CHAPTER 1

Count to Three and Succeed

Define Your Management Success.Identify Critical Objectives.Stay Focused on the Vital Few.

We can all count to three, and we can count a wide variety ofdifferent things, some of which may be critical to our successas managers and others that can be totally irrelevant. What wechoose to count and focus on is the critical factor for achievingmanagement success. Accidental success is as nice as it is rare. Asthe saying goes, "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail," andyou are doomed to accept whatever happens.

Define Your Management Success.

Succeeding as a manager is a journey, and the odds for a successfuljourney increase dramatically when you plan. Like all journeys,the road to successful management begins with the first step:defining management success.

Early on in my career, I thought being successful meant doinga good job. I felt that promotions would come my way as longas I was producing results. Little did I realize this was onlyone part of the success formula. Being successful can meanseveral different things, such as getting a project done on timeand within budget, meeting specs, building a team, delegatingsuccessfully, developing the team, developing yourself, or gettingpromoted, just to name a few.

While succeeding as a manager can include all of these factors,I realized that really succeeding as a manager was moreencompassing than individual successes. So I set about definingmanagement success. I reviewed dictionaries and searched theweb for an encompassing definition of management success. Ifound it much easier to find a definition of the word manage thanto find a definition of management success.

The verb manage can be defined as

to direct/oversee or control an enterprise, business,resource, expenditure, or people.

Once this definition is understood, the extension to a moreencompassing definition of management success is straightforward:

consistently directing/overseeing or controlling an enterprise, business,resource, expenditure, or people to achieve agreed-upon goals.

If your performance matches this definition, you are successfulas a manager, regardless of your position in your company. Thisis equally true whether you are the CEO or a frontline supervisor.However, achieving management success requires additional skillsets as one climbs the career ladder from supervisor to CEO, andthese skill sets are vastly different at the CEO level from those atthe supervisor level. And even though management success canoccur at any management level, it is generally a prerequisite foradvancement to the next management level. Thus, managementsuccess and career success are intimately intertwined.

Career success involves reaching a predefined goal that youhave chosen. This can be any goal (such as being an individualcontributor, achieving a specific management level, having thebest team, consistently exceeding a plan, getting promoted, etc.),but defining that goal is absolutely critical to a successful career.Write this goal down and put it in a place you visit often, likeyour computer desktop. Make sure your goal is measurable andspecific. Use the concept of SMART goals, that is, goals thatare specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-limited. Too manypeople fill their day with activities leading nowhere, and atthe end of the day, they are one day older and no closer toachieving their goal. Sure, these activities may put bread onthe table, ensure continued employment, and so on, and that isokay if this is your definition of career success. However, if youhave more aggressive career ambitions, you undoubtedly have aspecific position as your goal, which most likely includes beingpromoted to progressively responsible positions or changing jobsuntil you reach your ultimate goal.

Equally important to understanding management success isunderstanding your career goal and the stepping-stones leadingto that goal. These stepping-stones are a series of intermediate,but critical, objectives that when successfully achieved will resultin reaching your career goal.

Identify Critical Objectives.

In your quest to get promoted, equally important as beingcompetent in your current position is getting ready to becompetent at the next level. If you have defined promotionsas part of your career success plan, the three critical objectivesrequired to reach your goal are:

1. Learn the skills necessary toperform at the next level.

Although your first promotion was most likely due to thefact that you were good at your job, you rapidly discoveredthat being a good technician was totally different frommanaging a group of technicians. Before being promotedto the next level, learn the skills necessary to perform atthe next level. Do this by observing or getting to knowmanagers at the next level.

If possible, seek out a successful manager at that levelwho is willing to be your mentor. Ask him or her whatit takes to succeed at that level. At least observe or talkto people who report to a successful manager at thatlevel, and ask them their opinion of the skill set theirmanager possesses. At one point in my career, I neededto learn about manufacturing, so I asked a manufacturingmanager if I could sit in on his management meetingsto learn more about his operation. He was more thanhelpful and told me no one had ever approached himwanting to learn more about what he did.

2. Obtain the knowledge necessaryto perform at the next level.

This can be done by asking people to recommend booksto read, taking knowledgeable people to lunch andpicking their brains (people love to talk about what theyknow), spending some time observing workers and howthey do things, learning what management informationsystems managers at the next level use, and taking classes.Oftentimes the next level requires some knowledge of adiscipline other than the one you were trained in, such asmoving from an engineering manager to a managementposition that includes overseeing manufacturing andaccounting operations.

