Picking your priorities

Leaders need to help their teams learn how to say no and take a now-next-later approach when it comes to prioritising their organisation’s plans and setting their strategy. 

That’s the advice our CEO Ben Peachey gave on The Purposeful Strategist podcast, where he also discussed how our own strategy was developed. He described how it was brought about by creating a thorough plan that showed both substance and process. With so many possible areas to bring in change, it was also vital to focus on quality rather than quantity. 

Ben discussed how we’re developing a set of theory of change maps for sectors which will enable us to get ahead with the activities most likely to drive the profession forward. And he stressed the importance of running organisations properly so teams can work at a level that’s productive but also sustainable. 

He told podcast host Belden Menkus: “One of the challenges with a strategy is that on the one hand, you need it to be broad enough to grow and evolve, but on the other, it also needs to be constrained enough so you can say what does and doesn’t fit into it.” He added: “We know that we can drive change across a broad range of areas but we’re not going to chase them all at the same time.” 

Listen to the full episode and find out more about the development of our strategy in Ben’s column in next month’s issue of our members’ magazine, The Ergonomist.