Rock Rules
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"Your annual plan should be a twelve month chunk of your three year vision. Your three year vision should be a three year chunk of your ten to 15 big hairy, audacious goal. We need that to be in alignment."
— Mike Goldman
Importance of long-term vision
Focusing only on short-term priorities won't lead to sustained success
Rock represents a 90-day chunk of annual priorities, aligned with the three-year vision and big hairy audacious goal
Setting priorities
A Rock should be one of the most important one to five things to work on presently.
We'll specifically discuss 90-day priorities
Waiting until the end of the quarter for task completion is ineffective
Clear measures of success are needed throughout the quarter, with red, yellow, and green tracking
Establish milestones with clear finish lines throughout the quarter
Use a tool(s) to measure success and track progress
The outcome is improving talent density, increasing A players, and decreasing C players.
Execute a value-adding rock instead of a massive program.
Measurable value
Focus on measurable value, not just planning.
Hold team members accountable for progress on rocks; suggest weekly accountability.
Use tools like Metronome Growth Systems or a spreadsheet for visibility and progress tracking.
Rocks should be outcome-driven, not task-driven
Allocate a significant chunk of work to a quarter
Each rock should have a clear finish line for the end of the quarter and methods to measure progress.
Measure progress over time to ensure goal achievement
There should only be one person accountable for planning, strategizing, and measuring progress for a key objective or "rock."
This person is held accountable by the CEO and leadership team
Rock should be largely within the control of the team, not relying on external factors
Difference between a status meeting and an accountability meeting
Ten rules for accountability align with the longer-term plan and vision
90-day priorities
90-day priorities create a sense of urgency
Annual or 3-year priorities are harder to hold accountable due to changing world.
Task-driven vs. Outcome-driven approach
Task-driven rocks may not add value even if completed
Planning doesn't guarantee effectiveness or participation
The outcome-driven approach focuses on the desired outcome of the rock
Identifying the outcome of a leadership development program can take 9 to 12 months
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Mike: As we get started for those of you watching on video, I have to address the elephant in the room or the scab on my head, just so you don't think that's a spot. It's like oh God, Mike didn't shower today. My wife had me go up to our attic yesterday and I smacked my head right into some wood.
[00:00:25] Talking About Priorities
Mike: And so if I'm a little woozy or dumber than normal on this episode. You could blame it on my wife. And for those listening to this disregard what I just said because you don't see anything on my head. Anyway. In today's episode, I wanna talk about priorities and more specifically, I want to talk about some ways to make sure when you set priorities.
When you set goals for your company, for your team, even for yourself, and I'm gonna focus more on company and team. How do you make sure you set priorities that are acted upon? That are the right priorities that are actually gonna move you closer to your vision. And most specifically, we're gonna talk about 90 day priorities.
[00:01:22] The Story of The Rocks, The Pebbles, and The Sand
Mike: And I call those 90 day priorities, rocks. Now, why do I call them rocks? So some of you have heard the story of the rocks, the pebbles, and the sand. I'll tell a quick version of it. For those that haven't heard it is if you have some kind of vessel or container that you are putting in, you know you need to put rocks in and you know, the metaphor is that rocks are the most important things in your life or the most important things in your business.
Pebbles, less important. Sand is that trivial stuff we tend to get caught up in. What we tend to do in our businesses and our lives is put the sand in first because they're easier, they're less scary, they take less time. We put the sand in first, then the pebbles, and when we get to the end of the day, there's no room for the rocks.
[00:02:18] Find Out Whats Most Important First
Mike: There's no room for what's most important. But if you switch that around and you put the rocks in first, which please take some time and figure out what's most important first and put those in your life. Put those on your schedule. Make those priorities. If you put the rocks in first, you're gonna fit a lot of rocks in that container, and then the pebbles will fit in, but they'll fall in and around the rocks, and then the sand will fit in.
They'll fall in and around the rocks and the pebbles and if anything doesn't fit, it's the sand. It's some of that sand is thats gonna fit in. That's the less important trivial stuff anyway. So rocks are those most important things.
