Motion does not always translate to movement. Think about a car stuck in the mud. Press the gas and the engine revs, the wheels spin. There is motion, but the car is going nowhere. It might feel like you are making progress, but all you are really doing is digging a deeper rut. To get the car moving you need to get out and push.
Day-to-day it can be easy to get stuck spinning your wheels in the mud on things that feel urgent, but are ultimately not important. Effective leaders are able to push things forward by quickly determining which tasks are important and which should be ignored.
Important things create real forward movement by facilitating decision making, and keeping a team focused on their goals.
In any job, it’s all but impossible to stop things from coming up. So being able to make a quick assessment of new tasks is a skill worth practicing.
My process starts with answering a few questions to help determine if something is worth my time. Answering affirmatively to any of these is a good indicator that it deserves some focus. (Note: these questions are assuming the activity is in line with the goals of the team/org. If not, it’s most likely a non-starter.)
- Will this allow me, or the team, to finish something or make a final decision on something?
- Is this critical to inform a future decision I need to make?
- Will this remove a roadblock for me or the team?
- Will this result in clear action items for me or the team?
- Could this provide some critical insight or data point?
- Will this help communicate something critical to a key stakeholder?
- Will this truly help us do great work?
While not perfect, this heuristic can be a quick filter when prioritizing tasks. It has also helped me identify some habits that I’ve come to realize were more about motion than real movement.
I used to feel the need to “zero” my email inbox. I‘d tell myself that if I had a “clean slate” my mind would be clear for the other things I had to do. But, after running through the questions, having a clean inbox didn’t standup to the “is this important” test. In fact, for me, checking email in general turned out to be a mostly unimportant time suck. These days my unread email count is at an all time high, but so is my ability to focus on critical things.
Another thing that came up for me was around design feedback and iterations. It can be easy to get in deep as a team and nitpick design details, because details matter (see question #8), but there comes a point of diminishing returns. Eventually you’re just wasting design cycles. Creating motion for yourself, and a roadblock for everyone else. Sooner or later you just need to call it good and ship it.
Being a leader does not require you to be a manager or have a lofty title. You can lead from anywhere. The key is that you work hard at creating real movement for your team by understanding your goals and focusing on the things that truly matter.
Before you jump into anything, ask yourself: is this creating movement or motion?
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“Leaders Create Movement not Motion” was originally published in Medium on January 10, 2016.