Jay Papasan:
I’m Jay Papasan and this is The ONE Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
Hey, gang. Jay here. Welcome to another episode of The ONE Thing. Today, I’m talking with our Director of Training for our organization, Chris Dixon. And let me tell you who this is for. If you work in a company, large or small, if you’re a founder or a CEO, you’re gonna get a great message. If you are leading any initiatives, you’re gonna hear some great nuggets. If you’re the last person hired, like literally at the very bottom of the stack, we’ve got some great stuff for you here because it’s all about what do you do if the company isn’t clear about where it’s going, what do you do if your role in the company isn’t clear? And for everyone involved, what do we do when we just get off track? How do we get back on track and on our one thing?
Now, Chris has been our lead trainer for almost three years now. He has gone all around the world sharing this message with companies large and small. Fortune 50 companies to a small real estate team just down the road from us. You name it, he knows how to take The ONE Thing and apply it in a team setting. I hope you’ll enjoy this episode.
All right, Chris, you’ve been our lead trainer. You’ve been going out to companies large and small. What are the top three challenges you see when you’re bringing The ONE Thing into someone’s business?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, I think it’s important maybe to set the stage to recognize what type of business you are, if you’re listening, and where you are on the arc of your business’ development because how these challenges show up might be different for you. Though that we see that the thread is there and that they are consistent, how the effects and the impacts of that show up for you may be different.
Jay Papasan
I know our head coach Jordan likes to kind of give them three classifications. There’s startup, there’s scaling, and then stabilizing.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
And once you get started, you scale. When you scale really fast, you have to stabilize and then you get to scale again. So, like I’ll use those as maybe our shorthand because I know startup is something that what we’re going to talk about can come up very frequently.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, it might even be before startup and you’re just scratch paper, starting to cast a vision for a business you want to start.
Jay Papasan:
There you go. All right. So, with that in mind, like, what’s the number one challenge you see?
Chris Dixon:
I’d say a lack of clarity on what success truly is and what that looks like at different levels in the organization, but primarily from the top. Like, where are you headed, and what’s the vision for the future?
Jay Papasan
So, does that show up? Like, we just brought up startups. Like, startups might be iterating to figure out what actually sticks.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? We know we’re gonna build an app. We’re not 100% sure what the app will do. In mature organizations, how do they suddenly get unclear? Like, they’ve survived, they’re out of startup, they’re doing presumably well, how do they get unclear?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, I think this is where a simple message is most important. And, oftentimes, you’ll see that clarity comes in the form of lack of complexity. So, if you’ve ever seen the movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, he’s trying to plant this simple concept in somebody’s mind layers deep in the dream. I think that’s similar to a really complex organization. If you want to have a clear vision of what success is, you’re one thing, you need to have a simple message that can make its way through the organization, so all the way at the bottom, people are clear on how they win.
Jay Papasan:
So, the example that comes to mind, when Southwest Airlines was growing at an incredibly rapid pace, and they were the most profitable scrappy airline, they were just like, “We’re the low cost.” They’re one thing. Then, it became the “on-time.” But those one thing, kind of, clarity. If “we’re the low cost,” then we have to have all the same planes. We have to be in secondary hubs. Like, we’re not gonna serve food and beverage, we’ll have snacks and beverage. Like it dictated a lot of the choices that gave them clarity.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. And that clarity is foundational to some of the other challenges we’ll talk about today. And when you move down layers of the organization that people can use that clarity to prioritize the right things.
Jay Papasan:
So, I don’t know the origin story, but I know when Southwest was the low cost, like, or the on time, that was their thing. If we can be on time, because it also saved fuel, I think it might have been connected to the first. That’s where the whole, the way they would board for all the years, like you just had a number of which had no assigned seats. Because that was a faster way to get people on and off planes, which would keep them on time, which means less idle time, less fuel burn, all of those things.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
So, I also know, I worked with a giant biomedical company on one of our training missions. It was outside of San Francisco, and we’re working, and there was the complexity issue. I had a division leader I was working with, and they knew what their quarterly revenue goals were, but there were so many levers that could be pulled, like nobody knew what to do. Like, which one is my boss actually asking for? Because what they’re getting is competing priorities from on high.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. I mean, if you have 15 goals that you’re pushing down through the organization, but there’s no real clarity on how they tie together or how they connect, it’s gonna be difficult for the team to prioritize which things they need to focus on. With big organizations, this is what we see most often when it comes to that top level clarity, is how can you create that singular message that can penetrate through?