And while there's not enough time in the day to do everything, not enough time in the quarter or the year to do everything, there is always time to do what's most important. Those rocks are those most important things. So that's why I call them rocks. Now, why 90 days?
Well the problem with annual priorities and I believe you ought to be setting annual priorities. If you're at point A, you need to know where point B is and you ought to be setting, you know creating a three year vision as well and a creating a big hairy audacious goal. You're gonna do a lot of things that are longer term than 90 days, but 90 days is where stuff gets done.
[00:03:51] The Sense of Urgency
Mike: The first reason why it's where stuff gets done is because if you set a 90 day priority, there's a fire up your butt to get it done. There's a sense of urgency. If I say I wanna lose 20 pounds over the next year, I'm still gonna eat that cupcake later. I'm still gonna order a pizza with my son later because I've got plenty of time to lose the 25 pounds.
But if you tell me I need to lose seven pounds this quarter. Well there's a little bit more of a sense of urgency for me to do the right thing now. So a 90 day priority gives it a sense of urgency. The other thing a 90 day priority does is it creates a timeframe that is typically short enough.
That the world is not gonna change all that much in 90 days. Now I hear you Covid aside in 90 days, typically the world doesn't change all that much. If I set an annual priority or a three year priority, I'm gonna stop holding myself and others' accountable for that because three to five months after I created, the world has changed.
[00:05:05] The Rock Rules
Mike: So a 90 day priority or what we'll call a rock from here on in is short enough that it is urgent and short enough that the world is not gonna change all that much within those 90 days. Now let's talk about what I call the rock rules, the 10 rules for creating rocks that will really make a difference, will get acted upon.
[00:05:39] Rule #1
Mike: You'll be able to hold yourself and others accountable for. Rule number one, the rock needs to result in a significant improvement to the business and it's not part of your standard operating procedure. Now, what that really means is that the rock is about working on the business, not in the business. So if you are the sales leader, your rock is not to have 30 sales calls or close five deals over the next 90 days.
Those absolutely are important for you to do. There are key performance indicators, KPIs that you ought to be looking at every day, every week, every month, every quarter, to make sure you and the team are executing on that. But that's what we call working in the business. To work in the business, the day-to-day, I call that the whirlwind of the day-to-day. You manage those through KPIs.
But if all you do is focus on the whirlwind of the day to day, you're gonna start to fall behind the competition and become irrelevant to your clients, to your employees, to the marketplace. You need to be not only working in the business and closing those new clients or adding more marketing qualified leads or closing your books on time or hit a hitting a certain gross margin number.
You need to do all those things, but those are all working in the business. Part of the whirlwind of the day-to-day, a rock is about its significant improvement to the business that's not already standard operating procedure. So that's rule number one.
[00:07:33] Rule #2
Mike: Rule number two is your rock should align with your longer term vision strategy plan. So if all you do every quarter is say, huh, what's most important this quarter? What should I focus on to work on the business? You may pick some really interesting things that sound great. But where does it get you in the long term if you're not aligned and consistent and moving towards a longer term vision?
So the rock you create ought to be ideally a 90 day chunk off of whatever your annual priorities are or your annual plan is. Your annual plan should be a 12 month chunk of your three year vision. Your three year vision should be a three year chunk of your 10 to 15 big hairy audacious goal. We need that to be in alignment.
[00:08:33] Rule #3
Mike: So when you create a rock, you should look at that rock and say, does this rock align with our longer term vision, does it get us closer to realizing our long-term vision? That's rule number two. Rule number three, the rock should be one of the most important, one to five things you should be what you or your team or your company should be working on now.
So what that means is if you create 12 rocks, some of them are probably pebbles. Maybe all of them are pebbles. If everything's a priority, nothing's a priority. So when you create a set of rocks, I challenge my clients to make sure they're somewhere, give or take one or two. You've got three rocks that are most important for the quarter.
One is not a bad thing if you create one rock, one big priority. Some might say, oh, what? We need to be doing more than that. But there's nothing wrong with everybody aligning around one most important thing. I would argue if you could do that, that's the best way to go. But I do believe if you have any more than five, you got a bunch of pebbles in there.
