What's the best way to keep your focus on strategy and avoid getting bogged down in operations?

When leaders delegate, they demonstrate confidence in their team members. With a foresight mindset, this isn't just about the tasks at hand, but about preparing individuals for more complex roles in the future. By entrusting team members leaders not only facilitate task completion but also contribute to their learning and development. Feedback becomes a critical component in this process, helping individuals refine their skills and make informed decisions.This approach not only enhances the present team's performance but also builds a talent pipeline for the future. It's an investment in both the individual's growth and the organization's long-term success, aligning with the principles of foresight education.

The key is to delegate and automate! Delegate operational tasks to capable team members, freeing you for strategic thinking. Leverage automation tools for repetitive processes. Schedule dedicated "strategy sessions" on your calendar and ruthlessly protect that time to avoid getting pulled back into daily operations.

As a manager, it's your responsibility to align your employees' goals with the company's objectives, provide them with necessary resources and timelines, and empower them to get the job done. Remember, you hired your employees for a reason, and if you lack trust in them, it's time to reevaluate your hiring process. Trusting, empowering, and relinquishing control are essential to unlock your team's potential and drive productivity. However, it's equally important to have healthy follow-ups to align on progress and recognize their efforts. Unwavering trust in your employees should underpin every decision you make as a manager. With this approach, you can create a culture of accountability and drive success for your company.

Truly great leaders create an environment where decisions are made at all levels. Delegating tasks doesn't just mean passing off work, it's entrusting your team with ownership and accountability. This doesn't weaken your position; it strengthens the collective by harnessing the talents of each team member creating a culture of ownership.

Think of strategy like a treasure map and operations as the pesky pirates. To stay on course: 1. Delegate or Walk the Plank: Hand over those smaller tasks or you’ll be swimming in them! 2. Keep the Plan Short: If it’s longer than a coffee line, trim it. No one reads the epics. 3. Juggle Like a Circus Star: Mix strategic genius with operational savvy. Don’t drop the ball! 4. Time Block Like a Time Lord: Guard your thinking time like a secret treasure. No intruders! 5. Seek Fresh Perspectives: Chat with folks outside your circle. New ideas, ahoy! 6. Listen with Detective Ears: Tune in, ask questions, uncover strategic gold. Remember, lead with the wit of a fox and the wisdom of an owl. Keep it fun, focused, and fabulous! 🦊

It is important to pause and reflect, constantly learn, adjust, and find better ways of achieving your goals. Strategy is a road map showing the path in the tunnel, while operation is a means of managing aspects leading you to the end of the tunnel in a more efficient way. You manage processes, people, and the environment on the way.

When you are doing your subordinates' jobs, who is doing yours? Eyes-on, hands-off is your path to success. Boost your delegation skills by setting clear expectations (use the X so that Y formula) and ensuring they are correctly understood. Set agreed boundaries with your experienced subordinates so they are free to make decisions, and you have peace of mind that they'll let you know if they are approaching the limits. Have your newer subordinates talk you through their game plans and provide periodic updates. It's hard to see the lawn mower when you are trapped in the weeds.

Effective delegation is a reflection of your belief in people. Belief is sometimes earned and sometimes not but a leader must believe that their people will rise to the occasion if they are to have a motivated team who consistently grows and excels. If you find that you routinely hold back from delegating tasks, ask yourself why you are struggling to believe in your team and consider any reasons as opportunities for you to help them grow.

Mastering the art of alignment and communication is paramount for today's organizational leaders. My expertise lies in ensuring that the company's vision, objectives, and priorities are not just understood but embraced by the team, stakeholders, and customers. Effective communication, through diverse channels and formats, breathes life into our strategies, ensuring their ongoing relevance. Together, we create a unified path forward, driven by purpose and shared accountability. #Leadership #StrategyAlignment #EffectiveCommunication

Agree. Effective strategy execution is when roles are established to align with company strategy and make sure each member of your organisation have a good understanding of your company strategy. So, don't forget, communications is extremely vital here.

Communicate, communicate, communicate! In my experience, the quickest way to lose focus as a team is to fail to communicate. Whether it’s communicating about daily tasks, team objectives, or upcoming deadlines, not doing so is a recipe for misalignment and misunderstanding which will ultimately decrease performance. Don’t assume people know what your vision is and don’t assume that everyone has the same perspective or abilities as yourself (mirror image fallacy). Ensure that you are communicating effectively with the folks you lead and you’ll see that your team will be much better aligned. This will lead to improved sense of direction, purpose, and team motivation.

The communication adage has been, “People need to hear things 7 times before they’ll remember it.” That worked okay pre-pandemic, but the advent of work from anywhere remote teams and virtual meetings means that we probably need to communicate something to our teams 7x7 times before they’ll remember. To be successful in this era, leaders need a hyper-focused message and a plan to reiterate that message again and again. Incorporate the same consistent themes into every email, start every meeting with a brief overview of the strategy, and test your team members on their retention of the message. If they can’t remember it, it’s YOUR fault as a leader. Own the challenge to ensure you’re understood in this era.