Jay Papasan:
I mean, unless someone is certifiably unemployable and has only been self-employed or started, or like, I think everybody’s been in that boat.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right, where suddenly they look up and they’re like, I’m working in a place that doesn’t really know where it’s going.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right, I’m unclear about what I should be doing at all right now, because I’m smart. I’ve done this thing a long time, but they’re not clear. Like you’re looking up at the founder. It makes me think about, I shared this with you once before, and I think I shared it at GSR a few years ago, our Goal Setting Retreat. There’s a famous story about Andy Grove when he was the CEO at Intel, and he was looking at Gordon Moore. And Gordon Moore is the guy who founded Moore’s Law, right? So you talk about memory chips that doubled in capacity every two years.
Chris Dixon:
Yep, that’s right.
Jay Papasan:
Moore’s Law, that’s the Moore behind it. But they were very famously in the leadership of Intel. But back then, they were doing, like, RAM. They weren’t doing the processor chips. They were in the memory chip business. And they were unclear about what they should do. Everything that they’d been doing in the memory chip business was getting commoditized, although their competitors were doing it faster and cheaper, not high-quality products. So, they were dominant in a dying space.
And Andy Grove famously looked at Gordon Moore and said, “If the board fired us tomorrow and hired a new CEO, what do you think that they would do?” And the answer was, we would get out of the memory chip business and get into the processing chip business. And I don’t know if this part’s true, but evidently Andy said, “Well, let’s fire ourselves and come back.” And they, like, stepped outside of the door, fired themselves ceremonially and walked back in and kind of launched the modern day Intel.
So, like, as a founder, as a leader, are you actually clear and have you committed to what your one thing needs to be? It’s scary that it happens as often as it does, that there isn’t clarity at the top.
Chris Dixon:
So true. And I think back to what we were saying about knowing, like, where you are in your business. If you are just starting a new venture, like, doing that future vision work is so powerful. Like where do you want to be in five years? You have the capability at that point to look really far because you’re creating something new. Though it is challenging, that work’s important and impactful as you get closer to today on what you’re going to focus on in the short term. If you’re more in the, we’re a startup, maybe series A, working on series B-
Jay Papasan:
Well, let me recap that, if you don’t mind.
Chris Dixon:
Please.
Jay Papasan:
So, for the people that are founders or CEOs of a big organization, they may suddenly look up and realize that they don’t have clarity. You’re saying, like Goal Setting to the Now is what we call it, figure out who you want to be in the future. Where are we ultimately going? And then, work backwards to this year and say, like, “This year’s goal should be a milestone towards something very clear in the future.”
Chris Dixon:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
So, that’s probably where you would go as a coach or a trainer.
Chris Dixon:
First, yeah. That’s cast a vision for the future because that’s going to be a foundation to enable us to prioritize in the short term.
Jay Papasan:
I’ll throw an unrehearsed objection at you because we know we have a lot of folks that listen to this that work in tech. Tech changes so often. Like, how far out in the future can you go?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, that’s a great question, and it depends on your business and where you’re comfortable. And that’s okay to throttle it based on what feels appropriate, but go as far out as you can because what that will provide you is important.
Jay Papasan:
Got it. So, you were about to say startups, which is like another category. How do you solve for a startup trying to find their footing?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, I think it’s also a complex environment, but the value is important. And I’ve experienced this. I’ve seen this in startup businesses where they’re trying to get that proof of concept. They’re grabbing at anything they can just to justify the business itself. And the importance of finding that clarity is that those leaders and down from there, they’re gonna be running all over the place like their hair’s on fire and everybody’s marching in a different direction. So, as difficult as it may be, having a unifying focus is incredibly important even if it’s difficult to do. And you may need to update what that vision is more often, but it needs to be there.
