This week the world watches, and celebrates, Barak Obama achieving the milestone of 100 Days in office. This mark was first established by Franklin Delanore Roosevelt for his New Deal program of works.
The First 100 Days was set as the timeframe within which the administration was required to lay down the foundations for the program which would follow. Since that time, 100 Days has become the measure of all successive administrations and leaders.
It is now seen that unless you establish your program for change within the First 100 Days the likelihood of creating real and lasting transformation will diminish with the onset of procrastination and bureaucracy.
The criticisms over this past week of Obama’s First 100 Days have centred on “is he trying to do too much”. The Republican’s have publicly admonished him for “doing 17 things badly instead of 2 or 3 things well”.
Not wishing to indulge in too much hubris and suggest that perhaps the Republican’s have a point, I would agree that for mere mortals such as us (those without the resources available to the President of the USA) that in any program of change and transformation it is just as important to decide what NOT to do, as it is to decide what actions to pursue.
In other words, we need to “Focus on What’s Important!”
What are the 2 or 3 things, which if we pursue these to their logical conclusion will make the biggest impact and create the greatest change for our business. We simply cannot do everything which needs to be done. We certainly cannot do everything well.
Professor Henry Minztberg of Canada’s McGill University has been studying how executives spend their time since the late 1960’s. And even back then he observed that, on average, a senior executive spends about 3.5 minutes on any one topic before being “dragged” into another, completely different issue. There is no opportunity to think deeply about issues, to ponder consequences, or for the executive to pursue their own line of research.
As we are being dragged from pillar-to-post, how are we going to pay the necessary attention to any transformation program requiring innovation, thought and reasoned action. Transformation by its very nature involves risk and ambiguity. Unless we maintain a diligent focus on those handful of actions which will result in the biggest benefit, the chances for success become limited if any.
Focus on What’s Important!
Darryl