It is important to create alignment and focus within the business through weekly strategy check-ins, weekly management team meetings, monthly, quarterly and annual reviews. The purpose is to break down all internal barriers to action and communication, making sure that employees understand how their responsibilities fit into the bigger picture and how they can contribute to the success of the company's mission.

It is important to align your teams goals and priorities to the broader strategic vision of the organization. Having a strategy in place and communicating it to the team is key. Once the strategy is communicated, then align the team to related goals and then tasks. Adjust and realign at appropriate intervals to ensure the team is on track. If this is done as a process, then ideally, the question of strategy being lost in managing operations should not arise.

Allow people to play back what they have heard and learned. It allows them to feel good and also allows course correction if changes are needed. Like the other mentioned methods, you want to get buy in and awareness is key.

Don't underestimate the number of repetitions required to communicate and align your team with your strategy. As the leader, you live the strategy every day...not so much for every other member of your team. You might feel silly repeating you vision, goals and priorities--but don't ever pass up a chance to communicate and align your team. When inevitable changes occur, you have to dig in even more.

As a leader, you must ensure the storyline and messaging are transparent so that when the message is cascaded, it maintains the essence of what you want to transmit. You also need to ensure this storyline is consistent with your primary stakeholders so they can advocate for the message.

Always ask “how do you know..”. When tagged with … you’re getting the best result? …moving in the right direction? …people are really aligned? If forces the continuous alignment of strategy and operational execution.

One of my biggest takeaways from working with countless early stage startups is that the path to success is rarely a straight line. Analyze your data, scrutinize the results, question your assumptions, and be ready to pivot when signals dictate. Flexibility isn't an admission of failure; it's the wisdom to recalibrate based on changing conditions.

In my experience understanding the environment in which your business operates is very important. By doing so, you can ensure that you stay adaptable and achieve your objectives effectively.

Reviewing and Adjusting the strategies are vital for the overall success but every change should be well thought of. Frequent changes or just imitating competition without focusing on its own strengths, priorities and core purpose, could jeopardize the overall business.

If most of what the org is doing seems to be operational overhead, leaders should act quickly and ruthlessly to weed this out. This may involve a short-term reprioritization of resources to automate essential ops, cutting out unnecessary ops, and in some cases even downsizing of teams and redundancies. The goal of these would be a laser focus on getting everyone re-oriented towards actual outcomes and business growth, rather than being busy with work that takes time and effort but doesn't actually accomplish much.

Leaders who review more frequently are better equipped to pivot and adjust when needed. Those who don’t measure often are often too far behind once they realize it, so they can’t truly adjust.

The use of an Eisenhower Matrix might be considered here. That tool ranks tasks relative to their 1. Urgency and 2. Importance. Non-urgent and non-important tasks are safely and easily ignored for those that are Urgent and/or Important. Urgent but non-important tasks as well as non-urgent but Important tasks can be delegated to trusted (and trained!) subordinates. That leaves the Urgent and Important tasks undelegated and (presumably) left to the matrix owner.

Collaboration, flexibility and innovation. As you review and adjust, leave room to strategize goal achievement in a way that others have not. Establish new agreements and partnerships to leverage and share resources; seize the opportunity to implement efficiencies others were shy to try and finally engage your internal and external customers. This group, once briefed, may help identify areas that can be eliminated or streamlined to improve operational efficiency and ultimately achieve the desired goal.

Adjusting strategy requires careful thought, aligning closely with the concept that strategy answers the question, "What do we want to be known for?" This aspect of strategy doesn't change frequently or rapidly. It’s the processes, objectives, and the alignment of talents towards missions that are more fluid, serving as the means to execute the broader strategy. While the overarching goals—"the what"—may be refined delicately and periodically, the methodologies—"the how"—demand continuous monitoring, adaptability, and impact assessment to ensure the strategy remains responsive and effective.

Here I would distinguish between tweaking operational strategy and potentially alter the course as written here and understanding the strategic mega-trends that might change the destination. Both taken together ensures success of such initiatives.

🔍 Review progress and outcomes. 📊 Evaluate impact. 🔄 Be flexible and adaptable. 🛠️ Adjust strategy based on changing needs. 🚀 Ensure strategy remains realistic and effective. 🤝 Respond to new opportunities.

Good learning comes from failures; both of self and others. A true leader will recognise his/her failure, accept them, introspect and learn from it. A smart leader will learn from other's failures as well.

Micromanagement starts when there is no trust in your knowledge and your team’s capabilities. Need to start with small projects gain confidence and start empowering team

🧠 Reflect on actions, feedback, and results. 📈 Identify strengths and areas for improvement. 🔎 Seek new knowledge, skills, and perspectives. 📚 Apply learning to your strategy. 🌱 Enhance personal and professional development. 💪 Increase your value as a leader.