Jay Papasan:
Well, then the burden, then, is also on communicating that vision. Is it cascading down the organization especially if you’re pivoting on a regular basis. I got to invest in a small startup that was part of the Y Combinator, and they know how to iterate. Like, that’s one of the more famous incubators out there, and they will make them until they find their sweet spot. And I literally watched this startup move from one industry, not just from a product idea, from a product idea in one industry to another product idea in a new industry, to a product, like they went to four industries before they were done.
So, like, you think about a distant vision, and I do think they required them to go through that process. Like, what’s the thing that we’ll do better or different, and where do we start? They were just doing that same process you’re describing, but they forced them to pivot. And this is anecdotal, because I wasn’t on the ground, I was just an investor. Like, I think their one thing was, how quickly can we find out if this works or not? Like, how fast can we iterate and get the data to tell us what to ultimately do, became their unifying principle. Like, this is where we’re going this week, and our job is to iterate and get as much information as we can about whether this is go time or no time.
Chris Dixon:
You said something really important about that. If you do need to pivot as quickly as you’re describing, you have to be really effective at communicating success in the short term, because that’s where things will fall apart, and you have to be nimble in those kinds of businesses. You have to be to survive.
Jay Papasan:
I’ll echo what you said earlier. You also have to make the message simple. Like you have to communicate effectively, but the simple message is the one that actually will cascade down. Everybody here has played a game of telephone, right?
Chris Dixon: 0:10:54
Oh yeah.
Jay Papasan: 0:10:55
You start with something, you know, the orange cat ate its cat food on the porch, and by the end of it, you know, Elon Musk is on Mars. Like, who knows how you got there? But the simplest messages tend to transmit. So, there you go, call to action. Go out in the future, if you’re unclear, and work backwards to where you need to be this year or whatever your focus is. And it’s that vision of the future. Like I’ve found, when you go in the future, you get this straight line of milestones back.
We’ve talked about Goal Setting to the Now in this podcast before. It just eliminates a lot of other directions. And it’ll keep you from chasing like a little bag of money that’s down this side alley that looks like, oh, we’ll have a great April, but it’s actually taking you in the exact wrong direction, right? It allows you to say no.
Okay. So, number one challenge for the big organizations that we serve is that they actually have lack of clarity at the top. Like there’s a whole part of me, we’re not gonna go in there. When you’re working with a CEO, like how does one convey, it’s like I sense a lack of clarity. I assume you just ask really good questions.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, you can help them self-identify that maybe there’s a gap.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. The next one, where would you go if we solve that problem, the organization is very clear about their one thing, what would be the second challenge that you see?
Chris Dixon:
So, there’s clarity on the vision and perhaps the big goals, but then the team or the organization aren’t really saying yes to the things that matter most to achieve that goal. So, their individual priorities, the things that will have the greatest impact on that goal are lost or not clear, and it could be that you lose line of sight of that over time or the clarity wasn’t there from the beginning.
Jay Papasan:
I see that in organizations that are multinational all over the world, and I see them on a small real estate team.
Chris Dixon:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
We know what the goal is, but I don’t know what my role is. I know that you probably have this experience. You’re in the training room, you’ve got your executive sponsor, it’s their division, it’s their team, it’s their company. I know I’ve had this conversation and we’re talking about clarity around priorities, right? If the leader is clear, one of my questions is, you know, Chris, when you see Carly over there, do you think she’s really clear about what her role is in our success? And I often find that a lot of executive leaders are clear or they feel like, yes, and I know exactly what Carly should be doing.
And we got this cheat code we got from Gary Keller. It’s the supertight job description. What are the three things that one person, that person has to do so well or they get fired. Instead of thinking of all the things that someone could do, what are the three things they have to do incredibly well to keep their job? And the flip of that is you just get really clear about what matters for that role.
So, we’ll play with that, and I’ll say do you know what Carly’s top three are? Absolutely, it’s this this and this. And this is where it falls apart and you realize you don’t have clarity. So, like, if you’re sitting in the audience going, “I’m clear and I’m clear about what my people should be doing,” if someone besides you walked up to room or around you and said, “Carly, if I asked you what your top three priorities are, would you write them down?” that person’s list, no matter how high of a performer they are, match yours. And that’s where I see doubt. They’re not at all clear that their people are absolutely as clear as they are about where they should be going.
