Our team constantly misses their quarterly Rocks. We start the quarter with great intentions but end up only completing half of them. What are we doing wrong?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The primary reason teams miss their Rocks is that they set too many of them and fail to protect their calendar. You must adhere to the rule of less is more. A leadership team should have no more than three to seven company Rocks per quarter, and individual leaders should only own one to three. If everything is important, nothing is important. When you set a Rock, you must also ensure the owner has the actual capacity to achieve it. This is where the concept of white space becomes critical. If your leaders are scheduled for back-to-back meetings all day, they have zero time for strategic thinking or deep execution. They will inevitably prioritize daily fire-fighting over their Rocks. You must actively carve out unscheduled time on their calendars for uninterrupted work. Additionally, ensure your Rocks are truly SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. If a Rock is vague, like improve sales process, it will fail. It must be specific, like document the five-step sales process and train the sales team.