A friend of mine who heads up People at a growing tech business recently gave me a little heads-up before we caught up.
"We've gone through a strategic pivot since I last saw you. I'll fill you in when we meet."
Interesting, I thought. I wonder what's changed in a month?
Turns out, the founders had spotted a potentially lucrative opportunity in a sector they had a little experience in and decided the business should go after it.
A little strategic side quest, if you will.
Now, I'm all for chasing new opportunities.
Some of the best business decisions I’ve helped clients make came from spotting something others have missed and from being willing to take a calculated risk to chase that opportunity.
But here's where things got interesting.
The new direction had been announced in a leadership meeting.
Meanwhile, the existing priorities were still there for the team to pursue.
And nobody seemed particularly clear on what was going to change to make room for the new ambition.
Which got me thinking about something I see all the time in leadership teams.
We love talking about what we're going to start doing.
We're considerably less enthusiastic about deciding what we're going to stop.
And that's where the trouble starts.
We're just as guilty of doing this to ourselves. We say yes to an exciting project, an additional responsibility or a social engagement we have no desire to go to, without really considering what we're already committed to.
Whether we're making that decision for ourselves or an entire team, we have a habit of treating time and attention like they're infinitely expandable. Which, of course, they’re not.
Every yes comes with an invisible invoice
When you come up with a new priority, you're making a commitment on behalf of everyone else who's going to have to deliver it.
Someone has to find the time to squeeze the new work in. Someone has to develop the capabilities to do the new work justice. Someone has to decide which of the existing projects gets less attention, without dropping the ball on something that's actually important.
And if those decisions aren't made explicitly, existing priorities and ways of working won't magically disappear.
Instead, your team suddenly has two competing priorities, both apparently urgent. They don't know which one matters more, so they try to deliver both.
They ask for clarification, they escalate decisions, and they sit through more meetings trying to figure out what's actually expected of them. And before long, what started as an exciting strategic opportunity becomes another source of frustration.
The irony is that the people at the top might think they've given their teams a clear direction.
But a direction that's not translated into clear priorities leaves people more confused than before.
And guesswork is a pretty expensive way to run a business.
Your one bold move:
Decide what you’re trading in for every yes.
The next time you're about to say yes to something new, whether it's an opportunity for yourself or a new direction for your team, think about what making it happen will actually require.
Time, money, people, capabilities, attention. All resources that might already be stretched across existing commitments.
Then ask one question:
What needs to drop to make room for this new opportunity?
Which existing priority are you willing to stop, delay or scale back? And if you're not willing to give anything up, are you being realistic about what you, or your team, can deliver?
It's a question worth asking before committing, rather than three months later when the cracks start to show.
And if you're making that decision on behalf of others, make sure the people doing the work know what's changing. Give them the authority to make those trade-offs themselves, or make it clear who gets to decide when priorities collide.
You don't have to have every answer before pursuing a new opportunity, but you do have to recognise that your next big yes will probably require a few very deliberate nos.
Otherwise, your exciting new opportunity might end up being your own impossible to-do list, or worse, someone else's.
Give it a try this week and let me know how you get on. I read every reply.
Happy experimenting!
Amale
Whenever you're ready, here's how we can work together:
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