53. Horizons of Focus for Companies

Transcript

Automatically transcribed and lightly edited. Timestamps omitted for readability.

Morten: Hi and welcome to another episode of the Getting Things Done podcast from GTD Nordic. I'm Morten Røvik and I'm here as always with my good friend and colleague Lars Rothschild Henriksen. Shalom, Lars!

Lars: Shalom, Mr. Ravik. Happy to be here as always and looking looking forward to doing another episode with you of our podcast. For those of you who have not listened to this podcast before, we record these episodes to support you in learning GTD or becoming even better GTDers so you can experience the benefits of GTD. And we really hope that you find these episodes valuable regardless of how experienced you are with GTD. And if you like a refresher or learn more about the basics of GTD, we recommend you go back and listen to episodes 1 through 6.

Morten: Thank you, Lars. And today's episode we have dubbed Horizons of Focus for Companies. That is, how can you use the Horizons of Focus model inside a company? And I was thinking maybe you could give us, you know, the first view of the— what are the two aspects of GTD and how do they intersect? Control and perspective for just give us an overview. Can you give us one minute breakdown of that, maybe two?

Lars: Sure, sure. Yeah, so, so, you know, we always work with these two dimensions in DTD. We work with control on one dimension, the— could be the x-axis, and then the perspective on the y-axis. Where when we talk about control, we talk about the first five steps that I referred to just now as we were starting the podcast: capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage. And then when we talk about perspective, we look at the horizons of focus, which is what we are going to talk about today from the angle of companies. And the horizons of focus, if we start at the ground level, we have your calendar events and your next actions, things that are going on right now. And as we zoom out a bit more, we, we get to level or horizon 1, which is projects. So all the multi-step outcomes you are committed to completing within the next 12 months. Zoom out a bit more, we get to Horizon 2, which is areas of focus and accountability. So what are you responsible for? What do you have your focus on maintaining at certain standards? Zoom out yet again to Horizon 3, we have goals and objectives. So looking 1 to 3 years into the future, where are we heading? You personally, where's the company heading? Horizon 4 is vision, where we look even further ahead and try to describe where we want to be in the future. And last but not least, Horizon 5, which is purpose and principles. So what are the key values or the core values for you, for the companies? What are the principles that you would never break? That's what you would capture in the Horizons of Focus.

Morten: Exactly. Thank you for that clarifying, Loris. And just to give people a— why is Horizons of Focus important? I would like to say that if you are Getting Things Done, the 5 steps, will help you be more effective. You get more stuff done. And because you will ask yourself questions like, "What is this? What does it mean to me?" You will get a little bit more of the right stuff done at the same time. Because you will be reflecting more on what you are doing. And then you will also do the review, which is the 4th of the 5 steps. Weekly review, you will have the time to, if you've done it properly, have the time to analyze where am I going, you know, and get a little more of the right stuff done. You become more productive. If you are effective, you get a lot of stuff done. If you get the right things done, you get productive. And the Horizons of Focus model is just to give you an anchor into the future so that, one, you are moving in the right direction,. And 2, a way to making sure that you navigate correctly so that you get the most of the right stuff done, not just getting stuff done. Yeah. And how can this work for companies? I remember when one of the first times we met, Loris, was when we talked about Horizons of Focus for the company. I was asking you to come in and cooperate with us and become a trainer, I think you reached out to me, but that was one of the first things I talked about because I remember that very clearly, at least that we talked about it. I don't remember what you said after, but one of the first things I presented to you was the Horizons of Focus document for Produktiv Nordica, the company behind Getting Things Done in Norway. And because I wanted you to be feel comfortable that this is what you want to do. You want to come on board this bus. This is an analogy I use for explaining why this is important for companies, is that when you invite someone to work with you or work for your company, they must have a more or less clear idea. Let me put it this way: the more clear the idea they have of where this bus is going, the easier it becomes for them to say yes. To onboarding the bus, but also understanding what they will be working with. You know, they understand what are our purpose and our values. And I remember when I present this, it becomes easier to see where we are going. Then we have for vision, we have how does it look and feel when you're on board this bus? What do we do? What is your, you know, your experience of this? And in the pre-show, you don't remember your reaction to this, but I seem to remember, at least if I'm not making a mixture between some of the other people we work with in the network, is that when I invite them to come, but I think that you feel that, and you can answer this as the best of your recollection, and did it make you feel easier to get on.

