The whiteboard was full. Completely full. It was hard to imagine that it had been white before we started the meeting.

In green, blue, and red the five members of the management team had written down their priorities for change:

“ownership, engagement, delegation, meetings, negativity, accountability, vision, trust, pro-activity, communication, team building, long-term planning, commitment, talent management”

It seems like all the leadership topics must be tackled now all at once.

Do you think that this overreach – that colorful result on the white board – is an exception?

Well, it isn’t.

I have attended many of those meetings and the pattern is always the same. When people come together to address change an overload of topics is listed. The list of things to tackle grows each minute.

This is the way to go if you like mediocrity. Focus on several topics and you end up with a little bit of change of everything.

But what if you would limit your ego and the other members of your management team to one topic?

For example, if you think that starting and ending meetings on time will have a great impact on the engagement and productivity of your employees start with that. Implement that fully and you’ll see results in other areas as well like more trust, productivity, and accountability.

Focus makes you work with change. The clarity causes you and the rest of the organization to embrace the change. And you don’t overwhelm yourself and everybody else in the organization.

Moreover, after implementing that one change you can use that generated energy for another change topic.

So, ask yourself today, if I focus on just one change, what would it be? Focus on that.

And yes, don’t forget to start with yourself. So, in the example above, are YOU starting and finishing your own meetings on time?