Fight the Whirlwind

What are my WIGs and how are they transforming my life?

I so often catch myself focusing my precious time on what does not matter in the long run vs. what is most important. Why do I let the trivial and inconsequential activities of life get in the way of making progress on my Wildly Important Goals? Several years ago our organization studied this concept closely. The information I share here is the result of my involvement in that study and I hope some of these nuggets of wisdom can help keep you focused on what is most important.

Send me an email and let’s have a conversation about this topic if you find that it strikes a nerve with you, your family, your team, or your organization. It certainly has for me!

If you want to carve out an hour to do a deep dive into this topic, here is an excellent presentation made available by Mercer University.

This collection of videos is a great resource for an even deeper dive into this framework.

Finally, I share with you my raw notes from a few years ago when our teams were researching ways to implement this framework within our organization. I hope this information helps you to stay focused on your WIGs.

4 Disciplines of Execution (“4DX”) – A Simple Method for Executing a Strategic Plan

1. Focus on the wildly important goals (“WIGs”)
   1. If 2-3 goals, team will accomplish 2-3 goals
   2. If 10 goals, 1-2 will be accomplished
   3. If 20 goals, 0 will be accomplished
   4. The enemy of the great is the good (Jim Collins)
   5. Law of diminishing returns
   6. Each WIG must have a clear outcome, with focus, clarity, and outcome
      1. JFK – we will put a man on the moon and return him home safely by the end of the decade
      2. From x to y by when
      3. Accountability, morale and engagement go up
   7. Move the org to 1-2 no matter what’s
   8. Establish a clear finish line
   9. We must fight against the whirlwind of our day jobs and daily lives and create time to focus on the 2-3 WIGs identified as most important for our family, team, or organization
2. Act on the lead measure
   1. Lag measure – measures the goal (lose weight – pounds)
      1. Lag data is always easier to get and easier to measure
      2. Either say oh cool or oh crap but we don’t have much influence on them
      3. examples
         1. Store revenue
         2. Incident rate
         3. Monthly sales
         4. Plant production
         5. Customer satisfaction
   2. Lead measure – leads the goal (number of calories, number of miles)
      1. Must be influenceable and predictive
      2. Harder to identify and track
      3. Must keep focus narrowed since these are hard
      4. Examples
         1. Out of stocks
         2. Compliance to safety standards
         3. Qualified prospects
         4. Preventative maintenance
         5. One-on-one coaching sessions
3. Create a “compelling” scoreboard
   1. Holds lead and lag measures from disciplines 1 & 2
   2. Must feel a little like a game
      1. Measures must be simple (for players)
      2. Must be visible to players
      3. Must show both lead and lag measures
      4. Must be able to tell immediately if we are winning or losing
   3. Morale is most impacted by whether or not we feel we are winning
4. Create a cadence of accountability
   1. WIG Meeting – 20 minute meeting that occurs at the same time each week for each team that owns WIGs
   2. Key Question
      1. what are the 1-3 most important things I can do this week to impact the scorecard?
   3. Each person takes 2 minutes to report on 3 things
      1. Report on last week’s commitments
         1. Did I do what I said I was going to do?
      2. Review and update scoreboard
         1. Is the lead measure moving and if so, is the lag measure responding?
      3. Based on what the scoreboard is telling me, decide what I am going to do in the upcoming week to impact those lead measures?
   4. Execution = driving the yellow into the blue
5. Full example
   1. Construction company
   2. One of the WIGs is SAFETY
   3. Manager of teams
   4. One lag measure is “incident rate”
   5. One lead measure is “number of teams wearing protective eye wear”
   6. 3 of 12 are not wearing eye wear
   7. Manager commits to talk with 3 foremen, do they have glasses, why not wearing
   8. Company is betting that by increasing use of eyewear, incident rate (lag measure) will decrease, thus proving that the lead measure is influenceable and predictive
   9. No plan would have predicted the need to talk to the crews
6. Planning
   1. happens weekly and is responsive to what the lead measure is telling us
7. CONCLUSION: The 3 benefits of the 4 disciplines
   1. Clarifies the organization’s priorities by separating the WIG from the Whirlwind
   2. Engages every member of the team around the winnable game
   3. Allows org to achieve WIGs in the midst of a whirlwind