Making 2022 Successful

Dads’ Survival Guide: Producing — Our Work

Hard to believe 2022 has arrived.

2021 was a blur. Vaccines and boosters. Greek-lettered variants. Inflation. Supply chain woes. And The Great Resignation.

Dads hoped 2021 would return a sense of normalcy. Instead, we faced another year of disruptions. Especially in the workplace. Where recovering from 2020 and adjusting to 2021 was a full-time job. Who could get anything else done?

And maybe that’s the biggest disappointment of 2021; the lack of progress. Despite grand plans. Ambitious objectives. Felt like we were stuck. Spinning our wheels. Just getting back to pre-COVID days.

Unfortunately, there’s little time to reflect. Because now we’re expected to turn to 2022. Craft a new set of targets. KPIs. Annual budgets. Mission and purpose. To stretch individuals. While rallying the firm together.

How can we ensure our teams do better in the coming year than in the past? Achieve 2022 goals. Amid all this commotion and turmoil.

Dads will need to apply the rarest of commodities: FOCUS.

Less is More

Coaching youth sports is tough. Really tough. So much to teach. And so little attention. Getting 10 yr-olds to develop even the simplest new skills is astonishingly difficult. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Sadly, us Dads make the same coaching mistakes over and over. Trying to teach too much. All at once.

You’ll hear us at kids’ games. Bellowing out a laundry list of commands. Do this. Don’t do that. Remember this. Don’t forget that. An endless stream of demands and directives. All game long.

Dads mean well. But all that extraneous noise distracts players. Confuses them. Amplifies the chaos and stress. Causing mental errors. Silly mistakes. Breakdowns. And plenty of tears.

Making the same coaching blunders season after season finally led me to a revelation: FOCUS. Narrow the instruction. To a fundamental or two. And nothing else. Less is more.

If every kid could get better at just a couple of basics, the season would be a success.

More is Less

The workplace is similar.

I’m not suggesting employees have the attention span of 10 yr-olds. Simply acknowledging that people are people. And when people try to do too much, all at once, we’re prone to mental errors. Silly mistakes. Requiring double-checks. And costly rework.

No leader wants this. Yet, we have a habit of making the situation worse. Over and over.

Firms begin every year with a set of deliverables. Stretch targets for the team. And everyone is great out of the gate. Till the inevitable obstacles arise. 2020 had a pandemic. In 2021, inflation and short staffing. Unforeseen crises and emergencies require countless hours of troubleshooting. Piled atop everyone’s day job.

Problem is, leaders rarely adjust. We want it all. Fix the problems and meet the deliverables. If not, we start bellowing. A laundry list of commands. Do this. Don’t do that. Remember this. Don’t forget that. An endless stream of emails. Texts. Slacks. Zooms. All year long.

This extraneous noise is distracting. Confusing. Amplifies an already chaotic, stressful workplace. Which further drains team members. While diffusing quality and performance.

Leaders fail to see that our drive for more and more, often yields less and less.

Getting it Done

Most of my clients are deep into 2022 planning mode. A favorite part of their role.

The market analysis. Competitive assessments. Dreaming up a future vision. Strategies and tactics. Culminating in a lengthy list of initiatives. To inspire the team towards greatness.

Awesome stuff. And vitally necessary.

And while leaders are obsessed with the ‘What to Do’, we’re not as thorough about the ‘Getting it Done’.

Sure, some action steps are passed down. A vague set of timelines. All based on a pivotal assumption; everything goes smoothly. There’s no room built in for snags or setbacks.

Which of course, is never the case. And 2022 will be no different. We don’t know what. Or when. But rest assured, some crazy curveball is bound to come our way. Stalling momentum. And knocking the team off course.

1, 2, 3…Focus

As leaders, we’re responsible for keeping our people focused. Concentrating on the most important and impactful work. Sounds great. Except how’s that possible amid such tumultuous and uncertain times?

A fellow youth coach and client of mine devised a practical means for sharpening focus at his startup. An innovative version of Less-is-More. This CEO’s exercise is simple and easy to implement.

Have every team and/or each individual do the following:

· Pick 1 Must-have to deliver by the end of Q1. Just one.

· Identify 2 Strategic Imperatives to finish by mid-year. Only 2.

· Establish 3 Mission-critical Objectives for year-end. The 3 Essentials that absolutely, positively, must be completed to make 2022 a success.

Narrowing our list is hard. Because we want to accomplish it all. And hate saying “No.” To anyone. Or anything. But if we’re trying to tackle too much, all at once, we’ll continue coming up short. And no Dad wants another year of that.

This exercise generates FOCUS. Aligns priorities. Ensuring everyone is tackling the right things. Rather than everything. While limiting distractions from the daily problems and difficulties.

So, whether we’re leading the firm or coaching our kid’s team, let’s remember, less is more. Keep it simple. Basic. And focused.

That’s how we build winners. And nobody’s better at building winners than us Dads.

Go, Dads. Go.