Audre Lorde said "Caring for myself is an act of survival." Leadership is not just about managing tasks, but about understanding and nurturing the individuals within the team. Real leadership means valuing each member's well-being and growth. A genuine leader recognizes that a team is not just a collection of roles and responsibilities, but a group of individuals with unique aspirations, strengths, and challenges. True leaders understand that investing in the growth of individuals today translates into a more capable, motivated, and resilient team tomorrow.

An important tip I have learned from my professional experience is that to enhance the personal and professional development, and increase your value as a leader you should be promoting what is called “feedforward” instead of feedback. The feedforward brings the opportunity to increase a positive culture where people anticipate the possible results, provide spaces to talk about the future and accelerate the individual growth while avoiding to invest time reviewing the past. The past is your experience and is needed for the discussion of results but is not as motivational to develop talent. There is going to be a group of “doers” and the “silent quitting” ones , and as a leader we should manage both, offering the same attention & focus.

Sometimes the devil is indeed in the details, so it's not always bad to be involved in the operations of one's business. I like to say that a good leader has three optical instruments on their tool belt, which they use every day: a telescope (long-term direction), binoculars (mid-range actions) and a microscope (what needs to be done today).

An approach to keep learning makes a leader contemporary and growth-oriented. Reflecting on failures converts them into valuable learnings. Also, as much as one learns from experiences and networking, continuing to learn helps in upgrading knowledge and keeping up with the changing times... certainly boosts your confidence and brings positivity

Agreed and one core aspects to this is to create a psychologically safe environment of you, your leadership team and their teams. People must be able to learn from failures, test and iterate wherever possible and necessary.

Steps you can take to stay focused at work and be productive. - Look for lifestyle issues that stop you from focusing properly. - Analyze your work environment for distractions. - Identify the work-related habits that take your focus away. - Address every issue and attain focus. - Make your work environment focus-friendly.

Everyone keeps "to-do" lists, but something worth keeping, especially when feeling bogged down, is a "done" list. This reminds you that you are always making progress, and also encourages to keep going.

Ter na equipe pessoas diferentes e melhores que você ! Delegar Acompanhar como Mentor Gestionar os resultados para tomada de decisões rápidas

Embrace technology and automation where possible. By leveraging tools and systems, you can automate routine operational tasks, granting you more time to concentrate on strategic thinking. Maintain a balance between short-term wins and long-term vision. While addressing immediate operational needs is essential, always relate these actions back to the overarching strategy. Prioritize tasks that contribute directly to your strategic objectives. Set aside dedicated time for strategic reflection, analyze progress, adapt to changing circumstances, and refine your approach. This intentional reflection time will reinforce your strategic focus and prevent you from getting lost in day-to-day operations.

A strategic plan connects your mission to your vision guided by your values. A senior leader stays focused on these and does not get overly focused on the "how" which should be delegated to subordinate leaders. Your team needs you to chart a course, not row the boat.

From my perspective, in order to keep both strategy and operation running simultaneously, an organizational leader will need to define the corporate goals, revise its relevance periodically, and monitor the performance with measurable KPIs. Any new venture that the company undertakes will need to be measured against those indicators. On the other hand, the way a company prioritizes activities will define how aligned is the leader vision with the rest of the organization, and everyone needs the empowerment to measure even the smallest tasks. I have experienced the above in big organizations and also startups, and I believe that Project Management and agile methodologies are skills much needed, regardless the company’s size.

As a Leader, in order to delegate effectively and be focused on the strategy & execution - simple steps can get you there; 1) Right person for the Right Job: Hire & promote team members with skills and NOT due to your affiliation 2) Mentorship and Training: Invest your time in mentoring and training to empower your team. 3) Trust in Team Capabilities: Build an environment of trust, allowing your team members to shine. 4) Lead by Example: Lead from the front, setting a precedent through your actions.

The most effective leaders communicate a clear vision, practice collaborative decision making, and strategically set up operational structures that empower teams to produce. Micromanagement prevents growth and inhibits productivity. Strategic leaders lead w a growth mindset, set clear benchmarks. Effective and compassionate leaders hold themselves accountable for aligning core values w mission, while fostering a psychologically safe work environment that values and amplifies the voices of staff. Strategic decisions that foster professional development and pathways for advancement will help attract and retain talent- all of this must be advanced through a lens of equity.

The term "strategy" is overused in today's vernacular. My personal definition comes from a combination of Mintzberg and Dolman. I define strategy as a deliberate effort to maintain a position of relative advantage, while accounting for emergent trends, that must be observed to account for risk/opportunity to achieve a desired future endstate. Based on this definition, the strategic leader (SL), must focus on the endstate of the strategy, be open to assessment/feedback, understand personal/organizational biases, and be willing to "rudder shift" the strategy to account for the current environment. SLs avoid operational mire by articulating strategic endstate, ensuring organizational understanding, and providing their INTENT on how to achieve.

Keep following ABC for strategy A-Accurate, B-Brief and C-Clear. Whenever your turn comes, u need to be prepared for the same.