For a long while I’ve been curious why some endeavours succeed faster and with better results than others.
Whether this is a project at work, an initiative for a team, or a crusade in our personal lives….sometimes we nail it and sometimes we don’t. So what makes the difference between these outcomes?
Every initiative has a start and an end point. Between these two points are lots of smaller steps. We call these milestones, deliverables or tasks. They are waypoints along our journey.
Sometimes these waypoints are needed. They take us closer to our destination. Other times they are miscalculations which lead us in the wrong direction, and we’re forced to go back to get on track again.
For many people, the way to get work done is a process of trial and error. We wait until we hit a waypoint, see what we can learn from it, and then either continue or trace-back to find our correct path. In doing so, we may learn along the way, but we lose time and expend effort. In the end this costs us.
Poorly executed pathways look like this.
Well executed pathways look like this.
The key question, is what makes the difference between these pathways?
3 Principles That Will Improve Any Initiative
Recently I met with a number of colleagues and asked them to describe what makes their work most effective.
One of these people manages very substantial, complex projects in a multinational company. Another is involved in a successful technology venture. The third leads an incredibly balanced personal life and has contributed greatly in their community.
From the conversation, we defined three overarching principles that make a world of difference.
These principles are:
- Take advantage of knowledge of the past,
- Use best practice in the present, and
- Learn from the future before it happens.
The more we spoke about the various activities we do to support great work, the more we realised each activity fell under one of these principles.
Apply These Principles To Activities
For example, one of the members of the group had just completed advanced agile training. We defined training as a way to build knowledge from the past, because most training is based on some discipline that has gone before it. The training would help him to run his projects more effectively.
The friend who works in the scaling technology venture said she spends time focusing on what’s essential. This involves thinking about what’s a priority and what can wait until later. This is an example of sharpening practice in the present.
The third colleague asks a simple question of any initiative; ‘what will this work mean and for who?’. This is a way of learning from the future, because it forces them to cast their mind forward and define how the work will result in good in the community when the work is complete.
The conversation was so meaningful I summarized it in this drawing (which you can download here as a high resolution PDF. Feel free to use it in your work and with teams).
So, For Your Next Initiative, Ask These Questions
You can use these principles also. For your next endeavour, ask:
- How can I…..
a) use knowledge from the past…or
b) refine my practice in the present…or
c) learn from the future, before it happens…
- …to make the pathway for this work more successful, more efficient and more meaningful for myself, the people I’m working with, and those who finally benefit from the initiative.
You might also plan how much time you will spend considering these principles before, during and after the work.
These principles are dynamic. They can be accessed at any stage of an initiative, based upon your need at the time.
The goal is to do the work in an optimal way, avoiding headaches and misspent time.
I hope this article is useful. If so, please let me know your feedback directly or share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.
—
Note: I also had many comments on this framework from a post on Linked In. Thanks to all those who gave their view.