Lars: Board? Yeah, and obviously it must have— what the reason when we spoke about this in the pre-show why I didn't sort of recall it directly, I think, is that I might not have made it— it might have been clear to me what you were presenting was actually the horizons of focus for the company. Yeah, I think what I might have seen with the knowledge and the eyes that I had back then was probably more of a, you know, painted a picture of the future and obviously compelling enough for me to be standing here today and jump on board. Board that the bus that you described. So I might not have seen it as Horizons of Focus, but obviously that was a helpful thing to have in order to figure out whether this was right for me.

Morten: And the way you could do this there, you know, for a company is that you can, because it is really important for a company to actually have this. I don't, and I don't care if you use the Horizon Focus Model to present this. But you need to tell people, why are we here? What is our purpose? What are our values? So that, you know, understand, people understand what principle, like you have the most, maybe easy to understand principles could be that you might want to look at is we are not corrupt. We don't pay money. For people doing something for us, you know, that you keep that clear. And then if an employee comes up in a situation where somebody wants to have some money for doing something, maybe if you do work with other countries, or maybe you have some people who are not very ethically, morally sound people. Let's put it that way. Let's put it that way. And they know that this is either acceptable or not. You know, if you tell the people that, no, this is not acceptable, then people understand, well, then I will not make this. I will not accept this. So, and if you understand what your values are, it's a lot easier for people to understand Am I living those values in my everyday work? So I've been doing what I call Horizons of Focus analysis for some companies in Norway, and this has always been very beneficial for all involved. And it's the structure we make this is like a workshop spread out over a few days. And the most recent one I did virtually, which was very successful. It was chopped up so people have time to think. There was breakout rooms so people can discuss this. Because when you make this, you can either do it alone as the, you know, the, or with your management team on the top, or you can involve people. And I do prefer doing it involving people because then they feel more like this comes from me too. I have my voice heard here. And maybe they will remember some of the wording they said, and they will find those wordings in the document after. This will be a document that can be presented to the people who either are part of the company for building company culture, but also for the employee who, or the potential employee who is looking at, you know, you're trying to recruit. So if you look at this, I would suggest that, you know, you focus on the top floor, which is purpose. Why are, why, why is it, why is the company on the planet? What is your purpose? So it— and you will describe that as, you know, and as good as to your knowledge, why are we here? And then try and focus on what you— what would you like your clients to say about you? For finding adjectives, like, they are honest, it's an honest company, they, you know, they They deliver on time, the right products, etc. Trying to find a way that you turn, turn the cards and say, what do you want your clients to say about you? And then, and try and recall that. And then if you take what you've written down as your perceived purpose and values, and then, and then use those to describe the vision. What does it look like for me as an employee to be part of this? And then what does it feel like for our clients to interact with us? And when you do that, it's kind of like a mind-opening experience for a lot of people, especially the people who are not in direct client contact. And the latter there, because if you are not in direct client contact, you don't understand the client's problems, you don't understand the client's needs., and if that is going to help the company to get everybody on the same page. And if you do it for the employees trying to envision, you will build culture. You know, what do we do to each other? How do we interact with each other? Is it okay to be, you know, disrespectful or, you know, turn it around and then say, no, we are respectful to each other. We are a diverse company. We don't, you know, try and paint a picture of what it will be to be part of the company culture as well under vision. And when this is more or less finished as a, you know, something you've done and you have a document on this, send it out for revision. Ask people for feedback. If it is your management team, or if you made it yourself, or it is the entire company, that might be a good idea just to get their feedback on this. So that if you're not involving everybody, being super democratic, at least to give them a chance to voice their concerns about what you've written there. Any comments so far, Lars? I know you've not been working with this with companies, so this is more.

Lars: Like No, well, besides just the ones that we have internally. So from that perspective, it's very familiar what you're describing and the value that you are describing. So yeah, makes perfect sense.

Morten: Okay. So when I talk to leaders, managers who are on the top of an organization or head of a department, especially for the CEO or whatever, whatever the title is, for the head honcho, I tell he or she that your most important job going forward now is to talk about this all the time, to remind people that when they make decisions about something, yes, this is a good decision because it's aligned, in alignment with our purpose, and it supports our values. Go do it. And, and this is— and if you start talking about this, I don't know if you notice, but I've been doing this with— when we have community practice, we have community of sales, I talk about what, what, why are we here. Do you.

Lars: Remember this?

Morten: This is— yeah. And, and just to remind people that our purpose on the planet is we are here to do what. And just, just to remind people that That is a decision-making tool for you and for your department. And I think that is, if you get this to, if you want to measure success from the leader's part after this, the head honcho, he or she, do a survey, like do a quiz, ask people, what is our purpose? What is our values? That is kind of, I've not done that for us yet, but maybe I should do, but I suggest that you do that because that will keep you.

Lars: I seem to remember that you have asked me as well before. I think I managed to find it. So at least from that perspective, it.

