It isn’t only about the time pressure you’ll feel at the end of the project – the expectations and dependencies and loose decision making and not quite tying things up in a bow.

Wasting time now robs everything of attention later.

Stealing focus for all the other things that you won’t be able to do because you haven’t finished the thing you haven’t finished.

All the things you won’t have time for – getting scant attention, sitting on a to-do list, needing focus and concentration and gobbets of time, that have their own dependencies – some of which even bigger and more important than the pesky thing that’s dragging you down because you wasted so much time at the start.

The way to give yourself time to do the things you have to do … start doing them and work on them until they’re done.

Skippy strategy: Start, then keep moving forward, until it’s done.

A minute or a day at the beginning of the project is measured in the same units as a minute or a day at the end.

At the end though, that minute and that day have more value.

At the end you’re time pressured, you have deadlines that won’t move and commitments you need to deliver against. You have people lining up, waiting to take the product of the project and run with it in seventeen directions as soon as the button is pressed. You will be pressured and they will be impatient.

At the beginning, it’s easy to waste time, to deprioritise, to go down known or obvious looking rabbit holes, to wait, to wait, to wait to get started.

No.

Crack on today.

Bank that time for when you need it, at the end, to finish, to polish, to breath.

Skippy strategy: Don’t waste time at the beginning.

The number one reason your team doesn’t do what you want them to do is that they don’t know what you want them to do.

It’s an even split as to why that is – between you not knowing yourself (or not agreeing in the core team, giving mixed messages), not being clear when you tell them (or different people telling them different things), and not telling them at all (let’s call this management by secret).

So it starts with knowing what you want. Use a mirror, or a whiteboard, or a spreadsheet or some tea leaves if you have to … and write down the answer in simple language that works in concept and detail.

When you have it clear, write it clearer.

Now test it out and clarify again. 

The final step: bring them inside the circle, and mine for understanding.

Skippy strategy: Be clear about what you want.

The point where it breaks down, the point where it always breaks down, the point where everything breaks down, it right there in the cracks.

Between one function that knows what it’s doing (could be one person, could be a team), and the next. Both parts (all parts, even) may be perfectly expert doing their piece of the process, but when they hand off one to the other, look, it did it again, it just breaks down.

The problem is that being expert in the one process you’re supposed to be expert in isn’t enough. You need to be expert in finishing too, where finishing means parcelling and packaging the piece you’re responsible for in such a way that it fits beautifully into the process that comes next.

The way to achieve that? Ask them what they need.

Skippy strategy: Playing your part means preparing it for the next part.

Sometimes you just don’t know.

Most of those times, you take a punt (by which I mean an educated assessment based on the things you actually do know and the balance of experience you bring to the table – bearing in mind that experience is largely won from the times you’ve got things wrong) and get on with it.

And most of those times, the punt pays off. You’re close enough to right for the difference not to matter.

And most of the other times, if you’re wrong you can course correct and the only thing lost is a bit of time and some naivety (which you’ll remember next time as experience factors into the calculus).

In other words – decisions make the world move forward.

And if you really can’t decide: a few more data points, triangulate a little tighter, get on with it.

Skippy strategy: When you don’t know, decide.

When you lose good people – aside from, you know, they’re good at what they do, they deliver, they work well with others, they add value whenever they’re called on, you like working with them and the organisation benefits because they’re around – is what you’re left with when they go.

(Apart from all that.)

What matters now is who is left.

If it’s a bunch of more good people and an opportunity to find even more who’ll bring interesting experiences, new perspectives and their own unique energy, then all is well with the world.

If what you’re left with however is another hole in the org-chart and a slowly diminishing average, because this wasn’t the first good person to go, and those that stay seem more interested in the personal over the collective, well, there’s an issue.

And the issue is you.

Skippy strategy: Deal with the issues, or the good people will go.

It’s easier and can feel kinder to let slide an underperforming member of the team.

Easier, because you don’t have to deal with it.

Easier, because you don’t have to look for a replacement.

Easier, because who needs the hassle?

Kinder, because forcing them to look in the mirror might hurt their feelings.

Hey, they still get the work done, they’re jus a little slower or less polished than is expected or normal from everyone else.

It’s easier and can feel kinder to let slide a disruptive or dysfunctional member of the team.

Hey, they still get their work done.

And everyone else has learned how to (grimace and) get on with things despite them.

And it’s kinda-sort working in the short term.

Is it though?

And your good people, seeing how the world works here, will eventually go somewhere it works better.

Skippy strategy: Deal with people issues.

Sometimes, we work hard on something, something important, and it doesn’t come easy, that it can be tempting, oh so very tempting, to be happy when it gets to a stage that’s just about ok. Not great, not perfect, not good really, not something you’d call home about, but ok. Satisfactory maybe. Tolerable even. Alright-ish. It. Will. Do.

Except it won’t.

Alright isn’t alright.

Not for something important.

Not for something that you thought was important enough to work hard on.

Tolerable doesn’t cut it.

The definition you need: finished.

If that means working a little harder for a little longer, if that means giving yourself a harder time, if that means waking a little earlier or sacrificing an indulgence so you have the time and energy to put some colour into it, that’s the work.

Skippy strategy: Ok isn’t ok, alright isn’t alright. Finished is when it’s done.

When you keep doing what you’ve always done and keep getting the same, erm, suboptimal results, it’s not insanity that makes you do it, it’s habit.

Looking down whilst following your own footsteps around and around the same ol’ tree.

When you’re used to spending your time one way, even if it doesn’t work as well as you’d like, you’ll probably keep on doing it as long as it kinda sorta mostly works.

Is it fear that keeps us here? Fear that the new way will be worse than the old way, and we’ll have to go through a heap of pain before we find out.

It’s a choice. Doing what you know without thought, or the potential for upside in what you don’t know.

It’s a choice. Continued, bankable, suboptimal results, or a walk towards another tree that might be on the path.

Skippy strategy: Try another tree.

When there’s a problem you have three effective choices, and one ineffective choice that’s probably the path most travelled. Let’s deal with this one first – the ineffective go-to for most people is to moan about the problem (to the wrong people) but do nothing about it. Ineffective, yes, but it releases a dopamine kick that feels kinda good in the moment (although it’s bad bad bad over time).

The other more effective choices: ignore it, name it, do something about it.

Ignoring a problem means it’s still there, and that’s may be ok if you can live with it (without moaning). Naming problems publicly, calling them out, solves way more problems than any other method, because everyone says, Oh yeah!, and sorts them out. The final option, taking responsibility, is harder, riskier, and is what leaders do.

Skippy strategy: Don’t moan, get over it or do something about it.