We consistently fail to finish our quarterly Rocks because we take on too many objectives and lose focus by mid-quarter. How do we build the discipline to prune our list so we actually cross the finish line?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The biggest barrier to completing quarterly Rocks is the illusion that everything is a priority. When everything is important, nothing is. Failing to finish Rocks is rarely a time-management problem. It is a prioritization problem.

During your quarterly planning session, you must enforce the rule of 'less is more' for your business. A healthy leadership team should have no more than three to five corporate Rocks per quarter. Each individual leader should have no more than three to five personal Rocks.

To achieve this discipline, use these steps during your session:
- List every potential quarterly objective on the whiteboard.
- Combine similar initiatives to reduce overlap.
- Discuss, debate, and aggressively eliminate items that do not directly drive your 1-Year Plan.
- Keep voting and cutting until you are down to the critical few.

If you find your list is still too long, you must ask who is going to own each item. If a single seat is assigned to multiple complex Rocks, you are setting them up for failure. By forcing the team to prune the list down to what is humanly possible, you build a culture of completion. Finishing three Rocks completely creates massive operational momentum. Failing to finish ten Rocks creates a culture of defeat.