In my last post the importance of managing to priorities (important tasks that are urgent) was illustrated. But wait, there's more.
There are more communication tactics to make sure workers and partners are focusing on the most urgent important tasks. You can break through their competing work and endless distractions and help them better organize their time by helping them make better choices about what to do now.
General rule: When you communicate about tasks, include some measure of prioritization.
In your messages, focus on high-importance items as the highest priority. Identify them with highlighting. Put them at the top of lists. Mark them clearly such as "Priority: High" or "Important & Urgent."
Keep the highest current priorities in your mind.
Before meetings. Before just walking around, think about the priorities you want to communicate to your workers. Refresh you view every morning, every week, whatever is appropriate. New events bring about new priorities. You spend time thinking about this so that the workforce does not have to. You distill the wide project down to the critical priorities now.
When I have project teams in a meeting, I organize topics by priority. The agenda even has a column saying priority rather than topic number. This way, prioritization saturates all topics.
Communicate highest priority proactively in the field.
Talk proactively to team leads, partners, vendors, SMEs. Ask them what they are working on. Is it the highest priority task? Do they know the highest priority task? If not, pass on that information to them positively and constructively.
Help workers avoid low priority activities.
Tell them clearly that they can push out non-important urgent work to focus on important high-priority work. Low importance urgent work is the arch enemy of important work. Once they realize this trap, it will more likely become a habit. They will do this for all their work that competes with your project work, giving them more time overall to work on your project tasks.
When setting priorities, keep an open mind.
Priorities are important enough so that you want to discuss them with those affected. When setting priorities, treat the discussion as a two-way conversation rather than force your opinion on others. You may focus on the critical path as an obvious indicator of what is highest priority but your partners and team leaders could have another interpretation that you need to consider. They may have new information. They may indicate that they are not supporting your view so you know if you are in a troublesome situation. Open your mind and discuss items that you think are a critical priority. Ask if anyone disagrees. Make sure they talk and do not just be silent. Remind them that silence is consent. Help them feel comfortable sharing their opinion. Ask if there are any competing priorities that are relevant in the decision to set a priority on a task.
Remember, priority is like temperature. It is high or low. Do you know how to dress when someone tells you it is "temperature" outside? No. Likewise, don't tell someone that a task is a priority. Everything they are delegated is a priority. Help them understand what is the highest priority now. They will do the rest.