Chris Dixon:
It feels like there’s two pieces to this identification of priority, and it’s the initial. And as you’re describing, knowing how your role contributes to the organization and the things that matter most in that simplified form, but then it’s maintaining this clarity over time. And as things change and the environment evolves, do you have a system and a methodology to continue to surface or continue to prioritize the things that matter most? Because we all know when you hit the ground running and try to implement your plan, things tend to flatten out in priority.
The things that are urgent start to take priority over the things that are more impactful long-term. And so, do you have a system to continue to revisit and surface the things that matter most or keep them priority in the natural chaos of the business?
Jay Papasan:
So, we’ve shared the number one challenge and the solution. We’ve now shared the number two challenge, which is still just a level down. The organization knows where it’s going. Our people don’t know their priorities. We need to take a break, Chris. On the other side, let’s share the solution to how we solve for that. Does that work for you?
Chris Dixon:
Sounds great.
Jay Papasan:
All right, Chris, where we left off before the break, we had identified and provided some solutions, like if the organization is unclear about its one thing, how do we solve for that? The next big challenge we see is that the people in the organization aren’t clear about their roles to make the big goal happen. We’ve kind of, I think, beaten that up just a little bit. If you’re coming in as a trainer, as a coach, what are some of the first solutions in our little bag of tricks that you reach for to help out?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, I think we first have to agree or recognize that everything doesn’t matter equally. And that there’s this underlying principle, the 80-20 rule. And what we’re trying to figure out is what are the things that matter most within the business that will impact the goal, the 20% that will deliver 80% of your results, depending on how that scale may shift. And there’s a great tool that we use, we call the GPS. And this GPS-
Jay Papasan:
Right. It’s our one-page business plan.
Chris Dixon:
It’s our one-page business plan. Goal, priorities, and steps or strategies is the acronym. The function of this is that business plans are inherently very complicated. And back to the point earlier about simplicity, like how do we separate out the things that matter most that will have the greatest impact on the goal, and create a simple one-page plan that everybody can attach to and find ownership that will feed that priority for everybody that they can draw from on the day-to-day.
Jay Papasan:
So, the beauty of the one-page plan is… and, by the way, it’s all of your goals or priorities on one piece of paper on one side of one piece of paper, and my extra rule is you can’t go below 12-point font, because people try to cheat. There’s like an eight-point font and you need a magnifying glass. Because the level of detail they’re going to is not the big rocks. There’s a difference between a business plan for action and execution and a project management document.
Chris Dixon:
Absolutely.
Jay Papasan:
Project management document, you have to get the 80%. Like what are all the steps to doing all of these things? And that’s where I see business plans kind of metastasize into something that is unmanageable. Like project management software exists for a reason, but that’s not a business plan.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. Right, yeah.
Jay Papasan:
That’s where the complexity lives, and we hold ourselves accountable to doing all the little things that matter, but that’s not an action plan, a business plan that we would live with.
Chris Dixon:
And the challenge I see in implementing this kind of framework is that there’s almost an immune response sometimes from participants that they’re like, it doesn’t have everything on it, how do I track this? And that’s the point, it’s not everything. You still need to have your system of productivity, maybe some project management software, depending on your role and what you’re working on, but it’s supposed to separate out the most important things, so that’s sacred.
Jay Papasan:
So, like, I’ll use an example. My wife has a real estate team since 2009 and sold thousands of homes. And, like, one part of her business plan some years is how do we just dial in our contract to close? Right? I’ve closed the sale on a home and we now have to take it through the process of getting a mortgage and qualified. That checklist is like a hundred things long.
But on the GPS, you will have, like, some sort of measurement of success, like, how do we do contract to close and have a 98% success rate? Because some homes just don’t close, people don’t qualify. But how do we do that so well that we’re above average at it? So, we have a stated measure, but the reality is, the person who owns that piece of the puzzle, they might have their own business plan for executing it, because we acknowledge that it is complex. So, we’re not saying complexity doesn’t happen, but that’s not what we focus on.
