how to organize your life and put priorities in perspective

#HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE AND PUT PRIORITIES IN PERSPECTIVE SERIES#

The first step in developing effective priorities is to clarify whether strategy should live on the corporate or business unit level, or both. The impulse to cut to the chase is understandable, but it is a mistake. 2 When developing a strategy for execution, managers often want to dive right into setting their strategic priorities.

Over the past few years, we have worked with dozens of leadership teams to help them set and implement priorities. Many companies do well on a few of the dimensions, but few excel on all of them. The most effective strategic priorities share several characteristics (described in our earlier article “Turning Strategy Into Results”). Too often the objectives are rendered toothless by vague or generic terms (such as being “best in the industry”) or they are riddled with buzzwords (such as “cloud-based” or “crowd-sourced”). In many cases, however, strategic priorities fail to align activity throughout the organization. In our research, we found that 71% of S&P 500 companies reported an explicit set of priorities. They are a common tool to execute strategy, particularly among large companies. These strategic priorities serve as guardrails to keep different parts of the organization moving in the same direction. To implement their strategy, many companies commit to a handful of company-wide objectives that clarify the choices that will matter most over the next few years.

#HOW TO ORGANIZE YOUR LIFE AND PUT PRIORITIES IN PERSPECTIVE SERIES#

This article is part of an MIT SMR series that explores how organizations can achieve their strategic objectives. But when it comes to execution, complexity kills. In strategy development, complexity is unavoidable. Any strategy that tries to address every decision that matters will be far too complex to communicate, remember, or use as a guide for day-to-day action. Attempting to describe every important choice in detail, however, leads to information overload. They win through a series of trade-offs - about target customers, product, scope, and resources - that reinforce one another to create value. Few companies succeed based on a single big bet. Strategy is not about choice, it’s about choices.

How to organize your life and put priorities in perspective