[00:09:53] Rule #4
Mike: So that's rule number three. Rule number four is there needs to be clear accountability for each of those rocks you create. Now what I mean by that, I've talked about accountability in an earlier podcast. Accountability is always and only one person. So I don't care how big that rock is, it may be a boulder that impacts everybody in your company and maybe dozens of people will be working on it.
The people that are working on it are responsible. There needs to be one and only one person accountable for that rock. That one person who's accountable for planning that rock, strategizing around that rock, making sure you've got collaboration of different functions around that rock measuring whether you're achieving that rock.
And when you come around the leadership table, that person accountable is the one who owns whether it is on target or not. And it's the one person, the CEO and the leadership team are gonna look to, to say what's going on? How are you fixing this? What's your plan? How could we help?
[00:11:08] Rule #5
Mike: That's rule number four. Rule number five is that accomplishment of the rock should be within your control, largely within your control. That means the rock shouldn't rely very heavily on economic factors, on regulations, you know on things that are outside of your control. The best kind of rock is one that is largely within your control.
So you don't get a lot of people around that leadership table playing the victim saying, well we were assuming a great economy and here's what's happened. You need to make sure that to a large degree, and I keep saying to a large degree because it's an argument that says, hey nothing is ever totally within our control other than our own attitude and our own behavior.
And as much as you've got the right attitude and the right behavior. Maybe you won't get the result you're looking for in that quarter. That's true, but it needs to be largely within your control or you wind up with a whole bunch of excuses rather than results.
[00:12:15] Rule #6
Mike: Rock rule number six is that the rock should be significant enough that it's gonna take the better part of a quarter to complete or it's part of a longer effort and this rock is about what you're gonna get done this quarter. The rock, I don't care how important it is, if the rock is about calling someone next week, you're thinking too small. The rock is gonna get done in three weeks. You may be thinking too small.
Now, does everything magically happen in a quarter, in three months? Of course not. But you wanna make sure it's a significant chunk of work that's gonna take you a quarter or the better part of a quarter to get done.
[00:12:59] Rule #7
Mike: Or again It might be part of a longer effort, but you want to know what the finish line is for that quarter, which kind of leads us to rock number seven is each rock should have a crystal clear finish line for the end of the quarter with methods to measure progress over the quarter.
So what do I mean by that? You know, a rock is not, this quarter we're gonna improve our communication. You know, this quarter we're gonna get better at coaching our people. None of those things have a clear measure of success.
Instead of saying that, you know, we're gonna get better at coaching our people, maybe it's gonna improve our talent density from X to Y. What is that clear measure of success at the end of the quarter that you and others on the team could be held accountable for?
There also needs to be ways to measure progress over time so it's not effective to have a rock where we don't know until the end of the quarter how we're doing. You get together in your weekly accountability meetings and it's like well I'm hoping it gets done. I'll let you know at the end of the quarter, you know, or I'm on track I think and no one has a way to hold you or others accountable for it being on track.
[00:14:30] Clear Measures of Success
Mike: There need to be clear measures of success throughout the quarter with some red, yellow, green tracking on that, so we know whether you're on target or not. So here's where I need to be at the end of week three. Here's where I need to be at the end of week five. Week nine, and here's where I need to be at the end of the quarter. So clear finish line with measures of success.
[00:15:00] Rule #8
Mike: Number eight is there should be some kind of tool you're using to measure that success, to input those plans. In a quarterly planning meeting, you may be putting all these things up on flip charts, but it's not good enough to say, how are we doing on that rock?
Well, let's go back to the flip chart. It's also not good enough when you are holding people accountable for people to just tell you everything they've done or not done with any visibility to that plan. So whether it's a spreadsheet or it's some application you use. A lot of my clients use something called Metronome Growth Systems that's great.
But you should be using some kind of tool. So you can see these rocks in front of you have visibility during a weekly meeting, a monthly meeting, a quarterly meeting. So you could manage this stuff by exception, depending on the reds, yellows, and greens. So that was rule number eight.
