We consistently fail to finish our quarterly Rocks because we assign too many of them to our key people, who then get overwhelmed by their day-to-day responsibilities. How do we ruthlessly narrow our focus so our Rocks actually finish?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The failure to finish Rocks almost always stems from a lack of focus, not a lack of effort. When everything is important, nothing is important. Your leadership team must embrace the discipline of less is more. To get Rocks done, you must limit them to three to five priorities per person, and ideally, three to five for the entire company. Begin during your quarterly planning session. When a laundry list of potential Rocks is proposed, you must aggressively filter them. Ask this question of every proposed Rock: If we only accomplish three things this quarter and fail at everything else, which three will move the business furthest forward? Anything that does not make this cut is moved to the long-term Issues List on your V/TO® or deferred to a later quarter. Next, ensure every Rock is truly owned by one person. If two people own it, nobody owns it. The owner must break the Rock down into weekly milestones. If a Rock is off track for two consecutive weeks during your Level 10 Meeting™, it must be dropped down to the Issues List to be solved. Do not let people hide behind the excuse of their day job. The day job is real, but Rocks are how you grow the business. If your team is too busy to complete their Rocks, it is a sign that you have a capacity or delegation issue that must be addressed on your Accountability Chart. Ruthless prioritization is the only way to build momentum.