In my
last post I shared my Success 1 2 3 formula for when you’re faced with a thorny
challenge or feel overwhelmed by how to get started on something big.
Step 1: get Leverage. Find the common element, root cause or
recurring theme that keeps getting in your way.
Then move everything else to the back burner and put all of your focus
on getting movement in that area.
Step 2: gain Momentum. Once the ball starts rolling, make smart
decisions to create additional momentum.
Step 3: reap Compounding.
Build on the movement and benefits you’ve already created.
The example I used last time addressed increasing your
energy. Here’s a work-related example
from my own career.
A few years ago I ran large, cross-functional programs at a
large bank. I got asked to manage a
three year program to reduce deposit fraud losses. The bank was paying the price for years of
underinvestment. Losses were nine times
industry average and growing.
I started my new assignment, and the manager of the Risk
Analytics group handed me a list of 20 projects that formed the basis for the
approved business case. While I waited
for my team to wrap up the previous program and join me, I started attending
meetings and talking to people to get familiar with fraud (which I didn’t know
anything about), the organization, and the ideas on the project list. Over the next three weeks I kept hearing the
same things:
Losses are up this week, but we don’t know why.
Losses are down this week – hurrah! But we don’t know why.
We think this is what’s happening, but we’re not sure.
Our gut is telling us this…
Over and over I heard the same theme. We didn’t have the information we needed to make
good decisions. The little data we had
access to was not timely, and it took a lot of manpower to get these dribs and
drabs of bits and bytes into a format the analysts could work with. I wasn’t even confident the projects on my To
Do list were the right projects. And in
what order should we execute them?
It was clear to me that we had to resolve the data issue first,
so I shelved the project list and kicked off a project to develop an analytics
data environment. This was a risky
approach, and I had a few arrows sticking out of my backside during the nine
months it took to build it. Luckily our
technology partners were up for a fun and interesting challenge, the analytics
group was on board to make sure the data was architected in a way they could
use, and we kicked off a ‘quick hits’ campaign to identify and address small
effort/big bang changes which would deliver immediate savings.
After nine months we had an analytics data environment fed
throughout the day with transaction information from around the bank. Right away it was a game changer. After a few months we had new insights into
what was going on, had changed the dialog with upper management and our branch
network, created new tools and models, and started to create momentum towards
our goals.
We did implement some of the items on that 20 project list,
but since we had implemented a game-changer, some projects became irrelevant or
not worth the investment. After three
years our losses were coming down and we were within pennies of the industry
average.
Are you faced with a big challenge, or a really long To Do
list? I hope you can find a way to use
Success 1 2 3 to help.
This topic was inspired by a client who had been in a new
job for two months and had a To Do list containing 86 projects. Some projects were big, some were small, but
most had someone screaming for it. Where
to start? My advice to her and to you is
to find the action you can take to address the recurring theme, or the action
that will eliminate the need to do multiple other items on the list. Shelve everything else and focus on that
leverage point to get the ball rolling.