Morten: Seemed to have worked. Yeah. And I'm just saying because your job as the leader of a company or a leader of a department is to make sure people understand where we are going so that everybody is moving in the right direction, in the same direction. You know that it is different, you know, aspects of being part of a company. If you're in sales, you have one focus. If you're in marketing, you have another focus. If you are in production, you have a different focus. If you are in, you know, service department for the products you sell, totally different perspectives. And so to make sure that everybody understands what this company is about and which direction we are heading and what values and principles we are conducting our business by, it is going to be.

Lars: Very helpful. Yeah, exactly. And I'm reminded that, you know, when you, when you, when you mentioned that as part of a, you know, a leader's role to share the values, I had a coaching client that I worked with earlier this year and a bit of last year as well. And he had this exact sort of realization, which also refers back to what we described when, you know, when you start off with GTD, you start from the bottom up, getting things under control, and then you start to naturally raise your perspective. And he had just the perfect example of that in that they had this, let's call it a kickoff meeting after the summer break, where he would normally go into details about what should happen when and be sort of very detail-oriented. But, you know, after starting to really get the hang of GTD, he had managed to build up, you know, the control as well in the organization. So he was able to just simply just focus that kickoff on speaking about values, inspiring and, you know, providing a vision for moving forward. And he was, you know, really excited about this. And.

Morten: Rightfully so. Yeah, I think that is, you know.

Lars: A.

Morten: Lot of leaders become bosses and keep, you know, they get too involved in decision-making that's below them. That should be given, you know, if you give people direction, it will be easier for them to also take their, you know, responsibility for their part of the company. If they understand, if, you know, if I understand why I'm doing something and then it's in alignment with what we talked about before, is so much easier for me to just walk without asking, is this— and then combine this with a natural planning model, and now you're talking. Because you will ask in a natural planning model, the first question is why? What's the purpose of this project? And if you ask why, and you find it, the why is not in alignment with your, with the Horizons of Focus document, maybe you should not do this.

Lars: Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. That's how it goes. And it's, you know, it's, that's another reason why I like the natural planning model because it pushes you towards that direction and helps you clarify some of the things that might not be clear. And I think when you talk to various companies, they will have parts of the horizons of focus already in place. So the, you know, more and more companies today have a clear sort of picture of their values or at least, you know, a statement somewhere on the website saying what these actually are. And coming back to your question from before, so how many people can actually mention them? I think we spoke about this before. I had one client who was able to, you know, let me know right away. But I think most people will struggle a bit or at least have to stop and, you know, that was, I think it's something about that, something about being nice. Being nice. And they might have sort of a vision somewhere in the company, but it's, you know, it's not very much put together. And then there's certainly, I think, practically always missing horizons in the middle until we get down to perhaps somewhere there's no view of some of the projects. And, you know, next actions in the, at least in the shape of things that show up in the calendar will certainly be there. But there's so much good stuff to.

Morten: Work from in there. Yeah. The horizons of focus, when you use a natural planning model to find out the purpose of something, and that is the first question you will ask yourself, what's the purpose of this? Why are we doing this? Without the Horizons of Focus document, it might be up to the department head or the person planning to say, well, this is why we're making this. And then if this is a salesperson, he will, of course, use the sales perspective for this. And of course, he would use the sales perspective, but if it doesn't tie up to the higher why, the purpose of the company and the values, maybe he will not plan well this project, whatever it is. So to have the why of the Horizon of Focus with you in the back of your mind is super important. And that's why I'm saying that your leader's role is to talk about the purpose and the values all the time and the principles we would guide. Because if he or she don't do this, it will be just another document, a lot of documents, you know, blah, blah, blah documents like, oh yeah, we remember something on the kickoff last last year we talked about this, and, but we haven't seen that yet. As you know, I, and I think it is on the web page somewhere. We don't talk about this, but if, if this is, um, actually lived by the people and they understand more or less, you know, if they don't remember exactly what it says, if they understand the essence of it and live that culture by living the values, okay, you risk, you know, you've done your job. But when you onboard people, you must make sure that they have the same culture as the rest of them. Culture is value-driven. You know, if your culture is not value-driven, it will be just whatever shows up with the personalities that you hire. You know, culture in a company that is not, you know, is a lot more effective and it works better if it is value-driven. I don't know if you've seen that in a company, before?

Lars: Yeah, you clearly get a feeling for, you know, when you work, let's say, in an in-house seminar where you work with a company and you have 20 people gathered there, you get a sort of clear sense as you progress through the seminar on how things are, you know, how they do things, let's put it that way.

