What could you stop doing in 2010, to do more of what gets real results?

This time of year most people are setting goals and making plans that revolve around adding things to their lives. New projects. Extra staff. More products and services. The problem is that many leaders are hoarders when it comes to strategies. Over time their teams become burdened beneath the weight of ideas that have outlived their usefulness.

Here’s a new mantra for shaping your new year: Simplify.

Often the most effective plans are marked by simplicity not complexity. So before you rush headlong into planning your new year with the assumption that leaders are supposed to constantly add, why don’t you take stock of what you already have?

Don’t add, subtract to multiply your impact.

My wife and I have been spring-cleaning our house in recent weeks. There’s something liberating about throwing things out. Giving yourself permission to jettison all those items that you’ve hung onto just in case they become useful again at some point. As a coach I’ve worked with businesses that need a serious spring clean. Purge the plans. Rethink what is valuable. Get ruthless with things we’ve outgrown or rarely use.

I believe there’s wisdom in the well-worn saying “less is more”. Often the most creative thing you can do is simply stop doing something that isn’t working. In trimming the deadwood you create the space for the best things to flourish.

The Pareto Principle suggests that 80% of your results in life are produced by only 20% of your efforts, and my own experience seems to prove that true. It’s a great theory that many of us already know, but it’s not until you actually apply it to your plans that it makes any difference. So if you had a life-threatening illness and could only work one day a week because of your health, what would you focus on when only 20% of your week was left? Make 2010 about those things.

• Is a stocktake of your priorities long overdue?
• Is it time to write a not-to-do list, as David Allen suggests in ‘Getting Things Done’?
• Could you de-clutter your mind and your plans with a ruthless spring clean?
• Is 2010 the year to simplify? Subtract to multiply.

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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For many years I’ve been fascinated by the subtle differences in the mindsets of highly successful leaders when compared with the mediocre majority. As Mark Twain once said “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect”.  I’ve had the opportunity to observe many outstanding leaders in action and it has become clear to me that a core strategy of their sustained success is a decision to choose what they will focus on. So what do successful leaders focus on?

The Core (instead of the fringe)
An ever-present threat to the success of every leader is the array of issues occurring on ‘the fringe’. Like team members that are leaving. Or distractions and fire fighting. Or side projects that don’t align. I’m not suggesting leaders should ignore the fringe, because issues do need to be addressed and sometimes great opportunities first appear on the fringe. But it’s a question of focus.

The leader who focuses on the fringe lives a reactionary existence and without the strength that focusing on the core brings, they can rarely capitalise on opportunities that arise anyway. Something I’ve noticed about effective leadership is that it operates with great clarity around what its core business is. They know what really matters and what the centre of their target is.

Momentum (instead of maintenance)
What gives your organisation momentum? Knowing the answer to that question is one of the great weapons of effective leadership. Momentum is one of the most difficult aspects of a business to build and a commodity that should be treasured. When we focus on building momentum we often make different decisions to the person who is more concerned with maintenance.

A momentum focus demands that we invest in things like marketing, training, product development and generally taking some risks. A maintenance focus is more concerned with systems, quality control, management and generally maintaining the status quo. Of course, you can’t ignore maintenance either if you want to stay in business for long. But you can have a well ‘maintained’ business that you run into bankruptcy by failing to keep the focus on momentum.

What They Can Influence (instead of what they can’t influence)
Stephen Covey was right when he taught that focusing on your “circle of influence” is instrumental to being an effective leader (ref: Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People). There is a direct relationship between the extent to which I focus on the things I can influence in the world around me, and the extent to which I create real and lasting change.

To be ineffective is to expend my best efforts and energy on issues over which I have no personal control. Like every business I’m affected by interest rates, competitors, global events and a whole host of factors that I cannot influence. I don’t ignore them, but I can’t focus on them and remain effective. One of life’s best-kept secrets is that when I focus on what I can influence, over time I increase what I can influence. On the other hand if I expend myself on things that I can’t influence, gradually my influence shrinks through disuse.

So What Are You Focusing On?

• Are you crystal clear on what is core for you and your team?
• Do you know what gives you momentum and does that get the lion’s share of your attention?
• And how much of your precious focus is drained away by things you cannot influence?

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback
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My friend Mark is an Optical Engineer in the Australian Army and amongst other things he calibrates scopes for snipers. You know you’re passionate about leadership when even talking about weapon calibration gets you thinking about leadership principles! One statement he made really stuck with me “Just a 1mm adjustment of a screw slightly bigger than a pinhead can cause the firer to miss their target by more than 2 metres when firing from the common distance of one kilometre. Such a small change made in the wrong direction can have catastrophic consequences”.

So when did you last fine tune your vision as a leader? In the long run maintaining the right strategic focus for you and your business will be the difference between hitting your target or experiencing potentially catastrophic consequences.

Every leader must master three aspects of visionary sight –
1.    Hindsight: The ability to reflect and learn from the past
2.    Insight: The ability to interpret and respond to the present
3.    Foresight: The ability to predict and prepare for the future

But while every leader must operate in all three aspects of vision, which focus they rely on most will have far-reaching implications for the organisations they build.

Which focus do you favour?

Hindsight Leadership: Tends to emphasise the value of experience and evidence. They look at the future through the eyes of the past. Like a lawyer they tend to look for a precedent for every decision. They’re hoping it’s true that “history repeats itself”. Although we absolutely must reflect on the past and learn the lessons it offers us, we cannot afford to become overly focused on the past in our leadership any more than we can afford to drive whilst staring in the rear vision mirror.

Insight Leadership: Tends to emphasise the value of tactics and reality. They look at the future as an extrapolation of current events and trends. Finely tuned to what is happening around them, they hope that by responding correctly now they will experience success in the future. Although they’re not spending a lot of time looking backwards, they’re also not spending much time looking ahead. The focus becomes about where we are now and what step we could take next. For this leader the old adage not to “climb the ladder only to find it’s leaning across the wrong wall” contains an important warning.

Foresight Leadership: Tends to emphasise possibilities and innovation. They look at the future as uncharted territory or a clean slate. Although they reflect on the past and respond to the present, they are much more concerned with preparing for the future. They drive their organisations with glances in the rear vision mirror and awareness of their surroundings but more than anything else they have clear focus on where they are going and what’s coming up on the road ahead.

Leaders should consider what Mark reminds himself every time he checks a weapon, “In my line of work, making fine adjustments to a sniper’s sighting system can either improve their accuracy or severely hamper them from achieving their mission”.

•    So is it time to readjust your focus or recalibrate your team’s vision?
•    Or is your leadership allowing a “Ready… Fire… Aim” approach?
•    It’s mission critical to maintain the right direction and a future focus, especially in challenging economic times.

Your comments and feedback are appreciated
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