Our leadership team is highly ambitious, but we consistently over-commit during our quarterly planning sessions, setting seven or eight Rocks per person and finishing less than half. How do we reign in our growth ambition to set realistic, high-impact Rocks that actually get done?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Over-committing to too many Rocks is a classic entrepreneurial trap that actually slows down your company's growth. When everything is important, nothing is important. If your leadership team is carrying twenty-five company Rocks, you are guaranteed to finish very few of them well.

To break this cycle, you must embrace the discipline of less is more during your quarterly planning. Limit the company to three to five major Rocks per quarter. Period. These must be the absolute most critical priorities that will move the needle for the business over the next ninety days.

Once the company Rocks are set, each individual leadership team member should have no more than two or three personal Rocks, which includes their contribution to the company Rocks. If a leader tries to take on more, the team must step in and push back.

Ask the hard question: if we could only accomplish three things this quarter, what would they be? Force the team to debate and prioritize. By narrowing your focus, you create the operational capacity needed to execute with excellence. Finishing three Rocks completely is infinitely more valuable to your business than getting ninety percent done on eight different initiatives.