Leadership Nugget - Sustained effort

Success comes through sustained effort.” -Todd Brison

A process capable of delivering small but continuous improvement is more impactful than a project that delivers a one time “Big Bang” of progress.
Investing in a project (a one time effort) can be exciting. The work of building structures and aligning the resources to delivering consistent measured value in a sustainable fashion may seem boring. But the latter will result in more forward progress.

Given the nature of change, if you define what your end state should look like and put you head down until you get there, the spoils at the end of that road may not be there by the time you pick up your head. Someone moved your cheese!

Instead, chart your destination, identify reasonable milestones or “pit stops” along the way, and look up as you hit each one. At each one of those milestones, ask yourself: given we are HERE now, does it still make sense to make the next leg of the journey? Or should we adjust the plan?

The hard part about this plan... maintenance mode or coasting on the one time effort... It doesn’t happen. Winning comes from showing up. Success comes from putting in the work every day.

So where do you go? How do you chart your journey...

To chart your path, identify what success looks like. What do the big pieces look like? The steps that come immediately before accomplishing those? Keep working through these steps until you find yourself at your current position.

With consistent effort and steps forward you can track your progress towards the end state.

What happens if things don’t go exactly according to plan? The best part about looking up along the way… You can adapt your tactics and try something new based on the learning from your first effort.

Seems too simple. The first step to simplify your journey? Take the first step.