3. Promote yourself.

This simply means letting appropriate people know thatyou are interested in a position at the next level andasking them what you would need to do to be consideredfor promotion. Ask them if they would be willing toprovide feedback as you acquire the necessary skills.

When I was in graduate school, I was finishing work onmy master's thesis and looking for a project for my PhD.A friend of mine was in the final stages of research onhis project, and there remained additional research tocomplete the total project. I approached his thesis advisorand asked if I could take over my friend's project whenhe graduated.

The advisor wasn't sure of my qualifications since mymajor had been electrical engineering and the projecthad to do with physics and metallurgy. I told him I hadsome knowledge of solid-state physics theory and askedwhat it would take to get the project's next phase formy research project. I also asked him what he wouldrecommend I study in order to qualify. To make a longstory short, I took his advice, and within three months,he gave me an oral exam and awarded me the project.

Stay Focused on the Vital Few.

Each day, review your activities and see if they have moved youcloser to your objectives. Remember: those activities that moveyou closer to your goal are classified as vital, and vital activitiesthat are most important at the current time are the vital few.There may be several vital activities at any point in time, not allof which can be done simultaneously. Pick the three most criticaland get them done first. Don't move on to lesser objectivesunless they can be worked on without delaying any of the threemost critical objectives. Rigidly adhering to this discipline willguarantee the quickest path to success.

Be sure to differentiate between vital and urgent, as discussedin the next chapter.

CHAPTER 2

The Vital Few

Identify the Vital Few.Don't Confuse Vital with Urgent.Keep the Vital Factors Nonurgent.

Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist (1848–1923), is creditedwith the discovery of the 80-20 rule when he noticed that 80percent of the wealth in Italy was controlled by just 20 percentof the population.

Throughout time, others have made the same or similarobservations. For example, Microsoft in 2003 noted that 80percent of errors and crashes in Windows and Office were causedby 20 percent of the detected bugs. Additionally, a 1992 UnitedNations Development Program Report showed that the richest20 percent of the world's population controlled 82.7 percent ofthe world's income.

Given that this appears to be the rule rather than the exception,the common extension of these observations states that 80percent of results are obtained from 20 percent of the effort.Stated a different way, 20 percent of all activities produce 80percent of the results. The activities that fall into this 20 percentcategory can be classified as the vital few.

What about the remaining 80 percent? How are they classified? Arethey not important? While many activities contribute to successfulgoal attainment, the fact of the matter is that some contribute in amore significant manner than others. In other words, they are themost vital, while the remaining activities are less vital. These lessvital activities, in relation to the vital activities yet to be performed,are referred to (in this book) as the trivial many. As time passes andthe vital activities are completed, some of these trivial many willmove into the vital few category, becoming the most importantactivities necessary for successful goal attainment.

Good managers have the ability to separate the vital from thetrivial. Perhaps a bit overstated, the manager's golden rule shouldbe "Concentrate on the vital few; ignore the trivial many."Sounds like good advice, but can a manager really ignore thetrivial many? The answer is always yes if it impacts the ability toaccomplish the vital few!

This is not to say that trivial activities should be tabled untilthe vital activities are completed. Obviously many activities getperformed simultaneously with achieving business goals. Theimportant lesson here is to make sure the vital few are beingaddressed to the greatest extent possible at all times and to notlet the trivial few detract from that vital effort.

Identify the Vital Few.

The vital few can be time-dependent. For example, in projectmanagement there are usually several sequential and parallelactivities leading to intermediate results (usually referred to asproject milestones) that are vital to project completion. One canmake the case that all these activities are vital, since eliminatingany one of them results in incomplete goal attainment. However,at any given point in time, certain project activities are more vitalthan others, depending on whether or not delaying the activitydelays project completion. These activities are referred to as vitaland urgent and lie on the critical path (sequential activities that ifdelayed, delay goal attainment) and change with time as variousactivities are completed. At any given point in time, activitiesnot on the critical path can take a certain amount of time longerthan normal without impacting timely goal attainment (calledslack time). However, as the activity consumes its slack time, itbecomes part of the critical path and moves into the vital-urgentcategory. For a more complete discussion on project managementtheory, search the Internet for "project evaluation and reviewtechnique" (e.g., PERT) charts.

