Lately, giving advice has become a key part of my job. After working with a number of diverse teams in a short period of time, I began to see patterns in the advice I was giving.
There are two phrases I find myself repeating more than any others:
I’ll save a discussion on the former for another post, but let’s dig in to the latter: “if we could only choose one”.
Usually, I find myself saying this in conversations related to prioritisation and/or product strategy. When I’m working with a CEO or product leader I might ask them: “We have 2 possible target users to go focus on - if we can only choose one, which would you choose?” or “We have 2 directions to take our MVP - let’s pretend we can only do one. Which would you choose?”
When I’m working with a product manager or team lead and we’re looking at an upcoming planning cycle or sprint, I might say “We have 4 major features/projects we could add in here, but if we could only choose one, which would you choose?”
Another version of this phrase that often comes up is in relation to the user journey: “If the user lands on this page/screen, if we could only choose one thing for them to do, what would we want them to do?”.
In many cases, I think one of the most valuable services I can provide to a team is asking questions like this.
Across the many organisations I’ve worked with, I often see misalignment on priorities - different stakeholders have competing priorities, some stakeholders may not know what their priorities should be, and there’s often a lack of (or a misunderstanding of) principles for prioritisation. In short, many people don’t have a strong or consistent answer to the question of “why do we do what we do, in the order we do it?”
When I encounter this situation while working with clients, it’s a signal for me that one of the most useful things I can do is help them define and communicate priorities (and prioritisation rules). But as a consultant I need to build up “trust capital” and understand organisational politics before recommending major changes, unless I was brought in explicitly for that reason. In practice, this means I have to “campaign” for the idea, starting slowly by initiating discussions the team may have never had before.
This is where our phrase “if we could only choose one” comes in. By asking such questions, I prompt a discussion about what’s most important, and (hopefully) why. Eventually, these discussions can turn into a prioritisation strategy, KPIs to focus on, and alignment on that key question: “why do we do what we do, in the order we do it in?”
In many ways, focus is one of the most precious resources we have, from the individual level to the team and company level. Context switching can be an issue at every level, and in most cases focusing on doing one thing well is the difference between meaningful progress and a company stuck in the metaphorical mud spinning their wheels.
Prompting leaders at all levels consider what they would choose if they could only choose one initiative, target user, feature, etc. is powerful because it’s not a hypothetical. In most cases, I believe a team (and at the early stages, a company) can do one thing well. I’ve seen countless teams fall into the trap of believing they can successfully push forward different products or initiatives in parallel. When it works, it’s the exception that proves the rule.
Effective prioritisation means cultivating focus. It means constantly asking yourself and the team what you’d work on if you could only work on one thing. By prompting my clients in this way, I’m trying to actively enforce the focus the team needs to make progress.
One of the advantages of being a consultant is that you can often ask questions that employees can’t. My role provides cover to question processes and “rock the boat” a little bit, though as I’ve previously mentioned, I have to be diplomatic in my approach.
In my experience, employees rarely ask questions like “if we could only choose one X, what would we choose?”, for two main reasons.
Firstly, they might be embarrassed that they don’t already know the answer. Any employee with a long enough tenure may feel as though it’s their fault they don’t know the answer, rather than the very likely scenario that leadership hasn’t effectively communicated the information needed to answer the question.
Secondly, they might not want to step on someone’s toes. The less charitable (and wrong) interpretation of questions like this is a challenge to the existing strategy. Perhaps the employee might feel that asking this question represents a challenge to authority, the ramifications of which they don’t want to deal with.
A good consultant knows that it’s just okay to ask questions like this, it’s a part of their job. “If we could only choose one” questions are one category of a series of “dumb questions” that a consultant can and should ask clients to uncover opportunities to improve strategy, process, and communication.
The common theme I come back to when I ask questions that include the phrase “If we could only choose one…” is the power of asking the question no one asks. Many questions like this are rarely or never asked, unless the organisation has a very strong culture of intellectual safety. Consultants and new hires come in with a unique opportunity to ask them - don’t waste that opportunity.