. We start sorting, and trying, and organizing, and digging, and trying some more. It takes time, effort, and energy.
This is like many goal setting processes. Business owners and leaders spend time establishing the goals for the year. The goals tend to be more lagging indicators, what the end should look like (read about lagging and leading indicators). They communicate the goals to their teams (show them the picture on the box) and then everyone dumps out the pieces and gets to work.
Why did my daughter think it was easy? It was broken down into chunks or milestones so we could finish one step and know where to move next. I know we completed this puzzle more effectively (in less time, less stress, less frustration) than we would have on a typical 1000-piece puzzle.
Focus on Milestones That Drive Action
Leaders can make the achievement of the goals “easier” (by no means is this truly easy) by breaking down goals into milestones and actionable steps. The milestones and actionable steps are leading indicators that drive the behaviors and actions of your team.
Gallup defines the role of a manager as:
“Someone who is responsible for leading a team toward common objectives. This individual takes the direction set forth by the organization’s leadership and makes it actionable at the local level.”
Establishing milestones and breaking the work into manageable chunks IS taking the direction actionable at the local level.
To be clear, the intent in creating milestones is NOT to micromanage the work your team is doing. The intent is for your team to see the bigger picture (the one on the front of the box) and know what steps they need to take to get there. You can work together with your team to create milestones, action plans and timelines.
Do Your Team Members Know How Their Work Impacts Business Goals?
This is a critical step, and one we find businesses are typically missing. Team members know the goals of the business, but they do not see how their everyday work impacts the business. They know what they do, they know where the business needs to go – and they don’t always see the connection. Our first step in working with new clients is to complete a People and Strategy Roadmap – to understand where the business wants to go, where the business is now (like whether or not team members see how their work connects to the business goals), and what steps business leaders can take to get there.