Give us the quick primer. Like we were actually just teaching a class yesterday, and you helped out. What is the GPS, like, in the 60-second version?
Chris Dixon:
Well, you want to identify first the one thing. What’s the big goal you want to focus on? You want to break apart. And then, from there, ask the question, what’s the single most important thing that we could do to accomplish that goal? Like, what is it? Think big rocks. Think, you know, more categorically speaking. Make sure it’s specific and measurable.
Once you have that, you could ask the question, okay, if we are on the right to focus on a second, what would it be? What would be the second most important big rocker priority that we could focus on? And then follow that process and identify a third. Hopefully by then, you’ve got the 20%.
Jay Papasan:
So, the first thing we do is, I’ve got my goal. What are the top one, two, three, might be more, might be less but it’s good to have two. You need to have a fallback plan-
Chris Dixon:
For sure.
Jay Papasan:
… if your number one priority doesn’t work. But you also don’t need 20 priorities. Because if you have 20 priorities, by definition, you don’t have any.
Chris Dixon:
That’s right.
Jay Papasan:
Right. So, I usually see a really big organization, it can be a few more, but we often see three. So, your big rock priorities, we need to build 10,000 widgets, we need to hire this many, whatever. They’re like big goals. Where do you go from there?
Chris Dixon:
Then, you want to look at, within each of the priorities or rocks, you’d want to say, what are the strategies or steps we’d have to accomplish for each? And again, focused on the 20%, maybe three to five maximum.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. So, what’s the difference, in your words, and I know I’m putting you on the spot, but like strategies and steps, how do you know when I need strategies, when I need steps?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. Strategies are more tactical, like the things a little bit more action-oriented, the pieces of that that need to happen. And depending on the size of the organization and who’s working on it, can flux how tactical those need to be. Then, steps are more, maybe, process-oriented. They need to happen in sequential order over time.
Jay Papasan:
So, an example of strategies, let’s say that one of my key priorities for the year is I need to hire a director of growth. What are my strategies for doing it?
Chris Dixon:
If you need to hire a director of growth, it could be that you need to post the job on the appropriate job board, strategy number one. Identify the hiring team that’s going to do the vetting and the resource.
Jay Papasan:
You might work with your existing clients or your network for a referral.
Chris Dixon:
That’s right.
Jay Papasan:
It’s, who do you know?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right. So, I think Mark, one of our other trainers and coaches said it the other day when we were teaching this, he said, “You can do a brainstorm”. What are all the things that we could do to make that priority happen? And then, you go back and ask the question, what’s the most effective? What’s the one that if we just did it, we’re most likely to have success? That becomes your number one strategy. And then, you can work your way down.
Chris Dixon:
Yep. Sounds good.
Jay Papasan:
And I like the way you talked about steps. Right? If it’s something that we know how to do this, but it’s a process, right? Then we have to onboard our new, like that thing. Then, there’s just a step process. What’s the first thing we do, the second thing, and we work it through.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. And sometimes, it’s challenging depending on the way that your brain works. The process is not in sequential order, and it can be a way to unlock the tool for you.
Jay Papasan:
So, if we’ve solved the first problem, the organization doesn’t know where it’s going, the founder, the CEO can ask a bigger question and go through a process of going out in the future and working back to find that answer. Second big challenge is the people in the organization don’t know their roles to achieve the goal, either because it’s changed or whatever. How often do we coach people to revisit their GPS’s, and can they update it? What, can they change it?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, monthly would be a good cadence to start, especially if it’s new. And yeah, absolutely, if you don’t change it, it’s not gonna be relevant in 60 days. I mean, plans never go according to plan, so if you don’t keep that a living document, it’s gonna be irrelevant in no time. And the importance of that is huge over time.
Jay Papasan:
So, I love that, because we’re revisiting it, which means we have to re-communicate it. And it might be that a lot of things aren’t changing, but we’ve discovered along the way that we have a different KPI, the measurement for success that works better, a slightly different focus.
