Lots of priorities and so little time…what’s a global leader to do? We recently discussed how a global leader should go about setting and communicating priorities so it seems counterintuitive that there’d be conflict within those priorities. In an ideal world, you shouldn’t need to know how to handle a conflict of priorities because there shouldn’t be conflict.
Nevertheless, organisations have this funny habit of having lots of different ‘priorities’ that are often beyond your control but are a part of your role. You may not have set these priorities but they become part of your objectives to manage and deliver on. Often they run alongside each other, competing for your attention and the resources at your disposal.
Conversely, you could be a victim of your own priority setting; perhaps since you set those priorities, the timelines have changed or the whole industry landscape has shifted. Now the work is piling up and you are wondering how you’re going to decide which priorities deserve your focus first.
So how does a global leader handle a conflict of priorities? Here are five tips you can use to discern where to get started.
1. Renew the Priority Hierarchy
By its very nature, a priority is a task that has been deemed more important than others. That means that if there’s a priority, there’s a hierarchy. Often conflict between priorities goes hand in hand with not being able to clearly see the hierarchy of importance.
We’ve all had to sit through that interview question, where the recruiters ask about our ability to manage conflicting priorities. Dutifully but mistakenly, you may have been tempted to say “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,”. But as a global leader, you’re aware that there are only so many hours in a day and limited capital. So the first step is to not take no for an answer; if it’s a priority it must by nature fall into an order of importance.
Global leaders have to find what that order is and shuffle accordingly. The challenge is that the order can change depending on the circumstances, so global leaders need to be constantly aware of the context in which they operate. If the sheer force of will does not reveal a definite order of importance, the following tips should do the trick.
2. Assess ‘Whimsical Priorities’
If you’ve got lots of priorities that seem to be competing with one another, cast a critical eye over the list. Which of those priorities have an air of ambiguity and a lack of definition? It is highly likely that, when pressed, you will find priorities that have presented themselves as urgent but in actual fact only have very loose ties to the core company objectives when compared with the absolute non-negotiable objectives.
Upon reflection, the reason for this priority is actually quite unclear; it’s the equivalent of a mouse with a megaphone. The priority is screaming at you, but when you take another look you realise it’s just hot air; there’s no substance, there’s no objective or value system that underpins it other than the notion that something is “a cool idea”.
It might have come about during a meeting; you had a discussion and someone comes up with this bright idea. Everybody gets really excited about it in the heat of the moment. Responsibility gets passed to you and you add it to the list of priorities. Then it’s time to start the process of completing this priority project. You realise very quickly, there is no concrete action plan driving this priority forward. Add the lack of direction to a hazy timeline and you are in for a whole lot of stress.
As a global leader, do yourself a favor and have the courage to highlight these ‘priorities’ and maybe move them lower down the hierarchy or get rid of them altogether. It’s likely to disappear off the radar and it takes you away from the things that are genuinely important to the vision.
3. Check that your priorities are properly resourced
Where your treasure is, your heart will be there also.
If you are struggling to deal with conflicting priorities, Dr Philip Mann, a specialist in employee engagement, recommends that you look at what priorities your organization has allocated adequate resources to.
As an example, Samsung Electronics has a marketing budget of around $2.4 billion. Amazon goes even further and spends nearly $3.4 billion on advertising. It’s not far-fetched to make an inference that marketing and advertising is a core objective and priority for both of these companies. If they’re spending that amount on advertising it’s clear that they value projects of this nature and have made provision for those projects to be thoroughly resourced.
If your priorities list has got you clutching at straws when it comes to the resources needed to make it happen, it’s time to reflect. If the organisation is serious they will ensure that you have the tools and capital at your disposal to make it happen.
As a side note, if you believe that the priority aligns with the company objective and will positively impact the reach of the organisation, global leaders cannot be afraid to ask for what they need to deliver great results. The point is that we are assessing which priorities are deserving of your focus; if resources are scarce, either a boost of capital is needed or it must be allowed to fall down in the pecking order.
4. Assess the priority’s impact
As a global leader, your focus is about having a positive impact. Some priorities will serve this goal better than others. For example, you may have committed to upgrading all the office snacks. But you are also committed to delivering a programme that will dramatically reduce the company’s carbon footprint whilst increasing engagement from the local communities that are linked in with the organisation.
One is nice-to-have; there are more than a few of us that eat a little too much. Reducing the carbon footprint and integrating the community into local projects, however, will have a profound impact on how the outside world views the organisation and it helps towards reducing the destructive impact humanity is having on the planet. When assessed in this way, it becomes apparent which priorities have the most impactful consequences.
Whilst we all love a good office cake, or carrot sticks and hummus if you’re health-conscious, when compared with doing your bit to address climate change which is good for the planet, company image and people’s overall wellbeing…
…there’s a clear winner here.
If you’ve decided to make that call to mothball something, be sure to communicate that to your team; if you’re going to not provide cake in the offices, give the team some warning that you’ve decided that reducing the carbon footprint is far more important.
5. Decide if it really is a conflicting priority
…or is it a conflicting objective? There are definitely times in life where you get everything you want. But more often than not, you have to make a choice about what is more important. If you’ve got clashes, double-check why there is competition. A really common example of this is a project to change the way employees across the world submit expenses. You’ve been given an allocated timeframe to complete this changeover, but for reasons beyond your control, things have been delayed.
You’ve got a choice here; do you push ahead with completing within the allotted timeframe or do you overrun but give yourself a better opportunity to negotiate the building of a better system?
The answer to that question is tucked away in your organisational values. Some organisations value just ‘getting something out the door and tweaking it as you go’. That whole principle of ‘Minimum Viable Product’ is more important, so in that case, you’d release a working version of the expense system with a view to review it and modify it as feedback comes in.
In contrast, your company might value the idea of releasing a high-quality expenses system for employees to use the first time round. It’s part of the company ethos to take your time and get it right. The right call here may be to move the timeline and focus on quality.
Ultimately the important principle for global leaders is this; ascertain what priority is most important by introducing an ultimatum mentality. You’ve reached a conundrum and you can only choose one of two options. In this case, it’s deadline vs quality. You can’t have both on this occasion, so in keeping with our earlier point about all priorities needing to fall into a hierarchy, something will have to give. The company values will help to solidify what the correct choice should be.
The Power of Radical Conviction
To conclude, handling a conflict of priorities is less about trying to just ‘fit everything in’. Instead, it is more about having an almost radical conviction to uphold the core objectives of the organisation you serve. With so many different things going on and a constantly changing landscape, it can be easy to get distracted and have a list of priorities that may not serve the mission as well as they should be.
Get rid of the stress by getting a fresh perspective of what you feel is going to be the most beneficial to the company.
Perhaps planning the global office snacks can be delegated after all.
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