Rob Buecker Consulting

Several years ago, my manager at the time had me attend the Franklin Covey Five Choices training. The biggest thing that stuck in my head from that time was the Big Rocks. If you don’t know about it, watch the video! https://resources.franklincovey.com/the-8th-habit/big-rocks-stephen-r-covey

More recently I had an interview with a company and professional growth came up. The book “Multipliers” by Liz Wiseman was recommended. In my opinion it is well worth the read or audiobook listen. If for no other reason than to understand what an “Accidental Diminisher” is or can be.

Then toss in some “Clean Agile: Back to Basics” by Robert C. Martin and “The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win” by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford.

Everyone, and every company, each have their own priorities and management styles. Sometimes they are parallel, sometimes they are perpendicular, and sometimes they are completely contradictory in nature.

“How the heck do all of these fit together?” It is about prioritizing goals, removing blockers and/or elevating multiplying factors, and getting the team to fire on all cylinders. Wash, rinse, repeat. It is never a one-and-done.

Be it a new marketing campaign, automating a manual process, or addressing frequent end-user complaints; it comes down to working with all stakeholders to identify and rank the priorities by cost/benefit, then collaboratively iterate until successful resolution is reached. It sounds easy enough; but as a former supervisor once said, “It can be like herding squirrels, everyone is running up their own tree.”

It is critical to have clear, open, and honest communication. When something or someone is out of alignment it can have an “accidental diminisher” effect on the team/project.