[00:16:07] Rule #9
Mike: Rule number nine and this is often the toughest one to make happen, certainly early on is rocks should be outcome driven rather than task driven. Now, what does that mean? Great example is if you have a rock that says this quarter we are going to plan and design our leadership development program. That's a task driven rock. What you're doing is saying, we're gonna get these tasks done, we're gonna plan, we're gonna develop our leadership development program.
Well, the question I'd ask for any rock that's task driven is, is it possible that you complete that rock, that you do plan and develop a leadership development program, but it adds no value. And the initial answer I get normally is, no of course it'll add value, but if we realistically look at it, you could plan and develop a program that's not very helpful, but you checked the boxes, you've plan and developed a program, but it adds no value.
You could plan and develop what you think is a wonderful program, but no one participates. You can get people participating, but they're not taking action on it cuz maybe they're not getting the support from above. I've seen too many rocks like that, cause people to work their butts off to get it done and then it adds no value.
So how could you make that rock outcome driven? Well, very simply, what's the outcome you are looking to achieve through this leadership development program? And maybe you say, well it's a big program we're not gonna see outcomes for nine, twelve months until people have gone through this and it's taken some time.
Well, frankly, I don't think that's good enough. I think you need to take a more agile approach and add value quarter after quarter after quarter. So the outcome you might be looking for is we want to, I don't know, improve our talent density throughout the organization, increase our percent of A players, decrease our percent of C players.
What I would ask, how could you impact that within a quarter? And instead of planning and developing this massive program that may or may not add real value, can you execute on a sliver of a program? Around helping people do a better job of assessing talent and then coaching that talent. Could you execute on a slimmer of it that may ultimately become part of a bigger program, but you're adding value now.
[00:18:59] Rule #10
Mike: So challenge yourself, challenge others. How could you make sure that rock is outcome driven? Where that finish line is a measurable piece of value versus I've planned something. To me, having the word plan in a rock is like fingernails on a blackboard. So that was rule number nine. And then rule number ten is, and I've alluded to this throughout, is team members need to be regularly held accountable for progress on those rocks.
I think weekly is a great way to do that. You can, in a quarterly planning meeting, which is normally where those rocks, these rocks get created, you can create a wonderful set of three rocks with accountabilities and people come up with plans and they put it in a beautiful system, Excel or Metronome Growth Systems, or Microsoft teams or Google Docs, wherever they're putting it.
If you're not holding them accountable every week. People stop taking them seriously. You get to the end of the quarter and say, how did we do? And people go could you remind me what my rock was again? I don't remember. So you need a way weekly, and I believe that the accountability lives or dies with a weekly accountability meeting.
[00:20:29] Accountability
Mike: Notice I don't call it a weekly status meeting. In an early episode called the Dreaded Weekly meeting. I talk about the difference between a status meeting and an accountability meeting. So I'm not gonna go into it here but you need a way weekly, not just to say, hey, what do you have going on? Hey, what do you have going on?
But people are accountable for rocks. You need a way to hold them accountable in that weekly meeting for those milestones, for making progress about that outcome, making progress towards that outcome. So ten rules really quickly. It results in significant improvement to the business. That was number one.
Number two, it aligns with the longer term plan and vision. Number three, it's one of the most important one to five things you should be working on now. Number four, there's clear accountability for the rock. Number five, accomplishment of the rock is largely within your control. Number six, it's a significant chunk of work that's gonna take the better part of a month to get done.
Or it may be a part of a longer term, project or initiative. Seven, there's a clear finish line with milestones and methods to measure progress. Number eight, you should use some kind of tool to track and measure your rock plans and your progress against those plans. Number nine, it is outcome rather than task driven.
And number 10, team members are regularly, I think, weekly held accountable for progress on their rocks. So do this. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here. If you've got rocks that are task driven, but not outcome driven, don't let that stop the process. It's okay if some of them are task driven and not outcome driven.
Move forward, get the process started, make it a habit, and then improve it as you go.