The vital few can also be time-independent if they are continuallyvital and urgent. Examples might be maintaining technicalsuperiority in semiconductor products for a semiconductormanufacturer, maintaining product quality in any business,obtaining patent protection for products, maintaining long-termprofitability, and so on.

Whether you are the CEO of a major corporation or manage asmall group of individuals, you should identify and stay focusedon the three most vital factors for success. Staying focused onthree ensures that the top three priorities get accomplishedfirst. Once one of the top three is accomplished, the next mostimportant vital factor joins the top three. If there are more thanthree top priorities, the attention on each priority gets diluted.

Corporate executives for one company I consulted with hadestablished fourteen corporate goals for the new year, all rankedas top corporate priorities. None of the managers I worked withcould recite the top three goals, let alone all fourteen goals. Bylimiting priorities to the top three goals, the entire organizationcan understand and remember corporate priorities on a daily basisand make appropriate decisions on where to devote their effort.

Vital factors, whether urgent or not, need to be identified andtracked on a regular basis in order to ensure that they commandthe appropriate attention. Be careful to track the vital results you arelooking for, in addition to the activities leading to the vital results.

For example, I was working with the manager of the loan officergroup in a well-known bank whose goal was to produce newloans. At his weekly staff meeting, the loan officers were requiredto report new contacts made during the week. As a result, all theloan officers made sure they had contacts to report. However, thevital factor remained getting new loans, regardless of how manycontacts were made. This tracking system placed the emphasis onactivity instead of results. We changed the reporting procedureto include new loans closed as well as new contacts, quicklyidentifying loan officer productivity, allowing the team to setreasonable standards for loan generation, which in turn becamethe new criteria for acceptable performance.

In another example of the vital few, a manufacturer of stainlesssteel restaurant equipment (sinks, worktables, etc.) wantedto increase revenues and had identified that 30 percent of allproposals resulted in contracts. So the owner set goals for thesales force to increase the number of proposals generated. Thenumber of submitted proposals met the new goals, but the salesremained the same. The owner was puzzled by this result. Whenwe examined the newly generated proposals, we found that thesales force was meeting the new goals by splitting proposals intotwo or three separate proposals—one for sinks, one for tables,and so on. Once we explained the reasoning behind the newproposal goals (i.e., to increase sales, not just proposals) to thesales personnel, the sales force quit splitting the proposals andincreased proposal activity, and the company began to realize itsincreased sales goal.

Don't Confuse Vital with Urgent.

Vital means the task is mission-critical, and urgent means the taskneeds to get done immediately or in the very near future. Justbecause something is urgent doesn't mean it is vital. For example,a task not on the critical path that is late, although vital, is noturgent until it becomes a task on the critical path.

Recognizing and addressing the vital few is the key to successfulgoal achievement. However, we are often distracted by non-vitaltasks, especially if they are also urgent. The matrix above helpsto stay focused on the vital factors.

Definitions:

Vital means it is mission-critical. In other words, if it isnot completed, the mission will fail.

Non-vital is not mission-critical, and the mission cansucceed without it.

Urgent means it is time-critical (i.e., it is approaching thedeadline).

Nonurgent means there is still adequate time to completeit.

If something is vital and also urgent, it must be addressedimmediately to keep the project on track. You have no choicebecause if an item is not addressed immediately, the project willnot be completed as scheduled. If it is vital but nonurgent, it is noless critical, but there is still time to complete it without delayingthe project. However, if not completed, as the arrow indicates, itwill migrate from vital-nonurgent to vital-urgent.

If it is urgent but non-vital, it should be addressed only aftervital items that can be currently addressed have been addressed.An example of this might be a deadline to renew a magazinesubscription.

Non-vital and nonurgent are don't-care items to be addressedonly if there is nothing else to do.

Keep the Vital Factors Nonurgent.

In the beginning, the vital items are usually nonurgent, sincethere is still time left before the vital task has to be completed.As time passes, the vital become more and more urgent, usuallybecause the trivial many detract from the vital few. The managerwho spends too much time on the non-vital issues will find thevital issues migrating from the vital-nonurgent to the vital andurgent arena. When this happens, there often isn't enough timeto adequately accomplish the vital tasks, resulting in delays andcost overruns.