The Best Leaders Avoid This Common Pitfall — The Progress Trap
Progress is important. Progress is a journey. Those are both critical statements about what progress means. Progress is not a destination. That is a trap that many leaders can find themselves in at any time. It is easy to point to the progress you’ve made and declare victory. I want to avoid discounting the need for progress, or suggest that progress is a bad thing. It is not. It is necessary, and is an evolutionary step in delivering the expected results. Rather, this is a cautionary tale of using progress as a diversion from achieving the expectation.
There are steps you can take to avoid falling into the progress trap as a leader. Keep these as a handy reference to come back to any time you feel yourself slowing down or recognize that you are justifying something with progress, versus the desired outcome.
Set clear expectations
Most things start and end with expectations. What did you set out to accomplish, and how did you measure yourself against those expectations? That is why having clear, well-defined, and role-driven expectations is so important. This is core to accountability. While the accountability process is more than setting expectations, it is at the top of the list to ensure your culture is tied to expected outcomes. Having your vision for what ‘great’ looks like established up front also makes it easy to measure whether you are making progress, or if you have achieved your goal. You can always change to fit different needs along the way, though, remain mindful of why you are changing to verify you are not lowering the bar when progress stalls.
Provide feedback along the way
This is where recognizing progress made should occur and be celebrated. However, this is also the stage at which you continue to define or reinforce the expectation and where the outcome must land. Often leaders can get caught up in celebrating the progress made, even significant movement forward. But if the expected outcome has not been fully realized, there is still work to do, and urgency must remain high.
Plateaus require new approaches
Making a lot of progress is an achievement, as mentioned above, and it can feel as though you have reached as far as you can. Yet you remain short of the finish line. If anyone has tried to lose weight in their life, this may sound familiar. You will reach a plateau where progress begins to slow or stop completely. This can be extremely frustrating. Here is where new tactics and approaches will be necessary. Brainstorm ideas on how you can approach the situation differently. What levers can you pull to try new things? This is one of the most important points to learn as a leader. What worked to get you this far will not endlessly work to get you to the final expectation. This may require new people getting engaged with the project or process. You may need to shift schedules. In some cases, additional training or finding new skillsets may be the necessary actions to take. Work through your progressions and ideas (especially the unexpected ideas that surface) to identify the next best step that will move you forward.
Celebrate across the finish line
When you have reached the final destination, celebrate and reflect on what it took to get there. Undoubtedly, you will have learned many lessons along the way. Capture those for future use. The learning that occurs along the path can be one of the most valuable outcomes of achieving this success.
Depending on your achievement, the next step involves ensuring you have a maintenance plan to remain at expectation for static routines. In instances where the finish line is only a point in time, a development plan for what comes next should take shape shortly after celebrating. Retail is a fast-paced environment that is continually changing. Few things have a final destination before the goal lines are moved, the bar is raised, or the customer redefines their needs. Resting too long upon finishing is the second biggest trap in the progress journey, but that can be for another day.
How do you avoid allowing progress from being a substation for expectation achievement?
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