Morten: And I know that I've been, in my younger days, I've been having, I remember Specifically, and I will not be specific because it's not a very nice tale, but I had a work— I worked in a company for about 2 weeks. And I had to quit because I understood I will not be happy there. And I understand that this company culture, sorry, the company culture was driven by the department head and not the values of the.

Lars: Company.

Morten: And it was like, I was the only man in a big I think it was 20 women and me. And the culture in this department was, let's backstab each other at every possible— Do you understand? Like, I love, believe me, I love women, but some women have, when it's culturally accepted inside a company, becomes very dangerous. And for me, and I understand that if they had this, we respect each other, we talk respectfully about each other, in the company policy values, we respect each other, we don't talk bad about each other in the company values, that will never happen, especially if that was talked about by the CEO or the department heads. So that's because, yeah. Okay, so that.

Lars: Was my— Well, to be sure, I'm sure that could happen in any department regardless of how the genders were put.

Morten: I'm sure. I'm sure. But that was a very good example. That was a real-life one. But I resigned because I— and when they asked me why, I said I can't live with this culture.

Lars: I am not this person. An example of that just comes to mind now from a Danish CTO as well that we'll soon meet at the summer camp. Just made that same kind of decision. I wanted to add to what you were saying that, you know, the way that we've talked about this now has mainly been sort of, you know, big picture, big company, perhaps a lot of people involved. It doesn't necessarily have to be that way. I'll be working, you know, this autumn with a company in Denmark where I'll be working with a small leadership team in supporting them in defining their values and getting a clear picture and then helping that drive them forward. And it could just be, if you're just a one-man band, it could be done by yourself. I actually just spent time yesterday, a couple of hours with this, starting off with the purpose and principles for GTD Nordic in Denmark and thinking things through. The way I did it this time was to take the perspective of, okay, I have my areas of focus and accountability. If I look at each of them and we look X number of years into the future, where should the company be? What should it look like? So we have a, as you know, planning session coming up where we'll be meeting each other in Norway soon. I wanted to think some things through. And also I think after this pandemic, starting to get things up and running, you need a sort of an inspiration and an idea of the future. So this was really helpful for me to take a couple of hours out of the calendar. Think these things through. I now in my inbox next to me have a nice overview of different thoughts that I made yesterday, which translated into both more detailed vision, some clear goals when looking to the future, Horizon 3, some more things to keep an eye on from a maintenance perspective. So areas of focus and also some new projects in extraction. So really productive 2 hours worth of thinking from the Horizons of Focus perspective. So doesn't have to be big, could just be can just be yourself as well.

Morten: Yeah. And you are, you know, we are planning or you are planning to have people come on board not far from now and in Produktiv Danmark. And this thinking will make it easy for this person to have an overview of where are we going? You know, what is this? What's the name of this bus? Where is it going? How will it feel for me to be part of this? This bus or this on board this bus. Okay, great. I think we've more or less exhausted this theme. Maybe a little. No, it's 26 minutes. Not bad. It's not a short episode. Just give it, just put a quarter in us and we can talk about anything for more or less. Yeah, but I hope this has added some value to you, the listener, because it Because I think it is important that we define, you know, where are we going, how does it look as companies, for, you know, for the company culture and for onboarding is very important, and for maintaining the correct course for a company, especially when you grow, this is super important. I think that the faster you grow, the easier it is to lose culture. Because the first founding people are living the culture, but if they are spread thin, they can't, you know, help people replicate that culture. So to have kind of, kind of a document that will help you talk about this and to, to help you spread your culture is super important. So yeah, with those last words, Lars, will you take us out, please?

Lars: Happy to do so. So we always wrap up these episodes with a quick reminder to head on over to gtd.nordic and have a look around. Find the country website for the country that you're from in the Nordics. If you are from the Nordics, on each of those sites, you will find all of the articles that we've written about GTD for free available there. There's a newsletter signup, links to groups on social media, and of course, all of the offerings that we provide when it comes to speeches, coaching, and seminars, both physical and virtual. If you're outside the Nordics, head on over to gettingthingsdone.com to find your local partner. And lastly, as always, we really hope that you find these episodes valuable. Like Morten just said, if you benefit from this, let us know. podcast@gtdnordic.dk. Send us an email, what you think of these, or if you have any questions for an upcoming listener questions episode, be sure to let us know. And if it was helpful, we always appreciate if you share this episode with a colleague or rate us on your podcast player such as iTunes.

Morten: And if you're on Reddit and you find one of the episodes valuable for you, why don't you share it there? Because we don't want to do too much self-promotion there, but okay. Thank you, dear listener, and thank you, Loris. And until next time, stay safe and stay productive.

Lars: Bye-bye. Bye, everyone.