AME Author, AME Regional Director- Canada, British Columbia, www.AnneCGraham.com
I hope you’re eagerly anticipating a great Superbowl. But are you stuck playing too much baseball in your business? You need to play both to win the “Superbowl of Execution.”
My colleague Chris McChesney coined the term “The Whirlwind” to describe the chaos of everything required just to keep your business going – and I’m sure you just had an Aha! Moment with a vivid image of exactly what your whirlwind looks like. You need an equally powerful image to help you and your team move past the whirlwind, focus on critical strategic goals, and execute with excellence.
Here’s the powerful analogy of playing football vs baseball that I share with my clients put the whirlwind in perspective and break free of its constraints. It’s literally a game-changer.
When you’re playing “business baseball,” you’re stuck in a maelstrom of pop fly and dropped balls, players out of position, desperate slides, your competition stealing bases, and more. It’s reactive, exhausting, and keeps you from focusing on what matters. It will never, ever go away. And it derails every attempt you’ll make to execute your strategic goals because as long as you’re playing baseball, you can’t score a strategy touchdown!
It’s time to change the playing field.
Winning the “Superbowl of Execution” means playing football at least once a week
Playing football automatically creates a clear focus on the single set of uprights that you need to put the ball through. That’s your goal. Then, you need a game plan and a scoreboard to help you slowly and steadily move the ball down the field, whether that’s one yard, 10 yards or 50 yards at a time. Your entire team suddenly becomes able to focus on one goal at a time with a clear finish line, even in the midst of the whirlwind, because they’re playing a different game, with different rules.
That’s great, but there’s a problem you need to address before you can even get on the field.
The strategic plan you’re trying to execute probably includes multiple goals – you have uprights all over the stadium! No wonder you don’t win. There’s no focus, and rarely will you succeed in putting the ball through any of them. You’re stuck playing baseball… hitting balls down the left side, the right side, fouling out, expending tremendous effort to load all those bases and desperately seeking a home run. Neither wishful thinking or relying on luck is a strategy.
Case Study – you need to play both games:
Last fall, one of my manufacturing clients with huge whirlwind issues including quality, staffing, and sales shortfalls made a strategic decision to invest over $400K in a major display at a January tradeshow. It was a can’t-fail-all-hands-on-deck decision that severely strained tight resources. They knew they needed a different approach and support tools, beyond business as usual, to get them refocused and make it happen. When I shared the baseball/football analogy, lightbulbs went on all over the room, followed by sighs of relief once they grasped the difference in focus and understood that success meant they’d spend time playing both games.
There were three critical factors required for their success – download the 3 Ways to Win the Super Bowl of Execution Infographic to see how they did it.
How will YOU start playing football in your business as well as baseball so that you can put it through the uprights every time and win the “Superbowl of Execution?”
