How to Remain Strategic instead of Tactically Distracted

How easily are you tactically distracted each day? Do you feel like you are forever fighting tactical fires? Instead of focusing strategically on the big picture?

You know, feeling like you take one step forward yesterday.  Then three steps backward today. At that rate, how do you get to where you really need to go tomorrow and moving forward.

Sure. You think you put programs and systems in place. To keep yourself functioning, performing and aligning with your organization’s business strategy. Yet, in spite of your best intentions, oops you do it over and over again.

By the end of the day, the score is zero for strategic focus. And 100 for being tactically distracted. Why? Because that daily score reflects your organization’s norm. Remaining strategic seems to be, well, less exciting than perpetuating tactical fire-fighting.

I constantly see the negative impact of tactical distractions impeding the forward strategic progress of my coaching and consulting clients. Regardless of whether they are solopreneurs or small business or divisions of large companies.

If you see yourself in any of the following scenarios, take action. Contact me for a complementary 15-minute conversation. Let’s get you moving one millimeter beyond what is holding you back. So you and your clients get to where you really need to go. Together.

First, how is productivity measured and rewarded in your company? By being tactically distracted, within an environment of daily busy-ness?  So, take a good look around. Are you the only individual who is continuously side-tracked by low priority issues which escalate into 4-alarm blazes? Or is there a pattern?

Next, evaluate whether your and your colleagues’ perceptions of self-worth and productivity focus on the quantity of tactical issues you face and “solve” each day? Is there an unconscious (or conscious) competition going on? If so, how can you and your colleagues re-prioritize with each other? Why continue to compete against each other?

Then, take solid action. Conduct a round-table (virtual or in person) strategic intervention together. I can co-facilitate to get things started. It just could be that you all are addicted to having a continuous adrenaline rush. That rush is created by responding to tactical distractions. When that happens, your professional strategy (consciously or not) is to look for tactical fires to fight. Thus business strategy is impacted by a workforce culture revolving around feeding a workforce addiction to tactical distractions. Because that is how you are rewarded.

That is not a viable business strategy at all. Yet, time after time, I pry my clients’ fingers off the ledge of being tactically distracted.  

However, once the focus becomes remaining strategic, they start asking more proactive questions. And taking more purposeful and professionally-defining actions:

• How does this issue fit into our departmental, divisional, organizational, cultural business and human capital strategy?
• What habits do we need to “unlearn” so we can develop a culture of strategic, collaborative and productive problem-solving?
• What is the profitability (or lack) of projects with multiple, repetitive tactical distractions? Including the total impact of mostly non-billable time on the order-to-cash cycle? Compared to the ROI of more strategic decision-making when prioritizing project planning?
• Which of these scenarios sounds like your current professional experiences? Time to take action? Then contact me here to de-program you from tactical distraction. Let’s get strategic, one millimeter at a time. Together.

My One Millimeter Mindset™  virtual and in-person keynotes, workshops, coaching and mastermind programs translate across strategic communication and collaboration disconnects between people and professional disciplines. Build trust. Retain employees and clients. Optimize strategic business and human capital value in your organizations. Get everyone to where they need to go. Together. One millimeter at a time.  My playbook of communication tools and methods, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon.com. Image source: iStock/Getty.