How do we ensure the right work is being done? Or are our teams busy without achieving the purpose required?
Teams are regrouping after the summer period, with some colleagues returning from holidays, others yet to escape and those who have worked throughout.
Many boards are now reconvening to review progress, refine strategy and address current challenges facing their organisations.
Data shows productivity dips significantly during summer months, with 45% of employees reporting being distracted (Personnel Today, 2025).
But as a leader asked in a recent board meeting we attended – “how do we ensure the right work is being done?”
This is one of the advantages to the summer slump, if you review what was critical and what could be improved, it is a perfect opportunity to ensure clarity of purpose, alignment and accountability. Think Organisation has already delivered its popular 4-hour strategic review which provides independent insight to help leaders ensure the right work is being done to an exceptional standard.
Below is a summary of some practical steps you can take at your next board or leadership team meeting:
1. Define “The Right Work”
Link to strategy: Make sure every piece of work ties back to the organisation’s purpose, strategy or agreed priorities. The summer is the perfect time to review how this happens, or didn’t happen, and work with team members to ensure alignment. Which also means it is vital that leaders and organisations set outcomes as opposed to outputs.
Set outcomes, not tasks: This is ensuring focus on what success looks like rather than micromanaging how it gets done. There are many ways different tasks can be achieved, and whilst operational elements can be crucial, this is about allowing employees the autonomy to make their own decisions and deliver high quality outcomes.
Prioritise: With over 30 years experience using different frameworks, for example the Eisenhower Matrix or Objectives & Key Results (OKRs), our team understand how it is vital that you use a method which aligns to your business needs. It’s also good practice to empower employees to distinguish between urgent vs. important and strategic vs. operational work.
Asking the following in a leadership meeting can provide exceptional insight ‘Where might we be over-investing in activity that looks important but delivers little impact?‘ or ‘Are we spending too much time and effort on work that feels important but doesn’t actually make a real difference?’.
2. Set Clear Standards of Excellence
Define exceptional: Make “exceptional” tangible to people across teams and levels. What does exceptional look like? What does quality mean in your context (e.g. is it accuracy, or creativity, or speed, or compliance, or innovation, or impact?) Often it is a collection of these elements, but where does this exception standard give your business its unique selling proposition? What if you could rank the elements of exceptional? It is vital everyone understands what exceptional looks like as a whole, as well as by teams of people. To do this, especially for complex products or services setting benchmarks or gates of excellence can be critical.
Create benchmarks: This is about ensuring everyone uses internal best practices, external industry standards or customer expectations as the reference point for what is exceptional. Helping individuals understand the value they add, and how this impacts others, is crucial to ensure that services are delivered to the exceptional standards required but remember you can’t have every benchmark at 100%, that is not possible so work out what truly matters to your business. Reviewing time, cost and quality is always a good starting point for benchmarking.
Agree measures: So often we see leaders spend hours discussing what exceptional or good looks like but then struggle to agree a way forward. It is vital to define KPIs or success metrics that capture both outcomes and behaviours. Everything needs to be sustainable, and behaviours are critical to this. Measures of success need to be clear, plausible and support the delivery of the outcome. This is why OKRs can be helpful for some companies, as they provide more proactive steps or actions and be more leading indicators.
3. Lead by Example
This element is critical. Often leaders focus on elements which they can’t control and the one thing any leader can control and influence from the moment they return to the business is how they behave and lead by example. With timeout to reflect, for those lucky enough to have a summer holiday, now is the time to set your own commitments going forward. Over time these form habits. which are crucial as people will rise, or fall to the level their leaders are willing to tolerate.
Model high standards: People learn from people and role-modelled behaviours from other people. Often saying or telling can be much less effective than ‘going there first‘. If you are open to feedback, reviewing current standards or delivery or learning how to improve, then this will empower others to follow your lead. Which leads onto the next element – ensure visibility.
Be visible in priorities: Your attention signals what truly matters. So often there are mixed messages sent from leaders either not aligned, or with fluctuating priorities. One of the hardest things for a leader can be agreeing what not to do with the team which is where having visible priorities is crucial. Team members then know what needs to be a focus, without always having to ‘check in’ with the leader and decisions can be made fluidly.
Show care and discipline: Ensuring there is a balance between support and direction with clear high expectations is critical. Leaders who care about the whole person, and demonstrate this to employees ensure higher levels of engagement and commitment (Forbes, 2023).
For more help and support, including an independent work review session please reach out to us.
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