Dear Yogesh,

I am the VP of Sales at a rapidly growing company in Gurugram. A new Chief Sales Officer has joined because my regional counterpart recently left. So, the onus of extra work has fallen on my shoulders. I've gone from four direct reports managing 300 employees to seven direct reports managing 700 employees. And that's a significant increase in workload.

I would have expected that my primary responsibility would be to ensure that everyone is meeting their share of work—but, as it turns out, that is not the case. Although my new boss's insistence is on bringing everyone to quota, yet I have 27 tasks to finish. I'm not joking. Over the weekends, I spend time generating thumbnail project plans for each of the 27 projects.

I attempted to persuade her that I didn't need to finish all 27 and that she could prioritize them (you know, the 80/20 rule), but she shook her head and said, "I know you have got this. You'll certainly figure this out."

I'm so puzzled that I don't know where to begin. As there has been so much change in the company, everyone is struggling to keep up. I can't even understand how we're going to get everything done.

I need your thoughts on how to persuade my boss to prioritize these matters. Can you help?

Regards,

Aamir

Dear Aamir,

It seems that either your boss has gone nuts, or most likely, she's making the traditional amateurish mistake like so many people who want to make a big impression when they get to the C-suite. She's doing a lot of things, and that too in a flurry.

If your new CSO is like any other leader in a fast-growing business, she is likely being pushed by a relentless boss. And this boss (mostly the CEO) is driven by an uncompromised board of members and extremely loud investors or shareholders. She hasn't worked out how to convey what is truly important to them, so she'll load it on you. It's like tossing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks. It's a fallacy approach, yet it's far more frequent than you may imagine.

So it is up to you to choose what is most important and what is highly achievable. The first step is to make a matrix of all the projects and organize them according to:

1- the ones that will have the most influence on income creation; and
2- the amount of difficulty.

Since meeting the quota would be of high importance, prioritize anything that will benefit everyone. Begin with the simplest one and work your way up to the more sophisticated, long-term projects.

Everything else may be timelined when you complete the prioritized tasks. You may or may not ever get back to them, but if you're smashing the numbers and the highly significant projects, it won't matter. The initiatives that are still vital will rise to the top, while the rest will fade away.

Don't forget that you have vice presidents in your company, each of whom probably has several directors, and you undoubtedly have 700 people to deploy to make this all happen. You have a lot of people to assist you. The last time I looked, incentives were a big motivator for salespeople.

So get down with your vice presidents and discuss this thing on priority. Distribute the workload. Be inventive. Be specific about the outcomes you want. Make a timeline. Distribute them to your employer and solicit comments. You're not going to receive much—she trusts your judgment.

It's not necessary to get everything done. What's important is to get the most impactful things done first.

Know that your boss has faith in you that's why she has asked you to figure it out yourself. So keep your calm. Trust your instincts and get going!

Best of Luck,

Yogesh

And for anyone else reading this, what else could work? Tell me in the comments.

The above is inspired by a blog written by Madeleine Homan Blanchard on June 12th, 2021- https://resources.kenblanchard.com/blanchard-leaderchat/boss-won-t-help-you-prioritize-ask-madeleine.