I know that when I’ve seen our team do it, one of the things we ask people to do, you’ll have what’s your one goal, what are the strategies, the priority strategies or steps. In a big enough team, you can say, who owns it and by when is this due? So, you might have a new owner, a new driver for that priority, or a new manager that’s in charge of that strategy. And those are changes that you want to keep track of. It’s a living document.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. I mean, I think many business owners and team members can relate to having been in a situation where you go a quarter without revisiting the business plan. And by the time you get to the end of that quarter, you’re so far off track, it doesn’t feel achievable anymore.
And so, it’s not only just making the adjustments, it’s also staying accountable to it over time. Even if nothing changes, it’s, hey, are we on track, are we off track? You know, what needs to happen differently in the upcoming month so we can get back on track, and just staying connected to that plan.
Jay Papasan:
I’ve done that to you a few times. We’ve done some major pivots in this last year and a half. Like we’re sitting here and part of one of the pivots is like adjusting how we do the podcast. But I’ll just admit, like I’ve also been guilty. You’re managing so much change sometimes, like you forget to communicate it in a timely fashion.
Chris Dixon:
Sure.
Jay Papasan:
But there’s nothing more demoralizing than having an outdated set of goals and priorities, because eventually everybody knows they’re outdated, and they also realize, I’ve got no way to win. If we don’t have a goal that’s clearly communicated, then your star performers don’t have a way to win.
Chris Dixon:
That’s so true.
Jay Papasan:
That’s not a fun feeling.
Chris Dixon:
And just to emphasize the power of having clarity on priorities and being able to shift a disproportionate amount of focus into one area of another. You know, we worked with a global shipping distribution company, and their one thing is efficiency. And their goal was to improve their efficiency. And they’ve been working on this one project for nearly two years, made little to no progress. And by going through this process and identifying that was the one thing, their number one priority they could focus on, two weeks. They’ve completed the project and made all the difference for them.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, someone’s like, I should have slept at a Holiday Inn Express or something. Like that’s two years to two weeks?
Chris Dixon:
Two years to two weeks.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, so that’s the power of clarity, folks.
Chris Dixon:
Exactly.
Jay Papasan:
If you aren’t clear, what’s the one thing you can do to get clear as quickly as possible? So, the GPS there. So, let’s say we solve for the first two, or you’re going into a training organization. The one thing for the organization, the leaders are clear, the people are clear. People seem largely clear about their role in making that success happen. If those two big challenges aren’t present, what’s the third challenge you’re seeing?
Chris Dixon:
Let’s say, yeah, like you said, they’re clear on the goal, priorities are established, they know their role, then the third challenge is just a lack of focus over time. They feel like I’m too busy, I don’t have enough time, and there’s a lack of productivity when it comes down to actually executing.
Jay Papasan:
Okay. So, that shows up as people kind of having focused drift, I would imagine. I’ve seen people that knew the outcome they were expected to hit, but didn’t actually know what the activity was that would drive it. What are the other ways that show? I’m trying to think of the examples that we could maybe solve for.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. And like the day-to-day, you know, all things start to look equal and urgent and important all at the same time. And the Eisenhower matrix is a famous model to think of. You know, you’ve got the urgency on one axis, the importance on the other, and the things that feel urgent that are not important tend to get prioritized in the day-to-day.
And so, how do you have tools in a system to stay clear on what’s urgent and important? Like, make sure that gets done, but then you’re time-blocking and protecting time for the things that are important, but not necessarily urgent, or you have a deadline today or this week, but they have the greatest impact on your goals.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, I love the Eisenhower matrix for this. And as much time as you can be working on the important and non-urgent, right? Because urgency, like deadlines are great, but like that stress doesn’t lead to our best performances either.
Chris Dixon:
Sure.
Jay Papasan:
It just makes us hit the deadline.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. And so, you have, perhaps, a good system to surface and stay top of mind the things that will have the greatest impact on your goals in the day to day and through the week and making sure you’re protecting that time, even when the things that are urgent pop up that you have to take care of.
Jay Papasan:
And in a small organization, like, you might be understaffed, right? You haven’t earned the right to have more contractors or more employees. And what I see is, they know what their one thing is. They even might know the activity they need to be doing, right? You know, I need to be doing this thing for at least an hour every day, and that’s gonna lead to success in my role, but it gets squeezed down. They have all the Zoom meetings, they have to go to this meeting and that.
