Have you ever made a decision to focus on something only to reach the point in time it was due and not have completed it?
When asked, "what happened?" Did you utter any of these words: "It was close but not 100%", "I ran out of time", or "something (or someone) else got in the way"?
While those are commonly used excuses, the root cause of the Issue is often one of the following:
1) PERFECTION (i.e., always having to be right; being too tough on yourself or your people)
2) PARALYSIS (i.e., analysis paralysis; fear of change or pain)
3) PROCRASTINATION (i.e., avoidance of tough issues, missing deadlines)
So what can you do to Solve these Issues?
There are many options for solving these but here are a few I've seen leaders use to maintain progress and achieve results.
Perfection. Use the Pareto Principle - do the 20% of actions that get you the 80% of results. Another way to look at this comes from Dan Sullivan at Strategic Coach. He calls it The 80% Approach: Basically, he states that you should get your project or action to the 80% completion point so that you’re not delaying getting things done and you build confidence. Then, getting 80% more complete on the next two iterations will get you to 99.2%. Or, you can hand off the project when it reaches 80% to someone that has the Unique Ability to complete the project.
Paralysis. Being a leader requires courage. Start being confident and getting comfortable with tough decisions that are focused on the greater good of your business. You'll find that it's better to have "36 hours of pain" vs 3-6 months or 3-6 years of pain. If you are wanting to make better decisions, read Decide! By Gino Wickman.
Procrastination. When you are setting Rocks (90 day priorities), map out the journey to "done" with milestones within the first few days after setting the Rocks(s). This will give you a plan of small actions that make it easier to complete the Rock on time.
Your journey to be your best will be smoother and more successful if you solve the issues with perfectionism, paralysis and procrastination.
