Aligning Agendas
- mayadolgin
- Jan 28
- 4 min read
(December 17, 2024 Newsletter)
‘Tis the season for aligning agendas, especially if you’re in the middle of annual planning.
Getting people on the same page can be a stressful experience. Inherently, it involves needing to expose differences and resolve them, which can cause discomfort.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be stressful, but doing it well does involve some skilled communication and planning.
Why it matters
We waste time and take on unnecessary stress when we hope that things will resolve themselves. If that’s a given, why is it such a common problem anyway? Here are a few common answers:
You don’t think you have the authority to make the final call
You don’t like confrontation
You don’t have clear guidance from those above you on the org chart
If any of the above resonate, I recommend making agenda-aligning a New Years resolution because it’s a must-have skill for successful people leadership.
What to do
Ideal – set expectations from the beginning
If you’re running the annual or project planning process, here’s the TL:DR – your job is to set the big goals, seek input on the plans, and then finalize and approve the plan.
As part of this process, make sure you’re answering the following questions:
Goals: What are we trying to achieve? What does the end product look like?
Roles: How will each of us contribute to achieving it?
Alignment: How could we get in each other’s ways? How will we balance doing our individual parts confidently while collaborating on the shared pieces? How much will it all cost?
Movement: When and how will we check in along the way?
Send out pre-work that includes:
Your vision or top-line goals that folks are filling in with more detail
Expectations of the level of detail people should send in advance or bring to a planning meeting
An outline of the timeline for this planning process
Let’s say you get back pre-work that indicates that there are big gaps. Ask folks to iron it out before you bring everyone together to see if they can come to a solution that works for all.
Only if they can’t then you step in to mediate or just make the decision.
Manageable – reset expectations in the middle
Let’s say the above didn’t happen and you’re mid-project, or the year is underway without a plan that is well known and has alignment.
It might be time to hit the pause button and do a reset. A skillful reset will give a nod to “what’s gone wrong” but mostly keep the conversations focused on closing any gaps looking forward.
I would try to gather answers to “what’s gone wrong” in advance and 1:1 so you can come ready to a planning meeting ready to frame the conversation and move it along, instead of opening it up for discussion.
If you’re in the middle of the pack and not the final decision maker, but you’ve noticed that chaos is keeping the work from moving along smoothly, my recommendation is to take the initiative to bring it up with your boss and see if it’s ok if you spearhead the process for bringing folks together.
They will either thank you and say they’ll do it themselves (and then you have the credibility to remind them, if they don’t) or they’ll be grateful that you are stepping up and will let you run with it.
If the latter, refer back to the above and use the same questions to do the reset.
Final thought: It’s always a good habit to debrief at the end of the year or a project and collect feedback for next time. Document and save it in a shared file so that it’s easy to find the next time around. Celebrate the learnings – they’re a sign of forward momentum!
The Coaching Corner
Year-end coaching questions
Whether you’re in performance review season or not, it’s nice to take a few minutes to reflect with your team on the year that was and the year that is coming:
What are you most proud of accomplishing this past year?
When you think back on this year, what’s an important lesson you learned?
What are you most excited for looking ahead to next year?
What makes you nervous, looking ahead to next year?
What can I do be more supportive in the new year?
Recommendations
So many! I missed sending last week’s newsletter because I was out with strep (how 1990’s of me!) so you get double recommendations this week.
Do your review: As I do every year, I recommend taking a step back and doing a personal annual review and goal setting process. I always do YearCompass but a client told me about Steve Schlafman’s The Annual Review.
AI headshot generator! A client showed this to me and I’m fascinated. She showed me what the generated and it’s pretty awesome. Try it out if you’re in the market for a new headshot.
Podcast episode: I posted it last year but came back around to this great interview between Maya Shankar and Adam Grant on her show “A Slight Change of Plans.” I especially appreciate the conversation on filtering feedback, which may be useful to those of you in performance review season.
“Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time” – fantastic article from the HBR archives. Don’t miss the quiz on the right side called “Are you headed for an energy crisis?”
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