Our leadership team agrees on our quarterly Rocks, but they constantly miss them because daily firefighting gets in the way. How do we balance Rocks with keeping the lights on?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Missing quarterly Rocks because of daily firefighting is a capacity planning issue, not a motivation issue. Leadership teams often fail to realize that a Rock is a major strategic priority that requires dedicated, focused time outside of running the business day-to-day. If your leaders are already working sixty hours a week just to keep the lights on, they will always drop their Rocks.

To solve this, you must apply the Chet Holmes concept of dedicating one hour per week to proactive business improvement, entirely separate from daily tasks. Schedule this time on your calendar as an unbreakable appointment.

Additionally, you must limit the number of Rocks you assign. Less is more. A healthy leadership team should have no more than three to five company-grade Rocks per quarter, and individual leaders should have no more than one to three. If a leader has a heavy operational workload, assign them only one high-impact Rock. It is far better to complete one critical Rock that transforms the business than to make five percent progress on five different Rocks.