Stop Doing What Doesn't Matter

Remember: your job is to generate better results in your organization's highest priority outcomes!

If you keep that one statement in mind, you can much more clearly decide what to do and what not to do on a regular basis. This one idea can provide a booster shot to your career because now your time, talent and energy is completely focused on moving the business forward.

Far, far too often, employees act as though their job is to attend meetings, write reports and drop everything whenever a crisis pops up. Not true! Your job is to accelerate the most important results in your organization. This is much easier said than done.

To improve a specific outcome, there are usually three to five key things you can do to make a real difference. However, there are three to five hundred things you could actually do at any given moment. Consequently, it is much harder and more important to decide what NOT to do than it is to decide what to do. This is the crucial skill of management: deciding what not to do! This is risky stuff. You may end up deciding not to attend certain meetings, not to create certain reports and not to drop everything for the crisis of the moment. Once you make that decision, have the guts to stick to it. Here's a four-step method for clarifying what to do and what not to do:

The Ultimate Filter Method

1. What are the most important outcomes for our organization to achieve?
2. What can I and/or my team do to accelerate better results in these areas?
3. What are we currently doing that is not improving our most important results?
4. What activities am I considering doing that will not help to improve our most important results?

Once you clarify what will help drive better results, do it! And do it with excellence.

Once you clarify what will not help drive better results, don't do it! And don't do it with a passion.

Remember: it takes guts to be a great executive, but that's why there are so few of them!

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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