Leaders who use the summer months to review their organization's progress and performance have the added advantage of being able to make course corrections before it's too late.
In fact, being responsive and nimble mid-year is paramount to an organization's ability to meet its set goals by year end. After all, if you wait much past September to act it may end up being too late to make a difference.
Here are my 5 hacks for finding solutions to challenges more quickly in order to stay on track toward organizational goals:
Determine what problem you're trying to solve. Well-defined problems lead to breakthrough solutions. Therefore, your most important role as the leader is to clearly define the challenge or opportunity for your team of problem solvers. Most organizations aren’t sufficiently rigorous in defining the problems they’re attempting to solve or in articulating why those issues are important. Without that rigor, organizations miss opportunities, waste resources and end up pursuing initiatives that aren’t aligned with their strategies.
Decide who should be involved in solution development. The goal here is to get to solutions, not get stuck in lots of debate and analysis. We recommend handpicking a small but highly capable group of individuals who already have the skills and resources required to solve the issues you've uncovered — then empower them to get to work.
Vet proposed solutions. The best solutions are proactive and innovative and position an organization well for the future. Spend some time vetting proposed solutions to make sure the option you pick is the right one for addressing the challenges and opportunities under discussion.
Clarify milestones and a timeline. Setting a timeline with clear milestones is one of the surest ways to make certain the right things happen at the right time. Even if a solution has a very long time horizon, you can always start with the milestones for the next six months.
Measure results. Numbers talk so figure out what metrics will most effectively measure the success of the agreed to solution. Consistent monitoring will help you identify barriers to progress more quickly and, once again, solve problems before they sabotage your entire effort.