And I had my coach, Jordan, give me a good hack. He said, like, a lot of times, when you see all of these, kind of, necessary meetings are on your calendar, we kind of arbitrarily assign them 30 minutes or an hour or 90 minutes. And he’s like, “Well, what would happen if you turned your hour meetings into 45-minute meetings?” It doesn’t look nice and neat on your Google Calendar, but it’ll do it.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? Outlook, I know, will do those increments, and you have to kind of remind yourself because, sometimes, people just on automatic pilot will eat up the extra 15 minutes they just recaptured. So, one of the things you can do is, let’s shorten the amount of time we’re giving the unimportant but necessary things. Like, these are necessary, they’re not your 20%. They still have to get done. And that way we can buy back time to do the other things.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. Something else that’s, I think, really powerful to consider here, when you’re talking about this challenge, like staying focused on the most important priorities over time, it’s really getting down to the individual contributor. And something to consider that gets overlooked a lot is habits. And what are the habits that you’re putting in place, that your team’s putting in place, and how can you reinforce those and give them the tools to be successful and stacking habits over time, so they’re becoming the type of leader and person that’s gonna have the ability to achieve the goals for the organization.
Jay Papasan:
Well, that happens, and we call them 411s but, like, are you having, and your managers, the people downstream from you, if you’re the founder, are you having accountability sessions? Like, what I love, like, people go, “You meet with your people every week?” and it feels like a giant time investment, even if it’s just 30 minutes with your direct reports. But if you’re meeting regularly, weekly, biweekly, whatever works, but I think in a short rhythm, people never get to drift very far from their focus.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Right? Because I think, a lot of times, when we see these organizations where I’m talking to the executive and they’re looking, like, at a VP and realizing they may not be clear, it’s because they’re not actually needing to talk about and ask the question, because it might be insulting. Are you really clear, Chris, about your role to make this happen?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the 411. It’s a tool that we use, four weeks, one month, one year. But it’s a goal breakdown by year, month, and week. And it’s beautiful from both sides, because as a leader, you get this wonderful view into what your team members are focused on, what are their true priorities, and you get to give them authorship in creating those, however, have influence on nudging them left or right, or having them kind of rethink about what those are. It’s a great coaching opportunity for them. So, it’s developmental.
And for the user, it gives you extreme clarity on the most important things, the 20% that connects to the bigger goals of the organization, and you can see that connectivity. And if it’s done well, you’ve got your GPS, you’ve got your 411, and there’s line of sight on how those things speak to each other.
Jay Papasan:
I love it. And that way, if someone’s slightly coloring outside of the boundaries as a leader, you can nudge them back in.
Chris Dixon:
Exactly.
Jay Papasan:
Just as often as I find that they’ve drifted, I also see that someone’s out of date. They’ll be like, you know, “Just like you told me to at the beginning of the quarter, I built five widgets this week,” and you’re like, “Oh, wow. We changed our focus, and we’re actually building these things now.” And so, you say, “Great. What I want you to do is make that now your fifth priority, because this is the new.” It gives you a chance to readjust on so many levels. They drift, or they miss the memo. You didn’t communicate it correctly.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, another really, I think, important piece that connects to the 411, we call it the rhythm of accountability. But it’s, how are you staying current with reflection and planning, and doing it in short intervals? And that could be daily. Maybe it’s just five minutes. I mean, what’s five minutes before you crack open your computer and start looking at your emails and the world’s priorities come into your play, and you can just say, hey, what’s most important today? And what’s the single most important thing I need to do today? That’s incredible.
Weekly, you can find 30 minutes to look across the prior week and say, where did I win? Like, what’s the one thing I did that really worked for me I want to continue to do in the future? And what was my biggest opportunity? What did I miss? Like, what do I need to do different in the upcoming week? And set your timeblocks for the upcoming week. And it’s not a huge time commitment, but can be the greatest investment you can make in your productivity.
