What's Your Endgame?

How does it feel to drink water from a firehose? You should know because on too many days we allow ourselves to get overwhelmed with various forms of communication, work and activities. Let's consider the impact of better focusing our time so our work is more meaningful.

Your endgame is the final stages of an activity, event or time period. One question we must ask ourselves at the start, middle and end of each day is, "Is the work I am doing right now contributing to achieving my most important objectives?" A key objective for every employee that is often overlooked by leaders is how their work is making a meaningful contribution in the lives of others.

Lori Friedman, a cancer researcher at Genentech, has a tiny quote in an article titled, Encouraging Innovation, in Fortune magazine (October 12, 2009). She says, "People are very motivated to think of the endgame. How do we make the right drug? How is this going to help the patient? And I think it's that sense of mission that really brings people together in the community of researchers here."

It is important to achieve your most important objectives, but do not wait until you come to the end of your game to confirm you are doing meaningful work. Figure it out now and hold yourself accountable on a daily basis. The results can be both stunning and deeply personally fulfilling.

Be an intentional leader.

Meeting Ideas

What's Your Endgame is about confirming you're fulfilling your company's mission on a daily basis which in turn motivates you to make consistent progress towards achieving your key objectives.

(You may come to the conclusion you need a new mission statement.)

Here are some ideas for discussion during your next staff meeting to consider how motivated your people are by the mission of your organization:

1. Who can state our company's mission statement from memory?

2. Describe what happens with our client companies when we fulfill our mission?

3. How does our company's mission make your work personally fulfilling and meaningful? And if it does not, then why?

4. Explain something you have done in the past 30 days that powerfully demonstrates our company's mission.

5. Give me an example of what happens at one of our client companies when we do not fully demonstrate our company's mission in the products and services we provide.

6. Identify three ways you as an individual or we as an organization could demonstrate our company's mission more effectively.