Jay Papasan:
I love it. I mean, you live this at a high level, Chris, in your personal life. And you also have been training it with hundreds and hundreds of organizations. Let’s just kind of recap. Like, based on your extensive experience going into companies large and small, the top three problems are lack of organizational clarity around the big goal, like what winning looks like. We lack individual clarity around our roles to make the big goal happen, if we’re clear about that. And the third one is that we know what our role is, but our focus has drifted, or we’re maybe unclear about the specific thing we need to do to make the outcome happen.
Chris Dixon:
That’s right.
Jay Papasan:
And the solution for the first one is Goal Setting to the Now, going out in the future and working back.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, just have a clear vision of what success looks like depending on your business and what’s appropriate at that time.
Jay Papasan:
I like the Andy Grove story. Like, if you aren’t clear, like, maybe ask that question. The second challenge, the role responsibilities, that’s the GPS.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah.
Jay Papasan:
Like, a simple way to communicate your current set of priorities and revisit them. And so, on the third one, “I’m individually drifting,” if we were gonna give someone one solution for that, what would we tell them?
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, set an intentional rhythm of reflection to stay accountable over time. And from there, you can identify things that show up. Maybe you do need to form a habit. Maybe you do need to make an adjustment to your plan, but you won’t uncover that unless you’re asking the question.
Jay Papasan:
Well, every week, Chris, we give our listeners a challenge for the week. So we look up and we ask, based on what we covered today, what do you think we should challenge them with? It needs to be a kind of a first domino kind of thing. What’s a challenge we could give them, so that they can take action on what we’ve just shared?
Chris Dixon:
I really love the story that you shared earlier.
Jay Papasan:
The Andy Grove and Gordon Moore from-
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, Grove and Moore, and I think that’s something that people could take a lot away from in asking that question, so maybe you could share that quote.
Jay Papasan:
Sure. So, okay. I love that. We’ll make the challenge for the week. It doesn’t matter which role you’re in. If I got fired by the board, by my boss, whatever, tomorrow, and they hired someone to do my job, what’s the first thing that they would do differently? And that’s just a simple hack to get us clear on maybe what we subconsciously know we should be doing instead but we haven’t brought to our conscious level. It’s like the trick is, can I get it from my subconscious to my conscious and from my conscious to my calendar. Right? If it’s on my calendar, now that’s where my priorities live, I can go live that thing.
Chris Dixon:
Yeah, and protect that time.
Jay Papasan:
Okay, folks, that’s your challenge, and we’ll see you next week.
Chris Dixon:
Thanks, Jay.
Jay Papasan:
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with our Director of Training, Chris Dixon. I always learn a little bit when I talk to people who’ve been living The ONE Thing and teaching it for so long. So, my recap, if I was taking notes, if the company isn’t clear about ultimately where it’s going, what success looks like, that’s where we get into the Goal Setting to the Now. Can we work backwards from the founder or the company’s values to know where we need to be going? And based on that, where we’re going next year, that simple process brings a lot of clarity.
If the company’s clear, but the individuals aren’t clear about their roles to achieve that goal, that’s where we go to the GPS One Page Business Plan. And I hope you like the way we broke it down and made it as simple as possible. That’s the whole goal. How do we have a simple set of objectives where everybody knows their part and it can be shared throughout the organization?
Finally, the company is clear, the people are clear, but you know how it happens, we just get off track. We forget what our one thing is, and that’s where we walked into the rhythm of accountability and explored, how do we create a rhythm, habits of success, so that when we get off track, there’s a little alarm that goes off and we can get back on track?
Anyway, I think there’s a lot to unpack here. We do lots of training with companies large and small. I hope you got something that you can take and apply to your role and your business tomorrow.
Next week, I’m gonna come back with a solo episode. I’m gonna be talking about how you can conquer self-doubt and find your confidence. Lots and lots of leaders suffer from imposter syndrome. And I like to say imposter syndrome has stopped more companies than any competitor ever has. It’s just a simple fact. How do we find our confidence and escape self-doubt?
One last request. If you’re enjoying this new format, would you please give us a review? Would you tap down there and hit whatever stars that you believe? Give us some feedback. We’ve been doing this for a few months now. We’d love to hear from you. How are we doing? How are we doing? Leave us a review.
